“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I gave you a session not too long ago dealing with the natural person, and specifically with Ruburt’s natural characteristics. I outlined the ways in which he naturally behaved. This other-directed superself image, however, largely of social construction, superimposes the idea of responsibility over the idea of enjoyment, and in many cases is in direct contradiction as far as Ruburt’s natural tendencies are concerned. [...]

[...] He stopped when the class became too public, too large—and therefore out-of-keeping with the requirements of his own nature (intently.

[...] All of the activities that bring you the largest pleasure in life generally are of that nature. [...]

[...] People of that nature have very private ways, and to some extent now those ways involve a deliberate (long pause) repudiation of the ordinary world—not that they need to stop relating to it, but that they must momentarily forget it in light of another vision. [...]

[...] Too narrow ideas of the nature of existence can follow you through several lives if you do not choose to be spiritually and psychically flexible.

[...] I am telling you again, therefore, that many of your ideas of good and evil are highly distortive, and shadow all understanding you have of the nature of reality.

(9:45.) Now: From within your point of reference it is often difficult for you to perceive that all events work toward creativity, or to trust in the spontaneous creativity of your own natures. [...]

[...] If you are not pleased with what you discover, then you had better begin changing the nature of your thoughts and feelings.

[...] They are, however, the results of old hangovers, when he is reacting to conventional, quite limited knowledge filled with distortion, about the nature of the psyche, the nature of time—knowledge further polluted by methods of problem-solving that simply add to problems.

You were gifted enough so that you would not starve in the marketplace (humorously)—and yet your gifts were also those that would fit in with your overall purposes of obtaining knowledge of the inner workings of nature, and the psyche. [...]

[...] When you put the action of your mind in line with the knowledge I am giving you, you cannot help but solve your problems, because the solutions naturally arise.

[...] A parent should not try to force, but follow the child’s natural bents. So let your technical ability follow the visions natural bents.

[...] (Long pause.) These elements helped form and define your abilities, adding to their particular and peculiar nature.

[...] (Long pause.) Let the medium and technique follow naturally from the original vision. [...]

[...] Let the vision in your mind emerge naturally, and it will expand and grow.

I told you when Tam was here (last week) that the books would change the nature of physical reality, and they will—to whatever degree as they alter beliefs and lead others into new experiences. We are introducing a different kind of consciousness as normal, as natural, and as good, broadening the frontiers of psychology, religion and science as well—again, to whatever degree.

[...] The nuclear reality is instead a practical example of what can happen when the elements of the intellect do not understand their secure basis in nature, but see themselves as apart from it —alienated. Then the misunderstood intellect and the misunderstanding intellect rails out against nature in envy, trying to destroy a unity in which it feels it has no part.

The Nature of The Psyche will in its own way delve into material that we have not touched upon thus far in to any considerable degree. [...]

Our books will always attempt to put the individual in his or her “proper” position within nature, sharing its energy.

The bulk of the material in Personal Reality concerns the nature of beliefs, and the physical and mental environments that are created, both individually and en masse, as a result of those beliefs. [...] Chapters 16 and 17 in particular contain material on what Seth calls natural hypnosis, and on Western medicine, physicians, the suggestions associated with medical insurance and “health” literature, diet, childbirth, hospitals, natural death, good and evil, and so forth.

While this may sound quite sacrilegious scientifically, it is possible to understand the electron’s nature and greater reality by using certain focuses of consciousness: by probing the electron, for example, with a “laser” [beam] of consciousness finely focused and attuned — and more will be said about this later in the book. So far in any of your investigations, you have been probing exterior conditions, searching for their interior nature.

[...] With the conscious mind as director, there is no reason why much of this knowledge cannot become normally and naturally available. [...]

[...] You do not understand the great mobility of thought, nor grasp its practical nature. [...]

Because of your natures, to a far greater extent than most, you and Ruburt have strayed in such a fashion. Because of your natures, you are seeking answers to the most difficult problems of life and death alike, on your own, so to speak. This is because your natures require it. [...]

[...] You have certain natures, then, that are your own. It is somewhat beside the point to wonder why your natures are as they are. [...]

[...] People who are not questioning necessarily the nature of life or of reality, creative people, unimaginative people, dumb people, athletes—all get in physical difficulties. What I am saying is that questioning the nature of reality does not cause physical difficulties per se. [...]

[...] Since you are doing this alone, more or less, it is natural to be upset at times, but when your confidence is greater than your doubts, Ruburt always improves.

Those kinds of conflicts can only exist in a society in which the entire concept of creativity is segmented, in which the creative processes are often seen as inner assembly lines leading to specific products: a society in which the very nature of creativity itself is largely ignored unless its “products” serve specific ends.

(8:53.) Early artists hoped to understand the very nature of creativity itself as they tried to mimic earth’s forms. [...]

He believed in the specific nature of the creative self, so that it could only be trusted in certain areas. [...]

(Pause.) The book will necessarily of course include much material on the true nature of creativity and its uses and misuses by civilizations. [...]

It also seems that each fetus must naturally desire to grow, emerge whole from its mother’s womb, and develop into a natural childhood and adulthood. [...]

(3:23.) As I said before, the reasons for most physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional problems can be found in this one lifetime, and because of the nature of simultaneous time, new beliefs in the present can also affect those in the past.

[...] It certainly seems to you, or to many of you, that most people would always choose to be born healthy and whole, in an excellent environment, of parents with loving natures and genetic excellence — and in other words to grow up healthy, wealthy, and wise.

This is not an uncaring universe or nature operating, but portions of consciousness who choose at whatever levels certain experiences that nourish the living environment, and bring satisfactions that may never show on life’s surface.

[...] Last Saturday I bought over $30.00 worth of flower seeds, and I’m slowly trying them out in a variety of pots and containers to see which flowers do best under what circumstances—artificial light, natural light, etc. [...]

Such images have little to do with your own basic or natural personalities, or with your own individual backgrounds, but you apply such images upon yourselves like overlays. [...]

You also ignore the fact that even the kind of painting you do could not be done by anyone else, and contains within it the raw material of your own unique and natural experience with life, and no one else’s.

[...] He tries to view his own work through some idealized image of a psyche who is as gifted as he is as a writer, and also highly gifted in meeting the public, putting on performances, acting as a healer, as a prophet, and as an expert therapist all at once, and in so doing his own characteristics and natural abilities and inclinations become lost along the way. [...]

(8:54.) The intellect, then, helps your species translate its own natural purposes and intents — the purposes and intents of the natural person — into their “proper” cultural context, so that those abilities the natural person possesses can benefit the civilization of its time. [...]

(9:14.) There are no magical methods, only natural ones that you use all of the time, although in some cases you use them for beliefs that you take for truths, when instead they are quite defective assumptions. A small example — one, incidentally, that Ruburt finally realized; but it is a beautiful instance of natural methods. [...]

[...] (Pause.) Your own relationship, your private beliefs about the sort of persons you wanted individually for mates, brought about incalculable actions that led finally to your meeting — yet it all happened “quite naturally,” of course. [...]

The developments of consciousness that take place are natural attributes, natural stages. [...]

Now: Others, finished with reincarnations and of a different overall nature, may begin the long journey leading toward the vocation of a creator. [...]

[...] The beauties of various ages, the natural beauties, the paintings and buildings are all recreated as learning methods for these beginners. [...]

Now: These “art forms” are often symbolic representations of the nature of reality. [...]

[...] In the process, you see, your views of life are changing, and that change is showing that your creative abilities, if expressed, will automatically allow you to express your natures—your natures—and will lead you into your most advantageous way of life.

Now: Ruburt felt that you were more naturally disposed toward solitude and so forth, discipline, more naturally opposed to distractions than he was.

[...] You believed in the importance of developing your own abilities, because those abilities so naturally manifested themselves as strong elements of your personalities.

[...] They create out of the joy and natural necessity to do so, and their productions also exist in a realm far too large to be so easily categorized.

[...] I think, I added, that it was an error to blame fear of the spontaneous self going too far if given free reign—I didn’t think nature would arrange things that way, for the organism couldn’t survive for long that way. The behavior of Instream, the other psychologist at Oswego, the demand for credentials from Fell and others, the letters asking for help of various kinds—especially those from the unbalanced—all of these things and more added up in her eyes to an indictment, one might say, of one’s very nature. [...]

[...] “I’d go if I had to,” she protested, but I answered that she’d simply trained her body to wait as long as possible for such natural acts; then she could avoid all the discomfort of getting into the bathroom and on the john, etc. [...]

[...] As a child, couched in the Catholic Church, his poetry was a method of natural expression, a creative art, and also the vehicle through which he examined himself, the world as he knew it, and the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.

[...] Later he tried straight novels, but when he let himself go his natural fiction fell into the form of fantasy, outside of the novel’s conventions into science fiction’s form—and at that time further away from the mainstream. [...]

But granted or not, the idea of any sort of genetic preparation for future contingencies collides with the very powerful theory of evolution, which holds that evolutionary, genetic changes take place only through natural selection and chance mutations (although random or chance mutations are generally regarded as mistakes on nature’s part). [...] It still has value, and recently has been employed in some remarkable scholarly studies that show how, in scientific terms, evolution can take place through means other than natural selection and chance mutations.)

[...] A discipline, of whatever nature and motivation, can erect barriers to “outside” influences—and those barriers are often artifacts growing almost automatically out of the very nature of the belief system in question.

[...] Not only because both ends of the scale are necessary for genetic reasons, but also because idiots themselves are in no way considered failures or defects by nature. [...]

[...] The intent of such procedures is to promote the quality of human life, to study the nature of diseases, and hopefully apply what is learned to some of the lives of human beings. [...]

[...] Now he emphasizes its strictly analytical nature, and in so doing puts limitations upon the ways in which he uses it.

[...] Intuitively and as a woman he would naturally have longer hair, wear earrings and jangly jewelry, which fits the inner feminine image, and also the inner mystical, psychic image of the seeress, the prophetess, and in your own relationship, the mistress.

In appearing on television he wore initially the pants suit to stress the masculine aspects, or tailored clothes, each stressing to him the more masculine, intellectual, respectable qualities of his nature. [...]

[...] This also has something to do with your private lives, for the feminine portions of that nature can quite easily be frightened into not showing themselves through the monthly function—that is so utterly spontaneous, so mysterious to the intellect, and the one main sign by which the female monthly shows her difference from the male.

(Very intently:) You cannot do anything, literally, that is not natural. Nevertheless, over a period of time “artificial” chemicals taken with food into the body will form a new kind of nature, in your terms. [...] According to many schools of thought, artificial drugs, so-called, or chemicals, are considered in a very negative light, cutting you off from nature. [...]

[...] The multistructured nature of the dream state allows for dream dramas in which probable selves do appear. [...]

[...] The nature of probabilities must be understood, for the time has come in the world as you experience it where the greatest wisdom and discrimination are needed. [...]

[...] Your conscious concepts must enlarge so that the conscious self can understand its true nature. [...]

[...] They are gradually unknotting, and it is only natural that these feel some soreness. [...]

[...] There is a natural cushioning element in all of this so that the muscles are not overstrained through immediate unaccustomed use.

[...] More and more your creative abilities are being challenged, stimulated through our work, and they will flow naturally from it.

[...] For only by finding these can you discover the nature of the human personality and the nature of reality within which it must operate.

[...] Ruburt uses his critical faculties supremely well in scrutinizing my activities and nature, so I have no doubt that he can also apply them to the job at hand.

The nature of dreams will only be discovered in such a manner as I am suggesting.

[...] Man will not learn the basic nature of reality by studying the physical universe alone, nor will he learn it by studying the personality as it operates within the physical universe alone.

[...] (All very intently:) There is no doubt at my level that use of the approach can clear up Ruburt’s difficulties naturally and easily. [...] It opens your options, enlarges your vista of comprehension, so that the difficulties themselves are simply no longer as important—and vanish from your experience in, again, a more natural manner.” [...] in the annals of our relationship was meant to lead you in one way or another to a place where the true nature of reality could at least be glimpsed. [...]

[...] At first I thought it contradictory that such conflicts can arise within nature’s framework—then I realized that they must happen all of the time, and so, actually, are natural after all. [...]

[...] Those “unused gaps of time,” those long weeks passing between recent chapters for Dreams, have become very worrisome to me, for they fall outside of Jane’s natural creative rhythms. [...]

[...] Our program of self-help gradually began to diminish, as had many of them before.⁸ Finally, in an effort to cheer up Jane one day as she sat idly at the typing table in her writing room, I tried a variation of a tactic that had worked so well for her inception of Seth’s The Nature of the Psyche almost six and a half years ago: This time, standing in back of her, I put my arms around her and rolled a clean sheet of paper into her typewriter—but here’s the note she wrote the next day: