The SETH and Jane Roberts Chronological Library List

JANE ROBERTS How to Develop Your ESP Power (1966)
Inspired by Jane's first paranormal experience, this book is a set of exercises to help develop one's ESP abilities. The book is illustrated by Jane's accounts of her experiences and those of her husband Rob, the artist Robert F. Butts. It was while trying out the exercises that Seth contacted Jane for the first time. Throughout the book, she gives quotations from his earliest communications. Jane encourages readers to enter their own dreams in a daily journal to help them examine how their sleeping mind continues to function, resolving problems, and sparking waking creativity.

JANE ROBERTS The Seth Material (1970)
The first popular Seth/Jane book, this is an account of how Seth first appeared in the lives of Jane and Rob; it contains their doubts, self-questionings, and tests of him. Excerpts from their early sessions with him sketch the outlines of the world view that he was shortly to present more fully in his own works.

SETH-DICTATED BOOK - Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul (1972)
The first full-scale "Seth book." In it Seth describes the multidimensional nature of the human personality, with its untapped resources, its range in time and space, its connections with all aspects of the universe, and the continuity of consciousness. He discusses in-depth his reality today, and how it compares to physical life. Transcribed and edited by Robert Butts, Jane's husband.

JANE ROBERTS The Education of Oversoul Seven (1973)
Now republished as part of the Oversoul Seven Trilogy
This novel was written by Jane in a state of altered consciousness. Seth's concept of the time-and-space-free personality is developed in a lively and entertaining story.

SETH-DICTATED BOOK - The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book (1974)
Seth's second book. A prerequisite to any further study of the Seth material. In it Seth offers an expanded view of how our bodies constantly recreate themselves, and how the events in our lives are created in line with conscious beliefs and suggestions. Seth also suggests many techniques and exercises for applying the concept of the time-and space-free human personality to whatever difficulti es in which we may find ourselves.

JANE ROBERTS Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology(1975)
The first part of this book consists of Jane's account of her increased awareness of some of the aspects of her greater self, together with similar discoveries on the part of members of the ESP class that she held every Tuesday night in her home from 1967 to 1975. The second part of the book is her explanation of these paranormal happenings according to Seth's ideas and her ow n intuitions. Helpful diagrams by Rob Butts.

JANE ROBERTS Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time* (1975)
The poems in this volume are a moving presentation of Jane's inner conflict between her knowledge that her body must decay, and her sense of living in eternity. Powerful illustrations by Rob.

JANE ROBERTS Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976)
A sequel to Adventures, this book by Jane relates more of her encounters with her greater self, as well as similar experiences on the part of Rob and individuals with whom they come in contact. Explaining these events are the Codicils, a statement of the rules which underlie the evolvement of their personality and our species--written by Jane in a state of altered consciousness.

JANE ROBERTS The World View of Paul Cezanne (1977)
The current and remarkably Sethian outlook on the world of the artist Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) is presented in this book in words of his received by Jane while in a state of altered consciousness.

SETH-DICTATED BOOK The "Unknown" Reality, Volumes I & II (1977/1979)
Seth's third and fourth books. They offer a fuller explanation of the "unknown" dimensions of ourselves, with exercises that can help us become more familiar with them and thus enrich both our lives and the world in which we live. Cross-references to other of Seth's writings plus extensive annotation by Rob.

JANE ROBERTS The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James* (1978)
This book presents the world view of the philosopher William James (1842-1910) as he has developed it since he left his body. He comments on the limitations of his outlook when in our reality, analyzes U.S. cultural development in the light of what he has discovered since his "death," and describes the reality in which he is now focused. His account of "God," whom he refers to as the "the knowing light" is deeply moving. This work is one of Jane's productions while in a state of altered consciousness.

JANE ROBERTS Emir's Education in the Proper Use of Magical Powers (1979)
This children's book is also suitable for adults. It shows our need to make self-responsible decisions, the value of the change of seasons and the change called death, and the oneness of creation. A young prince learns as he journeys through the universe.

JANE ROBERTS The Further Education of Oversoul Seven (1979)
Now republished as part of the Oversoul Seven Trilogy and a sequel to The Education of Oversoul Seven, this novel was also written by Jane when in a state of altered consciousness. The concepts of simultaneous time, probable realities, the power of an individual's free choice, and the nature of "God" are explored in a lively fashion as the characters become acquainted with their counterparts in space and time.

SETH-DICTATED BOOK The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression (1979)
Seth's fifth book. Who "I" am is explained through a discussion of the mobility of consciousness as distinct from the body. Our relationships with other people--including sexual relationships--are explored as ways in which we can develop fully. Exercises are suggested to assist the reader to experience the concepts. Transcribed and edited by Rob.

JANE ROBERTS The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981)
This book relates experiences beginning in Jane's childhood which eventually led her to accept Seth's philosophy and to formulate her own concept of "God."

SETH-DICTATED BOOK The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events: A Seth Book (1981)
In his sixth book, Seth tells us how groups of individuals and societies create their own realities as they produce war and peace; epidemics and good health; geological phenomena such as earthquakes; the weather; technological catastrophes, like Three-Mile Island; and group movements, like the mass suicide by followers of Jim Jones. Seth stresses the power of the individual to choose whether to participate in mass decisions or to follow a separate course. Transcribed and edited by Rob.

JANE ROBERTS If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love* (1982)
The poems in this volume were written by Jane about altered states of consciousness as experienced through love for another person, through awareness of one's multidimensional personality, through nature, through dreams, and through a consciousness of the magic in every object we perceive.

JANE ROBERTS Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time (1984)
Now republished as part of the Oversoul Seven Trilogy, in this third volume, Jane develops the concepts of simultaneous time, the continual alteration of both past and future that is produced by actions in the present, and the importance of our taking steps today to choose a future reality in which our species will survive and flourish. The key to this transformation is contained in the "Codicils," principles of conduct that are presented in her previous work, Psychic Politics.

JANE ROBERTS Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness (1986)
Written between The Seth Material and Seth Speaks but not published until 1986, this book by Jane fills in the chronological gap between those two works. In it, she relates her experiences and experiments with dreams and projection of consciousness, and gives much advice from both Seth and herself about working with one's dreams and engaging in out-of-body travel. The Introduction by Rob Butts describes the circumstances surrounding Jane's death of September 5, 1984.

SETH-DICTATED BOOK Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Volumes I & II (1986)
These seventh and eighth Seth books recount the "evolution" of material reality moment by moment from the dream state into its manifestation as our physical environment. Seth also describes the goal towards which each aspect of the whole of All That Is is working: value fulfillment. As in previous Seth books, Robert Butts provides notes and commentaries. His Introductory Essays give an account of Jane's final illness and the reasons for the immense physical difficulties which she suffered.

SETH-DICTATED BOOK The Magical Approach (1995)
Dictated by Seth in 1980, this sessies of sessions was gathered into publication form by Rob Butts approximately 10 years after Jane's death.The sessions were given by Seth in an effort to help Jane tap into her ability to heal herself. He urges her (and all of us) to adopt a mindset more in keeping with natural inclinations, and calls this approach the "magical" one as compared to the usual rational one used in our society. Seth encourages us to listen to our inner voices, to heed our impulses, to live spontaneously, and to focus with intent and joyful expectation on what we desire to bring into our lives. A classic example of Seth's perspective, this book is a welcome addition to his reality creation material. Includes artwork by Rob.

SETH-DICTATED BOOK The Way Toward Health (1997)
The last of the Seth-dictated books, it was written from Jane's hospital bed over the months preceding her death. The material in this book was evoked by the questions and considerations Jane and Rob faced during her long illness, and becomes an in-depth examination of the miracle of life in the human body. It also becomes the poignant story of Jane's courageous attempt to understand the crippling condition she had contracted and see the role it played in her life.

The Nine Families of Consciousness

The Nine Families of Consciousness

Compiled by Paul M. Helfrich, Ph.D.

~ from The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2, originally published by Prentice Hall, 1979.

It’s interesting to note that The “Unknown” Reality contains 17 Practice Elements, the only organized course of exercises in the entirety of the Seth books. This information on counterparts and families comes after the final Practice Element.

Seth then introduced the counterpart metaphor in session 732. This set up the nine families metaphor that immediately followed in sessions 732 - 740 and closes out this magnum opus.

Seth said,

“... these counterparts form psychic families. They are family representations on another level.

“... now there are races, physically speaking. There are also psychic counterparts of races – families of consciousness, so to speak – all related, yet having different overall characteristics or specialties.” [session 732]

Seth describes eight of these families (all except Sumari which he covers in greater detail earlier), in sessions 736 - 737.

More information on Sumari can be found in Jane Roberts’s Adventures in Consciousness, The Nature of Personal Reality, Psychic Politics, Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1 and 2, and Sue Watkins’s Conversations With Seth, Vol. 1 ,and 2.

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Is the Concept of “Families” Really Discrete?

Jane said:

“We regard Seth’s material on counterparts and families of consciousness as excellent explanations – as thematic frameworks that help us perceive and organize aspects of our greater reality that are ignored by conventional academic disciplines. Seth’s explanations stand for aspects of reality that usually escape us.” [Rob’s notes, session 737]

To further understand the concept of “families” try to imagine the psychic reality of the collective consciousness; sort of like the science fiction species – the Borg – from the TV series Star Trek. But imagine that this human collective is psychically related and holds the ability to communicate telepathically and clairvoyantly. Next, try to imagine the reality of six billion human beings as individuals that make up this vast group. If you were to think of this group, figuratively speaking, as a Rainbow of Consciousness, then each discrete color would represent an innate “family” leaning or intent. When viewing this Rainbow from afar, you can’t find the exact place where red ends and orange begins, yet you can clearly distinguish both colors. As your vision zooms in each color also reveals infinite shades of gradation and the edges, that seemed separate from a longer distance, literally disappear. So the foundation of nine can easily be extended into an infinite spectrum with plenty of room for individual variations. Therefore, we really aren’t limited to nine discrete “colors”.

Another way of looking at it is to multiply 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1. You get 362,880 whole number permutations. So there’s plenty of room to explore a rich variety from the fundamental nine. And if you think of these “families” of consciousness in terms of human energy – frequency and personality tone – you get a sense of just how wide and vast this spectrum of consciousness really is.

The concepts of counterparts and nine “families” introduce an important foundation for the deeper understanding of this vast spectrum of human consciousness in relationship to its nonphysical source. And just because something is nonphysical or “beneath” the normal range of our five senses doesn’t mean that it’s not real! We need to remind ourselves, again, that these concepts are not absolutes offered in some type of mathematical language or philosophical dialectic based upon the pure reason of the five senses. They must be experienced, conceptualized to be more fully understood. And the gateway to this type of conceptualization is to be found by looking “inward” through our own intuitive, subjective perception by means of our own inner senses.

Here are some additional excerpts from Jane Roberts on counterparts and the nine “families” that shed some light on these related concepts.

“Now it seems so obvious that there must be such alliances as Seth’s families of consciousness, and that each of us alive at any given time takes part in one or more of such psychic groupings – just as we form, say, nationalistic affiliations on ordinary levels.

“But the names and designations aren’t meant to be taken too literally; these aren’t to be interpreted as esoteric clubs or brotherhoods, but as natural psychic ‘conglomerations’ to which we all belong.” [session 737]

That last paragraph serves as a very important reminder that it’s all to easy to limit our thinking to nine “clubs” that we can now belong to, using this as yet another means to separate and promote our individuality. In fact, you will discover that this is the first stage that people usually go through when first introduced to the idea. Instead, we need to remind ourselves that the primary “club” we belong to is humanity, and even that distinction will need to blur when we encounter new races in other solar systems and galaxies. So we should afford ourselves the same luxury when identifying with any of the nine family intents.

Now according to Seth, Rob, Jane, and many of their students belonged to the Sumari “family” of consciousness, the very first one introduced:

“Now these families fall generally into certain groups. In greater terms you can ‘cut the pie’ however you want to, but you will still share an emotional and psychic feeling of belonging with the family of which you are a part. And (with broad amusement) most of you here are Sumari, and it demands great discipline of Sumari to take down lists – even of psychic families.” [Appendix 26, session 734]

That last sentence offers a very important clue about Seth’s agenda in offering this information. I have to admit that I felt an initial resistance to the validity of this concept when I first read it in 1979. And in my subsequent experiences and explorations of this particular concept I have discovered that many people share this initial aversion. I mean really, nine families? Not seven? Or sixteen? How can our collective psyches, something that is surely infinite, be expressed in such discrete terms?

I’m reminded of that Monty Python moment from The Search for the Holy Grail in which they explain the use of “the holy hand grenade of Antioch” as a metaphor for the manner in which the original intent of a religious or mystical experience inevitably gets distorted into calcified dogma. When pulling the pin to detonate the holy hand grenade, “the number to count before releasing shall be three, not two, not four, and five is right out!”

Laughing out loud! But seriously, just what is really going on here!? Seth says that you can cut the proverbial pie – of consciousness – any way you wish. And it’s a pretty vast pie that we’re dealing with here. So it’s clear that this is Seth’s best attempt at explaining these very subtle and exceedingly complex ideas within the limits of our linear-based language that reflect nonlinear perception in Framework 2 again. And it takes time to reconcile nonlinear perception into a mind that is culturally habituated to linear thinking and perception.

Even Rob and Jane experienced some initial skepticism with Seth seeming to be so discrete in terms of nine “families”:

“I told [Jane] I’d been rather surprised when Seth had so boldly stated that there were only nine families of (human) consciousness upon our planet. The number seemed too small, too arbitrary. I also remarked upon my understanding that usually neither she nor Seth liked to categorize new information so definitely. Jane, while agreeing, couldn’t elaborate upon this very much, beyond saying that she felt each family could have subdivisions and/or combine with others, so that mathematically at least there existed the possibility of ‘a lot’ of them. I liked that idea much better. Strangely, neither of us had ever asked Seth to name any of the other families of consciousness, following Jane’s Sumari breakthrough some three years ago.” [session 732, notes during break at 10:45]

A reminder from Seth:

“Now these categories do not come first. Your individuality comes first. You have certain characteristics of your own. These place you in a certain position. As you are not a rock or a mineral, but a person, so your individuality places you in a particular family or species of consciousness. This represents your overall viewpoint of reality.” [session 732]

It’s important to remember that our individuality – our own innate intent – precedes, so to speak, any physical incarnations. So our unique intent within nonphysical consciousness, our source consciousness, does express itself through the choice of entering into an incarnational “cycle.” This choice occurs in a nonphysical state which is somewhat beyond the scope of this essay. But the main point here is that once the choice is made and the “cycle” manifests, our pre-existing intent then gets translated through the filter of this nine “families” concept into all of the personalities that manifest and participate in the physical Framework 1 experience. Seems pretty simple.

Therefore, the nine “families” concept is most importantly about the innate intention of consciousness. And by intentions we mean a predisposition to being a healer, scientist, artist, parent, soldier, shaman, teacher, entrepreneur, etc. And within the principle of value fulfillment, it’s clear that these innate intents must complement each other in such a way as to create a propensity for equilibrium, balance, and healthy communities and ecosystems. So the nine “families” of consciousness is just Seth’s way of presenting a concept that hints at the innate intention toward value fulfillment of the collective human consciousness, our inner egos, whose source is found in the “unknown” reality of Frameworks 2, 3, 4, and inward.

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Family Subgroupings

Seth said,

“Now you can expand the functions of any particular family group, or you can cut it down, by deciding how precise you want to be. If one family deals with the nature of healing then you can slice it down to the healing of a toe … and ear … an eye.

“The categories [healing, teaching, or whatever] are general descriptions of the families of consciousness. You can split them up also and make further distinction if you choose. You cut those divisions down. They merely represent interpretations that you can understand in you realty. In the most mundane terms, some families are travelers, and some prefer to say at home. But generally speaking I have simply given you an outline which follow the characteristics of consciousness as it is embarked in physical form. I am mot giving you these groups to set up divisions, but to help you understand that consciousness is diversified – that usually each of you falls, because you want to, into a certain family. And there you acquire friends, alliances and counterparts.”

Sue Watkins, former ESP class member, family friend, and author tuned into the Grunaargh family, a sub-group of Gramada during session 598. From her note to Rob:

“In a session on Sumari I witnessed in 1971 or early 1972 – I picked up a family-of-consciousness name, and Seth said it was ‘Grunaargh.’ It wasn’t on the list given last month [referring to the nine families given in session 732].”

Rob comments,

“Sue had picked up on the Grunaargh during the 598th session, which she’d recorded for me the evening after Jane had made the whole Sumari break through in [ESP class], on November 23, 1971.

“The point I want to make here is that others beside Jane can intuitively divine material on the families’ of consciousness. Actually, for whatever reasons, Sue had glimpsed a family other than Sumari before Jane had.” [session 737]

So Sue actually was the first person on record to really dive into and explore this concept!

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The Nine Families of Consciousness

Sumafi (Su-ma’-fi)

SETH: deals primarily with teaching, passing on their knowledge or that of others.

ROB: to transmit “originality” through teaching.

Milumet (Mil’-u-met)

SETH: composed of mystics, most of their energy is directed in an inward fashion, deeply involved in nature, in that sense more highly attuned psychically than most.

ROB: to mystically nourish mankind’s psyche.

Gramada (Gra-ma’-da)

SETH: specializes in organization, founders of large businesses, statesmen, politicians, vital, active, creatively aggressive.

ROB: to found social systems.

Vold

SETH: primarily reformers, activists, revolutionaries, with excellent precognitive abilities in terms of probabilities, one purpose in mind: to change the status quo in whatever the area of primary interest.

ROB: to reform the status quo.

Ilda (Il’-da)

SETH: they deal primarily in the great play of exchange and interchange of ideas, products, social and political concepts. They are travelers, carrying with them ideas of one country to another, mixing cultures, religions, attitudes, political structures. Seth has great affection for these folks!

ROB: to spread and exchange ideas.

Sumari (Sum-mar’-i)

SETH: innovators, naturally playful, humorous, relatively unfettered. They are impatient however. They will be found in the arts and in the less conventional sciences.

ROB: to provide the cultural, spiritual, and artistic heritage for the species.

Tumold (Tu-mold’)

SETH: primarily devoted to healing, though don’t have to literally be practicing medicine, found as psychics, social workers, psychologists, priests/shamans, florists, politicians, royalty in past history.

ROB: to heal, regardless of individual occupation.

Zuli (Zu’-li)

SETH: involved mainly with the fulfillment of bodily activity, athletes, dedicated to perfecting the beautiful, elegant, and performance capacities of the body, often appear at the beginnings of civilizations where direct physical bodily manipulation within the environment was of supreme importance.

ROB: to serve as physical athletic models.

Borledim (Bor-le’-dim)

SETH: deals primarily with parenthood, often have large families, focus on nurturing healthy children with brilliant minds, healthy bodies, and strong clear emotions. Their ideas often spring to prominence before large social changes, and help initiate them. Closest to Sumari.

ROB: to provide an Earth stock for the species through parenthood.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 28

When you do not express it, then you dam it up. And you can express it against yourself in terms of physical symptoms, or in your relationship with others. But if you realize it is nothing to be frightened of, then you are free of it.

Hate is, as I have said before, like a summer storm. When you let it go, it lets forth energy and rain that heals the earth. It is turned into quite constructive framework—it is good and natural.' sky would never think of holding back its storm—again, it has better sense.

Do not fear negative thoughts. That simply adds to what you consider negative energy. Where would the world be without thunderstorms, and even floods, and hurricanes, and earthquakes? That is how the earth changes and renews itself. To deny your emotions, any of them, is denying the aspect of your own reality, an it is, literally, impossible.

Let it go and no one will be hurt. The universe is not afraid of your hatred. It can hold it easily. Each individual has their own built-in defense and energy, and your hatred, directed even against them, will not hurt them.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 27

Or, to be aware of the identification. There is no one point of perfection. When you think you have an enemy, you simply begin to focus upon the distances that exist between what you think the enemy is, and what your love tells you the enemy should be. But because you think hate is so wrong, you then do not focus upon the similarities between your enemy and the love that is involved. You are blind, for example, to his good points, and focus instead upon those qualities that separate you from what you think he should be and what he is.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 26

To some extent, yes. Now when you love someone, you are able to see what you think of, or feel, or interpret, as the ideal. You are also aware of the separations from that ideal. But these do not bother you—you accept them, but you do not focus upon them. Now you may also however, because of your identification, see in the other person your own ideal of yourself, and then perceive, as they seem to fall in their behavior from your ideal pattern, also your own failures, and be twice as angry, because it seems to you they are failing for themselves and for you.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 25

When a child says to a parent, "I hate you," often the parent is appalled. The parent says, "You should not say hate," or, "That is bad," and the child quickly learns not to be so honest!

Now this is from my book.*(THE NATURE OF PERSONAL REALITY) But what the child is saying: "I love you so much, and I sense this great love. What separates me from it now, and how can I return to it, and what has happened, and what is wrong?" And hate operates in the same manner, regardless of your age and the personalities involved. And if you are taught to believe it is wrong, it is then more difficult to get back to love because you begin to inhibit the feeling.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 24

You are here because you are beginning to believe in the freedom of yourself, and in your own integrity. You are ready to sit and listen to someone who says, "Look into your self—know your self," and who, at least, will help you do so.

Now, in your terms I have some very good points to say for me, and yet some liabilities. After all, you have bodies that you have to live in every day, and what you think of as intimate personal problems that go on all the time. On the other hand, because I am not physically focused, I have the time, the energy, and the inclination to travel in other realms, and tell you about what goodies I can bring back.

But I always remind you that in whatever terms you think, your consciousness is your own. Your abilities are your own, and those realities that I know are not necessarily yours. I will travel in my own way through reality, and you will travel through your own way in reality.

Now, listen! In a manner of speaking now, and as an analogy, you are entities to the molecules within you. In your terms, they send you out into realities of sensation and dimension that they cannot understand.

You make a conscious decision to drive a car, or not to drive a car. The molecules within you do not know what a car is. Yet your ability to drive that car is dependent upon the existence of those atoms and molecules. Yet, for them, you go out into a reality that they do not know. They join their reality with yours, and theirs is vivid and valid and real, but it is not yours, and yet it is a part of yours, and they send you out. Speaking now again as an analogy, in terms of time, you are what they will be.

Now, in terms of time and following (he analogy—for all you literal minded people—portions of you go out as you go out from your molecules, and speak back to you, and tell you of realities that now you do not consciously perceive, but that are yours. Now think that!

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 23

I do! But work with your own beliefs—honestly, and see what you think when you are finished. If you believe that knowledge is difficult to achieve, it will be. But you will often, as in the instances mentioned, work within a system that agrees with your beliefs.

Now, up to a point this is beneficial, and you will learn from it, and you will see within the system the reflection of your beliefs, and you will begin to move out of that system. But you need, often, the framework of the system, and the agreement, so that often a beneficial framework is set up, but one through which you will move.

Now in many cases, and in such schools—in any schools of beliefs—you will find, for example, students who will set themselves apart, and begin offshoots as their system of beliefs begin to change. You will find alteration, but in al1 cases, each of you use the system of belief for your own purposes. There will be benefits involved and you will move through each.

There is no end to the creation of beliefs within your system. Each are handy reference points that you use—rocks that you stand on for a specific time. Now when I say move on, I am not speaking in terms, necessarily, of higher or lower advancement. I am not speaking of beliefs as rocks that lead to the mountaintop of truth.

[Rick: "Where do they lead?"]

They lead to other beliefs, and to other realities, and to other creative activities that all extend the nature of your own consciousness—the nature of your own being—and that open up with yourselves the acquiescence to new experiences that increase the being of your being.
It would do you no good, now, to have fifty-six teeth. Your mouth would not hold them, and it would be difficult to smile or frown. I will leave you to make the connection with that analogy.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 22

[Now, what I meant was] often, not always, and much less in this group than usual, people want a pill called truth. You take it and all your problems are solved. You know what to do with your life. There are no decisions for you to make. The pill solves it all for you. You do not believe in pills that come from a bottle any longer, most of you, but you want a metaphysical pill, and the metaphysical pill will solve it all for you.

[A student: "Seth, what is this stuff that everybody calls enlightenment?"]

Now, if I could sing, I would sing, "What is This Thing Called Love?" But I cannot sing.

Enlightenment is a normal part of your consciousness. It is a function of your consciousness.

There are varying methods that you think will help you achieve it. As long as you think you need methods, you will run from method to method, and from teacher to teacher. And the teachers will very cleverly work within your beliefs.

If you believe that you are guilty, then you will go to a teacher who will say,"Yes, you are indeed guilty, and I will tell you how nasty and dirty you are." And in one way or another, he will show you how to do penance for your sins.

It may be a wise and clever benign guru who gives you so many hits over the back with a whip. It may be a system of beliefs that tells you that you must work very hard for knowledge because you believe you do not deserve it easily.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 21

Never say "no" to your own feelings—accept them. Hate will lead you back to love, if you allow it to. All emotions come from love. Hate shows you the distance between yourself and another person for whom you feel love.

If you think that the majority of your fellow men are stupid, idiotic, and leading the world toward destruction, it is only because you love the race so strongly, and feel the race falling short of the expectations of your love. If you allow yourself to experience that emotion, then it will lead you back to the realization of your love. But if you deny what you think of as hatred, disgust, or dissatisfaction, then it cannot lead you toward the destination for which it was meant.

If you think you hate a parent, it is because there is in your mind such a separation between yourself and | the love for that parent that you feel. If you allow yourself, therefore, to feel the hatred, you will also experience the love. You do not hate those for whom you have no regard. They do not bother you in any way | whatsoever. They are outside of your notice. You love your enemies whether you know it or not. You are bound to them, for in your mind you constantly compare them with what you think they should be in the vision of your great love for them and for yourself. Whenever you think you hate, you love. But unless you allow yourself to feel the hatred, you will never know. If you hate someone and you beat a pillow, and pretend| you are beating that person to death, then when the murder is committed you will realize the great love that you really feel, and the death will be the death of the hatred, not of the person.

You cannot love yourself and hate your emotions. You cannot love yourself and distrust the reality that | is your own. And within the great affirmation and joy of your being, you can deny and say '"no." For when you deny and say "no" you are doing so comparing what you say "no" to, to what you want to say "yes" to. You are comparing in terms of an ideal that exists in terms of love within your mind. If we bloodless old ghosts are not afraid of emotion, I don't see why you should be.

There are no clear mirrors to look through [to a student] that will show you one impeccable, immaculate reality, and no one, no one ideal Carlos who can say, "I shall and must do this and that to fulfill my abilities." There are, instead, an infinite number of probabilities, and you, my dear Mend, have freedom to move within (hem. You want me to say, "You should do thus and so," or you want yourself to say, "I must do thus and so." But if you flow with the feeling of yourself, you will go where your being goes. Trust—trust—the lives that are within you now. Go along with your own living that flows through you. In your here and now, you are here and now. Feel that here and nowness! Know its knowing! And you will be where the being of you wants to go!

Feel yourself flowing and moving as easily through your life situation as a hair grows out from your head—as easily and naturally. Feel events that you want happening, as hairs grow out from your head. Go with your being. Go with your being. Imagine what you think of as doubts as a beautiful, inner, natural phenomenon, as a rock glowing in the sun, in the stream of your being. They are beautiful and natural. They are not impediments. You flow around them beautifully. They are a part of your being. Now, remember that last sentence particularly, and I return you to your class.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 20

I bid you good evening, and remember this: you have a right to say "no." In the great affirmation of your being, you are conscious. You are therefore able to make a distinction. You can like something better than something else! Within the great affirmation of your being, you can deny.

You can say "no" to a situation freely and joyfully and exuberantly—and feel free, and that you are using the abilities of your consciousness, your spirit, and your creaturehood. If you say "no," you say "no" for a reason. Find out what the reason is. You have a right to it.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 19

If each of you would, for one instant tomorrow, allow yourselves to feel fully the miracle of your own being, then would you indeed find yourselves surrounded by a paradise, but a paradise that would make previous ideas of heaven silly by contrast—a paradise in which you realize the creativity and multidimensional aspects of your own being.

My dear friend over there, Will, you might be a statue—a beautiful sculpture, for all you know of the reality of yourself. And this applies to each of you. Yet there are no barriers that prevent such knowledge or understanding.

If I can feel your uniqueness, individually, with such impact, then why cannot each of you try to feel the grace of your own being? You will look at an animal or a flower and call it beautiful, and ignore the beauty and grace of your own experience. Now this relates not in high spiritual terms necessarily, but to those seeret words that you speak to yourself when you call yourselves stupid, in the seeret closets of your mind.

Would you call a flower stupid? Would you call a star stupid? Would you call a molecule stupid? If you understood the grace of your being, you would look even upon yourselves with joy and gracious abandon. Do you call yourselves dumb, or opaque, or fat, or skinny, or whatever? Whatever derogatory terms you use when you speak to yourselves, stop it!

Feel the uniqueness then of your laughter [to a student] and let your joy spring into your realization, and it will give birth to all those abilities within you. In all of what I have said, there is indeed no greater, practical message.

You think in terms of future selves. And using your terms now—and, as always, that is a loaded statement—but, using your terms, think instead of yourselves as pinnacles of achievement and expression, reached finally by the atoms and molecules that dwell within you. In your terms now, they think and feel and reason.

I return you, then, as always, to the selves that you are, and I entreat you, most humbly, to look within the selves you know for the wisdom that is indeed your own, for the blessing that comes from All That Is, as it is reflected through yourself. Ask me for your blessing, for your blessing. Ask your molecules for their blessing, as you bless them.

See the miracle of tomorrow. When you wake up in the morning, tell yourselves that you will perceive it, and perceive the grace of your being within it.

And now I leave you, and those blessings that I have to give I give you, and those that I do not have, I am sure you can find for yourselves.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 18

In limited terms you all exist in air. But you are not all air. You all are individual, yet you are made up of the same elements that exist in the nature that you know: and yet you are all diverse. And so while you are all one, you are a different, unique, and like no other. You are not swallowed in any reality by a super-self in which your identity is lost. You are all one, but you are all yourselves and unique. And out of that uniqueness and that individuality, the one-ness IS.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 17

I've told you often that there are no limitations to the self. But when you begin to approach the feeling of no limitation, you become frightened, and in a frenzy you try to find yourself and define it—and to discover die point at which you emerge into physical reality.

There are no limitations and ihere are no boundaries to ihe self—only those that you adapt, in your terms, at any given time. I did noi say there was no identity; I said there were no boundaries to the self. There is no place or lime where your self ends; there is no probable reality in which you do not exist—in which YOU do not exist.

There are no limitations to what you are. You can form limitations if you want. They will serve to content you. You can put up fences around yourselves and say, "I am here and now and in no other place and no other time", if you are afraid of die idea of your own inner divinity, and of the infinity of your own existence. You can pretend that you exist only within your corporeal image.

You can hide within the minutes and the hours and the years, and see no further if you wani. But only the tiny portion of you that is frightened is so fooled by the game that you are playing with yourself. The other portions of you merrily go about enjoying their own reality.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 16

Ruburt is a creature. You are creatures. Each in your own way, therefore, dwell in the same energy and the same knowledge. The point of the present is your point of power. If you assign power to the past, then it is lodged there because of your beliefs. In your terms, the present is a moment of your focus through which you affect both, in your terms, the present and the future. It is a moment of your creaturehood. If you think of the past as top-heavy with power, and of yourself as powerless in the moment, then because of your beliefs you become at the mercy of the past and therefore at the mercy of the present and the future. If you feel your consciousness ah've and alert in the moment, and realize that the present moment is your point of power, then you see yourselves as you are, as creators of your experience individually and creators of the world that you know.

For a moment, open or close your eyes, as you prefer, but sense yourselves in this moment at the height of your power of action, and from this point you influence and form your present, your past and your future. This is your moment of power as each moment in your terms is. This, the present moment, is your moment of action and power from which you influence all of your experience. Let that knowledge then guide you who are nameless, who do not need names, who dwell now in a three-dimensional reality, nameless as always, though you give yourselves names.

You are not the names, you do not need ihe names any more than I need the name. Feel that moment of present reality, dien, as your point of action from which you influence each moment, in your terms of your reality, and you will not feel dwarfed by the past or at the mercy of a future you do not understand. Now in your terms, I am ancient Yet, in your lerms, you are also ancient. If you were truly alive and truly perceptive, and you walked out of this house and, with all of your abilities, all of your abilities working, you picked up one brown dried leaf from last year that littered the grass, and picked it up and understood and felt its reality, and heard what it said, then you would hear my voice, for my voice is a leafs voice.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 15

Listen to me and ask yourself what is your name. If you were alone in the middle of the universe surrounded by darkness, and someone said- some voice out of the ether—"What is your name?", what would you answer? So I ask you,"Whal is your name, each of you?" My name is nameless. I have no name. 1 give you the name of Seth because it is a name and you want names. You give yourselves the names, and you have taken names, because you believe names are important.

Your existence is nameless. It is not voiceless, but it is nameless. The names you take are structures upon which you hang your image. One thousand years hence what will your names mean, and one thousand years before this moment what did your names mean, and what have those names to do with your experience? You are what you are, and what you are is nameless. What you are can be not uttered, and no letter or alphabet can contain it. Yet now you need words and letters and names and objects. You want magic that will tell you what you are.

You each, in your own way, are doing your own thing. And each of you are nameless. That does not mean you do not have an identity. It simply means that a name has nothing to do with your identity, and that entity names are a means and a step along levels of belief that you can use. I told Ruburt from our earliest sessions that he could call me Seth. 1 never said, "My name is Seth," for I am nameless. I have had too many identities to cling to one name!

But you think your names define you, and you are afraid to depart from them. And you think your physical existence defines you, and you think that the moment defines; you, you think that your beliefs define you.

If you are quick and if you are intuitive and if you are courageous, and if some evening you listen to my voice in the proper mood, then you can follow yourself to the heart of yourself, using the voice as a road or a vehicle.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 14

Whatever framework you choose you will find many who believe in it. Your idea must be to lead then beyond the framework while still allowing them, if they need to now, to take advantage of it.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 13

You form your reality, and the healing energy is within you always. As a healer, you teach people to realize the great potential of their own healing ability. If they move through frameworks of belief, then you teach them that the frameworks of beliefs are aids, but the healing ability is within each, and it keeps them alive.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 12

There are no ways out. You form your reality. You form the good part.

You are responsible for your successes, for your life, for the joy of your being, for your yawns.

When I tell you that you form your experience, you automatically leap to the conclusion that you form only your bad experiences. Give yourselves credit! You form the joys in your daily Me also, and your happy encounters. It is you who leap to the interpretation that because you form your reality you are responsible only for the dire aspects of your life or for your limitations.

Again, if you will look to those areas where you are pleased and apply those beliefs of success to those areas in which you are not so pleased, you will find there also that you form your experience and that the feeling of achievement can be spread from one area of your living to another.

You form your experience. You form your past, your present, and your future. You are responsible for each daily moment, individually and en masse. En masse, your beliefs bring about the world conditions that you know. Individually, they form your intimate daily life.

As I have told you before, in a manner of speaking, you are given the gifts of the gods. Your beliefs become reality. What you believe is and becomes real in your experience. There are no other answers. There is no area in your life to which this does not apply.

If you are young and angry at your parents, or your background, you helped form that background. If you are older and look back upon your life and do not like what you have done with it in certain areas, you have formed it. You cannot blame circumstance whatever your age or position.

You cannot blame your parents whatever your age or position. You cannot blame your children whatever your age or position.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 11

I want to make a brief comment because it may help you. Regardless, you see, of what Al thinks makes his eyes water (I am not going to get into your smoking problems!)—say that Al believes that his eyes water when it is 45 degrees temperature exactly. All right. Now he believes that that is reality. It is not reality—not rock-bed reality. It is experienced reality because he believes that when certain conditions occur this will happen. Now, each of you, in your own way, will react to different episodes, and so it is up to you to see how that operates in your own lives. But that is not rock-bed reality—it is one of many probable reactions, and you, through your beliefs, have settled upon that. Now as long as you believe that to be far more real than its opposite reaction, you are stuck with it. If you can see it as one probable reaction that you have chosen, and if you can see an opposite reaction as equally valid, then you can free yourself. And the same applies to each of you following that example. And now I return the floor to you.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 10

Because if you take any longer period of time, you will hassle it. You will begin to compare what you want with what you have. You will begin to think that you are trying to change rock-bed reality into something else. You are hypnotized by a fix. The short time period is enough. You are not even to think of this outside of that time.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 9

Now, I propose for each of you an experiment. You must each do it for yourselves and it is a tricky on Perhaps one of the trickiest, in many ways, that I can devise. You must understand, however, the basis for the experiment that I am proposing. You must realize, first of all, that your private reality is one of numberless probable realities. You are experiencing one of many probable realities. Now, because of your neurological structure you can only physically perceive, in your terms, so many events at once. Therefore, from an unlimited number of probable events you choose those which you will perceive through your physical system, in terms of time and biological reality. It seems to you as I speak, however, that the reality that you know is rock bed reality and that all other realities are probable. Instead, you are perceiving and experiencing one of many probable realities for yourselves. You must understand mat or the experiment will not work. If you insist on thinking of your present reality as rock-bed reality, and everything else as probable, then the experiment will not work. So, first of all, you must realize that you are experiencing one probable reality of many.

Now lake, each of you, an area of your life with which you are not pleased in your terms. Think of it. Now, do not think of it in terms of rock-bed reality, but as one of many probable realities mat you have brought into your experience because of your beliefs. Now, hold in your mind the idea that there are other probable realities in that one area that you can just as easily pull into your physical experience, and experience this biologically, practically, and intimately in your daily life. Then, for perhaps five minutes a day and no more, imagine yourself through your beliefs pulling mat portion of probable reality into your own. For that amount of lime you must, however, change your belief in mat area. You must realize that your belief pulls the reality to you: and therefore only, now, for five minutes, change the belief. And if you do this faithfully you will find your reality in that area changing.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 8

It is not always easy, in your terms, to work with yourself. It is much easier to blame anything else for the "negative" parts of your experience than yourself. It is much easier to assign to other agents the responsibility for your being. But you all try too hard. For you do not understand that within your framework of reference there is always challenge and change. And so, bodily situations have their meaning. The self talks to the self. You always think of illness as negative, as wrong, as bad, as evil—in the same way that you think of light as good and dark as bad, white as pure and black as evil. Now in my book, I mentioned that if you are black and you believe that black is evil, you are in a poor position and you had better change your beliefs. If there is pain in you and you think that pain is evil, you are in a bad position, and you had better change your beliefs.

In your framework of reference, as I have said to you time and time again, you form, YOU form your reality according to your beliefs about it. You always, at each stage, accept your beliefs as reality, and so of course they work for each of you.

If you could suspend for a moment the belief that your beliefs are reality, you could then feel your beliefs form the reality that you know—go out from you and draw into your experience the daily, intimate Me that you know. If you believe that you must eat certain foods, then you had better eat them. If you believe that smoke is bad for you, you had better avoid it. If you believe that needles will save you, then they will save you. But in each case, whether in healing or disease, in joy or in agony, in poverty or in wealth, your beliefs form your reality.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 7

For a moment, forget your question! You are a flower—a very lovely flower. The sun is bright and warm and glowing, and you are blooming. Because you are a flower, you exist in the natural world of abundance and glory. And the sun flows upon you, and you open your petals.

Now what would happen, if, in the middle of a bright sunny afternoon, our flower began to think, and it said, "What am I doing that the sun should shine down upon me? I am a poor, worthless little flower. The great world goes beyond me and I do nothing. Hardly anyone notices me and I am very lonely. How is it that this great sun should shine down upon me?"

And so the flower, following its own though), now begins to droop, and it wiggles its little stem over, 'til it hangs its head beneath a giant oak tree, where the sun cannot fall upon it in the shade. And say our little flower begins to reason further, and says, "If the sun fell upon me, what would I have to do to deserve this great benediction? I musi think of things to do to rationalize my existence." And as it thinks, it grows gloomier and darker, and huddles up against the great tree, so that the sun cannot reach it.

Now, any flower has better sense than that, and so should you! Abundance is all around you. It is the sun! It is the rain! Now you think of those things as natural and good. But wealth, in whatever terms you happen to translate it, is also a pan of your natural world and translation. And so for you to feel free to accept one portion of nature and not the other is not a good belief.

You ARE! Your being IS! You are a portion of All That Is. Therefore, you have a right to abundance as the flower has to the sun. In human terms there are many kinds of abundance, and they are all yours. You must realize that you do not have to rationalize your existence. Because you ARE, you have a right to the abundance of nature in whatever way it is transformed or translated for you.

And you have all to realize that your experience begins from within. And your joyful thoughts bring joy, and your abundant thoughts bring abundance and thoughts of limitation bring limitation. And when you are all laughing here and basking in your own being, and glowing in your Sumari Sun, then you are enjoying abundance—your own abundance, your own sense of fun and creativity. So do not limit yourself.

And realize that THE ENERGY THAT SWEEPS THROUGH THIS FORM IS YOUR OWN—a hint of the energy and joy and abundance that belongs to you. So, play with the blocks of your own belief! Enjoy your own being and spontaneity! And be, in your being, joyful!

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 6

I just said that to you so that you would realize you had nothing to lose, but you will instead gain. I just said that to give you a cushion, because you cannot start checking immediately; you cannot begin this and then start checking yourself and say, "Wait a minute. I've done this five minutes now—where's the money?" But I also tell you that if you can change your belief in a split second with enough strength and intensity, and reverse yourself in mid-air so to speak, then the results could be instantaneous.

The Seth Audio Collection - Excerpt 5

Your thoughts have an electromagnetic reality. Now you must realize that this is true or the rest of what I am saying will indeed sound like Pollyanna nonsense.

When you think in terms, for example, of abundance and plenty, then those thoughts draw to you abundance and plenty as a magnet does. There will be a while, while you are changing your beliefs for example, you will find yourself in a period where you feel quite self deceptive and you are saying, "I am surrounded by wealth and abundance," and you still look around you and you are poor. And you think, "This is a lot of bull!"

But it took you some tune to build up your beliefs to the point of your present experience, and so, in your terms, there may be some lag before your new beliefs draw to you abundance. But your physical experience follows your thought. And you cannot change the experience without first changing your thought.

Now, it does no good to believe two things at the same time. So what you do is this—you say, "I will play around with this idea. I will admit that it might be possible that my own thoughts about money are causing my lack of it. And so, for the hell of it, I will, several times a day, pretend that I am surrounded by abundance, and in my mind I will imagine the things that I want. If it does not work, I have not lost a thing, but if it works, I have gained a lot."

So you try it for several weeks, and each time that you do, the idea becomes a little bit more possible, a little bit more real. And in the meantime, these thoughts are changing the beliefs that you have had. They are at least balancing them. And they begin to draw to you abundance. There is no other way to change your physical reality but by changing your thoughts.

Quotes from "The Magical Approach"

"The creative abilities operate in the same fashion, appearing within consecutive time, but with the main work done outside of it entirely."
Session One, Page 3

"..you fall into the frame of mind in which you think that each minute is valuable - but what you mean is that each minute must be a minute of production."
Session One, Page 3

"I use the word methods because you understand it, but actually we are speaking about an approach to life, a magical or natural approach to life that is man’s version of the animal’s ?literal? instinctive behavior in the universe."
Session One, Page 5

"True creativity comes from enjoying ?the? moments, which then fulfill themselves, and a part of the creative process is indeed the art of relaxation, the letting go, for that triggers magical activity..."
Session One, Page 8

"The old beliefs, of course, and the rational approach, are everywhere reinforced, and so it does have a great weight. The magical approach has far greater weight, if you use it and allow yourselves to operate in that fashion, for it has the weight of your basic natural orientation."
Session One, Page 9

"It is not that you overuse the intellect as a culture, but that you rely upon it to the exclusion of all other faculties in your approach to life."
Session Two, Page 13

"Now when you understand that intellectually, then the intellect can take it for granted that its own information is not all the information that you possess."
Session Two, Page 16

Magic Show

What magicians we all are,

turning darkness into light,

transforming invisible atoms

into the dazzling theater

of the world,

pulling objects,

(people as well

as rabbits)

out of secret

microscopic closets,

turning winter into summer,

making a palmful of moments

disappear through time's trap door.

We learned the methods

so long ago

that they're unconscious,

and we've hypnotized ourselves

into believing

that we're the audience,

so I wonder where we served

our apprenticeship.

Under what master magicians did we learn 

to form reality

so smoothly that we forgot to tell ourselves

the secret?

Jane Roberts, 1979 - from The Magical Approach - Seth Speaks about the art of creative living

Seth Talk

from Lynda Dahl's http://www.sethnet.org/seth-talk.html

JULY 1, 2010

Welcome to Seth Talk, folks. I’m Lynda Dahl and I’m very excited about this new SNI offering because it will pretty much be my project, one that matches my inner inclinations very closely. Ever since I started reading the Seth material in 1984, most of my focus has been on attempting to understand the practical implications of what Seth says and then integrate it into my thinking as a given. Living a safe universe eventually became my overall goal.

Not an easy task, as all of you know, because the learning goes on...and on...and on. But as a by-product of my ongoing focus, I've gathered to me hundreds upon hundreds of Seth quotes on various subjects that specifically clarify what Seth is saying or recommending or clearing up regarding the nature of reality and how understanding it can lead to living a safe universe.

So what I'll be doing with Seth Talk, among other things, is laying the foundation which I believe will lead us to living a safe universe, nesting my gathered quotes together into a composite picture of what Seth says about certain subjects that lead us in that direction, subjects such as action (also called the vitality of All That Is, or the crux of creation), and the spacious present (the only place where action happens), and significances (the true cause and effect, happening in the spacious present and brought about by action). Etcetera, etcetera. I'll post a new entry periodically (hopefully at least once a month), and those of you on our email list will get a heads-up when one appears.

So, to kick off Seth Talk, the first offering is below. It's a long one because I wanted to give you some background about the purpose of Seth Talk and where it will eventually lead us. I hope Seth Talk'soverview topic, Living a Safe Universe, will prove to be an intriguing journey through the Seth material from a different perspective than reading the books one at a time from cover-to-cover allows us, because the subjects that comprise the overview, and their quotes, will be gathered from all books to be made into a whole.

The layout you will see below is temporary. Jeff Kiefer, our wizard of the web, plans to redo Seth Talkwhen he has an opportunity, creating a register of entries, with each entry standing alone as a document. But for now they will be posted as we do with Seth World News, one after the other in one long presentation.

Also, I’m sorry to say the quotes will not be annotated. The reason is that in my private files, where all the quotes will come from, I find that annotation of the type of Seth comments I normally use (one or two-liners) gets cumbersome and burdens the mind’s eye instead of clarifying the point of the quotes.

And one final note, folks. Do feel free to copy and paste anything you wish from Seth Talk into a Word doc for printing purposes. No problem whatsoever.

(Oh, another thought. If you're on Facebook, do drop by Lynda Madden Dahl, my page. Although FB isn't really a good, thorough venue for it, we're hoping to explore some of Seth's ideas there, certainly some of his quotes. At the very least, we'll be sharing ideas and friendship with other Sethies. ** Go Seth!)