“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Some day, for our own amusement—but hardly with the idea of convincing others, let alone influential scientists—I’ll ask Seth to comment upon whatever connections may exist between his ideas and those embedded in quantum mechanics. I’m sure he’s quite entertained by the whole situation—yet also compassionate toward the human strivings involved. He’s never mentioned the concept, nor have we asked him to. I think that Jane has little (if any) interest in whether any connections might exist between the Seth material and the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics. Any discussion of this in our books is strictly my own doing, my own speculation: I think it fun to play creatively with a theory that is, after all, there for anyone to consider, from whatever standpoint. And I maintain that the theory of quantum mechanics does contain strong paranormal aspects, whether or not science admits this.

I also think that if asked Seth would point out that since the concept of quantum mechanics is based upon the idea that everything we “know”—matter, energy, our sensual information—is made up of quanta, or the interactions of insubstantial fields that in turn, and quite paradoxically, produce very active subatomic packets or particles, then quantum mechanics is at least analogous with his statements that basically the universe is composed of consciousness itself. But I think that the continuum of consciousness, or All That Is, contains not only the phenomena of quantum mechanics, but also Seth’s nonphysical EE (electromagnetic energy) units, and his CU’s (or units of consciousness). In those terms, then, quantum mechanics is a theory that doesn’t penetrate deeply enough into basic reality, even if physicists these days are basing their unified field theories upon quantum thinking. (These theories are themselves quite incomplete, since at this time they incorporate only three of the four basic interactions in nature: electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. So far, gravitation remains outside all attempts at integration.)

That all seeming divisions reflect portions of a unified whole is surely one of our oldest concepts, growing, in those terms, with us out of our prehistory as we struggled to grasp the “true” nature of reality. Traditionally we’ve cast that feeling or knowledge in religious terms, for want of a better framework, but I think that more and more now the search is also on within science for a theory—even a hypothesis—that will lock up our often subjective variables into what might be called a more human equivalent of the still-sought-for unified theory in physics. What are human beings, anyhow? From what Jane and I can gather (through our reading especially), at least some of the world’s leading scientists are becoming willing to contend with consciousness itself. (Including their own consciousnesses? I can’t help wondering!) Portions of the latest scientific literature I have on hand, particularly that produced by physicists, contain references that not long ago would have been branded as metaphysical, or even worse.

I’ve written these passages knowing, of course, that many of Seth’s points and our own are at best theories, if very intriguing ones. Some may contend that they’re not even theories, but only hypotheses—tentatively inferred explanations requiring much further experimentation and examination. Worse still (I write with some humor), they may “only” be ideas. Whatever their status, Jane and I take heart from the letters sent us by many thousands of readers, who have time and again explained how they put the Seth material to use in very positive physical and mental ways. (Except for a few early instances when we inadvertently lost some of our correspondence, we’ve saved all of it. The cartons are piling up in a cellar storeroom. We hope that eventually our “fan mail” will serve as the foundation for a study concerning the ways in which society reacts to new ideas, through the viewpoints, say, of science, philosophy and psychology, religion, the “occult,” skepticism, generalized deep curiosity, and mental illness. Very abusive responses are also involved, as well as surprising near-illiterate ones.)

The theory, then, is a way of organizing experience, a suggestive hypothesis. [...] In that regard, for example, James was quite correct: certain religious societies interpreted the theme so that it read “evolution of the soul”; but there is no soul in Darwinian theory and hereditary, and certainly none in the environment. [...]

The practical experience of reality is formed through the suggestive psychological idea-shapes that appear in the guise of theories, dogmas, and assumptions. [...]

The theory of evolution represents a magnetic organizing suggestive hypothesis. [...]

[...] More than this, however, the theory’s vast suggestive nature forms a framework through which people then view the experiences of their lives, and through whose focus the behavior of their own species seems determined. [...]

1. Today Jane had been looking at Einstein’s own book on his theories of relativity. (Relativity, The Special and the General Theory, Tr. [...]

(And, very simply, the idea that the “event horizons” of black holes may radiate detectable light could be a step in the unification of some of those forces — gravity and electromagnetism — as they are treated in relativity theory and quantum theory, respectively. [...]

[...] Science needs new theories to unify as many of the four forces of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, and the atomic “strong” and “weak” forces) as possible, instead of separating them as in the past. [...]

[...] Not long after the outline for his Special Theory of Relativity was published in 1905, it was said that Einstein owed its accomplishment at least partly to the fact that he knew little about the mathematics of space and time.

[...] The biological sciences can cling to mechanistic theories of evolution by employing the conservative physics of cause and effect to support their conclusions while being aware, perhaps, of the tenets of particle physics. Such “causal analysis” then proves itself over and over again — a situation I wryly note, that’s akin to the criticism I’ve read wherein the theory of evolution is used to prove the theory of evolution. [...]

[...] Finally, the humor of the whole situation got through to me: As some have very clearly noted, in the biological and earth sciences especially, circular reasoning often predominates: The theory of evolution is used to prove the theory of evolution.

Now, if you had all been really paying attention to what I have been saying for some time about the simultaneous nature of time and existence, then you would have known that the theory of evolution is as beautiful a tale as the theory of Biblical creation. [...]

(Seth’s ideas aside for the moment, biologists faithful to Darwin’s theories don’t want to hear anything about the precognitive abilities of a species, nor do they see any evidence of it in their work. In evolutionary theory, such attributes violate not only the operation of chance mutation and the struggle for existence, but our ideas of consecutive time [which is associated with “naïve realism” — the belief that things are really as we perceive them to be]. [...]

You understand of course that the theory of successive moments works on your plane, or has worked so far. But as mankind grows even more ambitious then the idea will cease to work for him, and it will be actually discarded on theoretical terms while it is still utilized in its limited fashion in practical mundane terms, as you still find the table useful in practical terms; although theoretically you realize that it is not a solid you still manufacture tables, and you will still use watches long after your scientists discover that the theory of successive passage of moments is antiquated and itself passé.

[...] You are obsessed with the theory of beginning and end, because in your situation your camouflage constructions seem to have a beginning and an end.

[...] I realize you will find the statement, there is no beginning or end, almost incomprehensible, because of your own situation on your own plane, and yet this has been known for centuries; and your own Einstein’s theories will help to give the idea scientific respectability.

[...] The theory that all or any other intelligent life exists on the same horizontal plane as your own, and that it necessarily exists in your own known camouflage universe, is another.

Man’s focus is equally limited in perception theory, which is a deadly psychological game played by the United States and Russia. [...] Perception theory rests upon the assumptions of large groups of people in the two countries, including many of their leaders, and by the political rulers of many other nations, that it is vital for the United States and Russia to possess numerically balanced arsenals of nuclear weapons. [...] What does matter in perception theory is that whenever one side is seen as pulling ahead in the arms race, the other must match that progress, then do better, even though militarily it’s quite unnecessary. Indeed, military leaders in the United States, and evidently in Russia, concur in playing out the illusion of perception theory for their own psychological and political purposes.

Privation theory has for many centuries been a main tenet of theology: Evil is not a power in itself, but only the absence of good; it is not-good. [...] Through privation theory religion has created unanswerable questions for itself as it seeks to explain man’s inhumanity to man. To me, privation theory is a beautiful example of how man projects his fears of the world he’s created out upon that very world. [...]

[...] Then I’ll refer to the concepts of perception theory and privation theory.

The ordinary violence involved with these events leads me to comment upon the theological concept of privation theory, and the military one of perception theory—for again, I think the two are closely related, not only to each other but to the points I’ve made in this note. [...]

When your precious psychologists walk out of their bodies and tell me what is in California, then I will listen to their theories of personality and when your psychologists put on the type of personality performance that I can put on—then I will listen to them when they tell me about the ego and subconscious. When their theories are broad enough to explain telepathy and clairvoyance and out-of-body realities, then I will listen to them and to their theories. [...]

[...] Do not tell me that my theory of personality is only another word for the ego or for your psychologists’ theories. [...]

And even, therefore, the worms dance in the grass and laugh at your psychologists’ theories, for even they know that they are more than the reality the psychologistswould grant to you. [...]

1. Jane rather surprised me: I knew she had an interested if generalized awareness of the old theory of the ether (or the luminiferous ether), but I hadn’t realized she was well-enough acquainted with the idea to be able to verbalize it that succinctly for Seth. [...] I may have discussed the theory with her, but I don’t remember doing so.

Late in the last century some very ingenious experiments failed to scientifically prove the existence of the ether, however, and the theory was finally dispensed with for good following Albert Einstein’s publication of his special theory of relativity in 1905.

The cause and effect theory, as I have stated, is a result of your ideas of time. As long as you persist in thinking in terms of past, present and future, then the cause and effect theory is a logical and seemingly infallible result. When you develop your time theory and realize that present, past and future are merely effects and distortions caused by your own perspective, then your scientists will realize that cause and effect is a passé and antiquated theory, useful only for a short time—I hope you appreciate the pun with the word time—and should be discarded.

[...] When the spacious present is understood, with its attributes of spontaneity, then the cause and effect theory will fall. The cause and effect theory being the result of continuity holds no water. [...]

When I say that chemicals alone will not give you consciousness, I am speaking of the theory held that physical matter, chemicals and atoms, that were inert and lifeless, suddenly through some metamorphosis attained the conscious state through an evolutionary development.

[...] Nor with your limited cause and effect theories will you ever get very far.

[...] Jastrow cites the big bang theory of the creation of the universe as a proven fact, whereas it’s only the latest theory, as far as we know. [...] In it Jastrow goes on to talk about how silicon-based computer life is going to replace man and his messy emotions—theories quite in keeping with current “scientific” thinking about man’s innate worthlessness and his accidental creation. [...]

[...] He was busily tracing these out as he aged—he’s now 74—in order to prove out his own theory of aging and senility, about which he’s evidently written extensively. [...]

In ordinary terms, she knows practically nothing concerning several other less prominent theories regarding the beginning of the universe. [...] It incorporates many of the features of the big-bang theory, and actually may answer certain questions in a better scientific fashion. One of the big differences between the two is that in the big-bang theory all of the matter in the universe was already present, though existing in an extremely dense state which then began to expand; the inflationary model suggests that the universe was created out of nothing, or out of just about nothing—meaning that through unforeseeable rhythms subatomic particles spontaneously came into being, with sufficient energy behind them to enable them to persist as matter. [...]

[...] What’s he trying to do, I asked Jane—combine something like science’s theoretical “big-bang” origin of the universe, all of those billions of years ago, with creationism’s theory of a recent spontaneous, divine creation of that same universe? [...]

[...] Science currently postulates this theory as its “standard model” for the creation of the universe.³

From my reading of Seth’s ideas of “in the beginning,” however, I’m sure he couldn’t agree with either the big-bang or inflationary models of the creation of the universe, even though his material may be evocative of portions of both theories. [...]

[...] I have told you that your conception of cause and effect is faulty and antiquated, and I have said that the cause and effect theory is logical only as a result of your theory of time and continuity. If time as you think of it does not exist, and it does not, then the cause and effect theory does not follow.

[...] Remember your expanding universe theory, but not in terms of space or indeed in terms of time, but in terms of fulfillment of abilities and values that may be constructed upon various levels and in various guises, your present plane of existence being one.

You see the growth process in a very distorted manner, because of your antiquated cause and effect theory. [...]

During our next session I will give you further material on the inner laws of the universe, and show you again how the so-called laws of the universe, with which your scientists deal, are sadly inadequate and the result of the same kind of distortion as your cause and effect theory.

(“Now, if you had all been really paying attention to what I have been saying for some time about the simultaneous nature of time and existence, then you would have known that the theory of evolution is as beautiful a tale as the theory of biblical creation. [...]

(Apropos of this question, in ESP class eight days later Seth had this to say about Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution:

[...] You do close your eyes to evidence that does not support this theory. [...]

In those terms, therefore, the universe either had “a Creator,” or it had none; or it came into being as stated in the Big Bang theory, and is either constantly expanding or it is not. [...] As a rule such theories are proven “true” by the simple process of excluding anything else that seems contradictory, and so generally your scientific theories carry the weight of strong validity within their own frameworks.

The uncertainty principle, or the principle of indeterminacy (advanced by Heisenberg in 1927, and part of the theory of quantum mechanics), sets definite limits to the accuracy possible in measuring both the motion and position of atoms and elementary particles simultaneously; more importantly to my mind, for the purposes of this note, the uncertainty principle maintains that there is an interaction between the observer (with his instruments) and the object or quality being measured.

[...] Albert Einstein, whose own work was rooted in strict causality, found a notion like the free will of an electron untenable, even though much earlier (in 1905) he had laid the foundation for quantum mechanics in his special theory of relativity.

[...] He is onto something with his theory of Aspects, but the theory is not as yet fully developed. [...]

[...] At break I asked Jane some questions about her Aspect theories. [...]

[...] Animals, for example, could not imagine such an idiocy, so that the theory shows the incredible accomplishment of an obviously ordered mind and intellect that can imagine itself to be the result of nonorder, or chaos — [you have] a creature who is capable of “mapping” its own brain, imagining that the brain’s fantastic regulated order could emerge from a reality that itself has no meaning. Indeed, then, the theory actually says that the ordered universe magically emerged — and evolutionists must certainly believe in a God of Chance somewhere, or in Coincidence with a capital C, for their theories would make no sense at all otherwise.

The theory of evolution,⁴ for instance, is an imaginative construct, and yet through its lights some generations now have viewed their world. [...]

Now: The latest growth of fundamentalist religion has arisen as a countermeasure against the theories of evolution. [...]

5. Concentrate on his theories, ideas, rather, than on thoughts of work.

[...] The author explains the various theories for the origin of our observable universe of planets, galaxies, quasars, and so forth, presenting the evidence for and against each theory. [...]

[...] As noted in the last session, Jane had attempted to read Einstein’s book on his theories of relativity earlier that day. [...]

And from the 45th session, 20 days later: “… your present theory of the expanding universe is in error. [...]

Time reversal or particle symmetry, the equivalence of space and time, is a tenet of relativistic physics and quantum theory. [...]

[...] Following all the studying I had to do in order to produce that piece, I’ve become very cautious in considering the theory — after all, even the dictionaries still refer to it as the theory [my emphasis] of evolution! [...] Meaning, of course, that many of those invisible leaves would represent the missing, physical, intermediate forms demanded by evolutionary theory.

[...] Imagining some great big-bang theory (to explain the creation of the universe) gives you an immense explosion of energy, that somehow turns into life but must wear out somewhere along the line — and if that were the case, life would be getting weaker all the time, but it is not. [...]