“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause.) Let us first of all return momentarily to the subject of the reasoning mind, its uses and characteristics. It seems to the reasoning mind that it must look outside of itself for information, for it operates in concert with the physical senses, which present it with only a limited amount of information about the environment at any given time. The physical eyes cannot see today the dawn that will come in the morning. The legs today cannot walk down tomorrow’s street, so if the mind wants to know what is going to happen tomorrow, or what is happening now, outside of the physical senses’ domain, then it must try through reason to deduce the information that it wants from the available information that it has. It must rely upon observation to make its deductions accordingly. In a fashion, it must divide to conquer. It must try to deduce the nature of the whole it cannot perceive from the portions that are physically available.

Direct cognition is an inner sense. In physical terms you might call it remote sensing. Your physical body, and your physical existence, are based upon certain kinds of direct cognition, and it is responsible for the very functioning of the reasoning mind itself. Scientists like to say that animals operate through simple instinctive behavior, without will or volition: It is no accomplishment for a spider to make its web, a beaver its dam, a bird its nest, because according to such reasoning, such creatures cannot perform otherwise. The spider must spin his web. If he chooses not to, he will not survive. But by that same reasoning—to which, of course, I do not subscribe—you should also add that man can take no credit either for his intellect, since man must think, and cannot help doing so.

(Long pause.) In dreams the reasoning mind loosens its hold upon perception. From your standpoint you are almost faced with too much data. The reasoning mind attempts to catch what it can as it reassembles its abilities toward waking, but the net of its reasoning simply cannot hold that assemblage of information. Instead it is processed at other levels of the psyche. Dreams also involve a kind of psychological perspective with which you have no physical equivalent—and therefore such issues are most difficult to discuss.

In the dreaming state the characteristics of the reasoning mind become altered, and from a waking viewpoint it might seem distorted in its activity. What actually happens, however, is that in the dreaming state you are presented with certain kinds of immediate knowledge. It often appears out of context in usual terms. It is not organized according to the frameworks understood by the reasoning portions of your mind, and so to some extent in dreams you encounter large amounts of information that you cannot categorize.

Reasoning by itself can only deal with deductions made about the known world. It cannot accept knowledge that comes from “elsewhere,” for such information will not fit in reason’s categories, and confounds its cause-and-effect patterning. The power to reason comes from Framework 2. In the terms of this discussion, you are able to reason as a result of “magical” events that make reason itself possible. The term “magic” has in one way or another been used to simply describe events for which reason has no answer — events that exist outside of the framework in which reason feels comfortable.

[...] I use the term purposefully, for it confounds the dictates of your adult reasoning, and perhaps by so confounding what you think of as reason, I may manage to arouse within you a hint of what I refer to as the higher intellect.

I do not mean to speak of reason in derogatory terms, for it is well suited to its purposes, which are vital in your reality. It is also true that in the deepest terms you have not developed your reasoning, so that your version of it is bound to result in some distortions.

Nor do I mean to agree with those who ask you to use your intuitions and feelings at the expense of your reason. [...] Your reasoning as you now use it, however, deals primarily with reality by dividing it into categories, forming distinctions, following the “laws” of cause and effect — and largely its realm is the examination of events already perceived. [...]

[...] The imagination, of course, deals with the implied universe, those vast areas of reality that are not physically manifest, while reason usually deals with the evidence of the world that is before it. That statement is generally true, but specifically, of course, any act of the imagination involves reasoning, and any [act] of reason involves the imagination.

[...] Your experience of the world is largely determined by your imaginations and your reasoning abilities. [...] Both imagination and reason belonged to the species from the beginning, but the species has used these qualities in different ways throughout what you think of as historic time. [...]

[...] There are many reasons for such actions, but an overemphasis upon what you think of (underlined) as the reasoning abilities, as opposed to what you think of as the imaginative abilities, is at least partially to blame.

[...] I was most interested tonight as Seth discussed the implications of the letter, along with two thoughts Jane had picked up from him a week ago Monday, on the day she held the 915th session: “Alone, reason finally becomes unreasonable. [...]

[...] I am not speaking of genetic information alone, as you understand it, but of a natural (underlined) yet intuitive reasoning process that is the result of the relationships that exist among all portions of the body. This is the kind of “reasoning” that is the source from which thinking emerges, and you might think of it as magical reasoning.

[...] Now in some important respects the reasoning mind is like the government in this analogy. [...] The reasoning mind acts in the same fashion when paranoid beliefs are in power. [...]

You may not consider trust an attribute connected with reasoning, but it is indeed, for it represents the creature’s innate understanding of the support with which it has been gifted. [...] Most of them are filled with distortions, but they are all efforts to uncover man’s natural magical reasoning. [...]

[...]

(10:17.) In man, again, generally speaking, reason and emotion become separated so that man can think about his emotions, or emotionally feel his reasoning thoughts. [...] In human health difficulties, usually, the paths taken by reasoning and emotions become, say, too divergent, so that the reasoning mind says one thing and the emotions say something else. Fears as emotions are not reasonably considered, and thoughts are not emotionally tinged.

In your case, I meant to mention (in the last session) that the time of taxes has some involvement with your difficulties, for reason tells you they must be paid, while your emotions are resentful. [...]

3. I’m mad at Prentice for various reasons, while not being blind to their good points.

There are people who are highly intellectually proficient, whose reasoning abilities are undisputed, and yet their considerable lack of, say, emotional or spiritual development remains largely invisible as far as your assessments are concerned. [...] I will always be speaking about a balance between intuitional and reasoning abilities and, I hope, [be] leading you toward a wedding of those abilities, for together they can bring about what would certainly appear in your world to be one completely new faculty, combining the very best elements of each, but in such a fashion that both were immeasurably enhanced.

Now as far as the species is concerned, all variations are necessary—and it is as if (underlined) in one instance a member of the species—for its own reasons, but also on behalf of the whole—decides to specialize in one particular area, to isolate certain abilities, so to speak, and display them with the greatest tenacity and brilliance, while nearly completely ignoring certain other areas. In your society, however, the capacities of the reasoning mind have been considered in opposition to the intuitive abilities, so that your ideas of what a person is or should be largely ignore the idea of emotional achievement, emotional understanding.

[...] First had come her reactions to a group of upsetting letters she’d received this noon: One is a 20-page missive from a mental patient who wants returned to him all of the notes, objects, manuscripts, and books of poetry he’s sent her over the years: another is from a woman who informed us that she’s writing a book dictated by Seth: a third is a long letter from a man who’s claiming us as his counterparts, for reasons we can’t agree with. [...]

[...] I said I think we’re doing reasonably well as it is.¹

(9:01.) However, animals do reason. They do not reason in the same areas that you do (intently). In those areas in which they do reason, they understand cause and effect quite well. Their reasoning is applied, however, to levels of activity to which your own reasoning is not applied. Therefore, often animal reasoning is not apparent to you. [...]

ANIMALS AND REASONING.

[...]

[...] As a species, you think of yourselves (pause) as the “pinnacle” end of an evolutionary scale, as if all other entities from the first cell onward somehow existed in a steady line of progression, culminating with animals, and finally with man the reasoning animal. [...]

[...] Neither religion or science grant other creatures much subjective dimension, however: You like to think of yourselves, again, as the reasoning animal in terms of your species.

Because you are reasoning as creatures, because you have available such varieties of experience, the [human] species developed reasoning abilities that are meant to evolve and grow as they are used. [...]

[...] It is somewhat fashionable to place feelings above conscious thoughts, the idea being that emotions are more basic and natural than conscious reasoning is. [...]

If emotion could be trusted above conscious reasoning then there would be little point in aware thought at all. [...]

You are not at the mercy of your emotions, either, for they are meant to follow the flow of your reasoning. [...]

I said that the inner ego reasons, but its reasoning is not restricted to the cause-and-effect limitations that you apply to the reasoning process. [...]

[...] Reality as Framework 2 is organized in a different fashion than it is in the Framework 1 world, and the processes of reasoning are far quicker. In Framework 1 the reasoning processes work largely by deduction, and they must constantly check their own results against the seemingly concrete experience of physical events. The reasoning of the inner ego is involved with the creative invention of those experiences. [...]

I am speaking largely to a Western audience, and so here I am using terms for a particular reason, to explain concepts in a way that will be understood. [...] Let me stress again that the “unconscious” is indeed conscious — and by conscious I mean that its reasoning is not irrational. [...]

There seems to be no reason for many of them, simply because the intricate inner communication systems of consciousness go utterly unrecognized, generally speaking.

Reasoning, as you are familiar with it, is the result of mental or psychic processes functioning in a space-time context, and in a particular fashion. To some extent, then, reasoning—again, as you are familiar with it (underlined)—is the result of a lack of available knowledge. You try to “reason things out,” because the answer is not in front of you. [...]

Your technology is one of the results of that reasoning mind. That “reasoning” is necessary, however, because of the lack of a larger, immediate field of knowledge. [...]

You reason out your position. [...] With all the opportunities of creativity, and with your own greater knowledge instantly available, you would be swamped by so many stimuli that you literally could not physically respond, and so your particular kinds of civilization and science and art could not have been accomplished—and regardless of their flaws they are magnificent accomplishments, unique products of the reasoning mind.

Without the reasoning mind the artist would have no need to paint, for the immediacy of his mental vision would be so instant and blinding, so mentally accomplished, that there would be no need to try any physical rendition of it. So nowhere do I ever mean to demean the qualities or excellence of the reasoning mind as you understand it.

If you do have health problems, it is much better to look for their reasons in your immediate experience, rather than assigning them a cause in the distant past. The reasons for maladies are almost always present in current life experience (long pause) — and even though old events from childhood may have originally activated unhealthy behavior, it is present beliefs that allow old patterns of activity to operate.

Many proponents of reincarnation believe most firmly that an illness in one life most frequently has its roots in a past existence, and that reincarnational regression is therefore necessary to uncover the reasons for many current illnesses or dilemmas.

(Long pause.) You may have overall reasons for a particular illness, however, that have nothing to do with crime or punishment, but may instead involve an extraordinary sense of curiosity, and the desire for experience that is somewhat unconventional — usually not sought for — exotic, or in certain terms even grotesque.

You can discover what your own reasons are for choosing the dilemma or illness by being very honest with yourself. [...]

(9:37.) Over a period of time you ended up with two exaggerated postures —artificial ones—with the spontaneous elements of the personality straining for the full use of their abilities (in parentheses: value fulfillment), and the reasoning one determined to pursue such endeavors—but with caution. The intellect’s reasons, however, were not entirely its own, but only appeared to be because the opposing camps were so out of communication. 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. [...]

[...] The American response—generally, now, speaking—to Iranian emotionalism is to become still more self-righteously reasonable, cooler, more superior. The Iranian’s response to the Americans’ reason involves new outbursts of emotionalism and behavior that appear utterly irrational to the American view. [...]

[...] For the purposes of this discussion, we must simplify, so we will say that generally speaking your own country aligns itself with the world of reason, while in the same fashion Iran allies itself with the world of emotion. [...]

The person seeks a certain kind of expression while also feeling that the same expression is either dangerous, forbidden, or for one reason or another impossible to achieve. [...]

[...] There is a reason why you were in the particular spiritual predicament in which you found yourself for there are always reasons. [...] If you have a strong emotional feeling of this nature, then ask yourself for the reason behind it. [...]

[...] Now there is nothing for you to fear but remember, whenever you feel strongly, very strongly, against any given issue, there are usually more reasons behind your feelings than you know. There are always obvious reasons that you can point to, but the emotional charge that exists within you on these issues is highly important and should be examined and investigated by you in the same way, you see, that you would investigate it if you saw it in someone else. [...]

[...] You are good, therefore, in reading for others for this reason. [...] For the same reason, however, watch your material for you will often emotionally read into it what is not there. [...]

[...] And you are tempted at times to close these off for that reason, but you are also afraid that you have gone so far so quickly that the abilities cannot be closed off, and you cannot close the channel. [...]

Obviously, the mind can use its reasoning abilities, for example, to come to the conclusion that there is a single god behind the functioning of the world, that there are many gods, that divinity is a fantasy, and that the world itself springs from no reasonable source. New sentence: Like statistics, the reasoning abilities can be used to come to almost any conclusion. This is done, again, by taking into consideration within any given system of reasoning only the evidence that agrees with the system’s premises.

[...] It is amazingly resilient, in that according to the belief structures of any given historical period, it can orient itself along the lines of those beliefs, using all of its reasoning abilities to bring such a world picture into focus, collecting data that agree, and rejecting what does not.

[...] (Long pause.) When any system of reasoning becomes too rigid, however, there are always adjustments made that will allow other information to intrude — otherwise, of course, your belief systems would never change.

[...] You end up, then, with a consensus, generally speaking, as to what a reasonable picture of agreed-upon reality is. [...]

[...] There will be a reason for it, and that reason will lie in those abilities that you have left free and open for yourself to pursue.

[...] I am using Ruburt as an example for several reasons. [...]

(Pause.) Whatever your situation, you have chosen it for a reason. [...]

[...] You were to some extent outraging a portion of your being, for whatever reasons.

[...] You felt that there was nothing you could do about the situation, that there was no reason to worry about it, but the anxiety was displaced then, draining your energies.

A point now that I want you to heed in advance: In the past, because of joint negative attitudes, I have given the reasons for some of these. [...]

[...] Your having a job made sense to you therefore for these reasons, more so than it did to Ruburt, who had no such countering influences. [...]

Parents who are aware of these facts can start helping their children at an early age by asking them simply the reasons for their illness. [...] Again, the reasons for such behavior are often quite clear in the child’s mind. [...]

[...] Children often know quite well the reasons for some of their illnesses, for often they learn from their parents that illness can be used as a means to achieve a desired result.

[...] They deliberately close their eyes to some of the reasons for their own illnesses, and this behavior has become so habitual that they are no longer conscious of their own intent.

[...] They soon learn that such self-knowledge is not acceptable, however, so they begin to pretend ignorance, quickly learning to tell themselves instead that they have a bug or a virus, or have caught a cold, seemingly for no reason at all.

[...] Some artists with great ability may shut out intellectual maturity, utilizing native emotional qualities to such an extent and with such intensity that the mental reasoning faculties are largely shunted aside. [...] For reason and emotion are natural counterparts.

Some of the material in the last chapter should help to explain the reasons for frameworks in which violence is built-in, so to speak, and indeed becomes a challenging context through which reality is perceived. [...]

[...] If you are severely ill and believe that the reasons for your symptoms exist in a past life, that you must “put up with it,” then you will not realize that your point of power is in the present, and you will not believe in the possibility of recovery.

[...] This is done for many different reasons (just as people choose to be ill in this life, regardless of the duration involved). [...]

I am aware of more and yet the reason for my concern could be called a quite human reason. You were drawn to the sessions for various reasons. [...]

There are reasons why certain personalities have been drawn to our sessions. [...] There are other reasons which, if you will excuse me, we shall not consider this evening simply because you do not yet have a basic understanding of certain issues which are involved. [...]

[...] We are so far dealing, however, with men of good will, and it is for this reason that we shall cooperate. [...]

[...] There is no reason why you must take notes until your fingers feel as if they would drop. [...]

There are symbols I have not gone into, nor is there reason to. But I have good reason for giving these suggestions. As an example only, I will give you two reasons for my suggestion that the windows be thrown open and the apartment aired.

[...] The work done in the kitchen last weekend helped him, for the reasons given. [...]

[...] There are other reasons for the housecleaning suggestions also, involving individualistic symbols that have strong value for him.

These procedures would have been of some help in the past, but now that the basic reason for the symptoms is conquered, the effectiveness of these methods should lead to the disappearance of all symptoms. [...]