“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In terms of simple biological function, you now had a species no longer completely dependent upon instinct, yet still with all the natural built-in desires for survival, and the appearance within it of a mind able to make decisions and distinctions.

It was only natural that certain experiences would seem better than others, but the species’ new abilities made it necessary that sharp distinctions be made. [...]

[...] At the same time members of the species had to cope with the natural environment as did any other animal. [...]

[...] Again, good and evil and the freedom of choice came to the species’ aid. [...]

[...] Again, this would lead to a pattern too rigid for the development of the species, and give you too-specialized behavior patterns that would not allow you to cope as a species — particularly with the many varieties of social groupings possible.

Basically the species is relatively so freewheeling, with so many potentials, that it is necessary that the mother’s beliefs provide a kind of framework in the beginning, allowing the child to focus its abilities in desired directions. [...]

(Pause at 9:35.) Give us a moment… Survival of the human species, as it has developed, is a matter of belief far more than is understood — for certain beliefs are now built in. [...]

[...] As long as you equate identity with your sexuality, you will limit the potentials of the individual and of the species. [...]

[...] It is closer to the truth, however, to say — in that regard, at least — that nature is man’s caretaker; or that man exists, physically speaking, as the result of the graceful support of nature and all of its other species. Without those other species, man as you know him would not exist, not without the continuous cooperation of those species with each other, and their interrelationships with the environment.

(Pause.) Man serves his purposes within nature, as all species do, and in the terms of your understanding man “thinks” in his own way, but he is also the thinking portion of nature. [...]

“Maybe between one and two thousand years after the Creation a worldwide flood destroyed practically everything, though some species, including man, survived. [...] All species were created as they now appear. [...] Why man’s sin, resulting in the catastrophic flood, to which all species fell victim? The regular theory of evolution doesn’t have to contend with such questions, of course, but in the book I just read no explanations for questions like that are given—I don’t even remember that they were raised.

“The creationists put down other species, as do the evolutionists, taking it as fact that no other species is capable of conceptual thought, where I think that statement is extremely dubious generally, and even specifically in light of the work being done with dolphins, for example. [...]

[...] I get a spooky feeling that I’ve had before, thinking that here we are, alive and conscious, technologically accomplished, and we really haven’t the slightest idea of where the universe came from or why we’re alive, though as a species we’re gifted with both intellect and intuition. [...]

The physical senses are the extensions of inner senses ³ that are, in one way or another, a part of each physical species regardless of its degree. The inner senses provide all species with an inner method of communication. [...]

[...] In your terms the magnetic fields themselves fluctuated—but all of the species were there at the beginning, though in the same fashion, for as the dream world broke through into physical reality there was all of the tumultuous excitement and confusion with which a mass creative event is achieved. [...] The species and environment together formed themselves in concert, in glorious combination, so that each fulfilled the requirements of its own existence while adding to the fulfillment of all other portions of physical reality (all very intently, and with many gestures).

You limit the capacity of your conscious mind by refusing to allow it to use a larger scope of attention, so that you have remained closed and ignorant about the different, varied, but rich experiences of other species: They do appear beneath you. [...]

[...] This automatically meant that emerging man, in that framework, must let go of a certain kind of animal comprehension that was extremely valuable overall, but could inhibit ego growth … For many centuries there was no clear-cut differentiation between various species of man and animal … There were also, of course, parallel developments in the emergence of physical man. Again, for many centuries, there were innumerable species of man-in-the-making, in your terms; various postures, and even types of manipulation, as well as alterations in brain size and activity. [...]

[...] Many individuals show variations that actually represent future developments of consciousness; we’re experimenting with these probabilities … There are actually species of consciousness, but we don’t recognize them as such. [...]

[...] Trying to find man’s personal path as a species in the cosmos, rather than just as a species on the earth; this presupposes that I find my own personal path within that cosmos; and where I’ve been bold in certain respects—with Rob’s help it also seems to me that I’ve been supercautious; in perhaps too many instances. [...]

[...] You see a species of consciousness, a species that must remain unexplained in any normal explanations of evolution, and these hint at the communications that exist at all levels (intently), protecting not only the genetic references necessary to your own kind, but the combinations [...]

[...] When I use the term “contemporaries,” I refer to all of the species. [...]

[...] Scientists do not know how many species exist on earth—only that they total in the billions.) If you read it sideways, so to speak, you would still end up with an orderly universe, but one in which the nature of identity would be read completely differently, stressing adjacent subjective communications of a conscious kind that form other kinds or patterns of subjectivity and psychological continuity. [...]

(Very slowly.) Your numbering of the species is highly capricious. [...]

[...] In certain terms this gives the consciousness a look at particular portions of the species’ “past.” [...]

You grant soulhood only to your own species, as if souls had sizes that fit your own natures only. [...]

[...] You like to think — again — that only your own species possesses an awareness of its own selfhood. [...]

[...] They are not higher or lower than your own species. [...]

Remember here other material given about cellular communication, for example, and the vast web of intercommunication that unites all species. Of course animals can communicate with man, and of course man can communicate with other species—with all species. [...]

You cannot say that such animals came out ahead of the bargain, but you can say that the species of man and certain species of animals together formed an arrangement … that did have benefits for both. [...]

[...] Religious drives of whatever nature are much more comprehensible to us than scientific ones: I think it quite safe to note that in ordinary terms our species began struggling with religious expression long before it began recording history. [...]

Jane and I try to keep in mind Seth’s ideas, as well as our own, concerning the great challenges our species has chosen to deal with these days, but I must admit that we often have trouble doing so. [...]

Your species shares with the other species a feeling of kinship for its kind. [...]

This flexibility allows the species great variation overall in its psychological and cultural and political and religious activities. [...]

(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. [...]

I hope to show that all species are motivated by what I call value fulfillment, in which each seeks to enhance the quality of life for itself and for all other species at the same time.

You are filled with questions about when and where the various species appeared, and how the rocks were formed, when some reptiles grew wings, when some fish emerged from the oceans and learned to breathe air, and you are bound to wonder what happened in the times in between.

[...] In this book, then, we will look at the origin of the universe, the origin of the species, the origin of life from another viewpoint. [...]

This further unites all species in a cooperative venture that has remained largely invisible because of beliefs projected outward upon the world by both your sciences and religions, generally speaking. [...]

[...] But as there are physical species, so there are what you may call species of consciousness also (intently).⁵

(11:08.) There are even now in your species a number of different kinds of consciousness; different in that the physical life-situation is qualitatively experienced in ways that are not native to you in your culture; different in that the entire fabric of meaning, interpretation, experience, and life itself is “alien” to the kind of experience with which you are familiar. [...] I am simply saying that on your earth now there are species of consciousness, though that is probably not the best term. [...]

[...] (Intently:) Because of the particular kind of ego-orientation that the race decided upon, however, many probabilities of development inherent in the species have been latent. [...]

[...] The members of each “species” — and you had better put that in quotes — of consciousness relate to physical experience in their characteristic ways, even viewing time, space, and action differently. [...]

[...] The sexual ideas of domination and submission have no part in the natural life of your species, or that of the animals. [...]

[...] The female principle then became connected with the earth and all those elements of its life over which you as a species hoped to gain power.

[...] It is easy to claim an equal love for all members of the species, but love itself requires an understanding that at your level of activity is based upon intimate experience. [...]

SLEEPWALKERS.
THE WORLD IN EARLY TRANCE.
THE AWAKENING OF THE SPECIES

[...] The Awakening of the Species.” [...]

[...] In Mass Events, though, Seth goes further, maintaining that our private impulses are meant to provide the impetus for the development of our own abilities in a way that will also contribute to the best interests of the species and the natural world as well. [...]

Since we are all involved with world events, it is highly important that we also understand how we fit into those global actions, and see how our negative beliefs about ourselves and the species can result in situations far less than ideal, and quite different from our stated goals. [...]

[...] Seth answers those questions and many more, until as we read his explanations we wonder how we could have so misread our own nature as to distrust the very messages meant to lead us toward our own spiritual growth and that of the species as well.

[...] I see it as harking back to the poet’s original role; to explore the reaches of his or her private psyche, pushing against usual psychological boundaries until they give, opening up a new mystical territory — the psyche of the people, of the species itself — perceiving a spectacular vision of inner reality that the poet then communicates to the people, translating that vision through words, rhythm, or songs.

[...]

[...]

[...] Our species should study the whole subject of global healing, so that it can use the knowledge gained to lead itself into new areas of thought and feeling.

[...] There are species of consciousness. Your species is in a time of change. [...]

[...] In the same way now, unknown amongst you, many species of what you may call probable man⁶ dwell in embryo form.

[...] Still, some of the experiments do give hints of certain aspects of one of the species’ probable developments.

[...] It does mean that even in those terms, and consciously unknowing, mankind is experimenting with a probable species and working out quite spiritual issues. [...]

[...] Because for example bees or ants tend to act in a like manner as far as other bees and ants are concerned, because it appears that their actions are as predictable and almost predetermined, man takes it for granted that certain reflexes are absolutes in particular species, and that in any given situation a member of such a species will always react in a certain manner because he cannot help it.

(The nature of this material of course led Jane and I to speculate a little bit, during break, about the fact that what we had as a species, and indeed the species itself, might be quite impermanent. [...]

[...] This does not mean that there is no consciousness in such species, nor does it mean there is no self-consciousness. [...]

[...] Your own animals and all the various species that you know belong to a general grouping, with man presently holding forth.

It seems to you that you have, perhaps, but one chance as a species to solve your problems, or be destroyed by your own aggression, by your own lack of understanding and spirituality. As you are given many lives in which to develop and fulfill your abilities, so has the species in those terms been allotted more than the single line of historical development with which you are presently acquainted. [...]

[...] They formed new races and species that could no longer physically accommodate themselves to your atmospheric conditions. [...]

[...] They did send out members of their own group, however, to live with the natives and intermarry, hoping peacefully to thus alter the physiology of the species.