Mike's commentary · The Magical Approach, Session 2

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

Guide

This session distinguishes between the intellect and reason: the intellect is the capacity for logical thinking, while reason is a way of living that uses only the intellect to handle life. Seth points out that the culture has not overused the intellect, but rather relies on the way of reason, crowding out other abilities. When the intellect operates alone, it lacks information about time and space, is forced to predict the future, and produces paranoia and pessimism; when facing global difficulties, it magnifies problems and ignores contrary evidence. Using Rob's dream and Jane's physical condition as examples, he explains that the laws of the rational world have loopholes, that improvements are overlooked if they are not emphasized, and that one should change focus and establish a new picture.

Chapter Highlights

• The intellect is the capacity for logical thinking; rationality is the way of living that uses only the intellect to handle life. Culture has not overused the intellect; rather, it has relied on the rational approach, crowding out other faculties.
• When the intellect operates on its own, it lacks information about time and space, is forced to predict the future, and tends toward paranoia and pessimism. When facing global predicaments, this tendency magnifies problems and brings a sense of powerlessness.
• The intellect organizes perception along its existing focus, seeking consistent information and ignoring evidence that does not fit its pessimistic picture.
• Any improvement, unless it is spoken of, is largely ignored; the focus should be changed to establish a new, positive picture.
• Emphasis should be placed on what to do, not on what not to do; only when one truly intends to change one's orientation will an atmosphere of change be created automatically.

Main Text

I continue introducing everyone to the content of Session 2 of the Seth book The Magical Approach. The title of this session is "The Rational Approach -- The Hard-Lined Reality of Science, the Intellect, and the Magical Approach." This session began on Monday, August 12, 1980, at 8:43 p.m.¹

Before the Session

First, Rob wrote in his notes that he had bought Jane a water cushion that day. What is a water cushion? It is one of those cushions filled with water that you put on a chair. Jane was physically unwell and had difficulty moving around; sitting in a chair felt hard to her -- she was rather thin -- so Rob got a water cushion to ease the difficulty of sitting. But after dinner, when he filled it with water, he found it was not quite suitable. He also bought Jane three kinds of underwear to try, because in the previous session Seth had pointed out that Jane always wore one pair of jeans, and her underwear was also an unsuitable style, so he bought three kinds for her to try.

Before the session, they spent about an hour watching the Democratic National Convention in New York City². This involved the actual local political situation in the United States -- in 1980, America had the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, and every year before the election there was a national convention for nominating the party's candidates and so on. Rob wrote that he only watched a segment of the Carter group, which advocated closing the convention, and the Kennedy group, which advocated opening it³. He jokingly said to Jane that the Democrats might put on a unity show at their convention, but by the time of the November election, they might end up saying something like this: "We lost, but we stood united against Reagan."

Later we all learned that Reagan was indeed elected⁴, but at the time, before the election, no one dared say that for certain, though Reagan's momentum was already very strong. So in this, Rob and Jane could already sense that Reagan would be elected. Rob said that for him, this political situation meant choosing between Carter and Reagan, which was almost unbearable; and he was curious why their country had to choose what everyone called this travail. What he meant was that he was dissatisfied with both candidates -- whether Carter or Reagan. At the time, many Americans had this feeling, as if neither presidential candidate was satisfactory.

At 8:40, Jane said, "I already feel more comfortable. Why don't we start now? I feel he is nearby -- Seth is nearby. At least I feel much better than I have for a while. We reread the last session several times, and every day we do Seth's New Year's resolution." This was something Seth had written for the two of them at the end of the previous book, a sample New Year's resolution for her to read aloud every day. In fact, it was a strong belief suggestion for her. Seth personally made this for them, hoping they would truly live life in a spiritual way.

Jane walked around twice a day -- by now she could only walk twice a day, and the rest of the time she sat in a chair or lay in bed. She used a typing table with wheels as support, holding onto the table to take a couple of steps around the room. Her body had reached this point. Rob said that although they had skipped once tonight, using television as a substitute -- they were watching the debate at the Democratic National Convention -- the weather tonight was humid but not too hot, and through the open window they could hear the cicadas and crickets, that remarkable rhythm.

The Intellect Is Not Overused, but It Has Been Isolated

At this point Seth came through. He said "good evening," and then said:

In your culture, you have not overused the intellect. But in your way of dealing with the world, you rely on it and crowd out all your other abilities.

In this session and for a stretch of time afterward, we will frequently encounter two terms: one is "intellect," the other is "rationality." Do not over-explain the translation, because the book will use these two terms a great deal. If we substitute other words for them, it will be even harder for you to understand what comes later. Just follow his line of thinking and his angle.

To put it simply, the intellect refers to your capacity for logical thinking and reasoning, your ability to discriminate and analyze -- what we usually call logical thinking ability. You can first understand it as human intelligence, and you can even measure it with IQ. This capacity for logical thinking and reasoned discrimination is a special ability unique to human beings. It has excellent potential -- for example, we also need this ability when doing spiritual thinking and study. Seth's theories are extremely rigorous, with very strong logic, and they require deep abstract thinking ability to understand many of his points. It is the same in Buddhism: if you do not possess a certain amount of knowledge and a certain capacity for logical thinking, understanding the Buddhist scriptures is very difficult -- you can only understand the surface layer of the words, and basically cannot understand the deeper content, including the logical discrimination and analysis within it; you cannot understand the process of reasoning in the middle.

Buddhism places extreme emphasis on logic, including hetuvidya -- hetuvidya is Buddhist logic⁵, and it is a very core logic of Buddhism. If your logic is unclear, you cannot debate with others, especially on questions of truth. This was true of ancient Buddhism, and it is still true today -- you can see that Tibet still preserves the tradition of debate⁶, where two lamas, one asking and one answering, also clap their hands. If you have traveled to Tibet, or watched documentaries, you can see this process of debate. In ancient times, Buddhism and Brahmanism also frequently challenged each other, and the rules of debate had a certain logical foundation. Without such rules, it would just become quarreling, not debate. If you lost a debate, there were two choices: first, admit that the other person was right and join their school -- if a Brahmanist lost a debate with a Buddhist monk, he had to convert to Buddhism and declare before everyone present, "I acknowledge that what he says is correct, and from now on I believe in his religion." You could also say, "I simply do not believe it," but in that era, this situation was very harsh: some were ruined, and in some places they could even be executed -- because this mechanism ensured that you could pursue truth without descending into pure sophistry and becoming a mere contrarian. Without such a mechanism, the eminent monks and great masters in the temples would never have a moment's peace; anyone could go and challenge them.

So what I want to say is that whether in spiritual study or in the natural sciences, this intellect -- the capacity for thinking, the capacity for wisdom -- is needed, and it must be present. When this book mentions the intellect, you should understand that it is talking about the intellectual level of human wisdom, or the capacity for thinking.

Then Seth often also speaks of "the rational approach to life." What is the difference between this rationality and the intellect? In English it is a different word; it uses "rational." It is very difficult to understand this difference in Chinese. Its meaning is more one of being reasonable, of fitting reason. Dictionaries all translate it as "rationality," and this book also translates it as rationality. So what does Seth mean by rationality here? He means how you use your intellectual way of thinking to face the various problems in life -- that is, what approach you use to deal with the world. When you use the intellectual approach as your way of dealing with life, that is a rational approach; corresponding to it is the magical approach -- the magical approach that this book of Seth's is going to discuss. You may not yet understand what the magical approach is; do not worry, he will explain it bit by bit later, and by the third and fourth sessions he will expand on it. For now let us first get these two terms clear: the intellect is the human capacity for thinking and discrimination, and rationality is your using this capacity to live your life. In this way, you can roughly understand what these two terms mean in this book.

Now look at the first paragraph of this passage. He emphasizes that in our human culture and daily life, it is not that we have overused our thinking ability -- on the contrary, on many questions we have not thought enough. The problem is not that we have used our thinking ability too much, but that we have crowded out all other possibilities besides the thinking ability, leaving only this one path, and regarding all others as unacceptable. It excludes all other possible methods and abilities.

He says:

The intellect is exceedingly brilliant. But now, if the intellect operates alone, it is indeed a way that is different from the other portions of the personality, isolated in time and space.

The human intellect is truly exceedingly brilliant; everything we see today is the product of the intellect. But when the intellect operates alone, its way of thinking is independent of time and space -- when you think about a problem, whether a mathematical problem or a logical problem, there is no limitation of time and space in the process of thinking. Yet precisely because it has no relation to time and space, it lacks the corresponding data and information to support it, and so it bears an excessive pressure.

Why is it excessive pressure? Together with the framework or theoretical foundation that comes along with it, he says:

It may indeed become afraid of paranoia, because it cannot really perceive events until they have happened.

Your intellect is exceedingly brilliant, but if you only use the intellect to handle problems, it lacks the other sources of information that should match and support it -- including information from time and space. You ask the intellect to handle the problems of life, yet before things happen it has no way of knowing what will happen; it only knows after they have happened. The intellect has no precognitive ability at all; it only faces what has already happened. We also do not know what tomorrow will be like -- this is a phrase we often say.

When you hand a purely theoretical thinking or logical thinking ability to human beings and ask it to handle every aspect of life, its greatest feeling is fear and paranoia. Because it has no further information; the only thing it has is logical thinking ability. When it does not know the ins and outs of things and does not have enough information, how can you expect it to do logical analysis? You can only have it analyze based on what has already happened, but how can it know what will happen next? And yet you force it, saying: you must tell me what will happen next. Do we not often force ourselves in this way? It does not know either; it does not have this ability.

Since it is under excessive pressure, and you also force it to prepare for the future and arrange life, it becomes paranoid. Where does the paranoia show? It focuses all its attention on things that might happen in the future, things that have not yet happened. It worries about what will happen tomorrow, yet it does not know what will happen tomorrow, and you still want it to tell you -- so it is full of anxiety. Is this not the current state of each of our lives?

And for the intellect, those tendencies are not natural. Normally, the intellect is not meant to do this. The intellect should only consider inferences made under given conditions -- just like doing a math problem, you must give it the known conditions, and based on the relevant formulas, axioms, and principles, it can derive a conclusion. But now, by using the intellectual approach, you are essentially giving it a set of known conditions that is not complete, yet demanding that it produce a relatively certain future result. It cannot give it. So this paranoid tendency is unnatural.

When the intellect is forced to operate in an isolated way -- excluding all other methods and facing things with only this one method -- then it becomes isolated. He says:

Only when the intellect is forced to operate in an isolated way, not only isolated in time and space, but also psychologically isolated from the other portions of the personality, will such tendencies appear.

You do not give it the information of temporal and spatial continuity, and you even separate it psychologically -- you separate the emotional factors, the emotions, the intuition, the inspiration from it, and let the intellect use only its own logical thinking ability to analyze and judge. Emotion is also a kind of indicator, a kind of signal; intuition is not given to it either, and neither are the causes and consequences. You let it use pure logical thinking ability alone to handle things, and only then does it become paranoid.

And that portion was originally meant to bring it additional data, supporting it in a magical way. He says that the parts it does not have were originally meant to give it the additional data it lacks. What are these things? One is not to be isolated outside time and space -- through spiritual knowledge, give it the information of the past and the future; at the same time, also give it the inspiration, intuition, and emotional feeling obtained through spirituality. Only after you give it all these materials can it produce a relatively reliable decision or analysis. These data were originally a kind of magical support.

The Pessimism of the Rational Approach

He says:

What we generally call the rational approach to life is extremely pessimistic. With its own unique methods and solutions to problems, its own ways of achieving goals and satisfying desires.

If we ordinarily use only logical thinking to handle daily life, treating it as the way to deal with life, then problems arise—it is extremely pessimistic. The main reason every one of us is so pessimistic about future life right now is that we use only logical thinking. Why is it pessimistic? It is always worrying about tomorrow, later, three years from now, five years from now. It does not rest in the present moment; it brings all its fears about the future into today—that is a matter for the future, that is a matter for three years from now, but logical thinking is forced to drag all the bad things that might possibly happen in the future right in front of it to deal with now.

If you have ever run a company, done business, or dealt with accountants, you know that one of the accounting principles is the principle of pessimistic prudence. This principle applies to logical thinking, but if a company is run by someone with an accounting background as the boss, can that company succeed? It cannot. An accountant as CFO can have a great deal of power, with tremendous control over cost management, company management, and investment analysis, but a company must never be ruled by an accountant alone—that would be the end of it. This principle of pessimistic prudence cannot accomplish anything; it can avoid risk and reduce losses, but it cannot achieve anything else.

And what we human beings realistically face in daily life is precisely this principle of pessimistic prudence. Because the method it uses to handle things on its own brings with it its own unique solution, and its solution is pessimistic prudence. When the future is unknowable and unpredictable to us, being a little more conservative, a little more careful, a little more secure—that is the best conclusion your intellect, your logical analytical ability, can offer you. If you let it analyze, if you let it reach a conclusion, it can only reach this conclusion; it cannot produce a second result.

Seth goes on to say:

Many people are so absorbed in this approach to life.

Most people are like this, and they even think this is wisdom. Many people say, "This is my life wisdom; that blind optimism of yours is just foolish courage, a sign of low intelligence, a newborn calf unafraid of the tiger"—after being cheated by society, after being deceived, they become old hands, always looking for the worst possible outcome first, thinking this is a clever approach. He says:

That psychologically they are blind to any other kind of orientation.

You no longer want anything else—this thing gives you inspiration, that thing gives you a clue—you reject it all, you cannot see it. You can only see this logical thinking; nothing else is visible to you.

The Rational Approach Suits Some People

But Seth says, you and Ruburt are not like this -- if you were, you would not be having these sessions, nor would you have any of these other activities.

Of course, the rational approach -- let me emphasize again, the rational approach means handling life through the intellect, handling life only through the intellect -- suits certain kinds of people better than others. It is not to say it is entirely worthless. Some people are just like this: they only acknowledge logic, only acknowledge facts. There is a whole group of such people. You should not try to persuade these people either; this is simply their way of life. If you take away their rational approach and replace it with the spiritual magical approach, then they will break down, they will be finished. Their whole person will become all woo-woo -- because they will use the methods of the rational approach to analyze and reason all over the spiritual domain, and they will go astray.

He says:

Even with their disadvantages, we live in an industrialized, scientific society. Therefore the benefits of the rational approach, as well as its benefits and great disadvantages, are everywhere apparent in the social and political world.

The benefits that the rational approach's way of handling things brings to your life, and its limitations -- we can feel them everywhere in our daily lives.

But:

Any artist of any kind would find this approach most unfriendly, for in several important areas it directly contradicts the great thrust of human creativity.

Why do artists dislike the rational approach? Because it contradicts the great thrust of creativity itself. If you strip away the thrust of an artist's creativity, what creativity does he have left?

But he says, you and Ruburt do indeed have evidence to prove that the reality of the hardbed is very different. "Hardbed reality" here refers to the word hardbed -- that is, that kind of hard bed board. American beds are all spring mattresses, very soft, but underneath there is a hard thing, a box, a big box. That hard bed board is hard. Seth tells you, the reality of this hard bed board is very different from others, and you do have evidence to prove such a difference.

What does this mean? People who generally use logical thinking to judge the world only acknowledge that this hard bed board is real, because it can be analyzed and determined -- how tall, how wide, how thick. But the spring mattress on top of it is not easy to pin down: how thick is it, really? It is soft; when a person lies on it, it changes. The hard bed board will not change much whether you lie on it or not, but the spring mattress is completely different with a person on it versus without -- its thickness, its dimensions, its comfort for the person all change. It is a soft, flexible thing.

Seth is saying, Rob and Jane, you understand the truth of this world -- it is not just this hard lining; there are other parts as well. The hard bed board is only one of them, and on top of it there is the soft spring mattress and its padding.

He says:

In the past, both of you may at times have felt yourselves to be somewhat at a disadvantage. You both felt that our work was theoretically fascinating, yet creatively effective -- but scientifically ineffective.

Before they came into contact with Seth, they were indeed at a disadvantage -- in life they were basically in a state of drifting from odd job to odd job, with no fixed income or source of support, living uncomfortably and unhappily. After coming into contact with Seth, there was still this problem: Seth's theories -- the books they published, one after another, five or six of them -- were theoretically fascinating, and the reasoning was extremely clear and thorough, but in this hardbed reality, in a way of life dominated by logical thinking, they had no effective statement.

Seth says:

You did not think you were dealing with fiction, but on the other hand, you were not willing to call it fact, either.

This was quite a dilemma. They did not feel the Seth material was something vague and insubstantial -- because both of them were genuine experiencers, unlike others who, upon hearing about this, would think it was Jane talking to herself, speaking nonsense -- but they knew it was not that. Yet they felt it was neither fiction nor fact. Seth says:

Actually, you were dealing with a larger version of fact. From it, as I have said before, the world of facts emerges.

You are not dealing with what you consider to be facts; you are dealing with a larger version of fact -- a multidimensional, spiritual world. In the process of dealing with it, this world of facts emerges.

Those Scattered, Magical Pieces of Evidence

Besides these sessions, there are also many astonishing little details in your lives. Apart from this session -- this session itself is magical -- there is still a great deal of astonishing evidence in your lives. In our daily lives, each person's life also has these magical happenings, but we treat them as coincidences, or as something very wondrous, as small blessings in life, and we do not regard them as evidence.

He says:

To some extent, however, they are obviously stimulated by the knowledge you have acquired in these sessions.

Those magical things are all stimulated by the knowledge you have acquired in the sessions. But:

They are still isolated, scattered bits and pieces. In this situation, they begin to give you a statement of the larger facts of reality.

Under these scattered pieces of evidence, it will give you a statement of a larger scope of reality -- not just the facts you have defined, the facts you have determined through logical thinking. There will be a larger reality, giving you a very complete statement.

Ruburt's Doubts and the Limits of Reason

Seth says:

All of this information applies to your lives in general, and to Ruburt's physical condition. For you must be clearly aware of your own situation in that regard. And most of this information will clear up your doubts and dispel the lingering uncertainties. Those uncertainties have caused you, especially Ruburt, to cling to reason through a biased kind of effort, in order to maintain what you consider a balanced viewpoint and an open mind. Because of the definition you were taught, it is as though there were only such a narrow kind of reason. But if you abandon the boundaries of that narrow definition, then you become irrational, fanatical, crazy, or something of the sort.

In daily life, from childhood you are taught to approach every aspect of things with rational thinking. No matter what the problem, you are told to deal with it rationally -- "You must deal with it rationally, you must be objective, you must be rational, you must be calm." It is as though there is nothing besides reason, that reason is an unshakable truth capable of handling all things. It is as though the moment you are not rational, you become irrational, fanatical, crazy, unreasonable.

He says:

That so-called reason, perceived as thin and cold, is actually a false facade covering a profound spontaneous rationality. And it is precisely because of the existence of that magical rationality that the intellect is given its foundation.

The reason you believe in -- the reason perceived as thin, cold, and impersonal -- is actually only a false exterior. What is at its core, beneath it? A profound spontaneous rationality. This spontaneous rationality exists precisely because of that magical rationality -- beneath what we call reason lies the existence of magical rationality -- and it is this that gives the intellect its foundation. Without the existence of this magical rationality, your intellect would have no foundation at all. Yet we fail to recognize this.

So what is the reason we have accepted? It is nothing more than, he says:

The reason you have accepted is merely a small clue to the spontaneous inner rationality that every natural person possesses.

That larger portion we have not yet recognized, and in this book Seth wants you to recognize the vastness of this spontaneous inner rationality.

Rob's Dream: Pollution and Hometown

Seth said:

Now in the dreams that you have while you are asleep, you seem to be irrational.

When you are asleep, you are certainly irrational, because your intellect is not operating. When your intellect seems not to be operating -- when the thinking ability is asleep, the reasoning ability is stopped -- he continued:

You perceived some information about the physical environment of your past, and felt that you could begin to cross space and time. You saw your old neighborhood.

He began to talk about Rob's dream:

In the yard of a Brannan mansion, animal and industrial waste was everywhere. You looked at that situation symbolically in your own way. You actually already knew that the house, that property in Brannan, had been polluted, but you still loved that area, you had a certain resonance with it, and more or less your attention was on information about it.

Brannan is a place in Rob's hometown that has now been polluted by industry, but Rob still cannot forget it. When Rob's intellect was not operating, he could still go back to the past -- that house may have already been torn down, may no longer exist, but he could still feel that house. What he returned to was that unpolluted house in the past, yet he could also feel the sense of pollution in the present -- this is a feeling of crossing space and time.

But Seth said:

You also idealized the past to some extent.

You also idealized the past, feeling that the past had no pollution at all, while the present is all polluted. Actually, many times we also have this kind of situation -- we always feel that the environment of our childhood was especially good, the sky was blue, the water was clear, nature was incomparably beautiful. It was indeed better than now, but we more or less beautify it as well. We do this in order to emphasize the current pollution and the destruction of the environment by industrialization. What you want to emphasize is this.

Seth said:

Whether or not you saw that report that appeared in the Elmira newspaper, the dream achieved that purpose. In fact, whether or not you remembered it, the dream achieved its purpose, but you did remember it.

That time was in June 1980, when Rob had a series of dreams about his childhood city and his childhood old house -- he dreamed that he returned to the original house, and how polluted the house had become. Later he also saw a related report, which said that the place was indeed polluted, and the government was giving compensation money to the local residents. This dream had no detailed record at the time, but Seth wanted to tell Rob: if humanity continues to develop according to this so-called rational way of development, the pollution of the entire environment will be very serious, and it should not be done this way.

Seth said:

The part of you that formed that dream knew about the pollution, but also knew about the compensation money -- the report in the newspaper and your habit of reading the evening paper. All of that touched upon the psychological dynamics of the natural magical idea. It showed you that the laws of the rational world are full of holes. It showed you that the viewpoint of the rational world does not represent a safe fortress, but on the contrary, the complete use of intellect and intuition becomes an obstacle.

This dream let you see that the laws of the rational world are full of holes, and the viewpoint of the rational world does not represent a safe fortress -- the complete use of intellect and intuition instead became an obstacle.

Jane's Vision: Looking Toward the Kitchen

Then he talked about Jane. He said:

After interpreting your dreams -- the ones Rob had a while back -- from her study she looked into the kitchen very clearly and in a relaxed way.

Jane saw the kitchen.

The Intellect and the Free Flow of Information

You resonate with your former environment, just as Ruburt's state of mind resonates with your own state of mind -- these are the same principle. So in these examples, you have a free flow of information on other levels, that is, not on the level of time and space as we understand it, but on other levels there is a flow of information.

When you understand from your logical thinking ability that this free communication on other levels exists, then the intellect can take it for granted that its own information is not all of the information you possess. At this point, when you bring information from other levels -- that is, information not within this time and space -- to your intellect, your intellect itself can discover that its own information is not the entirety of all information, and that there is other information it has not obtained. When the intellect realizes that its own knowledge represents only the tip of the iceberg, and you apply that realization to your life, you begin a further realization.

The actual statement is:

You are truly supported by a greater body of knowledge than your conscious awareness perceives, and by the magical, spontaneous source of action that forms your existence.

What he means is that when your intellect finally recognizes that the information it has obtained is only the tip of the iceberg of the entire information or body of knowledge, and that there is a greater reality, more information and knowledge that it does not possess, then this intellect itself can have more realization. It can recognize that in this world there are always greater mountains beyond mountains and greater people beyond people, and that it is not just the logical knowledge in books as it understood it -- there is existence beyond time and space, existence across time and space, existence on other levels, and the existence of a multidimensional world. Only then will it know that its own logical reasoning ability and behavioral judgments brought by the intellect are all supported by a deeper spontaneous source of action, and that behind it there is a greater energy supporting it. So at this point the intellect will appear more rational, or clearer about its own position.

The intellect then recognizes that it does not need to fight alone, and it does not need to reason out every single thing in order to understand it. It discovers that it can understand things through other means -- for example, some past events, or future events, it can understand them through another kind of resonance and sensing, rather than relying solely on its own logical reasoning.

Jane, now as Seth, delivered the above words powerfully and with full confidence. Rob said, "I think this information is fantastic -- not the data, the information is fantastic. I plan to copy it down and pin it on the wall of my studio so I can refer to it at any time." Rob was deeply moved, feeling that Seth's preceding passage was so well said that he should pin it up on the wall of his studio and read it once every day.

Seth said:

This material is fact. I am not saying that I do not often use metaphors, or that I am not occasionally forced to use symbolic statements.

Seth said that what he is telling you now is solid fact, and he does not mean that he does not ordinarily use metaphors, analogies, or symbolic expressions. But when he does so, he always says so beforehand -- he will tell you "in your terms," or "let me give you an example," or "I am speaking figuratively now." He said he always tells you. When speaking about this matter, he said he is telling you this is fact, this is not a metaphor, this is not a symbol, this is fact.

And even those statements are facts larger than you can define them.

What he means is that this has already gone beyond the scope of language. He said this fact is something you cannot define, and his statements are the best description of that vast fact which exceeds what human beings can define with language, or rather, the best description of that fact which we cannot define with language.

The Intellect's Paranoid Tendency When Facing Global Predicaments

When the intellect believes it must solve all personal situations more or less on its own, it can and does form strong paranoid tendencies.

That is, when it is forced to handle all problems on its own, it will develop intense paranoia.

When it is presented with the picture of any global predicament, it will inevitably react in that way.

When you put a global problem before your logical mind -- for example, global warming, global environmental pollution, the current global pandemic -- and let your intellect deal with it, then it will inevitably develop this intense paranoid tendency. So you see, whether it is world peace organizations or environmental protection organizations, their visions of the future are all extremely pessimistic. Although they have done some meaningful things, like saving the environment, their entire theoretical foundation and their predictions for the future are all very pessimistic: in so many years humanity will have no water, in so many years humanity will have no energy, in so many years the earth will no longer be suitable for human survival, in so many years humanity will erupt into war, and then the earth will be destroyed, and so on and so forth.

Seth points out here that when faced with global predicaments, it will inevitably become intensely paranoid, and intense paranoia will inevitably bring about intensely pessimistic predictions.

The rational approach built around this framework will then grow strong.

That is, the rational approach built around the above kind of thinking framework. What we have been educated with since childhood is: to solve a problem, you put the problem on the table, we concentrate our forces to accomplish great things and solve it, focusing all our energy on the problem itself.

And project the effects into the future, and ruminate over the results again and again, and then stare face to face at the "naked facts."

What does he mean by this? It means that the education we ordinarily receive tells us to face the problem itself, to lay the problem itself out, and then give it a pessimistic prediction, projecting this pessimistic prediction into the future -- saying that the future will certainly be this kind of pessimistic situation: the depletion of the earth's resources, the exhaustion of energy, the deterioration of the environment, overpopulation, the outbreak of war, the corruption and decline of social morality, and so on, all pessimistic. You ruminate over the results of this pessimistic description of the future again and again, displaying it over and over on television news, media, the internet, all kinds of news.

Then "stare face to face at the naked facts" -- he puts this in quotation marks here. These are not facts at all; these are so-called facts derived by your own reason. But why does Seth put quotation marks here? If all of humanity really thought this way, then these things would really become facts. If everyone's expectations for the future were like this, then these results could really become facts. That is why Seth puts quotation marks here.

Yet this brings about an atmosphere in which the problem is magnified.

We magnify the problem, and we think this is a very clever thing to do -- if we do not magnify it, how can we draw everyone's attention to it? So we magnify it everywhere.

The intellect must be alone, so it seems. Dealing not only with today's problems, but with the effects of its projected disaster-ridden tomorrows.

If your intellect deals with things on its own, it cannot even solve the problems of the present, and yet it is also asked to solve the various future disasters projected by its own pessimistic predictions and paranoia, and to come up with a solution today -- how could it possibly come up with one? And moreover, that problem has also been magnified by itself.

The intent is good, but this well-intentioned concentration then brings about an even deeper sense of powerlessness.

After you magnify the problem, you bring the problems of the future into the present and ask yourself to deal with them today -- how can you deal with them? You cannot deal with them, and when you cannot deal with them, a sense of powerlessness arises. So concentrating on this problem brings about a kind of mechanical repetition -- your sense of powerlessness will say: oh dear, the future will be so terrible, and we humans are now powerless to do anything about it. Is this not feeling that the future will be even more terrifying and more pessimistic? This is a kind of repetitive hypnotic focusing. You repeatedly focus yourself, feeling both powerless about the future and that the future is utterly miserable. Then what are you doing? Is it not especially ridiculous?

The current way of thinking of humanity, the thinking logic and structural system of the whole society, is exactly this. And they also consider it very reasonable. Countless so-called think tanks, brain trusts, and elite institutions of society are all reasoning about problems according to this set of logic, making very pessimistic predictions about the future with solemn faces and in all seriousness, and then making people all over the world believe them and take action accordingly. This is a particularly interesting thing. Seth highlights it here. He does not say it so harshly, but in fact it is just this. To put it bluntly, it is like the man of Qi who worried that the sky might fall -- a Chinese idiom said this long ago.

The Intellect as Organizer and the Brain's Narrativity

Now in certain respects, the intellect is an excellent organizer, so if this focus continues, the intellect begins to organize its perceptions and experiences along the same direction.

From a certain angle, the intellect is a very good organizer. Its logical thinking ability is so strong; it is an organizer. But if you continue this focus in its current manner, concentrating on this kind of bleak future scenario and pessimistic mood, the intellect begins to organize its perceptions and experiences along the same direction—what direction? The pessimistic direction.

Then, by finding information consistent with itself, it finds order.

It will search for evidence in a pessimistic way. It will see: look at this pollution, the rivers are polluted, the glaciers are melting, the earth is warming, the world is entering a stage of collapse, and so on. And the news, newspapers, and media it sees are all providing it with evidence, all reinforcing its belief that the world is like this, in a process of decay. So the intellect itself gathers evidence to prove its own viewpoint.

Because, as you understand it, the rational mind must find an acceptable reason for everything.

What is the rational mind? Our human mode of thinking is rational, and so-called rationality means seeking a reasonable and plausible explanation. If you understand this method of human thinking, it is simply like having a cheat code, like having found what we call a bug in human thinking, or a flaw, a loophole. What loophole? It is that no matter what you do, your rational brain will definitely fabricate a reasonable explanation for you. If you believe the world is pessimistic, it will fabricate a pile of pessimistic reasons for you, reasonable reasons and evidence to make it self-consistent. If you believe the world is optimistic and beautiful, it will also find a pile of evidence to weave out this belief that "the world is beautiful" with a pile of evidence and reasons.

This method—scientists have now proven that the human brain is a storytelling brain. It justifies its own actions, or explains them, or makes up stories. No matter what you do, it can find a series of stories to make itself self-consistent, and then settle comfortably within them. If you understand the working principles and thinking patterns of the human brain, then it is very simple—you just take the lead and do some actions first, and then do not worry about it; your brain will naturally find a reasonable explanation for them.

Just like many examples I have given before: when you encounter a beggar, if your first feeling is to give him money, then give him the money first. After giving it, your brain will naturally fabricate a theory saying: of course I have money, of course I am far better off than him, I do not lack money at all, so that is why I gave him money. It will produce that. When you do not give him money and walk past, your brain will fabricate another story telling you: oh, your life is just so-so, you are just an ordinary person, you are just an ordinary wage earner, you are not much better off than others; that beggar might earn more in a year than you do—did you not see that news story about beggars buying houses and cars? You will use another story to explain your own behavior.

People are just such machines; our brains operate this way. This mode of operation is very hard to change, unless you have studied some spirituality or spiritual practice, and you enter a higher realm and state, after which you can observe from the side the process of your own brain's thinking and reasoning. If you cannot stand from a bystander's perspective to observe your own thinking and reasoning process, then your brain automatically does things according to this set of logic.

What Seth is talking about here is the rational mind, that rational thing, and it operates in this manner. So when you think about good things, it will find good evidence to fabricate such a story for itself. Therefore, what we should do—you should already understand in your own heart—if you persist in pessimistic thoughts, then it will inevitably find a series of pessimistic things to show you.

At the same time, of course, the very effective but nonconforming bedrock, this evidence, gradually becomes discarded, ignored, or lost.

He says that in fact, the real facts are like a bed as hard as rock, that is, the more real facts. Those facts are the things within the spontaneous rationality of the magical approach. He says the evidence of those real facts will become discarded, lost. It is there, but it is not being used—as evidence, it becomes invisible, becomes inactive.

Beneath the hard bed there is still a rock bed; the rocky bedrock is the hardest layer of the earth's crust. At that level of real facts, those are the real facts. Your bed board is only a fact that you think is a fact, but actually it is not the real fact at all. Beneath that real fact, those real pieces of evidence and pictures have all been discarded.

So need I say more? Every method of solving a problem gives rise to problems that far exceed the problems it solves.

Right? So in life we do find that this is indeed the case: when you adopt a pessimistic perspective to look at a problem, you will find that the problem is unsolvable, and it will bring endless problems, one problem nested within another.

The Influence of Pessimistic Inertia on Jane

As far as Ruburt's condition is concerned, he often thinks he is facing.

He just talked about globalization and the problems of globalization, and now he comes back to Ruburt's personal problems. He says this way of handling things can be applied to individuals, and it can also be applied to society and the entire globe.

He often thinks he is facing evidence that his condition is not improving.

Ruburt feels that his illness is getting worse and worse, that there is no evidence of any improvement, that it is only getting worse. The evidence that exists all says that this condition will indeed get worse and will not improve. What he sees is all evidence seen with his own eyes, and what he experiences is that things are getting worse and worse, his body getting worse and worse. Sometimes he even thinks that thinking this way is being realistic — he feels that this is the fact, that his body is indeed deteriorating, that he can only be active twice a day, and even then he has to hold onto a small movable table to take a couple of steps, so he feels his body has already deteriorated to the extreme. This is one of his viewpoints.

Of course what happened was exactly what I just roughly described.

He says these things are exactly what I just said. Because he is pessimistic, because Ruburt or Jane, what he uses is this rational way of dealing with the world — the rational approach — he uses his logical thinking ability to make judgments, so he is pessimistic.

Other very real, very solid evidence, which was at all times plainly apparent in him, was ignored.

Those pieces of evidence that things were getting better, that things were improving, were ignored, not seen, considered unimportant, too trivial, and not worth paying attention to or taking seriously. Because they did not fit the so-called rational picture he had already developed. Because they did not match his current judgment — the pessimistic picture he had judged — and if they did not match, they were not accepted. As I just said, this narrative brain of human beings: if you believe your illness will not get better, you will find a pile of evidence proving that your symptoms are getting worse and worse, and even if there is evidence of improvement, evidence that things have already turned around, you will not be able to see it.

Seth then talks about Jane's own problems. Rob was not convinced — actually here Rob was not convinced, because he saw that Jane was indeed not well — so he turned and asked Seth, but since Jane was channeling Seth, he did not know whether Seth could hear his question. Then Seth did not answer that question, and continued:

The process was exactly the same as the passage I just described. Therefore I want you to understand that point: any improvement, unless it is spoken of, is largely ignored.

You must remember this sentence: any improvement, unless it is spoken of, is largely ignored.

It is not considered undeniable evidence, while at the same time any difficulty is necessarily accepted as reliable evidence. Because they fit the intellect's overall data-gathering described above, they are considered significant, while progress is treated as if it hardly counts at all.

So in our real lives, although it is hard to change our pessimistic emotions all at once — of course it would be best if we could change them all at once — if you cannot change them all at once, then you must see those positive things in life, even the smallest bit, and speak them out, emphasize the delightful changes that are happening to you. Speak them out, especially emphasize them, and this emphasis itself will bring about very great improvement.

For example, in our group there is a friend named Ding Hui. Her body actually had cancer before, and she underwent chemotherapy, so her body itself was very weak. But when she caught a cold a couple of days ago, she gave herself a suggestion. She felt: I will get better, I will get better in a day or two, not at all like what other people say, that I would probably need six or seven days. Although my body was like this before, I feel that recently my physical condition has been very good. As a result, her cold was about eighty percent better by the second day, and basically she had no uncomfortable symptoms anymore. She shared this in the group herself, and she said: "My body — if I think of myself as someone who has had cancer and undergone chemotherapy, then my body might not be very good, and I would have bad results from that. But now I feel that my body is very good, and none of those things matter." She said she made a complete cut with her past — whether it was her unhealthy body, her bad experiences, her bad past, her bad thoughts, her bad beliefs, she cut them all off. She told herself that from now on she would live in this very positive and affirmative way.

Why am I giving this example here? It is to say this: every little bit of progress in her small cold, she had to speak it out — she said it in the group, and she said it to herself. In the very process of emphasizing it, she was reinforcing it. If you do not speak it out, it is not a very powerful piece of evidence, and it gets ignored. With this small matter, I am giving everyone a little bit of groundwork.

Then Seth answered the question he had raised above — he asked what evidence there actually was, you say Ruburt is improving, how come I do not see it? He told him:

In the past week, Ruburt had some relief in the area of his jaw, neck, and shoulders. On three or four occasions, his eyesight also improved considerably. For a period of time, his ankles and knees had a great deal of freedom of movement.

This is Seth explaining this matter from his higher-dimensional perspective. Ruburt was severely nearsighted, and especially after his illness his nearsightedness worsened, and his eyesight also improved greatly.

But all of this evidence was largely ignored, or even worse, treated sarcastically, because he was not able to walk better.

Why was it treated sarcastically? Because he was already improving, the range of motion in his ankles and knees had already increased, but he still could not walk like a normal person, he had not walked better. So at that time you not only did not encourage him, you even mocked him — saying look, those couple of movements you made were useless, your range of motion increased, but we still do not see you walking well. What would be the result of this kind of sarcastic treatment? So at this point Seth actually gave them some direct evidence, emphasizing that Ruburt's body had these signs of improvement, but they were ignored by him, carried all the way down by his pessimistic emotions.

But when you read The Way Toward Health, you can also see that about two weeks before Jane passed away, her body actually had some very significant improvements — including her ankle joints, hip joints, and some other joints that had already become movable, and had already been relieved. At that time Seth was actually giving them all kinds of hints and suggestions, but at that time — four years later, when Jane was in the hospital — Jane was actually extremely pessimistic about her future. On the surface she was optimistic, she and Rob were always chatting and laughing, but inside she was indeed extremely pessimistic. This pessimism ultimately led her to have no choice but to... if you read that book carefully you can feel it. If you want to call it what the Chinese call a brief rally before death, that is fine too. In any case, about two weeks before she passed away, her body had a tremendous improvement, an improvement rarely seen in recent years, but in the end it still could not change things, and in the last week her condition took a sharp turn for the worse.

In the last week she had no records. After the last session, she had no records at all, and then her condition took a sharp turn for the worse, and a week later she passed away. A case of someone who ultimately passed away through rheumatoid arthritis... Seth had actually already foreseen this. You see here, when he talks about the magical approach, he says many, many things that are helpful to all of us, but you can see he still does not forget to remind Jane at any time that she should apply it to herself. The purpose of what he told them was, on the one hand, to remind all of us human beings that in life we should more often use the magical approach to handle things in life, and not only use the rational approach; but at the same time he also wanted to help Rob and Jane, to get the two of them to truly change.

Resonance, "Changing Focus," and a New Picture

You received that information about the blueberry thing because you have a resonance with that environment.

That is, the dream thing — you do have a resonance with that environment. In that regard, you received an inner evidence.

Ruburt received his own camera activity because he has a resonance with you. He had to resonate with the evidence of activity that his body was trying to give him, so that he could build up a new picture of his own body.

What does he mean by what he says here? He means that Rob, because you have this nostalgic attachment to your hometown, you have a resonance with that environment of that time, and that is why you had that kind of dream. And Jane has a resonance with you, so when she wanted to take a picture, you happened to walk in with the camera, even though you had not picked up that camera for months. He says this itself is a kind of resonance.

Then what he says after this means: when Jane has an ideal picture of her body's future improvement, when she resonates with that picture, only then can her body improve; and if Jane does not have a good picture of her body's future, then she will not improve. He wants her to build up a new picture for herself, to let herself resonate with these evidences of her improvement — that is, this part has eased, that part has eased — he wants her to pay attention to these places of easing, and then give herself a positive confidence, give her picture a future picture, a new picture, rather than that pessimistic picture.

Actually, as we all can know, as Seth, he is very clear about what kind of picture Jane has in her mind about her own future; he can read minds. But at this time he did not say it so bluntly, yet he still said it very thoroughly. He wants Jane to change her picture of the future, her picture of herself.

You change your focus, you change the thing that you consider to be of the greatest significance, and you have changed your focus.

Simply put, change your focus, and you change the thing you are paying attention to.

What to Do, Not What Not to Do

In this session, we began a discussion of life, of problem-solving, and of the magical approach. Seth said that in this session we happened to begin just such a discussion.

I want to emphasize what to do, not what not to do. Although sometimes I must clearly distinguish between the two.

Why does he say this? What he means is that when he emphasizes what you should not do, isn't the focus of your attention still on that thing you should not do? When you put your focus on what you should not do, aren't you reinforcing that very thing?

So this is the famous white bear theory in psychology⁷. An experiment: they tell a person, you stand here and don't move, and you may leave only when there is no concept of a white bear in your mind. So this person stands there thinking: I can only leave when I have no concept of a white bear, so when will I have no concept of a white bear? Well, right now I have no concept of a white bear... no, that's not right, I can't do it, there's still a white bear. So I won't think about the white bear — I won't think about the white bear, but that is still thinking about not thinking about the white bear. So this is a classic case in psychology: the more you don't want to think about the white bear, the more you think about the white bear; the more you are told not to think about the white bear, the more you think about the white bear.

So at this point he says, I will — I will emphasize what you should do, and I will not tell you what you should not do. Because the more I tell you what you should not do, the more you will focus on that thing you should not do, and you will actually go off course. Although sometimes I must distinguish between the two.

If you can thoroughly understand everything I have explained before, and if you genuinely intend to truly change your orientation — that is, to change from the rational orientation to the magical orientation, your attitude toward life — whether you really are willing to change it from a rational approach to a magical approach. If you are willing, then follow Seth and continue learning how to apply the magical approach in your life, rather than using your rational approach to handle your life. He says you must have the intention, you must really want to change. If you hold the attitude of "oh, let me just listen and see, let me chat and find out, if it's useful I'll learn it, if not then forget it," it will be very hard for you to truly learn anything.

Then you will automatically create an atmosphere in which the changes you desire will occur.

If you truly make up your mind from this very moment and say: from now on I have changed, I will no longer use the rational approach that I have studied for decades and that everyone has taught me to handle life, I begin to believe that this world has magic, I believe that I myself am a magician, and I am willing from now on to use the magical approach to deal with the various difficulties and problems I face in life — then you have created an atmosphere, and within this atmosphere, the things you desire will occur.

This session ended here, and at 9:55 Jane came out of the trance state.

Rob and Jane's Reactions: Learning but Not Applying

Rob felt this session was excellent, but he was also quite angry. Because Seth's information always has a way of making things seem self-evident. What angered him was that Seth spoke as if it were all so effortless -- including the things he said about his relief. However:

People always have to judge for themselves, and how could anything so fundamentally clear and simple be so easily missed and misunderstood by those who most urgently want to use it?

What he was saying was: this passage of the Seth material is so well said, so simple, so plain, so easy to apply -- why did we, the very people who so wanted to use it, miss it and misunderstand it?

During personal practice sessions, I often experienced these phenomena, and each time I would resolve to do better the next time.

That is, when we discover one miracle after another in our lives, how many times have we resolved that from then on we would act according to this approach -- yet we could not follow through, and many times we were pulled back by reality again, and went back to using our rationality and our logic to analyze.

Now, in our group there are many who began practicing very early on. From listening to this Seth material, from Seth Speaks onward -- for example, starting in March, April, May -- many group members or listeners began applying it in practice, and applying it brought about many, many magical results. For instance, Simon in the group has been wanting to share his process. He already has many magical things happening there, but he is currently working on summarizing a more complete account. I think once he finishes summarizing it, I will analyze these cases he has put together for everyone -- it may be an inspiration for you all. He is a person who puts things into practice: he saw it, he heard it, and then he went and applied it in practice, and then a series of magical things happened to him. We will come back later to talk about his story.

Jane often felt the same way, although judging by certain things she said, I think she has had that feeling less often recently.

Jane used to frequently have that kind of inspiration where things she wished for would come true, but recently they had lost that. You can see it in the earlier material -- Jane would often say, hey, someone is coming to visit us tonight, and after a while someone would knock on the door. Jane's psychic abilities were already very strong back then, but later her psychic abilities grew weaker and weaker.

Nevertheless, this material brings people hope, to think about them. At least on my part, it leads to a temporary genuine understanding and a consequent feeling of hope.

This earlier material from Seth, at least for me, temporarily brought me hope, and also brought genuine understanding -- knowing that this was how it actually was. Notice he used "temporary" -- why? He also knew that probably before too long he would be pulled back by reality into everyday life again.

The fact is that I really believe this information is good, and useful, and basically it is the best kind of information people can get.

He also knew that what Seth was saying was the best kind of information we humans can get. But you see, from his own wording you can tell -- Rob himself treated it as something temporary -- "temporary genuine understanding" -- during the time Seth was speaking, he understood it: this is how things are, we should follow the magical approach and not the rational approach; he understood everything. And along with it came a feeling of hope, but after a while he was pulled back into rational life again. So he used the word "temporary." The moment you see the word "temporary," you know he did not actually intend to put the magical approach into practice. Yet at the same time he felt it was very good, and very useful, the best kind of information for everyone -- but he still did not use it. Interesting, isn't it? You could say this couple, Jane and Rob, transmitted the Seth material their whole lives -- most of their lives -- yet in their own lives they did not truly apply it.

The points mentioned above were quite acceptable to Jane, yet, because of our feelings, we had a lively and beneficial discussion.

Jane also accepted these points, and they discussed them for quite a while. So to sum it up overall, this session was a very good one. Rob made a note for one part of this session, and he excerpted that note into Seth's latest book, Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment.

You see, Seth had already told them in the first session: do not turn yourselves into assembly-line workers, always thinking about writing books, creating, creating -- you should have your own lives, you should live easily and effortlessly, do not make yourselves so tense. But look, he learned this session very well, and the two of them discussed it for a long time -- there the couple was, Seth had finished speaking a little after nine, which was relatively early, and then the two of them were still discussing. The result of the discussion was: hey, this session is very good, we can put it in Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment as a note, it can nicely illustrate a certain point in that book.

Interesting, isn't it? What should the two of them have been doing at that moment? They should have pushed all the books aside and said: from today onward we are changing our lives, from tomorrow or from right now we are changing our beliefs. That is what the two of them should have been doing. What were they doing? Discussing books, discussing how to write the books better. As for how to change their daily lives, they only accepted some peripheral things -- buying a water cushion, changing two sets of underwear -- but in terms of beliefs, of cognition, of their attitude toward life and how they dealt with people and matters, there was no real change. So through these details you can see: if we could travel back through time and space, we should shake the two of them awake and say, you two should be applying it, not just recording it and passing it on to us.

And all those who apply these theories, apply this material in their lives -- you will benefit from it. Are you like Jane and Rob, who learned it but did not use it, or are you going to use it in practice starting right now, in this present moment? You might still say, I do not know how to apply the magical approach, I do not know how exactly to apply the magical approach in practice. Well, do not worry -- the next few sessions are specifically about telling you how to apply the magical approach. Later he will introduce the definition and use of the magical approach.

注释与核实

1. This claim could not be verified. ↩

2. Source: Wikipedia, "1980 Democratic National Convention" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Democratic_National_Convention) ↩

3. According to Mike's original words, it was "the Carter group advocating to close the convention and the Kennedy group advocating to open the convention"; upon verification, it should be "at the 1980 Democratic National Convention (a convention, not a parliament), the Carter camp advocated maintaining the rule that bound delegates on the first ballot, that is, a 'closed convention,' while the Kennedy camp advocated an 'open convention' allowing delegates to vote freely; in the end, the Carter side won." (Source: Wikipedia, "1980 Democratic National Convention," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Democratic_National_Convention) ↩

4. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "United States presidential election of 1980" (https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1980/General-election-campaign) ↩

5. Source: Wikipedia, "Buddhist logico-epistemology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_logico-epistemology) ↩

6. Source: Wikipedia, "Sera Monastery" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sera_Monastery) ↩

7. Source: Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S. R., & White, T. L., "Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression" (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1987) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3612492/) ↩