Seth (QUOTES & DISCUSSION)

[Reefs]

Planes of existence

Seth: A plane is not necessarily a planet. A plane may be one planet, but a plane may also exist where no planet is. One planet may have several planes. Planes may also involve various aspects of apparent time.

Planes can and do intermix without the knowledge of the particular inhabitants of either plane. I want to get away from the idea of a plane being a place. It may be in some cases but it is not always. A plane may be a time. A plane, believe it or not, may be only one iota of vitality that seems to exist by itself. A plane is something apparently divided from the rest of the universe for a time and for a reason. A plane may cease to be. A plane may spring up where there was none. A plane is formed for entities as patterns for fulfillment along various levels.

A plane is a climate conducive to the development of unique and particular capacities and achievements. A plane is an isolation of elements where each element is given the most possible space in which to function. Planets have been used as planes and used again as other planes. A plane is not a cosmic location.

In other terms you could also say that an entity visits all planes simultaneously, as it is possible for you to visit one particular state, one particular county, one particular city at one time. Also you might visit the state of sorrow and joy almost simultaneously, and experience both emotions in heightened state because of the almost immediate contrast between them. In fact, the analogy of a plane with an emotional state is much more valid than the analogy between a plane and a geographical state. Particularly since emotional states take up no room.

(Session 16)

[zin]

This is from a note of Robert Butts on how difficult it was to finish his work on the book Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfillment. I think the stress explained there can be lived between any 'value fulfillment' activity and 'the more important businesses of life'. At least I find myself in such worry frequently, and am putting this as a reminder. Of course, there's no rule that value fulfillment will be problematic like that but many things which contribute to one's well-being still look like having 'secondary importance' nowadays and then one can feel that something is lacking. (I shortened the first part a bit)

"I told Jane that I woke up at about 4:00 A.M., worrying about all the things I had to get done this week. I was ready to start [to work] on another session for Chapter 7 of Dreams, but realized I'd have to let that go. I had to go to the bank to get checks and money orders to pay taxes and bills, hook up the garden hose, and learn how to .... then .... and .... later ..... there will doubtless be other things to do.

So I didn't get to work on Dreams this morning but hope to tomorrow. Trying to finish that book makes me feel like my feet are in quicksand up to my knees. I'm continually losing my sense of involvement, of creative application on a daily basis that is so indispensable, and I'm continually searching for ways to recapture it and keep it going on a daily basis. Jane suggested I get a checking account. It would help a little, but I need much more than that. I'm pruning away as much as I can, including a lot of business mail and projects we could get involved in. I no longer answer certain business or fan mail.

One thing I've learned above all else: I'll never again create a situation like this, where years pass before a book is delivered to the publisher. Something has to give, somewhere. I would like to get back to painting at least a little each day. This may be necessary —even vital— to my own well-being although I must be careful about giving myself negative suggestions over it."

(The Way Toward Health - June 11, 1984)

[Reefs]

Camouflage and Vitality (1)

Seth: As air is dispelled from the lungs in various forms and used and reused without any loss of power, strength or quantity, so is the vitality of which we speak used in different manners. So does it enter as one thing many times, and so does it emerge as something different many times; and so does it change shape and content, and so does it show many faces and yet never disappears. And as air seems invisible so does this vitality seem invisible, and yet like air this vitality gives shape to every object that you see, and so does it form every camouflage. Without it all camouflage would vanish. And so the ability to use this vitality well is as necessary to life as is the necessity to use air for breathing.

No one, I am sure, denies the existence of air because ordinarily you do not see it. No one denies the existence of air because they do not understand the method by which their own lungs breathe. Yet they know that they breathe, and they know that without breath death is inevitable. To deny the existence of air would seem ridiculous. It is just as ridiculous to deny this vitality because it is usually unseen, or because you do not understand how you use it.

(Session 23)

[Reefs]

Camouflage and Vitality (2)

Seth: For some reason mankind as a species on your plane has become much more attached to its camouflage patterns than most other kinds of consciousness. And with some important exceptions, all types of consciousness do have their peculiar camouflage patterns to which they more or less adhere.

It is on your part more than anything else, a simple refusal to admit into existence anything that is not a camouflage pattern. Camouflage patterns are of course, with again some exceptions, essentials on any plane, since each type represents the actual form of the plane and the various characteristics within it. Nevertheless it is possible, and actually much more efficient and simple, to accept this fact and also realize and admit the inner vitality behind the camouflage.

(Session 23)

[Reefs]

Camouflage and Vitality (3)

Seth: It is in some ways convenient that you are not consciously aware of each breath that you take. But it is sheer stupidity to ignore the inner self which does the breathing, and is aware of the mechanics involved. What you almost get here is that some little unknown self performs these necessary functions, and that is not the case. I have said that the mind is a part of the inner world, but you have access to your own minds which you ignore, and this access would lead you inevitably to the truths about the physical world. Working inward you could understand the outward so much more clearly.

Because I say that you actually create the typical camouflage patterns of your own physical universe yourselves, by use of the inner vitality of the universe in the same manner that you form a pattern with your breath on a glass pane, I do not necessarily mean that you are the creators of the universe. I merely am saying that you are the creators of the physical world as you know it—and herein, my beloved friends, lies a vast tale.

(Session 23)

[Reefs]

Consciousness and form

Seth: Consciousness on your plane exists in all things. So-called inert form has consciousness. To some degree it even possesses self-consciousness, and so there is no point at which self-consciousness entered, so to speak, with the sound of trumpets. Consciousness, to a degree, was inherent in the first materialization physically upon your plane.

Self-consciousness entered in very shortly after, but not what you are pleased to call human self-consciousness. I certainly do not like to wound your egos in this manner. However the fact remains, and I can hear you all yell foul, that there is no actual differentiation between the various types of self-consciousness.

You are either conscious of self or you are not. On your plane self-consciousness exists as a rule. A tree is conscious of itself as a tree. It does not think of itself as a rock. A dog knows it is not a cat. What I am trying to point out to you here is this supreme egotistical presumption that self-consciousness must of necessity involve humanity per se. It does not.

(Session 26)

[Reefs]

Camouflage created by the inner self

Seth: I am not saying that you should not believe the evidence of your senses; I am waiting for you to say that. We know that our so-called tables are not solid. Even your science knows this now, and yet your eyes see the table as solid. Face up to it, my dear lovelies: Your senses lie. The table is a conglomeration of quickly-moving atoms and molecules but you see it as a table, and you see it as solid. Your senses, are perceptors of a camouflage physical world which is created by the inner self through the use of mental enzymes in a pattern set by the mental genes.

Because I say that you create your physical universe in the same manner and as automatically and as unself-consciously as you create with your breath a pattern of steam upon a glass pane, this does not mean that you create all that is. It merely means that you create your own physical environment.

(Session 26)

[Reefs]

The entity, personalities and the dream world (1)

Seth: In a dream you can experience many days while no corresponding amount of physical time passes. In other words, it seems as if you travel very far in the flicker of an eyelash.

Condensed time is the time felt by the entity, or experienced by the entity, while any of its given personalities “live” (and you had better put that in quotes) on a plane of physical materializations. To go into this a bit further, many men have said that life was a dream. They were true to the facts in one strong regard, and yet far afield as far as the main issue is concerned.

Individual life, or the life of the present individual, could be legitimately compared to the dream of an entity. While the individual suffers and enjoys his given number of years, these years are but a flash to the entity. The entity is concerned with these years in the same manner that you are concerned with your dreams. As you give inner purpose and organization to your dreams, and as you obtain insight and satisfaction from your dreams though they involve only a part of your life, so the entity to some extent directs and gives purpose and organization to his personalities during their existence. And so does the entity obtain insights and satisfactions from his existing personalities, although no one takes up all of his own attentions.

And as your dreams originate with you, rise from you, attain a seeming independence and have their ending with you, so do an entity’s personalities arise from him, attain various degrees of independence, and return to him while never leaving him for an instant.

(Session 28)

[Reefs]

The entity, personalities and the dream world (2)

Seth: Your own dreams are fragments, even as in a much larger sense you are fragments of your entity. An unrecognized unity and organization lies within all of your dreams, beneath their diversity. And your dreams, while part of you, actually exist apart. That is, you have given them a certain independence.

However, as I have said there is great similarity between your relationship to your dreams, and to the entity’s relationship to his personality. What I did not make plain was that your dreams are part of a plane, and exist on it as you exist on your plane.

That dream world has its own reality, its own time, which is different from your concept of time, and its own inner organization. As the entity is only partially concerned with its personalities after setting them into motion, so you are unconcerned with this dream world which you have set into motion. But it exists.

To a different degree it is filled with conscious semipersonalities. I call them semipersonalities merely to point out that they are not as developed as you are, as you are not as developed as your entity is. Nevertheless, that dream world experiences continuity. It is not aware of any break while, for example, you are sleeping. It does not know you sleep or wake. It merely exists to a fairly vivid degree while you sleep, and it sleeps but does not die while you are awake.

This is very important, however. The entity itself does not have to keep constant check on its personalities, because in each personality there is an inner self-conscious part that knows its origin. This part, for now, I will call the self-conscious beyond the subconscious. The breather and the dreamer are not so automatically controlled as it would seem. I have mentioned before that some part of you knows exactly how much oxygen the lungs breathe, and how much energy it takes to pace a floor, and this is the part of you of which I spoke.

(Session 28)

[Deleted]

After-Death Choices and the Mechanics of Transition.

There are unlimited varieties of experience open to you after death, all possible, but some less probable than others, according to your development. Very generally now, there are three main areas though exceptions and extraordinary cases can take other roads.

You may decide upon another reincarnation. You may decide to focus instead upon your past life, using it as the stuff of new experience, as mentioned previously creating variations of events as you have known them, making corrections as you choose. Or you may enter another system of probability entirely; and this is quite apart from a reincarnational existence. You will be leaving all thoughts of continuity of time behind you in such a case.

...

Those who understand thoroughly that reality is self-created will have least difficulty. Those who have learned to understand and operate in the mechanics of the dream state will have great advantage.

[Deleted]

The Constant Creation of the Physical Body.

Seth: The conscious mind is a portion of the inner self, that part that surfaces, so to speak and meets physical reality more or less directly.

You are mainly concerned now with physical orientation and the corporeal materialisation of inner reality. Therefore the conscious mind holds in ready access the information that you require for effective day-to-day living. It is not necessary that you hold in steady consciousness data that does not directly apply to what you consider your physical reality at any given 'time'.

As soon as the need for such data -aid, information, or knowledge- arises, then it is immediately forthcoming unless your own conscious beliefs form or cause a barrier. The exquisite, precise and concentrated focus of your conscious mind is quite necessary in physical life. It is because of this highly selective quality that you can 'tune into' the particular range of activity that is physical. 

...
Because your mind in life is connected with the brain and the physical organism, it is automatically attuned to corporeal reality, and to some extent of course it ignores some nonphysical data that lies within any given field of perception. Quite simply, it does not allow it into it's organising perceptions. It [the data] is then blocked out. 

...
While you are physical then you will always be concentrating upon certain data to the exclusion of other data. In other kinds of realities you may ignore the physical system entirely, however, focusing instead upon those systems of existence that are not now recognised with your own.

In your present life the conscious mind assesses physical reality and has behind it all the energy, power and ability of the inner self at it's disposal. Any information that it requires will be available. It's job is to asses that reality effectively, using that fine focus mentioned earlier (See Chapter 2) Because of it's character, consciousness, or the conscious mind, cannot be swamped by too much detail, too much information. The inner self sends to it only the information it asks for or feels necessary. To a large extent then conscious beliefs act as great liberators of such inner data or as inhibitors of it. Are you following me? 

~ The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 5.  

[Reefs]

Atlantis

Seth: I lived in the land people called Atlantis in your past. The Atlantis, however, as it is known in myth and pseudo-fact, is a psychic structure from the future that sheds its light backward into the past, and illuminates not one but several past cultures, which taken together, become in your terms a conglomerate Atlantis. The Atlanteans, so-called for example, are supposed to be coming back now. All concepts and ideas in the first place, referring to a continuous for-ward progression of time distort all reincarnational experiences as a rule. It is almost impossible to describe some of what I know. Simple facts to me sometimes appear quite clearly in the material I give you—but then I perceive that the particular information escapes you completely. I can say that I traveled in Rome at about the time of Christ. To me there is no contradiction between that statement and the statement that the reality of that Rome is even now being affected by present, current concepts and beliefs. The past changes, even as in your terms, say, a river does—only the changes go out in all directions. Atlantis is as real as tomorrow is—and that is a loaded statement.

(Deleted Session, August 28, 1978)

[Reefs]

Evolution

Q: Is evolution, as it is commonly thought of, a fact or something greatly distorted?

Seth: [Darwin] spent his last years proving it, and yet it has no real validity. It has a validity within very limited perspectives only; for consciousness does, indeed, evolve form. Form does not evolve consciousness. All consciousness does, indeed, exist at once, and therefore it did not evolve in those terms. It is according to when you come into the picture, and what you choose to observe, and what part of the play you decide to observe.

It is more the other way around, in that evolved consciousness forms itself into many different patterns and rains down on reality. Consciousness did not come from atoms and molecules scattered by chance through the universe, or scattered by chance through many universes. Consciousness did not arrive because inert matter suddenly soared into activity and song. The consciousness existed first, and evolved the form into which it then began to manifest itself.

Now, if you had all been really paying attention to what I have been saying for some time about the simultaneous nature of time and existence, then you would have known that the theory of evolution is as beautiful a tale as the theory of biblical creation. Both are quite handy, and both are methods of telling stories, and both might seem to agree within their own systems, and yet, in larger respects they cannot be realities…. No — no form of matter, however potent, will be self-evolved into consciousness, no matter what other bits of matter are added to it. Without the consciousness, the matter would not be there in the universe, floating around, waiting for another component to give it reality, consciousness, existence, or song.

Q: Every bit of matter already has consciousness?

Seth: Indeed, and the consciousness came first. You are quite correct. I thank you for bringing up the matter. [Smile.] There are many ways of bringing up matter.


(Session 582)

[Deleted]

Christmas

“Do not think that Christmas is too camp. In your civilization, when you allow it to, it speaks to the child in you. Accept the child and enjoy the myth, for behind the myth there is truth, and the truth is that you are reborn. And the truth is that the inner self does have the wonder of a child.

Other stories have been wound about those truths, but the truths remain. The god Pan has as great a validity as Christ has. The names change; the stories change to fit your ideas and your civilization. Now, I prefer Pan piping his magic flutes over the countryside and drinking wine, to a Christ born to be crucified. But that is my idea; you pick your own.

Behind all the myths is the reality. You are born with the wonder of a child again to remake the world in a new image. Christmas should represent the rebirth of the self. Seth Speaks should be called You Speak. So listen to yourselves. …

Santa Claus—Ho Ho—is relatively harmless considering what your religions have done. If you are bad you get a hunk of coal, and if you are good you get a goody. But what about a god who says if you are good you will go to heaven and if you are bad you burn through all eternity? Place your indignation where it belongs! …

Look at the Christmas tree; your cells and molecules shine a million times more brightly. Your eyes glitter with far greater light. You are love in corporeal form. You do not have to look for it or wonder where to find it or give it in packages with bright ribbon. You are packages with bright ribbon.

Christmas is now and was yesterday and will be tomorrow. It is in you, in Buddha, in Pan, in Christ, in Mohammed, in an ant and in a frog, and in your eyes and with you, each of you. You are each, then, Christmas. You shine and glitter whether or not you know it. You shout "Merry Christmas" even when you cry. You cannot deny your own vitality or being.

Let the vitality and energy, therefore, ring out through your own knowledge. Let it awaken within you the knowledge of your being. Dance through your own molecules and scatter your own petals!

And I bid you all a Merry Christmas!”

ESP Class Session, December 19, 1972

[Deleted]

On immunity:

"The viruses and infections were of course present. They always are. They are themselves fragments, struggling small fragments without intention of harm. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝘁, 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. Ideally you can inhabit a plane with them without fear. It is only when you give tacit agreement that harm is inflicted upon you by these fragments." -Seth, Early Sessions, Vol 1

"Give us a moment … In those terms, thoughts move far quicker of course than viruses. The action of the virus follows the thought. Each thought is registered biologically. Basically (underlined), when you have an immunity to a disease you have a mental immunity.

You think of viruses as evil, spreading perhaps from country to country, to “invade” scores of physical mechanisms. Now thoughts are “contagious.” You have a natural immunity against all thoughts that do not fit in with your own purposes and beliefs, and naturally (pause, groping), you are “inoculated” with a wholesome trust and belief in your own thoughts above others. The old ideas of voodooism recognized some of these concepts, but complicated and distorted them with fears of evil, psychic invasion, psychic killing, and so forth. You cannot divide, say, mental and physical health, nor can you divide a person’s philosophy from his bodily condition."

—NoME Chapter 6: Session 841, March 14, 1979

"The patient, therefore, often feels relatively powerless and at the mercy of any stray virus that might come along. The facts are that you choose even the kind of illness that you have according to the nature of your beliefs. You are immune from ill health as long as you believe that you are."

—NoPR Chapter 5: Session 624, October 30, 1972

"small fragments without intention of harm. You have general immunity, believe it or not, to all such viruses and infections. Ideally you can inhabit a plane with them without fear. It is only when you give tacit agreement that harm is inflicted upon you by these fragments. To some degree, lesser, dependent lives such as household pets are dependent upon your psychic strength. They have their own, it is true, but unknowingly you reinforce their energy and health."

—TES1 Session 17 January 20, 1964