“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Choose another photograph. I want you to look at this one somewhat differently. This should also be a photograph of yourself. See this as one picture of yourself as a representative of your species in a particular space and time. Look at it as you might look at a photograph of an animal in its environment. If the photograph shows you in a room, for example, then think of the room as a peculiar kind of environment, as natural as the woods. See your person’s picture in this way: How does it merge or stand apart from the other elements in the photograph? See those other elements as characteristics of the image, view them as extended features that belong to you. If the photograph is dark, for example, and shows shadows, then in this exercise see those as belonging to the self in the picture.

For the second exercise, take a photograph of yourself and place it before you. The picture can be from the past or the present, but try to see it as a snapshot of a self poised in perfect focus, emerging from an underneath dimension in which other probable pictures could have been taken. That self, you see, emerges triumphantly, unique and unassailable in its own experience; yet in the features you see before you — in this stance, posture, expression — there are also glimmerings, tintings or shadings, that are echoes belonging to other probabilities. Try to sense those.

When you see a picture of an animal in its environment, you often make connections that you do not make when you see a picture of a human being in his or her environment. Yet each location is as unique as the habitat of any animal — as private, as shared, as significant in terms of the individual and the species of which that individual is a part. Simply to stretch your imagination: When you look at your photograph, imagine that you are a representative of a species, caught there in just that particular pose, and that the frame of the photograph represents, now, “a cage of time.” You, from the outside looking down at the photograph, are now outside of that cage of time in which your specimen was placed. That specimen, that individual, that you, represents not only yourself but one aspect of your species. If you hold that feeling, then the element of time becomes as real as any of the other objects within the photograph. Though unseen, time is the frame.

You will, of course, try to snap as good a picture as possible. [...] Some of you will awaken with a dream picture that presents itself immediately. Others may find such a picture suddenly appearing later in the day, in the middle of ordinary activities. If you perform this exercise often, however, many of you will find yourselves able to use the camera consciously even while sleeping, so that it becomes an element of your dream travels; you will be able to bring more and more pictures back with you.

[...] In physical life, for example, a photographer knows that many conditions affect the picture he takes. Exterior situations then are important: You might get a very poor picture on a dark day, for instance. [...] If you are in a dark mood, for example, then your picture of inner reality might be dim, poorly outlined, or foreboding. [...]

[...] You will use the camera at the point of your clearest perceptions, snap your picture, and — mentally again — take it back with you so that it will be the first mental picture that you see when you awaken.

[...] (Long pause.) At each moment, from the most microscopic levels the body (pause) in one way or another is ascertaining a constant picture of its position within physical reality. That picture is composed of millions of ever-changing smaller snapshots, as it were — or moving pictures is better — determining so many conditions, positions and relationships that they could never be described. You end up with a predominating picture of reality in any given moment — one that is the result of the activity of psychological, biological, and electromagnetic stratas. One picture is transposed upon the others, and calculations made constantly, so that all of the components that make up physical existence are met, and intersect to give you life.

In most cases children grow up, of course (pause), although in the vast overall picture of nature (pause) a goodly proportion of individuals do indeed take other courses. [...] They remain, however, an important element in life’s overall picture — part of a psychological underpainting that always affects later versions.

[...] Spontaneously, with the process just mentioned, millions of pictures are being taken also of the probable actions that will — or may — be needed, in your terms, in the moment immediately following, from microscopic action to the motion of a muscle, the driving of a car, the reading of a book, or whatever.

[...] Peggy was ready for more pictures. Jane pressed the envelope to her forehead briefly, then lowered it to her lap—possibly because she knew pictures were to be taken of the experiment. [...]

[...] Peggy was going to take flash pictures of Jane while she was in trance; Jane’s publisher had asked to see some material of this kind. [...]

[...] Peggy was to prowl around, seeking out compositions, etc., and to take pictures whenever she chose. [...]

The same applies to dream reality, for the dreams that you recall are indeed like quick pictures snapped under varying conditions. No one picture alone tells the entire story. You should write down your description of each dream picture, therefore, and keep a continuing record, for each one provides more knowledge about the nature of your own psyche and the unknown reality in which it has its existence.

Your film, however, will only take pictures today, of today. [...] The photographer in the dream world, though, will find an entirely different situation, for there consciousness can capture scenes from entirely different times as easily as the waking photographer can take pictures of different places. [...]

Dictation (whispering). Now, if you take a physical camera with you today and snap pictures as you go about your chores, walk, or talk with friends, then you will have preserved scenes from the day’s activities.

In usual circumstances you may remember the emotions that you felt at the time a picture of yourself was taken, and to some extent those emotions may show themselves in gestures or facial expression. [...] The particular focus necessary to produce such a picture then necessitates the exclusion of other data. [...]

Dictation: You have yourselves painted a pretty enough picture of what you think of as your own reality, as individuals and as a species. All of your institutions, beliefs, and activities seem to justify your picture, because everything within the overall “frame” will of course seem to agree.

The picture is a relatively simple one, all in all — one in which each consciousness is assumed to be directed toward a particular focus, is ensconced in one body, with its existence bounded by birth at one end and by death at the other. (Pause.) Unfortunately, that picture is as limited as any one of your photographs. [...]

[...] As you look, you can see the dim outlines of many pictures or events—some favorable, some clearly less favorable, and some definitely unsavory. You concentrate upon connecting those points that will give you the most favorable events, and it is these pictures that you color in. The others you ignore, and when the picture is finished that you want, then looking back you can see how the completed picture completely obscured the other possible ones, so that they disappeared entirely in the completed project. [...]

In other words, you see the outline of unpleasant events, ignore them as much as possible, and imagine how in the future they will be dispersed in the larger colored picture that you have created. [...]

[...] When you try to make them fit into your recognized picture of reality, they may seem chaotic. There are ways to bring the picture into focus: There are ways to tune into those other quite-natural frequencies, so that they present you with a more expansive view both of the world as you define it, and of its greater aspects. [...]

Using an analogy again, the brain is quite capable of operating on innumerable “frequencies,” each presenting its own picture of reality to the individual, each playing upon the physical senses in a certain manner, organizing available data in its own specialized way, and each dealing somewhat differently with the body itself and with the contents of the mind.

[...] You still try to carry your own cultural versions of reality into the dream state, for example, but the natural heritage of both body and mind escapes such repression — and despite yourselves, in your dreams you come in touch with a greater picture of reality that will not be shunted aside.

The imagination usually gives you a pretty good picture of what you really want. It usually escapes all of your attempts to cow it, to reason away its pictures. It is a mirror of your wants, and it is also the mirror of your will — for in it you see what you want to see, even if afterward you say that its pictures are unbidden, or against your conscious intent.

[...] They may state their purpose as often as they wish, and yet their imaginations carry vivid pictures of future deprivation, so it seems in such cases that the will and the imagination are in conflict.

[...] Immediately, without trying, at different times his imagination came up with different pictures to implement the desire—the table, the cupboard.

(Slowly:) The simple picture of the universe that you see on our screen, therefore, represents a view from your own now perspective — but each star, planet, galaxy or whatever is made up of other reference points in which, to put it simply, the same patterns have different kinds of reality. [...] In the outside world this means that you have a “clear picture.” [...] You not only tune in the picture but you also create the props, the entire history of the life and times, hyphen — but in living three-dimensional terms, and “you” are within that picture.

Now imagine that the picture on the television screen shows your own universe. [...] Imagine here, now, that the screen’s picture is off-center to begin with, so that everything is distorted to some extent, and going out into space seems to be going backward into time.

(10:18.) Now: If you alter that picture a little so that the images are somewhat scrambled — and you do this by altering the focus of your consciousness — then the familiar coordination is gone. [...] (Pause.) If you did change the focus of your consciousness still further, you might then “bring in” another picture entirely. [...]

(Long pause at 4:28.) A strain develops in the personality as it tries to be faithful to its own private picture of reality, even while it tries to obediently conform to the publicly accepted picture. [...]

[...] People are, therefore, taught to give up their own private view of the universe, and to substitute for it a prepackaged, rather bland picture so that everyone more or less agrees with this standard version. [...]

[...] I may be jumping the gun—but it’s giving me a slightly different picture of you.” [...]

[...] Briefly, the picture is “shown” in the invisible arena where flesh and spirit meet. [...] The nerves and the cellular structures at their tips take pictures. These are all assembled and used to form the larger picture of the body’s condition.

[...] In your terms this means that each cell operates with an innate picture of the body’s entire history — past, present, and future.

Now this picture is ever-changing and mobile. [...]

[...] After pictures were over, Seth also returned several times to answer some of Rich’s questions. [...]

[...] Rich began taking pictures about five minutes after the session began.)

[...] If it makes Ruburt nervous to have his picture taken, it does not bother me, and I welcome you (Rich and Diane) to our session. [...]

[...] Do this as if you were starting out to paint a picture, requesting to see the images of certain persons at a given time or situation in the future, and let your abilities then fill in on the imaginative pattern. [...]

[...] Imagine a blank canvas or board, or blank framed picture if you prefer. [...]

[...] Then imagine the blank picture as if you were going to paint it in your mind. [...]

[...] You painted a picture, showed great improvement in so doing, but you did not start out with crooked brushes. [...] Ruburt is trying to paint a new physical picture of his body from himself. [...]

Form a clear picture in your mind. [...]

[...] picture in terms of a photograph connection.” [...] I sought elaboration on the picture of a woman data interpreted on page 138. Here Seth connects the picture with photograph. [...]

[...] The data can fit either the envelope object itself, or the picture of the dead priest referred to above under “cross shape,” etc. [...] Neither the object or the priest’s picture have writing on the back, but both contain printed type. [...]

[...] A picture of a woman. [...]

The picture which you drew was the result of a vision you received last night, and my dear friends, the picture represents two things. I suggest a brief break, and I will then go into the picture’s significance.

[...] The picture I believe was once between two walls. [...] The picture is undamaged, though I seem to see two small marks in the lower left-hand corner.

Nor is it any coincidence that the picture which you drew as a result of your vision struck him so forcibly. [...]

There is the other side of the picture, for his new thoughts physically regenerated the body, or allowed it to regenerate itself. Overnight—almost—he managed to completely change his picture of himself—and all of the physical evidence that before had confirmed his condition vanished. [...]

[...] This almost always occurs when there are misunderstandings in particular areas between the picture of the self or the world as painted by the intellect, and the picture of the world or of the self painted by the emotions. [...]

[...] They unite and stimulate his creative abilities so that he does what comes naturally, easily and vitally to him, searching out his own view of reality—but in certain areas the intellect and the emotions begin to separate in their visions of the picture of the world. [...]

[...] The intellect actually quite unknowingly made those reasoning deductions on an emotional basis from an outdated picture of the world, held jointly by emotions and intellect years ago in Ruburt’s childhood. [...]

[...] You are presented now, in the world, with a certain picture of a body and its activities, and that picture seems (underlined) very evidential. [...]

Instead you are presented, of course, with a picture of man’s body as it reflects, and is affected by, man’s beliefs. [...]

In that picture consciousness has little part to play. [...]