The "Introduction" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This session records the Seth session of September 10, 1980. Before the session, Rob discovered he had missed typing up the September 3 session. Seth opened by pointing out that Jane's body was repairing itself rapidly, because she had changed old beliefs; the body responds to beliefs immediately, and old beliefs will strike back, so she needed to stand firm and not retreat. Seth then criticized the educational system for suppressing children's natural inclinations and interrupting their focus, and spoke of how the natural person is covered over by layer upon layer of official beliefs, and how telepathy and the like are originally everyday natural patterns. He also commented on Rob's tree paintings, pointing out that writing books and the body's recovery are the same kind of creative ability. After the session, Rob recorded his regret at the lack of medical evidence.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Jane's body is undergoing rapid repair because she has changed many old beliefs.
- The body's response to belief information is always immediate, regardless of whether the result manifests right away.
- Old beliefs are alive; when they are being replaced, they fight back. Relapses are normal, and one needs to remain firm and not retreat.
- The educational system often suffocates children's natural human inclinations and interrupts children's natural habits of concentration.
- Writing books, composing poetry, and bodily recovery are the same creative ability; abilities such as telepathy are everyday natural patterns rather than isolated, strange examples.
Main Text
An Unexpected Event Before the Session
On Wednesday, September 10, 1980, at 8:48 in the evening1, the Seth session began as usual. But before it started, Rob first recorded a small incident: at 8:30 in the evening, he had already typed up the very short session from Monday—the one we covered last time. He said that last night he had forgotten to type it, because he had been too absorbed in proofreading The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. When he filed the typed session into his personal file number twenty-three, he was surprised to find that the shorthand notes he had originally taken for the September 3 session were clipped in there. And because he had forgotten they were clipped there, he had also forgotten to type up that session.
He said, I believe that in well over a thousand Seth sessions2, that was the first time I ever forgot to type one up. He had deliberately skipped a few sessions before because he was busy with other things, saying he had intentionally left a few untyped, skipped them. But he had never forgotten any session—he could deliberately not type one, but he had never forgotten one. Jane had been thinking about the September 3 session, but when she asked him about it a few days earlier, he had told her that all the recent information had been included. At the time he had wondered to himself why she would ask that question. Because out of all those more than a thousand sessions, Rob had never missed typing up a single one, but he had missed the September 3 session alone. You see, Jane has intuition. She specifically asked him, what about the September 3 session? He thought it strange that she would ask that, and said it had already been included. In fact, it was not until September 10 that he discovered he had never typed up the September 3 session at all. Rob would first take down the session in shorthand, and then type it out on the typewriter the next day.
Jane's State and Seth's Opening
Once again, as they prepared for the session, Jane was very relaxed. She said, actually I could go to bed right now -- she was very sleepy, very tired. You have to take her body into account. She was no longer an ordinary person; she was not like us normal people who are full of energy at eight-something in the evening. By that point she could only be active twice a day, each time only able to walk about ten steps or so, and most of the joints in her whole body could no longer move. So by evening she was already very exhausted. She said, but it is still too early. If I go to bed now, I will be up all night. But right now I do not feel Seth around, so let us just see. She said, there are all kinds of unfamiliar sensations in my spine, but they are good sensations. How does Seth sit? I cannot sit very comfortably, but there are all kinds of good sensations in her spine.
Actually, we all know this -- anyone who has been sick knows this. When you are almost better, you actually feel itchy, or you have all kinds of sensations. When those sensations come, it does not mean you are getting worse; it actually means you are getting better. As a patient, you can feel whether the changes in your body are moving toward improvement or deterioration. Jane's problem was in her joints, so she could feel that kind of improving change in her spine. She said, this afternoon I was lying in bed and felt extremely comfortable. I had a real sense of flow. My back was the same. Now I feel Seth is nearby. She sipped her wine in small mouthfuls, while Rob wrote down what she said.
At this point Seth said gently, now the session begins:
Ruburt's body is now repairing itself at a very good rate.
He was emphasizing, repairing itself at a very good rate. The reason the body is doing this is that Ruburt is giving it different orders -- all you have to do is give the orders. He is giving it a different picture of the world, and the reason he is doing this is that he has finally changed many of his old beliefs. Here Seth again emphasized that Jane's old beliefs about her body had been changed, and some new beliefs had begun, so her body was undergoing very good changes.
You can imagine, this was around 1980, and she passed away four years later3. If her body had continued developing in this direction, she might not even have made it to that point. In between, she kept going back and forth -- for a while she was quite well, and then for a while she began to deteriorate again. You can also sense that Jane's thinking, her beliefs, were also constantly changing.
In fact, the body's response to such information is always immediate.
Always immediate. So when she had good beliefs, her body would quickly improve; but when Jane discovered she had some new negative thought about her body, the body would also quickly deteriorate, in the same way. When Jane finally left, actually this illness of hers was not enough to be fatal -- rheumatoid arthritis is not really enough to be fatal, because it just means limited mobility, or great discomfort. But you can imagine she was in such misery that she really did not want to endure it any longer. She could not lie down, she could not sit up -- just imagine it. In her later period her legs had to be curled up, not because she wanted them curled, but because she could not straighten her legs, and her whole back could not straighten either. Her whole person was just in great pain. That kind of pain is very hard for a normal person to understand, so in the end she could only leave.
Seth said, the response to this kind of information is always immediate, regardless of whether the result is immediately manifested -- regardless of whether the result appears right away, the change has already happened. It is like when some people feel their body beginning to improve, the first thing is a sensation, not an immediate phenomenon, and there may not be any visible phenomenon. The phenomenon has not appeared yet; maybe in a couple of days it will appear.
Ruburt is beginning to hold a more practical picture of how reality as a whole operates.
A more real picture. He is trying to rid himself of many unfavorable cultural beliefs, beliefs that many other people, like him, take for granted. Jane was trying to rid herself of some traditional beliefs that everyone takes for granted.
Beliefs Are Alive and Will Fight Back
He says:
You may be at war with those beliefs, wrestling with them.
Jane's beliefs were very stubborn, and you must remember this. A belief is alive; it is not dead. It is your thought, and it is alive. How alive is it? If you leave it alone, it will fight back. If you do not replace your belief quickly enough, the old belief will strike back, and the force of its counterattack is very strong. Because it knows that once you have adopted new beliefs, those old beliefs will have no room or ground left to exist at all, so at that point the old belief will fight back desperately.
You must remember this: at that moment you have to stand firm in your confidence. You cannot say, how come I have already changed my beliefs, yet these things still happen? Why do such beliefs still appear? Why does it keep recurring? Recurrence is normal; you must remember that. When a new belief is replacing an old belief, this process is bound to recur. You absolutely must remember not to regret it or retreat the moment it recurs, not to say, as soon as it recurs, that you are no good. This is a battle.
In fact, Buddhism also emphasizes this over and over, and spiritual practice also emphasizes it over and over: do not regress. It is fine if you progress a little slowly, but you cannot come back every time it hits you. If you come back every time it hits you, then it is over, and it will be very hard for you to change it. You must push forward firmly and not retreat. This is a problem all spiritual practitioners encounter. Some people have practiced for decades and still encounter this problem, and they still regress. Do not say such things when you have not yet been tested by real events; wait until you are tested by real events, and then speak.
When you notice this phenomenon, you yourself must stay clear-headed: this is the old belief fighting back. Because it is alive, its counterattack is extremely fierce. Sometimes that desperate struggle is even more ferocious than when you normally leave it alone. It will manifest all the things you fear, dread, and worry about, proving to you again and again in your life that your new belief is wrong. It will find all kinds of evidence and throw it in front of you, saying, see, your belief is wrong. You must remember this, and you must be very careful.
But they still have great power.
Those traditional beliefs, the beliefs regarded as a matter of course, still have great power. You see, he also says this: never underestimate them. Do not think, oh, I have studied spirituality, I have studied Seth, I already have new beliefs, I have done the twenty-four-week Master Key meditation4, I have also done the twenty-one-day Abundance Journey meditation5, I have also studied Seth's theoretical knowledge, and from theory to practice I am already fully equipped, so how could this still happen? Remember that they have great power and will fight back. To a very significant degree you still believe them, meaning that in many areas and many places you still believe those old beliefs.
At one time, Ruburt's fear of the whole idea of leading others onto new paths was built upon those old beliefs.
What does this mean? The knowledge Ruburt is transmitting now, is it not a new idea for the whole of human society, something that opens a new path? It is not something recognized by traditional theory, or by conventional social understanding, or by mainstream thought. So Jane himself was afraid of the whole idea of opening up such a new path. He would think, what strength do I have, do I have this ability? What virtue do I possess? I am not some enlightened monk, I am not some great monk or eminent master, and I am not Mother Teresa. What skill do I have, what qualification do I have, to be able to pioneer a brand-new worldview, a brand-new value system, or a brand-new way of thinking? Even though Seth transmitted it to me, Seth is Seth, and he does not live in this three-dimensional world. In this three-dimensional world, I am just a little writer, and an unknown writer at that. How could I possibly have this? So at that time he would have fear, and this fear was built upon old beliefs.
Now those thoughts have vanished completely. By this point Jane was already in the late stage, and she had very calmly accepted her role as a channeler, and she had also calmly accepted that she was transmitting these new spiritual ideas that were somewhat out of step with the mainstream of that time, and even with the mainstream of today. She accepted it completely.
He says:
Individually and together you are approaching a state of mind.
The two of you, separately and together, are approaching what kind of state of mind? One that represents a far more natural state of mind, the state of mind that a natural person is born with: recognition of oneself, acknowledgment of oneself, affirmation of oneself, trust in oneself. Without all that hesitation, fear, and non-identification with one's own identity; all of that is gone. The two of them now have much less of it, but deep down it is still there.
Education and Culture, the Natural Person
At this point Seth began to turn to the topic of education. He said:
In your culture, education is a hodgepodge.
In human culture, education is a hodgepodge. He said this with irony and humor. You see, after taking jabs at medicine and at science, now he started in on education—there was truly nothing he would not poke at.
Why did he say education is a hodgepodge? He said:
Your education comes not only from schools, but also from newspapers, magazines, television, books, including the feedback that comes from art and culture itself.
That is actually quite true. Education is not just from schools; it is from the whole of society. Social education is very important, and social education includes our entire social environment.
He said that for the purpose of discussion, generally speaking there are two kinds of education, and he looked at them separately:
One is focused on the child's coping with the natural world, teaching the child to cope with the environment of nature, this physical world of ours; and the other is teaching the child how to cope with the cultural world, coping with our society, this social and humanistic world.
But obviously, these are often merged together and cannot be separated at all. He said he separated them only for the sake of discussion; in fact, when we teach children, the two are mixed together—the understanding of the entire natural world and the understanding of the entire humanistic society are mixed together. We often use all kinds of anthropomorphism, all kinds of human perspectives, to look at this world.
However:
Your educational system, for all its idealism, still largely stifles the natural individual human tendencies of the child.
There is a great deal of idealism in your educational system. Our intentions are good, the ideals of education are good, but in practice we cause the child's natural humanity, his natural tendencies, to be stifled. Instead, you overemphasize cultural organization; we place more emphasis on the things of humanistic society, and in doing so we are strangling and erasing the child's natural disposition, making him more and more well-behaved, like a social person, like a product of society.
The child is therefore made to conform to the culture; we want the child to conform to his culture, rather than to follow his own individual natural inclinations.
Erasing his individuality, making him conform to the culture. Right? Chinese Confucianism is the same way. For thousands of years of Chinese Confucianism, Confucius said: of all things under heaven, only this is greatest—restrain the self and restore the rites6—in simple terms, there is nothing more important in this world than restraining yourself and conforming to this "li." What kind of "li" was that? It was the "li" of ritual propriety. Confucius emphasized "li," and he told you that is culture. What is "li"? "Li" is culture; "li" is a kind of culture, just the culture of that era. There are still rituals and propriety today. Any child who does not conform to the culture is regarded as rebellious, bad, a prickly individualist.
His own particular way of dealing with nature is not approved of.
Every child is unique; each has his own way of facing the whole of nature. But this unique way of coping with nature on his own is not approved of; it will not be acknowledged by society, by the school, by the teacher. Therefore education does not work along with the child's abilities, but works against them. We oppose the child's individuality—what is a child's individuality? It is his unique ability, his talent, his special gift. We do not encourage him, do not go along with him, do not develop him, but instead oppose him, making him conform to the whole of society.
This education often violates the nature of the natural person.
This is a point of view on education that Seth rarely discussed. But this does not mean—you see, at this point he quickly began to circle back, afraid that what he said would offend the education authorities again. He said:
But this does not mean that some children do not do very well under your system.
Some children can also perform very well under your educational system. Then he paused for a moment, thinking about how to smooth things over. He said:
I am not implying that children do not need education, or that some training or guidance is not meaningful.
I am not saying that children should all stop going to school; do not go saying that I said that. He said:
Children will become absorbed for hours at a time in subjects and problems that interest them, yet they are often called away, and as a result their natural habits of concentration are damaged.
We often find that when a small child plays with a toy or with something—even playing with a lump of mud. When I was little, I remember playing with cigarette boxes, playing with marbles, playing with slingshots, playing with matchstick guns—playing with anything at all, playing with total delight, playing for hours at a time. Basically, it was always our parents who called us back when it got dark, and only when we would get a beating if we did not go back did we finally go back. Children themselves naturally have this ability, when it comes to something that interests them—whether it is a subject, or play, or a topic, or knowledge—if they are interested, they can play with it for a very, very long time. But we people call them away, telling them not to be too obsessed with playing this, not to be obsessed with that thing. Again and again we call them away.
Then the child's innate, natural ability to concentrate—this ability to focus on one thing for a long time—is interrupted by parents again and again, harmed again and again. And after harming it, you still say: how come you have no concentration? How come you cannot pay attention in class? When he was concentrating, what were you doing? When he was absorbed in playing with something, you interrupted him with a scolding. Let us not first worry about what he was playing with; as for the very act of concentrating, should we not encourage him, should we not praise him? But parents, because he was not concentrating on the thing you wanted him to concentrate on—for example, he was not concentrating on practicing piano, not concentrating on learning English—you think these things are useless, so you forcibly interrupt him. What he was concentrating on no longer matters; by interrupting his concentration again and again in such a crude way, he will no longer be able to concentrate in the future. This innate ability of his will be gone. This is a sorrow shared by all parents.
Our classroom education is forty-five minutes per class, because we think children themselves cannot concentrate on things. Precisely because children cannot concentrate, we think we need forty-five-minute classes. But think about it: this belief is built on "you believe children cannot concentrate." With a belief like that, can the child concentrate? He cannot concentrate. And indeed, after you have interrupted the child several times like this, he really cannot concentrate anymore. Then he will find forty-five minutes very hard to endure; only the first twenty-some minutes can he concentrate, and afterward he cannot concentrate at all. Yet when it is something that interests him, he concentrates very deeply and will not move for hours. Many children play until they wet their pants and still will not leave; they just stand there and pee without realizing it—too absorbed. So this is a problem of the parents.
Specific Forgetting
He says:
Now you are forgetting this way of learning.
What way of learning? Focused learning, that is the real learning. You say that is not right, only when children play games do they act like this, at other times they do not. Yes, this is a problem in current society, but how do you guide him, how do you use this way to change him? Here you have to learn the method, not rudely interrupt him. Besides, playing games itself is not a bad thing; if you guide him to play some good games, it is still helpful. But look at the games Chinese children play now, what special features do they have? The whole country plays one kind of game, all the same kind. Then I do not need to say it, the boys all know, what games they play, PUBG and those, just those two kinds of games played over and over, maybe later a third kind came out, anyway it is just those few kinds, two or three kinds, played back and forth. How boring, but he does not feel that way, because all his friends are playing it, and if he does not play it he falls behind. So on the matter of playing games, we all appear extremely monotonous.
He says:
We are all forgetting this way of learning, and discovering that this specific process of forgetting is indeed very educational.
How did you forget this way of learning, this process itself is very educational. That is, you interrupted the child's focused learning process, and the very matter of how you interrupted the child's focused learning is itself educational for you.
You are coming into contact with your own natural knowledge.
You are coming into contact with this knowledge of nature, or the knowledge inherent in human beings themselves. He says of course in many cases you have learned too well:
The natural person in you loved to draw, and this had nothing to do with what you had to do as a boy in school. You were fortunate in your relationship with Miss Bowman, and your ability allowed you to respond to her.
Miss Bowman was probably Rob's elementary school teacher, or a teacher from his childhood. She never suppressed Rob's drawing talent, which is why Rob later became a painter. But I forgot the specific details; he also mentioned this Miss Bowman in the early sessions; she was Rob's teacher. A little boy who loved to draw did not seem to be a mainstream thing in elementary school. Because children should go play soccer, should go play other things, and you sit there drawing, is that right?
You can trust your natural inclinations.
You must trust them. What is he actually talking about? As far as loving to draw is concerned, as an expression of natural ability and inclination, these lessons came naturally. When you possess this inclination, the lessons will come naturally. It finally showed its head, even though at the time you held the common official view -- at that time drawing was not considered a proper profession or a direction of development -- in the end you still came out ahead, and you went on to study drawing. Just like now we parents take our children to learn all kinds of talents, including drawing, including music. When you learn these, is it the child's interest, or do you want him to have more hobbies and interests? Have you really thought about him becoming a painter in the future? How many parents really hope their child will become a painter? How many parents let their child become a painter only because he is already failing in all other subjects, and only then do they go take the art exam?
He says:
However, these lessons bring about a new education that often directly conflicts with the views of the old education or contemporary society.
These lessons are the very things Seth is now talking about, incompatible with the old education system, directly conflicting with it. Of course:
You must test them for yourselves.
You must test this matter, test the conflict with the old and new education.
Ruburt feels a greater responsibility than you do.
Why? He is challenging the entire education system. In the previous few sessions he had just challenged the medical system, the healthcare system, and then challenged the scientific system, and now he is challenging the education system. So Ruburt feels greater pressure on himself, because he is the narrator, while Rob is only the recorder. Because it is he, Ruburt, speaking on my behalf, so he feels his responsibility is greater. But:
A private pursuit is one thing.
Each person quietly pursues one thing, for example you want to develop a new kind of education, you want to do a new style of education, that is all fine, you do it personally. But if you openly follow something, that is another matter altogether. That is to say, if you privately have complaints about the education system, or have some different views about it, that is all fine; if you jump out and openly oppose the entire human education system, that is another matter entirely.
Eagerly, whether or not these sessions had occurred, once the two of you met, the possibilities brought about by your relationship meant that you would to some extent pursue a larger framework of consciousness. Because of your abilities, that framework would not remain personal forever, but would certainly attract others.
He is saying words of comfort to the two of them. You two now seem to be taking on the entire mainstream world alone, as if it were because of me, because of the knowledge I transmitted to you. He says, even if I had not transmitted this knowledge to you, once the two of you met and got married, given your current state, the two of you would certainly go on to pursue that larger framework of consciousness. And given your abilities, that framework would certainly not remain within the personal scope of just the two of you; you would certainly attract the attention of others, and you would certainly announce it to the world. In other words, Jane would certainly go write novels, and Rob would certainly go hold his art exhibitions. Even if the two of them had never encountered Seth, they would certainly go do things that influence others, and those things would certainly be things that expand consciousness. Seth is talking about another version -- what would have happened if they had not encountered Seth. Actually this passage is to comfort the two of them: do not feel that it is because I transmitted so much new knowledge to you, as if I made the two of you encounter these challenges. In other words, the two of you were going to face these challenges in this life anyway. Even if I had not come to transmit the material to you, the two of you would have burst forth with something new on your own, and would have transmitted it as well.
The Archaeology of Beliefs
And so he says:
The natural person cannot be found in the past or the present.
The so-called natural person is not in the past, nor in the present. I am not sure whether you can understand what he means by this passage. He is saying, do not go looking for where the natural person is. This natural person is the kind of person who has not been affected by these influences, who has not been affected by the current mistaken social beliefs of our time, the kind of person who lives very naturally and very freely, like Zhuangzi. Where is such a person?
But beneath layer upon layer of official beliefs.
The natural person is right beneath the layer upon layer of wrapping of our current traditional beliefs. You peel these traditional beliefs away one by one, like a tangled mess of fishing nets, you peel the nets away one by one, and after you finally clean it all off, what is underneath? It is the natural person.
So to find the person who first initiated, who first created beliefs, you are dealing with the archaeology of beliefs. He says:
As I have said often, the evidence for clairvoyance, telepathy, or whatever, is not some strange and isolated instance in human experience, but represents the natural patterns of everyday behavior, which have become invisible in your world because of the official picture of behavior and reality.
What he means is, if you want to find this natural person, he is right beneath our traditional beliefs. And what you need to do now is something like doing the archaeology of those traditional beliefs, tracing these traditional beliefs back layer by layer, peeling them away layer by layer and discarding them, and then you will arrive at this natural person.
Then he goes on to say, one example in reality is, for instance, telepathy, clairvoyance, or other out-of-body experiences, sensing, precognition, none of these count as strange. What are all these things for? These pieces of evidence are not strange and isolated instances in human experience. It is not like, oh wow, this person has opened their third eye; ah, that person can do telepathy, they know what others are saying without being told. He says no, these are not isolated, nor are they strange. It is because our beliefs are too official, too traditional, that under this grand belief system, they seem to have become invisible. That official belief is too orthodox, it regards everything non-standard as abnormal, so when these people have these special magical abilities, we say that such spiritual powers seem abnormal.
Actually, Seth says, these are abilities that everyone has, there is nothing magical about them, they should be a basic standard feature. This is not a premium version, not an optional add-on, this is the basic standard version. But our beliefs tell us that these are all premium features, ultra-premium features, that they require a certain level of attainment, that they require years of cultivation, that only eminent monks and great masters can unlock these functions. It is not that magical, everyone has them.
Every day the body's natural process of healing itself rids people of disease, and then repairs our emotional or physical illnesses.
Not only physical, but emotional as well. And most of these instances have not been recorded. We cannot even record the body's self-healing, we just think it is the hospital that cured it, or some medicine that cured it, not knowing that it is a natural process of self-healing.
Ruburt accepts the magic of a poem, yet he cannot accept the magic of health or of mobility.
Ruburt can accept the magic of a poem being a stroke of divine inspiration, but he cannot accept that the body's mobility is a kind of magic. Because he is convinced that mobility has hindered his other abilities, that is, Jane believes that her difficulty moving, her inability to move around, has hindered her other abilities. But Seth's point is that no, whether the body can move or not has nothing to do with other abilities. He is still trying to wake Ruburt up here: Ruburt can believe that a poem absolutely comes from a stroke of divine inspiration, but he does not believe that the recovery of his body, or the ability of his legs to move and his feet to move, is the same kind of ability as the divine inspiration that wrote that poem. If you can write a poem, then you can also let your body recover, you can let your body move. But Ruburt does not think so, he thinks that the body's inability to move has limited his other abilities, limited his other magical abilities, limited his self-healing abilities, and so on.
He says the same about you, he says to Rob:
You both need protection from the outside world.
Interesting, right? He says this is the belief of both of them. Many of us have this belief, especially people who study spirituality, who study these things, they are protecting themselves. He says, I keep such a low profile in order to protect myself, I am afraid others will harm me, I always feel there are treacherous ministers who want to harm me. I have seen some spiritual sharing materials online, I am not pointing fingers at anyone, wearing masks, wearing all kinds of props, but not daring to show their face, saying that this is what makes them cool. And then their reasoning is, if I show my face, there will be bad consequences, I have spoken the truth of the universe, someone will come and harm me. I do not even believe that a person who studies spirituality would say such a thing.
I am not naming names here, I am just talking about the matter. But this is not strange, we are not here to blame him, it is very normal for him to have such thoughts. Look at Rob and Jane, they also had such thoughts, that they needed to be protected, that they should not be harmed by this society. Because the two of you are the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, if you stick out you will definitely be struck, because the books you two have written are too heretical, too far from mainstream values, so you need protection. This is one of the things Seth wanted to tell them. Is it actually necessary? No. Of course you do not need protection, what protection do you need?
He says:
Lately I have given you many concepts, indeed in The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, as Jane said today, but they have now become alive.
These beliefs have come alive. Likewise, many of the other ideas and thoughts that were given, that is, in these earlier books, whether Seth Speaks, The Nature of Personal Reality, including these other concepts as well, will also take on a new and important significance, and will enrich your experience, because you will be more open to them than before. Especially Ruburt, regarding those ideas related to reincarnation, life after death, and other areas of activity.
Seth's point is that the concepts I spoke of in The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, and the concepts I spoke of in these earlier books, because of the change in Ruburt's beliefs and the change in Rob's beliefs, they will all become further enlivened. In other words, your understanding of them will be deeper than before, and your key perspectives on them will also be more open than before.
Especially Ruburt, regarding reincarnation and matters after death, he has more thoughts now. Actually, from these accounts you can see that the two of them previously were not really that interested in reincarnation and matters after death, or they just listened to them as novel stories, like listening to all kinds of magical things, listening to them as curiosities and then letting it go. But today, the change in Jane and Rob's thinking, the change in their beliefs, will make these earlier concepts completely different, you will look at them more openly. From this passage of Seth's, you can tell that the two of them previously had a rather limited understanding of many of the things Seth said.
Rob's Tree Painting
Seth again talked about Rob's painting:
Ruburt instinctively liked this tree painting of yours. It represents a certain state of consciousness, a threshold of a dimension of awareness in between, in which one can almost capture the action of the imagination and the senses as they are assembling an object, or bringing the world into a sensed, brand-new reality. A very special state of consciousness, and one that I believe Ruburt mentioned you can make use of in the "human face."
What does this passage mean? Ruburt instinctively liked that painting of a tree you did. Why did he like this painting? Because this painting represents a threshold between two different dimensions, a state situated between these two thresholds. And within this tree painting, one can also capture the imagination and the senses -- through the imagination and the senses, you are assembling an object, or bringing a world into the action of a sensed, brand-new reality. Since we have not seen that painting now, we do not know what this description means; we can only understand it literally: you bring the world into a new reality, and this action is all embodied in Rob's painting. So Jane instinctively liked this painting.
Because the two of them were now truly beginning to undergo a deeper level of awakening in their consciousness. As you also know from the previous sessions, Seth spoke rather bluntly about the two of them: you take this material of mine and use it in your real lives in a scattered way -- a little today, a little tomorrow -- and it works every time you use it, but you have not truly and comprehensively changed your belief system and belief structure. You only occasionally take it out and use it, to verify whether this thing works or not. But you clearly know this thing is useful to you, you clearly know this thing can bring you a life where your wishes come true, can truly open up your creativity, yet the two of you have not applied it comprehensively. That session talked about the two of them, and it was actually quite harsh. At this point, Rob's painting actually represented a shift -- it represented the two of them, on the level of consciousness, moving from an old worldview or old belief system into a new belief system.
Rob was silently saying in his heart at the time, thank you, Seth -- this was something he did not say out loud. He said he had already wanted to use those techniques on the human face -- referring to a technique in his painting. You can also use this state of consciousness when painting portraits. What state? The state of consciousness of bringing an old world into a new world of reality. Seth said this state of consciousness can be used not only for painting this tree, but in the future it can be used for painting portraits. Rob said, I was just having this idea, I was just thinking of applying this technique to painting human faces. Seth's mind reading here is very refined; he completely knows what Rob is thinking psychologically, and he completely knows what state Rob is currently in. So when he said this passage, Rob felt it very deeply in his heart, and he knew it clearly. But for us as ordinary readers, the feeling is not that strong.
Writing a Book and Restoring the Body Are the Same Ability
Next he comes back to Jane's body:
Ruburt's body is miraculously and naturally repairing itself.
You see, he again emphasizes that it is repairing itself miraculously and naturally. He says:
This function is just as creative as the inner effort involved in producing a book or a poem.
He has finally figured out this fact. Ruburt has finally understood that the recovery of his own body and his producing a book are the same thing. In other words, you can write a book, letting a book go from your creative idea to finally becoming text, and then it can be published, and it can even sell and earn royalties -- this whole process, this creative process, is the same as letting your body recover. The same creativity, the same idea. Now Ruburt has finally figured out that these two are one and the same thing. Since I can write books, I can also let my body recover.
He says:
When you have finished proofreading, Ruburt's recovery will be even more apparent.
Here he is referring to the previous book, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. Because at the beginning of this session he said that Ruburt helped Rob with a lot of the corrections or revisions that he should have made in the previous book. This part refers to that: you were able to publish The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events -- that book was also a very thick book, and you faced so much pressure from the publisher, including disclaimers and so on, and you also had to do a lot of typing work -- and you completed all of that. So restoring and healing your body is the same thing. It is one kind of energy, one kind of ability.
When this book is actually published, you will recover even better. He says:
We will probably return to one book session a week, and continue with one session a week of this series as well, and we can also expect some improvement in vision, because we are making efforts in that direction.
When this book is completed and actually published, Jane's body will be better, and it is very likely that on the current basis they will add one more book session per week. Because Seth feels that The Magical Approach, in Seth's eyes, is not a book -- it is just a few sessions. But later they edited it into a book for publication, because it was too short, too thin, a small thin volume, and not much content. He says we should be able to return to the state of writing books, just like when we wrote Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality before, we can continue writing books. He says we can also have, in addition to one session a week for writing a book, one more session a week for this The Magical Approach type of series, and we can do both at the same time. When Jane's body has recovered, he says he also hopes her eyes will get a little better, her vision will improve.
He says:
I wish you a good evening, and remember to remind me to add more discussion of education.
He wants to be reminded to discuss education. So recently I have also had some thoughts and feelings about education, and Seth here happens to echo that as well -- he also happens to want to talk about education. So let us see what kind of discussion and ideas he has about education later on.
After the Session
The session basically ended around nine-thirty. Jane said, I didn't think I could have a session, she wasn't in good shape. She said when he came through, I knew I could. I told him the session was very wonderful, and I also told him some things I had thought of this afternoon but found hard to express now.
These sessions, in dealing with Jane's progress, have confirmed the validity of the information Seth has given us over the years -- over many years, not just one day. Of course there is one shortcoming. What is the shortcoming? They did not have official medical-record evidence of Jane's condition. That is, we did not keep medical records -- for example, a doctor observing Jane's recovery week by week or day by day, none of that was recorded. So Jane's record can only rely on her own oral account, or her own bodily sensations.
You see what problem shows up here? Rob, even up to now, still hoped to prove this matter through medical records. He said this matter has already been confirmed -- that in dealing with Jane's progress, the information Seth gave her over the years has been very effective -- but he said there is one shortcoming: there is no medical evidence, no doctor's proof, no hospital's proof, no proof that Jane was getting better. You see, now you understand why Seth said what he did about the two of them. They seem to understand, seem to know everything, yet this one sentence exposes them -- exposes their rational way of thinking. They place great importance on medical records.
So later, by the time of The Way Toward Health, when Jane began to be hospitalized, after Jane was truly hospitalized her body was not improving; from the time she was hospitalized it deteriorated day by day, and from her last hospitalization she never came out again. At that time Jane, every day in The Way Toward Health, was fantasizing about being able to return to her own home, return to her own little yard. Jane even thought it would be fine to die in her own home. But from the time she entered the hospital, she never came out again. There were many, many reasons for this, and from this passage you can see: no matter how nicely the two of them talked, no matter how Seth helped her improve, what was the core belief in their bones? They still wanted to believe in medical records; he wanted to use medical records to corroborate that Seth's theories were effective.
He said:
But we do have the testimony of many people we know, plus the records of many years of sessions, plus our own records and memories. I often predict that other people cannot understand the depth of Jane's challenge.
What he means is that Jane actually faced an enormous challenge every day, and because the challenge was not their own, other people could not understand it. A person who can only walk twice a day, each time only about ten steps -- and that was still later progress; before the progress she could only take one or two steps each time. What does taking one or two steps mean? It means she almost could not walk at all, and still had to hold onto a table with wheels just to take one or two steps. Now she could walk thirteen or fourteen steps, which was already great progress. So he said, even without medical records, there were still some witnesses, still some session records, and still these records of ours.
He said that while they were chatting and talking, Jane laughed; she had received a message from Seth's side: the best book had not yet begun, had not yet arrived. Seth told her that the best book had not yet come. Rob's meaning was that earlier Seth had said these books were all very good, all very effective, even able to help Jane's body recover. And then Seth told Rob, hey, the good stuff hasn't come yet, don't be impatient.
But in fact, this was also a regret. After this, indeed there were no more books, only one, The Way Toward Health. And as for The Way Toward Health, I don't want to discuss it; you can look at it yourselves and see. There was nothing deeper in that book, just a repetition of some past ideas and a description of her entire process of illness. That book is very thick, quite thick, but there was not much really new in it. So that best book never appeared in the end. So this was Seth giving the two of them a positive message -- that is, telling Jane to live well, that there was still a great deal of information yet to be transmitted.
注释与核实
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Source: Wikipedia "September 1980" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_1980) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia "Seth Material" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Material) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia "Jane Roberts" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roberts) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia "The Master Key System" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Key_System) ↩
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Source: Deepak Chopra "21 Days of Abundance - Meditation Series" (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/21-days-of-abundance-meditation-series/id1558008884) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, it was "Confucius said: among all things, this is the greatest; restrain oneself and restore the rites"; upon verification, only "restrain oneself and restore the rites" is Confucius's words (from Analects, Yan Yuan: "restraining oneself and restoring the rites constitutes benevolence"), while the whole phrase "among all things, this is the greatest; restrain oneself and restore the rites" was not said by Confucius, but was a scroll Lin Biao inscribed and presented to Ye Qun in Suzhou on October 19, 1969. (Source: Huang Yao, "Why Lin Biao and His Wife Inscribed 'Restrain Oneself and Restore the Rites' to Each Other" (People's Daily Online, Party History Channel, http://dangshi.people.com.cn/n/2013/1111/c85037-23500740.html) ↩