Integral Conscious Creation

A Wonderful Castaic Weekend

We just finished a fun, fun, fun weekend around Mary Ennis’ annual visit to Castaic, CA where the Elias phenomenon began thirteen years ago. During that time, Mary’s delivered over 2,400 sessions! Jo and I hosted this year’s session in our Community Clubhouse, which had been completely refurbished since Mary’s last visit, so the room looked great with its new furniture. Around thirty-two people attended, and there were several new folks as well.

Elias spoke for close to two and a half hours. He opened by informing us that a new wave in consciousness was ramping up, and the perception wave was finally winding down. But he teased us a bit before actually saying what belief system the new wave would emphasize by saying that those with a Vold belonging to or aligning with would have particularly intense times ahead. Also, those who are politically-focused or thought-focused would as well. Then he said that the new wave would focus on… emotions. Since sexuality and emotions are baselines of our human experience, I suspect that we’re going to see some incredible expressions in the coming years. So, strap yourselves in for the ride if you haven’t already.

Elias complimented the entire forum saying that we collectively made it through the recent perception wave in very good shape, meaning less trauma-drama than in previous waves. While the perception wave was relatively short, under two years, we should gear ourselves up, because this emotion wave is going to last a while and be an intense one (thinking of the truth wave that lasted over three years)!

Elias then queried the group to share what we had taken away from our own experiences in terms of perception. At least nine or ten people took their turns, one by one, guided by Elias’ comments and occasional elaborations. I was struck by the clever format because even though everyone didn’t have time to offer up their perspectives and experience, just listening to others stimulated my own responses and reflections from events over the past two years.

According to Elias, perception is the causal, creative element that creates 100% of our reality. So my musings went into the area of beginning to more deeply understand my multidimensional selfhood in more direct terms, which involves widening egoic awareness to understand that objective awareness alone is not 100% causal. And while beliefs are very, very important, they are really a subset of perception. So they, in turn, cannot be considered 100% creating of reality either, even though they play a key role. Still, these waves in consciousness help us, through introspection, to better know our preferences and opinions, and create what we truly desire.

After an hour or so, we had our break. As we gathered for the second half, I announced the release of Jo’s new Rose website – www.essence-of-rose.com – that will replace her In the Rose Garden blog here on NewWorldView (it will close down at the end of April). I also invited those staying over until Monday to come to our house the next day for a Rose Potluck Dinner and group session at 4 PM.

Through the entire session I was struck by how consistent Elias’ teachings remain over the years, and how well he guides the group energy. As the second half began, we continued sharing our experiences with the perception wave, and gradually moved onto other topics. While everyone came away with their own highlights, I was struck by two questions asked by Drew (Matthew in the early sessions) during this part. The first was about whether the saying “God is love” is a distortion because love is a human belief system. The second was about the nature of intent, and its relation to those who purposefully seek out a life of suffering.

Elias was careful to define the context of his words, and said that when we define love as a human feeling – a very important human feeling – it is relative to human perceptions and could be considered a distortion. Thus to equate “all of consciousness” (Elias’ term for All-That-Is) with this human expression limits a broader context in which other expressions of love also exist. This expands into a transpersonal, transcendental love in my view. While Elias didn’t use those exact words, he defined a broader context in which expressions of love, as knowing and appreciation, exist throughout all of consciousness. In that context, to say “God is love” is accurate, because it is an Absolute Truth.

I learned something very important in this exchange, because I had never been able to reconcile Elias’ Absolutes with the nondual, ever-present, always already Consciousness spoken of in all the world’s great spiritual traditions. It’s a subtle distinction, but one worth exploring. It caused me to review my Digest on Absolutes (“there are no absolutes!”), and then to update my introductory note on my Digest on the belief system of truth with the following:

Finally, we need to explore an important, yet subtle, distinction Elias implies with this concept, namely, the difference between duality and nonduality. Elias’ truths (relative) and Truths (Absolute) apply only to dualistic constructions within all of consciousness. They do not apply to the nondual, ever-present, always already shunyata or emptiness that is the Primal Cause of all be-ing. Therefore, what Elias is talking about thus far only applies to dualistic manifestations or constructions that he is familiar with. The great nondual philosophers, for example Patanjali and Nagarjuna in the East, have all shown convincingly that nondual reality can never be fully described or expressed, only experienced. According to Nagarjuna, as cited by Ken Wilber:

“It cannot be called void or not void,
“Or both or neither;
“But in order to point it out,
“It is called Void.”

In this context, nondual reality is not something to be attained or sought. It is simply the realization of the ever-present, always already opening in our awareness in which the action of consciousness occurs. It can be talked about, and pointed out, but all those are secondary, dualistic constructions. Another way to understand this simple feeling of be-ing is to inquire, “What Aspect of my awareness never changes, even as my perception changes, from waking state to dream state to deep dreamless state to waking state?” In other words, no matter what states we experience, which by definition are temporary because we cycle through them every day, what remains constant in all states is eternal, timeless, nondual Spirit: Primal Cause of all of consciousness. Therefore, this Primal Cause can never be fully realized by the words Elias uses to describe the Absolute Truths within all manifest, dualistic realities, for it can only be directly experienced. It has no beginning and no end. Thus, the ONLY Absolute Universal Truth is the ineffable, radically unqualifiable, nondual Primal Cause. Everything else, like tone, color, love, consciousness, etc. are dualistic to the core and, as such, are always secondary constructions. So it’s important to properly situate Elias’ relative truths as human belief systems and Absolute Truths as qualities in all manifest, dualistic constructions in relation to all of consciousness.

However, Elias doesn’t use the terms nondual and dual, though coincidentally Kris, channeled by Serge Grandbois, has. Rather than belabor the point, let me recommend Ken Wilber’s The Simple Feeling of Being as an accessible yet thorough overview of the nondual traditions. This is not a book with endnotes and complex intellectual theories, like his academic work, but a compilation by senior students of his “poetry,” the best means to hint at the simple essence of nondual reality. (See also my book review in the Library.)

Why has Elias chosen not to go into dual and nondual distinctions? Only time will tell. In the mean time, these thoughts were triggered by the way Elias discussed how “God is love” can mean different things in different contexts. As long as we clearly define them, we can explore these nuanced contexts from multiple perspectives.

Now, let’s return to Drew’s second question, something he’s been exploring for years, and also recently asked Rose about: how does our innate intent work? Is it possible for us to choose a lifetime of misery and suffering, and as such, would trying to alleviate or change that suffering interfere with our deepest desires for this lifetime?

Elias provided a long answer, but I was able to boil it down to a well known philosophical argument: is our universe and reality predetermined, or do we have the free will to change anything at any time? A subset of this explores the nature of probabilities, and how can we change them if our intent is to experience a life of, what many might define as, suffering.

Of course, there is no simple answer to these penetrating questions, but Elias did restate that our “pools of probabilities” exist as potentials and are not preordained (his term). In this light, Elias does not promote a deterministic view of reality, but promotes free will (doing and choosing). He stated again that we create probabilities in the moment, in the now (thinking of Seth’s “point of power”), and therefore we can indeed change our path at any time. Moreover, Elias said, “You can have it all.” While there’s many who suffer, and in reality, no one suffers 100% of their life. We may choose difficult circumstances politically, economically, relationship-wise, health-wise, etc. but in all cases, if we are choosing, we can create significant change through our ability to act in the now.

Otherwise, beliefs in a predetermined universe produce social systems like the caste system in premodern India. It used the belief system of karma to justify the poverty of the untouchable class. As a result of misdeeds in earlier lives, they are punished and must “burn off bad karma” by being reincarnated into underprivileged circumstances. Therefore, their problems didn’t need to be dealt with by the government. That’s just the way it goes! In effect, since their punishment for bad karma is predetermined, they deserve it and can be ignored. This kind of deterministic theology also occurred in the West during the Middle Ages. If you were born poor or of royal blood, it was God’s will, and that was your lot in life, and it couldn’t be changed.

So Drew was using Elias’ information to understand his own suffering from a deterministic perspective. He felt he couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do anything to change his situation. But Elias didn’t reinforce those beliefs, and gently reminded Drew, and the group who followed with compassion, that our true power lies in choice (free will), and noticing what we do and choose. If we really desire it, there is nothing stopping us from attaining our desires: good health, loving relationships, financial abundance, ending war, violence, and on and on; nothing at all. Needless to say, Elias gave us a lot to assimilate, as always.

Elias ended the session with his usual, loving encouragement to the entire group, with best wishes for our continued fulfillment in any way we desire. After the session people dispersed to various places to enjoy dinner and continued conversation. It was great to see so many old and new faces.

After cleaning up and closing the clubhouse, Jo and I went home and got some rest to prepare for the Rose Potluck Dinner and group session at our house the next day. By 4:30 PM Sunday, we had sixteen people over for our fourth Rose group session. Jo spent the hour beforehand “resting in Rose” or meditating so she’s “in state” and relaxed by session time. I greeted people, and then gave a short introduction to what’s been going on and what to expect.

Coinkidinkily, Jo had just celebrated her first anniversary of Rose coming through on the Ouija board, April 5^th, on Saturday during the Elias session. Jo made a point, when sharing her experiences with the perception wave, to express her deep appreciation of Mary and Elias, for without them, she wouldn’t be doing this. And I’d like to express the same thing, not only to Mary and Elias, but Ron, Cathy, Vicki, Bobbi, Lynda, David, Gail, and many others who’ve contributed to the Elias forum over the years.

I mentioned that we had held 234 sessions in the first year. This was possible because Jo autotypes her “vespers,” or one on one sessions with Rose. She also holds voice sessions, which I continue to transcribe. We have over one thousand pages at this point, and have finished up to session 90, in terms of final notes and editing. We will add more material to the new website as we continue this process in the months and years ahead (we are looking for transcribers to help. If you’re interested, please contact me at helfrich@newworldview.com).

Next, I provided an overview of the phenomenon to date. The main point was that Jo progressed from the board to autotyping to voice channeling very rapidly, and continues to “airtype” as Rose “speaks” through her fingers. So I instructed folks to watch her hands during the session, because Jo often verbally translates directly from her fingers. In this light, Jo is a “conscious channel” (like Ron/Patel) as opposed to a “trance channel” (like Seth, Elias, Kris, C9, Defrene, etc.). Thus, Jo is present to varying degrees, and can actually speak as well. This takes some getting used to, because we’re not used to Jane, Mary, or Serge interacting during a session. They are dissociated in varying kinds of sleep or meditative states.

So it’s kind of fun to watch Jo react to Rose as she translates in real time, though once she gets on a roll, she speaks so quickly now that she “knows” the words before they get “airtyped.” Yet the autotyping is a key skill she will continue to use for writing books (Rose has dictated two small books already). Rose has also been training Jo to access deeper states, so I consider her more of a “light trance channel,” because she can’t just rattle off Rose if her “monkey mind” is too engaged. She knows when she has to “go deeper” and people have begun to observe how her energy and state changes during the course of a voice session.

Next, I pointed out a few of Rose’s eccentricities and what to expect, for example, her use of “tests.” She does this to stir the pot and get a reaction to bring issues, beliefs, etc. to the surface. She will make what may seem like an outrageous or illogical statement that, if taken literally, is absurd. For example, my favorite so far, “Kill the terrorists!” It can be quite challenging and takes getting used to, because she’s not really promoting murder as a solution to social problems at all. Instead, she’s using a Zen-like technique to force the rational mind and intellect to loosen up, and move into deeper intuitions and inner sensing for problem solving and inspiration.

Also, Rose makes up new words (neologisms) to help break up the linear flow of language, and entrenched beliefs and habits. For example, she uses words like treantea (explore multiple choices), sonter (breathe in essence), weany boy/girl (wean of fear, guilt, shame), feal (mergence of feel+real), and more to help widen awareness and nuance new ways of perceiving things.

Then I talked about the “nun-thing,” another one of my favorites. The Rose energy, as expressed through Joanne, represents a newly emergent feminine energy intended to rebalance social structures on a global scale dominated by patriarchal, masculine energies that have become way out of balance. This energy is tailored for this shift in consciousness, this period of transition to new worldviews to help restore the feminine side within all people to better balance.

I also addressed the question, “Is this the same Rose as Elias’ Rose?” Our answer is “yes and no.” I explained that the Rose energy must be translated through any channel, and as such, it will be colored by Aspects of the multidimensional self. For example, with there is Rose <> Tyl <> Joanne, and Rose <> Elias <> Michael <> Mary – two different expressions. Further, we have begun to get some information on Christ and the so-called nine children of Rose, but we are taking our time before going down that rabbit hole! All of which is to point out that when you engage Rose/Joanne, do not expect the exact same translation, vocal style, or definition of terms as Seth, Elias, Kris, etc. It’s like having different orchestras and conductors interpret Beethoven’s ninth symphony. There will be many similarities, but also differences, and learning to discern these takes time and intelligence.

The session began around 4:50 PM. There were several references to concepts from the Elias session that took us into some really deep waters right away, including the nature of love (knowing and appreciation), Rose’s fallibility, compassion, selfishness, shadow projections, fear, “terrorism” and bullies, and more.

We took a break at 5:45 PM. for a potluck dinner that included pasta salads, garlic bread, an almond rice dish, and plenty to wash it down with! Gail Becker was a huge help in organizing the food, and making everything yummy. She also took this picture of Jo in session. Thanks Gail!

We resumed at 7:20 PM. and went for another ninety minutes! That’s around five hours of session time including the Elias group the day before. Concepts included fun, following our bliss, learning to channel, changing self and changing the world (long interaction here), the shift in consciousness, and a finale that featured Jo’s nascent mediumship skills. We’ve documented several encounters with relatives and friends in our first year, and a participant asked about a friend named Charlie. Without skipping a beat, Rose allowed Charlie to come through, much to Jo’s surprise and laughter! She actually had to disengage and laugh out loud because Rose made the switch so fast. The exchange with Charlie included a test from Rose – information about someone named Carol, a yellow cab driver in Santa Monica. We will continue to track all of these encounters to determine their authenticity, and what’s going on in terms of the energy exchange.

Finally, the session wrapped at 8:50 PM. and we continued to talk over desert (cookies, cupcakes, and candies), coffee, and tea until 10 PM. went folks began to say their “goodbyes.” Thanks to all of you who participated in the Elias group and Rose Potluck this year, all in all, we had a wonderful weekend in Castaic!

2008 Elections

(This post was inspired by a topic started by John McNally on Sethnet by the same name. I began to write a reply and I realized that it belonged here.)

I am more optimistic about the Democrats chances in November, even Clinton will be better than McCain, though ironically, some Republicans are debating that! However, it is now possible that a groundswell of Barackomania may sweep him into the White House in January.

I don't often post political speeches, but Barack Obama has a real gift to galvanize his audience and provide hope for much needed social changes. We Boomers lived through the sixties and saw times of turbulent change and a new, postmodern worldview emerge (what we call the GREEN altitude in integral). So this has harmonic resonances to those times, feelings, and issues, but I don't know if the collective has enough momentum yet. Yesterday's speech certainly puts his candidacy in a new light, and may be a watershed moment in his presidential bid.

Also, for those of you who get HBO, check out the John Adams mini-series. It shows the American Revolution from his Bostonian perspective, and how the revolution sprouted from The Boston Massacre and Tea Party to Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill and spread across the Colonies. I was born in Philadelphia, PA and worked at the Franklin Institute Science Museum for ten years, so I've had a front row seat to learn about how the American Experiment has unfolded through history. And I suspect we may be witnessing, and participating in another small but unique shift in the process during this election cycle.

As Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that a thoughtful committed group of citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."

Additionally, we can now factor in Jane Roberts's moving American Vision that closes The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto to reveal how hopeful she was of our American Experiment, and how The Seth Material, and related bodies of work, could take their place in the public sector some day, and stop being relegated to likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other fundamentalists. That is, what she called psychic naturalists could provide a grass roots groundswell of authentic, psychic, spiritual, altered-states fueled contributions to the collective, free of the premodern, superstitious nonsense that riddles so many religious movements based on metaphysical Absolutes (like virgin births, bodily resurrections, heaven being up in the sky, etc.). Jane's work is a testimony to post-post conventional cognitive and spiritual lines that not only took a rational approach to her altered states and abilities, but began to understand the systemic nature of collective co-creation.

Perhaps the Obama candidacy will be one small step in the direction of addressing to the much needed social, fiscal, educational, military, and economic changes needed to realize Jane's American Vision to burst forth. In other words, we need a strong foundation of healthy, educated, dedicated, awake, and creative citizens to achieve that Vision, and the current system, as we all know falls way short because of old wounds, racial, class, and gender divides, ethnocentric ways of thinking, and ingrained patterns that no longer provide adequate solutions from a global, systems perspective.

Further, the worldviews of current entrenched political and economic interest (AMBER/ORANGE conservatives) tend to commit what Wilber calls the level-line fallacy, thereby reducing all authentic transrational, inner senses fueled cognition to Freudian prerational, infantile dissociative pathology (a variation of his pre/trans fallacies).

Therefore, we also need to consider the emerging integral movement of Ken Wilber and Don Beck, among others, who are showing new ways to solve problems by taking a wider view with an Integral Politics and integral approach. As Einstein is oft-quoted, "The significant problems we face can never be solved at the level of thinking that created them."

Barack Obama is showing signs that he has the pluralistic vision, spiritual depth, and political will to begin what could be an eight year run at countering the regressive policies of the Bush Family legacy (Wall Street Republicans = AMBER/ORANGE in integral stages). To this end, I share the following:

March 18, 2008 ~ Philadelphia, PA

Barack Obama ~ An Excerpt

"We have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle—as we did in the OJ trial—or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina—or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.

"We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

"We can do that.

"But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

"That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

"This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

"This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

"This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

"I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation—the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

"There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today—a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

"There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

"And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

"She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

"She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

"Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

"Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

""I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

"But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins."

You can watch or read the entire speech here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords

Final comment: change begins at the grass roots level addressing to basic issues required to build, support, and nurture a healthy, educated, and spiritually awake citizenry. Issues like universal health care, equal job opportunities, creative outlets, gay and lesbian rights, immigration, corrupt banking and financial practices, an over-extended military, and more need to be addressed from the bottom up, in integral terms, not the top down. This is what is required to support the kind of shift in consciousness that Seth, Elias, Kris, Rose, and others talk about, so it may fully blossom in the next seven decades (that's 3-4 generations!). At times it feels impossible, and yet I also am beginning to sense the light at the end of the tunnel and realize that it's not a train, but a new worldview beckoning from an increasingly most probable future. In any case, get out and vote your conscience during this election year.

Integral Impressions on The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts: Part 1 of 5

(Preface, Chapters 1-4)

Foreword

Several attempts have been made over the years to review The Nature of Personal Reality chapter by chapter in our online forums, but due to the immensity of the challenge have never gotten past the initial chapters. Recently on NewWorldView, however, Tom Sherlock stepped up to the plate and is attempting this heroic endeavor once again by publishing a précis of each chapter in order over the next few months.

This inspired me to commit to a five-part series - a sort of Cliff Notes - on the core themes that Seth, Jane, and Rob explored through the benefit of an integral lens, which by definition includes a more comprehensive, balanced, and inclusive set of perspectives provided by Ken Wilber. You can expect these notes to be unlike any you've encountered to date in a Seth book, but they are secondary, so you can skip them if they don't interest you.

The basic idea, then, is to read one chapter at a time in order, and spend a week or so concentrating on the core ideas. This spreads your reading over a period of months to better understand many of the core concepts. So sit back, take your time, and enjoy this marvelous book!

When we reread an influential book, we do so with new eyes. In the process, we discover new layers of understanding because we have encountered many of the concepts in the real world, and they no longer remain abstractions or theories without the evidence of experience. In this sense, the Seth books are gifts that keep on giving - evergreens - because direct experience helps us penetrate more deeply into layers of meaning cleverly hardwired into the text. How many times have you reread a book and thought it got much better or clearer? It's a mirror of our own growth through time.

Jane Roberts was at the peak of her creative life during the writing of The Nature of Personal Reality. For instance, she wrote in the intro that she considered Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time and The Speakers poems as companions to NPR because they show how her creative and psychic abilities were developing in complementary ways. At this stage of her career, the Seth books had become the means to reach a much larger audience than was possible through private or group sessions, like ESP class.

Jane also began the first Oversoul Seven book during this amazing period. Further, she talked about how she could sense multiple channels or blocks of Seth material available as book dictation, or answers to Rob's questions, or answers to other questions, all at once. Jane also began what she called "the Sumari development," which included singing, pantomime, poetry, and even math. As if this wasn't enough, Jane also developed her Aspect Psychology model in Adventures in Consciousness to explain it all!

So The Nature of Personal Reality was a truly foundational work. It also coined the New Age mantra "you create your own reality" that is still in use today. Another important feature is how Jane and Rob wove their personal lives, mass events like the Elmira/Agnes flood, and the creative nature of the Seth phenomenon into the structure of this book. As such, it is multi-layered and sets up the next book, the magnum opus called The "Unknown" Reality (the only Seth book to include an organized set of transformational Practice Elements and extensive supporting research by Rob Butts).

However, if this is the first time you read The Nature of Personal Reality, you can skip most of Rob's notes and read only Seth's words the first time through. That will make the ideas easier to assimilate. Be sure to include them the second time through, as they add an important dimension.

[Note: integral comments are included in brackets below. You also can skip them and still get the core ideas presented by Seth.]

Summary

Main points to contemplate when reading the Preface and Chapters 1-4:

• Seth focused on ontology - the nature of Being, or Self - and outlined a broad map:
• All-That-Is: mentioned one time-a primary organizing gestalt. [Also called causal body-mind.]
• Inner Self: also called soul, psyche, source self: a mediating nonphysical "region" between All-That-Is and its physically manifested selves. [Also called subtle body-mind.]
• Conscious Mind: Seth used a giant camera metaphor with outer ego as director of lens and focus geared toward physical constructions. [Also called gross body-mind.]
• All the above structures work in concert; the distinctions are artificial and only useful insofar as to point out Aspects within our own awareness right now that may be useful in addressing to various challenges and limited definitions of Self. There are essentially no boundaries or separation to Self or All-That-Is. This is a core belief Seth promotes early on.

[Seth defined the conscious mind as something much wider than just the ego. So this hints at the un- or subconscious processes that early psychologists like Baldwin, Freud, Mesmer, William James, and F. W.H. Meyers began to map in the 19th century.]

[The expanded way Seth defined the conscious mind comes very close to what Jane would soon call the nuclear self in Aspects, distinct from the focus personality. It was her attempt to identify the psychological structure that helped to manage all probable selves within each focus personality (Seth's outer ego) and source self (Seth's inner self or inner ego).]

• With the above concept map presented, Seth recommends that we explore our conscious minds through introspection. "I am not telling you to examine your thoughts so frequently and with such vigor that you get in your own way, but you are not fully conscious unless you are aware of the contents of your conscious mind." p. 34.
• Seth introduced the concept of feeling-tone as a means to more deeply engage the conscious mind and inner self. He offered a simple practice (p. 20-21) in which to discern the simple feeling of being, our innate feeling-tone [or essence-tone to use Elias' equivalent].
• Regarding the exercises in the book overall, Seth said that "The methods that I will outline demand concentration and effort [my italics]. They will also challenge you, and bring into your life expansion and alterations of consciousness of a most rewarding nature." P. xix. In other words, this is not a quick-fix book, but requires serious concentration and effort. Further, it will lead to altered states that are quite beneficial, but mostly denied and repressed by modern worldviews.
• Seth focused initially on the role of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, expectations, emotions, feelings, and imagination in reality creation. All are psychological structures with concomitant physical structures (i.e., brain/body) that are co-causal. That is, they work together in some mysterious way to form, make, and create personal reality.

[An integral approach doesn't over-emphasize inner or outer structures, but a harmonious blend of both. So it's not all about any one factor, but how all of them work together.]

• Note thus far that the phrase YCYOR is not used, but "you make" or "you form" your own reality is the dominant linguistic expression.
• [Seth used the term "gestalt," or collective consciousness, to describe the consciousness of trees and rocks, cells and organs, and "the race of man." Though he doesn't go deeper, there are clear holonic relationships that outline how All-That-Is is nested within all reality creation. "Consider the spectacular framework of your body just from the physical standpoint. You perceive it as solid, as you perceive all other physical matter; yet the more matter is explored the more obvious it becomes that within it energy takes on specific shape (in the form of organs, cells, molecules, atoms, electrons [my italics]), each less physical than the last, each combining in mysterious gestalt to form matter." P. 20.]

[Note that Seth follows the exact order of Wilber's holonic model in the above example. Each is "less physical" than the previous and combine in a "mysterious gestalt" to form our bodies. This is what Wilber means by each wider or superholon "transcends yet includes" each narrower or subholon. For more on holons and holarchy, see: All-That-Is as Holarchy.]

• Seth also outlined the larger, mass gestalt framework within which personal reality occurs. He even outlined a brief history of the conscious mind, for example, showing how the modern conscious mind limited earlier, premodern emotional and psychic abilities, while making great leaps forward by emphasizing the rational-empirical-analytical aspects during the Industrial Revolution.
• Seth also pointed out how mainstream, modern beliefs in Freud's unsavory subconscious -the modern version of The Church's sinful self - have influenced and limited mass reality creation. In other words, they prevent self-examination and introspection of our conscious mind to unmask invisible core beliefs that limit our potentials, because we're taught to believe that only a "priesthood" of trained therapists and years of psychoanalysis can hope to unlock them. So just believing in the existence of Seth's ontology - that there is a conscious mind and inner self all nested within All-That-Is - becomes very important in learning to work more closely with The Self "who creates 100%" of our personal reality. In other words, it's not just limited to outer ego, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, etc., but includes the inner self and even deeper Aspects of All-That-Is, though we don't want to get ahead of Seth's story.
• Another linguistic pattern to notice is that Seth mentions "there is no other rule" three times throughout Chapter Three:



• "What exists physically exists first in thought and feeling. There is no other rule." P. xvii.


• "You make your own reality. There is no other rule. Knowing this is the secret of creativity." P. 14.


• "You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule." P. 45. (This quote was taped on the office wall of Rob Butts during my visits to the Hill House in December 1991 and April 1993.)



[In terms of discernment (adequate interpretation of meaning and linguistic context) this means that Seth used the phrase "there is no other rule" as a strong emphasis and NOT as an Absolute. Otherwise, it would be performative contradiction that ends up negating itself. Still, all three focus on the importance of subjective experience in reality creation, and seem to under-emphasize the role of physical counterparts, like the brain, body, genes, DNA, organs, cells, etc. In hindsight, I believe this emphasis on interiors and idealism (for instance, Jane's idea constructions) is a reaction against the modern emphasis on exteriors and scientific materialism in general. Therefore, from an integral perspective, we attempt to account for both as we interpret Seth's words and intended meanings.]

• Seth began to outline a taxonomy of beliefs that will be further developed:



• Core - foundational belief systems [vMemes] around which many other beliefs [memes] orbit.


• Limiting- beliefs [memes] that serve to inhibit growth and widening.


• Invisible - beliefs [memes] held as Absolute truths that are, in fact, relative and malleable. They are not buried or unconscious, instead they include unexamined assumptions about the nature of reality that may no longer serve our growth and fulfillment.


• Subsidiary/Corollary - offshoots of core beliefs [memes]. Once core belief systems are addressed, false or distorted subsidiary beliefs simply lose their energetic affect. They still exist as potentials, but are neutralized.


• Directional - beliefs [memes] that children receive from parents to ensure a sense of safety to develop their abilities and explore their world.


• Conflicting - subsidiary beliefs [memes] held in simultaneous opposition that manifest physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual symptoms. A physical example, the beliefs that it's important to write (I'm good at communicating with my wife) and it's important to not write (I'm not very good at communicating with a parent) will produce confusing signals to the hands, leading to tension, stress, and cramps when writing. However, once fully identified and addressed to, the opposition and symptoms can be neutralized.


• Joint - beliefs [memes] shared in relationships. Interpersonal beliefs of a similar nature.


• Body - beliefs [memes] about the body's function and whether those functions are healthy or unhealthy, socially acceptable or not, etc.


• Negative - beliefs [memes] that generate strong emotional and imaginative connections that produce unhealthy, even pathological symptoms.


• Active/Passive - the former are beliefs in use by the conscious mind, the latter lie latent as potentials to be activated by conscious mind. This also relates to negative and positive beliefs that are actively in use.


• Private - personal beliefs held by the individual. However, since they are available to others, so when we change beliefs we may get mixed messages intended to sabotage our new beliefs because they no longer align with previous groupthink. "These people will either drop out of your experience or you must drop them from yours." P. 77.


• [The Developmental Seth - though Seth, Jane, and Rob don't go into great detail, they show an understanding of how humans develop through stages, and how our beliefs, belief systems, and worldviews do as well. For example, in the Introduction Jane talked about "the Sumari development," and later in chapter three Seth talked about the different channels of material now available to Jane in waking state indicated a certain "stage of development" in her personal abilities.]

[In chapter four, Seth discussed the origins of beliefs as transmitted and reinforced by our parents. He points out "early stages of development" and the impact of "directional beliefs" that create a nurturing framework where children can explore and develop more easily. Thus, as children, we take our parents' beliefs as Absolute Reality until we mature enough to begin to discern for ourselves that they are beliefs about reality that are not Absolutes.]

[Further, we developed reasoning abilities (intellect) as a species that were meant to "evolve and grow as they are used." As our cognitive capacities develop, we become "more conscious" as well. So growth and development equal increased consciousness in physical terms.]

[The "mature conscious mind" is defined as one that accepts exterior (physical senses and intellect) and interior information (inner knowledge, deep intuition = hunches, inspiration, precognition, clairvoyance). Thus, to limit the function of the conscious mind to one or the other results in an imbalance.]

[However, Seth, Jane, and Rob didn't really get into how the basic stages unfold from egocentric (me) to groupcentric (us) to worldcentric (all of us) to Kosmocentric (All-That-Is). So this book is an introduction to foundational principles, because we can only cover so much in one book!]

In summary, Seth concentrated on ontology or the nature of being by pointing the psychological structures we use in reality creation. He made the nature of being explicit in his pointing out instructions. However, he did not focus on epistemology - how we know what is true and what constitutes evidence of the true. So this remains implicit to Seth's story-telling at this point.

On the other hand, Seth did cover the inner, mental (reason), and outer senses in previous sessions that were published in The Seth Material. So epistemology is covered elsewhere in the material. Keep in mind that The Nature of Personal Reality began with session 609, April 10, 1972, years after Seth made his first appearance.

[Extra Credit: For those interested in applying an integral approach:]

• [Seth provided an exercise in which we begin to list various beliefs. This is a good place to introduce Elias' ten foundational belief systems. From our integral lens, they can be understood as a typology that unfolds in stages of development. For example, if we take the values line from Spiral Dynamics, it deals with beliefs (memes), belief systems (vMemes), and worldviews (weltanschauung) in the individual and how they scale up into the collective through the four quadrants.]



[Within the values or beliefs line, then, we find ten types (or zones or bird cages, to use Elias' metaphor) of core belief systems. It is within these belief systems that we find individual beliefs. So the following is one way to organize the sum total of all our beliefs within ten main belief systems. Together, these ten belief systems form our worldviews:

• Relationships (interpersonal/intrapersonal = self/other)


• Duplicity (morality/ethics)


• Sexuality (sexuality/gender/orientation/preference)


• Truth (relative truths/Absolute Truth)


• Emotion (emotional/feeling)


• Perception (perceptual/attention)


• The senses (inner/mental/outer sensing)


• Religious/spirituality (exoteric/esoteric)


• Scientific/elements of physical reality (scientific/rational)


• Physical creation of the universe, including accidents and coincidences (creation mythos)]


• [As we begin to notice and identify beliefs, the above typology helps us organize and explore interrelationships between them. The rest of NPR will emphasize how belief systems are structured in ways that we can learn through sincere introspection to notice, identify, and address to those core beliefs that lie at the root of our main challenges, problems, and dis-eases.]

The Survival Files: A Review

The Survival Files: The Most Convincing Evidence Yet Compiled For the Survival of Your Soul by Miles Edward Allen, Momentpoint Books (2005).

Is there a soul? Is there an afterlife? What about reincarnation? In the spirit of William James and F.W.H. Meyers, Miles Edward Allen provides an overview of scientific evidence for the existence of the soul and its survival of bodily death. Given the ineffable nature of the subject matter, the results are hardly final, though as we will see, they provide a solid introduction and foundation for further exploration.

Allen’s writing style is clear and precise. He employs a literary technique in which two main characters – the “wise elder” and “student/researcher” – explore twenty three case studies that include phenomena like out-of-body projections, remote viewing, astral bodies, near-death experiences, reincarnation, psi, mediumship, channeling, electronic voice phenomena, and metaphysics. Over a three-day weekend in the mountains of West Virginia, they engage in a well crafted and easy to read Socratic dialogue on the many implications of these phenomena, most of which have been reported throughout human history.

Allen also includes bad guys as a foil – the Überskeptics – who employ an array of tactics, some scientific, and some political, to chronically marginalize decades of legitimate evidence based on the modern scientific paradigm. In the process we discover that the politics and economics of modern science are a juicy, sometimes scandalous affair. Allen does his best to show that the Überskeptics – who are ready to refute, deny, obfuscate all the evidence he presents – have their own political and economic agendas. For instance, is anyone whose show biz name begins with an adjective, like The Amazing Randi, to be taken seriously as a bulwark of scientific clarity and precision?  Hardly.

Yet on the other hand, is it possible to prove through current scientific methods the existence of the soul? Not really. But that’s the bad and good news. As long as we employ the modern materialist, reductionist paradigm – what Ken Wilber calls Flatland – to rationally prove the existence of realities beyond the purview of the five physical senses we will fail. It is impossible, and the Überskeptics will win the day, because they have loaded the deck and limited the playing field to what constitutes valid evidence: five senses-only perception and third-person perspectives (objects, things, its). This, in itself, is not a bad thing. It’s just a very limited approach that ultimately fails every time we try to rationally prove the existence of the soul and its survival of death. I wish Allen had explored this further, and yet, there is plenty of room for a next generation book to tease out these complex and subtle issues.

What Allen is able to accomplish – the strength of this book – is to provide an overview of compelling research done by educated, well meaning, and competent scientists who have been on the fringes of the mainstream. He provides thought provoking arguments for why certain cases may be stronger or weaker in terms of potential fraud, bad methods, or misinterpreting the data. Pioneers like Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, Robert Monroe, Jane Roberts, and many others are included to hint at an emerging postmodern paradigm that can more accurately study something as ineffable as the soul, and as such, show that it exists even though we can’t measure it terms of basic quantum fields using instruments made of quantum fields alone.

In integral terms, most of what is covered is the result of ORANGE and GREEN epistemologies, or ways of knowing. A wider, more integral approach to the subject – a TEAL approach – would show how shamen, sages, and adepts through the millennia have employed various meditation methods with discipline and rigor in a community of peers adequate to that paradigm to produce unequivocal evidence to support the existence of the soul and its survival of bodily death, for example, The Bardo Thodol (mistranslated as The Tibetan Book of the Dead). This is a missed opportunity in this otherwise highly recommended book, namely, to show that there is a scientific method that’s been used for thousands of years that includes what Seth, channeled by Jane Roberts and mentioned repeatedly in the book, called inner senses. These go by different names in different cultures, for example, third eye, second attention, eye of spirit, eye of contemplation, and so on.

When combined with the five physical senses and mental rational senses, the inner senses provide a more complete way of seeing the soul and its survival of death from first, second, and third-person perspectives. Taken together, this is what Seth calls the high intellect, a superb blend of the three ways of knowing into a new cognitive faculty (which I call hyperception). It is one way to expand the modern scientific paradigm into a more comprehensive and inclusive postmodern paradigm, one that includes the best practices of modern and premodern paradigms. This approach is what William James outlined over a century ago as a “science of the soul” at Harvard. Unfortunately, his vision was derailed by the modern reductionist approaches to consciousness still favored by today’s Überskeptics.

All of which hints at what Seth called Dream-Art Science, something I’ve written about extensively elsewhere – an emerging postmodern science that demands the use of physical, mental, and inner senses to provide a more complete, a more true and less partial understanding of the human body in relation to its soul. In this light, we can begin to better explore the nature of the soul and its survival of bodily death, not based solely on my or some expert’s say-so, but also through our own first-person experience. Still, we are decades, if not centuries, away from this kind of postmodern science on any collective scale, and books like The Survival Files provide an accessible introduction to the many issues involved.

We also begin to see that the Überskeptics, who really aren’t bad guys, have simply made careers and a lot of money playing the foil to bad science and metaphysical claims that can’t be justified through conventional, five senses only methods. They are actually correct in many cases and show that the science or conclusions drawn from a particular study have flaws. That is good science! So they, too, offer true but partial perspectives, though we can see that only from a wider postmodern worldview. The Überskeptic’s world is thus limited to black and white, true or false, right or wrong-only propositions. There’s no wiggle room, no shades of gray, and thus no room for a pluralism of “true but partial” perspectives and methods.

To ultimately prove the existence of the soul in unequivocal, bone rattling, completely certain terms we must learn to directly experience ourselves as soul, which is transcendent to our physical bodies. Compelling anecdotal evidence from near-death, out-of-body experiencers, etc., are only enough to create solid faith that what others have experienced is real, true, and valid. Ironically, it is the same kind of faith that more religious individuals use to maintain the validity of virgin births, bodily resurrections, parting of seas, and walking on water.

However, in integral terms these are two different kinds of faith because they occur at different stages of development; the former is modern ORANGE/GREEN, the latter is premodern AMBER. Thus, faith is not something bad, but only a precursor to direct experience, illumination, and remembrance, which always occurs in first-person terms, not through third-person anecdotes. In this sense, then, we come away with a strong faith that the people in these twenty-three case studies are not all tainted by mental illness, bad science, or outright fraud, but in fact are directly experiencing themselves as soul to some degree. This is an important first step.

Allen also offers interesting metaphysical speculations about the mechanics of death and thereafter from the soul’s perspective. One of the closing chapters provides a “Celestial Q&A” that outlines a roadmap of what one might encounter at death based on the anecdotal evidence. Topics include heaven, hell, guides, teachers, life reviews, karma, reincarnation, suicide, responsibility for life’s action, and more. This is the kind of overview I’d want to provide my children when they begin to ask questions about death and the afterlife.

All in all, The Survival Files outlines enough compelling anecdotal evidence to motivate its reader want to learn more the emerging “science of the soul,” and that Überskeptical obfuscations are not based entirely on legitimate agendas. I highly recommend this book for teenagers and adults who are beginning to explore these important existential issues. While there are no hard and fast conclusions to be made, Allen’s engaging story introduces many issues that need to be addressed before final conclusions can be reached. Ironically, we will all pass through death’s door some day and will learn unequivocally the truth for ourselves. And yet, having an accurate roadmap is highly recommended, and The Survival Files delivers just that.

(Note: this book was originally published under the title Heaven Confirmed: The Most Convincing Evidence Yet Compiled For the Survival of Your Soul.)

An Integral Overview of Channeling