Updated Nov. 20, 2003

The following text is excerpts from the book "The Seth Material" by Jane Roberts.  These are only excerpts taken out of concept in which examples and more in depth explanations are found in the book.  "The Seth Material" is an introduction to the the book "Seth Speaks".  By what I have read so far, It seems that this Seth is NOT  the same Seth (ie. Set, Suetekh, brother of Isis and Osiris) of Egyptian mythology, known as a evil God.  This Seth is a being who has lived through all of his reincarnational third-dimensional Earth lives and now resides in a different reality/dimension.  He offers knowledge, reassurance and understanding to us Earth beings.

The links below will you jump you to the according places on this page for quicker navigation.

Existence

In a conversation between Seth and a psychologist about existence Seth says:

“We can change the future…  At no time are events predestined.  With every moment you change, and every action changes every other action.”

“You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore it behooves you to examine them carefully.  If you do not like your world, then examine your own expectations.  Every thought in one way or another is constructed by you in physical terms… The world is formed in faithful replica of your own thoughts… Certain telepathic conditions exist that we call root assumptions, of which each individual is subconsciously aware.  Using these, you form a physical environment cohesive enough so that there is general agreement as to objects and their placement and dimension.  It is all hallucinatory in one respect, and yet it is your reality, and you must manipulate within it.  The world in which your parents live existed first in thought.  It existed once in the stuff of dreams, and they spawned their universe from this, and from this they made their world.”

“If you sell yourselves short, you will say, ‘I am a physical organism and I live within the boundaries cast upon me by space and time.  I am at mercy of my environment.’  If you do not sell yourselves short, you will say, ‘I am an individual.  I form my physical environment.  I change and make my world.  I am free of space and time.  I am a part of all that is.  There is no place within me that creativity does not exist.’”

About the nature of physical reality, Seth says: 

“Physical objects cannot exist unless they exist in a definite perspective and space continuum.  But each individual creates his own space continuum… Each individual actually creates an entirely different object, which his own physical senses then perceive.”

Seth then goes into an example such as this:  Say you, your spouse and your dog are in the same room and you have a candle on the table.  You perceive the candle in your space continuum, your spouse perceives the candle in her space continuum, and your dog perceives the candle in its space continuum.  You take it for granted that each one of you perceives the same candle but actually there are three candles, the one you perceive, the one your spouse perceives and the one your dog perceives.  This is the same for everything, not just objects.  You perceive yourself yet your spouse perceives you in her space continuum, and your dog perceives you in its space continuum.  Imagine how many “you’s” there are when you are at a party or gathering, each person there perceives you in their own space continuum.  I know this difficult to understand, as it is difficult to explain.

Seth talks about reincarnation:

According to Seth all of us have been reincarnated, and when we are finished living our series of earthly lives, we will continue to exist in other systems of reality.  In each life we experience conditions that we have chosen beforehand, circumstances and challenges tailored to fit our own needs and develop our own abilities.

According to Seth, we choose our illnesses and the circumstances of our birth and death.  This applies to every illness, whether it is a broken leg suffered from an accident or an ulcer.  This doesn’t mean that we consciously make a choice in the way we’re used to, we don’t sit down and say, “well, I think I’ll get a broken leg this afternoon at three in front of Rand ’s drugstore.”  Some part of us is upset and chooses an illness or accident as a way of expressing this inner situation. 

But what about serious diseases—and where does reincarnation fit into the picture?  To begin with, Seth does not use the word “punishment.”  We are not “punished” in one life for the “transgressions” of a past one.  Nor do we choose illness per se as a given life situation, even though we may utilize such an illness as part of a larger plan, as a method of teaching ourselves some important truth or as a means of developing certain abilities.

More on reincarnation—after death and between lives:

Seth often says that when we’re finished with our lives here, we’re actually anxious to leave this existence.  When the body is worn out, we really want to get rid of it.  The instinct for survival is served quite well because the inner self knows that it lives beyond death. 

“When you leave the physical body, the other body (the “whole self”) is quite real to you and seems as physical, although it has many more freedoms…”

Asked, “When we leave the physical body, where do we go?”  Seth replied, “You go where you want to go.  Now, when your ordinary, waking, conscious mind is lulled in the sleep state, you travel in other dimensions.  You are already having experiences in these other dimensions then.  You are preparing your own way.  When you die you go into those ways that you have prepared.  There are various periods of training that vary according to the individual.”

“You must understand the nature of reality before you can manipulate within it well.  In physical reality you are learning that your thoughts have reality, and that you create the reality that you know.  When you leave this dimension, then you concentrate upon the knowledge you have gained.  If you still do not realize that you create your own reality, then you return, and again you learn to manipulate, and again and again you see the results of your own inner reality as you meet it objectified.  You teach yourself the lesson until you have learned it; then you begin to learn how to handle the consciousness that is yours, intelligently as well.  Then you can form images for the benefit of others, and lead and guide them.  Then you constantly enlarge the scope of your understanding.”

Then asked, “What determines the time between reincarnations?”  Seth replies, “You.  If you are very tired, then you rest.  If you are wise, you take time to digest your knowledge and plan your next life, even as a writer plans his next book.  If you have too many ties with this reality or if you are too impatient, or if you have not learned sufficiently, then  you may return too quickly.  It is always up to the individual.  There is no predestination.  The answers are within yourself then, as the answers are within you now.”

A student says, “Seth said earlier that all time existed at once.  Then how come he talks about reincarnational lives or a series of lives one before the other?  The two don’t seem to go together.”  Seth answered, “Your idea of time is false.  Time as you experience it is an illusion caused by your own physical senses.  They force you to perceive action in certain terms, but this is not the nature of action.  The physical senses can only perceive reality a little bit at a time, and so it seems to you that one moment exists and is gone forever, and the next moment comes and like the one before also disappears.

“But everything in the universe exists at one time, simultaneously.  The first words ever spoken still ring through the universe, and in your terms, the last words ever spoken have already been said, for there is no beginning.  It is only your perception that is limited.

“There is no past, present, and future.  These only appear to those who exist within three-dimensional reality.  Since I am no longer in it, I can perceive what you do not.  There is also a part of you that is not imprisoned within physical reality, and that part of you knows that there is only an “Ethernal Now.  The part of you who knows this is the whole self.

“When I tell you that you lived, for example, in 1836, I say this because it makes sense to you now.  You live all your reincarnations at once, but to you this difficult to understand within the context of three-dimensional reality.

“Pretend that you have several dreams, and you know that you are dreaming.  Within each dream, one hundred earthly years may pass, but to you, the dreamer, no time has passed, for you are free of the dimension in which time exists.  The time you seem to spend within the dream—or within each life—is only an illusion, and to the inner self no time has passed because there is no time.”

Actually Seth has used several analogies to explain reincarnational experiences… “The various reincarnational selves can be superficially regarded as portions of a crossword puzzle, for they are all portions of the whole, and yet they can exist separately.”

“Because you are obsessed with the idea of past, present, and future, you are forced to think of reincarnations as strung out one before the other.  Indeed we speak of past lives because you are used to the time sequence concept.”

How many lives do we live?  Is there a limit to them?  “Quite simply, we live as many physical existences as we feel we must in order to develop our abilities and prepare ourselves to enter other dimensions of reality.”

Within this framework of development, however, there is a minimum requirement. Seth says:  “As a rule, each entity is born so that three roles are experienced—that of mother, father, and child.”

Seth also says that some personalities do not develop well in the physical environment, but fulfill themselves in other realities.  In other words, the “last” reincarnation is not the end.  There are other dimensions of existence in which we have an even greater part to play in the maintenance of life and consciousness…  But central to Seth’s discussions of reincarnation are the following excerpts that place reincarnation in perspective, individually and historically.

“In the materialization of personality through various reincarnations, only the ego and the layers of personal subconscious adopt new characteristics.  The other layers of the self retain their past experiences, identity, and knowledge.

“In fact, the ego receives much if its [relative] stability because of this subconscious retention.  Were it not for past experiences in other lives on the part of deeper layers of the self, the ego would find it almost impossible to relate to other individuals, and the cohesiveness of society would not exist.

“Learning to some extent is passed on through the genes, biochemically, but this is a physical materialization of inner knowledge achieved and retained from past lives….  The human being does not… erupt into existence at birth and laboriously then begin its first attempt to gain experience.  If this were the case, you would still be back in the Stone Age.

“There are waves of energy, and waves of reincarnational patterns, there have been many Stone Ages on your planet, where new identities did begin there ‘first’ experience with physical existence, and changed the face of the earth as they progressed….”

Yet all of this occurs, basically, within the blinking of an eyelid, all with purpose and meaning, and based upon achievement and responsibility.  Each part of the self, while independent to some considerable degree, is nevertheless responsible to every other portion of the self; and each whole self [entity] is responsible to all others, while it is largely independent as to activity and decision.

“For as many layers of the self compose the whole self [entity], so many entities form a gestalt of which you know relatively little and of which I am not as yet prepared to tell you.” (This last remark was to lead, much later, into whole blocks of sessions dealing with the God concept.)

Whether or not you understand or accept your reincarnation background, it is highly important to live a sane, balanced life in this life.  We form our day-to-day reality.  We formed our past lives, and we form this one.  And by solving problems now, we can make things vastly easier for our “past” and “future” selves.

Health & Vitality:

“If you imagine dire circumstances, ill health, or desperate loneliness, these will be automatically materialized, for these thoughts themselves bring about the conditions that will give them reality in physical terms.  If you would have good health, then you must imagine this as vividly as in fear you imagine the opposite.

“You create your own difficulties.  This is true for each individual.  The inner psychological state is projected outward, gaining physical reality—and this regardless of the nature of the psychological state...”

“You cannot escape your own attitudes, for they will form the nature of what you see.  Quite literally will for m the nature of what you see; and you see your own thoughts and emotional attitudes materialized in physical form.  If changes are to occur, they must be mental and psychic changes.  These will be reflected in your environment.  Negative, distrustful, fearful, or degrading attitudes toward anyone work against the self”

“Telepathy operates constantly.  If you continually expect an individual to behave in a particular manner, then you are constantly sending him telepathic suggestions that he will do so.”

“If an individual sees only evil and desolation in the physical world, it is because he is obsessed with evil and desolation and projects them outward, and closes  his eyes to all else.  If you want to know what you think of yourself, then ask yourself what you think of others, and you will find your answer.”

“You are not your body.  You are not your emotions.  You have emotions.  You have thoughts as you have eggs for breakfast, but you are not the eggs, and you are not your emotions.  You are as independent of your thoughts and emotions as you are of the bacon and eggs.  You use the bacon and eggs in your physical composition, and you use your thoughts and emotions in your mental composition.  Surely you do not identify with a piece of bacon?  Then do not identify with your thoughts and emotions.  When you set up barriers and doors, then you enclose emotions within you… as if you stored up tons of bacon in your refrigerator and then wondered why there was room for nothing else.”

“…Any heightened sensation, pleasant or not, has a stimulating effect upon consciousness to some degree.  Even when the stimulus may be humiliatingly unpleasant, certain portions of the psychological structure accept it indiscriminately because it is a sensation, and a vivid one.”

Over and over Seth says that physical symptoms are communications from the inner self, indications that we are making mental errors of one kind or another…”

“Do not forget that you are a part of the inner self.  It is not using you.  You are the portion of it that experiences physical reality.  Now, physical illnesses that are not critical but observable–that do not involve, say, loss of a limb or organ—generally represent problems that are in the process of being solved, problems that are ‘out in the open.’”

People who are terrified of physical death might take this path (speaking of senility), since when the physical death occurs, consciousness is already acquainted with its new environment and the organism’s death is relatively meaningless.  In any case, the individual’s inner decision causes the physical symptoms, not the other way around.”

Dreams:

Dream reality is as valid and real as waking reality.  Dreams definitely affect daily life.  They can improve our health or help deepen a mood of depression.

It as been known throughout the ages that dreams can give us clues to all kinds of behavior.  Psychoanalysts use dreams to delve into subconscious motivations, but few people know how to utilize dreams creatively; to improve health, gain inspiration, restore vitality, solve problems, and enrich family relationships.

“The personality is composed of energy gestalts.  As the personality is changed by any experience, it is changed by its dreams; and as an individual is molded by his physical environment to some extent, so is he molded by the dreams which he himself creates… The self is limitless.  When your perceptions fail, it seems to you that boundaries appear.  For example, it seems to you that dreams cease when you are no longer aware of them.  This is not so.

“On one level the personality attempts to solve problems through dream construction… and often gives freedom to actions that cannot be adequately expressed within the confines of waking life.  If the attempt fails, then the problem or action may materialize as an illness.

“Consider, for example, a situation in which a personality needs to express dependency but feels such expression inappropriate.  If he is able to form a dream in which he plays a dependent part, then the problem may be solved within the dream state.  In many instances, this is precisely what happens.  The individual may never recall such a dream, but the experience would be valid and the dependency expressed.

“Much work has been done to interpret dreams, but little to control the direction of activity within them.  Upon proper suggestion, this can be an excellent method of therapy.  Negative dreams tend to reinforce the negative aspects of the personality, helping to form vicious circles of unfortunate complications.  Dream actions can be turned toward fulfilling constructive expectations, which can themselves effect a change for the better.

“Many illnesses could largely be avoided through such dream therapy.  Rather harmlessly, aggressive tendencies could be given freedom within the dream state.  Suggestions would be given that the individual involved would experience, say, aggressiveness, within a dream.  It would also be suggested to him that when learn to understand his aggressions by watching himself while he was dreaming.  If I man in a fantasy, theoretically you could imagine a massive experiment in dream therapy where wars were fought by sleeping, not waking, nations.”

Over and over Seth says that a dream or imaginative experience is as real as any waking event.  If you have a period of depression, you are apt to have depressing dreams during the same period.  But Seth suggests the following exercise as a dream therapy:  before sleep, suggest to yourself that you will have a pleasant or joyful dream that will completely restore you r good spirits and vitality.  Unless the depression is very deep-seated, it will be broken or greatly weakened when you awaken.

“Each dream begins with psychic energy which the individual transforms not into physical matter, but into a reality every bit as functional and real.  He forms the idea into a dream object or event with amazing discrimination, so that the dream object itself gains existence and exists in numerous dimensions…

“Although the dreamer creates his dreams for his own purposes, selecting only those symbols which have meaning to him, he projects them outward in a value fulfillment and psychic expansion.  The expansion occurs as the dream is acted out.  A contraction occurs as the dreamer is finished with the dream events, but the energy cannot be taken back.”

“So when you consider the dream world, you have the same sort of universe, only one constructed within a field that you cannot physically perceive.  But it has more continuity than the world you know and there are similarities within it that are amazing to behold…

“For one thing… those who know existence on the physical level now, have, because of certain cycles, lived before approximately the same historical periods.  They possess an inner familiarity, a cohesiveness that belonged to a more or less specific period and to periods before, where they inhabited the same sort of reality.  Their dream experiences, then, are not so diverse as you might suppose.  Certain symbols are constructed into realities in the dream system, then, in much the same manner that ideas are constructed into matter in the physical system.

“The same sort of psychic agreement holds the dream system together as holds the physical system together.  If a man could actually focus upon those unrecognized elements in the physical universe upon which no agreements can be reached, if he could focus upon the dissimilarities rather than the similarities, then he would wonder what gave anyone the idea that there was even one physical object upon which man could agree.

“He would wonder what collective madness permitted man to select from a virtual infinity of chaos a mere handful of similarities and make of it a universe.  So do you, viewing the seeming chaos of dream reality, wonder how I can say that it contains cohesiveness, actually, and comparative permanence.”

One reason, I think, that dreams seem so chaotic and meaningless at times is simply that we only remember dim fragments of them and forget the unifying factors.  Another reason is that dreams have an intuitive, associative “logic” that has to be interpreted, and in which time, as we know it, has little meaning.  According to Seth, some dreams are simple enough, dealing with unresolved present problems or events.  Even in these, however, the dream event may also represent events from past lives.

“You think that you are conscious only when you are awake.  You assume yourselves to be unconscious when you sleep.  The dice are indeed loaded on the side of the waking mind.  But pretend for a moment that you are looking at this situation from another side.

“Pretend that you are in the dream state and concerned with the problem of waking consciousness and existence.  From that viewpoint, the picture is entirely different, for you are indeed conscious while you sleep.

“The locations that you visit while dreaming are as real to you then as physical locations are to you now.  Let us speak no more of a conscious or unconscious self.  There is one self and it focuses its attention in various dimensions.  In the waking state it focuses in physical reality.  In the dream state it is focused within a different dimension.

“If you have little memory of dream locations when you are awake, you have little memory of ‘physical’ locations when you are in the dream state.  When the physical body lies in bed, it is separated by a vast distance from the dream location in which the dreaming self may dwell.  But this distance has nothing to do with space, for the dream location can exist simultaneously with the room in which the body sleeps.

“Dream locations are not superimposed upon, say, the bed and chest and chair.  They exist composed of the very same atoms and molecules that in the waking state you perceive as bed and chest and chair.  Objects, remember, are the results of your perception.  From energy you form patterns which you then recognize as objects and use.  But the objects are useless unless you are focused within the dimension for which they were specifically formed.

“In some dream states you form from these same atoms and molecules the environment in which you will operate.  While dreaming you cannot find the or chest or chair; and awake you cannot find the dream location which was there only moments before.”

This does not mean that we do not sometimes leave out bodies and travel in our dream or astral bodies to other physical locations.  According to Seth we do so often, whether or not we remember.

“I mentioned the Crucifixion, saying once that it was actuality a reality, although it did not take place in y our [physical] time.  It took place in the same sort of time in which a dream occurs and its reality was felt by generations.  Not being a physical reality, it influenced the world of physical matter in a way that no purely physical event could.

“The Crucifixion was one of the realities that enriched both the universe of dreams and the universe of matter, and it originated in the universe of dreams.  It was a main contribution of that system to your own, and could be physically compared to the emergence of a new planet within the physical universe.”

Seth is not saying here that the Crucifixion was “just a dream.”  He is saying that though it did not occur historically, it did happen within another reality and emerged in to history as an idea rather than a physical event—an idea that changed civilization.  (According to Seth, an idea is an event, whether physically materialized or not.)

Seth goes on to say:  “The Ascension [of Christ] did not occur in time as you know it.  It is also a contribution of the universe of dreams to your physical system, representing the knowledge that man is independent of physical matter…

“Many concepts and practical inventions simply wait in the dream system in abeyance until some man accepts them as possibilities within the physical frame of reality… Imagination is waking man’s connection with the dream system.  Imagination often reinstates dream date and applies it to particular circumstances or problems within daily life…

“The dream universe, then, possesses concepts which will someday completely transform the history of the physical world, but a denial of such concepts as possibilities delays their emergence.”

“There is form within dream reality, but form is first of all potential existing within psychical materialization.  The house that you may live in within five years may not yet exist in your terms.  It may not have been built yet, therefore physically you would perceive it.  Still, such a house does have form, and does exist within the Spacious Present.

“Now in certain levels of dream reality, forms such as this can be perceived.  Within dream reality you can come into contact with many other kinds of phenomena with which usually you do not have to deal…

“When you are manipulating within physical reality, you have a fairly simple set of rules to serve you.  Within dream reality there is greater freedom.  The ego is not present.  The waking consciousness is not the ego.  The ego is only that portion of waking consciousness that deals with physical manipulation.

“Waking consciousness can be taken into the dream state; the ego cannot, as it would falter and cause immediate failure.

“It is quite possible for a dreamer to visit planetary systems, of the past, present, or future in your terms.  Such visits are usually fragmentary and spontaneous.  It is best that they remain so.”

According to Seth, we do have shared dreams or mass dreams.  These actually act as a stabilizing force in our daily lives.  Are our dreams private?  Apparently not nearly as private as we suppose.  In the 254^th session Seth had this to say:  “In certain areas of mass, shared dreams, collective mankind deals with problems of his political and social structure.  The solutions he reaches within dream reality are not always the same as those he accepts in the physical world.

“The dream solutions are held as ideals, however.  Without mass dreams, for example, your United Nations would not exist…  If you were aware of the constant barrage of telepathic communications that do impinge upon you, it would be most difficult for you now to retain a sense of identity.  Shared dreams, then, are also usually well beneth awareness… As identity is strengthened through experience, it automatically expands itself to add further realities within which it can manipulate.

“When you dream of others, they know it.  When they dream of you, you know it.  There would be nothing to be gained, however, in conscious awareness of these conditions at this time.”

“As you may know, many people dreamed of Jack Kennedy’s death in advance.  On one level the knowledge was available to the man himself.  This does not mean that the death had to occur.  It was a vivid possibility.  It was also one of many solutions to several problems.  While it was not the most suitable solution, it was the closest man could come at that particular time in physical reality…”

Seth went on to say that emotional intensity of a dream is very seldom recalled in its full strength.  Then briefly, he mentioned mass dreams as a way of bringing about historical change.

Those who are concerned about the present racial situation “dream individually and collectively of changing it.  They act out in their dreams the various way sin which changeabouts could occur.  These dreams actually help bring about the resulting change that will then happen.  The very energy and direction of the dreams will help change the situation.”

According to the Seth Material, our psychic development and growth, learning processes and experience, are all involved with our dream life.  In it we visit other levels of existence, and even gain needed skills.  There are definite electromagnetic and chemical connections that unite our stages of consciousness at such times, and he goes into detail about them.

Through our dreams we change physical reality, and our physical daily experience alters our dream experience.  There is constant interaction.  Our consciousness is simply directed in a different kind of reality when we dream, a reality as vivid as waking life.  We may forget our dreams, but they are always a part of us, even though we may not be aware of their entire reality.

Seth says: “The dream experience is felt directly by the inner self.  Dreams have an electric actuality, as I told you.  In this [electronic actuality] they not only exist independently of the dreamer, but they have what you might call tangible form, though not in the form of matter as you are familiar with.”

“A man’s thoughts and dreams are far more reaching than he knows.  They exist in more dimensions; they affect worlds of which he is unaware.  They are as concrete, in effect, as any building.  They appear in many guises within many systems, and once created cannot be withdrawn…”

Probable Selves & Probable Systems of Reality:

What is a probable self?  According to Seth, each of us has counterparts in other systems of reality; not identical selves or twins, but other selves who are part of our entity, developing abilities in a different way that we are here.  These probable personalities are further removed from us that our reincarnational selves, more like distant relations who bear a family resemblance… some of them have methods of perception different from ours.

“There are, in fact, infinite varieties of matter, existing in what you would call one space framework.  Using the physical senses you can never perceive these other systems.  Advanced training in the use of the Inner Senses can lead to such explorations, however.  Your probably self is more advanced—his system is more advanced in this respect.

“In the same way that thoughts can be sent through space, so individual consciousness can be sent through systems of reality (other dimensions).  As a seed can fly through the air, so individual consciousness can travel through these systems, but it must be protected.”

Probable systems of reality is as “real” as ours, according to Seth.  To its inhabitants, it is composed of physical matter, and it is just one of an infinite number of systems or universes between matter and antimatter.

From Session 231:  The Self and Probable Realities:

“Action is action whether or not you perceive it, and probably events are events whether or not you perceive them.  Thoughts are also events, as are wishes and desires.  The human system responds as fully to these as it does to physical events.  In dreams, often portions of probable events are experienced in a semiconscious manner.  This amounts to a bleed-through, and I use the term purposely, for your tape recorder can be used as an analogy.

“Imagine the whole self as composed of some master tape.  Your recorder has four channels.  We will give our recorder numberless channels.  Each one represents a portion of the whole self, each existing in a different dimension, yet all a part of the whole self (or tape).  You see it would be ridiculous to say that Mono One on your tape was any more or less valid than Mono Two.  Mono One could be compared to your present ego.

“We will now imagine these selves multiplied, for you have selves three, four, five, and six, and so forth.  Now on our recorder you have a setting for stereo.  This enables you to mix and combine harmoniously the elements of the various channels—simultaneously.  I am taking my time here so you get this clearly, because I do not often come through with such pure clarity of stereophonic.

“Your stereophonic setting can be compared to what we have termed the inner ego.  Each of the selves experience time in its own manner according to the nature of its perceptions.  When the stereophonic channel is turned on, the selves then know their unity.  Their various realities merge in the overall perceptions of the whole self.

“Until the whole self is thus able to perceive its own parts simultaneously, then these seemingly separate portions appear to themselves isolated and alone.  There is communication between them, but they are not aware of it.  The tape is the element common to all channels.  Now the inner ego is the director, but the whole self (or soul) must know itself.  It is not enough that the inner ego knows what is going on.  Ultimately the inner ego must bring about comprehension on the parts of the simultaneous selves.

“Each portion of the whole self must become aware of the other parts.  We are not dealing with anything as simple as a recorder for our tapes (selves) are constantly changing…”

The Difference between Probable Events and Physical Events:

“Take, for example, Event X.  This probable event will be experienced by the various portions of the self in their own way.  When it is experienced by your ego, it is a physical event.  When it is perceived by other portions of the self, the ego does not know of it.

“It is actually all the same and is experienced in variation.  The whole self perceives and is affected by probabilities, then, and perceives these as actions whether or not the ego has chosen to accept any given event as physical.  The time sequence also varies.  Past, present, and future are realities only to your ego.

“Now the inner ego, as you know, exists in the Spacious Present.  The Spacious Present is the basic ‘time’ in which the whole self exists but the various portions of the self have their experiences in their own time systems.

“It should be obvious that the psychological frameworks must be different when the time-experience is different.  You can see for yourself the psychological variations that exist simply between the conscious and subconscious, for example….

“The ego maintains much of its stability by looking backward into a ‘past’ and finding something of itself there.  The portions of the self that deal in probabilities do not have experience with a ‘past’ to give them a sense of identity or continuity.  Permanence, as the ego thinks of it, would be an alien concept to these portions of the self, and highly distasteful, adding up to rigidity.

“Flexibility is the key word here, voluntary changing of the self as it is allowed to explore each probability.  Experience is of a plastic nature.  The basic sense of identity here is carried by what you could compare to the subconscious that you know.  In other words, it is the portion of the psychological structure that carries the burden of identity, and it is the ego whose experiences are of a dreamlike nature.”

From Session 232:

“This system of probabilities is quite as real as the physical system, and you exist in it whether or not you realize it.  You simply are not focused within it.  You may become aware of it (or of one of your probable selves) while in the dream state occasionally.  I have told you that dream images have a definite reality.  So do probable events.  They simply do not appear concrete to you.

“You man dream of holding an apple, for example, and awaken to find it gone.  This does not mean that it did not exist, but in the waking state you do not perceive it.  In the same way you do not perceive the actuality of probable events on a conscious basis. A portion of your whole self is quite involved in these probably events, however.  The ‘I’ of your dreams can be legitimately compared to the self that experiences probable events.  (That ‘I’ would consider itself fully conscious and view the waking ‘I’ as the probable self.)

“Let us consider the following.  An individual finds himself with a choice of three actions.  He chooses one and experiences it.  The other two actions are experienced also, by the inner ego, but not in the physical reality.  …The results are then checked by the inner ego as an aid in other decision-making.  The probable actions were definitely experienced, however, and such experience makes up the existence of the ‘probable selves’ just as dream actions make up the experience of the dreaming self….  There is a constant subconscious interchange of information between all layers of the whole self.”

From Session 227:

“The package of experience upon which you can focus is indeed composed of many small packages, but the whole package of reality is much larger than this.  A portion of the self can and does experience events in an entirely different fashion (than the ego does) and this portion goes off on a different tangent.  For when your conscious self perceives Event X, this other part of your self branches off, so to speak, into all the other probable events that could have been experienced by the ego.

“The ego must choose one event because of its limitations.  But this other portion of the self can and does delve into what you could call Event X1, X2, X3, X4, etcetera.  It can pursue and experience all of these alternative events in the same amount of physical that it takes for the ego to experience Event X alone.

“This is not as farfetched as it might seem.  The shaking of a hand may be perceived by you as a simple action.  You are not aware of the million small acts which make up this seemingly insignificant action.  They exist nevertheless.  It does not take you time to perceive them one by one.  You perceive them in their completed fashion.  Now this portion of the self experiences these probable events consciously, with as much rapidity as you subconsciously perceive the million small actions that make up the handshake.”

From Session 227:  Personality and Probabilities:

“These portions of the self simply operate in a different dimension of reality, with different fields of activity.  In this particular instance, compare the various portions of the whole self to the various members of a family:  The man may work in the city.  The woman man work at their home in the country.  Of three children, each may attend a different school.  They are all members of the family unit and operate out of the same house.  There is no basic reason why any of the children could not spend his days at his father’s office, but he would not be able to understand the events or activities there.

“There is within the family a general realization of the experiences of its members, but these are secondhand except for those event shared by the family as a whole.  There is also a generalized intuitional knowledge on the part of any portion of the self as to the experiences of the other portions.

“Some events will be perceived by all layers of the self, however, though in their own fashion, and experienced as a unit.  There are few of these but they are very vivid and they serve—as do the family’s joint experiences—to reinforce the identity of the entire psychological structure.

“Again:  probable events are as real as the one event chosen from them to be a physical experience.  Take our Event X again.  It is only one of numberless probable events.  For it purposes, however, the conscious ego chooses Event X.  But until this ego experiences the event, it is only one of all the other probable events, different in no way.  It becomes actual in your reality only when it is experienced by the physical self….

“These other probable events become just as ‘real’ within other dimensions.  As a sideline, there are some interesting episodes when a sever psychological shock or deep sense of futility causes a short circuit so that one portion of the self begins to experience one of its other probable realities.  I am thinking in particular of some cases of amnesia where the victim ends up suddenly in a different town with another name, occupation, and no memory of his own past.  In some the event, it is only of all the other probable event, but he must experience it, you see, within his own time system.”

The Multidimensional Personality:

Seth speaking to a psychology class:

“Identity is not the same as personality.  Personality represents only those aspects of identity that you are able to actualize within three-dimensional existence…. Personality may be molded by circumstances, in your terms, but identity uses the experience and is not swept willy-nilly.

“It is true that there are no limitations to the self, and in one respect you can say that the self reaches out regarding the nature of personality do not take into consideration the existence of telepathy or clairvoyance or the fact of reincarnation.  What you have, in effect, is a one-dimensional psychology.  Identity operates in many dimensions, however….”

“You have here (in the session itself) a provocative demonstration of the nature of personality.  For my personality is not Jane’s, nor is her mine.  I am not a secondary personality, for instance.  I make no attempt to dominate Jane’s life, nor indeed would I expect her to allow it.  I do not represent any repressed portions of Jane’s own being.  As those here know, she is hardly the repressed type on her own!

“I have helped her, in that her own personality operates more effectively.  She is able to use her own abilities more fully.  But that is hardly a psychological crime.  The facts are that all of you are more than you know.  Each of you exists in other realities and other dimensions, and the self that you call yourself is but a small portion of your entire identity.

“Now, in dreams you do have contact with other parts of yourself.  This communication goes on constantly, but your ego is so focused upon physical reality and survival within it that you do not hear the inner voice.  You must realize that what you are cannot be seen in a mirror.  You do not see your subconscious.  You do not see the inner self in a mirror.  These are but terms to express the part of you that cannot be seen or touched.  But within the selves that you know is the prime identity, the whole inner self.  This whole self has lived many lives.  It has adopted many personalities.  It is an energy essence personality, even as I am.  The only difference is that I am not materialized within physical matter.  You do not suddenly acquire a ‘spirit’ at death.  You are one, now.”

“You may, if you wish, call me a subconscious production.  I do not particularly enjoy such a designation, since it is not true.  But if you do call me a subconscious extension of Jane’s own personality, then you must agree that the subconscious is telepathic and clairvoyant, since I have shown telepathic and clairvoyant abilities.  So, may I remind you, has Jane on her own…. However, unless you are willing to assign to the subconscious those abilities—and most of your colleagues do not—then I cannot be considered to have such a subconscious origin.

“If you are willing to concede the point, then I have other arguments.  My memories are not the memories of a young woman.  My mind is not a young woman’s mind.  I have been used to many occupations, and Jane has no memory of them.  I am not a father image of Jane’s, nor am I the male figure that lurks in the back of the female mind.  Nor does our friend Jane have homosexual tendencies.  I am simply an energy essence personality, no longer materialized in physical form.

“Personality and identity are not dependent upon physical form.  It is only because you think they are that you find this sort of performance so strange….  You adopt a body as a space traveler wears a space suit, and for much the same reason.”

“One other point:  These sessions are scheduled, and therefore operate under certain controlled conditions.  Jane’s own personality is in no way threatened by them, and her ego has been carefully coddled and protected.  It has not been shunted aside.  Instead it has been taught new abilities…. I was not artificially ‘brought to birth’ through hypnosis.  There was no artificial tampering of personality characteristics here.  There was no hysteria.  Jane allows me to use the nervous system under highly controlled conditions.  I am not given a blanket permission to take over when I please, nor would I desire such an arrangement.  I have other things to do too.”

Seth says that even in this life, each of us has various egos; we only accept the idea of one ego as a sort of shorthand symbolism.  The ego at any given time in this life is simply the part of us that “surfaces”; a group of characteristics that the inner self uses to solve various problems.  Even the ego as we t think of it changes constantly.

“Once more, action is not a force from without that acts upon matter.  Action is, instead, the inside vitality of the inner universe—it is the dilemma between inner vitality’s desire and impetus to completely materialize itself, and its inability to completely do so.”

Seth says that the physical body and its senses are specialized equipment to allow us to live in physical reality.  To perceive other realities, we have to use the Inner Senses—methods of perception that belong to the inner self and operate whether or not we have a physical form.  Seth calls the universe as we know it a “camouflage” system, since physical matter is simply the form that vitality—action—takes within it.  Other realities are also camouflage systems, and within them consciousness also has specialized equipment tailored to their peculiar characteristics.  But the Inner Senses allow us to see beneath the camouflage.

Seth says that each of us can reach the inner self, that the Inner Senses help us to perceive other than three-dimensional reality, and that we can get to this knowledge with determination and training.  We start with ourselves and travel through our own subjective experience, working from the ego inward.  The physical senses help us to perceive the exterior reality that we know.  The Inner Senses let us perceive the inner ones.

From Session 224:  The personality and Time:

“The past exists as a series of electromagnetic connections held in the physical brain and in the nonphysical mind.  These electromagnetic connections can be changed….  The future consists of a series of electromagnetic connections in the mind and brain also, and this is the only reality that you are justified in giving the present.  In other words, the past and present are real to the same extent. On occasion the past can become more ‘real’ than the present, and in such cases past actions are reacted to in what you call the present.  You take if for granted that present action can change the future, but present actions can also change the past.  The past is no more objective or independent from the perceiver than is the present.  These electromagnetic connections that compose the past were largely made by the individual perceiver, and the perceiver is always a participator.

“The connections, therefore, can be changed, and spontaneously on a subconscious basis.  The past is seldom what you remember it to be, for you have event.  The past is being constantly re-created by each individual as attitudes and associations change.  This is an actual re-creation, not a symbolic one.  The child is indeed still within the man, but he is not the child that ‘was.’  For even the child within the man constantly changes.

“Difficulties arise, in fact, when such alterations do not occur automatically.  Severe neurosis is often caused precisely because the individual has not changed his past.  Once more, the only reality that can be assigned to the past is that granted to the symbols and associations and images that exist electromagnetically within the physical brain and nonphysical mind.

“I am speaking in your terms now, and this should be understood, as I am simplifying conditions considerably.  A change of attitude, a new association, or any of innumerable other actions will automatically set up new electromagnetic connections and break others.  Every action changes every other action—we go back our ABC’s.  Therefore, every action in your present affects those actions you call past.  Ripples from a thrown stone go out in all directions, and I am going out rather far on the limb myself right here.  Remembering what you know of the nature of time, you realize that the apparent boundaries between past, present, and future are only illusions caused by the amount of action you can physically perceive.  Therefore, it is possible to react in the past to an event that has not yet occurred, to be influenced by your own future.  It is also possible for an individual to react in the past to an event in the future which may never occur in your terms.”

“On a subconscious level, you react to many events that have not yet occurred as far as your egotistical awareness is concerned.  Such reactions are carefully screened out and not admitted to consciousness.  There ego finds such instances distracting and annoying, and when forced to admit their validity, will resort to the most farfetched rationalizations to explain them.  The inner self can perceive events that will occur after physical death.  It never was imprisoned by ego time.  Its perceptions are merely inhibited by the ego.  The inner self can perceive events that will occur to itself after death, those in which it is not involved.

“In all of these instances, however, there are uncertainties, for probable events can be seen as clearly as events that will physically happen.  No event is predestined.  Any given event can be changed not only before and during but after its occurrence.  Again, I am not speaking symbolically, and I realize t hat I am leaving myself open to strong criticisms that certainly cannot be answered in this one evening.

“There are, for example, limitations set here that must be clearly stated, but within these limitations you will find that events can be changed and are constantly changed, regardless of the apparent point of their original happening.  All of this applies unless an individual is taken completely out of the physical time system.  A murdered man will not be returned whole and intact to physical life (though he may return as a spirit, believing he is still alive.)

“In summation:  the individual is hardly at the mercy of past events, for he changes them constantly.  He is hardly at the mercy of future events, for he changes these not only before but after their happening.  Again:  the past is as real as the future, no more or less.  For the past exists only as a pattern of electromagnetic currents within the mind and brain, and these constantly change….  An individual’s future actions are not dependent upon a concrete finished past, for such a past never existed.”

A bit about Seth and his role

“I have been sent to help you, and others have been sent through the centuries of your time, for as you develop you also form new dimensions, and you will help others.

 “You are like children with a game and you think that the game is played by everyone.  Physical life is not the rule.  Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed.  You see physical bodies and suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms.  Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one.  It is only because your own viewpoint is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence.

“The source and power of your present consciousness has never been physical, and where I am, many are not even aware that such a physical system exists.  The physical system is an illusion, but you must accept it and from its viewpoint try to understand the realities that exist beyond it.  The illusions are real since they exist.  Your (reality) is simply not one that I have pursued, and one of the purposes of my participation in these sessions is to acquaint Jane with inner travel.  She must leave the physical system, and in so doing set up habits and paths that can be used to advantage.”

“The inner portions of your own identity and reality are not known to you, for you cannot objectify them, and therefore you do not perceive them.  So much of your energy is used in these physical productions that you cannot afford to perceive any reality but your own.  Again, like children playing with blocks, your focus of attention is upon physical blocks.

“Other shapes and forms that you could perceive, you do not.  Even in explaining other realities to you, I must use the words ‘shapes’ and ‘forms’ or you would not understand me.  You have your mathematics from us; a shadow of true mathematics, for here again you have insisted upon hemming-in realities.  Your idea of progress is building larger blocks.  Yet none of us would think of kicking aside your block constructions in ire, or telling you to put aside your children’s toys, though one day you will do so.

“Later, in your time, all of you will look down into the physical system like giants peering through small windows at the others now in your position and smile.  But you will not want to stay, nor craw through the small enclosures…. We protect such systems.  Our basic and ancient knowledge and energy automatically reaches out to nourish all systems that grow—“

The God Concept

“God is not human in your terms, though he passed through human stages; and here the Buddhist myth comes closer to approximating reality.  He is not one individual, but an energy gestalt.

“There is no personal God-individual in Christian terms,” Seth says, “and yet you do have access to a portion of All That Is (God), a portion highly attuned to you…. There is a portion of All That Is (God) directed and focused within each individual, residing within each consciousness.  Each consciousness is, therefore, cherished and individually protected.  This portion of overall consciousness is individualized within you.

“The personality of God is generally conceived is a one-dimensional concept based upon man’s small knowledge of his own psychology.  What you prefer to think of as God is, again, an energy gestalt or pyramid consciousness.  It is aware of itself as being, for instance, you.  It is aware of itself as the smallest seed…. This portion of All That Is (God) that is aware of itself as you, that is focused within your existence, can be called upon for help when necessary.

“This portion is also aware of itself as something more than you.  This portion that knows itself as you, and as more than you, is the personal God, you see.  Again: this gestalt, this portion of All That Is (God), looks out of for your interests and may be called upon in personal manner.

“Prayer contains its own answer, and if there is no white-haired kind old father-God to hear, t hen there is instead the initial and ever-expanding energy that forms everything that is and of which each human being is a part.

“This psychic gestalt may sound impersonal to you, but since its energy forms your person, how can this be?

“If you prefer to call this supreme psychic gestalt God, then you must not attempt to objectify him, for he is the nuclei of your cells and more intimate than your breath.”

“Even this overall gestalt is not static.  Most of your God concepts deal with a static God, and here is one of your main theological difficulties.  The awareness and experience of this gestalt constantly changed and grows.  There is no static God.  When you say, ‘This is God,’ then God is already something else.  I am using the term ‘God’ for simplicity’s sake.

In another session, Seth explained it this way:  “You are cocreators.  What you call God is the sum of all consciousness, and yet the whole is more than sum of Its parts.  God is more than the sum of all personalities, and yet all personalities are what He is.

“There is constant creation.  There is within you a force that knew how to grow you from a fetus to a grown adult.  This force is part of the innate knowledge within all consciousness, and it is a part of the God within you.

“The responsibility for your life and your world is indeed yours.  It has not been forced upon you by some outside agency.  You form your own dream, and you form your own psychical reality.  The world is what you are.  It is the physical materialization of the inner selves which have formed it.”  But if God cannot be objectified, what about Christ?  Seth Says that he did not exist as one historic personage.  “When the race is in deepest stress and faced with great problems, it will call forth someone like Christ.  It will seek out and indeed from itself produce the very personalities necessary to give it strength….

“There were three men whose lives became confused in history and merged, and whose composite history became known as the life of Christ…. Each was highly gifted psychically, knew of his role, and accepted it willingly.  The three men were a part of one entity, gaining physical existence in one time.  They were not born on the same date, however.  There are reasons why the entity did not return as one person.  For one thing, the full consciousness of an entity would be too strong for one physical vehicle.  For another, the entity wanted a more diversified environment than could otherwise be provided.

“The entity was born once as John the Baptist, and then he was born in two other forms.  One of these contained the personality that most stories of Christ refer to…. I will tell you about the other personality at a later time.  There was constant communication between these three portions of one entity, though they were born and buried at different dates.  The race called up these personalities from its own psychic bank, from the pool of individualized consciousness that was available to it.”

“Desire, wish, and expectation rules all actions and are the basis for all realities.  Within All That Is (God), therefore, the wish, desire, and expectation of creativity existed before all other actuality.  The strength and vitality of these desires and expectations then became in your terms so insupportable that All That Is (God) was driven to find the means to produce them.

“In other words, All That Is (God) existed in a state of being, but without the means to find expression for Its being.  This was the state of agony of which I spoke.  Yet it is doubtful that without this ‘period’ of contracted yearning, All That Is (God) could concentrate Its energy sufficiently enough to create the realities that existed in probable suspension within It.

“If you remember what I said about the way in which the universe expands, that it has nothing to do with space, then you may perhaps dimly perceive the existence of a psychic pyramid of interrelated, ever-expanding consciousness that creates, simultaneously and instantaneously, universes and individuals that are given—through the gifts of personal perspective—duration, psychic comprehension, intelligence, and eternal validity.

“This absolute, ever-expanding, instantaneous psychic gestalt, which you may call God if you prefer, is so secure in its existence that it can constantly break itself down and rebuild itself.

“Its energy is so unbelievable that it does indeed form all universes; and because its energy is within and behind all universes, systems, and fields, it is indeed aware of each sparrow that falls, for it is each sparrow that falls.”

“All That Is (God) retains memory of that state [That state being a state of agony in which the powers of creativity and existence were known, but the ways to produce them were not known.  This is the lesson that All That Is (God) had to learn, and that could not be taught.  This is the agony from which creativity originally was drawn, and its reflection is still seen.]  and it serves as a constant impetus—in your terms—toward renewed creativity.  Each self, as a part of All That Is (God), therefore also retains memory of that state.  It is for this reason that each minute consciousness is endowed with the impetus toward survival, change, development, and creativity.  It is not enough that All That Is (God), as a primary consciousness gestalt, desires further being, but that each portion of It also carries this determination.

“Yet the agony itself was used as a means, and the agony itself served as an impetus, strong enough so that All That Is (God) initiated within Itself the means to be.

“If—and this is impossible—all portions but the most minute last ‘unit’ of All That Is (God) were destroyed, All That Is (God) would continue, for within the smallest portion is the innate knowledge of the whole.  All That Is (God) protects Itself, therefore, and all that It has and is will create.

“When I speak of All That Is (God), you must understand my position within it.  All That Is (God) knows no other.  This does not mean that there may not be more to know.  It does not know whether or not other psychic gestalts like It may exist.  It is not aware of them if they do exist.  It is constantly searching.  It knows that something else existed before Its own primary dilemma when It could not express Itself.

“It is conceivable, then, that It has evolved, in your terms, so long ago that It has forgotten Its origin, that It has developed from still another Primary which has—again, in your terms—long since gone Its way.  So there are answers that I cannot give you, for they are not known anywhere in the system in which we have our existence.  We do know that within this system of our All That Is (God), creation continues and developments are never still.  We can deduce that on still other layers of which we are unaware, the same is true…

 “The agony and the desire to create represented Its proof of Its own reality.  The feelings, in other words, were adequate proof to All That Is (God) that It was.”

“These connections between you and All That Is (God) can never be severed, and Its awareness is so delicate and focused that Its attention is indeed directed with a prime creator’s love to each consciousness.

“All portions of All That Is (God) are constantly changing, enfolding and unfolding.  All That Is (God), seeking to know Itself, constantly creates new versions of Itself.  For this seeking Itself is a creative activity and the core of all action.

“You have been given free will.  Within you there are blueprints;  you know what you are to achieve as individuals and as people, as a race, as a species.  You can choose to ignore the blueprints.  Now:  Using your free will, you have made physical reality something quite different than what was intended.  You have allowed the ego to become overly developed and overly specialized.  In many respects, you are in a dream.  It is you who have made the dream too vivid.  You were to work out problems and challenges, but you were always to be aware of your own inner reality, and of your nonphysical existence.  To a large extent you have lost contact with this.  You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it becomes the only reality that you know.

“When you kill a man, you believe that you kill him forever.  Murder is, therefore, a crime and must be dealt with—because you have created it.  Death does not exist in those terms.

“In the dawn of physical existence, in the dawn before history began, men knew that death was merely a change of form.  No God created the crime of murder, and no God created sorrow or pain…. Again, because you believe that you can murder a man and end his consciousness forever, then murder exists within your reality and must be dealt with…. The assassin of Dr. King believes that he has blotted out a living consciousness for all eternity…. But your errors and mistakes, luckily enough, are not real and do not affect reality, for Dr. King still lives.”

“There is never any justification for violence.  There is no justification for hatred.  There is no justification for murder.  Those who indulge in violence for whatever reason are themselves changed, and the purity of their purpose adulterated.

“I have told you that if you do not like the state of your world, it is yourselves that you must change, individually and en masse.  This is the only way that change will be effected.  If your generation or any generation effects a change, this is the only way it will be done.  What I am telling you has been said before through the centuries.  It is up to you as to whether or not you will listen.

“It is wrong to curse a flower and wrong to curse a man.  It is wrong not to hold up any man in honor, and it is wrong to ridicule any man.  You must honor yourselves and see within yourselves the spirit of eternal vitality.  If you do not do this, then you destroy what you touch.  And you must honor each other individual also, because in him is the spark of eternal vitality.

“When you curse another, you curse yourselves, and the curse returns to you.  When you are violent, the violence returns…. I speak to you because yours is the opportunity [to better world conditions] and yours is the time.  Do not fall into the old ways that will lead you precisely into the world that you fear.

“When every young man refuses to go to war, you will have peace.  As long as you fight for gain and greed, t here will be no peace.  As long as one person commits acts of violence for the sake of peace, you will have war.  Unfortunately it is difficult to imagine that all the young men in all of the countries will refuse to go to war at the same time.  And so you must work out the violence that violence has wrought.  Within the next hundred years that time may come.  Remember, you do not defend any idea with violence.

To be continued…