“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

When you are considering the future in your terms, constructive achievements are as realistic as destructive ones. In those terms, each year of man’s existence in fact justifies a more optimistic rather than pessimistic view. You cannot place man’s good intent outside of the physical context, for outside of that context you do not have the creature that you know. You cannot say that nature is good, but spawned man, which is a cancer upon it, for nature would have better sense. You cannot say, either, that Nature — with a capital N — will destroy man if he offends her, or that Nature — with a capital N — has little use for its own species, but only wants to promote Life — with a capital L — for Nature is within each member of each species; and without each member of each species, Nature — with a capital or a small N — would be nonexistent.

This requires some unique understanding. I am aware of that — and yet the destructive storms worked by mankind ultimately cannot be said to be any more evil than the earthquake. While man’s works may often certainly appear destructive, you must not blame man’s intent, nor must you ever make the error of confusing man with his works. For many well-intentioned artists, with the best of intentions, produce at times shoddy works of art, all the more disappointing and deplorable to them because of the initial goodness of their intent.

To identify man with his poorest works is to purposefully seek out the mars, the mistakes, of a fine artist, and then to condemn him. To do this is to condemn yourselves personally. If a scientist says consciousness is the result of chance, or Darwin’s theories say that basically man is a triumphant son of murderers, many people object. If you say, however, that men are idiots, or that they are not worth the ground they walk upon, you are saying the same thing. For you must be concerned with this reality as you know it; in those terms, to condemn man is to condemn the species as you know it, and the practical terms of your world.

[...] One man is more prominent. [...] He is at the strong point of the triangle, and he would try to manipulate both Philip and the man. The other man is weaker than Philip in overall strength. [...]

The two stronger men now at two points of the triangle will overpower the strength of the man who has been at the main position. I have been seeing the triangle with the man with the strongest position at the top or apex. Now the triangle turns and the man at the apex is brought lower.

[...] The Los Angeles connection belongs to the man who replaces the weak man. [...] One man is white-haired, one is sandy-haired. [...]

[...] The scientist will see the affair as relatively neutral —an event, however, in which man is certainly a pawn, caught by chance in a catastrophe that he would otherwise most certainly avoid. The earthquake is a mass natural catastrophe, seeming then to be perpetrated upon man and his cities by an earth that certainly does not take man or his civilization into consideration.

The emotional identification with nature meant that man had a far greater and richer personal emotional reality. That love of nature, and appreciation, quickened and utilized inner biological capacities, also possessed by plants and animals, so that man was more consciously aware of his part in nature. [...] It is almost impossible in your time to describe man’s reality when he was consciously aware that he would die and yet not die, and when he was everywhere surrounded by those inner data of his psyche.

Private events of tragedy seem in a smaller context to happen without man’s knowledge or without his consent. [...] The world with its wars or disasters, its illnesses or poverty, its mass or private tragedies, seems to be thrust upon man or to happen—again without his consent.

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

(Yesterday, in the magazine section of a leading metropolitan newspaper, Jane and I read a long article on the evolution of ancient man — “ancient” here meaning “true man” at least 2.5 million to 3 million years old. [...]

(Portions of the article in yesterday’s newspaper, I should add, dealt with the recent discoveries of skeletal fragments in East Africa that indicate the coexistence of several varieties of ancient man and preman; the latter being creatures who looked rather human but whose brains, it is believed, remained apelike. [...] Her material, however, wasn’t influenced by the news story, for just about a year ago Seth-Jane delivered a session for Personal Reality on the mixing of animal and man: the 648th for March 14, 1973, in Chapter 12. [...]

3. At first, as I typed this session from my notes a couple of days later, I thought that Seth had contradicted himself here, for earlier in the session he’d stated that “the other creatures of the earth actually awakened before man did, and relatively speaking, their dream bodies formed themselves into physical ones before man’s did.” Then I came to think that Seth actually meant that man has consciously separated himself from his dream body to a greater degree than other creatures have—that even though those other entities became “physically effective” before man did, they still retain a greater awareness of their dream bodies than man does. [...]

But man looked out and felt himself suddenly separate and amazed at the aloneness. [...] Before, man had been neither male nor female, combining the characteristics of each, but now the physical bodies also specialized in terms of sexuality. Man has to physically procreate. [...]

On the one hand, man did indeed feel that he had fallen from a high estate, because he remembered that earlier freedom of dream reality—a reality in which the other creatures were still to some degree (underlined) immersed.³ Man’s mind, incidentally, at that point had all the abilities that you now assign to it: the great capacity for contrast of imagination and intellect, the drive for objectivity and for subjectivity (softly), the full capacity for the development of language—a keen mind that was as brilliant in any caveman, say, as it is in any man on a modern street.

[...] Part of a man went out with breath — therefore, man’s consciousness could go wherever the wind traveled. A man’s consciousness, traveling with the wind, became part of all places. [...]

[...] Or even: “From my man nature, I rest in the shade of my tree nature.” A man did not so much stand at the shore looking down at the water, as he immersed his consciousness within it. Man’s initial curiosity did not involve seeing, feeling, or touching the object’s nature as much as it involved a joyful psychic exploration in which he plunged his consciousness, rather than, say, his foot into the stream — though he did both.

In your terms, the use of language began as man lost this kind of identification. [...] Nature spoke for man, and man for nature.

[...] It is far more complicated — and yet early man, for example, became aware of the fact that no man was injured without that event first being imagined to one extent or another. [...]

[...] Man’s and nature’s intents were largely the same, and understood as such. Man did not fear the elements in those early times, as is now supposed.

(10:25.) Some of the experiences known by early man would seem quite foreign to you now. [...] Early man, again, perceived himself as himself, an individual. [...]

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

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

There is no such thing as a killer instinct, with the implications and meaning that man gives that term (intently). [...] It is not nearly as easy to see that the same applies to man and his mental and physical environment, his town or country or culture, but the infant trusts from the very first moment.

[...] In the terms of this discussion the other creatures of the earth actually awakened before man did, and relatively speaking, their dream bodies formed themselves into physical ones before man’s did. The animals became physically effective, therefore, while to some degree man still lingered in that dream reality.

[...] And in a matter of speaking, again, man becomes the earth thinking, and thinking his own thoughts, man in his way specializes in the conscious work of the world—a work that is dependent upon the indispensable “unconscious” work of the rest of nature, a nature that sustains him (all very intently). And when he thinks, man thinks for the microbes, for the atoms and the molecules, for the smallest particles within his being, for the insects and for the rocks, for the creatures of the sky and the air and the oceans.

Man thinks as naturally as the birds fly. [...]

In evolution man’s nature is amoral, and anything goes for survival’s sake. [...] The fundamentalists would rather believe in man’s inherent sinful nature, for at least their belief system provides for a framework in which he can be saved. Christ’s message was that each man is good inherently, and is an individualized portion of the divine — and yet a civilization based upon that precept has never been attempted. The vast social structures of Christianity were instead based upon man’s “sinful” nature — not the organizations and structures that might allow him to become good, or to obtain the goodness that Christ quite clearly perceived man already possessed.

(9:49.) Because man has not understood the characteristics of the world of imagination, he has thus far always insisted upon turning his myths into historical fact, for he considers the factual world alone as the real one. A man, literally of flesh and blood, must then prove beyond all doubt that each and every other [human being] survives death — by dying, of course, and then by rising, physically-perceived, into heaven. Each man does survive death, and each woman (with quiet amusement), but only such a literal-minded species would insist upon the physical death of a god-man as “proof of the pudding.”

(10:10.) In all of the other imaginative constructs, for example, whatever their merits and disadvantages, man felt himself to be a part of a plan. The planner might be God, or nature itself, or man within nature or nature within man. [...] Even the idea of fate gave man something to act against, and roused him to action.

[...] A nice old man, sort of a kindly bum, came by and told me father had made it two hours before his death so that I’d have some inheritance; and the old man might have had a key that worked it; I’m not sure; but there was something about a key.... [...] I think the old man may have been helping himself, too, along the way. [...]

[...] Pat went on along the ledge to where it met the front wall but I was frightened of falling and stayed where I was with the young man who was my companion, When Pat reached that point, the young man who was her companion did something.... [...] Then the man with me and I began to backtrack down the ledge the way we came. [...]

[...] The distinction between man-animal and animal-man was not as clear as it is in your time. [...] There were many toolmaking animal species, some predating man’s toolmaking facility. [...]

Certainly theories of evolution (Darwinism) forbid the notion that dinosaurs and man, or any kind of man, were contemporary! [...]

Dictation: Now: To some extent the development of consciousness as you understand it follows the development of the gods through the ages; and in those stories appear the guises that man might have taken, as well as those that he did.

The Hebrews conceived of an overseer god, an angry and just and sometimes cruel god; and many sects denied, then, the idea that other living beings beside man possessed inner spirits. The earlier beliefs represented a far better representation of inner reality, in which man, observing nature, let nature speak and reveal its secrets.

[...] Man was growing more and more aware of the ego, of a sense of power over nature, and many of the later miracles are presented in such a way that nature is forced to behave differently than in its usual mode. God becomes man’s ally against nature.

The early Hebrew god became a symbol of man’s unleashed ego. [...] Man’s emerging ego therefore brought forth emotional and psychological problems and challenges. [...]

(I’d just finished typing the last few pages for Monday night’s session, and I asked Jane what she thought of my final note: I’d speculated about any reincarnational connections that might tie her abilities to speak for Seth, without help of any modern kind, to the abilities ancient man had displayed, when, according to Seth, he’d been able to carry all of his history with him mentally. As ancient man had lived without the news media we’re so used to, so does Jane speak for Seth without all of that modern help. [...]

[...] (Pause.) All of your reasoned activities — your governments, societies, arts, religions and sciences — are the physical realization, of course, of inner capacities, capacities that are inherent in man’s structure. [...] These are the materialization in your time of man’s natural acting ability — a characteristic highly important in the behavior of the species.

Early man, for example, spontaneously played at acting out the part of other animals. [...] (Long pause.) Man always possessed all of the knowledge he needed. [...]

[...] With our friend Philip, a situation developing involving a white-haired man who is in the background, behind or connected with, the man who suggested Philip seek office. [...]

The man who offered the suggestion to Philip may not realize himself that the original idea was not his own. It originated with the white-haired man. [...]

Now this man by association reminds Ruburt of Dirksen because the temperamental similarities are fairly evocative. This man fuller in the face however, and less eloquent. [...]

[...] One man appears to have the advantage, but another will take it from him, and your best interests will lie with this second man. [...]

[...] He and the man from California will have some say-so, and you will then add your voice to theirs. The fourth man will come later. [...]

[...] The short man is out. [...]

(“Man was created by God, so that nature only had meaning in relationship to man—man was dominant. Then science threw out the entire thesis: Man wasn’t at the center of the universe anymore. The universe wasn’t created by God, and man and nature alike had no meaning, so that thematically man went from being the center of the universe, a special creature, created by God, to a meaningless conglomeration of atoms and molecules, and a meaningless universe, and that philosophical drop was shattering to man. So he’s now actually in the process of forming a new model of the universe between those two extremes—one that recognizes that each portion of the universe has meaning in relationship to all of its other parts, but that the meaning can’t necessarily be deduced by an examination of exterior appearances, but only in so far as man examines the nature of his own consciousness in its relationship to other species—to nature itself, to the objective universe, and begins to understand the vital nature of interrelatedness, within which the process of divinity is actualized.”

[...] Another idea—“It’s no big deal”—was that for centuries man thought the universe was created for man, and everything else revolved around man.

(“Man’s own subjective reality, in all of its manifestations [pause] is the only one real “tool” that will give him any indication of his own greater existence, and therefore of his own origins and that of the universe. The patterns for all of man’s work appear first in the mind, and the fragments of man’s individual and joint dreams fall together faultlessly to form the mosaic of individual and mass events.” [...]

[...] There was an initial encounter with a man in the company, in the immediate past—two weeks ago. The man, according to John, was also strongly connected to John’s feelings about the company [or attitudes toward it] for he felt that the new man, a regional director, has some of the same attitudes he has.

A man in the background of your acquaintance, not connected with the company now, or if he is, he is far from your thoughts. As it would seem to be a professional man not at your firm. [...]

(The shorter dark-haired man mentioned reminds John strongly of the new regional manager mentioned above; particularly since the man’s face looks round from the front, but not in profile. [...]

Man does have an instinct and a desire to live, and he has an instinct and a desire to die. [...] In his life [each] man is embarked upon a cooperative venture with his own species, and with the other species, and dying he also in that regard acts in a cooperative manner, returning his physical substance to the earth. (Pause.) Physically speaking, man’s “purpose” is to help enrich the quality of existence in all of its dimensions. [...] Man is learning to create new worlds. [...]

[...] When she lay down for a nap yesterday afternoon she picked up from Seth hints of subjects he’s going to discuss in Dreams: “man migrations,” and “inside and outside cues” as pertaining to man’s consciousness. [...]

This early man (and early woman) regarded the snake as the most sacred and basic, most secretive and most knowledgeable of all creatures. [...] It was important also in that it shed its skin, as man innately knew he shed his own bodies.

[...] It is wrong to curse a flower, and it is wrong to curse any man. And it is wrong not to hold any man in honor and it is wrong to ridicule any man. [...]

[...] For it will come when every man realizes that killing is wrong, and when every young man in every country refuses to go to war, and when he refuses to curse any man or any flower. [...]

When every young man refuses to go to war you will have peace. [...]