“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Dictation (on The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression): As the earth is composed of many environments, so is the psyche. As there are different continents, islands, mountains, seas, and peninsulas, so the psyche takes various shapes. If you live in one country, you often consider natives in other areas of the world as foreigners, while of course they see you in the same light. In those terms, the psyche contains many other levels of reality. From your point of view these might appear alien, and yet they are as much a part of your psyche as your motherland is a portion of the earth.

In other lands of the psyche, however, even stranger events might occur. The watch itself might change shape, or turn heavy as a rock, or as light as a gas, so that you could not read the time at all. Or the hands might never move. Different portions of the psyche are familiar with all of these mentioned occurrences — because the psyche straddles any of the local laws that you recognize as “official,” and has within itself the capacity to deal with an infinite number of reality-hyphen-experiences.

(Pause at 9:51.) The psyche, your psyche, can record and experience time backward, forward, dash — or sideways through systems of alternate presents (intently) — or it can maintain its own integrity in a no-time environment. The psyche is the creator of time complexes. Theoretically, the most fleeting moment of your day can be prolonged endlessly. This would not be a static elongation, however, but a vivid delving into that moment, from which all time as you think of it, past and future and all its probabilities, might emerge.

The psyche, however, while being earth-tuned in your experience, also has many other systems of reality “to contend with.” Each psyche, then, contains within it the potentials, abilities, and powers that are possible, or capable of actualization under any conditions.

I am not saying that words cannot be used to describe the psyche, but they cannot define it. It is futile to question: “What is the difference between my psyche and my soul, my entity and my greater being?” for all of these are terms used in an effort to express the greater portions of your own experience that you sense within yourself. [...] Hopefully this book will allow you some intimate awareness, some definite experience, that will acquaint you with the nature of your own psyche, and then you will see that its reality escapes all definitions, defies all categorizing, and shoves aside with exuberant creativity all attempts to wrap it up in a neat package.

Now if you are looking for simple definitions to explain the psyche, I will be of no help. If you want to experience the splendid creativity of your own being, however, then I will use methods that will arouse your greatest adventuresomeness, your boldest faith in yourself, and I will paint pictures of your psyche that will lead you to experience even its broadest reaches, if you so desire. The psyche, then, is not a known land. [...]

[...] When you attempt to understand your psyche, and define it in terms of time, then it seems that the idea of reincarnation makes sense. [...] My psyche lives many lives physically, one after the other. [...] And so you try to define the psyche in terms of time, and in so doing you limit your understanding and even your experience of it.

[...] When you begin your travels into your own psyche, however, everything changes. [...] You form the roads, your method of travel, the hills or mountains or oceans, as well as the hills, farms, and villages of the self, or of the psyche, as you go along.

It deals with a different kind of experience than the one with which you are physically familiar, although that experience is also a part of the psyche. Daily life is a focus taken on the part of that portion of the psyche you call you, and there are many other such focuses. The psyche is never destroyed. [...] The psyche’s experiences straddle your ideas of time, however. [...]

I often speak of you and the psyche as if they were separate, yet of course this is not the case. You are that portion of the psyche that you presently recognize. [...]

[...] Your dreaming psyche is awake. [...] You are your psyche’s living expression, its human manifestation. [...]

[...] As you’ll see, he managed to do both, winding a discussion of my dream into his own material about the psyche.)

These emotional experiences, however, often express the language of the psyche. It is not that an understanding of your psyche is beyond you: It is usually that you try to understand or experience it in one of the most difficult ways — through the use of daily language.

Instead, such an event is a direct expression of the psyche’s knowledge. [...] There are multitudinous such examples that could be given, as in each day your psyche presents evidence of its own greater being — evidence that you are taught to overlook, or to dismiss because it is not factual.

In the life of the psyche a dream is no more or less “true,” whether or not it is duplicated in waking life. [...] Here you experience a valid reality that exists on its own, so to speak; one in which the psyche’s own language is given greater freedom.

It is cast for you so that it bridges the perception of the psyche and the perception of the dreaming self. Dreams serve as dramas, transferring experience from one level of the psyche to another. [...]

[...] Your greater reality, however, is read in terms of intensities, so that the psyche puts you together in a different way. The psyche does not mark time. [...] In your terms they would be the psyche’s present. The psyche deals with probable events, however, so some events — perhaps some that you dreamed of but did not materialize — are quite real to the psyche. [...]

Almost any question that you can ask about God, with a capital, can be legitimately asked of the psyche as well. It seems to you that you know yourself, but that you take the existence of your psyche on faith. At best, it often seems that you are all that you know of your psyche, and you will complain that you do not know yourself to begin with. [...]

When you ask: “What is my psyche, or my soul, or who am I?” you are seeking of course for your own meaning as apart from what you already know about yourself. [...] Both God and the psyche are constantly expanding — unutterable, and always becoming.

THE PSYCHE, LANGUAGES, AND GODS

[...] He sees the psyche experimenting privately with probable actions in the dream state, and envisions humanity’s mass dreams as providing an inner vehicle by which man chooses global events. The psyche is private, yet all in all, each psyche contains access to the public psyche.

In Psyche, Seth addresses himself to the matter of human sexuality for the first time in his published works, discussing it as it relates to the private and mass psyche, and connecting sexuality with its spiritual and biological sources.

Now we discover that such references were tailored to our own rather limited ideas of the qualities assigned to the sexes, for in Psyche Seth makes it clear that the psyche is not male or female, “but a bank from which sexual affiliations are drawn.” [...]

The psyche is not only the repository for sexual affiliation, however, but contains hidden abilities and characteristics which are then triggered into activity by exterior stimuli. In Chapter 3 of Psyche Seth says: “Certainly mathematical formulas are not imprinted in the brain, yet they are inherent in the structure of the brain, and implied within its existence.”

[...] A one-minute pause.) As you dwell in one particular city or town or village, you presently “live” in one small area of the psyche’s inner planet. [...] Mankind has learned to explore the physical environment, but has barely begun the greater inner journeys that will be embarked upon as the inner lands of the psyche are joyously and bravely explored. In those terms, there is a land of the psyche. [...] Yet there is indeed an inner commerce that occurs, and as the exterior continents rise from the inner structure of the earth, so the lands of the psyche emerge from an even greater invisible source.

[...] In those terms, your own psyche has a history also. [...] You can turn on television and see a drama, but the inward mobility and experience of your psyche is mysteriously enfolded within all of those exterior gestures that allow you to turn on the television switch to begin with, and to make sense of the images presented. So the motion of your own psyche usually escapes you.

[...] For “The Psyche” is meaningless except as it relates to the individual psyche. [...]

THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE PSYCHE

[...] When you are learning about the nature of the psyche, an even greater aura of the unknown exists. The unknown portions of the psyche and its greater horizons, therefore, have often been perceived as gods or as the greater psyches out of which the self emerged — as for example Latin is a source for the Romance languages.

[...] Physically you are like one country within your psyche, with a language of your own. [...] In the same manner people search for gods, or a God, out of which all psyches emerged. [...]

[...] Remember, I said that you lived in your psyche somewhat in the same way that physically you dwell in the world.

[...] The language of the psyche, however, is far richer and more varied. [...]

(Smile:) The supernatural radio that is your entire psyche contains many such stations, however. [...] It would be highly confusing in this analogy to experience or hear all of these at once, however, so different portions of the psyche tune in to different stations, concentrate upon them, and tune out the others for immediate practical purposes. Because these stations all operate within the same psyche or supernatural radio, the overall quality of the programs will have much to do with the nature of the psyche itself. [...] In the same way, the “supernatural psyche” exists apart from the stations of consciousness that it contains. In this case indeed the psyche itself makes the radio, adding ever-new connections and stations.

[...] Such realities therefore always exist — in your own psyche — outside of your “home station,” and some portion of your own consciousness is always involved in them. [...] (Pause.) For now think of your own psyche, which is a consciousized identity, as a kind of “supernatural radio.” All of the stations exist at once within the psyche. [...]

There are many myths connected with my name.⁶ They all represent portions of the psyche as they were understood at various times in man’s history. Those portions were originally projected out of the psyche as it began to understand itself, and personified its abilities and characteristics, forming superheroic characters of one kind or another, to which the psyche could then correspond and relate.

[...] Intrinsically the psyche, the private psyche, contains all such programs and realities. [...]

Using this as an analogy, you are a part of your psyche or your soul, dwelling within it, easily following your own sense of identity even though that psyche also contains other identities beside the one that you think of as your own. [...] To some strong degree you bear the same kind of relationship to your own psyche.

[...] Each identity has eternal validity within the psyche’s greater reality. At one level, then (underlined), any person contacting his or her own psyche can theoretically contact any other psyche. [...]

In metaphysical terms, you have your being in your psyche or soul in somewhat the same manner. [...] Though you are a portion of your psyche, then, your identity is still inviolate. [...]

The psyche, always in a state of becoming, obviously has no precise boundaries. The existence of one, again, implies the existence of all, and so any one given psyche comes into prominence also because of the existence of the others upon which its reality rides. [...]

[...] I said before that no one can really give you a definition of the psyche. [...] Since its activities, wisdom and perception rise largely from another kind of reference, then you must often learn to interpret your encounter with the psyche to your usual self. [...] Again: The psyche’s organization follows no such learned predisposition. [...]

[...] In “Unknown” Reality I went further, showing how the experiences of the psyche splash outward into the daylight, so to speak. Hopefully in that book, through my dictation and through Ruburt’s and Joseph’s experiences, the reader could see the greater dimensions that touch ordinary living, and sense the psyche’s magic. That book required much more work on Joseph’s part, and that additional effort itself was a demonstration that the psyche’s events are very difficult to pin down in time.

In our last book session, I gave the title for this chapter, mentioning the emotions and association; and the fact that the psyche must be directly experienced. [...] In the meantime, Ruburt has been experiencing dimensions of the psyche new to him.

(Sessions 760-61 were devoted to separate topics that Seth has been developing apart from his regular book dictation for Psyche.

Basically, the psyche is a manifestation of pure energy in a particular form. [...] The psyche is a conglomeration of energy gestalts. [...]

[...] The psyche, your psyche, is being freshly created “at every point” of its existence. [...]

Your psyche is being drawn back into itself, into All That Is, and “out of itself” into your individuation, in psychological pulses of activity that have a correlation with the behavior of electrons in your world. In the dream or sleep state, when you do not meet as directly with physical activity, there is the opportunity to learn more about the psyche by a study of dreams — those events that are so like and so dissimilar to your waking experience.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PURE ENERGY, THE ENERGETIC PSYCHE, AND THE BIRTH OF EVENTS

[...] It is true —the psyche is not restrained by time, yet there are rhythms in which each psyche is involved. They are highly unique and personal, and yet interwoven with historical events which are themselves caused by the psyche’s action. [...]

[...] Your concepts may limit your conscious experience of the psyche’s vast activity, but the psyche does not limit its experience.

[...] Lately he asked wholeheartedly, and there will be a wholehearted answer and reply—from the psyche itself, which understands its parts. [...] The psyche will not remove them until the intensity of desire for freedom rises high enough to meet those purposes in other ways.

In a society in which individuals were encouraged to work with the psyche and with specialists who understood it, illnesses would be seen as physical symptoms of inner imbalances. [...] The healthy person is one who is balanced at any given time in your terms, as far as his or her relationship with the psyche is concerned; with the world and its relationships.

[...] Instead they refer to the circular motion of your own psyche as it seems to progress in time. [...]

(Pause at 9:40.) It is not quite that simple, however, for you live in the midst of multitudinous small deaths and births all of the time, that are registered by the body and the psyche. [...]

[...] The circular nature of the psyche to some extent makes itself known. [...]

[...] As a language that you know is, again, dependent upon other languages, and implied pauses and silences, so the dream that you experience and recall is also one statement of the psyche, coming into prominence; but it is also dependent upon other events that you do not recall, and that your consciousness, as it now operates, must automatically translate into its own terms.

No one from any psychological threshold, however vast, can write a book that defines the psyche, but only present hints and clues, words and symbols. The words and ideas in this book all stand for other inner realities — that is, they are like piano keys striking other chords; chords that, hopefully, will be activated within the psyche of each reader.

[...] The psyche’s roots are secure, nourishing it like a tree from the ground of being. The source of the psyche’s strength is within each individual, the invisible fabric of the person’s existence.

[...] But Seth continued with his material on the behavior of our species, even while bringing Psyche to a close.)

You cannot find your psyche by thinking of it as a separate thing, like a fine jewel in an eternal closet. [...]

YOUR DREAMING PSYCHE IS AWAKE

[...] But she went on: “Now let me get a couple of paragraphs on the chapter… The heading is: ‘Your Dreaming Psyche Is Awake.’” Then Seth came through at once:)

When you awaken, you try to squeeze the psyche’s language into terms of definition. [...]

(Jane has decided that she’ll let my ordinary session notes — brief as they are — suffice for Psyche, and that she’ll add few, if any, of her own. [...]

[...] The ego rises out of the structure of the psyche. [...] Both look outward — in one case away from the physical body, and in the other case away from the inner psyche to the environment.

[...] The creative inner psyche creates the ego. [...] The psyche brings forth the ego that perceives psychologically as the eye perceives physically. [...]

These ancient aspects lie, now, deeply buried in the psyches of all species, and from them the individual patterns, the specific blueprints for new differentiations, emerge.

[...] Your individuality was always latent within your soul, and the “history” that is a part of you is written within unconscious memory that resides not only within your psyche, but is faithfully decoded in your genes and chromosomes,¹ and fulfilled in the blood that rushes through your veins.

I am aware that some of this sounds “retrogressive,” for I am even suggesting a situation in which politicians or statesmen would learn to “dream wisely” — and become aware of the psyche, the mass psyche, of their people, and tune into the “private oracle.”

You must therefore explore the psyche, the living consciousness. [...]

Medicine would gently and expertly encourage healing processes as it more fully understood the psyche’s great emotional being and needs. [...]

[...] Basically that portion of the psyche is outside of space and time, while enabling you to operate in it.⁴ It deals intimately with probabilities — (louder:) the source of all predictable action.

In your terms the psyche is a repository of characteristics that operate in union, composed of female and male elements. The human psyche contains such patterns that can be put together in multitudinous ways. [...]

[...] Such knowledge resides in the psyche, however. If you have any direct experience with your own psyche, then you will most likely find yourself encountering some kinds of events that will not easily fit with your own ideas about your sexual nature.

THE PSYCHE IN RELATIONSHIP TO SEXUAL ELEMENTS.

[...]

Dictation: Chapter Four: “The Psyche in Relationship to Sexual Elements. [...]

Your ideas about sexuality and your beliefs about the nature of the psyche often paint a picture of very contradictory elements. The psyche and its relationship to sexuality affects your ideas of health and illness, creativity, and all of the ordinary areas of individual life. [...]

THE PSYCHE, LOVE, SEXUAL EXPRESSION, AND CREATIVITY

Chapter heading: “The Psyche, Love, Sexual Expression (louder and humorously), and Creativity.”

Give us a moment… In your terms, again, the psyche contains what you would consider male and female characteristics, while not being male or female itself.