Mike's commentary · Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Session 928

The "Introduction" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter centers on the "primary events" Seth proposes: events whose impetus lies outside time while their effects are felt within time, from which the birth of the universe and the major events of human history all derive. Time arises from ideation, and the categories of history are formed by human association and the focus of consciousness. Seth uses creation stories, Christianity, and the figure of Christ as examples to show how inner events become embedded in history. The latter half records Jane's physical restlessness and Seth's explanation of her recovery.

Key Points of This Chapter

• A primary event is one whose impetus exists outside of time, while its effects are felt within time.
• Time arises from ideas, and the categories of history are formed by human association and the focus of consciousness.
• The universe does not emerge from nothingness, but is the concrete manifestation of highly concentrated inner effort and inspiration.
• The biblical creation story and the accepted image of Christ are symbolic representations of primary events; the related events occurred on another level of actuality and were later embedded into human history.
• Jane's body showed agitation, which Seth described as a process of bodily correction, the resetting of neural patterns, and muscular recovery.

Main Text

Seth Speaks of "Main Events"

Hello everyone, I'm Mike. Today let's continue sharing with you all Session 928 of Volume 2 of the Seth book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment. This session began on Wednesday evening, November 12, 1980, at 9:19.

Rob said that since Jane had given Session 922 a month earlier, she had given five more regularly scheduled non-book sessions, and a small portion of three of those sessions included Seth material for herself, that is, private sessions. On October 30, Sue Watkins called to tell us that she had finished writing Volume 2 of Conversations with Seth¹, and that Prentice Hall had decided to publish the book².

As for Jane, many specific changes had taken place in her body today. By dinnertime, she had become so unlike her usual self and so miserable that she didn't know whether she would be able to hold the session. This morning she mentioned that Seth might resume work on this book, since it had been interrupted for over a month, and because of that feeling, she spent some time rereading the records for this book. After dinner, at her request, I gave her some ice wine, and began writing these notes while waiting to see what would happen.

In fact, Jane had become quite housebound. She spent her time giving sessions, writing her poetry, and then painting. For a long time now, I had been the one responsible for outside contact. I will write out her Monday evening session in Note 1, referring to the private or deleted portion. Rob will add back those deleted portions to give an overview of the main challenges in Jane's life as well as in my own life. Lately we sometimes felt quite discouraged, yet Seth had a different view of it.

Because her body had become so severe that she could no longer go out, and it was even getting worse. They were actually quite angry, because they had not seen progress, but rather saw regression. But Seth's viewpoint was not the same as theirs. He said that our struggles, our challenges, and the hardest thing for us to do, was to understand the Seth material as much as possible — actually, relative to their difficulties, understanding the Seth material might be even harder.

After Jane had drunk some wine, at 9:16 she said, "At least I feel he is around." During the delivery she paused many times.

All right, here we go.

The "Work" Behind Events

Seth comes right out and says:

The main events, then.

The main events are the events we see in our three-dimensional world. He defines them as the main events. Actually, "main" does not mean they are the main ones, but for those of us living in the three-dimensional world, these are the main ones.

The main events involve those works or actions whose main thrust exists outside of time, yet whose effects are felt within time.

That is to say, the things that happen in our world all depend on things outside our world, outside our space-time. The causes behind these events all lie outside of time. And then these effects may suddenly appear within the category of time -- those events and actions outside of time produce certain effects within our space-time. The key point to remember here is "suddenly": it is not presented in a certain order or gradually, as we imagine. Very often it appears suddenly, rather than revealing itself slowly and gradually. Within our three-dimensional framework, it emerges suddenly.

Such activity in time, of course, in your terms, explains the origin of your universe.

The origin of our universe can only be explained outside of space-time.

There are dimensions of activity, then, that do not appear within time's structure.

That is to say, there certainly are dimensions of activity, dimensions of action, that are not within our space-time. Our space-time is only one of them; there are other dimensions of activity as well.

And developments that follow laws of development different from those you recognize, yet that occur quite naturally.

In other space-times, the laws of development are completely different from ours. What are laws of development? Our law of development is that things always have a cause, then they begin to develop, then reach a climax, and then come to an end -- this is generally the process by which things develop for us. But in other dimensions, the rules of development are completely different from ours -- they do not have the kind of process we recognize. It may be extremely fast, and the sequence may also be different. That is its characteristic.

Not just highly accelerated versions of time, that can occur on other levels of actuality.

This sentence is a bit hard to understand. What does it mean that highly accelerated versions of time can occur on other levels? Taking the context as a whole, what he means is: in some other space-times different from ours, their version of time is faster than ours, so the speed at which events occur is extremely fast -- for example, from the beginning of something to its end, it may be completed in an instant. In our human world, this process might take hours, days, months, or even years. In that space-time, the same event might be completed in a few seconds. That is what he is referring to.

Then he says here that it is not only the high-speed versions that occur on levels of actuality. Levels of actuality, that is, levels of certainty, are levels where things really happen, but not necessarily on our level -- rather on other levels, in other dimensions. This thing really happens; it is not a possibility. It is something that truly occurred, only not within our space-time.

Seth's meaning is that it is not the case that only those especially fast versions of time happen here; the slow ones are possible too.

But there are dimensions in which those versions do not impede the natural flow of events into expression.

It is not that because those versions of time are faster, they will reveal themselves in our space-time, or reveal themselves in other space-times; it is because in those versions of time, these events have no obstruction to their natural outflow, whereas in some versions of time, the outflow is obstructed and not allowed to flow out.

In other words, what does this mean? The same event -- I mean a large event -- has many facets. In the three-dimensional world there is one facet -- for example, you see a certain president assassinated, and you do not know the reasons behind it. You can only explain it using your three-dimensional reasons: there was a madman, a lunatic, or it was a political murder -- you can explain it in a pile of ways. But the event of the president's murder, within a larger event, is only one facet. In our event it manifested, but there is another possibility -- that the president was not assassinated, or the shooter missed, or the president only suffered a minor wound, and so on. That version did not flow out within our time framework; but in other probable times, in that space-time, it really happened -- the president was also shot, and was also attacked. In that space-time it is that version; in our space-time it is this version.

That is what he means. As for exactly in what space-time, what kind of event, with what kind of facet, and in what way the different versions of the same event are displayed -- he does not go into specifics. He only says that some versions do not impede the natural outflow of events, so they seep through. Here he uses the word "seep." Because that thing is not in our space-time -- first of all, that thing is not in our space-time. So at this time, in this space-time, what you experience is the process of the president being shot and killed; yet within that process, the things of that version flowed out naturally in that space-time, but were not expressed in our space-time.

Versions of Time and "Duration"

Once again, your closest approximation, the closest approximation for you, would be the experience of time in the dream state, or those instances in your dreams or in other states of consciousness where complex problems suddenly solve themselves for you.

When he talks about different versions of time, he says that an approximation that is easier for you to understand is how you experience time in dreams. The dream itself takes place outside your space and time; you do not even know where you are, and you do not know what time it is happening in. Of course, as the one dreaming, you think it is happening in the present, but very often when you are dreaming, you also know that what you are experiencing is not the present moment—many people have this feeling. Even while he is dreaming, he knows that this event is not happening now, because, for example, he can see people who have died, or the people and scenes from his childhood, and he clearly knows he is not in this space and time. He is also experiencing his own time, but that time is not within our time—it is in another kind of time. This includes out-of-body experiences, meditation, and lucid dreams; they all have this feeling. The time you experience in those states is not within our space and time, yet it also seems to be within our space and time—because your dream happens during the period when you are sleeping at night, but the events themselves cannot be contained within that time.

Then there is another kind, where a very complex problem suddenly gets solved. A very complex problem that you cannot figure out no matter how hard you try suddenly gets solved for you. What does this mean? It means that solving this matter might take a very long time—perhaps weeks or months—but suddenly the result is given to you. The only way to explain it is that in another time-version of space-time, the events there unfold faster than they do on our side. For example, the same matter is very thorny, you do not know how to handle it, you are caught between a rock and a hard place, and then suddenly while dreaming at night, or not in a dream but suddenly an event in daily life triggers an inspiration in you, and you know how to do it, and once you do it, the result is excellent. In many cases like this, it is because in another reality, another version of space and time, that matter has already been completed, and that result is exactly this one; when that result is given to you, you know the answer. The speed over there is fast—relative to your time here. Perhaps they do not feel it is fast over there, but relative to your space-time, it is fast.

Hence those instances in which the answers appear before you fully formed.

Because he has already done it all, so of course what is given to you is an optimal solution.

Then there is a duration that has nothing to do with the time you understand.

He emphasizes this word again: duration. Some durations have nothing to do with your time. For example, this one segment of our dreaming—we can call it a duration—that is, a period of time, an interval. Within this duration, within this interval:

Psychological actions that manipulate time and yet are apart from it.

What is the characteristic of this duration? Within it, you also manipulate time—you certainly have to experience it, talk and chat with people, experience some events, so you certainly experience time, but it is also separate from your present time. This kind of psychological activity is called a duration. You can also understand it as a needle of time, or a block of time. I have given some examples before: you can imagine it as a transparent block of time, and within this block of time some things also happen—you meet a certain person and chat with them, or there are some story plots, all of which happen within this transparent block. Within this transparent block there is a concept of time, but that time has no scale and no frame of reference; there are no markings, no reference points. Therefore that time is separate from the time you ordinarily understand—because it has no reference, no frame of reference, you have no way to measure it.

So this is a very interesting kind of time. You can imagine it this way: if our time is a long river, a small stream, then these durations are transparent blocks, one by one, floating on that river or stream. They are not affected by the reference frame of your river-time. This small block can float anywhere, and no matter how it floats, it does not affect the story-like quality, the experience of time, and the feeling of time that happen within that interval. So it can happen in your dreams, in your real life, in your memories, in your feelings under hypnosis. None of that matters; what matters is that the event happens within this interval. This interval is a relative system, completely isolated from our time system. I call it a transparent block—the river water does not rush through it, nor does it flow past it; it floats above this time and does not belong to this time. But we still have to experience it within this time system—you can only experience that dream-time within the time of sleeping, and yet the dream-time may be much longer than the time you spend sleeping. For example, the dream of the yellow millet: in the time it takes to cook one pot of yellow millet, he experienced a lifetime of several decades. How exactly do you calculate that? This is what he means.

The Birth of the Universe

The sudden emergence of any complete universe implies an unimaginably magnificent development of organization.

The birth of a universe proves that it has a magnificent structure and a magnificent development -- an unimaginably magnificent development.

That universe did not simply emerge from nothingness.

In our everyday speech we always ask, where was this universe born from? From nothingness, from something called the Taiji, the Wuji, chaos. That is what we think. But whether it is the Taiji or chaos, it is not that there is nothing there at all. There is something there, but its dimension is a higher-dimensional kind of existence. From this angle of yours, you cannot explain it, or you cannot unfold it, so to you it appears to be a sheet of chaos, a sheet of nothing at all -- but inside it, everything is there.

It is indeed a complete, specific version of an inner, highly concentrated effort.

He says that when this universe was being born, it certainly went through a highly concentrated effort -- and remember, not just any ordinary effort. In Volume One he talked about the process of the birth of the universe -- the series of things that happened before the birth, at the moment of birth, and during the process of birth. He spent many sessions on it. In the course of that process you can understand that the birth of this universe concentrated a high degree of energy, a high degree of effort -- within the dream of the high-dimensional consciousness of All That Is, how to create such a universe. It is not as we imagine, that it came out bit by bit from nothingness -- from nothing at all to a little bit, and then a little bit more. It was not like that. The moment it was born, everything was already there.

A specific manifestation of an inspiration, suddenly entering into physical actuality.

It just suddenly came in. This specific manifestation of an inspiration means that All That Is had an idea, he had a world in his mind, and he had already imagined this world to a state of great perfection -- every species, every structure, every relationship of relative positions, he had thought it all through very clearly, and then this universe was born. You could call those things the specific manifestation of his inspiration. So the universe was not born from nothingness; the universe was born from a definite, concentrated effort, from a complete and specific version.

That activity, that work, exists behind all the structures, organizations, and experiences with which you are familiar.

That activity is the activity outside our space-time; that work is the work that results from a highly concentrated effort. It exists behind all the structures, all the organizations, all the experiences we are familiar with -- all of these are composed of it. Without those, there would be no physical world of ours.

Then he says: "Please wait for us a moment." Then he continues:

The world of ideas permeates physical reality everywhere.

The world of ideas permeates our physical reality everywhere. But even when ideas are not expressed, they still possess their own organization, their own correspondences, and their own circles of activity and development. What he means is that ideas have their own existence; they permeate our physical world and let us feel that the physical world manifests in this way. But they do not depend on our physical world to exist -- they have their own independent space of existence, their own completely independent reality, their own development, and they do not depend on the development of our world.

The main events, then, emerge from that idea reality in which all ideas originate, and through natural correspondences, unify those ideas.

So where does this main event, a big event, come from? It emerges from these idea realities. From that reality which is the source of all ideas, a main event emerges. Then through natural correspondences -- remember this word "natural"; natural means automatic, spontaneous, autonomous, requiring no human intervention -- it unifies those ideas. What does unifying those ideas mean? Because a main event emerges from among those ideas, and when this main event emerges, it is already a synthesis that has unified those ideas. It is not a single idea; it is a synthesis that has unified those ideas, and then it emerges as the kind of event we see today. It is a result that takes into account all the various ideas.

Every specific manifestation you know has its non-specific counterpart in which it forever exists, from which it comes, and to which it returns.

That is, every specific manifestation you see has a non-physical or non-specific counterpart. What does "non-specific" mean? It means that when you see something has indeed happened, behind it there is certainly a counterpart that is not specific -- that is, behind it there is a pile of different versions of this matter, so it is called non-specific, not concrete. So you understand that behind every specific thing there is a pile of non-specific things. The specific, definite things you see happening are determined by those uncertain things behind them. What exactly are these non-specific counterparts? First, because they are themselves non-specific, it is very hard for you to define them; second, in the three-dimensional world it is also very hard for you to drag them all out, because you simply do not understand that world of pure ideas, so you cannot grasp all the relationships among them either. You just need to know this much -- every specific thing, every specific person, every specific event, from the smallest to the largest, is composed behind the scenes of these non-specific things.

Then he continues: those specific manifestations all come from those non-specific things, and ultimately they will return to that place as well -- that is the source. All the things of our physical world come from there, and they will also return there.

Your historical time is only one time species dwelling upon the earth.

The version of time you understand, the time of your human civilization, is only one of the time species dwelling upon the earth. There are many versions of time on the earth, and you are experiencing only one of them. There are many others besides -- even time has different versions, even history has different versions.

Time itself comes out of ideas.

Where does time come from? Time comes out of ideas. And ideas themselves are timeless -- ideas do not need time, yet time comes from ideas.

It paused for a long while.

So in those terms, there is no point where time began.

From this angle, there is no point at which time began. Because for ideas, ideas have no concept of time, and time is produced by ideas. So from your own viewpoint, such a statement becomes necessary -- for us humans, we need a starting point for time, we need a starting point for the universe, and this is necessary for us; but for other versions of time, it is not necessary.

Consciousness Focus and Association

Then at 9:40, he paused again for a long while.

It is almost impossible for man to see through the fact that it is through his own associations and focus that he forms the concept of historical categories.

Again, man cannot see through this. It is very difficult for man to see from within himself that what he calls history, what he calls historical facts, what he calls human history, the history of human civilization, is nothing more than his own associations and his consciousness focus—or the group consciousness focus—forming historical categories. Because man is inside it, just as we often say, you cannot see the true face of Mount Lu because you are standing in the middle of it³. When you are inside the mountain, can you see the whole shape of the mountain? You cannot. When man is inside history, can he see the whole picture of history? He cannot. When man is inside time, can he see the truth of time? You cannot either. Only when you jump out of it can you begin to understand and perceive something.

So this consciousness focus and your associations form your historical categories. You say you do not quite understand this. Let me give a simple example. Let us start from the individual level—we will not talk about humanity, because that is hard to explain.

For example, a person gets into a car accident, and his brain consciousness is completely wiped clean, but his bodily functions are fine. After being rescued and going through severe concussion, all his memories are gone. When he has no memory, I want to ask you: did those past few decades exist for him or not? For him, this is the history of his life—from birth all the way to age thirty, and at age thirty he had a car accident. So did those first thirty years exist for him or not? Does this history exist for him or not?

You say, that is not right—I can show him photos, his parents can prove it. Remember, what we want to say here is that man cannot see through all of this by himself. Of course, if you have outside help, that is different. Of course they can help him remember—look, this is your photo, this is so-and-so, this is your parent, your girlfriend, your child—you can help him recall in this way. But suppose there were none of these things, then would he not simply have nothing? Now, what are these things you give him? Are they not the bits and pieces of his past life, these records, these moment points—things with photos and videos as evidence. You show them to him, and these photos and videos as evidence—we can imagine them as a kind of consciousness focus. At that point we took a photo, at that point we recorded a video. We can treat these pieces of evidence as our consciousness focus, and we have stored them. The other consciousness focuses we have always had, but we have no evidence for them.

At this point you tell him, "Look, these are your consciousness focuses," and on top of that you tell him the stories you have, why? Because this consciousness focus is not complete—it is only point by point: what he looked like at three, at five, as he grew up, just little bits like that. Then what about the gaps in between? The gaps in between require him to associate and fill in on his own; he has to exercise his ability to associate. "From age three to five, there is not much to think about—I was in kindergarten, so it must have been like this." And so this segment of history comes into being. Then from five to eight, step by step, through association and consciousness focus, you fill in your history, you fill in the past thirty years of this person. And then you feel, "I have a history, I know where I came from, I know what I am about."

After a period of time—say a few months or a year or two—you become just like a normal person. Although your entire history before age thirty was told to you by others, was helped to be recalled by others, and that memory was indeed wiped clean, you can reshape it through this method. Later on, you become completely normal, as if the concussion had never happened.

We use an example like this to help you understand how our human history and the history of our entire society come into being—all of it is what you call time, this process of growing from childhood to adulthood, which is the most powerful evidence of time. You say, is there anything wrong with this? Let us first say, this is not about whether there is anything wrong with it—it is simply telling you how your concept of time is formed, how your concept of history is formed. If you set all of this aside, if there are no such reference points, you have no concept of time at all.

NASA's Isolation Experiment

NASA once conducted an experiment, recruiting a volunteer to live in an isolated environment⁴. They found one person, someone with very strong self-discipline -- I mean, normally he was the one chosen, and after the final selection, I forget who was selected, but it was a famous experiment. He lived in an isolated underground room for more than 200 days⁵. The original plan was for a one-year program, but after more than 200 days he could not continue. His food and drink were completely fine; the only problem was that he was given no time -- he had no means of keeping time, and his communication and interaction with the outside world carried no time cues whatsoever. No time means no time; everything else was normal, food, shelter, and so on were all normal. Of course, he also could not have contact with the outside, because if he had contact, wouldn't he know the time? He could not have contact with the outside world, and he had no concept of time. Then they tested how long a person could survive in that state.

After more than 200 days, the scientists, the organizers of the experiment, took the initiative to end it, because if they had not ended it, this person would have been in trouble -- because there was physiological monitoring, and what did the monitoring show? This person was already failing and was about to "die." At the beginning he was quite normal, reading every day, working out, exercising on his own, living a very regular life. Although there was no time, he still lived according to his own rhythm and his own routine, and all of that was quite normal. By the later stage of the experiment, he was already failing, often sitting there day after day doing nothing, just staring at one spot, his eyes fixed on that spot without moving.

You might say, wasn't this person's psychological resilience just not good enough? This person was selected from thousands of candidates. My impression is that she was a German female engineer or scientist; in any case, her self-management ability in daily life was far beyond ordinary people, someone who could be completely alone without any problem. But when the parameter of time was removed, after only a little more than 200 days -- which is not short -- she could no longer function, and her whole person fell into a kind of dazed, stupefied state. Later, after the experiment ended and she returned to normal society, she still had long-term aftereffects from the experiment, and her mental state also began to be somewhat abnormal, with episodes of trance-like confusion.

So this lack of a sense of time has quite a strong effect on people, on ordinary people in general. Because when you have no reference points at all -- actually, this experiment tells us why the first hundred-plus days of reading and working out were still fine, and why afterward it became like this. When you gradually lose the focus of your consciousness, lose association, because you have nothing to associate with. This is just like a solitary retreat: when you have nothing to associate with, your life is the same day after day for months, nothing ever happens, apart from eating you sleep, apart from sleeping you eat, with no reference points at all. Over time, you no longer have a precise concept of the time of your own life.

The Limits of Reason

The specialized use of so-called rational thought often narrows the neurological recognition of other kinds of experience that might have broadened its perspective.

To put it in one simple sentence: because we hold reason in such high esteem, we limit the cognition that the rest of our nervous system brings us -- things like dreams, intuition, inspiration, we ignore all of them, because we feel they are not scientific enough, not logical enough. So you can only know things from the standpoint of reason.

In dreams, in that respect, there is greater leeway.

In dreams this limitation is much less, but there is still some limitation, just much less.

Consciousness becomes more familiar with its own inner activity.

It is much better than when you are awake.

And it is even more familiar with the work and the behavior it carries on outside the biases of ordinary waking life.

What does "outside the biases of ordinary waking life" mean? It means the things outside our consciousness. Ordinary waking life has biases; it considers anything outside ordinary waking life to be abnormal. But those are the tasks and behaviors we carry out when we are not awake, and now we are becoming aware of them -- before, we had no awareness of them, no understanding of them, and now we are gradually becoming familiar with them. It turns out that we are not only meaningful when we are awake; it turns out that those non-waking states are also doing meaningful work, and what is more, they even influence the occurrence of events in this so-called waking world of ours. Because you become aware of them -- including your dreams, out-of-body experiences, and all such feelings, you become aware of them.

Genesis and Christianity

As the Bible says, the story of creation is a symbolic representation of a main event.

The first chapter of the Bible is Genesis, about how God created the world. This is a symbolic representation of a main event. I may have misspoken earlier -- this main event does not refer to an event in the three-dimensional world; the main event refers to that larger, multidimensional, more comprehensive event. This is a symbolic representation of a main event in the birth of the universe.

You see, there are many, many interesting things in Genesis. Although it is extremely simplified, what it says is very interesting -- it says "let there be light, and there was light"; let there be this, and there was this; let there be that, and there was that. On the last day it created man, and before that it created the mountains, rivers, and the earth, and so on. There are many details in it that you may not have noticed, but we will not expand on them today. Although it is simplified, it contains many interesting things.

A legend that became its own event.

So the birth of the universe was simplified in the Bible into the story of Genesis. The birth of the world and the birth of the universe is a main event, and then it was concretized into a symbol, which is Genesis. This symbolic representation becomes a legend of its own event -- it becomes a story, a beautiful legend.

Around which formed entire arts and cultures, religions and scholarship.

Around this legend, around this symbolic representation, our present religions, cultures, arts, scholarship, and science were formed. Seth's statement here is actually quite ironic -- he is saying that you have built your present human civilization around a symbol or a legend. And the main event itself, you do not understand at all. You have built your entire human civilization -- or rather, the civilization of the Western world -- around only a symbolic representation of this main event, around a legend.

The same applies to Christianity itself.

He says Christianity itself also came about this way.

For all of the seemingly historical events connected with the accepted Christ did not happen in physical material reality. They happened in another level of actuality.

Those historical events connected with Christ, including being burned to death and so on, did not happen in your world at all; they all happened in another space-time. But they did happen -- just not in our space-time, but in a parallel space-time, in another space-time.

But they were embedded into the framework of your reality.

How were they embedded? Through a collective consciousness, a collective idea, touching upon a character here and a historical event that was indeed widely known there, and mixing it together with the events of that time.

Until the two lines of activity were so entwined that you could not disentangle one without disentangling the other.

He said all of this very earnestly. How did he turn this matter of Christ, including the birth of Christianity, from a reality that never happened in our physical world into something that seemed to have happened in our physical world? He says the main reason in the middle is that in our world there was a figure, a protagonist, namely this Jesus. And then, those things that happened in that space-time, which did happen to that person, were linked to this person in our world and mixed together. After they were mixed together, these two lines became entangled, and in the end you cannot tell which is true and which is false. He says if you want to tell them apart, you would have to sort out both lines very clearly. But you cannot sort them out.

Why can you not sort them out? Because one happened in your world of ideas -- that main event happened in your idea-section. But the thing that happened in that idea-section did happen in another space-time, yet it did not happen in your space-time. However, it did happen in the world of ideas within your space-time -- that is, it happened in everyone's dreams, in everyone's world of imagination, in the inner cries of everyone's hearts.

Do you understand what I mean? For example, everyone hopes for a Bao Qingtian, an upright official who will help people resolve their suffering. When everyone's ideas are very strong, this Bao Qingtian appears. The five characters "Qing Tian Da Lao Ye" can be applied to any relatively honest official; his name was not actually Bao Qingtian, his name was Bao Zheng. But later we all called him Bao Qingtian -- this is how a mutual ring of collective human ideas forms such a process. I am just giving this example so you can roughly understand.

Seth has repeatedly mentioned this issue in many books. Why does he keep bringing it up? One reason is the influence of Christianity in Western society, and another is that he finds it very interesting -- something that clearly did not happen in your reality, yet you treat it as something that happened in your reality; you found a pile of evidence, a pile of things, and then treated it as something that really happened. Seth feels this matter can be used as a very classic case study, so he keeps talking about it: it clearly did not happen, but you treat it as if it did, and it even produced a religion, and even had such a profound influence on Western human civilization, still influencing the Western world to this day. He finds it very interesting and wants to emphasize it.

But his example was indeed not very well chosen, because this matter did offend many, many interests of Christianity, and many things they cannot accept -- it is equivalent to denying its factuality. But Seth never denied Christianity itself; he only said that in terms of the material-world occurrence of the matter -- he talked about this in Seth Speaks, about the three personalities of Jesus, the final process of the merging of the three personalities, and so on; we will not go into that again.

For it was the belief in events that did not occur in your world of reality that made history happen in certain definite forms.

This statement of his is very interesting.

Because in this world, you hold a belief in an event that did not happen -- this event did not happen in your world, but you wanted it to happen, you hoped it would happen -- and only then did history happen in certain definite forms. In the end, it happened just as you wished.

You might say, did it happen or not? One moment you say Christ Jesus was not crucified, the next moment you say it really happened. Some of his words here have very subtle meanings. He says these events did not happen in your world -- this is true, they did not happen; but history took a certain definite form -- remember, this form is the key -- it may not have been the event you wanted, but it happened in a certain definite form, and this happening exactly matched the unanimous ideas within the group belief. That is the process.

The clues and hints he gives us have already been laid out earlier: your categories of time and history are composed of your associations and focus. People form historical categories through their own associations and focus, and people cannot see this. There is no such thing as historical reality, or real history; it is all people's associations and focus.

For example, everyone was calling for a new religion, a new religion that broke with convention but did not deviate too much. Christianity played exactly that role at the time. Then all sorts of small clues emerged: for instance, his mother seemed to have given birth to him without being married -- was this not an example of divine conception? His name was Jesus, and everyone believed the representative figure of the new religion should be Jesus. Another example: you know there were many people who claimed to be children of God, not just Jesus alone. Even today there are many people who say they have connected to this or that, that they are the son of the Jade Emperor, that they are the reincarnation of Laozi. Such people are everywhere. We may laugh it off, but in that historical period, there were many people named Jesus. In that era, just like today's Peter, David, and Tom, there were far too many people named Jesus. One of these Jesuses said, I am the son of God. This clue happened to echo the imagination in everyone's hearts, and everyone said, you are the one, and then the story began. These many, many clues, many, many things, are all called certain definite forms. These definite clues, these definite forms, were associated and strung together by people, forming what we consider the real world of history. This is like storytelling in a village: someone's child is said to be incredibly capable out in the world, and by the end the story becomes so miraculous that even the person himself is a bit confused: who is this about, is it me? But as long as he is not around, everyone really believes it to be so.

Inner Events Are the Splendid Impetus

The important, splendid impetus of those inner events splashes outward onto the landscape of humanity, propelling humanity and civilization.

What are inner events? They are the realm of consciousness, the thoughts in our minds, our beliefs. We are calling for the birth of such a new religion, and this thing outward — he used the word "splash," which is very vivid — overflows, seeps into our world of reality, and when it manifests, it splashes out, and then propels the development of humanity and civilization. To put it simply, our inner beliefs, our collective beliefs, propel the development of human civilization; the things that happen outwardly are all responses to inner needs and inner calls. Although on the surface it seems that specific small events form history — that is our ordinary understanding — in fact it is the common inner will of all people that outwardly influences the material world, or in his words, splashes onto the landscape of humanity, and further propels the development of humanity and civilization.

Reading History from a Different Angle

You need to have a new perspective on history, a new understanding. When reading history books, look at it from a different angle: look at what the group consciousness was at the time, what the group beliefs were, and don't just look at specific events. When you think about problems this way, you can especially understand why Zhu Yuanzhang was able to succeed back then, why Zhao Kuangyin was able to rise up, why Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were able to rise up under the Qin Dynasty's harsh rule. This is the ancient Chinese wisdom summed up in the saying: water can carry a boat, and it can also overturn it⁶. The common people are like water: very gentle, with no fixed shape, not hard, very soft; the entire regime seems to float on the water of the common people. It looks calm on the surface, the water seems easy to bully, and the boat is never frivolous toward the water. But precisely, don't forget that water can carry you, and it can also overturn you. The core here lies in the change of consciousness, the change of group beliefs. Back then, the Kuomintang was so powerful, with so many troops, so why was it overthrown? Many reasons: too corrupt, including the four great families and so on. Even later, when they went to Taiwan, look at why in so many elections people would rather vote for the DPP than the Kuomintang. It is because the Kuomintang's image of corruption and the harm done to the common people have been deeply planted in the hearts of the people. Even if the DPP is not good, I still won't vote for the Kuomintang, because your corruption is truly unbearable to me. Speaking of human history and civilization, I mention this in passing.

The story of Christ was not nearly as neat and tidy back then as it is now

After a long pause at 9:55, Seth said:

In the beginning, the story of Christ was not nearly as neat and tidy as it is now.

The story of Christ was not as simple and clear as people now think, as if someone gave birth to him, and then this and that happened, with a very clear direction of development. It was not like that. The same is true of the Buddha, Shakyamuni. When later generations tell his history, it seems as if his life was very clear, but actually, at the time, it was very confusing, because he himself did not know what the answer was either. He studied under all the masters, eminent monks, and great virtuous teachers of his time, yet we never describe in any detail who he studied under or what he learned from them. During the Buddha's lifetime, there must have been people of even higher attainment than him, and he continuously drew nourishment from these people and learned the things that later became his teachings. But when history was written, none of this was mentioned at all. Instead it was said that the Buddha did not learn in the human world, that the Buddha learned before Dipankara Buddha. But if you had already studied for countless kalpas before Dipankara Buddha, then you would not need to cultivate at all, you would not need those six years of practice from age 29 to 36, would you? You would just become enlightened directly. You could say he had accumulations, from lifetime after lifetime of karma -- but according to the Buddha's own teaching, do we not all have such accumulations? We all inherently possess the Tathagata nature, we are all originally complete. Yet the Buddha, through six years of study in actual reality, stimulated his Tathagata nature, brought it forth, revealed it, and lit it up. So do we, in our actual lives, have such teachers, such a system, that can help us learn and light us up? So when you tell it that way, you fail to acknowledge his actual process of learning in real life, his exploration, his confusion, his inner struggle, as if he understood everything all at once. The same principle applies to Christ, as if Christ knew exactly what he was supposed to do, step by step -- none of that is true. All of it was written by later generations.

God Is Only One Version of Man

Because the accepted image of Christ that was finally established was placed in a god -- we turned Christ into a god, because he was the son of God, he was God -- one of the infinite versions of man. Can you understand this sentence? Man has many versions, many possibilities, and one of those possibilities became a god. Just as each of us has many reincarnations and many probable selves, isn't it certain that one probable self has already reached the state of the Tathagata, of Shakyamuni Buddha? That is certain. When man's possibilities are infinite, one of them must have reached the highest state. If we suppose that state is god, then god is one version of man; god is only one kind, one version of man. These gods have long been inseparable from the human psyche, because he is one kind of man, he is man, just a different version of man.

The accepted Christ was a composite of the psyche. Within his psychic role he carried the echoes of the old and new dispensations, an image just beginning to be filled in in time.

The Christ that everyone commonly recognizes is a composite of our collective psyche, created by a shared belief. Jesus was a psychic role, a psychic composite, a product of the group's beliefs. Within this psychic role, he simultaneously carried the echoes of two dispensations, old and new: one was the ancient God, the God who made a covenant with the Jews, the Old Testament; then God sent a Jesus, who put forward new ideas. These two echoes of the old and new gods resonated with each other. When Christianity was first born, this was an image just beginning to be filled in in time. This image was a psychic product, and it matched the reverberations of both the old and new conceptions of God. There was a group of old people who had a response to God, and a group of new people who had a new need and expectation of God, and then it gave them a response. The echoes of the two came together. Although that image began outside of time -- of course it began outside of time, it was not produced in our world -- it ultimately took shape within our time and became a real historical figure. So that Jesus, from the perspective of that time, was himself completely muddled, not knowing what was going on, and he was pushed forward as this leader, and was nailed to the cross very early on. He also did not know what was going on, so he did not say much of anything.

Paul's Vision

He once again emphasizes that primary events come first, not specific events. Here the primary event comes first, meaning an event on the level of thought, of idea, takes place; a psychological event takes place, and that is the primary event. It does not emerge out of specific events; rather, it produces specific events, and specific events respond to these primary events. These are all nonphysical events, events not of the reality realm, not of this reality of ours.

Keep in mind here that Paul, also called Saul of Tarsus⁷, is another name for Paul, and he had visions. Paul could open the third eye; he had this special ability, but many people have it. After he opened it, he saw the light of Christ and also heard his voice, but what he saw and heard were not things of this world. If they were of this world, he would not have needed his vision to see them; everyone would have been able to see them. Because those were things of another world, another time and space, and in that world, that event did happen -- that Christ Jesus was indeed a religious leader. So he saw it and heard it. But Paul had never met a man of divine heritage, sent to earth by his father to live the accepted life of Christ and be crucified, nor had he communicated with such a man.

Paul had a vision that corresponded to the needs, wishes, and demands of his own psyche.

Remember, this vision was a need of his psyche. Was it real? You could say it was real, but more than that, it was a need of his psyche, an inner need, his wish, his demand. He needed such a religious leader to appear, and then he saw it, and he thought it had really happened in this world. Here it is emphasized again: we should not define what is real and what is unreal. You might say, well, it must have happened in another world -- we can only use language like that. If you are still hung up on which one is real, then look at Seth's definition of reality in the previous session: reality is a mental activity. If you are still hung up on what reality actually is, then you may still need to break through the illusion of three dimensions. So the things he saw were all the needs of his own heart, the needs of his psyche. Some people say, I saw this, I saw that -- whether you see Christ, Jesus, God, or the Buddha, it is the same principle: you have satisfied the needs of your own psyche. When your psyche has no such need, you will not see these things. So this is what the Buddha ultimately meant when he said, all appearances are illusory⁸. These visions are also a kind of appearance. What does illusory mean? It means produced by you.

Yesterday I saw a title written by Teacher Yang Ning; I only read the title, and it was very interesting. He said, "I want to reach a state of no-self" -- doesn't that sound interesting when you hear it? First he emphasizes "I"; I want to reach a state of no-self, which is itself a paradox. You first have to emphasize that there is an "I" in order to reach a state of no-self, so how can it be achieved? The principle is the same. Today we are not exploring that ultimate topic; what we are exploring is the influence of primary events on specific events in the birth of human civilization.

And his psyche was connected with the world of his time.

Paul's psyche needed such a figure, and his vision saw such a figure, and then in his experience there were certain clues along these lines, and he took this person and used him for his own purposes. Because his psyche was connected with his time, he represented the ideas of that era. His vision followed the pattern of the stories about Christ that he had heard; that story had already begun to brew a great longing in him, and then it was expressed in that vision. He had heard the stories about Christ circulating: there was a new religion, there was a Christ in the world, God had sent his child to save us. Then this great longing produced the vision, and he saw Jesus and Christ. This is perfectly normal; do not think of it as some kind of miracle. Many people call it a miracle, but it is perfectly normal.

Let me say a bit more about this. Many people -- I mean more than twenty or thirty -- have told me in conversation that during meditation they saw me, in different scenes, at different times, in different states, seeing me doing this or that. These dozens of people each said it was vivid and real. Many of them sent voice messages at the time, some in text, and I have written records of all of it. Of course, since it involves privacy, it is not convenient for me to post it all for everyone, but I can only tell you that this kind of thing happens a lot. They said, I heard Teacher Mike, I heard Mike; some asked, did you see me. Do you understand what this means now? That was a need of their psyche. Once you understand this principle, you can understand how Jesus came into being. So do not mythologize it too much, and do not be overly obedient to or overly serious about what the so-called third eye sees or what is seen in visions, thinking that is the real world, the way the world originally is. That is merely another illusion; you have moved from this illusion into another illusion.

Christianity as a Creative Organizational Framework

For many centuries, Christianity served as an admirable, creative organizational framework.

Seth has to admit that Christianity's organization is extremely rigorous, strict, and highly effective. It has played its due role in human civilization and has had positive aspects as well.

It expressed the vast complexity of the soul's reality.

It at least provided one possibility, demonstrated one possibility. For example, its extreme dualism is also a kind of vast complexity, also one of the possibilities. It is not as all-encompassing and harmonious as the East. If we must speak in terms of spiritual attainment, then clearly the Eastern attainment is higher than the Western. Because in Eastern philosophy and culture, people knew very early on that there is no good or bad, no right or wrong, that everything is harmonious and natural. You can see this very clearly in the Tao Te Ching⁹. Laozi could not have been clearer: high and low depend on each other, and even in governing a country you should not declare this good and that bad, nor should you prize rare goods. The entire East is closer to the essence of this world. Whereas the West is always about good and bad, right and wrong, angels and devils, justice and evil, darkness and light — always this same set. This set is a bit like a children's picture book, but it is very easily accepted by the broad masses of ordinary people, because it is too easy to understand: good guys and bad guys, light and darkness, justice and evil — even a child can understand it. But Eastern philosophy, many foreigners cannot understand, because fundamentally they cannot grasp the concept that in this world there is no good and evil, no good and bad, no right and wrong. So Seth says that Christianity is also a vast complexity of human reality, a vast complexity of the soul's reality. Experiencing life within the extreme black-and-white, right-and-wrong framework is still a kind of experience. Western society still operates under this model to this day, and it operates quite well. Look at Hollywood movies — every day it is good guys defeating bad guys. Within these seemingly naive and comical plots, everyone is happy and content, and that is fine too.

Christianity, in its own way, even managed to gather humanity's less desirable attributes onto a target that was less condemned than in the past.

Christianity also has positive effects. In its own way, it placed the attributes that humans consider bad into a position much better than before. Previously they were more condemned, more blamed. These human attributes, such as the pursuit of pleasure, were previously all unacceptable. This tradition is not unique to the West; it exists everywhere in the world. How can you pursue pleasure? How can you be happy? How can you laugh like a fool? How can you be like this? Should you not come to atone for your sins? Should you not humbly prostrate yourself before nature, before God, before all spirits, and live a lowly, cautious life? Who are you? You are a tiny human being. How can you still laugh wildly and recklessly between heaven and earth? You may say my example is exaggerated, but just look at the history of the Middle Ages. For a very long period of human history, humans did not laugh, had no joy, no happiness. Because they were punishing things that should not have been punished in the first place. And the benefit of Christianity is that it placed some of these things in a place where they were not so harshly blamed. Although still blamed, they were not blamed as much as before. Look at the countries where Western Christianity flourishes today — they have become much more relaxed and enlightened, basically with not too many restrictions, though there are still many. For example, according to strict Christian doctrine, abortion is not allowed, even if the pregnancy resulted from rape. You might think this is absolutely ridiculous — how can there be such a law? Especially in modern America, America in the 21st century. In Texas, I recall a law was just announced: once a pregnancy exceeds a certain number of weeks — eight weeks or twelve weeks, I cannot remember exactly — abortion is not allowed¹⁰, even if the pregnancy resulted from rape. Why? Because according to Christian doctrine, life is given by God. How can humans snuff out a life? That is their religious logic. So it only placed a portion onto a target that was less condemned, not all of it.

Major events bring a wholly new interpretation of history

Major events of a specific nature bring a wholly new interpretation of historical events. Their intensity, power, and seemingly compulsive nature then exist precisely because their source is not concrete, but is drawn from the deepest source of the psyche.

When you can see through the concrete events of history, see the major events behind them, see their specific nature, see the background out of which Christianity arose, the inner driving force, and then their intensity -- the intensity behind it, the power, and the seemingly compulsive nature -- why can Christianity keep thriving generation after generation, why is it so strong, so powerful, and seemingly compulsive? There are many compulsive things, for example, everyone has to give ten percent of their income to the church¹¹. Why is Christianity such a powerful thing, including all the dark secrets and scandals that have recently come to light, where their churches have harmed so many young boys and girls, minors, both boys and girls. If something this serious happened to any other organization, it would have been finished long ago, it would have been banned long ago. If this happened to any other organization, it would simply be banned by law, right? But when it happens to these churches, nothing happens, at most there is not even any legal punishment. You do not see any bishop, cardinal, or pope punished for it. Even if the organization's management was lax, you would at least bear indirect responsibility, but no, not even the main parties involved bear direct responsibility. In the end it just fizzles out, at most they come out and make a statement, apologize, and it is over. Why are they so powerful, why can so many things not bring them down? Because they come from the source of the psyche, from the needs of the social group. It is very hard to say whether the broad base of ordinary people likes the black-and-white, good-versus-evil dualistic way of looking at things, or whether Hollywood has influenced them, or whether it stems from the influence of religious culture on this kind of dualism. It is very hard to analyze who nourished whom, who brought about whom; they influence each other, promote each other, echo each other, and so to this day they still exist with great power, and the reason is that the masses have a psychological need.

All of this is material for the book.

In the last sentence Seth points out that this is material related to this book, and then it basically ends. At 10:13, after Seth expressed one or two thoughts comforting Jane, at 10:15 he said good night.

Jane's Physical Condition

Jane said, hey, I almost didn't make it to this session. His delivery was slow, but more enthusiastic than usual. Surprised and delighted, he said, well, I'll be damned, I glanced at the book for a bit today, but I didn't expect to get anything before next week. He hadn't expected to have a session today.

I didn't know I would get any material about Christ, and I'd bet that's why Seth didn't say this was book dictation. But I didn't ask. Because before starting, Seth would always say whether this was a private session, or book dictation, or advice for the two of you. But this time he didn't say it at the beginning; he went straight into the content, and only at the end did he say it was book dictation. Why? Before the session, Jane didn't feel the nervousness she used to feel when continuing to write a book; she felt much better now. She wasn't nervous, not the way she would be when starting to speak again after a long pause. And why didn't Seth say at the beginning that this was book dictation? The reason is that this involved a lot of material about Christ, and Jane had major reservations on this issue. Because the impact was too great. You can imagine the consequences of publishing this kind of book in Western society. In the early days of doing Seth Speaks and the early sessions, she didn't have these concerns, because at that time the books hadn't been published yet, and she didn't know what the social reaction would be. Once the books were published, many protesters went directly to the publisher to protest, saying how could this book be published, how could a book like this that slanders Christ Jesus and slanders the Son of God be published. Many people even wrote letters cursing her and threatening her. Of course, these negative things weren't mentioned in the books; she rarely mentioned them, only occasionally in passing, but not mentioning them doesn't mean they didn't happen. The publisher forwarded many reader letters, and many of them contained death threats or very serious threats. So later on, Jane actually became more timid; she was a bit afraid. It wasn't that she was afraid her life was being threatened; she was afraid she might have misled others, afraid that what she said might be biased, afraid she might be leading people astray. Sometimes she herself felt a bit dazed, because everyone said this was just stuff from Jane's own mind, that she might be schizophrenic, that a personality emerged from her, that it might be herself rambling. When everyone says these things, and they say them often enough, you start to feel a bit dazed. They even said that Jane's early unpleasant falling-out with the Catholic Church was as if Jane had deliberately come out to smear the Church. So later on Jane had some reservations, and Seth was also quite cunning, not saying it up front, and only at the end saying this was book content. According to their normal habit, as long as Seth said this was book content, Rob would put it into the book.

Notes from the private session of Session 927

Here I am giving some notes from the private session of Monday evening, Session 927.

Rob wrote:

Jane has been quite uncomfortable for most of the past month. His arms, legs, knees, and back have been rather painful, especially when he tries to sleep at night. I no longer wake him in the morning, because that seems to be his most peaceful rest time. He does not sleep well at night; his arms, legs, knees, and back all hurt. How can he sleep? He is quite uncomfortable, and his body cannot even lie flat. We have come to realize that all these physical changes are positive things. For example, I told Jane before the session that her arms are indeed stretching out straighter now, not always curled up as before. This afternoon, as she said, off and on for almost an hour, while she was working at the desk, her eyesight improved considerably. Lately he no longer walks by leaning on the typing table. He used to have a typing table with several wheels underneath, and he would push it along as he walked. Even though he still stoops badly, hunching his back like an old woman in the countryside, his steps from the table to the sofa are much steadier and better balanced. When I suggested that tonight's session should talk about him, he replied that Seth would say what he was going to say anyway.

Seth continued the session at 10:13:

Right now Ruburt's body is trying to correct itself. When he lies down, his body is trying to straighten itself out. The nerve patterns are being reactivated, the circulatory patterns are being strengthened, and now, in a concentrated and rather intensified physical restlessness, the muscles are contracting and stretching in their own motion.

So that is why Jane felt uncomfortable. His body was restless, his muscles kept contracting and stretching, it hurt, and the muscles kept moving. But Seth said this is a good thing.

You are accustomed to thinking that any physical restlessness is destructive. And because in your culture, your background has not given you much experience in this kind of situation, you tend to view this restlessness, or this agitation, in the worst possible light.

What he means is that this kind of agitation in the body's muscles is beneficial; it is recovering. Because the muscles have been atrophied for a long time, they need to recover, and at first it is bound to be uncomfortable. But Ruburt did feel some relief afterward. His steps to the sofa were steadier, and his back began to bend more naturally. Although it was more bent, it bent naturally, not twisted the way it was before.

It is very important that he understand and trust this situation.

In those circumstances, Jane did sometimes feel isolated and afraid, because he was afraid of dying. When a person reaches this state, he himself can feel that life is really hard to sustain for much longer. And just talking to him, or giving him a massage, can help. Seth said:

He can help himself by remembering what I have said, by gentle movement at such times, and including the state in which he is connected with Seth, transmitting this material, and by remembering the miraculous processes that are indeed supporting his body.

That is to say, Jane could help himself through these methods: remembering what Seth had said, through the trance state during transmission, through the warmth, massage, and conversation Rob gave him, and then remembering the miraculous processes within his body. Then Seth said that he was also discovering some splendid ideas on his own, about himself. Then the session ended, and Seth said good night. That was the content of the previous session, Session 927.

After Jane ended the session at 10:20, she said with a laugh, good heavens, I should go into trance more often. I am not aware of how I am sitting, and this is the most comfortable time of my day. In other words, normally Jane was very uncomfortable sitting there; her sitting posture made her very uncomfortable. But in the trance state, she had no concept of her body posture at all, and that was the most comfortable time of her day.

注释与核实

1. This claim could not be verified. ↩

2. Source: Jane Roberts, Robert F. Butts, Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Volume Two, 1986 (https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Jane%20Roberts%20-%20Seth%20-%20Dreams%2C%20evolution%2C%20and%20value%20fulfillment.Vol2%20%5BOCR%5D.pdf) ↩

3. Source: Su Shi, “Written on the Wall of West Forest Temple” (https://www.chinanews.com/hwjy/news/2010/06-08/2330989.shtml) ↩

4. Source: Brian Murphy, “Michel Siffre, scientist of solitude deep within caves, dies at 85” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/09/04/michel-siffre-caves-time-dies/) ↩

5. This claim could not be verified. ↩

6. Source: Xunzi, “Xunzi: The Regulations of a King” (https://ctext.org/xunzi/wang-zhi/zh) ↩

7. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Conversion of St. Paul” (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/336252) ↩

8. Source: Kumarajiva, trans., “The Diamond Sutra” (https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E9%87%91%E5%89%9B%E8%88%AC%E8%8B%A5%E6%B3%A2%E7%BE%85%E8%9C%9C%E7%B6%93%E3%80%94%E4%B8%89%E8%AD%AF%E6%9C%AC%E3%80%95) ↩

9. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Tao-te Ching” (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tao-te-Ching) ↩

10. According to Mike’s original words, “In Texas, I recall a law was just announced that after a certain number of weeks of pregnancy—eight weeks or twelve weeks, I can’t remember exactly—abortion is not allowed”; upon verification, it should be “Texas’s Senate Bill 8, passed in 2021, does not use eight or twelve weeks of pregnancy as the cutoff, but prohibits abortion after cardiac activity in the embryo or fetus can be detected (except in medical emergencies), with cardiac activity detectable as early as about six weeks of pregnancy.” (Source: Texas Senate Research Center, “Bill Analysis: S.B. 8,” 2021, https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/analysis/html/SB00008F.htm) ↩

11. This claim could not be verified. ↩