“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Slowly:) He was aware, however, of the universe through William James’s world view. Period. As you might dial a program on a television set, Ruburt tuned in to the view of reality now held in the mind of William James. Because that view necessarily involved emotions, Ruburt felt some sense of emotional contact — but only with the validity of the emotions. Each person has such a world view, whether living or dead in your terms, and that “living picture” exists despite time or space. It can be perceived by others.

Ruburt has been working with alterations of consciousness (for Psychic Politics), and wondering about the basic validity of religion. He has been trying to reconcile intellectual and emotional knowledge. James is far from one of his favorite writers, yet Ruburt’s interests, intent, and desire were close enough so that under certain conditions he could experience the world view held by James. The unknown reality is unknown only because you believe it must be hidden. Once that belief is annihilated, the other quite-as-legitimate views of reality can appear to your consciousness, and worlds just as valid as your own swim into view.

These “other,” reinterpreted world views form a matrix from which new creativity emerges. The same thing applies in more mundane endeavors in ordinary life. For example: You may be in a predicament that seems beyond solving. It may be highly individual, since it is yours. It is unique, and has happened in no other way before. No one else has viewed your particular dilemma through your eyes, yet others have been in similar situations, solved the challenges involved, and gone on to greater creativity and fulfillment. If you can momentarily abandon your private world view, that focus from which you experience reality, then you can allow the experience of others who have had similar challenges to color your perception. You can tune in to their solutions and apply them to your particular circumstances. You often do this unconsciously. I do not want you to think, then, that such occurrences work only in esoteric terms.

(A note added in December 1977: The 718th session on world views proved to be a cornerstone in Jane’s own development, and in Seth’s thematic structure as well. Jane’s The World View of Paul Cézanne: A Psychic Interpretation, was published earlier this year, and as I type this final manuscript for Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality I can add that she’s also completed The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James. It came out in 1978.

Your aspirations are a part of your world view. [...] Your world view includes your attitudes toward your parents, and toward their parents. It also includes your own attitudes toward your parents’ aspirations, and your views of your brothers and their families. Your world view must include your beliefs about the body and the mind, about religion, history, and philosophy—and you stand as an entity, a psychological entity, in the center of this inner world.

(To me:)Your world view, for example, involves your knowledge and comprehension of government and politics as you perceive them, through reading or television. [...] Your world view includes paintings that exist in your imagination, as well as paintings done in your terms “so far.”

You accept certain ideas and beliefs as a part of your world view, as everyone does. As a youngster, you—and also Ruburt—challenged many of “the world’s” beliefs, and refused to accept them as a part of your personalized world views.

[...] So much of a person shows to the person, but much of an individual’s world view is hidden. [...]

[...] Your world view is limited to the photograph itself. [...] Imagine that miniature image navigating in the physical room, then going outside, and quite an expanded world view will result.

[...] You have certain pet ideas, therefore, and you use them to structure your own world view of the reality you know. [...]

You are familiar with your own view of the world. [...]

[...] You may be filled with the feeling that you are in the midst of a great cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil — and indeed, this often represents a valid picture of your own view of the world.

[...] As long as you think that your physical information about the world, through newspapers and so forth, presents a fairly adequate, objective view of events, then all of the evidence to the contrary will literally be invisible, for you will continue to organize your view of the world in the old way. [...]

[...] The people who read or view the news are individuals. To some extent through the books you are helping people alter their psychic organizations, to look at the world in a different fashion, and therefore to view a different world—a world in which their experiences are different than they would have been otherwise.

I am, again, not telling you to be blind to physical events, but to realize that the news media, and your organizations, are not giving you an “objective” view of the world, but a view compounded and composed by Freudian and Darwinian beliefs. [...]

[...] You can see easily, however, the highly specialized, intensified view of the world that is apparent in scientific journals. [...]

That book, The World View of Paul Cézanne, was published by Prentice-Hall in 1977. [...] The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James came the same way, like mental dictation; only where the Cézanne world view had specialized in art, the James world view was more comprehensive. [...]

Seth began discussing world views in his “Unknown” Reality. Simply put, a world view is a living psychological picture of an individual life, with its knowledge and experience, which remains responsive and viable long after the physical life itself is over. So, the material I received didn’t come from Paul Cézanne per se, but from his world view.

We were most eager to get this particular material to the public, since many correspondents write requesting Seth’s views on sexuality. [...] In the two volumes of The “Unknown” Reality, Rob tried to correlate Seth’s views on various subjects, tracing them backward to his earlier books (and often to unpublished material), showing the context in which the books were written. [...]

[...] It purported to come from the “world view” of Paul Cézanne, the famous French artist who died at the start of this century.

Your home station¹ does not simply present programming for you to view. [...] Yet within that loose framework you create the program of the day according to your own world view.

In the dream state you range beyond your waking world view. [...] These can remain in the background during waking life — or you can decide to enlarge your world view by taking advantage of your dreaming activities. [...]

You are not alone in physical reality, so obviously your picture of the world is also affected by the world views of others, and you play a part in their experiences. [...] The many languages that are now known originated in what you can call, from your point of view, nonwaking reality. [...]

Dictation: Your world view is your personalized interpretation of the physical universe.

Time does not have certain characteristics when you view it as past, or when you view it as future, or when you view it as present. [...]

In an inverted time system the momentum is recognized and it is also taken advantage of, in that it is utilized by individual consciousness, so that your so-called present, past and future can be viewed as existing in a spacious now. [...]

[...] It did not exist devoid or apart from those who viewed it.

These psychological structures obviously act as stabilizing platforms, so to speak, from which energy can view itself. [...]

[...] The ego is seen in quite a different light when it is viewed by other portions of the self. It is not viewed—this was a poor term—as much as it was experienced, for no portion of the personality can be viewed as an object.

[...] To this supraself, of course, your ego future can be easily viewed.

Your body will react biologically in response to your world-view. [...]

The world-view consists of those cultural and private beliefs concerning cultural, economic and social environments. [...]

[...] When the world-view enlarges to include more sophisticated cultural environments then, however, the body must rely upon the conscious mind’s interpretation of events. [...]

[...] Whatever the issue might be, the conscious world-view is bringing about biological activity. [...]

[...] (Pause.) Conventional wisdom tries to standardize such behavior, however, in an attempt to form a cohesive general view of reality. 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. [...]

People must be able to share their views of reality with their fellows, of course—but in your society you are taught to substitute a stylized version for the highly individualistic and unique view of reality that is your own. [...]

As Jane wrote in Chapter 1 of The World View of Paul Cézanne: A Psychic Interpretation (1977): “Seth maintains that each of us forms a psychic world view, composed of our own ideas, feelings, and beliefs, as we encounter our private corner of reality.” The world view of every creature that has ever lived continues to exist, and can be tuned into under certain conditions. [...] Yet none of this means that contact will be made directly with the creator of the world view in question—only the bank of experiences originated through that individual’s unique version of reality. And since world views are far from being static, interactions and combinations involving all time periods take place among them constantly.

Jane’s book would be called The World View of Jane Roberts, of course. [...] If she could tune into the world views of the philosopher and psychologist William James, and the artist Paul Cézanne, why couldn’t she do it for the writer and mystic Jane Roberts? [...]

[...] A book could automatically develop out of the investigation—even, I joked with Jane, a “world-view” book.

[...] In these sketches, with their simple but very effective patterns of line and primary colors, Jane somehow bypasses her everyday challenges and very clearly reflects her basically mystical view of the world. [...]

[...] Jane initiates information on “world views,” with examples: Seth defines that concept as “the view of reality” held in the immortal mind of each of us, the “living picture” that exists outside of time or space, and that can be perceived by others. [...]

[...] Seth finished his part of the second volume over a year ago, and since then I’ve carefully gone over my original notes for it; I’ve rewritten almost all of them (often many times) in an effort to get them just right, in my view. [...]

The “off-center” quality sensed in dream activity, comma, the different viewpoints, the perspective alterations, all can add to a chaotic picture when the dream state is viewed from the waking one.

[...] While each person views that reality from a slightly different focus, still it occurs within certain ranges or frequencies. [...]

[...] When you watch your ordinary television program, perhaps on a Saturday afternoon, you view the program as an observer. [...]

[...] Not only can you experience dramas in which you are intimately involved, as in waking life, but your range of activities is multiplied so that you can view events “from outside” your own usual context. [...]

(In view of the massive contradiction here, I asked that Seth explain tonight what happened. [...]

[...] If you can think of your body as existing primarily in Framework 2, that might help you separate yourselves from negative beliefs connected with Framework 1, for by such a mental change of view you take the body out of that context.

[...] As long as you are dealing with Framework 1 only, there will seem to be no platform of an objective or subjective nature that will allow you to view reality in any other way than the way it appears to be. [...]

[...] It deals very well with how we create our scientific views of the universe. [...]

In modern times, then, the intellect was finally left with only one acceptable world view, with one set of assumptions, with only one main approach to reality and experience. [...] When it is enriched (pause) by having in its possession several world views, then it does an excellent job of merging those into meaningful patterns, of sorting information and sending it to the proper places, so to speak.

[...] Its view of nature is therefore mechanistic. [...]

[...] It can handle several (pause) main world views at once, realizing that they are each methods of perceiving and approaching reality. [...]

[...] When it is given only one world view, and only one group of assumptions, its orderly nature causes it to throw out all information that does not fit. [...]

[...] For they are each viewing experience from a highly concentrated yet uniquely individual standpoint. They each see “reality” from a different angle, and thus create a different view. [...]

[...] (Long pause.) It will be useful if Ruburt remembers this when he views other systems of reality. [...]

[...] He is not waiting around, therefore, by relying upon or overrelying upon, in his view, man’s good intent. [...]

[...] It is very difficult to explain to you that the universe that you see, the stars and planets that you view, are one-dimensional, comparatively speaking. [...]

You do not understand the dimensions into which your own thoughts drop, for they continue their own existence, and others look up to them and view them like stars. [...]

[...] The inner self knows what is behind the physical stars and planets that the eye views, but the ego would be swept aside in panic at such realization.

[...] A view of water.

[...] A window, or indication of an open viewpoint, or station from which activities may be viewed. [...]

(“A view of water.” [...]

(“A window, or indication of an open viewpoint, or station from which activities may be viewed. [...]

[...] In view of the subject matter that did develop, rather to our surprise, let me note that since late last week President Carter, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and Israel’s Prime Minister Begin have been meeting at Camp David in pursuit of peace for the Middle East. [...]

[...] “Decent” God-fearing men, then, must indeed question how the same God can have such different views, and at least wonder if their own nationalistic histories and prejudices may not have distorted the interpretation of God’s word somewhere along the way.

[...] People are faced with beliefs other than their own, and discover that the “enemy” or the “infidel,” or the terrorist or the respected head of state, while having completely different views, are each convinced of their own uprightness and virtue.

[...] If parents believe that the body is somehow an inferior vehicle for the spirit, or if they simply view the body as unreliable or weak and vulnerable, then children will at an early age begin to consider good health as a rarity, and learn to take depression, poor spirits, and bodily aches and pains to be a natural, normal condition of life.

If, on the other hand, parents view the body as a healthy, dependable vehicle of expression and feeling, then their children will look at their own bodies in the same fashion. [...]