Library » Integral » Seth on “The Origins of the Universe and of the Species” ~ An Integral Conscious Creation Myth

By Paul M. Helfrich, Ph.D.

This compilation may only be used for private study, scholarship, or research.

Note: this Integral Conscious Creation essay was originally published in thirteen segments on the Sethnet email list between January 10, 2001 and February 16, 2001.

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Acknowledgments

This essay is dedicated to the memory of Stan Ulkowski. Without Stan’s hard work and dedication in creating Seth Network International – the group that brought so many Seth readers together from all parts of the world in the 1990s – this compilation would not exist in its present form.

Kudos, love, and high-fives go out to all my compatriots and teachers on the Sethnet email list at Yahoo! Groups. Thanks for helping me to experience and ponder the rich subtext within Seth’s ideas and also providing a challenging and creative public forum in which to immerse myself.

There are also many additional people whose creative efforts and pursuit of excellence helped to inspire this compilation. Heart-felt thanks go out to Don Beck, Rob Butts, “the unsinkable” Lynda Dahl, Laurel Davies-Butts, Mary Dillman, Elias, Mary Ennis, Serge Grandbois, Joyce A. Kovelman, Kris, Barry Noonan, Gregory Polson, Bob Proctor, Jane Roberts, Mary Rouen, Seth, Rick Stack, Michael Steffen, Robert Tyrka, and Ken Wilber.

To Elena de la Peña: thanks for being a friend and an editor extraordinaire.

Special thanks go to my “partner in time” – Joanne – whose extraordinary dedication to the pursuit of excellence, creativity, and endless love made this little project possible. I love you my ancient friend!

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Foreword
by Paul M. Helfrich

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” – Children’s Song

Religious and scientific belief systems currently dominate our worldviews in the West. They contain officially accepted views about ourselves, our universe, and how we can all get along. They also provide a subset of beliefs called “creation myths” that explain the origins of our universe, planet, and all life, including the morals and laws that “govern” each. Religion and science’s unique creation myths have competed for prominence over the past three hundred years.

In the biblical story, our universe was created in seven days by a Causal Consciousness, conventionally termed God, who placed humans as the caretakers of all living things along with a moral code to govern all behavior. The first man – a fully formed adult – “poofed” into existence in a Paradise called The Garden of Eden. He served as a progenitor for the first woman, and thus had dominion over her. However, a demon in the guise of a serpent tricked this woman to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, thus committing the first sin. Ever since, humanity as been cursed as the descendents of these original sinners, but can be redeemed in a spiritual domain ruled by Causal Consciousness.

In the scientific story, our universe was created by a random Big Bang followed by a process called evolution guided by the principles of natural selection and “selfish” genetic mutation. Evolution, and thus our universe, is basically meaningless and amoral because science deals only in facts, objects, and processes from the objectivity of third person perspectives. Humanity is neither cursed, nor blessed, just challenged to adapt as best it can to overall life conditions. There is only physical life, and death is the end. As such, there are no spiritual domains or beings.

We can broadly characterize the religious story as premodern, and the scientific story as modern. According to German sociologist Max Weber, modernity is defined by the separation of three premodern “values spheres” – science, art, and morals. In premodern times, they were controlled and enforced by the Church. If you broke the law, your soul could be damned to an eternity of punishment in Hell. Thus, moderns saw the separation of “values spheres” as a healthy sociological step forward, one that allowed all three disciplines to develop independently. Art and literature, in terms of the 16th century Renaissance, and science, in terms of the 17th century Enlightenment, blossomed into new and exciting forms.

So, the modern worldview slowly began to emerge over five centuries ago. By the 17th century, Descartes reduced the idea of Casual Consciousness, found in all premodern religions, to a body/mind. In the 18th century, Newton outlined the mechanical laws that governed this body/mind. By the mid-19th century, Darwin and Wallace detailed biological evolution and natural selection that randomly produced this body/mind. In the mid-20th century, as students of William James in America, and Sigmund Freud in Europe codified modern psychology, the consciousness of this body/mind – now with a very small “c” – was reduced to a byproduct of brain chemistry. Body in the form of quantum fields, DNA, genes, and hormones caused mind.

However, there was a problem. As modern science produced centuries of discoveries that shredded premodern religious claims of scripture as Absolute Truth (e.g. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, etc.), it declared its way of knowing through third person objectivity as the only real way to know truth. The notion of first person subjectivity was marginalized, replaced by third person facts, objects, and processes. As the modern “values spheres” splintered further into extreme forms, Scientism and its subset Evolutionism were born. These modern “religions” relied on the same faith as premodern religion in that it could not provide a valid scientific proof that scientific method was the only way to know truth.

Scientism and Evolutionism thus took their place next to Creationism in various institutional forms. Though the premodern religions remained intact during the modern era, they lost political, military, and economic power. The value sphere of morals and ethics were still linked to the disciplines of theology, philosophy, and even science. Thus, today we still have premodern and modern worldviews competing with each other. For example, witness the efforts in the United States to have Creationism, in the sophisticated guise of Intelligent Design theory, mandated in public schools as a viable alternative to Darwin and Evolution. In 2005 there are seventeen states with attempts to legislate Intelligent Design into high school curriculum. This is misguided, of course, as modern science has proven that Creationism based on The Bible is empirically false.

However, the strength of the great premodern religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, etc.) was that they conceptualized the universe as a “Great Chain of Being” – a series of nested fields reaching from body to soul to Causal Consciousness. The Great Chain was mapped over thousands of years by the great mystics (e.g., Buddha, Plato, Christ, Plotinus, Shankara, Patanjali, Lao Tzu, Nagarjuna, Padmasambhava, etc.). They relied on first person subjectivity to discern The Great Chain from within. Thus, the premodern notion of Consciousness – with a capital “C” – remains today, but it’s been completely dissociated from the modern disciplines that define consciousness with a very, very small “c.” Efforts, like Intelligent Design, show that while Causal Consciousness has taken a beating in modern worldviews, it desperately seeks a comeback. The main problem is the religious baggage that accompanies Intelligent Design.

What begins to define postmodernity, then, are criticisms of the excesses of modern science, art, and morals that emerge in force during the 20th century. For example, important critiques issued from philosophers like Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and Lyotard. They showed brilliantly that all languages carry hidden assumptions, power drives, and subconscious agendas within all three modern “values spheres.” Further, they showed how the interpretation of any text, artwork, or equation was based on highly subjective first person perspectives and social contexts, and contexts become very relative, not absolute. Still, the postmodern era is embryonic in relation to its predecessors and began to gain prominence only fifty years ago.

By the beginning of the 21st century, then, we have three broad worldviews vying for dominance in the West: premodern (religious), modern (scientific), and postmodern (relativistic). (1) Each has its own creation myths. According to developmental psychologists (Beck, Cowan, and Wilber) roughly 40% of the global population still hold premodern worldviews based upon religious scriptures, 30% hold modern worldviews that include the Big Bang and Darwinian Evolution, and 25% subscribe to emergent postmodern worldviews with no central creation myth. For example, when Bill Moyers asked Joseph Campbell what the world needed during a mid-1980’s interview, Campbell replied, “a new myth.” He didn’t know the specifics, but he knew it had to be holistic and worldcentric – encompass the entire planet and all people, not just one region, set of chosen people, or Holders of The Way.

Developmental sociologists have shown that human evolution, while far from a linear process, consists of worldviews that gradually unfold hierarchically in stages of increased complexity. Thus, each subsequent stage is built upon the foundation that preceded it. Each stage, in turn, creates new challenges that can only be solved by more sophisticated approaches or risk regression, as in the case of a catastrophic nuclear war, global warming, religious fanaticism, etc., in the present day. Albert Einstein intuited this when he said, “The significant problems we face can never be solved at the level of thinking that created them.”

Seth, channeled by Jane Roberts (1929-1984), put it this way:

“Consciousness, by its nature, continually expands. The nature of consciousness, as you understand it as a species will, in one way or another, lead you beyond your limited ideas of reality, for your experience will set challenges that cannot be solved within your current framework. Those problems set by one level of consciousness will automatically cause breakthroughs into other areas of conscious activity, where solutions can be found.” (2)

In 1949 Swiss social anthropologist Jean Gebser detailed five very general stages of the average mode of cultural development: archaic (foraging), magic (horticultural), mythic (agrarian), rational (industrial), and integral (informational). Thus, current variations of premodern worldviews (mythic/agrarian) originated over 9,000 years ago and simultaneously exist with modern (rational/industrial), and emergent postmodern (integral/informational). The global dynamics between these three main worldviews fuel current social, economic, religious, political, and spiritual challenges. The scale of complexity is unprecedented, and many writers have detected emerging postmodern worldviews in this frothy mix. For instance, Joseph Campbell’s The Hero of a Thousand Faces, Michael Murphy’s The Future of the Body, Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson’s Cultural Creatives, Willis Harman’s Global Mind Change, Peter Russell’s Waking Up in Time, Marilyn Ferguson’s Aquarian Conspiracy, Mark Woodhouse’s Paradigm Wars: Worldviews for a New Age, Don Beck and Chris Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics, Ken Wilber’s Boomeritis, and many, many more (some are featured throughout).

What is the Role of Myth in a Postmodern World?

What kinds of postmodern myths are struggling to be born? How do they deal with Consciousness with a capital “C” and small “c”? As we will see, currently emerging myths seek to integrate the gems of truth found in premodern and modern worldviews to bring Consciousness and consciousness back into the picture. They attempt to heal what some see as the pathological fragmentation of the modern value spheres into a more integral and holistic worldview.

Myths are belief systems in narrative form that contain intellectual, intuitive, and emotional qualities. Myths provide an important social framework, sense of continuity, and deep meaning that permeate cultural identities.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines mythology as:

“1. An allegorical narrative, 2. A body of myths: as a. the myths dealing with gods, demi-gods, or legendary heroes of a particular people, b. mythos.” (3)

According to Joseph Campbell, one of the 20th century’s leading mythologists:

“Mythology is an organization of images metaphoric of experience, action, and fulfillment of the human spirit in the field of a given culture at a given time.” (4)

In terms of political and economic capital, the dominant creation myth that currently pervades Western society is based on scientific beliefs. According to philosopher, scientist, and futurist Willis Harman the following is a summary of Western Society’s Central Myth:

“In the beginning was the Big Bang. Following that were something like 15 billion years of evolution of stars and planets; the coming together of certain chemicals to create life on planet Earth; the further evolution of more complex life forms, and their sorting out through natural selection; the resulting formation of increasingly complex neuronal networks culminating in the human brain with its fantastic capabilities. Thus the essential characteristics of human nature are to be understood as the consequence of an evolutionary succession of random events (from the origin of life to later mutations) and natural selections, and hence accidental – without purpose or meaning.

“The essence of ourselves is to be found in a material substance, the DNA with which we are born. Since our basic drives appear to be survival, pleasure, and procreation, it is only natural that the economy should have become the paramount institution of modern society, around which everything else revolves, and that economic logic and values should be the primary guides to our individual and collective decision making. It is only natural that we should treat the Earth and our fellow creatures as ’resources,’ to be used in the service of the economy, and that we should view controlling nature through technology as one of modern society’s most impressive achievements.

“This central myth infuses and informs our education, healthcare policy, legal justice system, business, and other social institutions. If it were to be found fundamentally in error, the implications are far-reaching.” (5)

As we begin the new millennium there is strong evidence that this central myth is morphing before our eyes. Physicists report that our officially accepted view of space-time is changing. A recent headline in the L.A. Times announced “Time, Space Obsolete in New View of Universe.” It discussed an emerging scientific theory, called string theory, that speculates about infinitesimally small “energy strings” vibrating in a multidimensional pattern literally creating “cosmic music” that form the building blocks for our physical universe.

Further, there is evidence to support the premodern, perennial wisdom claims that our universe originates “outside” of space-time in what physicists term to be “non-local” implicate order or quantum potential (Bohm, Wolf, Goswami, Laszlo, Tiller). This process can be understood through the behavior of sub-atomic particles called photons that act as both a particle and a wave front. When observed as a particle, they can only be in one place at a time. When observed as a wave, they can literally be in two places at once and simultaneously exist in a non-local state.

Non-locality was proposed in a scientific principle known as Bell’s Theorem (1964) and confirmed by Alain Aspect and collaborators (1982). It shows how photons can be split apart and instantly communicate phase or status changes while “separated.” Non-locality implies the existence of a hidden field that is not perceivable by our physical senses and their extensions (telescopes and microscopes). It is now speculated by quantum scientists that this hidden, nonphysical field is the source for our physical universe.

Another example that supports the concept of non-locality is the work of English biologist Rupert Sheldrake. His experiments deal with morphic fields. For instance, Sheldrake did a study on rats’ ability to learn the same maze in two discrete geographical locations. The first group took a certain amount of time to learn the maze. The subsequent group, however, learned the maze in a significantly less period of time. Sheldrake speculates that the learning done by the first group was somehow available to the second group via a non-local morphic field.

Could scientific discoveries work in similar fashion? There are numerous examples of similar ideas being “discovered” at more or less the same time. For example, Edison’s and Tesla’s numerous electrical inventions, and Leibniz’s and Newton’s inventing calculus. Could these ideas “be in the air” in such a way that individuals draw on some type of non-local morphic field to accelerate invention and problem solving?

Whether or not microscopic quantum effects scale up to macroscopic effects in biological systems and human beings remains controversial. However, from Kekulé’s mapping the benzene molecule decades before it could be verified on the electron microscope, to Charles Tart’s research on psi (telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, precognition), to Stephen LaBerge’s research on lucid dreaming, to Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell’s identifying common elements in premodern myths, we find evidence that personal and cultural growth may be assisted by non-local energy fields cast in the creative guise of invention, dreams, and mythos.

Thus, there are emerging postmodern myths in the air, as Joseph Campbell saw in the 1980s. But, they compete with the status quo of premodern and modern myths. At first, new myths are condemned as heretical, then marginalized as trivial, until finally they are accepted as truth. As such, we are in a transition between Central Myths. According to Roger Walsh, a psychiatrist and meditator:

“Myths are grand stories that portray, in an imaginative and symbolic manner, the basic mental structures, understanding and worldview created by a culture and which in turn create and maintain that culture. As such, myths seem to be essential to cultural coherence and well-being and much of our contemporary confusion may reflect the fact that our culture is ’between myths.’ Ideally, myths complement and harmonize with other modes of knowing and explanation such as rational knowledge and transrational wisdom. However, problems arise when symbolic myths are not recognized as such but are mistaken for empirical facts or linear logic.” (6)

Therefore, postmodern myths are not to be taken literally, but metaphorically. Premodern worldviews tend to interpret myth in literal, concrete terms. If the Holy Book says we’re descended from star brothers, then it’s assumed to be literally true. No further evidence is required. Modern worldviews tend to rely on the proof of five senses and third person perspectives. They discount all first person, transrational perspectives as psychosis or infantile dissociation. Postmodern worldviews include rational and empirical proof, and integrate subjective, first person experience. They also understand the crucial difference between prerational and transrational experience. Thus, they include emotions, feelings, and deep intuitions, but not at the expense of intellect and reason. The idea is not to throw out the transcendental baby with the religious bathwater.

Finally, the emerging postmodern Central Myth is not set in stone. It is still a matter of collective choice, imagination, and creativity. We are in the midst of a profound shift in consciousness that integrates the gems from premodern myths (Consciousness with a capital “C”) and modern myths (Big Bang, Evolution, and consciousness with a small “c”). No one knows what will unfold during this century, but it will be an incredible ride!

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Introduction

“Dawn of light lying between a silence and sold sources,
“Chased amid fusions of wonder, in moments hardly seen forgotten,
“Coloured in pastures of chance dancing leaves cast spells of challenge,
“Amused but real in thought, we fled from the sea whole.
“Dawn of thought transfered through moments of days undersearching earth
“Revealing corridors of time provoking memories, disjointed but with purpose,
“Craving penetrations offer links with the self instructors sharp
“And tender love as we took to the air, a picture of distance.
“Dawn of our power we amuse redescending as fast as misused
“Expression, as only to teach love as to reveal passion chasing
“Late into corners, and we danced from the ocean.
“Dawn of love sent within us colours of awakening among the many
“Won't to follow, only tunes of a different age.
“As the links span our endless caresses for the freedom of life everlasting.” ~ YES, Tales of Topographic Oceans, 1974.

As human history unfolds, old myths calcify and new ones emerge. This has been chronicled by anthropologists (Mead), mythologists (Campbell), and social psychologists (Gebser, Graves, Beck, Wilber). In premodern cultures we find consistent evidence of a Causal Consciousness. While there are variations on Its Origin, Purpose, and Nature, many traditions claim this Casual Consciousness is interpenetrated – holistically nested – within a “Great Chain of Being” that extends from body to soul to Causal Spirit. Many also suggest that Causal Spirit isn’t really “out there” or “up in the sky” somewhere, but literally a part of you, me, and everything around us. In other words, It is simultaneously in the world (immanent) and not of the world (transcendent). Jane Roberts used the term All-That-Is to express this fundamental paradox.

These and other ideas are found in the creation myth presented by Seth in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1 (1986). Could this be an emerging postmodern Central Myth that will replace the biblical and Big Bang stories? It is too soon to tell. Our world is changing too quickly to accurately predict what may occur even twenty years from now. But, Seth’s creation myth contains the requisite, important gems from premodern and modern myths, along with many new concepts that may be consonant with twenty-first century thought and beyond.

Jane Roberts began to deliver the Seth material in 1963. Many of the central concepts outlined in the first 800 sessions set the stage for this creation myth. Seth mentioned in the introduction to Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment that it was his most ambitious work to date, though ironically, it was to be his last major theoretical work before Jane Roberts passed away in 1984. As such, this tale forms the pinnacle of Seth’s cosmological and theoretical musings. Related concepts include:

• All-That-Is/consciousness units (CUs/causal field)
• sleepwalkers/electromagnetic energy units (EEs/subtle field)
• Frameworks 4, 3, 2 (subtle field)
• the dream state (subtle field) functions as a “language of translation” for the waking state (physical field)
• Framework 1 (physical field)
• the paradoxical “before the beginning”
• families of consciousness (innate intention)
• the multidimensional psyche (outer ego, subconscious, inner ego)
• the inner senses (deep intuitions/translogical hyperception)
• reincarnation in the context of simultaneous time frameworks
• probabilities

To his credit, Seth constantly works around the inherent limitations of English and its penchant for linear cognitive constructs that deal with objects and processes in space and time. Seth uses simple metaphors to explain complex concepts like the emergence of Mind into Matter, Timelessness into Time, Spacelessness into Space, dream oceans, plants, and bodies into physical oceans, plants, and bodies.

Admittedly, this tale is a bit on the esoteric side, and may be difficult to understand for those who are not familiar with the fifteen books that precede Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment. Further, Seth employs a host of metaphors and analogies to describe something that must be directly experienced to be fully understood. As such, his tale, its metaphors and analogies are not to be taken literally because they are easy to distort into premodern or modern dogma. That’s another reason why we are talking about them in the context of myth and intuitive, first person perspectives.

Thus, Seth figuratively describes in linear terms something that is inherently nonlinear – Causal Consciousness dreaming ItSelf into physical form. Is it possible that the creation of the world happened in only seven days? Highly unlikely. Could a Big Bang randomly occur from nothingness? Highly plausible. But what was the origin of the inner world that “preceded” the Big Bang? These perennial questions continue to occupy the best theological, philosophical, and scientific minds due to their paradoxical nature.

The answers, however, seem paradoxical when seen only through a modern worldview limited to five physical senses, third person perspectives, and intellect stripped of intuition and emotions. This is why some get confused and seek comfort in older myths that are simpler and easier to digest. Seth’s tale is subtle, for sure, but like many of his concepts it can only be fully understood through a blend of intuition, emotions, and intellect. Thus, the following abridged compilation and exegesis are only a primer meant to set the stage.

Also, it is easy to get distracted by the large amount of material concerning Jane Roberts’s advancing illness and sinful self material in volume one. Husband Rob Butts included several non-book sessions that, while serving to beautifully elaborate related concepts and the minutiae of everyday life, unfortunately break up the flow of Seth’s original book dictation.

As Rob says in his notes, the process of editing a Seth book for him was not what to include, but what to leave out. So while the original books are solid testaments and worthy creative endeavors to be savored, Seth’s creation myth is so full of paradoxes in terms of modern cause and effect thinking that it is my hope its riches may be more clearly discerned in this abridged format.

According to Seth, the genesis of the Kosmos occurs in each moment. As such, there is literally no beginning and no end because beginning and end are ongoing processes. This primordial action of creation – of genesis – occurs in every quantum pulse, in every moment point of a “Great Chain of Being” that extends from body to soul to Causal Spirit. So we are literally beginning and ending anew in each nanosecond. But we’re getting ahead of the story.

When reading Seth’s words keep in mind that his use of the words “man” and “mankind” is a reflection of the times and that gender-neutral language like “human” and “humankind” was not yet the convention that it is today. Still, it did not seem appropriate to edit and substitute these terms with human or humankind, though I don’t feel that Seth or Jane would have any problem with that.

Finally, by way of introduction I’ve included an excerpt from The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression to set the stage for the material that follows from the first five chapters of Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment. I’ve also included a Concept Summary and occasional Comments for subsequent excerpts to highlight basic concepts for further contemplation.

At this point it’s best left to Seth to introduce what I’m calling An Integral Conscious Creation Myth. Enjoy.

“... This tale, I admit, is far more difficult to understand than a simple [premodern] story of God’s creation of the world, or its actual production in a meaningless [modern] universe through the slippery hand of chance – and yet my [postmodern] story is more magnificent because elements of its truth will find resonance in the minds and hearts of those open enough to listen. For men’s minds themselves are alive with the desire to read properly, and they are aware of their own vast heritage. It is not simply that man has a soul that is somehow blessed while the rest of him is not, but that in those terms everything [he knows], regardless of size or degree, is made of ‘soul stuff’.” – Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 892, January 02, 1980.

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Seth on “The Origins of the Universe and of the Species” (7)

Prologue: The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression, Session 796, March 07, 1977:

“There is no such thing, in your terms, as nonliving matter. There is simply a point that you recognize as having the characteristics that you have ascribed to life, or living conditions – a point that meets the requirements that you have arbitrarily set.

“This makes it highly difficult in a discussion, however, for there is no particular point at which life was inserted into nonliving matter. There is no point at which consciousness emerged. Consciousness is within the tiniest particle, whatever its life conditions seem to be, or however it might seem to lack those conditions you call living.

“...Words do nearly forsake me, the semantic differences are so vast. If I say to you: ‘Life came from a dream,’ such a statement sounds meaningless. Yet as your physical reality personally is largely dependent upon your dreaming state, and impossible without it, so in the same way the first cell was physically materialized and actual only because of its own inner reality of consciousness.

“In those terms there was a point where consciousness impressed itself into matter through intent, or formed itself into matter. That ‘breakthrough’ cannot be logically explained, but only compared to, say, an illumination – that is, a light everywhere occurring at once, that became a medium for life in your terms. It had nothing to do with the propensity of certain kinds of cells to reproduce, but with an overall illumination that set the conditions in which life as you think of it was possible – and at that imaginary hypothetical point, all species became latent.

“There was no point at which consciousness was introduced because consciousness was the illumination from which the first cells emerged. That illumination was everywhere then, at every point aware of itself and of the conditions formed by its presence. In your terms each species is aware of the conditions of each other species, and of the entire environment. In those terms the environment forms the species and the species forms the environment.

“... To those who want easy answers, this is no answer, I admit. There is, I know, in heroic terms a love, a knowledge, a compassion, a creativity that can be assigned to All-That-Is, which is within each creature. I know that each smallest ‘particle’ of consciousness can never be broken down, and that each contains an infinite capacity for creativity and development – and that each is innately blessed.

“There is a design and a designer, but they are so combined, the one within and the one without, that it is impossible to separate them. The Creator is also within its creations and the creations themselves are gifted with creativity.”

Session 797, March 14, 1977.

“... When you ask about the beginning of a universe, you are speaking of a visible universe.

“There is consciousness with each conceivable hypothetical point within the universe. There is therefore ‘an invisible universe’ out of which the visible or objective universe springs.

“I do not mean to overemphasize the point that this particular material is most difficult to explain, yet I can hardly stress the issue too strongly.

“... Your universe did not emerge at any one point, therefore, or with any one initial cell – but everywhere it began to exist at once, as the inner pulsations of the invisible universe reached certain intensities that ‘impregnated’ the entire physical system simultaneously.

“In this case, first of all light appeared. At the same time EE (electromagnetic energy) units became manifest, impinging from the invisible universe into definition. Again, because of the psychological strength of preconceived notions, I have to work my way around many of your concepts. Yet in much of my material I have definitely implied what I am saying now, but the implications must have passed you by.

“I have said, for example, that the universe expands as an idea does, and so the visible universe sprang into being in the same manner. The whole affair is quite complicated since – again as I have intimated – the world freshly springs into new creativity at each moment. No matter what your version of creativity, or the creation of the world, you are stuck with questions of where such energy came from, for it seems that unimaginable energy was released more or less at one time, and that this energy must then run out.

“The same energy, however, still gives birth anew to the universe. In those terms, it is still being created. The EE units, impressing a probable physical field, contain within them the latent knowledge of all of the various species that can emerge under those conditions. The groupings ‘begin’ in the invisible universe. You can say that it took untold centuries for the EE units ‘initially’ to combine, form classifications of matter and various species; or you can say that this process happened at once. It is according to your relative position, but the physical universe was everywhere seeded, impregnated, simultaneously. On the other hand, this still happens, and there is no real ‘coming-in’ point.

“... You distinguish between consciousness and your own version, which you consider consciousness of self. When I speak of atoms and molecules having consciousness, I mean that they possess a consciousness of themselves as identities. I do not mean that they love or hate, in your terms, but that they are aware of the own separateness, and aware of the ways in which that separateness cooperates to form other organizations.

“They are innately aware, in fact, of all such probable cooperative ventures, and imbued with the ‘drive’ for value fulfillment. Every known species was inherently ‘present’ with the overall impregnation of the visible universe, then.

“If the universe were a painting, for example, the painter would not have first painted darkness, then an explosion, then a cell, then the joining together of groups of cells into a simple organism, then that organism’s multiplication into others like it, or traced a pattern from an amoeba or a paramecium on upward – but he or she would have instead begun with a panel of light, an underpainting, in which all of the world’s organisms were included, though not in detail. Then in a creativity that came from the painting itself the colors would grow rich, the species attain their delineations, the winds blow and the seas move with the tides.

“The motion and energy of the universe still come from within. I certainly realize that this is hardly a scientific statement – yet the moment that All-That-Is conceived of a physical universe it was invisibly created, endowed with creativity, and bound to emerge.

“Because each hypothetical, conceivable portion of the universe is conscious, the Planner is within the plan itself in the greatest of terms – perhaps basically inconceivable to you. There is of course no ‘outside’ into which the invisible universe materialized, since all does indeed exist in a mental, psychic, or spiritual realm quite impossible to describe. To you your universe seems, now, objective and real, and it seems to you that at one time at least this was not the case, so you ask about its creation and the evolution of the species. My answer has been couched in the terms in which the question is generally asked.

“While you believe in and experience the passage of time, then such questions will naturally occur to you, and in that fashion. Within that framework they make sense. When you begin to question the nature of time itself, then the ‘when’ of the universe is beside the point.”

Session 798, March 21, 1977:

“... Your next question is easy to anticipate, of course, for you will want to know the origin of that ‘interior’ universe from which I have said the exterior one ever emerges – and here we must part company with treasured objectivity, and enter instead a mental domain, in which it is seen that contradictions are not errors; an inner domain large enough to contain contradictions at one level, for at another level they are seen to be no contradictions at all.

“... The answers to the origins of the universe and of the species lie, I’m afraid, in realms that you have largely ignored – precisely in those domains that you have considered least scientific, and in those that it appeared would yield the least practical results.

“Your methods will simply bring you pat, manufactured results and answers. They will satisfy neither the intellect nor the soul. Since your universe springs from an inner one, and since that inner one pervades each nook and cranny of your own existence you must look where you have not before – into the reality of your own minds and emotions. You must look to the natural universe that you know. You must look with your intuitions and creative instincts at the creatures about you, seeing them not as other species with certain habits, not as inferior properties of the earth, to be dissected, but as living examples of the nature of the universe, in constant being and transformation.

“You must study the quality of life, dare to follow the patterns of your own thoughts and emotions, and to ride that mobility, for in that mobility there are hints of the origin of the universe and of the psyche. The poet’s view of the universe and of nature is more scientific, then, than the scientists’, for more of nature is comprehended.

“The child, laughing with joy and awe at the sight of the first violet understands far more in the deepest terms than a botanist who has long since forgotten the experience of perceiving one violet, though he has at his mental fingertips the names and classification of all the world’s flowers. Information is not necessarily knowledge or comprehension.

“... In a larger level of actuality, then, there is no beginning or end to the universe, and at that level there are no contradictions. There is no beginning or end to the psyche either. You may say: ‘Granted,’ yet persist, saying: ‘In our terms, however, when did the world begin, and in what manner?’ Yet the very attempt to place such an origin in time makes almost any answer distorted.

“The truth is that the answers lie in your own experience. They are implied in your own spontaneous behavior – that is, in the wondrous activity of your bodies and minds.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– Any attempt to discuss the emergence of physical consciousness begins with an exploration of Seth’s cosmology – All-That-Is as a “Great Chain of Being” that extends from Causal Spirit to soul to body. The fields of Spirit and soul are nonphysical. If “God is a verb,” as Buckminster Fuller said, then All-That-is is an eternal action of becoming, not just a thing. Seth’s god concept is genderless and timeless – Causal Consciousness that is both transcendent (nonphysical) and immanent (physical).

– All-That-Is consists of spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical fields permeated by Consciousness. Time frameworks are only the thin outer crust of a conscious multiverse.

– Aspects of All-That-Is exist in a pre-material, subtle energy form called EE units (electromagnetic energy). EEs are faster than light and “ear-marked” for physical manifestation, but not yet physical.

(Later, we’ll see that EE units consist of “groups” of causal energy called consciousness units [CUs]. For now, imagine EEs as groupings of individual CUs, similar to the way molecules are made of atoms.)

– All-That-Is has no beginning or end, so the answers to the origins of the universe, the psyche, and all species lie in understanding how Consciousness is eternal and omnipresent in Its Many Forms (to be elaborated on later, hey, this is just a Prologue :-).

Comments:

– In Seth’s theology, God is not a giant old white man with a big belly, gray beard, and occasionally nasty temperament that lives in the sky where he rules over His dominion. Nor is God a wise elder woman dressed in flowing robes communing with Nature. Both are premodern projections of anthropomorphized God-As-Human-Beings. The former was an often dysfunctional paternal authority figure, the latter often demanded human sacrifice to insure fertility, good crops, and sun/moon cycles.

We cannot fully understand the origins and nature of the All-That-Is, the psyche, and universe from the limited picture of reality presented by our five senses, third person perspectives, and intellect alone. We also need to incorporate our deep intuitions, first person perspectives, and our emotions to gain deeper conceptual understanding (can you say, “inner senses” or “psy-time?”).

– Finally, here is a list of Seth’s nine inner senses first published in The Seth Material (1970):

• inner vibrational touch
• psychological time
• perception of past, present, and future
• the conceptual sense
• cognition of knowledgeable essence
• innate working knowledge of the basic vitality of the universe
• expansion or contraction of the tissue capsule
• disentanglement from camouflage
• diffusion by the energy personality [essence]

Though a detailed review is beyond the scope of this essay there is more information available. [Follow this link to The Inner Senses – An Introduction & Overview.] Seth has also provided a rich set of exercises that allow anyone to explore and practice using their inner senses. [Follow this link for a Summary of Seth/Jane Roberts Exercises.]

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Seth on “Before the Beginning” (8)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 883, October 01, 1979:

“You live your lives through your own subjective knowing, to begin with, and I will try to arouse within your own consciousnesses memories of events with which your own inner psyches were intimately involved as the world was formed – and though these may appear to be past events, they are even now occurring.

“Before the beginning of the universe, we will postulate the existence of an omnipotent, creative source. We will hope to show that this divine subjectivity is as present in the world of your experience as it was before the beginning of the universe. Again, I refer to this original subjectivity as All-That-Is. I am making an attempt to verbalize concepts that almost defy the edges of the intellect, unless that intellect is thoroughly reinforced by the intuition’s strength. So you will need to use your mind and your own intuitions as you read this book.

“All-That-Is, before the beginning contained within itself the infinite thrust of all possible creations. All-That-Is possessed a creativity of such magnificence that its slightest imaginings, dreams, thoughts, feelings or moods attained a kind of reality, a vividness, an intensity, that almost demanded freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? Freedom to be what?

“The experience, the subjective universe, the ‘mind’ of All-That-Is, was so brilliant, so distinct, that All-That-Is almost became lost, mentally wandering within this ever-flourishing, ever-growing interior landscape. Each thought, feeling, dream, or mood was itself indelibly marked with all of the attributes of this infinite subjectivity. Each glowed and quivered with its own creativity, its own desire to create as it had been created.

“Before the beginning there existed an interior universe that had no beginning or ending, for I am using the term ‘before the beginning’ to make matters easier for you to assimilate. (That same infinite interior universe exists now, for example.)

“All-That-Is contained within itself the knowledge of all existences, with their infinite probabilities, and ‘as soon as’ All-That-Is imagined those numberless circumstances, they existed in what I will call divine fact.

“All-That-Is knew of itself only. It was engrossed with its own subjective experiences, even divinely astonished as its own thoughts and imaginings attained their own vitality and inherited the creativity of their subjective creator. [Those thoughts and imaginings] began to have a dialogue with their ‘Maker.’

“Thoughts of such magnificent vigor began to think their own thoughts – and their thoughts thought thoughts. As if in divine astonishment and surprise, All-That-Is began to listen, and began to respond to these ‘generations’ of thoughts and dreams, for the thoughts and dreams related to each other also. There was no time, so all of this ‘was happening’ simultaneously. The order of events is being simplified. In the meantime, then, in your terms, All-That-Is spontaneously thought new thoughts and dreamed new dreams, and became involved in new imaginings – and all of these also related to those now-infinite generations of interweaving and interrelating thoughts and dreams that ‘already’ existed.

“So beside this spontaneous creation, this simultaneous ‘stream’ of divine rousing, All-That-Is began to watch the interactions that occurred among his own subjective progeny. He listened, began to respond and to answer a thought or a dream. He began to purposefully bring about those mental conditions that were requested by these generations of mental progeny. If he had been lonely before, he was no longer.

“Your language causes some difficulty here, so please accept the pronoun ‘he’ as innocuously as possible. ‘It’ sounds too neutral for my purpose, and I want to reserve the pronoun ‘she’ for some later differentiations. In basic terms, of course, All-That-Is is quite beyond any designations having to do with any one species or sex. All-That-Is, then, began to feel a growing sense of pressure as it realized that its own ever-multiplying thoughts and dreams themselves yearned to enjoy those greater gifts of creativity with which they were innately endowed.

“It is very difficult to try to assign anything like human motivation to All-That-Is. I can only say that it is possessed by ‘the need’ to lovingly create from its own being; to lovingly transform its own reality in such a way that each most slight probable consciousness can come to be; and with the need to see that any and all possible orchestrations of consciousness have the chance to emerge, to perceive and to love.

“... All-That-Is, then, became aware of a kind of creative tumult as each of its superlative thoughts and dreams, moods and feelings, strained at the very edges of their beings, looking for some then-unknown, undiscovered, as of then unthought-of release. I am saying that this mental progeny included all of the consciousnesses that [have] ever appeared or will appear upon your earth – all tenderly couched: the first human being, the first insect – each with an inner knowledge of the possibilities of its development. All-That-Is, loving its own progeny, sought within itself the answer to this divine dilemma.

“When that answer came, it involved previously unimaginable leaps of divine inspiration, and it occurred thusly: All-That-Is searched through the truly infinite assortment of its incredible progeny to see what conditions were needed for this even more magnificent dream, this dream of a freedom of objectivity. What door could open to let physical reality emerge from such an inner realm? When All-That-Is, in your terms, put all of those conditions together it saw, of course, in a flash, the mental creation of those objective worlds that would be needed – and as it imagined those worlds, in your terms, they were physically created.

“[All-That-Is] did not separate itself from those worlds, however, for they were created from its thoughts, and each one has divine content. The worlds are all created by that divine content, so that while they are on the one hand exterior, they are on the other also made of divine stuff, and each hypothetical point in your universe is in direct contact with All-That-Is in the most basic terms. The knowledge of the whole is within all of its parts – and yet All-That-Is is more than its parts.

“Divine subjectivity is indeed infinite. It can never be entirely objectified. When the worlds, yours and others, were thus created, there was indeed an explosion of unimaginable proportions, as the divine spark of inspiration exploded into objectivity.”

“The first ‘object’ was an almost unendurable mass, though it had no weight, and it exploded, instantaneously beginning processes that formed the universe – but no time was involved. The process that you might imagine took up eons occurred in the twinkling of an eye, and the initial objective materialization of the massive thought of All-That-Is burst into reality. In your terms this was a physical explosion – but in the terms of the consciousnesses involved in that breakthrough, this was experienced as a triumphant ‘first’ inspirational frenzy, a breakthrough into another kind of being.

“The earth then appeared as consciousness transformed itself into the many facets of nature. The atoms and molecules were alive, aware – they were no longer simply a part of a divine syntax, but they spoke themselves through the very nature of their being. They became the living, aware vowels and syllables through which consciousness could form matter.

“But in your terms this was still largely a dream world, though it was fully fashioned. It had, generally speaking, all of the species that you now know. These all correlated with the multitudinous kinds of consciousnesses that had clamored for release, and those consciousnesses were spontaneously endowed by All-That-Is with those forms that fit their requirements. You had the birth of individualized consciousness as you think of it into physical context. Those consciousnesses were individualized before the beginning, but not manifest. But individualized consciousness was not quite all that bold. It did not attach itself completely to its earthly forms at the start, but rested often within its ‘ancient’ divine heritage. In your terms, it is as if the earth and all of it creatures were partially dreaming, and not as focused within physical reality as they are now.

“For one thing, while individualized consciousness was within the massive subjectivity of All-That-is, it enjoyed, beside its own uniqueness, a feeling of supporting unity, a comforting knowledge that it was one with its source. So in the beginning of [your] world, consciousness fluctuated greatly, focusing gently at the start, but not quite as willing to be as fully independent as its first intent might seem.

“You had the sleepwalkers, early members of your species, whose main concentration was still veiled in that earlier subjectivity, and they were your true ancestors, in those terms.

Session 884, October 03, 1979:

“Even though this book is being dictated within time’s tradition, therefore, I must remind you that basically that tradition is not mine – and more, basically, it is not yours either.

“I used the term ‘before the beginning,’ then, and I will speak of earth’s events in certain sequences. In the deepest of terms, however, and in ways that quite scandalize the intellect when it tries to operate alone, the beginning is now. That critical explosion of divine subjectivity into objectivity is always happening, and you are being given life ‘in each moment’ because of the simultaneous nature of that divine subjectivity.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

(Reminder: All-That-Is means Causal Consciousness as used in the Foreword, and is a substitute for the baggage-laden “God”).

– Seth opens with a reminder that we each perceive the world through our own “subjective knowing” and an appeal to use our intellects “thoroughly reinforced by the intuition’s strength ... as [we] read this book.” In other words, our subjective knowing and intuition utilize first person perspectives (I/We) and our intellect utilizes third person perspectives (It/Its). All four perspectives provide important subjective and objective insights into this creation story.

– “Before the beginning” All-That-Is contained the infinite thrust of all possible creations. In physical terms, the potential for galaxies, solar systems, planets, ecosystems, species, genders, etc. – all things, all processes – have ALWAYS existed in latent form within some kind of nonphysical field.

– “Before the beginning” All-That-Is created nonphysical ‘generations’ of thoughts and dreams. These thoughts and dreams had such creative vitality that they manifest their own ability to think and dream. As such, they yearned for other states of being. Thus, “before the beginning” also includes the creation of an intermediary field, a subtle “dreamtime” that “preceded” the creation of the physical field (to borrow an Aboriginal creation myth term from Australia. More on this later).

– Though Seth employs the pronoun “he”, All-That-Is is genderless, being the source of all genders. “It” is too neutral for Seth’s purposes here and “she” is being saved for other references.

– Seth calls our early, nonphysical ancestors “sleepwalkers.” “Before the beginning” they were created by the thoughts and dreams of All-That-Is. “Before the beginning” they functioned in an intermediary field or “dreamtime” that “preceded” the creation of the physical field.

Seth closes with a reminder that there is no beginning or end to Consciousness, though by design there are beginnings and endings in the physical field.

Comments:

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines paradox as:

“1. a tenet contrary to a received opinion, 2a. a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true, 2b. a self-contradictory statement that at first seems true, 2c. an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises, 3. one that possesses seemingly contradictory qualities or phases.” (9)

Seth’s “before the beginning” provides a great example of what I call “the Zen of Seth.” The Zen aesthetic promotes the use of paradox and contradiction to force the intellect (rationalism) out of the box of five-senses-only perception (empiricism) to include our deep intuitions (mysticism). So Seth sometimes uses contradictory statements to make us think about what he’s really saying “beneath” his words. This is called “subtext” and is an element found in many premodern, perennial wisdom teaching styles.

According to writer Aldous Huxley:

“The subject matter of the Perennial Philosophy is the nature of eternal, spiritual Reality; but the language in which it must be formulated was developed for the purpose of dealing with phenomena in time. That is why, in all these formulations, we find an element of paradox. The nature of Truth-in-Fact [All-That-Is] cannot be described by means of verbal symbols that do not adequately correspond to it. At best it can be hinted at in terms of non sequiturs and contradictions.” (10)

The key paradox at this point in our story is All-That-Is experienced a Primordial Birth Agony as The One became The One-In-Many. In the subjective moment point that All-That-Is conceived a way to release the building tension of Its divine creativity, our physical universe simultaneously manifest in “an explosion of unimaginable proportions, as the divine spark of inspiration exploded into objectivity.” Thus, some kind of Big Bang literally occurred. (We’ll return to these important points later.)

To further understand the paradox of Seth’s “before the beginning” we need to develop our deep intuitions (inner senses) to experience our own remembrance of these events. Seth stated that we all hold the “memories of events with which [our] own inner psyches were intimately involved as the world was formed.” A Zen koan asks, “show me your Original Face before your mother and father were born.” Likewise, do you remember your Original Face “before the beginning?”

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Seth on “In the Beginning”

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, session 884, October 03, 1979.

“Once again, in terms of your equations, energy and consciousness and matter are one. And in those terms (the qualifications are necessary) consciousness is the agent that directs the transformation of energy into form and of form into energy. All possible visible or invisible particles that you discover or imagine – meaning hypothesized particles – possess consciousness. They are energized consciousness.

“There are certain characteristics inherent in energy itself, quite aside from any that you ascribe to it, since of course to date you do not consider energy conscious.

“Energy is above all things infinitely creative, innovative, original. Energy is imaginative. (Any scientists who might be reading this book may as well stop here.) I am not assigning human traits to energy. Instead, your human traits are the result of energy’s characteristics – a rather important difference. Space as you think of it is, in your terms, filled with invisible particles. They are the unstated portion of physical reality, the unmanifest medium in which your world exists. In that regard, however, atoms and molecules are stated, though you cannot see them with your [unaided] eye. The smaller particles that make them up become ‘smaller and smaller,’ finally disappearing from the examination of any kind of instrument, and these help bridge the gap between unmanifest and manifest reality.

“For the terms of this discussion of the beginning of [your] world, I will deal with known qualities for now – the atoms and molecules. In the beginning they imagined the myriad of forms that were physically possible. They imagined the numberless cells that could arise from their own cooperative creation. Energy is boundless. It is exuberant. It knows no limits. In those terms, the atoms dreamed the cells into physical being – and from that new threshold of physical activity cellular consciousness dreamed of the myriad organizations that could emerge from this indescribable venture.

“Again, in actuality all of this took place at once, yet the depth of psychological experience contained therein can never be measured, for it involved a kind of value fulfillment with which each consciousness is involved. That characteristic of value fulfillment is perhaps the most important element in the being of All-That-Is, and it is a part of the heritage of all species.

“Value fulfillment itself is most difficult to describe, for it combines the nature of a loving presence – a presence with the innate knowledge of its own divine complexity – with a creative ability of infinite proportions that seeks to bring to fulfillment even the slightest, most distant portion of its own inverted complexity. Translated into simpler terms, each portion of energy is endowed with an inbuilt reach of creativity that seeks to fulfill its own potential in all possible variations – and in such a way that such a development also furthers the creative potentials of each other portion of reality.

“In those terms, then, there was in the beginning an almost unimaginable time in which energized consciousness, using its own creative abilities, its own imagination, experienced with triumphant rambunctiousness, trying out one form after another. In the terms you are used to thinking of, nothing was stable. Consciousness as you think of it turned into matter, and then into pure energy and back again.

“Subjectivity still largely ruled. Like an adolescent leaving home for the first time, individualized consciousness was also somewhat homesick, and returned often to the family homestead – but gradually gained confidence and left finally to form a [universe].

“Now because All-That-Is contains within itself such omnipotent, fertile, divine creative characteristics, all portions of its subjective experience attained dimensions of actuality impossible to describe. The thoughts, for example, of All-That-Is were not simply thoughts as you might have, but multidimensional mental events of superlative nature. Those events soon found that a transformation must occur, if they were to journey into objectivity – for no objectivity of itself could contain the entire reality of subjective events that existed within divine subjectivity. Only in that context could their relative perfection be maintained. Yet they had yearned before the beginning for other experiences, and even for fulfillments of a different nature. They sensed a kind of value fulfillment that required of them the utilization of their own creative abilities. They yearned to create as they had been created, and All-That-Is, in a kind of divine perplexity, nevertheless realized that this had always been its own intent.

“All-That-Is realized that such a separation would also allow you to bring about a different kind of divine art, in which the creators themselves created, and their creations created, bringing into actuality existences that were possible precisely because there would seem to be a difference between the creator and the creations. All-That-Is is, therefore, within each smallest portion of consciousness.

“Yet each smallest portion of consciousness can uniquely create, bring into being, eccentric versions of All-That-Is, that in certain terms All-That-Is, without that separation, could not otherwise create. The loving support, the loving encouragement of the slightest probable consciousness and manifestation – that is the intent of All-That-Is.

“All-That-Is knows that even this purpose is a portion of a larger purpose. In terms of time, the realization of that purpose will emerge with another momentous explosion of subjective inspiration into objectivity, or into another form. In deeper terms, however, that purpose is also known now, and to one extent or another the entire universe dreams of it, as once cellular consciousness dreamed of the organs that it might ‘form.’

“I want to stress that I am speaking here not so much about a kind of spiritual evolution as I am about an expansion. We will for now, however, confine ourselves to a discussion of consciousness in the beginning of the world, stressing that the first basis of physical life was largely subjective, and that the state of dreaming not only helped shape the consciousness of your species, but also in those terms served to provide a steady source of information to man about his physical environment, and served as an inner web of communication among all species.”

Session 886, December 03, 1979.

“Now: In the beginning, there was not God the Father, Allah, Zoroaster, Zeus, or Buddha.

“In the beginning there was instead, once more, a divine psychological gestalt – and by that I mean a being whose reality escapes the definition of the word ‘being,’ since it is the source from which all being emerges. That being exists in a psychological dimension, a spacious present, in which everything that was or is or will be (in your terms) is kept in immediate attention, poised in a divine context that is characterized by such a brilliant concentration that the grandest and the lowliest, the largest and the smallest, are equally held in a multiloving constant focus.

“Your conceptions of beginnings and endings make an explanation of such a situation most difficult, for in your terms the beginning of the [universe] is meaningless – that is, in those terms (underlined) there was no beginning.

“The [universe] is, as I explained, always coming into existence, and each present moment bring[s] its own built-in past along with it. You agree on accepting as fact only a small portion of the large available data that compose any moment individually or globally. You accept only those data that fit in with your ideas of motion in time. As a result, for example, your archeological evidence usually presents a picture quite in keeping with your ideas of history, geological eras, and so forth.

“The conscious mind sees with a spectacular but limited scope. It lacks all peripheral vision. I use the term ‘conscious mind’ as you define it, for you allow it to accept as evidence only those physical data available for the five senses – while the five senses, of course, represent only a relatively flat view of reality, that deals with the most apparent surface.

“The physical senses are the extensions of the inner senses that are, in one way or another, a part of each physical species regardless of its degree. The inner senses provide all species with an inner method of communication. The cells then, possess inner senses.

“Atoms perceive their own positions, their velocities, motions, the nature of their surroundings, the material that they compose. [Your] world did not just come together, mindless atoms forming here and there, elements coalescing from brainless gases – nor was the world, again, created by some distant objectified God who created it part by part as in some cosmic assembly line. With defects built in, mind you, and better models coming every geological season.

“The universe is formed out of what God is.

“The universe is the natural extension of divine creativity and intent, lovingly formed from the inside out – so there was consciousness before there was matter, and not the other way around.

“In certain basic and vital ways, your own consciousness is a portion of that divine gestalt. In the terms of your earthly experience, it is a metaphysical, a scientific, and a creative error to separate matter from consciousness, for consciousness materializes itself as matter in physical life.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– This is the book where Seth finally bludgeons to death the phrase “in your terms.” But seriously, as Aldous Huxley helped explain in the previous segment, Seth is severely constrained by English’s propensity to cast concepts into linear objects and processes. I never cease to be amazed at the tenacity and consistency in which Seth explains concepts based in spacelessness and timelessness to an audience ensconced in space and time.

Seth opens with a reminder that “in the beginning” of our physical universe E+M=C (energy and matter = Consciousness).

– Physical energy and matter as Consciousness are infinitely creative, innovative, original, and imaginative though our modern sciences do not operate under that assumption. However, Seth does not assign human traits to energy and matter, but instead human traits are made possible by their fundamental characteristics.

– In the beginning, then, physical atoms and molecules dreamt of more complex structures – cells – and explored myriad probabilities in which to best create them. Thus, matter preceded the emergence of simple cellular life, which in turn dreamt of ways to create even more complex biological forms. (Seth skips any mention of the formation of galaxies, solar systems and planets at this point. But key hierarchical relationships exist between the development of energy-matter as atoms, into molecules, and eventually cells that we’ll explore later.)

– In the beginning, value fulfillment guided the experimentation of atoms and molecules. Value fulfillment is an innate quality of Consciousness “that seeks to fulfill its own potential in all possible variations – and in such a way that such a development also furthers the creative potentials of each other portion of reality.”

– In the beginning, Consciousness as atoms and molecules still dreamt about all of the myriad forms they could manifest. But the inner world, the “dreamtime,” was still more familiar. So physical energy and matter were very unstable.

– There is an innate intention and purpose to our young physical universe. However, only so much can be actualized in physical terms in any given time. So there is always a balancing act that nurtures the development of all species as things develop in a cooperative fashion. There will be “another momentous explosion of subjective inspiration into objectivity, or into another form.”

Knowledge of this innate intention and purpose within All-That-Is exists on some level now, since everything exists simultaneously within a “spacious present.” Our entire universe still dreams of it. And Seth hints not so much at some kind of spiritual evolution as some kind of “expansion.” (This may be a reference to the present emergence of postmodern worldviews on a global scale.)

– Again, there is no real beginning in terms of linear time, but a spacious present in which Consciousness experiences nested orders of perception (fields of consciousness) that support and nurture the emergence of our physical universe (Framework 1).

– Our physical senses provide a flat view of reality limited to physical surfaces. However, they are extensions of our inner senses. Thus, every form of energy and matter uses inner senses that work “outside” of space and time (nonlocal). The inner senses are part of a vast inner communication between all species. Our cells also use inner senses.

– Seth closes with a reprise of his opening thoughts that physical energy and matter are Conscious. (This is a good example of what we discussed in the Foreword about Consciousness desperately trying make a comeback in postmodern worldviews and myths.)

Comments:

– In summary, Causal Consciousness exists “before the beginning” of our physical universe. In the beginning, then, the Big Bang was “caused” by the dreaming nature of All-That-Is.

– Seth mentioned that “... In the beginning, there was not God the Father, Allah, Zoroaster, Zeus, or Buddha.” Notice that he invokes recent premodern religious icons that still dominate today. They extend back approximately 3,000 years and superceded earlier Great Mother and Great Goddess figures that reach back tens of thousands of years to the dawn times of humanity.

Various scholars (Campbell, Whyte, Eisler, Wilber, Pagels, etc.) point out how the Judeo-Christian-Islamic father gods managed to repress the feminine Great Goddess principle to such and extent so as to dissociate it. The result was a pathological imbalance in the monotheistic religions that have led to more human suffering in the name of God the Father than anything that preceded it. The expansion that Seth refers to may include the integration of the Great Goddess principle into emerging postmodern myths.

Again, in the Foreword I mentioned that Consciousness is desperately trying to make a comeback in postmodern myths and worldviews. We can now add that the feminine principle, as an element that has been dissociated on a mass scale over the past 3,000 years, is also desperately involved in this postmodern comeback. The feminine principle is further reflected in the use of emotions, intuitions, and first person perspectives – additional qualities repressed in premodern and particularly modern worldviews. Again, we’re exploring a balance and inclusion of both masculine and feminine qualities.

– Finally, over 800 sessions preceded this ambitious attempt at a creation myth. As such, the laws of the inner universe, of which value fulfillment was the first presented, were first published in The Early Sessions: Book Two of the Seth Material (1997). I suspect he chose to focus on value fulfillment for simplicity’s sake and ease of story-telling. Still, we can apply all these innate qualities of All-That-Is to this conscious creation myth. For example, Seth uses consciousness throughout, and hinted at cooperation and energy transformation in this excerpt. He briefly mentions spontaneity later.

• Value Fulfillment
• Energy Transformation
• Spontaneity
• Durability
• Creation
• Consciousness
• Capacity For Infinite Mobility
• Changeability & Transmutation
• Cooperation
• Quality Depth

Though a detailed review is beyond the scope of this essay there is more information available. [Follow this link to Seth’s Laws of the Inner Universe .]

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Seth on “Consciousness Units (CUs), Electromagnetic Energy Units (EEs), and The Sleepwalkers” (pt.1)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 887, December 05, 1979.

“Space, again, is a psychological property. So is time. The universe did not, then, begin at some specified point in time, or at any particular location in space – for it is true to say that all of space and all of time appeared simultaneously, and appear simultaneously.”

Session 889, December 17, 1979.

“I call the building blocks of matter CUs – units of consciousness. They form physical matter as it exists in your understanding and experience. Units of consciousness also form other kinds of matter that you do not perceive.

“CUs can also operate as ‘particles’ or as ‘waves.’ Whichever way they operate, they are aware of their own existences. When CUs operate as particles, in your terms, they build up a continuity in time. They take on the characteristics of particularity. They identify themselves by the establishment of specific boundaries.

“They take certain forms then, when they operate as particles, and experience their reality from ‘the center of’ those forms. They concentrate upon, or focus upon, their unique specifications. They become in your terms individual.

“When CUs operate as waves, however, they do not set up any boundaries about their own self-awareness – and when operating as waves CUs can indeed be in more than one place at one time.”

“... Each ‘particleized’ unit of consciousness contains within it inherently the knowledge of all other such particles – for at other levels, again, the units are operating as waves. Basically the units move faster than light, slowing down, in your terms, to form matter. These units can be considered, again, as entities [particles] or as forces [waves], and they can operate as either. Metaphysically, they can be thought of as the point at which All-That-Is acts to form [your] world – the immediate contact of a never-ending creative inspiration, coming into mental focus, the metamorphosis of certainly divine origin that brings the physical world into existence from the greater reality of divine fact. Scientifically, again, the units can be thought of as building blocks of matter. Ethically, the CUs represent the spectacular foundations of the world in value fulfillment, for each unit of consciousness is related to each other, a part of the other, each participating in the entire gestalt of mortal experience.”

“... In the beginning, then, these units operated both as identities or particles, and as [force fields or] waves. The main concentration was not yet physical in your terms. What you now think of as the dream state was the waking one, for it was still the recognized form of purposeful activity, creativity, and power. The dream state continues to be a connective between the two realities, and as a species you literally learned to walk by first being sleepwalkers. You walked in your sleep. You dreamed your languages. You spoke in your dreams and later wrote down the alphabets – and your knowledge and your intellect have always been fired, sharpened, propelled by the great inner reality from which your minds emerged.”

“... In terms of time, however, we will speak of a beginning, and in that beginning it was early man’s dreams that allowed him to cope with physical reality. The dream world was his original learning ground. In times of drought he would dream of the location of water. In times of famine he would dream of the location of food. That is, his dreaming allowed him to clairvoyantly view the body of land. He would not waste time in the trail-and-error procedures that you now take for granted. In dreams his consciousness operated as a wave [field].

“In those early times all species shared their dreams in a way that is now quite unconscious for your kind, so that in dreams man inquired of the animals also – long before he learned to follow the animal tracks, for example. Where is there food or water? What is the lay of the land? Man explored the planet because his dreams told him that the land was there.”

“... The dream world is not an aimless, nonlogical, unintellectual field of activity. It is only that your own perspective closes out much of its vast reality, for the dreaming intellect can put your computers to shame. I am not, therefore, putting the intellectual capacities in the background – but I am saying that they emerge as you know them because of the dreaming self’s uninterrupted use of the full power of the united intellect and intuitions.”

Session 890, December 19, 1979.

“In the deepest terms, again, your physical world is beginning at each point at which these units of consciousness assert themselves to form physical reality. Otherwise, life would not be ‘handed down’ through the generations. Each unit of consciousness (or CU) intensifies, magnifies its own intent to be – and, you might say, works up from within itself an explosive spark of primal desire that ‘explodes’ into a process that causes physical materialization. It turns into what I have called [an] EE unit, in which case it is embarked upon its own kind of physical experience.

“These EE units also operate as fields, as waves, or as particles, as the units of consciousness do – but in your terms they are closer to physical orientation. Their die is cast, so to speak: They have already begun the special kind of screening process necessary that will bring about physical form. They begin to deal with the kinds of information that will help form your world. There are literally numberless steps taken before EE units combine in their own fashion to form the most microscopic physical particles, and even here the greatest, gentlest sorting-out process takes place as these units disentangle themselves at certain operational levels from their own greater fields of ‘information,’ to specialize in the various elements that will allow for the production of atoms and molecules impeccably suited to your kind of world.

“First, again, you have various stages of, say, pseudomatter, of dream images, that only gradually – in those terms – coalesce and become physically viable, for there are endless varieties of ‘matter’ between the matter that you recognize and the antimatter of physicists’ theories.

“Form exists at many other levels than those you recognize, in other words. Your dream forms are quite as real as your physical ones. They simply fit into their own environment at another level of activity, and they are quite reminiscent of the kinds of forms that you had in the beginning of [your] world.

“While you and all of the other species were what I have called sleepwalkers, your bodies by then were physically capable. In a manner of speaking, you did not know how to use them properly as yet. Now, from a waking state, you do not understand how your dream bodies can seem to fly through the air, defy space and even time, converse with strangers and so forth. In the same way, however, once, you had to learn to deal with gravity, to deal with space and time, to manipulate in a world of objects, to simply breathe, to digest your food, and to perform all of the biological manipulations that now you take for granted.

“You could not afford to identify too completely with such bodies until you learned how to survive within them, so in the dream state the true processes of life began as these new bodies and earth-tuned consciousnesses saw themselves mentally exercising all portions of the body. Behind all that was the brilliant comprehension and cooperation of all of the units of consciousness that go to compose the body, each adding its own information and specific knowledge to the overall bodily organizations, and each involved in the most intricate fields of relationships, for the miracle of the body’s efficiency is the result of relationships that exist among all of its parts, connecting it to other levels of existence that do not physically appear.

“Units of consciousness (CUs), transforming themselves into EE units, formed the environment and all of its inhabitants in the same process, in what you might call a circular manner rather than a serial one. And in those terms, of course, there are only various physical manifestations of consciousness, not a planet and its inhabitants, but an entire gestalt of awareized consciousness. In those terms, each portion of physically oriented consciousness sees reality and experience from its own privileged viewpoint, about which it seems all else revolves, even though this may involve a larger generalized field than your own, or a smaller one.”

“... Man’s dreams have always provided him with a sense of impetus, purpose, meaning, and given him the raw material from which to form his civilizations. The true history of the world is the history of man’s dreams, for they have been responsible in one way or another for all historic developments.”

“... For now in our tale of beginnings, however, we still have a spasmodic universe that appears and disappears – that gradually, in those terms, manifests for longer periods of time. What you really had in the beginning were images without form, slowly adopting form, blinking on and off, then stabilizing into forms that were as yet not completely physical. These then took on all of the characteristics that you now consider formed physical matter.

“As all of this occurred, consciousness took on more and more specific orientations, greater organizations at your end. At the ‘other end,’ it disentangled itself from vaster fields of activity to allow for this specific behavior. All of these units of consciousness, again, operate as entities (or particles, or as waves or forces). In those terms, consciousness formed the experience of time – and not, of course, the other way around.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– Seth calls the building blocks of matter “consciousness units” or CUs. CUs are a metaphor, symbolic of a deeper subjective Causal Consciousness. They are not things, not separated bits of cosmic dust or quanta, but psychological aspects of All-That-Is used in the creation of any physical form (Jane Roberts also referred to physical matter as “idea constructions”).

– CUs can operate as ‘particles’ or as ‘waves’ similar to quantum particles or waves of light called photons. They are aware of their own existences in either state.

– When CUs operate as particles they build up a continuity in time, take on the characteristics of individuality, establish specific boundaries, and take on the appearance of separate things, like atoms, molecules, galaxies, solar systems, planets, mountains, oceans, cells, animals, people, etc.

– When CUs operate as waves they don’t set up any boundaries about their own self-awareness and can be in more than one place at a time (a no-time, no-space, nonlocal state).

– Every particleized CU contains the inherent knowledge of all other such particles because at other levels CUs are simultaneously operating as waves. This is just another way of explaining how there is no separation, no boundaries within All-That-Is at certain levels, while simultaneously there are boundaries, separation, and dualities. The delicious irony is that All-That-Is needed to discover the means to create boundaries or particles that in turn were imbued with their own propensity for a creativity that was otherwise impossible.

– Scientifically, CUs can be thought of as the building blocks of matter. CUs move faster than light and slow down to form matter. CUs function as entities (particles) or as forces (waves), and they can operate as either or both simultaneously (we can also use them to explain Seth’s concept of simultaneous time, but more on that later).

– Seth employs another metaphor, the electromagnetic energy unit or EEs to describe the process of how groupings of CUs, linked by similar innate intention (remember they’re conscious aspects of All-That-Is), transform themselves and “slow down” to form physical matter. EEs are just larger groupings of CUs as they get earmarked for physical manifestation (for example, quantum scientists have theorized about a faster than light particle called a tachyon).

– Seth also makes an important ethical connection to CUs. Ethically, CUs “represent the spectacular foundations of the world in value fulfillment, for each unit of consciousness is related to each other, a part of the other, each participating in the entire gestalt of mortal experience.” In other words, since there are nested aspects of consciousness that are not separate, but merged as a type of wave form, there are ethical implications inherent within the laws of the inner universe. Value fulfillment, in particular, implies that everything in the physical field is interconnected via the nonlocal properties of energy and matter. Further exploring these relationships can help us discern the natural ethics and morals within All-That-Is. [For more info, see Sethics: the Emergence of Ethics and Morality in the Noosphere]

– In the beginning of the physical field (Framework 1), during the “dreamtime,” CUs operate more often as waves using the dream state as connective tissue between emerging patterns of matter. Our personalities were not primarily focused into physical bodies at that stage, but worked out great creative variations within the dream state. We searched for the best conditions to create a viable ecosystem that would support multiple species of life as guided by value fulfillment.

More importantly, Seth points out that the dream field is the connective tissue between the causal and physical fields. As we will see shortly, this maps onto several important premodern maps of the “Great Chain of Being.”

– Once manifest into physical bodies, early man would be considered sleepwalkers by our present standards. We first learned to walk as a species by sleepwalking, as the dream state was still the “normal” one at this stage. We first dreamed our languages, spoke in our dreams, and later wrote down the alphabets. Everything manifest from inner reality “outward” into the physical, from dream into matter, literally.

– In the beginning during the “dreamtime,” a spasmodic universe blinked in and out, appearing and disappearing, gradually manifesting for longer periods of time. The sleepwalkers likewise blinked in and out, gradually manifesting for longer periods of time, as space and time ItSelf began to stabilize. Again, the dream field was the primary focus of all activity.

In the beginning there were “images without form, slowly adopting form, blinking on and off, then stabilizing into forms that were as yet not completely physical. These then took on all of the characteristics that you now consider formed physical matter.” Thus, the early universe was very unstable as even the basic fields making up matter continued to fluctuate.

Comments:

– In the simplest version of the “Great Chain of Being,” there are three interpenetrated fields: causal, subtle, and physical. We can extend that into more, but for our purposes, we only need the basic three. Thus, in Vajrayana Buddhism we find:

• dharmakaya (causal)
• sambhogakaya (subtle)
• nirmanakaya (physical)

Advaita Hinduism calls them:

• anandamayakosha (causal)
• vijnanamayakosha (subtle)
• manomayakosha (physical)

According to Seth, then, CUs are the foundational active principle – the Primal Cause – used by All-That-Is to consciously create our physical universe. As CUs form EEs, however, there are “numberless steps taken before EE units ... form the most microscopic physical particles.” Seth thus identifies three main, nested actions that simultaneously occur:

1. CUs (causal waves)
2. EEs (subtle waves)
3. Quantum fields (physical particles)

These form the three simultaneous, nested actions and fields of conscious creation. The amazing result is that all particles – now fully individualized consciousness – perceive themSelves to be the center of the universe. As quantum fields, atoms, molecules, or cells they each represent an increasingly complex series of hierarchically unfolding compound constructions (more on the crucial importance of hierarchy later). Still, at this point in our creation myth conditions are not yet right for the emergence of what Seth calls the outer ego. The physical universe is conscious, but not yet Conscious.

Seth’s concepts mirror the above perennial traditions. The paradox is that these three primary actions of conscious creation – causal (wave), subtle (wave), and physical (particle) – occur simultaneously in larger terms via the inner senses, and yet we only perceive the particle aspects through our five senses. However, current leading edge science (e.g., Bohm, Laszlo, Tiller) is just beginning to formulate ways to identify and probe these hidden causal and subtle fields, though shaman, yogis, and adepts have probed them for millennia.

This is also how Seth explains the basic paradox inherent within All-That-Is, which is simultaneously transcendent (waves in the causal and subtle fields) and immanent (particles in the physical field).

Seth uses this particle/wave duality as a key bridge concept between nonphysical and physical fields. It maps onto quantum mechanical concepts like nonlocality (discussed in the Foreword) and the holographic universe (discussed later) among others, but also extends much deeper.

Finally, according to Seth, two of the fundamental actions of CUs are dreaming and inner sensing. Once again, we can more fully understand Seth’s tale by learning to manipulate our own dreams and inner senses.

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Seth on “Consciousness Units (CUs), Electromagnetic Energy Units (EEs), and The Sleepwalkers” (pt.2)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 892, January 02, 1980.

“You were each present at the beginning of the world, then, though you may be present in the world now in a somewhat different fashion.

“Remember that each unit of consciousness is a fragment of All-That-Is, a divine portion. Then perhaps what I am about to explain will make more sense.

“For some time, in your terms, the sleepwalkers remained more or less at that level of [primarily dream-based] activity, and for many centuries they used the surface of the earth as a kind of background for other activity. Their real life was what you would now call the dreaming one. They worked mentally while asleep, constructing in their individual minds and in their joint mental endeavors all of the dazzling images that would later become a mental reservoir from which men could draw. In that multidimensional array, consciousness mentally learned to form itself into EE units, atoms and molecules, electrons and chromosomes. It mentally formed the patterns through which all physical life could flow. The world then came into physical existence. Those units of consciousness are indestructible and vitalized, regardless of the forms they take, and while men’s forms were dream images, consciousness spun forms into physical material.

“Consciousness possesses the most unimaginable agility without ever losing any potency. Those units of consciousness, for example, can mix and combine with others to form a million different sequences of memory and desire, of neural achievement and recognition [of] structure and design.”

“... Initially, then, the world was a dream, and what you think of as waking consciousness was the dreaming consciousness. In that regard the earth’s entire environment was built mentally, atom by conscious atom – each atom, again, being initially formed by units of consciousness. I said that these units could operate as entities [particles], and as forces [waves], so we are not speaking of a mental mechanics but of entities in the true meaning of the word: entities of unimaginable creative and psychic properties, purposeful fragments propelled from the infinite mind as that mind was filled with the inspiration that gave light to the world. Those entities, in your terms so ancient, left fragments of themselves in trance, so to speak, that form the rocks and hills, the mountains, the air and the water, and all of the elements that exist on the face of the earth.

“Those entities are in trance, in those terms, but their potency is not diminished, and there is constant communication among them always.

“There is also constant communication between them and you at other levels than those you recognize, so that there is an unending interplay between each species and its environment.

“There is no place where consciousness stops and the environment begins, or vice verse. Each form of life is created along with each other form – environment and organism in those terms creating each other. After forms were fully physical, however, all species operated as sleepwalkers for many centuries, though on the scale that existed then the passage of time was not considered in the same fashion. During that period the work of wedding nonphysical consciousness to matter was accomplished. Effects of gravity, for example, were stabilized. The seasons took on the rhythms best suited to the creatures in various locations. The environment and the creatures accommodated each other.

“Up until then, the main communications had followed the characteristic patterns of units of consciousness, each unit knowing its relationship to all others upon the planet. Creatures relied upon inner senses while learning to operate the new, highly specific physical ones that pinpointed perception in time and place. This pinpointing of perception was of vital importance, for with the full arousal of consciousness in flesh, intersections with space and time [had to be] impeccable.

“Dream bodies became physical, and through the use of the senses tuned to physical frequencies – frequencies of such power and allure that they would reach all creatures of every kind, from microbe to elephant, holding them together in a cohesive web of space-and-time alignment.

“... This tale, I admit, is far more difficult to understand than a simple story of God’s creation of the world, or its actual production in a meaningless universe through the slippery hand of chance – and yet my story is more magnificent because elements of its truth will find resonance in the minds and hearts of those open enough to listen. For men’s minds themselves are alive with the desire to read properly, and they are aware of their own vast heritage. It is not simply that man has a soul that is somehow blessed while the rest of him is not, but that in those terms everything [he knows], regardless of size or degree, is made of ‘soul stuff.’ Each portion has its own identity and validity – and no portion is ever annihilated or destroyed. The form may change.

“I must of necessity tell this story in serial terms, but the world and all of its creatures actually come together like some spontaneously composed, ever-playing musical composition in which the notes themselves are alive and play themselves, so that the musician and the notes are one and the same, the purpose and the performance being one, with each note played continuing to strike all of its own probable versions, forming all of its own probable compositions while at the same time taking part in all of the themes, melodies, and notes of the other compositions – so that each note, striking, defines itself, and yet also exists by virtue of its position in the composition as a whole.

“The conscious mind cannot handle that kind of multidimensional creativity, yet it can expand into a kind of new recognition when it is carried along, still being itself, by its own theme.

“In a way, your world follows its own theme in creativity’s composition. You want to know where you came into the musical production, so to speak. I use a musical analogy here, if a simple one, to point out that we are also dealing with frequencies of perception. You are tuned into earth’s orchestration [you might say], and your perception of time is simply the result of habits – habits of perception that you had to learn in the beginning of the world. And you learned those habits as your physical senses gradually became more alert and specific.

“You ‘timed’ yourselves – but greater perceptions always appeared in the background of your consciousnesses and in the dream state. It is the great activity of the dream state that allows you, as psychological and physical creatures, to recognize and inhabit the world that you know.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– We, as early humans and all species in the guise of sleepwalkers, remained focused primarily in the dream state for many centuries as space, time, and matter gradually stabilized. We used the surface of the earth as a background for other intensely creative activity preparing our planet and its ecosystem for our emergence into physical form. We worked mentally while “asleep,” constructing in our individual and collective minds all of the “dazzling images” that would later become a mental reservoir of probabilities from which all species could draw.

– The sleepwalkers left fragments of themSelves as entities “in trance, so to speak, that form the rocks and hills, the mountains, the air and the water, and all of the elements that exist on the face of the earth.” In other words, from within the subtle field, we as energy personality essences literally created every aspect of the physical universe to be our cosmic playground!

– This “Great Chain of Being” (causal–subtle–physical fields) existed in latent or implied form at the beginning of the universe, yearning to be physically manifest. Yet there was a transitional period in which an equilibrium and stasis was achieved that allowed for physical seasons to emerge and an ecosystem to manifest that could support greater numbers of physical species. Again, value fulfillment is one of the laws of the inner universe that constantly fuels the action of conscious creation.

– Seth admits here that he is telling a “tale” and that he is constrained by telling it in serial form. So we are reminded once again that Seth is limited to using symbols, metaphor, analogy, and mythos to describe his creation myth and that all of this is to be taken with a grain of salt. In other words, have fun with it!

– The inner senses are an innate quality within all manifestations of All-That-Is, including CUs and EEs. Thus, inner sensing forms the fundamental “language of translation” – the action of conscious creation – as CUs form EEs which in turn form quantum fields. (Reminder: electromagnetic units = groupings of consciousness units earmarked for physical manifestation.)

However, our physical senses were designed to be so alluring and compelling that we’d use them as our primary form of perception in Framework 1, pushing our inner senses into subconscious neurological background activity. Can anyone say sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll?

– Seth uses the analogy of a cosmic musical composition to further fill in the blanks in his tale thus far, comparing the causal–subtle–physical “Chain of Being” to “frequencies of perception.” In this sense, we gradually learned to tune into earth’s physical orchestration, melodies, and rhythms.

At some point we needed to shift our inner attention into physical forms and allow our sleepwalker selves to fade into a “trance state” so that we could fully experience this new camouflage universe (Framework 1) in its fullness. “We” got so good at this that we have actually hypnotized ourselves into believing that we exist as separate, autonomous creatures. (More on the emergence of the outer ego later.)

Comments:

Seth’s tale shifts to the workings of the subtle field in this segment. As such, the sleepwalkers were “early” inner egos intimately aware of themselves as energy personality essences. The outer egos we are familiar with today were not yet active, but still latent. Thus, they were pre-egoic, immersed in body awareness, needing food, holding basic emotions and sexual instincts, but not yet sentient, or aware of being aware.

The sleepwalkers are our subtle field aspects that learned to manipulate, translate, and form Causal Consciousness into the physical stuff of our universe – EEs into quantum fields, atoms, molecules, DNA, chromosomes, and so on.

Within All-That-Is, then, the sleepwalkers form the subtle field mediating layer between the Causal and physical fields. This is why Seth says that we “were each present at the beginning of the world, then, though [we] may be present in the world now in a somewhat different fashion.” We are really a simultaneous causal/subtle/physical gestalt!

Thus, the action of conscious creation occurs in every moment point through a Causal (wave) field that constantly works in the “background” to fuel a subtle (wave) field (Frameworks ..., 4, 3, 2), which in turn consciously creates our physical universe (Framework 1).

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Seth on “The Ancient Dreamers (The Sleepwalkers)” (pt.1)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 893, January 07, 1980.

“For what would seem to you to be eons, according to your time scale, men were in the dreaming state far more than they were in the waking one. They slept long hours, as did the animals – awakening, so to speak, to exercise their bodies, obtain sustenance, and, later, to mate. It was indeed a dreamlike world, but a highly charming and vital one, in which dreaming imaginations played rambunctiously with all the probabilities entailed in this new venture: imaging the various forms of language and communication possible, spinning great dream tales of future civilizations replete with their own built-in histories – building, because they were now allied with time, mental edifices that automatically created pasts as well as futures.

“These ancient dreams were shared to some extent by each consciousness that was embarked upon the earthly venture, so that creatures and environment together formed great environmental realities. Valleys and mountains, and their inhabitants, together dreamed themselves into being and coexistence.

“The species – from your viewpoint – lived at a much slower pace in those terms. The blood, for example, did not need to course so quickly through the veins [and arteries], the heart did not need to beat as fast. And in an important fashion the coordination of the creature in its environment did not need to be as precise, since there was an elastic give-and-take of consciousness between the two.

“In ways almost impossible to describe, the ground rules were not as yet firmly established. Gravity itself did not carry its all-pervasive sway, so that the air was more buoyant. Man was aware of its support in a luxurious, intimate fashion. He was aware of himself in a different way, so that, for example, his identification with the self did not stop where his skin stopped: He could follow it outward into the space about his form, and feel it merge with the atmosphere with a primal sense-experience that you have forgotten.

“During this period, incidentally, mental activity of the highest, most original variety was the strongest dream characteristic, and the knowledge [man] gained was imprinted upon the physical brain: what is now completely unconscious activity involving the functions of the body, its relationship with the environment, its balance and temperature, its constant, inner alterations. All of these highly intricate activities were learned and practiced in the dream state as the CUs [consciousness units] translated their inner knowledge through the state of dreaming into physical form.

“Then in your terms man began, with the other species, to waken more fully into the physical world, to develop the exterior senses, to intersect delicately and precisely with space and time. Yet man still sleeps and dreams, and that state is still a firm connective with his own origins, and with the origins of the universe as he knows it as well.

“... In a fashion those ancient dreamers, through their immense creativity, dreamed all of life’s creatures in all of their pasts, presents, and futures – that is, their dreams opened up the doors of space and time to entities that otherwise would not have been released into actualization, even as, for example, the units of consciousness were once released from the mind of All-That-Is.

“All possible entities that can ever be actualized always exist. They [have] always existed and they always will exist. All-That-Is must, by its characteristics, be all that it can ever be, and so there can be no end to existence – and, in those terms, no beginning. But in terms of your world the units of consciousness, acting both as forces [waves] and as psychological entities [particles] of massive power, planted the seeds of your world in a dimension of imaginative power that gave birth to physical form. In your terms those entities [particles] are your ancestors – and yet [they are] not yours alone, but the ancestors of all the consciousnesses that make up your world.”

Session 894, January 09, 1980.

“Basically, there are no real divisions to the self, but for the sake of explanation we must speak of them in those terms. First of all you had the inner self, the creative dreaming self – composed, again, of units of consciousness, awareized energy that forms your identity, and that formed the identities of the earliest earth inhabitants. These inner selves formed their own dream bodies about them, as previously explained, but the dream bodies did not have to have physical reactions. They were free of gravity and space, and of time.

“As the body became physical, however, the inner self formed the body consciousness so that the physical body became more aware of itself, of the environment, and of its relationship within the environment. Before this could happen, though, the body consciousness was taught to become aware of its own inner environment. The body was lovingly formed from EE [electromagnetic energy] units through all the stages to atoms, cells, organs, and so forth. The body’s pattern came from the inner self, as all of the units of consciousness involved in this venture together formed this fabric of environment and creatures, each suited to the other.

“So far in our discussion, then, we have an inner self, dwelling primarily in a mental or psychic dimension, dreaming itself into physical form, and finally forming a body consciousness. To that body consciousness the inner self gives ‘its own body of physical knowledge,’ the vast reservoir of physical achievement that it has triumphantly produced. The body consciousness is not ‘unconscious,’ but for working purposes in your terms, [the body] possesses its own system of consciousness that to some extent, now, is separated from what you think of as your own normal consciousness. The body’s consciousness is hardly to be considered less than your own, or as inferior to that of your inner self, since it represents knowledge from the inner self, and is a part of the inner self’s own consciousness – the part delegated to the body.

“[Each] cell, then, as I have often said, operates so well in time because it is, in those terms, precognitive. It is aware of the position, health, vitality, of all other cells on the face of the planet. It is aware of the position of each grain of sand on the shores of each ocean, and in those terms it forms a portion of the earth’s consciousness.

“... Thus far in our discussion, we still have only an inner self and a body consciousness. As the body consciousness developed itself, perfected its organization, the inner self and the body consciousness together performed a kind of psychological double-entendre.

“... The best analogy I can think of is that up to that time the self was like a psychological rubber band, snapping inward and outward with great force and vitality, but without any kind of rigid-enough psychological framework to maintain a physical stance. The inner self still related to dream reality, while the body’s orientation and the body consciousness attained, as was intended, a great sense of physical adventure, curiosity, speculation, wonder – and so once again the inner self put a portion of its consciousness in a different parcel, so to speak. As once it had formed the body consciousness, now it formed a physically attuned consciousness, a self whose desires and intents would be oriented in a way that, alone, the inner self could not be.

“... [The outer ego] is the self that looks outward. It is the self that you call egotistically aware. The inner self became what I refer to as the inner ego. It looks into that inner reality, that psychic dimension of awareness from which both your own [outer ego] consciousness and your body consciousness emerged.

“You are one self, then, but for operating purposes we will say that you have three parts: the inner self or ego, the body [sub]consciousness, and the [outer ego] consciousness that you know.

“These portions, however, are intimately connected. They are like three different systems of consciousness operating together to form the whole. The divisions – the seeming divisions – are not stationary, but change constantly.

“... To one extent or another, these three systems of consciousness operate in one way or another in all of the species, and in all particles, in the physical universe. In your terms, this means that the proportions of the three systems might vary, but they are always in operation, whether we are speaking of a man or a woman, a rock or a fly, a star or an atom. The inner self represents your prime identity, the self you really are.

“... The body [sub]consciousness is therefore given a superb sense of its own reality, a sureness of identity, a sense of innate safety and security, that allows it to not only function but to grow in the physical world. It is endowed with a sense of boldness, daring, a sense of natural power. It is perfectly formed to fit into its environment – and the environment is perfectly formed to have such creatures.

“The entities, or units of consciousness – those ancient fragments [particles] that burst into objectivity from the vast and infinite psychological realms of All-That-Is – dared all, for they joyfully abandoned themselves in space and time. They created new psychological entities, opened up an area of divine creativity that ‘until then’ had been closed, and therefore to that [degree] extended the experience and immense existence of All-That-Is. For in so abandoning themselves they were not of course abandoned, since they contained within themselves their inherent relationship with All-That-Is. In those terms All-That-Is became physical also, aroused at its divine depth by the thrusting of each grass blade through the soil into the air, aroused by each birth and by each moment of each creature’s existence.

“All-That-Is, therefore, is immersed within your world, present in each hypothetical point, and forms the very fabric from which each portion of matter is created.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– In the beginning, the world and everything in it – valleys, mountains, oceans, the sky, and every species of organic life – was guided by the cooperative group dreams of every type of consciousness involved. Endless probabilities were explored and a mental framework created that began to include probable pasts, presents, and futures. This stage of development lasted for “eons.”

– Causal Aspects of All-That-Is that Seth calls consciousness units (causal field) translated their inner knowledge via the dream state (subtle field) to create all physical forms (physical field). “... these highly intricate activities were learned and practiced in the dream state.” Thus, the subtle field was a hotbed of creativity that paved the way for the emergence of the physical field.

– Every inner self (including sleepwalkers) has and will always exist in some latent form within All-That-Is. Only a small percentage of this latency can be physically manifest in any given time. All-That-Is strives “to be all that it can ever be, and so there can be no end to existence – and ... no beginning.” Thus, Seth describes the causal (wave) and subtle (wave) fields in terms of eternal qualities (no beginning or end) in relation to the physical (particle) field, which by design has beginnings and endings.

– CUs, acting both as forces (waves) and as individualized consciousness (particles), are the ancestors of every type of consciousness that make up our world. Thus, the sleepwalkers are the ancient dreamers working in the subtle field who created our universe and human beings.

– As the ancient dreamers experimented with various species and the ecosystem, they began to develop human body consciousness. There was a period lasting for eons in which the subtle and physical fields were not yet stable enough for physical reproduction and mating to be required. (In other words, the dreamtime “preceded” sexual reproduction in the physical field, and didn't require sex as we know it. Once the first cellular life physically manifest, however, physical sex was required for reproduction.)

The inner self is that subtle field aspect of the sleepwalkers that dreamed, “translated,” and consciously created physicality. We did such a great job in this process that, as we came to rely more and more on our physical senses, all of the amazing calculations and manipulations of energy needed to maintain a physical body began to recede into the background of the subconscious. In this sense, the subconscious had to stabilize before the outer ego could emerge.

Eventually we no longer needed to be consciously aware of growing our hair, digesting our food, or healing a cut. All of these issues had to be figured out in the Overall design before they could became “automatic.” Our body consciousness, which became part of the subconscious, then, represents the knowledge of the inner self “translated” into physical form.

– There is no aspect of All-That-Is – causal, subtle, or physical – that is unconscious. All aspects exist in simultaneously nested fields created by the wave/particle nature of CUs. And that is a loaded statement!

– There were three additional functions designed by the sleepwalkers so that humans could emerge. However, the apparent divisions between them are seamless.

1. inner self (inner ego, “wave focus”)
2. body consciousness (subconscious mediating layer, “wave and particle focus”)
3. outer ego (pre-egoic, “particle focus”)

These functions broadly occur in every thing and process in the physical field. Though the relationships may vary, they always operate in any quantum field, galaxy, planet, rock, plant, animal, or person. (This is another very important deep structure at play in all energy-matter. More on this later.)

– Seth closes with a reminder that All-That-Is worked together in a massive, simultaneous, cooperative venture of the highest creative expression possible. We simultaneously, as Causal Consciousness (CUs), as sleepwalkers (EEs), and finally as physical creatures (quantum fields) saw through wave and particle “eyes” that it was good! (or should I say God? :-)

Comments:

– In this segment, Seth focused on the emerging physical field. He outlined the basic “order of play” or stages of development in sequential, physical terms. For example, “The body was lovingly formed from EE [electromagnetic energy] units through all the stages to atoms, cells, organs, and so forth.” So there were atoms first that evolved into cells, which in turn evolved into organs, bodies, and nascent outer egos. And yet, Seth continues to explore our origins from the paradoxically simultaneous Causal (CUs) and subtle (EEs) fields. And this is exactly what makes this a postmodern creation myth. (More on this later.)

– Finally, a note on semantics up to this point: EEs, electromagnetic energy units, inner selves, sleepwalkers, ancient dreamers, source selves, and energy personality essences are ontologically equivalent. So these terms describe related aspects of the subtle field and may be used interchangeably.

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Seth on “The Ancient Dreamers (The Sleepwalkers)” (pt.2)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 897, January 21, 1980.

“Again, your world was not created, then, by some exteriorized, objectified God who created it from the outside, so to speak, and set it into motion. Many [religious] theorists believe, for example, that such a God created the world in such a fashion, and that the process of decay began at almost the same hypothetical moment that the creation ended.

“Such an idea is much like some scientific ones, that see the universe running down, [with energy] being dissipated and order gradually disintegrating into chaos. Both versions conceive of a finished creation, though one is a divine production and the other is a result of nothing more than happenstance.

“All in all, however, we are speaking of a constant creation, even though I must explain it in serial terms. We are discussing a model of the universe in which creation is continuous, spontaneously occurring everywhere, and everywhere simultaneously, in a kind of spacious present, from which all experiences with time emerge. In this model there is always new energy, and all systems are open, even though they may seem to operate separately. Once again, also, we are considering a model that is based upon the active cooperation of each of its parts, which in one way or another also participate in the experience of the whole.

“In this model, changes of form are the result of creative syntheses. This model is seen to have its origin within a vast, infinite, divine subjectivity – a subjectivity that is within each unit of consciousness, whatever its degree. A subjective divinity, then, that is within creation itself, a multidimensional creativity of such proportions that it is itself the creator and its creations at the same time.

“... In a manner of speaking, your universe and all others spring from a dimension that is the creative source for all realities – a basic dream universe, so to speak, a divine psychological bed where subjective being is sparked, illuminated, stimulated, pierced, by its own infinite desire for creativity. The source of its power is so great that its imaginings become worlds, but it is endowed with a creativity of such splendor that it seeks the finest fulfillment, for even the smallest of its thoughts and all of its potentials are directed with a good intent that is literally beyond all imagining.

“That good intent is apparent within your world. It is obvious in the cooperative ventures that unite, say, the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, the relationship of bee to flower. And [in] your beliefs to the contrary, you have closed your minds to man’s own cooperative nature, to his innate desire for fellowship, his natural bent for taking care of others, and for altruistic behavior.”

Session 898, January 30, 1980.

“The waking state as you think of it is a specialized extension of the dream state, and emerges from it to the surface of your awareness, just as your physical locations are specified extensions of locations that exist first within the realm of mind.

“The waking state, then, has its source in the dream state, and all of the objects, environment, and experience that are familiar to you in the waking state also originate in that inner dimension.

“... Also, in a manner of speaking, you are yourselves the ancient dreamers who dreamed your world into being. You must understand that I am not saying that you are passive, fleeting dreamers, lost in some divine mind, but that you are the unique creative manifestations of a divine intelligence whose creativity is responsible for all realities, which are themselves endowed with creative abilities of their own, with the potential and desire for fulfillment – inheritors indeed of the divine processes themselves.

“Spontaneity knows its own order.

“I have said this many times. The world’s parts come spontaneously together, with an order that basically defies the smaller laws of cause and effect, or before and afterward. In that regard, again, your dreaming state presents you with many clues about the source of your own lives and that of your world.

“... In the most basic of ways, the world is formed from the inside out, and from dreaming reality into the physical one – and those processes happen at another level of consciousness.”

Session 899, February 06, 1980.

“While men had their dream bodies alone they enjoyed a remarkable freedom, of course, for those bodies did not have to be fed or clothed. They did not have to operate under the law of gravity. Men could wander as they wished about the landscape. They did not yet identify themselves to any great degree as being themselves separate from either the environment or other creatures. They knew themselves to be themselves, but their identities were not as closely allied with their forms as is now the case.

“The dream world was bound to waken, however, for that was the course it had set itself upon. This awakening, again, happened spontaneously, and yet with its own order. In the terms of this discussion the other creatures of the earth actually awakened before man did, and relatively speaking, their dream bodies formed themselves into physical ones before man’s did. The animals became physically effective, therefore, while to some degree man still lingered in that dream reality.

“The plants awakened before the animals – and there are reasons for these varying degrees of ‘wakefulness’ that have nothing to do basically with the differentiations of specieshood as defined by science from the outside but have to do with the inner affiliations of consciousness, and with species or families of consciousness. (11) Those affiliations fell into being as all of the consciousnesses that were embarked upon physical reality divided up the almost unimaginable creative achievements that would be responsible for the physically effective world.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

Reminder – Seth weaves many concepts into his creation myth:

• All-That-Is/consciousness units (CUs/causal field)
• sleepwalkers/electromagnetic energy units (EEs/subtle field)
• Frameworks 4, 3, 2 (subtle field)
• the dream state (subtle field) functions as a “language of translation” for the waking state (physical field)
• Framework 1 (physical field)
• the paradoxical “before the beginning”
• families of consciousness (innate intention)
• the multidimensional psyche (outer ego, subconscious, inner ego)
• the inner senses (deep intuitions/translogical hyperception)
• reincarnation in the context of simultaneous time frameworks
• probabilities

– The premodern Genesis story and modern Science’s Big Bang myth imply that when the origin of our universe was completed things were left to run on their own. That is, Primal Cause remained “outside” of the physical field as a Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, or as yet unexplained scientific phenomenon. In this Sethian tale, however, Causal Consciousness remains immanent in the physical world, and is never separate. (See Comments.)

– Cosmogenesis was, is, and will be constantly occurring as our universe emerges via an “inner language of translation” from the Causal field through the dream field. Thus, in Seth’s model of the universe “creation is continuous, spontaneously occurring everywhere, and everywhere simultaneously, in a kind of spacious present, from which all experiences with time emerge.” All apparent boundaries, fields, and frameworks of consciousness are open, not closed. Again, this model is based upon the foundational principle of value fulfillment – “the active cooperation of each of its parts, which in one way or another also participate in the experience of the whole.”

– Seth talks about All-That-Is in a variety of ways throughout the material. He uses analogies and metaphors like “divine subjectivity,” “vitality,” “consciousness units,” and “frameworks of consciousness” to describe the vast Causal Consciousness within All-That-Is.

Seth also uses the concept of inner laws of the universe to describe innate qualities within All-That-Is that provide inner guidance for all conscious creation. In terms of value fulfillment, then, our universe innately nurtures the maximum potentials within “Great Chain of Being.” In human terms, value fulfillment is expressed through the emotion of unconditional love, a love almost beyond comprehension in which nothing is ever really destroyed, but always supported.

– Seth says All-That-Is holds “a good intent that is literally beyond all imagining.” This is reflected in the innate cooperation that Professors Darwin and Dawkins lost sight of in their speculations on natural selection and selfish genes. Humans have an innate desire for fellowship, taking care of others, and altruism. Here Seth continues to explore ethical implications mentioned earlier in CUs and the laws of the inner universe.

– Seth points out that the waking state is a “specialized extension of the dream state... [and] has its source in the dream state.” If we include the deep dreamless state, we discover the three simultaneous, interpenetrated fields of conscious creation – physical, subtle, and causal – are also accessible as temporary states. (More on the relationship between fields and states later.)

– Seth mentions that “spontaneity knows its own order.” Spontaneity is another law of the inner universe that further hints at deeper psychological processes within the subtle field (Frameworks ... 4, 3, 2).

Again, the physical world that we know is only the thin outer crust of a multiverse. “... In the most basic of ways, the world is formed from the inside out, and from [subtle] dreaming reality into the physical one – and those processes happen at another level of consciousness.”

– The first people were those aspects of the ancient dreamers known as the sleepwalkers. But they existed in the subtle, dream field “before” they were physical. There they worked out the maximum potentials for the physical field so it could follow its own glorious course. Stabilizing the body consciousness was a preliminary task before the outer ego could fully emerge. In terms of linear time, early people’s first forays onto the planet were in dream bodies, not physical ones.

Now the tale gets even more interesting. Seth says that there was a spontaneous, natural “awakening” of various aspects of the physical field that began with plants, then animals, and then people. Thus, there was an evolutionary unfolding of increasing hierarchical complexity after the Big Bang. This also implies that all species and people didn’t magically “blink in” during a seven day period.

Now, the “reasons for these varying degrees of ‘wakefulness’” were originally worked out by “inner affiliations of consciousness, and with species or families of consciousness.” The sleepwalkers divided into nine main “families” of intention. They “divided up the almost unimaginable creative achievements that would be responsible for the physically effective world.” Thus, the potentials for a “physically effective world” were first worked out in the subtle field by the sleepwalkers “before” they would emerge within physical reality.

(This is another nonlinear/linear paradox Seth plays with in his story-telling. Seth introduced a typology of intention called “families of consciousness” in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2 (1977). He detailed nine main types along with innumerable subdivisions, much like a rainbow has seven primary colors but can produce millions of shades. See endnote 11 for more information.)

This brief mention of the “families of consciousness” closes this segment. After making this connection, Seth has all the elements necessary to deal with the birth of the outer ego as a self-aware structure.

Comments:

– Seth opens this segment and points out the inadequacy in premodern and modern creation myths. To elaborate, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic universe was considered perfect in the beginning, but once people got involved things steadily got worse. There was a fall from grace in the Garden of Eden that was a woman’s fault (convenient for societies bent on keeping women subservient to men). In the angelic (subtle) realm things didn’t fare much better. The archangel Lucifer, originally a “good guy,” betrayed his “father” and was cursed to become the root of all the evil. It is rumored, for example, that he would later invent money.

The modern scientific universe is even more bleak and depressing because it still denies Causal Consciousness. Once set into motion, the universe simply runs on its own chaotic manner, with no guiding principles beyond the laws of physics (what Seth calls “smaller laws of cause and effect”). Galaxies, sunsets, and symphonies are all simple “accidents” of the laws of physics and “dumb” energy-matter. The universe itself will eventually run down through the process of entropy and destroy all life. However, with the absence of Causal Consciousness, in fact, ANY kind of consciousness, we’re stuck with theories about how dirt somehow became self-aware – sentient – with no larger purpose or goal.

Is it any wonder, then, why there is so much despair, dysfunction, and suffering in many premodern and modern societies founded on these core belief systems? Still, this is why postmodern worldviews are struggling to emerge. Seth’s postmodern myth includes important truths from premodern and modern myths. Again, the shining gems in premodern myths are Causal Consciousness within a “Great Chain of Being.” That gem, however, was discarded in the modern Big Bang myth. But in turn, science produced its own gems by mapping various stages of evolution and human development.

In hindsight it seems obvious, but Seth takes premodern peanut butter, puts it together with modern chocolate to create a postmodern Reeses Cup! Hmmm.

– Seth’s tale is also a variation of the ancient Hindu story of Involution/Evolution described by Sri Aurobindo in The Life Divine (1949). In Aurobindo’s creation mythos, the physical field was created by “the Absolute” dividing into three Aspects: 1. Existence (All-That-Is), 2. Consciousness-Force (self-aware CUs), and 3. Delight (value fulfillment). There was a fourth Aspect, a Supramental power (subtle EEs) that enabled the Consciousness Force (causal CUs) to create physical matter. Thus, the Supramental power (EEs) organized the Absolute into all fields within creation. As such, Existence (All-That-Is) is nested within all fields and is both immanent and transcendent. Finally, once manifest in physical terms, there is an unfolding or evolution in order of increasing hierarchical embrace.

The similarities are striking. In Seth’s version, involution and evolution are not strictly linear processes, but ongoing simultaneous interactions between causal, subtle, and physical fields. Therefore, involution doesn’t occur only prior to the Big Bang, but constantly thereafter in concert with evolution. Involution thus helps to explain, or at least put forth as plausible, some of the paradoxes inherent in Seth’s creation myth, for example, CUs and EEs involutionary and evolutionary properties. (More on this later.)

– Finally, to summarize our story thus far: in nonphysical terms, the sleepwalkers created, involved, and divided into nine species of innate intention in the subtle field “before the beginning” of the physical universe. In physical terms, there is an “order of play” that unfolds first as a Big Bang, then as energy-matter, then plants, then animals, and then pre-egoic human beings influenced by innate intention that informs the purpose and meaning of life.

Seth’s tale combines the essential gems of various premodern and modern myths:

• Interpenetrated Causal (CUs), subtle (EEs), and physical (quantum fields) fields (“Great Chain of Being”)
• Causal Consciousness (All-that-Is, causal field)
• Intelligent Designers (sleepwalkers, subtle field)
• Purpose and meaning (value fulfillment)
• “Families” of subtle consciousness (innate intention)
• General stages of Involution (“before the beginning”: Causal CUs ==> subtle EEs==>)
• A Big Bang (“in the beginning,” physical field)
• General stages of Evolution (matter first, then biological forms, then human beings)

No small feat!

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Seth on “The Garden of Eden (Awakening of the Outer Ego)” (pt.1)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 899, February 06, 1980.

“The Garden of Eden legend represents a distorted version of man’s awakening as a physical creature. He becomes fully operational in his physical body, and while awake can only sense the dream body that had earlier been so real to him. He now encounters his experience from within a body that must be fed, clothed, protected from the elements – a body that is subject to gravity and to earth’s laws. He must use physical muscles to walk from place to place. He sees himself suddenly, in a leap of comprehension, as existing for the first time not only apart from the environment, but apart from all of earth’s other creatures.

“The sense of separation is, in those terms, initially almost shattering. Yet [man] is to be the part of nature that views itself with perspective [i.e. is self-aware]. He is to be the part of nature that will specialize, again, in the self-conscious use of concepts. He will grow the flower of the intellect – a flower that must have its deep roots buried securely within the earth, and yet a flower that will send new psychic seeds outward, not only for itself but for the rest of nature, of which it is a part.

“But man looked out and felt himself suddenly separate and amazed at the aloneness. Now he must find food, where before his dream body did not need physical nourishment. Before, man had been neither male nor female, combining the characteristics of each, but now the physical bodies also specialized in terms of sexuality. Man has to physically procreate. Some lost ancient legends emphasized in a clearer fashion his sudden sexual division. By the time the biblical legends came into being, however, historical events and social beliefs were transformed into the Adam and Eve version of events.

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

“But if man felt suddenly alone and isolated, he was immediately struck by the grand variety of the world and its creatures. Each creature apart from himself was a new mystery. He was enchanted also by his own subjective reality, the body in which he found himself, and by the differences between himself and others like him, and the other creatures. He instantly began to explore, to categorize, to point out and to name the other creatures of the earth as they came to his attention.

“In a fashion, it was a great creative and yet cosmic game that consciousness played with itself, and it did represent a new kind of awareness, but I want to emphasize that each version of All-That-Is is unique. Each has its purpose, though that purpose cannot be easily defined in your terms. Many people ask, for example: ‘What is the purpose of my life?’ Meaning: ‘What am I meant to do?’ but the purpose of your life, and each life, is in its being. That being may include certain actions, but the acts themselves are only important in that they spring out of the essence of your life, which simply by being is bound to fulfill its purposes.

“Man’s dream body is still with him, of course, but the physical body now obscures it. The dream body cannot be harmed while the physical one can – as man quickly found out as he transformed his experience largely from one to the other. In the dream body man feared nothing. The dream body does not die. It exists before and after physical death. In their dream bodies men had watched the spectacle of animals ‘killing’ other animals, and they saw the animals’ dream bodies emerge unscathed.

“They saw that the earth was simply changing its forms, but that the identity of each unit of consciousness survived – and so, although they saw the picture of death, they did not recognize it as the death that to many people now seems an inevitable end.

“[Men] saw that there must be an exchange of physical energy for the world to continue. They watched the drama of the ‘hunter’ and the ‘prey,’ seeing that each animal contributed so that the physical form of the earth could continue – but the rabbit eaten by the wolf survived in a dream body that men knew was its true form. When man ‘awakened’ in his physical body, however, and specialized in the use of its senses, he no longer perceived the released dream body of the slain animal running away, still cavorting on the hillside. He retained memory of his earlier knowledge, and for a considerable period he could now and then recapture that knowledge. He became more and more aware of his physical senses, however: Some things were definitely pleasant and some were not. Some stimuli were to be sought out, and others avoided, and so over a period of time he translated the pleasant and the unpleasant into rough versions of good and evil.

“Basically, what made him feel good was good. He was gifted with strong clear instincts that were meant to lead him toward his own greatest development, to his own greatest fulfillment, in such a way that he also helped to bring about the highest potentials of all of the other species of consciousness. His natural impulses were meant to provide inner directives that would guide him in just such a direction, so that he sought what was the best for himself and for others.”

Session 901, February 18, 1980.

“At the time of this awakening man did experience, then, some sense of separation from his dream body, and from his own inner reality – the world of his dreams – but he was still far more aware of that subjective existence than you are now.

“The practical nature of his own dreams was also more apparent, for again, his dreams sent him precise visions as to where food might be located, for example, and for some centuries there were human migrations of a kind that now you see the geese make. All of those journeys followed literal paths that were given as information in the dream state. [But] more and more man began to identify himself with his exterior environment. He began to think of his inner ego almost as if it were a stranger to himself. It became his version of the soul, and there seemed to be a duality – a self who acted in the physical universe, and a separate spiritlike soul that acted in an immaterial world.

“... Man does have an instinct and a desire to live, and he has an instinct and a desire to die. The same applies to other creatures. In his life [each] man is embarked upon a cooperative venture with his own species, and with the other species, and dying he also in that regard acts in a cooperative manner, returning his physical substance to the earth. Physically speaking, man’s ‘purpose’ is to understand the qualities of love and creativity, to intellectually and psychically understand the sources of his being, and to lovingly create other dimensions of reality of which he is presently unaware. In his thinking, the quality of his thoughts, in their motion, he is indeed experimenting with a unique and a new kind of reality, forming other subjective worlds which will in their turn grow into consciousness and song, which will in their turn flower from a dream dimension into other ones. Man is learning to create new worlds. In order to do so he has taken on many challenges.

“... You are aware of such activities now as automatic speaking and automatic writing, and of sleepwalking. These all give signs in modern times of some very important evidence in man’s early relationship with the world and with himself.

“Sleepwalking was once, in that beginning, a very common experience – far more so than now – in which the inner self actually taught the physical body to walk and hence prevented the newly emerged physically oriented intellect from getting in its own way, asking too many questions that might otherwise impede the body’s smooth spontaneous motion.

“In the same fashion man is born with an inbuilt propensity for language, and for the communication of symbols through pictures and writing. He spoke first in an automatic fashion that began in his dreams. In a fashion, you could almost say that he used language before he consciously understood it. It is not just that he learned by doing, but that the doing did the teaching. Again, lest there be a sharply inquiring intellect, wondering overmuch about how the words were formed or what motions were necessary, his drawing was in the same way automatic. You might say – almost – that he used the language ‘despite himself.’ Therefore, it possessed an almost magical quality, and the ‘word’ was seen as coming directly from God.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– The Garden of Eden myths found in Juedo-Christian-Islamic texts are premodern interpretations of the “awakening” of the fully self-aware outer ego in the physical body. Seth mentioned earlier that plants and animals preceded humans in this “awakening” process. There was an inherent, natural order to the involutionary/evolutionary process in which humans “awakened” and “evolved” after other “species of consciousness” like plants and animals.

Yet, Seth doesn’t specify many details. Of necessity his story is very general. Was there was a global, simultaneous awakening achieved after some inner criteria achieved a critical mass, or that it was a gradual process across the planet. He uses variations of the word “sudden,” for example, “suddenly, in a leap of comprehension,” and “But man looked out and felt himself suddenly separate and amazed at the aloneness.” But how sudden is sudden? Nanoseconds, weeks, or centuries? We don’t yet know.

Still, the dream body that had served as the primary focal point “before the beginning” faded into a deeper, more subconscious area as the dazzling array of physical sense data more fully dominated the waking state. The waking ego (“particle focus”) that made decisions in space-time through free will was constructed with increasing stability from the depths of the inner ego (“wave focus”).

Success at last! But our success had a double edge to it, the physical body now had to be fed, clothed, protected from the elements. It was now subject to the basic root assumptions that govern our universe, like the law of gravity and the speed of light. We, as outer egos, now saw ourselves “suddenly, in a leap of comprehension, as existing for the first time not only apart from the environment, but apart from all of earth’s other creatures.” This initial awakening, the sense of individuality and “separation” from the inner ego was almost shattering for many of us.

“Yet [man] is to be the part of nature that views itself with [self-aware] perspective.” In other words, as British biologist Julian Huxley (1887-1975) marveled, with the emergence of the outer ego, for the first time “evolution became aware of itSelf.”

– The Adam and Eve myth also represents the manifestation of genders from our inner ego. “Before the beginning” there was no need for this type of specialization in the subtle field which is inherently transsexual.

– With the manifestation of the outer ego more or less completed, we began to hone our intellects and intuitions. Intellectually, we were now able to discern differences and were amazed to discern a world of objects, processes, and qualities. This must have been when penis envy began :-). Intuitionally we were still deeply connected to the subtle “dreamtime” and relied heavily on our dreams and subjective knowing as we settled into a precise type of linear neurological “particle focus.”

– At some time we are each bound to wonder just what our purpose in life is? Our purpose is contained within our own spontaneous being and is much simpler than some philosophies make it out to be. As physically manifest creatures, our purpose is simply to be ourselves, to experience our own nature to its fullest potentials. For example, Seth said elsewhere that, “We have never told anybody to do anything, except to face up to the abilities of consciousness.” ~ The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events (1981).

– As our physical senses fully blossomed we began to lock into a narrow spectrum of sequential neurological focus. We thus ignored other spectrums, for example our inner senses, that faded into ghostly, subtle traces that still remain. Today we call the affects of this ghost spectrum “paranormal,” psychic, non-ordinary, and altered states.

Also, as we more fully immersed ourselves within physical egoic consciousness, we created a belief system of good and evil based upon our perception of pleasant and unpleasant physical sensations and experiences. This led, however, to all sorts of premodern religious belief systems of right and wrong that still exist today. And that is a much longer story!

– Value fulfillment, one of the laws of the inner universe, was the driving force that constantly fueled our impulses, like nuclear reactions fuel the sun. Our impulses are important reminders from our inner egos about certain choices within probabilities that could lead to our greatest fulfillment as individuals, a species, and as part of the “Great Chain of Being” (causal, subtle, and physical fields).

– With the stable emergence of the outer ego, the classical sense of duality was created. There was now me and you, us and them, subjects and objects, inner and outer. We had a physical body and senses, but also an inner body and senses. As we became more fully reliant on our physical senses, activities like automatic speaking, automatic writing, and sleepwalking remained as evidence of our inner knowing and heritage. Sleepwalking is how we taught our bodies to walk, we dreamed our languages, and further honed our intellects and intuitions.

– Our ability to use language initially appeared so magical that words were perceived by our newly “separated” outer egos as coming directly from God. This may be one reason why there are so many references in the Old Testament to God and Angels “speaking” to various people.

Comments:

Modern anthropological myths based on current fossil records claim that homo sapiens sapiens initially manifest in Olduvai Gorge, descended from great apes via natural selection and “random” genetic mutation, then slowly spread over the African continent, eventually crossing the Bering Straits to populate the North Americas. How accurate this tale is remains the subject of continued research since fossil records tell very true but partial stories.

However, according to Seth, our sleepwalker aspects experimented with dream plants, animals, and bodies in the subtle field during the eons that preceded this in physical terms. This is an important postmodern distinction in Seth’s creation myth, one that shows how the evolution of our bodies is really part of a much larger involutionary/evolutionary scheme. Also, it doesn’t contradict or deny the modern myths based on fossil records, it simply transcends and includes them.

The transitional experience from the subtle “dreamtime” to the physical “waking time,” terrifying as it was, has been safely tucked away in our collective subconscious (there is no UNconscious) so as not to scare the bejeebers out of us. This repression was a necessary side effect of the “forgetting” of All-That-Is (causal) and the inner ego (subtle) by the emerging outer ego (physical). This forgetting, this sense of separation, is where the Garden of Eden myth and belief system of good and evil (classical dualities) originated.

The concept of Satan actually represents our anthropomorphosized projection of this deep seated archetypal fear of separation from All-That-Is and inner ego. Satan is “real” in this sense, but that is another loaded statement. In psychological terms, it is an effect of the early repression into the collective subconscious of this birth terror, or sense of separation from Consciousness, and subsequent death terror, or sense of return to Consciousness. For instance, Seth mentioned that “... Man does have an instinct and a desire to live, and he has an instinct and a desire to die.”

These birth and death instincts strongly colored the premodern era which current research suggests lasted for millions of years. Thus, our use of “premodern era” is really very, very broad and can be broken down into dozens of epochs with further research. The modern period, however, is only four hundred years old, and includes these instincts, but also contains the progressive dissociation of the “value spheres” of science, art, and morals mentioned in the Foreword. Again, this repression is considered pathological because it prevents further growth. The side effects include the horrors of two world wars, global warming, enforced poverty, addictions, etc. on a planetary scale. There is hope, however, as postmodern worldviews are struggling to heal the fragmentation, dissociation, alienation of modern worldviews.

– Now that our story has reached the premodern era, I want to review the “order of play” of evolution supported by Seth’s narrative. Again, what makes this myth unique is how it integrates involutionary and evolutionary ideas. As we saw in the previous segment this is no small feat and requires a bevy of concepts skillfully woven together. But I want to concentrate on the linear aspects for a moment because they support the case made by Ken Wilber in his postmodern magnum opus Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (1995).

The connective concept is the issue of sexual reproduction. Seth mentions there is no need for genders in the causal or subtle fields, but obviously there is a need for that in the physical. Though he doesn’t cover it specifically, the moment that the first cell or cells formed, they began to reproduce. This remains one of the most beautiful and amazing facts of our physical existence. Modern science still claims it to be a meaningless accident. Postmodern sources, like Seth, claim otherwise, that Causal Consciousness was involved from “before the beginning.”

Now, according to Seth the Adam and Eve myth also represents the manifestation of human genders by an inner ego that is inherently transsexual. “Before the beginning” there was no need for this type of specialization in the subtle field. However, with the Big Bang all the energy-matter within the physical field emerged from the subtle field. In Seth’s terms, EEs finally slowed down en masse to form physical matter.

BANG! WHAM! ZOOM! WHOOSH......... Space-time and energy-matter were born....

We can characterize all initial matter as a physiosphere, the first great act of conscious creation in the physical field. Billions of years unfolded as matter slowly morphed into galaxies, solar systems, and planets. The Earth is born. But there is still no cellular life, just energy-matter ever morphing....

The next major phase of conscious creation on our planet was the emergence of cellular life, what we will call an early biosphere that featured all kinds of experiments with sexual reproduction. It included algae, bacteria, viruses, plants, and basic water-life.

The next minor phase of conscious creation was the emergence of land-life – dinosaurs, birds, mammals, etc. as the late biosphere grew in complexity. Land-life now contains limbic systems, nervous systems, immune systems, and circulatory systems. Still, up to this point evolution is not yet self-aware in terms of the outer ego. It is conscious, make no mistake, but not yet in an order of complexity that gives rise to self-reflexive awareness. Thus, we still have only the biosphere at this stage. It is likely billions of years old, but there’s no way to prove this empirically at this point.

Now the stage is set for the most recent major phase of conscious creation, the emergence of human beings, or what we will call the noosphere, coined by Jesuit Paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). This stage is defined in terms of increased complexity and hierarchical unfolding. Each stage transcends and includes its predecessors but not vice versa. This “not vice versa” is the key. If we destroy the noosphere, for instance, the biosphere will still exist. However, if we destroy the biosphere, the noosphere is also destroyed. Thus, we have a directional, hierarchical unfolding of evolution supported by Seth’s narrative, one that blends the gems of premodern and modern myths.

Overall, then, we find three major phases of conscious creation in the physical field to date:

1. physiosphere (all matter, @16 billion years old)
2. biosphere (all biological life, includes matter, @2 billion years old)
3. noosphere (all humans, includes biological life and matter, @2-6 million years old).

Thus, human beings are compound creatures, the result of three major evolutionary phases (physios, bios, and noos). Our bodies are literally made of stardust, our minds the stuff of dreams.

Finally, we can now clearly see a direction, pull, or telos to conscious creation in the physical field. Over the last 16 billion years our universe has gradually become increasingly complex, conscious, and now self-aware. But this is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the human noosphere yearns toward the “remembrance” of subtle and causal fields. This hints at what may lie in store in the future. Teilhard de Chardin speculated about a physical Omega point, Ken Wilber speculates about the potential for psychic, subtle, and causal stages in the physical field. However, the bad news is that we can create physical, mental, and even spiritual dis-ease along the way. As the world becomes increasingly complex, so do the good news/bad news potentials. The evidence is all too plain to see in the twenty-first century world around us.

Still, our collective purpose according to Seth “is to understand the qualities of love and creativity, to intellectually and psychically understand the sources of [our] being, and to lovingly create other dimensions of reality of which [we are] presently unaware. ... In order to do so [we have] taken on many challenges.” Wow! We can also find plenty of evidence of love, creativity, psychic understanding, and so on in the world around us. I don’t know about you, but I see a cup that is half-full, not half-empty!

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Seth on “The Garden of Eden (Awakening of the Outer Ego)” (pt.2)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 903, February 25, 1980.

“The world as you know it exists as it does because you are yourself a living portion of a vast ‘conscious grid’ of perception.

“Every cell, in those terms, is a sender and a receiver. All of the larger divisions of life – the mammals, fish, birds, and so forth – are an integral part of that living gridwork. The picture of the world is not only the result of those messages transmitted and received, however, but is also caused by the relationships between those messages. In your terms, then, all of life’s large classifications were present ‘at the beginning of the world.’ Otherwise there would have been vast holes in the grid of perception that makes possible the very sensations of physical life.

“In a manner of speaking, the physical universe is ‘transposed’ upon another reality that must be its source. The world was and is created in dimensions outside of time, and outside of space as you understand it.

“Other realities quite as legitimate as your own, quite as vital, quite as ‘real,’ coexist with your own, and in the terms of your understanding, ‘in the same space’ – but of course in terms of your experience those spaces and realities would appear to be quite separate. No systems are closed, however, so that basically the living grid of perception that causes one world or reality is also ‘wired into’ all other such systems. There is a give-and-take between them.

“The grids of perception that compose your world give you the world picture as you experience it because your physical senses put you in a certain position within the entire grid. Animals, for example, while part of your experience, are also ‘tuned into’ that grid at another level. The large classifications of mammals, fish, birds, men, reptiles, plants, and so forth, are [each] an integral part of that larger perceptive pattern – and that pattern in those terms had to be complete even in the beginning of your time.

“... Man does not in his physical development pass through the stages supposedly followed by the hypothetical creature who left the water for the land to come a mammal – but each species does indeed have written within it the knowledge of ‘its past.’ Part of this, again, is most difficult to express, and I must try to fill out old words with new meanings. The reincarnational aspects of physical life, however, serve a very important purpose, providing an inner subjective background. Such a background is needed by every species.

“Reincarnation exists, then, on the part of all species. Once a consciousness, however, has chosen the larger classification of its physical existences, it stays within that framework in its ‘reincarnational’ existences. Mammals return as mammals, for example, but the species can change within that classification. This provides great genetic strength, and consciousnesses in those classifications have chosen them because of their own propensities and purpose. The animals, for example, seem to have a limited range of physical activity in conscious terms, as you think of them. An animal cannot decide to read a newspaper. Newspapers are outside of its reality. Animals have a much wider range, practically speaking, in certain other areas. They are much more intimately aware of their environment, of themselves as separate from it, but also of themselves as a part of it. In that regard, their experience deals with relationships of another kind.

“These grids of perception ‘do not exist forever’ in your dimension of time, for your dimension of time cannot hold anything that is outside it. Once a world exists, however, it becomes imprinted or stamped upon eternity, so that it exists in time and out of it ‘at once.’

“When you ask: ‘When did the world begin?’ or ‘What really happened?’ or ‘Was there a Garden of Eden?’, you are referring to the world as you understand it, but in those terms there were earths in the same space before the earth you recognize existed, and they began in the manner that I have given you in the early chapters of this book. The patterns for worlds – the patterns – continue in your time dimension, though in that time dimension those worlds must disappear, again, to continue ‘their existence outside of time.’ The patterns are filled out again.

“In the case of earth the grid of perception is simply used differently, certain areas becoming prominent in some eras, and less prominent in others. Using your idea of time, I can only say that when the entire gestalt of consciousness that formed a particular earth have formed its reality to the best of their abilities, fulfilling their individual and mass capacities as far as possible, then they lovingly turn over that grid to others and continue to take part in existences that are not physical in your terms. And that has happened many times. Your tale about the Garden of Eden, then, is a legend about earth’s last beginning. Each world is so cunningly constructed, again, that each consciousness, regardless of its degree, plays a vital part. And each of your actions, however inconsequential, becomes connected in one way or another – in one way or another – to each other reality and each other world.”

Session 904, February 27, 1980.

“The Garden of Eden story in its most basic sense refers to man’s sudden realization that now he must act within time. His experiences must be neurologically structured. This immediately brought about the importance of choosing between one action and another, and made acts of decision highly important.

“... This is, again, difficult to explain, but free will operates in all units of consciousness, regardless of their degree – but it operates within the framework of that degree. Man possesses free will, but that free will operates only within man’s degrees – that is, his free will is somewhat contained by the frameworks of time and space.

“He has free will to make any decision that he is able to make. This means that his free will is contained, given meaning, focused, and framed by his neurological structure. He can only move, and he can only choose therefore to move, physically speaking, in certain directions in space and time. That time reference, however, gives his free will meaning and a context in which to operate. We are speaking now of conscious decisions as you think of them.

“You can only make so many conscious decisions, or you would be swamped and caught in a constant dilemma of decision making. Time organizes the available choices that are to be made. The awakening mentioned earlier, then, found man rousing from his initial ‘dreaming condition,’ faced suddenly with the need for action in a world of space and time, a world in which choices became inevitable, a world in which he must choose among probable actions – and from an infinite variety of those choose which events he would physically actualize. This would be an almost impossible situation were the species – meaning each species – not given its own avenues of expression and activity, so that it is easier for certain species to behave in certain manners. And each species has its own overall characteristics and propensities that further help it define the sphere of influence in which it will exert its ability to make choices.

“Each species is endowed also, by virtue of the units of consciousness that compose it, with an overall inner picture of the condition of each other species, and further characterized by basic impulses so that it is guided toward choices that best fulfill its own potentials for development while adding to the overall good of the entire world consciousness. This does not curtail free will any more than man’s free will is curtailed because he must grow from a fetus into an adult instead of the other way around.

“The differences among all species are caused by this kind of organization, so that areas of choice are clearly drawn, and areas of free activity clearly specified. The entire gestalt of probable action, therefore, is already focused to some degree in the species’ differentiations. In the vast structure of probable activity, however, far more differentiation was still necessary, and this is provided for through the inner passageways of reincarnational existence.

“Each person, for example, is born with his of her uniquely individual set of characteristics and abilities, likes and dislikes. Those serve to organize individual action in a world where an infinite number of probable roads are open – and here again, private impulses are basically meant to guide each individual toward avenues of expression and probable activities suited best to his or her development. They are meant, therefore, as aids to help organize action, and to set free will more effectively into motion. Otherwise, free will would be almost inoperable in practical terms: Individuals would be faced by so many choices that any decisions would be nearly impossible. Essentially, the individual would have no particular leaning toward any one action over any other.

“‘By the time’ that the Garden of Eden tale reached your biblical stories, the entire picture had already been seen in the light of concepts about good and evil that actually appeared, in those terms, a long time later in man’s development. The inner reincarnational structure of the human psyche is very important in man’s physical survival. Children – change that to ‘infants’ – dream of their past lives, remembering, for example, how to walk and talk. They are born with the knowledge of how to think with the propensity for language. They are guided by memories that they later forget.

“In time’s reference, the private purposes of each individual appear also in the larger historical context, so that each person forms his corner of his civilization – and all individuals within a given time period have private and overall purposes, challenges that are set, probable actions that they will try to place within history’s context.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

– Seth introduces the “grid of perception” metaphor to further explore the relationships between the physical, subtle, and causal fields within All-That-Is. Again, this creation myth is really about how All-That-Is functions as the Causal Consciousness within our physical universe. Seth uses this metaphor to show, once again, that our world and all of its species exist eternally as simultaneous, latent potentials for experience within All-That-Is. Therefore, modern theories of evolution and natural selection are incomplete, containing partial truths biased through the limits of biology and current neurological perception. They still don’t adequately explain the primary operating principles that govern the emergence and development of our universe or any species from no-time into time, no-space into space, no-belief into belief. Seth’s postmodern myth does just that.

– The “grid of perception” (All-That-Is) exists simultaneously in nonphysical and physical terms, that is, physical, subtle, and causal fields. Every aspect of the grid, in terms of causal consciousness units, is a sender and a receiver of information. Even though CUs can attune themselves to a “particle focus” when choosing individuation, all of the seeming divisions of life – mammals, fish, birds, etc. – are still an integral part of the living “grid of perception.” Since CUs can simultaneously attune themselves to a nonlocal “wave focus,” they are also in direct contact with all other aspects of the grid. In other words, CUs use their “wave focus” to consciously interpenetrate the physical, subtle, and causal fields (“there are no closed systems”), and their “particle focus” to consciously create physical individuality and seeming separation from Causal Consciousness.

– Physical reality is not solely the result of the actions of CU messages “transmitted and received, however, but is also caused by the relationships between those messages.” Put another way, the wave/particle duality of CUs simultaneously connects the physical, subtle, and causal fields.

– In physical terms, “all of life’s large classifications were present ‘at the beginning of the world.’ Otherwise there would have been vast holes in the grid of perception that makes possible the very sensations of physical life.” That is, the subtle and causal fields are the Primal Cause of all physical constructions, and even though it takes billions of years in the physical field for the physios, bios, and noos aspects to unfold and develop, all of the classifications – the entire ecosystem – were designed and enfolded as potentialities “in the beginning” of the physiosphere (Big Bang).

– The physical field (quantum fields) exists simultaneously interpenetrated with the subtle (EEs) and causal (CUs) fields. The subtle and causal fields appear hidden from our physical senses, since they consist of no-time, no-space, and no-belief. The “grid of perception” consists of these interpenetrated fields, thus there is some form of give-and-take or communication between them. Again, there are no closed systems.

All classifications of “mammals, fish, birds, men, reptiles, plants, and so forth, are [each] an integral part of that larger perceptive pattern – and that pattern in those terms had to be complete even in the beginning of your time.” Again, even though it takes billions of years in the physical field for the physios, bios, and noos to emerge and develop, the larger perceptive pattern was designed and enfolded as potentialities “in the beginning” of the physiosphere during the Big Bang. However, these potentialities aren’t fixed or predetermined, but adapt and change as countless probable realities are explored in the physical field. Thus, the physical, subtle, and causal fields consciously create in a multidimensional give-and-take.

– Seth states that “... Man does not in his physical development pass through the stages supposedly followed by the hypothetical creature who left the water for the land to come a mammal....” This may be a reference to German biologist Ernst Haeckel’s 19th century notion that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” The idea was that ontogeny, beginning with fetal development recaps phylogenetic stages through which life has evolved. For example, a single cell develops into a fetus with rudiments of gills and a tail at one point.

Seth goes on to say that “... each species does indeed have written within it the knowledge of ‘its past.’ ... The reincarnational aspects of physical life, however, serve a very important purpose, providing an inner subjective background. Such a background is needed by every species. Reincarnation exists, then, on the part of all species.” So Seth points to something deeper in the subtle field that he calls reincarnation, but does not give any clearer examples.

– Seth is clear elsewhere (Seth Speaks, The “Unknown” Reality/counterpart thesis) that reincarnation does not exist in terms of linear progression and certainly not in terms of moral cause-and-effect. However, there is an innate action within the subtle field where energy personality essence is simultaneously aware of all the lifetimes in the physical field. This is another key paradox to grok. In physical terms, we live one life at a time, we are born, grow, and die in a “particle focus.” But simultaneously, our subtle field inner ego experiences and consciously creates within a vast, spaciously present “wave focus.”

Thus, reincarnation provides the inner subjective background that supports every species. Seth hints that animals, birds, bacteria – all species – have their own relative type of inner ego and experience multiple, simultaneous focuses within the physical, subtle, and causal fields. In this light, reincarnation is nonlinear. Therefore, it is not really REincarnation, but another paradox inadequately expressed in English, one often distorted in premodern and postmodern worldviews by linear interpretations. As we saw in the Prologue, modern worldviews simply deny it altogether.

– Seth discusses the relationships between free will, choices, probabilities, and reincarnation; all innate qualities within All-That-Is/CUs. In physical terms, we are imbued with free will based upon our neurological, linear perception. When Seth says that “Man possesses free will, but that free will operates only within man’s degrees – that is, his free will is somewhat contained by the frameworks of time and space,” he hints that each field – physical, subtle, and causal – has nested species of free will.

The tricky part is understanding how they are nested together in terms of CUs “wave focus” and simultaneous “particle focus.” Obviously, we are still collectively working to understand that! But it goes a long way to better understand Seth’s dictum that “you create your own reality.” This “you” simultaneously exists in physical, subtle, and causal fields, and is thus much more than our outer ego.

Philosophers, theologians, and scientists have discoursed with divergent views about the nature of free will for millennia. In the Sethian context, free will is an inherent, innate quality within CUs also expressed in the laws of the inner universe. In the physical field, free will is an incredible achievement after billions of years of involution/evolution. We each deserve a pat on the back!

Reincarnational relationships further hint at the multidimensional relationships between the physical, subtle, and causal fields. Our impulses are multidimensional in nature too, guided by the inner law of value fulfillment, and intended to help us reach our fullest potentials in terms of physical development. Areas of collective exploration are specified in the vast pools of probabilities and reincarnational relationships defined for each cycle within the grid of perception (physical, subtle, causal fields).

Free will thus works in complementary fashion with our impulses, which are another language “spoken” by the inner ego. These impulses are translated through the subconscious and into waking awareness and are meant to help mediate between the vast array of probable actions possible. So free will works in complementary fashion with our inner impulses, both guided by the inner law of value fulfillment.

All of this adds up to the private purposes and intents of each individual within “the larger historical context, so that each person forms his corner of his civilization – and all individuals within a given time period have private and overall purposes, challenges that are set, probable actions that they will try to place within history’s context.”

And the rest, as they say, is history!

Comments:

– Seth said that “there were earths in the same space before the earth you recognize existed, and they began in the manner that I have given you in the early chapters of this book. The patterns for worlds – the patterns – continue in your time dimension, though in that time dimension those worlds must disappear, again, to continue ‘their existence outside of time.’ The patterns are filled out again.”

This is very similar to the Hindu myth of Yugas, or billion year cycles in which the physical field ends and begins anew. This suggests that we are presently in the midst of yet another cycle. In physical terms, there was a beginning that we call the Big Bang and there will be an end. However, in subtle and causal terms, there are no beginnings or endings, just endless conscious creative play, the dance of Maya, the sport of Lila, the wheel of samsara involving and evolving as a Kosmic Symphony.

When “the entire gestalt of consciousness [physical, subtle, and causal aspects] that formed a particular earth have formed its reality to the best of their abilities, fulfilling their individual and mass capacities as far as possible, then they lovingly turn over that grid to others and continue to take part in existences that are not physical in your terms.” In other words, the physical field is not the end game of involutionary/evolutionary cycles, but one stage of overall development that simultaneously includes the subtle and causal fields.

“And that has happened many times. Your tale about the Garden of Eden, then, is a legend about earth’s last beginning.” Again, our current involutionary/evolutionary cycle is just one of many, possibly infinite cycles of conscious creation. Thus, the earth is much older than we can imagine, since it exists in the subtle and causal fields for all eternity within a spacious present. This is what is meant when all the world’s mystical traditions say there is no beginning, and no end to Consciousness, even though we in the physical field must contend with death.

This material also hints that the earth is much older than we presently understand. In one of Jane Roberts’s worldview books, The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher (1978), William James shares his experiences in an afterdeath “school for philosophers” where other philosophers telepathically share their knowledge and experience that the earth is much older than he supposes. At first James responds incredulously:

“‘Even from my understanding of earth’s science since my death, the evidence for the planet’s past wouldn’t include the amount of time you seem to be implying. Earth isn’t that old.’

“But even as I communicate this thought to him, I know that despite all evidence to the contrary, earth is that old. ‘But it’s impossible,’ I say, and the philosophers laugh together and agree with me! As I stare from face to face, they say almost in unison, ‘but quite true.’ A slap in the face to logic, I think, a logic which presently has my own face stamped upon it. I grow stubborn and for a moment I feel an odd role reversal, remembering rebellious students who stood up protesting in audiences now and then while I tried to explain a given issue. Now I feel like one of those students, and uncomfortable in the process.

“Before my eyes flash again images of more civilizations than I can count, each flourishing, using what seems to be the same planet in different fashions, each with different relationships between men and the other species, each reflecting these characteristics through their own language and – oddest of all – interpreting man’s state of being in completely different terms.” (12)

“There were far more civilizations on the earth than scientists suppose, and the earth is far older than your records show, or the evidence will support.” (13)

The essential paradox of All-That-Is expresses that we have always existed, yet not in this human form, but as an infinitely powerful Consciousness with the potential for endless creativity, exploration, and experience. At this point in our story, Seth’s conscious creation myth can be summarized as follows:

All-That-Is eternally “forgets” (involution) and “remembers” (evolution) ItSelf in infinite variations through a “grid of perception” (physical, subtle, and causal fields).

Seth put it this way from the perspective of The One:

“All portions of All-That-Is do not recognize themselves consciously as All-That-Is. But know themselves mainly as individuals, not as the prime gestalt individual. When realization is reached at the highest level, then All-That-Is instantly creates new realities, and to some extent, you see, loses the conscious knowledge of its own identity.

“The loss is always temporary and self-generated.” (14)

German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) expressed this paradox from the perspective of The Many.

“Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.

“It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its labours must remain ever incomplete, because new questions never cease to present themselves; and thus it finds itself compelled to have recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while they are regarded by common sense without distrust. It thus falls into confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience, cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless contests is called Metaphysic.” (15)

English humorist Douglas Adams (1952-2001) also intuited this paradox in two succinct sentences, which I sometimes refer to as “the Adams’ Axiom.”

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” (16)

A Zen koan asks, “show me your Original Face before your mother and father were born.” Do you remember your Original Face “before the beginning?”

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Additional Thoughts
by Paul M. Helfrich

So there you have it, a summary of the first five chapters of Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, where Seth chronicles the emergence of all of consciousness – including Us! – into physical energy-matter from a Causal Source he calls All-That-Is.

The creation of the world and everything in it... hmmm, I can just hear comedian Bill Murray in his best Caddy Shack character voice saying, “this is truly a Cinderella story, a little bundle of energy named All-That-Is dreams of becoming entire universes and then everything in them, from cheese wiz to cheese cloth, caterpillars to camels, carpenters to chemists, and in a blinding flash of inspiration sinks a cosmic 600 billion foot putt that bursts forth to create everything including you and me.”

But seriously, if we understand that everything – all energy-matter and space-time – is an expression of consciousness, all lovingly fueled by a Causal Source, then Seth’s creation myth provides a postmodern tapestry in which to better understand the complexities of reality creation in a way that premodern religious and modern scientific myths do not. As we have briefly seen, Seth wove his story within a cosmology that includes:

• All-That-Is/consciousness units (CUs/causal field)
• sleepwalkers/electromagnetic energy units (EEs/subtle field)
• Frameworks 4, 3, 2 (subtle field)
• the dream state (subtle field) functions as a “language of translation” for the waking state (physical field)
• Framework 1 (physical field)
• the paradoxical “before the beginning”
• families of consciousness (innate intention)
• the multidimensional psyche (outer ego, subconscious, inner ego)
• the inner senses (deep intuitions/translogical hyperception)
• reincarnation in the context of simultaneous time frameworks
• probabilities

In closing, the key concepts in Seth’s creation myth: dreams, evolution, and value fulfillment all deal with important themes. Notice that each one centers on either the physical, subtle, or causal fields. For instance, dreams focus on the subtle, evolution on the physical, and value fulfillment on the causal. Thus, Seth even used the book’s title to point out key involutionary/evolutionary forces at work in the ongoing creation of our universe that make our lives a never-ending story, one that continues to unfold each day.

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So What!?

“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” ~ Dogen

At some point we are bound to ask, so what? What practical application does something as abstract and esoteric as Seth’s creation myth and integral theory have to our everyday lives?

The answer is really quite simple. If there is only one thing to take away from this tale, it’s the postmodern view that the universe is conscious on all levels, Consciousness creates all, and matter has always been conscious. As such, there is an intrinsic meaning and purpose to the universe, nature, and thus our lives. In physical terms, we are inherently in the midst of an evolutionary unfolding toward increasing complexity. In spiritual terms, we are inherently imbued as Consciousness to create and experience via value fulfillment and other natural laws. While humans are the most complex lifeform to date, there are still unlimited possibilities for further development or regression. Therefore, the future is a matter of personal and collective choice, not chance.

Seth states repeatedly that our dream state is the bridge between “unknown” reality of the causal and subtle fields and the physical field. Thus, it is much more important than we have been led to believe by incomplete premodern religious and modern scientific models. The modern model simply denies the reality of the dream state, and the premodern models have yet to integrate the insights and methods of modern science. As such, Seth’s postmodern model outlines a way in which to better understand who and what actually “creates 100% of our reality” through better understanding the dreaming self in relation to the waking self.

Toward what other end could Seth have invested so much energy to discuss the multidimensional nature of the psyche and universe in relation to dream states in all of his books? Therefore, it’s important to “face up to the abilities of consciousness” and do the transformative practices recommended by Seth to develop our inner senses, intellects, and emotions. This inevitably leads toward more skilled use of the waking and dream states that form the psychological connective tissue between the causal, subtle, and physical fields. Practically speaking, then, since dreaming is universal to humans, it is crucial area to further explore the how – the mechanics – of conscious creation.

Seth also provided dozens of exercises that provide a means to directly experience the concepts we’ve explored throughout this essay. Like any practice, it takes time, commitment, and persistence. But this is what makes the Seth material so vital: it’s not just talk and metaphysical speculation, but a robust roadmap of the psyche and a yoga or praxis in which to check out the accuracy of the map for ourselves. Though a detailed review is beyond our scope, there is more information available. (17)

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that this essay covers only the first five chapters of Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, and there is much more that follows. Seth goes on to explore concepts like genetic heritage and reincarnational relationships, imagination and reason, master events and reality overlays, group dreaming, the magical approach, life clouds, and more. As such, it is Seth’s final and most ambitious theoretical work. So it is highly recommended that you obtain and read them firsthand to draw your own conclusions. This essay is only an initial foray to explore Seth’s cosmology and roadmaps from an integrally informed perspective. I hope to have laid a foundation on which to continue to build. If you can improve on it, do so with my blessings.

The Power of Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern Myths

As we have seen, myth plays a central role in every cultural worldview. Myth, then, doesn’t mean “unreal” or “less real than” the hard facts provable by scientific observation, measurement, and verification. In Seth’s sense, it actually means something “more real” and more fundamental than the rational mind and its grasping of factual knowledge can comprehend alone. It focuses on the intuitive, inner knowing that we all possess – not childish prerational magic, but mature, adult transrational magic, as in Seth’s the magical approach and high intellect. These complement and enhance our rational knowledge in important ways that offer a more complete picture of the nature of conscious creation.

Therefore, the power of myth will continue to influence our postmodern lives, but on a much broader scale that requires an objective understanding of causal, subtle, and physical fields. According to Seth:

“The world’s ideas, fantasies, or myths may seem far divorced from current experience – yet all that you know or experience has its [involutionary] origin in that creative dimension of existence that I am terming Framework 2 [subtle field]. In a manner of speaking your factual world rises on a bed of fantasy, myth, and imagination, from which all of your detailed paraphernalia emerge. What then is myth, and what do I mean by the term?

“Myth is not a distortion of fact, but the womb through which fact must come. Myth involves an intrinsic understanding of the nature of reality, couched in imaginative terms, carrying a power as strong as nature itself. Myth-making is a natural psychic characteristic, a psychic element that combines with other such elements to form a mythical representation of inner reality. That representation is then used as [a] model upon which your civilizations are organized, and also as a perceptual tool through whose lens you interpret the private events of your life in their historical context.

“When you accept myths you call them facts, of course, for they become so a part of your lives, of societies and your professions, that their basis seems self-apparent. Myths are vast psychic dramas, more truthful than facts. They provide an ever-enduring theater of reality. It must be clearly understood, then, that when I speak of myths I mean to imply the nature of psychic events whose enduring [involutionary] reality exists in Framework 2 [subtle field], and forms the patterns that are then interpreted in your world.” (18)

Thus, there is a constant involutionary influence from Framework 2 on evolutionary emergence in Framework 1. Involution is not something that occurs only before the Big Bang, but is a process that occurs all along within the causal and subtle fields in relation to the physical. This is one reason why Seth can make the seemingly irrational statement that there is no such thing as physical cause and effect, because he takes into consideration the nested nature of causal, subtle, and physical field interactions. It is in fact a transrational concept that is only disclosed by those with adequate access to the causal, subtle, and physical fields.

Therefore, there will always be some kind of Central Myth used by the collective to explain what we can only intuit while in the physical field, namely, an explanation of where we come from, why we are here, and where we go after death. Seth’s definition of myth implies that every succeeding evolutionary stage in the physical field will contain some kind of mythos to explain what it can never fully understand or translate into physical terms alone. The Adams axiom promotes the same idea, namely, that as soon as we discover a new explanation for All-That-Is, it will be instantly replaced by something “bizarrely inexplicable.” In this light, then, while postmodern worldviews are collectively creating a new Central Myth, one that is more comprehensive – more true, less partial – than premodern and modern Central Myths, it won’t be final or static. It will for the first time be self-aware enough to realize that yet another Central Myth will unfold in some future time as Consciousness inexorably seeks its fullest expression in the physical field.

“... Myths are natural phenomena, rising from the psyche of man as surely as giant mountain ranges emerge from the physical planet. Their deeper reality exists, however, in Framework 2 [subtle field] as [involutionary] source material for the world that you know.

“In those terms, the great religions of your civilizations rise from myths that change their characters through the centuries, even as mountain ranges rise and fall. You can see mountain ranges. It would be ridiculous to ignore their reality. You see your myths somewhat less directly, yet they are apparent within all of your activities, and they form the inner structures of all of your civilizations with their multitudinous parts.

“In those terms, then, Christianity and your other [premodern] religions are myths, rising in response to an inner knowledge that is too vast to be clothed by facts alone. In those terms also, your [modern] science is also quite mythical in nature. This may be more difficult for some of you to perceive, since it appears to work so well. Others will be willing enough to see [modern] science in its mythical characteristics, but will be most reluctant to see [premodern] religion as you know it in the same light.

“... When myths become standardized, and too literal, when you begin to tie them too tightly to the world of facts, then you misread them entirely. When myths become most factual they are already becoming less real. Their power becomes constrained.

“... Most people interpret the realities of their lives, their triumphs and failures, their health or illness, their fortune or misfortune, then, in the light of a mythical reality that is not understood as such. What is behind these myths, and what is their source of power?

“Facts are a very handy but weak brew of reality. They immediately consign certain kinds of experiences as real and others as not. The psyche, however, will not be so limited. It exists in a medium of reality, a realm of [causal, subtle, and physical] being in which all possibilities exist. It creates myths the way the ocean creates spray. Myths are originally psychic fabrications of such power and strength that whole civilizations can rise from their [involutionary] source. They involve symbols and know emotional validities that are then connected to the physical world, so that that world is never the same again.

“They cast their light over historical events because they are responsible for those events. They mix and merge the inner, unseen but felt, eternal psychic experience of man with the temporal events of his physical days, and form a combination that structures thoughts and beliefs from civilization to civilization. In Framework 2 [subtle field] the interior power of nature is ever-changing. The dreams, hopes, aspirations and fears of man interact in a constant [involutionary] motion that then forms the events of your world. That interaction includes not only man, of course, but the emotional reality of all earthly consciousnesses as well, from a microbe to a scholar, from a frog to a star. You interpret the phenomena of your world according to the mythic characteristics that you have accepted.” (19)

“If you could orbit your planet in a different kind of craft, you could view the psychic contents of the world, seeing the world consciousness shining far more brilliantly than any lighted city. You could spot the point of intense activity, see the birth of new myths and the death of old ones as certainly as you might be able to see a mountain slide or a tidal wave. The physical portions of earth are all related. So does consciousness form its own kind of inner structures from which, again, the physical ones emerge.” (20)

We have seen that premodern creation myths contain gems of truth, namely, that there was Causal Consciousness that preceded creation through involution, and that the modern creation myth also contains gems of truth, namely, that there was an explosive beginning and subsequent evolution. Fred Alan Wolf (b.1934) takes a postmodern approach that seeks to reconcile all these gems. For instance, in:

“... one myth called Science, the void exploded into the Big Bang. Following another myth called the Bible, in the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. These seemingly very different points of view – these myths called the Big Bang and the Word – appear entirely unreconcilable: one deals with the physical universe of matter and energy and the other with the mental universe of mind and information. But, could these two views actually be saying the same thing? Could it be that in some way what we describe about the universe – how we exploit it to derive meaning from it, how we determine what it is, and what it is doing – establishes the very universe we speak and write about? Does the act of learning something, turning our experiences into meaningful symbols of discourse create both the physical thing being observed and the laws of order it seems to obey?” (21)

Thus, increasing numbers of postmodern scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and theologians are slowly building bridges between modern scientific and premodern religious models of the psyche and universe. Key elements include the incorporation of first person, subjective perspectives – the power of mythos, imagination, emotion, intellect, and deep intuitions – along with third person, objective perspectives – facts, measurements, things, objects, and processes. As postmodern thoughts fly around, new dialogues occur, and bridges are built.

Seen in this light, then, the premodern religious myths still believed in by 40% of the world, and modern scientific myths still believed in by 30% of the world will not remain dominant, though their conflict will continue to underlie global worldview dynamics for decades to come. And again, since we all start at stage one, every newborn first develops through prerational stages currently owned by the world’s religions, and then into rational stages owned by scientific institutions. Only then is it possible to widen into the postrational stages currently birthing the postmodern Central Myth.

As such, it’s crucial to realize that there will always be people subscribing to premodern and modern worldviews, because they are inherent in the developmental stages unique to humans. It’s just that they may become a minority by 2075, some seventy years from now. That is the date presented in Seth Speaks as the time when a major social and spiritual reformation will be accomplished in certain lines of probabilities. But again, it is not set in stone and is a matter of collective choice, not chance. Thus, involution and evolution won’t crash to a halt, they will simply surpass the tipping point in which postmodern worldviews become dominant and a postmodern Central Myth crystallizes. I believe it will be fully consonant with the core concepts of the Seth material, and include the revival of Casual Consciousness to its rightful place, alongside an enhanced form of reason that heads toward Seth’s high intellect, Gebser’s integral-aperspectival stage, and Wilber’s vision-logic and centaur stages on a global scale.

In summary, here is an overview of the emerging postmodern Creation Myth found in the first five chapters of Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment. Seth used CUs and EEs to explain how involution preceded the Big Bang in what he calls “before the beginning.” CUs are the causal “force” of All-That-Is within the causal field that formed the subtle field, EEs are the causal “force” within the subtle field that formed the physical field, and quantum fields are the form taken by CUs and EEs in what Seth calls Framework 1. Thus, All-That-Is creates all Its reality simultaneously through interpenetrated causal, subtle, and physical fields via CUs/EEs/quantum fields. These three nested fields are accessible through waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless states because CUs dream and have inner senses.

Further, as evolution proceeded after the Big Bang, Seth is clear that there is an order of play which maps to Teilhard de Chardin’s three basic stages of physical (geosphere), biological (biosphere), and self-reflexive mental (noosphere) outlined in The Phenomenon of Man (1959). Also, the noosphere evolved, generally speaking, to include premodern, modern, and emergent postmodern worldviews.

In the meantime, it’s possible that IF the world’s religions are inherited by postmoderns, then they can become what Wilber calls a “conveyor belt” (in What is Integral Spirituality?, 2005). That is, if Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, etc., learn how to offer stratified interpretations of their Central Myths and practices, they may be able to accelerate large numbers of people’s growth via authentic transformation from premodern to modern toward postmodern worldviews, because they still own the prerational stages, the same ones rejected by modern science. So they get first crack at everyone! However, this also requires that the postmoderns in those lineages are integrally science-educated and have the political and financial power to implement stratified programs. No small task, just the basic requirements for any premodern religion to successfully navigate the rocky transition into the postmodern age.

A stratified or integral approach is not a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach. It simultaneously promotes personal growth and authentic transformation across various stages of development, for instance, egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric, and Kosmocentric. People can and will stop their development for their own purposes, and that’s fine, too. But those who are ready to make the momentous leap into postmodern worldviews will be given the means and support to do so without recrimination and restrictive cultural mores.

Finally, it seems fitting to end this discussion on the emerging postmodern Creation Myth with a passage taken from Oversoul Seven’s Little Book, found at the end of The Further Education of Oversoul Seven (1979) by Jane Roberts. It is a short chapter from a children’s book within the book meant to guide a new personality of Seven’s, named Tweety, through her infant and toddler years. It captures the essence, in simple terms, of everything discussed in this essay.

“It’s deceptive to say that thus and so ‘happened in the beginning,’ or that ‘in the beginning was the word,’ or whatever, because there was no official Beginning when God suddenly came parading out of nothingness, bearing the ingredients of mountains, oceans, and land, and trailing sky banners proclaiming the opening of the universe, or the creation of life from a sea of gasses.

“There are multitudinous beginnings. ‘The Beginning’ is only the one you came in on, so to speak, which is rather like coming into a dream in the middle and wondering what happened earlier. In dreams, everything really happens at once, even though there seems to be a beginning and ending ... the past and present and future merge ... and the universe is like that in a way. You’re bound to wonder what went on or how long it’s been going on, not realizing that in a matter of speaking, it just started when you got there. And in another way, it really isn’t there at all.

“If you dream that you’re in a jungle, for instance, no vines or tangled undergrowth climb up the bedpost, and no exotic animals prowl between the window and the floor. Yet the jungle certainly seems real. Where did it come from, or when did it begin? The universe is like the dream jungle. It exists quite properly, yet in the most profound way it makes no sense to ask when it began. It begins each day, each moment, at each point of our contact with it. The gods exist in the same manner, like a giant species [families] of consciousness, striding psychological paths of vast proportions that never really physically appear in the world at all.

“The gods and the universe really begin everyplace and everywhere at once, at every point. Our psychological reality rises from an inner inconceivable divine mind that’s invisible to us, since we are It, earthized, individualized. We’re the [involutionary] gods in [evolutionary] camouflage.” (22)

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Endnotes:

(1) Seth readers are familiar with the importance of belief systems and worldviews. So it’s a natural step to explore Seth’s ideas in relation to the excellent research done over the past seventy-five years on how they unfold in time, individually and culturally. That is, the science of memetics, or belief systems, was created by English biologist Richard Dawkins (b.1941) in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a mental counterpart for physical DNA and genes. Developmental psychologists and transpersonal sociologists, like those listed below, have subsequently begun to map how belief systems develop individually through preconventional, conventional, and postconventional stages, and culturally through premodern (religious), modern (scientific), and postmodern (relativistic) stages.

To clarify my semantics throughout, I define these individual and cultural stages in term of the developmental psychology outlined in Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy (2000). He surveyed over one hundred developmental systems from the West, East, North, and South (p.197-217). Each stage transcends, yet includes elements in the preceding stage. So subsequent stages are built upon the foundational elements in preceding stages. Thus, in a “development that is envelopment” each stage shows qualities of increasing complexity, wholeness, evolution, and thus consciousness. So authethic development by definition, then, doesn’t skip stages. Each stage is characterically “more comprehensive, differentiated and integrated than its predecessors.”

To be clear, I am not using the terms preconventional, conventional, and postconventional to be the same as cultural stages of premodern (religious), modern (scientific), and postmodern (relativistic). Technically, the former were coined by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) to describe stages of moral development. So they are used here only as an example of stages of individual development in general.

Therefore, if we use Clare Graves and Don Beck’s stages of individual development from Spiral Dynamics (1996/2000), premodern corresponds roughly to BEIGE, PURPLE, RED, and BLUE vMemes. Modern corresponds roughly to the ORANGE vMeme, and postmodern corresponds roughly to GREEN, YELLOW, and TURQUOISE vMemes. Post-postmodern represents worldviews on the distant horizon, corresponds roughly to the CORAL vMeme.

If we use Jean Gebser’s stages of cultural development from The Ever-Present Origin (1949), then premodern corresponds roughly to archaic, magic, and mythic. Modern corresponds roughly to rational, and postmodern corresponds roughly to integral. Gebser didn’t identify a post-postmodern stage.

If we use Wilber’s stages of cultural development from Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality (1995/2000), then premodern corresponds roughly to uroboric, typhonic, archaic, magic, and mythic. Modern corresponds roughly to rational, and postmodern corresponds roughly to centauric. Post-postmodern corresponds to psychic.

The point, then, is that there is a general, discernable progression in developmental terms of individuals within overall cultural worldviews. For example, a sixteenth century Aztec shaman who engaged in ritual human sacrifice is less complex, less whole, less developed, and thus less conscious than American Christian evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, though both hold premodern worldviews (the Aztec is PURPLE/magic and Graham is BLUE/mythic). In turn, they are less complex, less whole, less developed, and thus less conscious than American publisher of Skeptical Inquirer Michael Schermer who exemplifies a modern worldview (ORANGE/rational). In turn, all three are less complex, less whole, less developed, and thus less conscious than French paleontologist/philosopher Teilhard de Chardin and American psychic Jane Roberts who exemplify postmodern worldviews (GREEN/integral/centauric).

Historically speaking, once the modern value spheres of science, art, and religion split from the premodern Church they were dominated by the rise of rationality. That’s all well and good, and produced many wonderful breakthroughs we still enjoy to this day. However, my main thesis throughout is that as variants of scientism and evolutionism emerged, Causal Consciousness or Source was thrown out with the magic/mythic bathwater. This is a form of social pathology that has crippled the Western world for close to two hundred years as noted by various social critics (e.g., Smith/1976, Wilber/1981, De Quincey/2002).

Therefore, what will come to define mature postmodernism is not only the excellent critiques of modernity that currently go by the name “postmodern,” but more significantly those critiques that begin to rehabilitate, rejoin, and heal the pathological split, particularly, between religion and science. That is, postmodernism is more accurately defined as all attempts by Causal Consciousness to make a comeback (the irony is that It never left!) to its rightful place within institutional sciences, arts, and religions without pre/trans fallacies (the fallacy of elevating premodern magical/mythic worldviews to forms of postmodern rationality/translogic or reducing authentic transpersonal insights to premodern irrationality and pathology).

This is the struggle we can observe on multiple fronts in terms of current dynamics between premodern, modern, and emergent postmodern worldviews. Developmental psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers continue to refine ways to more accurately map the birth pangs, the leading edge of the so-called New Age, New Paradigm, or what I generally call postmodern worldviews.

(2) Jane Roberts, The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1, Amber-Allen, San Rafael, CA, 1996, p. 165-166.

(3) Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary, December 22, 2000.

(4) Joseph Campbell, edited by Diane Osbon, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, New York, 1991, p. 134.

(5) Willis Harmon, Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, California, 1998, p. 79.

(6) Roger Walsh, Perennial Wisdom in a Postmodern World, University of California College of Medicine, Irvine, California, http://www.americanbuddha.org/article_perennial.html, November 27, 2000.

(7) Jane Roberts, The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression, Amber-Allen, San Rafael, CA, 1995, p. 196-207.

(8) Rather than footnote all of the following excerpts, I’m putting the session number and date after each one so that they’re easier to find. All excerpts are from Jane Roberts, Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Amber-Allen, San Rafael, CA, 1997, chapters 1-5.

(9) Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary, December 22, 2000.

(10) Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, Harper & Row, New York, New York, 1944, p. 128.

(11) Jane Roberts, The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2, Amber-Allen, San Rafael, CA, 1996, p. 599.

Below is a summary of the innate, basic “family” of consciousness intents according to Seth and Rob Butts.

Borledim

Seth: closest to Sumari, deals primarily with parenthood.

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

Milumet

Seth: composed of mystics.

Rob: to mystically nourish mankind’s psyche.

Gramada

Seth: specializes in organization.

Rob: to found social systems.

Vold

Seth: primarily reformers. ...one purpose in mind: to change the status quo in whatever the area of primary interest.

Rob: to reform the status quo.

Ilda

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

Seth: initiators, naturally playful – inventors, and 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

Seth: primarily devoted to healing.

Rob: to heal, regardless of individual occupation.

Zuli

Seth: involved mainly with the fulfillment of bodily activity.

Rob: to serve as physical athletic models.

Sumafi

Seth: deals primarily with teaching, their primary interest of passing on knowledge to others.

Rob: to transmit “originality” through teaching.

Find out more about the nine “families” of consciousness.

(12) Jane Roberts, The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1978, p. 188.

(13) Ibid, p. 186.

(14) Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions: Book Seven of the Seth Material, New Awareness Network, Manhasset, NY, 1999, p. 240-41.

(15) Immanuel Kant (translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn), Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft), 1781/1787, http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/cprrn10.txt, Preface to the First Edition.

(16) Cut dialogue from Fit the Fifth, Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts (1985).

(17) Follow this link to The Inner Senses – An Introduction & Overview and this link for a Summary of Seth/Jane Roberts Exercises.

(18) Jane Roberts, Ibid, p. 83.

(19) Jane Roberts, Ibid., p. 84.

(20) Roberts, The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2, p. 555.

(21) Wolf, Op. cit., p. 29-30.

(22) Jane Roberts, The Oversoul Seven Trilogy: The Further Education of Oversoul Seven, Oversoul Seven’s Little Book, Amber-Allen, San Rafael, CA, 1995, p. 423-4.

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Glossary ~ ABCs of Conscious Creation

The following presents a conceptual overview of the main tenets that I have gleaned from the published material to date. However, since all of the Seth material has yet to be published, this overview will be updated to reflect any new ideas and understandings as they emerge.

Tip: press the Ctrl+F keys to search by keyword(s).

2075 probabilities – a transition or shift in collective human consciousness toward greater use of inner senses and a more individualized type of spirituality – without “outside” mediation – by the year 2075. This is one of the few predictions in the Seth material couched in terms of a religious and spiritual reformation intended to push calcified translative religions toward authentic transformational formats. Seth Discussed in detail in Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul.

All-That-Is – God/Universal Whole/Tao/Suchness/Gnosis/Wholeness/Shunyata/Consciousness/Great Chain of Being as an Eternal Process and not a “thing” separated from its parts. It is both immanent (in Framework 1) and transcendent (not limited to Framework 1). It is the Primal Cause of all processes and perspectives in the physical field of consciousness (Framework 1). Therefore, all space-time and energy-matter in Framework 1 is sentient and experiences in some way.

CUs (consciousness units) are the causal “force” of All-That-Is within the causal field that forms the subtle field, EEs (electromagnetic energy units) are the causal “force” within the subtle field that forms the physical field, and quantum fields are the form taken by CUs and EEs in Framework 1. Thus, All-That-Is creates all Its reality simultaneously through interpenetrated causal, subtle, and physical fields via CUs-as-EEs-as-quantum-fields.

Seth also used the terms Primary Energy Gestalt, Pyramid Energy Gestalt, Primary Pyramid Gestalt. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material and Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1.

Alpha States – Seth outlined a “map” of a spectrum of altered neurological focus to consciously access “hidden” aspects of our psyche.

There are five main regions:

A1a (enhanced creativity, concentration, study, refreshment, rest, meditation)

» A1b (horizontal into alternate realities)

Group/mass probabilities, racial matters, civilization

» A1c (greater mobility, moving further “away” from present physical laws)

A2 (reincarnational selves, issues, and beliefs)

A3 (mass issues, geographical histories, racial info, species of animals)

A4 (“beneath” matter, source of civilization-changing inspiration, available in sleep state, personal conversions originate here)

A5 (seldom reached, meeting ground of clear communication for any aspect self, no-time, out-of-body experiences can occur here, interaction with Speakers imaged as angels, gods, disciples)

This is not a strictly linear progression through a spectrum of consciousness, like climbing up and down a ladder, but a more multidimensional, sideways, rightways, leftways, topways and bottomways cluster or nest. In other words, you don’t necessarily move through one to get to the next one. If you think of your conscious mind as a radio that receives and translates energy transmissions from your inner self over a spectrum of “stations,” you can simply change to any station by changing your attention to match the appropriate frequency.

Also, the alpha states outlined here do not map directly to those of current dream researchers who define the alpha state as the relaxed state that precedes sleep, occurring in the brain over a spectrum from roughly eight to fourteen cycles per second. So Seth’s use of alpha states should not be confused with the more popular scientific system of alpha states. Still, Seth’s A1-A5 offers a “map” in which to interpret paranormal experiences in terms of lucid dreams, projections, near-death experiences, trance, and other altered states.

Dream research remains in its infancy in the West, having only recently acknowledged lucid dreaming, but mostly from a modern materialist perspective. To date researchers have mapped four main brain states, though there may be others that current equipment can not yet detect:

1. Beta – 14-100 cycles per second, normal alert waking state. Higher range associated with anxiety, dis-ease, fight or flight conditions.

» Gamma – a subset of Beta, 40 cycles per second, but range from 24 to 70 cycles per second. Associated with an alert waking state, these have been found in meditative and lucid dreaming (REM) states. (Included as a subset because they are assoicated with a sense of clarity and wakefulness in the brain and mind, even though the rest of the body may be in a sleep, meditative, or trance state.)

2. Alpha – 8-13.9 cycles per second, just below the normal state of alertness. Associated with light relaxation, daydreaming, and self-reflection. A non-drowsy, yet relaxed, tranquil state of inward awareness that occurs before sleep. Beginning access to subconscious mind.
3. Theta – 4-7.9 cycles per second, deep relaxation, reverie, lucid dreaming, mental imagery, meditation, increased memory and focus, deep-rooted memories, and inspiration. Characterized mainly by light sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) dreams, and hallucinations. Hypnogogic imagery, deep meditation, access to subconscious mind.
4. Delta – .1-3.9 cycles per second, the deepest, most rejuvenating stage of dreamless, non-REM sleep and deep meditation. It also produces stress reduction, which can promote healing of the body. Human growth hormones released and loss of body awareness.

The scientific alpha state is what we use as we relax and fall asleep. According to Seth the alpha state provides the natural gateway to the inner ego through the inner sense of psychological time. Discussed in detail in Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul and Conversations with Seth.

American Vision – Jane Roberts’s vision of a future in which no single person, group, family, corporation, government, religion, or ideology holds exclusive rights for owning and offering Truth or The Way. A decentralized, democratic vision driven by an innate moral intuition that promotes the individual, unalienable right to define Truth for ourselves, based upon a direct, individual connection to God or All-That-Is without intermediaries adding layers of interpretation and “thou shalts.” No one is to be considered an infallible source. Discussed in detail in The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (An Aspect Psychology Book).

Aspect Psychology – Jane Roberts’s theory to explain her extraordinary psychic abilities that involved a variety of altered states including channeling Seth, Seth II, automatic writing, Sumari singing, projections of consciousness, Helper, worldview books, psychic library, heroic dimensions and personages, and more. Jane synthesized Seth’s ideas on the multidimensional psyche into a theoretical framework that is similar to contemporary Transpersonal and Integral Psychology. In her view, the psyche is considered a source self in the subtle field, a bank of infinite potentials constantly seeking expression and fulfillment in terms of forming new personalities in the physical field, which Jane terms focus personalities. Both are considered aspects, hence the terms Aspect Psychology. Aspects are not discrete entities but holonically nested aspects within All-that-Is. The primary aspects of any human being according to Seth are the outer ego, subconscious, inner ego, and pyramid energy gestalts. Jane used the terms focus personality, nuclear self, source self, and pyramid energy gestalts to map the same spectrum of consciousness. Discussed in detail in Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology.

“Before the Beginning” – a metaphor within Seth’s creation mythos that claims there was no absolute beginning or end to our universe, and that creation or cosmogenesis actually occurs in every instant. “Before the beginning” explains how foundational creative forces called CUs (consciousness units) in the causal field created blueprints in the subtle field that precipitated the Big Bang. This is a form of involution, or nonphysical acts of creation that precede the Big Bang. Further, CUs and EEs continue as involutionary forces within causal and subtle fields as evolution unfolds in the physical field. Discussed in detail in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1.

Belief systems – the fundamental psychological filters we use to create our perception. Many times what we consider to be Absolute Truths and Laws are only beliefs relative to the physical field. Related ideas include bridge beliefs; beliefs used to identify core beliefs that bridge contradictory and conflicting beliefs we often hold simultaneously. Core beliefs are those central beliefs that attract subsidiary, or satellite beliefs. For example, the core belief system of relationships creates our sense of self-esteem, adequacy, self-worth, value in the community, and much more.

Learning to dig down and identify, change, and neutralize core belief systems also changes satellite beliefs. This process can be used to heal ourselves of psychological and physical dis-ease. Many times the process of identification is invisible – still a subconscious process. So a goal is to learn how to make our subconscious conscious through introspection, contemplation, and dream work. Once we learn to consciously recognize our many invisible, satellite, bridging, and core beliefs, we can neutralize their hold on us, create new choices, and promote personal growth. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Blueprints for reality – each Framework 1 is a probability system that has its own set of inner blueprints in Framework 2. They define freedoms and boundaries that create the most favorable structures capable of value fulfillment. They exist for as individuals, as well as the collective. These are similar to Platonic Forms, but Seth says they are not perfect and static, but dynamic and change with creativity and fulfillment. They exist at every level: physical, biological, psychological, and spiritual. Their Framework 1 aspects are found in our genes and chromosomes. Further, humans are not simply trying to imitate perfect forms in Framework 2, but directly, dynamically shape individual and collective blueprints through creativity on physical, biological, psychological, and spiritual levels. Discussed in detail in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1.

Bridge Personality – a term to describe the temporary psychological bridge structure formed when Jane goes into trance, and Seth comes through. The bridge personality is a hybrid, and is neither purely Jane nor purely Seth. For example, Seth was limited to Jane’s vocabulary, memories, emotions, etc. and other aspects of her body/mind. So the Seth persona could never fully express all of the Seth personality’s multidimensional aspects. It’s like a galaxy squeezing itself through a straw. There is only so much that could be translated, or come through in any given session. Discussed in detail in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2.

Camouflage – our physical universe is constantly created in each moment by an inner, nonphysical source reality that consists of subtle and causal fields of consciousness. In this multidimensional context, the effects of quantum fields – matter, linear time, space, gravity, the electromagnetic spectrum, the weak and strong nuclear forces – are a camouflage or construction. Jane Roberts also used the term idea constructions to represent the same concept. This has similarities to the Hindu concept of maya and Buddhist concept of samsara. However, physical reality is not an illusion to be avoided or renounced, just understood in relation to causal and subtle source realities. Discussed in detail in Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul.

The Codicils ~ appendices to the human will that serve as alternate hypotheses for private and public experience based upon Jane’s theory of Aspect Psychology. This theory organizes the “paranormal” capabilities of the human psyche into various aspects that reflect its true multidimensional nature.

1. “All of creation is sacred and alive, each part connected to each other part, and each communicating in a creative cooperative commerce in which the smallest and the largest are equally involved.

2. “The physical senses present one unique version of reality, in which being is perceived in a particular dimensionalized sequence, built up through neurological patterning, and is the result of one kind of neurological focus. There are alternate neurological routes, biologically acceptable, and other sequences so far not chosen.

3. “Our individual self-government and our political organizations are by-products of sequential perception, and our exterior methods of communication set up patterns that correlate with, and duplicate, our synaptic behavior. We lock ourselves into certain structures of reality in this way.

4. “Our sequential prejudiced perception is inherently far more flexible than we recognize, however. There are half steps – other unperceived impulses – that leap the nerve ends, too fast and too slow for our usual focus. Recognition of these can be learned and encouraged, bringing in perceptive data that will trigger changes in usual sense response, filling out potential sense spectra with which we are normally not familiar.

5. “This greater possible sense spectrum includes increased perception of inner bodily reality in terms of cellular identity and behavior; automatic conscious control of bodily processes; and increased perception of exterior conditions as the usual senses become more vigorous. (Our sight, for example, is not nearly as efficient as it could be. Nuances of color, texture, and depth could be expanded and our entire visual area attain a brilliance presently considered exceptional or supernormal.)

6. “Each person is a unique version of an inner model that is in itself a bank of potentials, variations, and creativity. The psyche is a seed of individuality and selfhood, cast in space-time but ultimately independent of it.

7. “We are born in many times and places, but not in a return of identity as we understand it; not as a copy in different clothes, but as a new self ever-rising out of the psyche's life as the new ruler rises to the podium or throne, in a psychic politics as ancient as humanity.

8. “Civilizations both past and present represent projections of inner selfhood, and mirror the state of the mass psyche at any given time. We hold memory and knowledge of past civilizations as we hold unconscious memories of our private early current-life experiences.

9. “From our present, we exert force upon the past as well as the future, forming our ideas of the past and reacting accordingly. We actually project events into our own new past.

10. “Each generation forms such a new past, one that exists as surely as the present; not just as an imaginary construct but as a practical platform – a newly built past – upon which we build our present.

11. “Options and alternate models for selfhood and civilizations exist in a psychic pattern of probabilities from which we can choose to actualize an entirely new life system.”

Discussed in detail in Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book.

Concept patterns – a metaphor used by Seth to describe aspects of his native mode of perception that incorporates full use of the inner senses in relation to the process in which he prepares information about to be translated into terms that Jane’s nervous system can manage. Since Seth’s reality is “outside” of space-time, he is aware of the past, present, and future aspects and conceptual intent in consciousness underlying these multidimensional patterns.

Jane writes about how, during session breaks, she often senses entire blocks of material available for her to tap into. This was how she perceived concept patterns as they wait for Seth to translate them into linear, physical terms through spoken language. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material.

Conscious creation – the phrase “conscious creation” has been used for decades, possibly longer. Applying the term to the Seth Material can be traced to Lynda Dahl, who published three books in the 1990s that used “conscious creation” to mean “you create your own reality.” The latter phrase was coined by Jane Roberts in The Nature of Personal Reality (1974). It went on to become a New Age mantra uttered by Amit Goswami in the New Age hit What the F%#? Do We Know? (2004). It is popular in the Seth community to use the phrase “conscious creation,” and sometimes YCYOR (you create your own reality) to represent the core ideas in the Seth Material.

This concept has been around for millennia, and is traceable back to the New Thought movement founded by Phineas Quimby (1802-1866) in mid-19th century America. Moreover, it extends all the way back in some form to the Idealist philosophers, from Plato (c.427-c. 347 BCE) to Plotinus (c.205-270 CE) and Nagarjuna (150-250 CE), onwards to Fichte (1762-1814), Hegel (1770-1831), Schelling (1775-1854), Berdyaev (1874-1948), and others. Seen in this light, Jane Roberts’s The Physical Universe as Idea Construction (1963), the manuscript that preceded Seth’s emergence, and the Seth Material that followed are variations of Western idealism. When we compare the Seth Material to premodern and modern forms of idealism we discover three main similarities:

1. Universe As Multiverse: All-That-Is as nested fields of physical, subtle, and causal consciousness (exteriors).
2. Self As Multidimensional: All-That-Is as nested Aspects: I-I-I (interiors).
3. Involution/Evolution: All-That-Is as Primal Cause and Effect (causality).

Therefore, conscious creation can’t be limited to only the Seth material, because the basic epistemology of concept 1 above and ontology of concept 2 above are found in some variation in all premodern and modern traditions.

1. The way that we create 100% of our reality in physical, subtle, and causal fields includes some variation of:

• (Eye of Flesh) - Physical senses/emotions.
• (Eye of Mind) - Mental/rational intelligences.
• (Eye of Spirit) - Inner senses.

2. The entire “You” who creates 100% of its own reality includes some variation of:

• (I) - Outer ego in the physical field.
• (I) - Inner ego in the subtle field.
• (I) - Pyramid Gestalts/Causal Consciousness in the causal field.

3. Involution/evolution describes the simultaneous action of creation in nonphysical and physical fields. Involution describes how All-That-Is acts as Primal Cause to create causal, subtle, and physical fields. For example, Seth used consciousness units (causal CUs) and electromagnetic energy units (subtle EEs) in this way in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment (1986). Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) used the Hindu Vedantic version of involution in The Life Divine (1949). Involution also helps explain pre-birth choices like intent, gender, who our parents will be, etc., that are not made by the outer ego.

Thus, “conscious creation” more accurately applies to any modern or postmodern body of work that explores the simultaneous action of involution/evolution in physical, subtle, and causal fields via physical, mental, and spiritual senses.

Modern examples of conscious creation include Vedanta Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism. Postmodern examples include the information offered by Seth, Elias, Kris, Rose, Wilber, and others.

Originally introduced in Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul.

Conscious mind – Seth distinguishes three primary qualities of the conscious mind – the outer ego, the subconscious, and the inner ego. Each is fully conscious, aware, and sentient but based upon its own unique order of perception. Seth consistently refutes the idea that anything is unconscious. The outer ego uses outer senses and reason, the subconscious uses outer and inner senses, and the inner ego uses inner senses. Further inward, the conscious mind taps into pyramid energy gestalts. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Consciousness units (CUs) – the foundational “causal force” or Primal Cause within All-That-Is; Seth’s metaphor for pure source energy in the causal field. CUs are ubiquitous, faster than light, nested “units” of awareized, not humanized, energy imbued with a propensity for creating gestalts of action, energy, and matter. Their unique characteristics include dreaming and inner sensing. Discussed in detail in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1.

Constructions (Primary, Secondary) – a metaphor used by Seth to explain how the inner ego creates the outer ego, which in turn creates its own perception. The outer ego in the physical field (Framework 1) is a primary construction of the inner ego. The outer ego, in turn, creates secondary constructions through its perception in the physical field. So the "you" who creates 100% of your reality includes the outer and inner ego.

Constructions are also related to Seth’s use of the term camouflage and divine camouflage, and Jane’s idea constructions. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 2 of the Seth Material.

Coordinate points – the means of energy exchange between the physical field (Framework 1) and subtle field (Framework 2). There are three kinds: absolute, main, and subordinate. Gestalts of CUs that form into electromagnetic energy units (EEs) that blink on/off beyond the Planck speed – 10(-34). These are the instrumental “black/white holes” that facilitate the actual translation of subtle field source energy – EEs – into physical constructions. In other words, they are key aspects in the mechanics of how we create our physical reality through a psychological, inner “action of translation.” Discussed in detail in Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul.

Cordellas – the inner “organizational units from which ... all [physical, biological, and psychological] alphabets are born.” In other words, they function as communications blueprints for “translating” all source energy from its potential subtle Framework 2 state into physical Framework 1 constructions. These “languages of translation” provide “the inner support for the communications and recognized happenings of conscious life,” including quantum fields, biological life, and human perception.

Cordellas also form the basis for the Sumari trance language. Discussed in detail in Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology.

Counterparts – simultaneous “reincarnational selves” that share or overlap within the same periods of history. For instance, we can have four or more lifetimes that share this PRESENT/present, and simultaneously four more that may have been born decades before our birth but died in our PAST/present or are still alive, and four more who will be born during our PRESENT/present but continue after we die in a FUTURE/present. This thesis, as Robert Butts called it, further expands how Seth defines reincarnation more as simultaneous multiple incarnations. Seth also hints that there can be temporary counterpart relationships between people that do not share the same entity. Discussed in detail in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2.

Dis-ease – good health is one of our most cherished states of being. If you believe that you create ALL of your reality, then you begin to question the mechanics and purposes of any ill health situation. Dis-ease has many purposes, some of which are restorative to a more balanced state, some initiate the death experience, and some, for example birth “defects,” are for the purity of the experience. If the purpose of experiencing physical reality is to drink deeply of its rich potentials and we experience multiple simultaneous lifetimes, then it makes sense that certain extreme conditions are a pre-birth or involutionary choice of experience, not a punishment from God, bad karma, or the result of natural selection and “bad” genetics.

Dream-Art Science – emerging disciplines that integrate multiple ways of knowing, that is, integrate the conscious use of the eye of empiricism (five senses), eye of rationalism (logic), and eye of mysticism (inner senses):

• dream art scientist – a generic scientist. [ The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1 ]
• true mental physicist – a physicist. [ The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1 ]
• complete physician – a healer. [ The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1 ]
• dream archeologist – a psychologist or psychiatrist. [ Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time ]
• the gifted amateur – an expert in any field without the dogmatic limitations of calcified organizational cultures. [ The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James ]

Electromagnetic energy units (EEs) – faster than light particles within the subtle field (Framework 2) earmarked for physical manifestation that “slow down” to form all matter, guided by the conscious mind and the pineal gland in the brain. Millions compose each atom. EEs are made up of the even “smaller,” more fundamental, consciousness units (CUs). Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Energy personality essence – used by Seth to describe the multidimensional nature of the human psyche as soul, source, or spirit in the subtle field. It includes the inner ego, an aspect of the conscious mind (outer ego, subconscious, inner ego) that is simultaneously focused in the subtle field.

The inner ego transcends physical death and is the source of all focus personalities. In Seth’s terms, then, we are all physically focused aspects of an energy personality essence. The inner ego is that aspect “beyond ” gender and sexual preference, though when it expresses itself into physical terms it adopts the physical traits designed into any particular physical field of consciousness. Seth also describes himself as an “energy personality essence no longer focused in physical reality.”

Seth also discussed pyramid energy gestalts that held wider awareness than him. These are focused in the causal field, and appear as ancient and developed beyond comprehension. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Entity – another term for psyche, soul, or spirit, but expanded to include the inner ego that is simultaneously focused in the subtle field. Other synonymous terms include inner self, inner ego, source self, and energy personality essence. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Entity name – a designation used by Seth that recognizes each individual’s inner ego as a multidimensional source self consisting of simultaneous, multiple personalities. As you read the Seth books you’ll notice that he refers to Jane as “Ruburt” and Rob as “Joseph.” Seth used entity names for help students open to their multidimensional nature beyond sole identification with the outer ego. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Evolution – Seth consistently refutes the belief systems of cause and effect, closed energy systems, and linear time as Absolute Universal Truths. Since Consciousness is Primal Cause, there are inner source realities, the causal and subtle fields, from which our physical universe constantly springs. Thus, matter and energy don’t evolve solely according to Darwinian definitions, because there are also involutionary actions within the subtle and causal fields, within EEs (electromagnetic energy units) and CUs (consciousness units).

Still, Seth does not deny that change, growth, and development occur in the physical field. In his creation myth, found in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Seth is clear that there is an order of play that maps generally to physical (physiosphere), biological (biosphere), and then self-reflexive mental (noosphere) emergence in the physical field.

While this is a hierarchical unfolding that transcends and includes but not vice versa, Seth is also aware that distorted interpretations of involution/evolution have lead to dominator hierarchies that deny the growth and health. And he appropriate critiques those elements of social Darwinism that led to the horrors of the Robber Barons, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and so on. Seth also stresses cooperation over competition and defines value fulfillment as a foundation creative principle or natural law that informs all involutionary/evolutionary actions in the physical field of consciousness. Discussed in detail in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1.

“Families” of consciousness – Seth introduced the “families of consciousness” in sessions 732-740 in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2 (1979, 1996). The idea of “families” is symbolic for something beneath physical appearances, a nonphysical source attribute that reflects the innate intention of individualized consciousness, as The One (All-That-Is) creates the many in the subtle and physical fields.

Since we can “slice the pie” of human intention any way we want, the concept of the nine “families” is just an orienting generalization that outlines intentionality within a collective that now exceeds six billion people. For example, as a prism breaks white light into component colors, so too does the “families” metaphor break the collective into a spectrum of innate intention designed to promote maximum value fulfillment. When we look at the “rainbow of intention” from a distance, systemically, there is an appearance of nine distinct colors. Yet when viewed up close, it is impossible to clearly discern where one color stops and another begins; they blur into each other. Thus, the “families” work the same way. They are not discrete, separate, or fixed qualities. Instead, they are nested, merged qualities that dynamically change in space-time, even though their source is “outside” of space-time.

As such, it is possible to have subdivisions of the nine primary intents given by Seth that allow for countless variations, permutations, and hybrids. For example, the healing intent can subdivide to specialize in interpersonal relationships, specific areas of human anatomy, or surgery, etc. Or the healing intent can combine with the teaching intent to specialize in teaching the art of healing, or surgery, etc. A simple mathematical way to imagine these permutations is to multiply 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (called nine factorial). The result yields 362,880 possibilities. That’s a lot more than just nine. But since that example deals with discrete numbers, and intention isn’t really quantifiable, the possibilities beyond the primary nine are literally infinite.

Within the Integral Conscious Creation matrix, then, the “families” form a typology, the result of a pre-birth or involutionary choice. Thus, we hold a “family” intent as we develop over the course of a lifetime, and there will be in utero, infantile, juvenile, adolescent, adult, and senior variations. Since intention is qualitative and not quantitative, it may alter during the course of a lifetime depending on the complex dynamics of overall life conditions and choices.

Also, notice that the “families” concept is a worldcentric view of intention that doesn’t privilege any race, creed, or ideology, and applies equally to all focus personalities. It thus includes other species in addition to Homo-sapiens, for example, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, and possibly others. Elias, for example, has claimed that whales and dolphins recently evolved into focuses of essence. So these “families” of intention would apply to them, too.

Finally, the specific words Seth used to point out the primary nine intents are secondary, so take them with a grain of salt. Regardless of the words we use, the underlying conscious intentions they describe are easily discernable.

The nine basic “family of consciousness” intents:

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.

Discussed in detail in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 2.

Feeling tones – every aspect of All-That-Is is conscious and has its own inner tone. Just as a clarinet, violin, and electric guitar each have their own timbre when playing the same musical tone, we each have our own personal resonance or feeling tone that is unique to each of us. Learning to consciously resonate with and tune into our own feeling tone helps us connect to our own direct source, entity, or inner self. This provides a gateway, along with our inner senses, to further understand our deeper, inner nature. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Fifth dimensional space – used to describe the vastness of inner reality with a focus upon the subtle field. Actually looking at the actions of simultaneous time, Frameworks of Consciousness, and All-That-Is from a different angle. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material.

Focus personality – a term used by Jane Roberts to describe each individual human personality within the context of the larger multidimensional psyche. That is, the psyche actually consists of multiple simultaneous focus personalities. Jane used this term in her theory on multidimensional personality called Aspect Psychology. Discussed in detail in Adventures in Consciousness.

Frameworks of Consciousness – a metaphor to explain the multidimensional nature of our universe – Framework 1 represents the physical field, Framework 2 represents those aspects of the subtle field earmarked for physical manifestation in terms of collective consciousness and all probable source events. Framework 2 is “hidden” from our physical senses. Most of Framework 1 is also hidden from our physical senses. For example, the electromagnetic spectrum covers a range of radiation that far exceeds the limits of our optical and auditory systems.

Physicist David Bohm, a student of Einstein’s, postulated the same idea but used the term “explicate order” to describe physical reality and “implicate order” to describe the source reality. Quantum physicists theorize that vibrating “strings” now provide the source energy for our universe. Also, that our space/time universe consists of ten or more dimensions, most of which remain hidden to our physical senses. Discussed in detail in The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events.

Framework 1 – physical field of consciousness in all of its immaculate wonder.

Framework 2 – subtle field; the state of collective consciousness where all probable source events earmarked for physical manifestation exist.

Framework 3 – subtle field; another source dimension even further removed from physical reality. It was briefly mentioned, but never elaborated upon by Seth. According to Elias, the action of afterdeath transition occurs here.

Framework 4 – subtle field; yet another source dimension even further removed from Frameworks 1-3. It was briefly mentioned, but never elaborated upon. According to Elias, his native focus of attention exists here.

The God of Jane – a personalized version of our own psyche as the mediator to All-That-Is. The God of Self is local, intimate, and provides us each with a direct connection to our Primary Source. As such, all our answers to good health, spiritual and financial abundance, moral dilemmas, and satisfying relationships are directly available by searching within and getting to deeply know ourSelf. Discussed in detail in The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (An Aspect Psychology Book).

Heroic Personalities, Dimensions – Jane's perception of personality aspects within the subtle field (Frameworks 2-4...) in which she sensed vast psychological structures or selves that seemed to straddle entire worlds. Discussed in detail in Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book.

High Intellect – a superb blend of deep intuitions (inner senses) and intellect that forms a higher cognitive faculty. This approach to knowledge and wisdom integrates multiple ways of knowing that include the eye of empiricism (five senses), eye of rationalism (logic), and eye of mysticism (inner senses). Introduced in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1.

Idea constructions – there are inner source realities, the causal and subtle fields, in which all ideas originate. Ideas are transformed by the subtle inner ego into physical constructions—any physical form of matter and energy. Jane Roberts wrote an essay in an inspired state called The Physical Universe As Idea Construction (1963) in which she described the physical universe as idea constructions. Seth later said that this inspired state was his first attempt at consciously contacting her. Discussed in detail in Seth, Dreams, and Projection of Consciousness.

Impulses – an innate inner language of the psyche designed to lead us to our own deepest value fulfillment. However, they can be repressed, dissociated, or blocked on individual and collective levels. These repressions, dissociations, and blockages can have disastrous results, for instance, addictive, violent, and abusive behavior on individual and collective scales.

Conventional, modern definitions claim that most impulses are chaotic and bad – a primary cause of dysfunctional and anti-social behaviors like addiction, rape, murder, and others. In Seth’s definition, blocking our impulses actually results in dysfunctional and anti-social behaviors. So the goal is to learn to accurately discern and integrate our true impulses and recognize when they become blocked. Discussed in detail in many books; check any index.

Inner ego – if we use an iceberg analogy to represent the psyche, then the inner ego would be that vast portion which is submerged and provides the stability and subtle source energy for the tip or physical ego. Other terms used to describe the same concept include inner self, entity, source self, and soul. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Inner self – if we use an iceberg analogy to represent the psyche, then the inner self would be that vast portion which is submerged and provides the stability and subtle source energy for the tip or physical ego. Other terms used to describe the same concept include inner ego, entity, source self, and soul. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Inner senses – deep intuitions or what’s commonly called the “sixth sense” that complement the five physical senses. Used primarily by the inner self at full strength, the waking ego can learn to manipulate these through a spectrum of altered neurological focus that results from any authentic yoga. I sometimes use the term hyperception to indicate full bore use of the inner senses in waking state.

1. inner vibrational touch
2. psychological time
3. perception of past, present, and future
4. conceptual sense
5. cognition of knowledgeable essence
6. innate working knowledge of the basic vitality of the universe
7. expansion or contraction of the tissue capsule
8. disentanglement from camouflage
9. diffusion by the energy personality [essence]

Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Find out more about The Inner Senses – An Introduction & Overview.

Integral Conscious Creation – while the premodern traditions had an understanding of involution – the action of Consciousness as Primal Cause – what’s missing is an understanding of evolution; Consciousness unfolding in broad stages of increasing complexity over time in the physical field, or what Seth called Framework 1. We’re not talking about the crude distortions of Social Darwinism used by Robber Barons or Nazi Germany to justify economic inequalities or genocide, but the kind of evolutionary theories found in Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan, Chauduri, Gopi Krishna, Teilhard de Chardin, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Wilber. These modern and postmodern thinkers all show the driving “force” behind evolution, natural selection, genetic mutations, etc., to be none other than All-That-Is, with chance, chaos, and randomness playing a secondary role based upon free will.

However, premodern forms of idealism have tended to demean the physical. Since they correctly intuit that Consciousness is Primal Cause, and not material quantum fields, idealists tend to reduce everything to Consciousness, which is no-thing and immaterial. This has led to extreme asceticism, denial of the flesh, and other “sinful self” ideologies that marginalize the physical as secondary. On the other hand, modern materialist sciences claim that everything is reducible to quantum fields, and consciousness is a mere after effect or epiphenomenon of matter. This has led to alienation, fragmentation, and dissociation from Causal Consciousness that marginalizes consciousness as secondary. The two camps have been at odds for the past four centuries, and have yet to find a viable middle ground.

Therefore, part of what defines postmodernism are attempts to find that middle ground – ways to more adequately situate inner and outer, the ideal and material aspects of reality. Give each its place and don’t reduce one to the other, situate the physical and nonphysical as nested, interpenetrated fields within All-That-Is. Postmodernism attempts to bring Consciousness, which was present in premodern worldviews, back into the picture while acknowledging the advances and limits of modern science. However, this requires a type of cognitive development that can situate multiple contexts, some even contradictory, as all true but partial pieces of a larger puzzle. When taken together, we begin to hone in on more true and less partial explanations. It also requires a paradigm which can disclose and enact data through the use of physical senses, reason, and inner senses. Seth outlined what he called Dream-Art Science in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1 (1977) and later, Ken Wilber’s integral approach refined things even further in Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (1995).

Thus, when we combine Wilber’s integral approach with the above definition of conscious creation, we get Integral Conscious Creation. Integral simply means balanced, inclusive, and comprehensive. It doesn’t attempt to reduce inner to outer, or vice versa, but properly situates all dimensions of being in the world. We can have Causal Consciousness and quantum fields jointly creating and co-creating. Though integral theory has a lot of bugs to be worked out, it is the first viable postmodern theory of consciousness that doesn’t reduce all reality to the random, meaningless effects of quantum fields. The integral approach allows us to more adequately explore the physical, subtle, and causal fields of consciousness and the action of involution/evolution. No small feat! As such, it helps us further understand the riches in the Seth material in relation to other premodern, modern, and postmodern gnostic and scientific traditions. As such, it’s an attempt to bridge the disastrous split between science and Spirit. Discussed in A NewWorldOverView and detailed further in Integral Conscious Creation: Rocket Science for the Soul.

“Laws” of the inner universe – Universal Truths that impact all aspects of All-That-Is:

1. value fulfillment
2. energy transformation
3. spontaneity
4. durability
5. creation
6. consciousness
7. capacity for infinite mobility
8. changeability and transmutation
9. cooperation
10. quality depth

Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 2 of the Seth Material.

Find out more about Seth’s Laws of the Inner Universe.

Life Clouds – a metaphor to explain how our Framework 1 was “initially” seeded. “Dream cloud” could serve as well. Seth introduce this term at the end of Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment to help wrap up his “conscious creation myth.” Life clouds emerge from the our own subjectivity and exist in the subtle field (Frameworks 2-4, and further inward). They seek out probabilities for maximum value fulfillment in which to “seed” its creative contents and contain ever-freshening sources of creativity. When we dream, sleep, or think we add to other dimensions of a life cloud. As such, life clouds are powerful progenitor “clusters of consciousness” that literally seed universes. Discussed in detail in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 2 .

The magical approach – a life style more in tune with the rhythms of the natural world and multidimensional psyche. The magical approach includes the use of reason and intellect but is not to be confused with childish prerational magic, for instance, the moon is made of cheese. It is a form of authentic transpersonal, transrational magic that holistically promotes health, creativity, relationships, abundance, and fulfillment. Discussed in detail in The Magical Approach: Seth Speaks About the Art of Creative Living.

Master events – involutionary actions created by our inner egos in Framework 2 that fuel all mass events constructed in Framework 1. This does not mean that Framework 1 events are predetermined, but that Framework 2’s function is to explore incredibly complex probable events that seek expression in Framework 1. Master events also factor in the nature of simultaneous time, reincarnation, time overlays, life clouds, and natural laws like value fulfillment. Discussed in detail in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 2 .

Mechanics of Transition (afterdeath experience) – the process the outer ego encounters after physical death in Frameworks 2 & 3. Similar to the Tibetan Bardo, it is a process that involves taking stock of the previous life, opportunities to remanifest as a new personality in the physical field or transitioning toward an inner ego in the subtle field. In any case, death is not annihilation nor is it the end, but a continuation. Thus, there are moral implications that reinforce the idea that every action, decision, and creation in physical life matters and is known within the subtle field. However, there is no threat of eternal punishment as a deterent, only an innate moral intuition based upon our overall stage of development. Discussed in detail in Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul.

Mental enzymes – enzymes are complex proteins produced by living cells to catalyze specific biochemical reactions. So mental enzymes are an inner counterpart used by the inner ego to initiate various involutionary actions that fuel physical constructions in Framework 1. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material.

Mental genes – genes are a specific sequence of nucleotides in DNA or RNA that is the functional unit of inheritance controlling the transmission and expression of one or more traits. So mental genes are an inner counterpart used by the inner ego as involutionary blueprints for the creation of physical constructions in Framework 1. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material.

Moment point – a perspective defined by the present Now within the spacious present or simultaneous time. An energy personality essence like Seth, as well as each one of us, live in the moment point, limited only by our abilities to focus all of our senses, inner and outer. Discussed in detail in How to Develop Your ESP Power: The First Published Encounter With Seth.

Natural aggression – is simply the power to act creatively in the moment. In purely human terms, it is a natural psychological mechanism whose intent is to communicate feelings of transgression in order to avoid violence. In larger terms, a flower bursting forth from its bud, a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, or a human birth all involve a natural aggression which is the creative impetus toward action, growth, and fulfillment.

Natural aggression is an innate part of the conscious mind and our free will. It is not to be confused with artificial or pseudo-aggression and the related violent outbursts of blocked impulses. When natural aggression, in terms of emotions and feelings, is blocked by the conscious mind to any great extent the result are pathologies like neurosis, psychosis, violence, and war. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Natural grace – a condition in which all growth is effortless. It is a transparent, joyful acquiescence that is an essential part of all existence. Our bodies grow naturally and easily from the time of birth, not expecting resistance but taking their miraculous development for granted; using all of itself with a great, gracious, creatively aggressive abandon.

We are all born into a state of grace. Therefore, it is impossible for us to ever leave it. We share this blessing with the animals and all other living things. We cannot ‘fall out of’ grace, nor can it ever be taken from us. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Natural guilt – our innate moral intuition that holds the corporeal sense of justness, mutual understanding, and integrity that leads to maximum value fulfillment between all living creatures. It is our innate knowing that there is never a need not kill or destroy more than we need for physical sustenance. When we violate this integrity, we experience an inner knowing that the next time a similar situation occurs that we need not repeat a previous action.

Natural guilt does not require penance or punishment, just a knowing that we crossed a line and should not repeat the behavior. Ignoring, blocking, or repressing natural guilt creates behaviors that lead to a host of imbalances such as war, pandemics, the destruction of environmental resources, and other species. Our conscious minds are graced with the ability to poise and reflect upon any decision or course of action we choose. So natural guilt is an innate mechanism meant to lead us to a sense of balance and equilibrium within All-That-Is.

Artificial guilt is similar to natural guilt in that is also is the result of a moment of reflection. However, it is far more rigid, dogmatic, and inflexible resulting in a set of “thou shalts” that lead to all sorts of imbalances, dysfunctional behaviors, pathologies, and dis-eases. These result in strong beliefs in absolute definitions of right and wrong, good and evil, best or worst that create shame, low self-esteem, and the need for punishment. Our conscience is thus the result of artificial guilt. It is not to be confused with the innate, inner knowing that is natural guilt. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Natural hypnosis – the acquiescence of the subconscious to conscious belief as the subconscious accepts those orders given to it by the conscious mind. We constantly serve as our own subject and hypnotist, giving ourselves suggestions that constantly reinforce our belief systems. What we believe to be true, is true for each of us. For example, money is the root of all evil, I need a flu shot to protect me during flu season, my body is dirty, ugly, or fat, etc.

When we have our own undivided attention we can use our ability to concentrate our intention and focus our conscious minds to reinforce and affirm any new beliefs that we wish. Five to ten minutes is all you need to accomplish this each day. When selected new beliefs don’t conflict with others and resonate strongly with your own natural intent, the resulting changes in our lives can be immediate and startling. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Natural law – a related concept derived from the laws of the inner universe. These are not the scientific laws of nature like gravity, but based upon the inner laws of the universe that are intended to guide all aspects of All-That-Is to their maximum value fulfillment. It stresses cooperation over competition, safety, love, and compassion as traits intended for individual and collective balance, harmony, and equilibrium. Discussed in detail in The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events.

Natural time/clock time – we live in a universe, a galaxy, a solar system, a planet with a moon that all follow certain rhythms reflecting the great dance of All-That-Is. Natural time guides the seasons, letting the flowers know when to bloom, the trees to sprout leaves and drop their seeds. The seasons guide the birds to know when to migrate to warmer climates with better food supplies, the farmers when to plant their crops, and on and on. Sunrise and sunset mark the boundaries of countless human activities. Following the rhythms of natural time allows us to be in touch with our planetary, seasonal rhythms, all of which reflect the manifestation of inner rhythms that are geared to promote the deepest value fulfillment in all species.

Clock time or assembly line time is an artificial, manmade creation that is the result of the outer ego’s fear that it is at the mercy of the elements, needing tools to better predict and control its environment. According to Seth, this was one of the most disastrous inventions in human history and has forced the species into an array of artificial habits that are not in sync with the planet, climate, weather, and environment. Time is inherently flexible and plastic, not absolute and clock time provides a false sense of stability where none is really needed.

This concept is not couched in a “back to nature” or “return to innocence” sensibility, but in a forward looking manner that is of critical importance for collective fulfillment and mutual understanding on a global scale. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material.

Official line of consciousness – there’s an aphorism that sex, politics, money, and religion are the source of most of our human conflicts. From small communities to large societies there is a natural process in which people align with commonly held belief systems to form a consensus reality. Peer pressure often results to force those holding different beliefs conform to its conventions. Most social upheaval occurs when underlying assumptions, called core beliefs, change, Most social harmony occurs when consensus is reached by a large majority. History is an ongoing pendulum that swings back and forth reflecting the natural process of mass belief systems aligning, then changing, then aligning, then...

As cultures evolve over time, a center of gravity or collective worldview emerges that embraces all the belief systems considered normal and abnormal, good and bad, healthy and pathological, etc. Historically, this center of gravity has evolved from foraging, to horticultural, to agrarian, to industrial, to informational. Each period of history, then, consists of belief systems that form the consensus reality of the culture. Discussed in detail in Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book.

Outer ego – if we use an iceberg analogy to represent the psyche, then the outer ego would be that surface or physical portion which “protrudes” into the physical field of space and time, drawing upon the source energy of the inner ego through the inner senses. This aspect of the psyche relies upon the outer senses to manipulate in physical reality. It forms our sense of individuality, our center of gravity of a multitude of personality traits, discerns conditions in the physical world and makes decisions accordingly. Prominent psychological qualities include thoughts, intellect, language, emotions, expectation, desire, and belief systems. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Outer senses – the senses of smell, taste, touch, hearing, and sight used by the outer ego to create its perception of the physical world.

Plane – what we conventionally consider the physical universe is but the thin outer “crust” of an infinite multiverse. The term plane describes this outer crust in relation to the vast unseen, unknown causal and subtle realities from which it all springs. Other synonymous terms are alternate, parallel, or probable universe. All hint at the multidimensional nature of physical reality. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material.

The Practicing Idealist – Seth combines the insights from Personal Reality and Mass Events. Taken together, they include four moral imperatives:

1. “Thou shalt not violate” (Nature of Personal Reality)

2. “We have never told anybody to do anything, except face up to the abilities of consciousness.” (Mass Events)

3. A call to Practicing Idealism (Mass Events)

4. “The ends don't justify the means.” (Mass Events)

The first and fourth are the innate, natural deterrents that let us know when not to repeat behaviors that violate. The second and third are clarion calls to personal growth, realization, and transformation toward worldcentric and postmodern worldviews. The former entreat us to act in harmony with natural law, the laws of the inner universe, and the latter to avoid fanaticism, murder, and other violations to achieve our goals in life. Scale that up to six billion people in varying stages of moral development, and we have a frothy mix indeed.

Seth does not provide a complete moral theory in these two books, because he couldn’t possibly explore every variation, but instead presented a general outline. However, when we integrate his cosmology (involution/evolution in physical, subtle, and causal fields), epistemology (high intellect that combines physical senses, reason, and inner senses), ontology (I-I-I), moral imperatives, along with research on moral development, we find a broad framework in which to adequately outline a moral and ethical approach. Discussed in detail in The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events.

Probable realities, probable selves – the multidimensional psyche exists as multiple lifetimes within simultaneous space/time frameworks. Each personality creates probable selves that split off into parallel dimensions. In this sense, the psyche is not a singular linear phenomenon, but a multidimensional “cloud” of personality potentials. Discussed in detail in The “Unknown” Reality, Vols. 1/2.

Psyche – another term for what is conventionally called the soul or spirit. The psyche is the bank of potentials from which all of our physical personalities emerge. It consists of a series of interpenetrated fields that include outer ego, inner ego, and Causal Consciousness. There is no aspect of the psyche is unconscious, as each one holds its own order of perception and memory. All orders of perception are available to the outer ego through the inner senses. Since the psyche is also innately bisexual, gay, lesbian, and heterosexual choices are all normal, natural, and healthy expressions of the psyche.

Taken together, all of these aspects form the holonically nested conscious mind. Though the specifics are new, the underlying ideas are not new at all. They can be found in premodern works of the perennial wisdom traditions. For example, if we add the Buddhist and Hindu formulations to the above, we get:

Taken together, they all point to the same underlying principles that have been known for millennia. Therefore, conscious creation is much more than just a thought process, visualization, affirmation, emotional affectation, belief system, perception, or cognition. That is only one third of the story! All the former are affects of the outer ego only, all of which, however, are made possible by the inner ego (subtle) and Causal Consciousness (causal) levels of selfhood.

As Seth states repeatedly, we are really conscious CO-creators. Any definition that doesn’t include the inner ego and Causal Consciousness levels of selfhood is really an egocentric and incomplete view. Put another way, only by learning to become consciously aware of our inner ego and Causal Consciousness will we truly become causal co-creators in concert with All-That-Is. Discussed in detail in The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression.

Primary Energy Gestalt, Pyramid Energy Gestalt, Primary Pyramid Gestalt – another set of terms to describe All-That-Is. See All-That-Is.

Psychic Manifesto – a lengthy poem in which Jane Roberts declared her psychic independence from modern science and premodern religions. Really a postmodern critique of their inadequacies to adequately describe her lifetime of transpersonal experiences. Published in The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (An Aspect Psychology Book).

Psychic Naturalist – a postmodern precursor to Seth’s dream-art scientists that move beyond the limits of premodern religion and modern science. This exemplar combines postconventional intellect and intuition to explore subjective and objective qualities of physical experience in a way that transcends preconventional superstition and conventional scientific materialism. Jane Roberts certainly was one. Published in The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (An Aspect Psychology Book).

Reincarnation/Reincarnational Selves – the human psyche is a source self capable of manifesting multiple lifetimes. In the context of a multidimensional universe that has multiple, parallel dimensions and space/time frameworks, the psyche manifests simultaneous incarnations, not reincarnations. Since the psyche is also immersed in simultaneous time – Frameworks 2, 3, 4, and “inward” – this means that there is no finished past or preordained future, no cause and effect, no linear reincarnations (but simultaneous manifestations that affect each other), and no karma in the premodern sense. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Root assumptions – the term used for what we conventionally believe to be universal laws or scientific laws, but are actually only local to Framework 1 constructions. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Seth as a fallible source – no one source of information can be considered absolutely infallible. Seth mentions unequivocally in session #47 that he is not to be considered an infallible source. This statement is in no way intended to diminish to depth, subtlety, and richness of the material, but cast it in a postmodern light that reveals its "true but partial" nature and tremendous potential for practical application in a variety of every day situations. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 2 of the Seth Material.

Seth material – the name given to the twenty-four books by Jane Roberts that were dictated by a transpersonal source named Seth and transcribed and edited by husband Robert F. Butts. Conventionally called a channeled body of information, Jane, Seth, and Rob all felt that this term was too narrow to capture the deep psychological connections involved.

In addition to the Seth-dictated books are fifteen books of fiction, poetry, and Aspect Psychology written by Jane Roberts that explore the implications and depth of the concepts offered by the Seth personality.

Jane Roberts lived from 1929-1984 and spent most of her life in Elmira, New York. She began channeling the Seth personality in December 1963 and continued until her passing in September of 1984. Taken as a whole, their life-long collaboration forms a contemporary expression of the perennial philosophy of unparalleled depth and richness in the Western postmodern world. It is consistently referred to as one of the top sources of metaphysical information by numerous scholars (Klimo, Hastings) and lay folk alike.

The Seth material is the second most visited collection and the only metaphysical body of work to be archived in Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library in New Haven, Connecticut.

Seth Two – Jane Roberts was a psychic virtuoso, holding the ability to experience a wide variety of non-ordinary states well documented in body of the Seth material. The Seth personality that she channeled was only the best known one. Seth Two is another personality further “removed” from physical reality who came through on occasion. Seth Two’s characteristics included a monotonal, emotionless voice that seemed somewhat alien to those who encountered “him.” Seth Two said that he did not understand our physical reality in any direct sense, but that he was intimately involved in nurturing and maintaining the inner realities that support it. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Sexuality, Gender, Orientation – the inner ego is the transsexual source of all gender and sexual orientation – “a bank from which sexual affiliations are drawn.” Since physical manifestation often includes hundreds of simultaneous lifetimes there are many permutations of gender, including male, female, and in between. As such, sexual orientation for each outer ego includes the potential for heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, and other choices. This means that all outer egos are inherently bisexual by design to some degree (thinking also of Carl Jung’s anima and animus). Therefore, gay and lesbian orientations are not pathological, but inherent choices for physical experience. In other words, heterosexual orientation, while certainly required for procreation in our Framework 1 is not the only orientation available. Discussed in detail in The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression.

Simultaneous time – a paradoxical metaphor used to describe how multiple linear space/time frameworks can co-exist in parallel dimensions. Also, how the psyche can manifest multiple simultaneous personalities throughout the physical field. In the context of Frameworks 1 and 2, there are nine dimensions available within any moment point:

One way to understand this seeming paradox is to imagine each of the nine aspects of linear space/time as “dimensions.” Each dimension has its own integrity and a psychological “boundary” formed by our physical and inner senses. It is possible to “cross” these boundaries through the conscious use of our inner senses. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Sleepwalkers – Seth’s mythic, archetypal expression of the origin of all physical species and our universe literally dreaming itSelf into existence. The sleepwalkers are subtle field, energy personality essence progenitors that created the blueprints for the physical field “before the beginning.” After the beginning they support and maintain our universe as evolution unfolds. Discussed in detail in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1.

Find out more about Seth on “The Origins of the Universe and of the Species” – An Integral Conscious Creation Myth.

Spacious present – another term used to describe the vastness of causal and subtle fields of inner reality. Actually looking at the actions of simultaneous time, Frameworks of Consciousness, and All-That-Is from a different angle. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Subconscious – if we use an iceberg analogy to represent the psyche, then the subconscious portion is that buffer zone between the air (outer ego) and water (inner ego) that provides a psychological gateway through the inner senses between the outer and inner egos. Its primary job is to support the outer ego by handling the vast amounts of physically related data, like digestion, skin cell growth, breathing, heart rate, etc. that would otherwise overwhelm it. The subconscious also serves to translate inner source energy in the form of innate impulses, impressions, intuitions, and intention into cognitive formats the outer ego can understand such as thoughts, intellect, language, emotions, expectation, desire, and belief systems.

Seth uses this term differently than philosophers like Berdyaev and Wilber. The latter use subconscious to apply to early hominid development that was prepersonal and pre-egoic in the physical field. Seth’s definition applies to a mediating structure between physical and subtle fields. So Seth’s subconscious exists in the subtle field, and Berdyaev and Wilber's subconscious exist in the physical field. Thus, they describe different, though complementary structures of the psyche. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

The Sumari development – a trance “language” expressed as poetry, singing, pantomime, and math. Sounding like a Romance language, its purpose is to structure inner experience in such a way as to resist being translated into stereotypical belief systems. Discussed in detail in Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology.

Find out more about Thought-Bird Song — a Sumari poem by Jane Roberts.

“The Point of Power is in the present” – all action really occurs in what Seth terms, the Spacious Present – i.e. there is no finished past or preordained future. So our real power lies in our ability to exercise our ability to make choices and take action now in any area of our lives. Discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality.

Tissue capsule – the inner, subtle energy boundary found in each individual’s energy field. This energy field is well documented in Eastern metaphysical traditions and recent scientific investigations. Einstein’s famous equation – E=MC2 – reflects that all matter is essentially a super-dense form of energy or light. Thus human body can be thought as a complex energy form with its own boundaries. Each one of us has a physical (outer) and psychic (inner) boundary that helps us maintain the form of our physical bodies. Discussed in detail in The Seth Material.

Value climate of psychological reality – describes the vastness and quality of causal and subtle fields. Actually looking at the actions of Frameworks of Consciousness and All-That-Is from a different angle. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 2 of the Seth Material.

Value fulfillment – a natural law, or law of the inner universe according to Seth. It is a foundational principle in which all consciousness works together in a cooperative venture to allow for maximum development of each individual consciousness in relation to All-That-Is. In other words, individual growth, happiness, abundance, and value are innately nurtured by the universe itself but not at the expense of other life forms, instead, in full cooperation toward the maximum benefit of one and all. Discussed in detail in Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1.

Vitality – causal energy in its most basic context that provides the inexorable impetus for the becoming, unfolding, and development of all aspects of consciousness—All-That-Is. Seth later went on to describe this foundational creative force as consciousness units (CUs) in The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1. Discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material

World views – “a living psychological picture of an individual life, with its knowledge and experience, that remains responsive and viable long after physical life is over.” While physical, our world view is an action – the living lens through which we each perceive the world. It’s the psychological filter that contains all of our belief systems and experiences about God, life, the universe, and everything. The deepest aspects of our outer egos and inner egos thus express themselves through our world views. Changing any belief alters our world view and changes the way in which we perceive reality.

Nonphysically, world views are that aspect of the outer ego that survives physical death that can contact the living, though according to Seth, contact with a nonphysical world view is not the same as a living world view. Jane Roberts autotyped three books that explored world views of two “dead” artists and a philosopher, The World View of Paul Cézanne: A Psychic Interpretation, The World View of Rembrandt, and The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James.

© 2005 Paul M. Helfrich, All Rights Reserved.

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