Mike's commentary · The Magical Approach, Session 4

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 block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This session uses Rob's glass-door dream to introduce the core of the magical approach: desire is action, and it is effortless. Seth criticizes modern science for studying only repeatable physical events, ignoring natural abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance, and for confining the intellect to a single material worldview, leaving its information incomplete and causing it to piece together a mistaken order. He points out that the source of physical reality lies in the magical dimension, advocates treating work as a creative adventure, and offers adjustments regarding the details of Jane and Rob's daily life, such as their bedroom and lunch, requiring a wholesale change in worldview.

Key Points of This Chapter

• The glass door dream shows that the main characteristic of the magical approach is that desire is action, and it is easy and effortless.
• Science only recognizes repeatable, predictable physical events, ignores natural abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance, and limits the intellect to a single material worldview.
• The intellect is originally capable of processing information from multiple reality systems; giving it only material world information will force it to piece together a wrong order.
• The source of physical reality lies in the magical dimension; work should be regarded as a creative adventure, and value fulfillment is a natural attribute of the soul.
• Jane and Rob only tried the new approach in bits and pieces, without changing their worldview as a whole; they should begin adjusting from the details of daily life such as the bedroom and lunch.

Main Text

Session 4: Science and the Scientific Picture, Desire as Action

Today we continue with Session 4 of the Seth book The Magical Approach. The title of this session is "Science and the Scientific Picture, Desire as Action." This session began on Thursday, August 18, 1980, at 9:10 in the evening.

Just as Jane took off her glasses and entered the trance state, Rob sneezed three times. As Seth, Jane stared at me with considerable amusement, waiting until I was ready to take notes. Then Seth said good evening, and Rob said good evening to Seth as well.

Seth said that now he would like to begin by reading the most important information from Rob's "glass door dream" -- the dream he had had two days earlier -- because its truth also applies to the magical approach. But we do not see a detailed record of this dream; it may be in other materials, but as far as I remember, it is not. So at this point we will look at how Seth uses this dream to introduce the content of this session.

That is, the dream gave you an example of one of the main characteristics of what we call the magical approach.

This is a very good example. Ruburt did not emphasize this point in his interpretation; apart from that, the rest of the interpretation was excellent.

Ruburt has recently been helping Rob interpret dreams. Rob records some dreams, and then the next day or the day after, Ruburt explains the meaning of the dream to him. Seth emphasizes here that Ruburt's dream interpretation was correct, except that he forgot to mention one point: this dream is an example of one of the most important characteristics of the magical approach that they are now transmitting in this course.

What is the main theme of this dream? He says:

You could quite easily enlarge the hole in the glass door.

I can only guess at this dream, because he does not describe it. I can only guess. Rob may have dreamed of a dog on the other side of a glass door, with food on this side of the glass door. The dog wanted to eat the food, and then the dog came directly through the glass door and ate the food it wanted. Something like that. He says the dog could easily enlarge the door. Maybe Rob enlarged it for the dog, or maybe the dog enlarged it itself; in any case, the dog came through the hole in the glass door.

You should note that "easily" is a key word. To the intellectual world -- the world of logical thinking -- a glass door must necessarily be considered solid, just as it is in the world of our physical senses. We use our bodies to perceive that a glass door is solid.

But in equally practical terms, within the larger framework of facts, that door is of course not solid at all, just as no object is solid. Obviously science already knows this; it already knows this point. Because glass itself is composed of its molecules and its atoms. If you understand atoms, the spatial distance between the nucleus and the atom is extremely vast.

We can use a vivid analogy: suppose the Earth were an atom. If the entire size of the Earth were one atom, how big would the nucleus be? The nucleus would only be the size of a basketball. Facing an atom this large, its outside is surrounded by electrons moving around it. If the center of our Earth had a nucleus only the size of a watermelon, and everything around it were empty, would this atom not be extremely loose? Most of it is empty.

So when we see matter, we think it is solid. Something like glass, so solid and real that it makes a sound when you tap it -- if you had an ultra-high-magnification microscope that could magnify it infinitely, you would find that inside it is empty, just like the starry sky we see. The distance between atoms is like the distance between stars. The nucleus in the middle is like a star in space, very far away. But from a distance, they look densely packed, like a fixed solid entity.

The meaning of Seth's words here is that although our scientists already know that no object is fixed or solid, that everything is composed of atoms, and that the distances between any atoms are extremely vast -- if we consider the nucleus as a solid entity and the surrounding space as empty, then the entire material world is empty. If within a space the size of the Earth only something the size of a watermelon is material, and everything else is vacuum, can you say this Earth is material? At a glance it is empty; that watermelon cannot be seen at all.

So from a higher framework, the door was never solid to begin with, yet our physical perception and our three-dimensional world tell us that the material world around us is absolutely hard. Why is it that we cannot fall directly from the bed board to the floor, why can we not keep falling from the ground all the way to the Earth's core? This world is composed of such empty atoms, so why can we not pass through atoms? The glass door is atoms, and we humans are also atoms. Logically we should be able to pass directly through, without any obstruction at all, because the empty space is far greater than the place where the solid nucleus is.

From the perspective of physics there are many explanations, such as the very strong strong force and weak force between nuclei; in quantum mechanics, according to superstring theory, strings are further divided into closed-loop and open-loop types. Today we will not expand on this question of why we cannot pass through matter. Theoretically it is possible, but in practice we cannot pass through.

Seth continues:

Science assigns the natural world as a realm of natural events.

This sentence seems baffling. What he means is that our current science treats the natural events in the natural world as its own field of study. Science only studies natural events in the natural world, considering itself to be very objective and real, so its view of the natural world is mechanical and rigid.

But nature itself, like the rest of nature's other parts, possesses a rich inner psychological depth that science, by its own definition, cannot perceive.

Nature itself has a rich inner psychological depth, and we are blind to the things at this deeper psychological level. Moreover, because of the very definition of science, it considers them nonexistent and incapable of being perceived. We only acknowledge what we can see on the surface, and we call that science.

Seth is telling you here: you think science studies natural events, but you have precisely forgotten that nature itself has that deeper, rich, psychological depth that science cannot cognize. But science does not consider this its field of study, nor does it acknowledge their existence.

For example, telepathy and clairvoyance are part of natural effects, but from the scientific perspective they are considered unnatural, to the point that they seem very unnatural. In practice we think: this person has opened the celestial eye, how amazing, their spiritual attainment must be very high, they must have great cultivation to open the celestial eye; telepathy can read minds, he can know what others have not said, this person is too amazing. So we regard it as a very unnatural, strange behavior, rather than a natural component of consciousness. In fact, each of us, in our own consciousness, inherently has clairvoyance and telepathic abilities, applied at all times and in every moment, only we do not notice their existence.

But such characteristics are basic attributes of the natural person.

These are basic attributes that every natural person has. But under the sponsorship of the scientific method, they seem out of place.

Because the scientific method itself is set up to perceive only information that fits its predicted patterns.

What is the so-called scientific method? It is that we first propose a theory, we want to observe a phenomenon, and in this process we have already set up several possible outcomes, and then we observe. So it is only suited to things whose experimental results it can predict. For things like mind reading and clairvoyance, it considers them beyond the laws of natural science, unpredictable and unknowable, and therefore not science.

If you are a science student, you know from doing experiments that so-called scientific experiments can only observe things that can be repeatedly experimented on and repeatedly verified. You do this experiment, he does it, and anyone in the world following the same experimental conditions can obtain the same result -- only then is it called science. If your experiment produces a result, but he cannot reproduce it, even though you have instruments, cameras, and all other evidence proving that your experiment was not wrong and your conclusion was not wrong, simply because your experiment cannot be repeated, the result is not accepted.

Do you think that is absurd? It only acknowledges experiments whose content can be repeated. If an experiment cannot be repeated, even if the result is real, it cannot be recognized. So the so-called scientific experiment only recognizes repeatable experiments; from this you can see how naive it is.

But science itself is not wrong. Within the small circle it has drawn for itself, within the scope it has defined for itself, it is correct. But you must never apply science to all things in the world, to everything in nature; that would be too laughable. We are currently in exactly such a situation, wanting to use science to explain everything.

Think about it: the dream you had today and the dream you have tomorrow are certainly different, so do both dreams not truly exist? Everything in the world and every person is different, so if the laboratory cannot produce an identical person, does that person's existence become unreasonable and unscientific? Each of us is vastly different, so even the rationality of our existence disappears. By this standard, each of us is unscientific, because we cannot be repeated.

Even if you could biologically clone a person, first of all, countries around the world have already banned it, because it violates basic ethics and morality. And what problems would arise from successfully cloning a person, we are still not certain. We all know about Dolly the cloned sheep, including the series of subsequent reactions that appeared later; science has not continued or reported on it further. Moreover, even if you cloned an identical person, would that person's thoughts be the same as yours? Can it clone your thoughts into it? If it only looks the same and has the same body, but the thoughts are completely different, is it still you? So you cannot completely clone a you that is exactly the same as you. You cannot even explain yourself, so who else are you going to explain? Think carefully about its logic; is it not this naive?

He continues:

Such abilities appear to be unpredictable, discontinuous, and cannot be repeated or sustained. And that is only because, relatively speaking, you are so unaware of psychological behavior that is in fact quite constant.

Telepathy and clairvoyance are in fact constant, unchanging abilities that everyone has, but we are unaware of such behavior, believing that only a very few highly cultivated practitioners can have them.

That is to say, such abilities operate so smoothly, so continuously, and in such an easy manner, that only under certain circumstances do you become aware of them.

If you have clairvoyant and telepathic abilities, it is not like what is shown on television, where you have to summon power, channel energy, and expend energy. No, such abilities are easy, effortless, and completely without strain. They are inherently very easy, applied every day in our ordinary lives, only we think we do not have them. Then under special circumstances we become aware of them: at certain times we have the feeling of telepathy, or the day before, in a dream or some state, we see an image, and the next day or at some future moment that image reappears -- he inherently has the ability of clairvoyance.

What you perceive are isolated hints of what seem to be strange characteristics.

We think these are particularly magical, very rare isolated hints.

He says:

Basically the intellect can handle many kinds of information and information systems... It is far more flexible than you now allow it to be.

"Intellect" here refers to a kind of logical thinking ability, that is, the thinking capacity of our brain. This thinking capacity can handle many kinds of information and information systems. But we now only allow it to judge what we consider objective facts, that is, the objective facts of the material world. It is far more flexible than this -- it can simultaneously handle several major worldviews, realizing that each of them is a different method of perceiving and processing reality.

To some degree, historically speaking, these situations operated in the past. Only comparatively speaking, when people realized that they did indeed possess a complex and rich inner world, which could be approached in certain ways... that world existed side by side with the material world... certain methods worked in one realm, while other methods worked in inner reality.

The meaning of this passage is that the thinking capacity of the human brain can operate very well in the material world, just like today's world, where we can create cell phones, wireless communication, all kinds of high technology, airplanes, rockets, space probes, and so on. But do not limit it to working only in this area. It can operate in different information systems or framework systems, or simultaneously in several different worlds.

If you understand the different stages of consciousness in Chapter 18 of Seth Speaks and the different levels of consciousness in Chapter 19, you know that your consciousness has many levels and spaces that can be explored. And your thinking ability is a part of your consciousness; it can operate on different levels. But our scientific field tells you that you can only operate in the material world, that in other realms you do not have this ability, and that it does not even acknowledge the existence of other worlds.

He says the intellect can handle these two different modes of operation under different assumptions; it can operate simultaneously in the material and the nonmaterial, in the outer world and the inner world. Different assumptions apply to different realities. What does "assumption" mean? Whether it is the material world we see or the nonmaterial world, as long as it has form, it is a kind of camouflage. The reality you see in the material world, or the world in dreams, or the telepathic images and mental images you see in the world of consciousness -- as long as there is an image, it is an assumption, a camouflage, a pattern; it is not real. What is behind it is the real thing. In this book, Seth's focus is first to cross this threshold; as for matters on higher levels, those are discussed in The "Unknown" Reality and Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment¹, not at this level.

He says:

I do not mean to idealize those times.

He is not saying that those earlier times were particularly good. But in the so-called modern era, our intellect has been debased. How has it been debased? It clearly could be applied in different systems of reality, yet we have fixed it only in the most superficial, most manifested, most coarse world, the one with the least inner meaning. The more materialized something is, the less information it has; Seth discussed this in Chapter 19 of Seth Speaks. Yet we humans insist on focusing on the surface level with the least information.

What does "least information" mean? For example, before the electron microscope was invented, when we looked at the material world, glass was glass, wood was wood, metal was metal. In ancient times people believed that humans were composed of four elements, or five elements -- whatever they were called, that was the most superficial cognition. Now science has progressed a bit and can see that underneath there are atoms. Quantum mechanics has gone a step further, saying that atoms are actually not real either; they are only a kind of appearance. At the core there is no atomic nucleus, neutron, or proton at all; there is only a very tiny string, and the different vibration frequencies of the string manifest as different particle states. If you use quantum mechanics to look at the material world, it is a series of small segments of energy; there is no material existence at all -- energy segments dancing, making us feel as if they were particles. That is why the material world exhibits wave-particle duality: sometimes like a wave, sometimes like a particle. Its essence is actually energy.

Our modern science, researched to the extreme, in turn becomes unscientific. Quantum mechanics has a famous popular science book called God Does Play Dice², which tells you that this is random. The core of quantum mechanics is the uncertainty principle and the collapse of the wave function determined by the observer. When you study this entire system to the end, you will find that science researched to the extreme becomes unscientific: so-called logic becomes illogic, rules become no rules.

So regarding our intellect, we think we are developing it, and that focusing it on the material level greatly strengthens our intellect. In fact, Seth tells you that in the current era, the intellect is precisely being debased, because it is only being applied in one particular field.

Science perceived the magnificent complexity of an outer reality... but gave no recognition whatsoever to anything subjective.

Science discovered that outer reality is extremely magnificent and complex, from the smallest energy segment of quantum theory to the infinite expanse of the universe. The limits of modern physics: in the smallest domain, it can study down to a spatial range of ten to the negative thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth power meters³, which is the limit of the Planck length in superstring theory of quantum mechanics; in time as well, the limit is Planck time, approximately ten to the negative thirty-something power seconds⁴. These are still theoretical derivations, not experimental observations. The most advanced electron microscopes in current human experiments can observe down to a distance of about ten to the negative sixteenth power meters⁵, just barely able to see the position of the atomic nucleus. Beyond that, we can only rely on indirect measurement; direct observation is no longer possible.

And in the large direction? The largest range of the universe that humans can currently observe is, as I recall, about ninety-some billion light-years⁶. Because of considerations such as the expansion of the universe and the limits of human observation, we will not discuss this question. In any case, if humans only observe the outer material world, it has boundaries. But even such a range has already completely overwhelmed humanity -- researching to the limit in the small direction, and in the large direction it has also exceeded human imagination.

Completely blind... until it regards the subjective as a discarded product... accidentally formed by mindless matter.

We study the outer world, yet we are completely blind to anything subjective. We believe that human thought was formed by a coincidence of nature. If you have heard scientists talk about how this world came to be, it is full of infinite coincidences: the primitive Earth had carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms, and under the stimulation of lightning, chemical reactions occurred, producing basic compounds, and then through specific environments, low-molecular proteins, advanced proteins, and macromolecular proteins formed, gradually building the system of life. Every key link in between was a coincidence. There is also a theory that life was brought by meteorites or comets from planets outside the Earth.

The funniest thing is that in science they can never reproduce how the most primitive state of life on Earth came into being. Humans can create artificial lightning and can simulate the atmospheric conditions of that time, yet even now laboratories cannot simulate or reproduce the process by which life on Earth first began⁷. It cannot be repeated, but they tell you that it was an accident. They themselves emphasize that things that cannot be repeated cannot be considered science, yet they attribute this most basic origin of life to a series of coincidences and unrepeatable things; they completely contradict themselves. But it currently holds the mainstream, and whatever it says, others believe.

Another reason it holds the mainstream, apart from science itself, is the enormous interests of interest groups and economics. Every discipline and every field of science represents the enormous interests of interest groups. If you want to challenge it, it means touching their cake, so they vigorously oppose anything that does not agree with their views. Science itself no longer cares about pursuing truth; it has become a tool for various disciplines and fields to amass wealth and gain fame and status. When science first developed, humanity's sole goal was to explore and pursue truth; now the pursuit of truth has been relegated to a subordinate position, because they have found that they cannot discover the truth of this world. Moreover, they are firm supporters of materialism, believing that human life happens only once, so they use the so-called science in their hands to seek benefits for small groups and large groups. A very small number of scientists remain who are studying truth, but there are not many left.

According to the traditional theory of the origin of life, humanity is also a miraculous emergence. But archaeology cannot explain the process of evolution from ape to human -- the intermediate link between intelligent ancient humans and apes cannot be found. What is found is either ancient Homo sapiens who already had intelligence, or apes. Although scientists have all kinds of evidence, this part is always missing. How humans came to be, no one knows; where intelligence came from, no one knows; how thought came into being, no one knows either. So all of these seem to have come about mindlessly, arriving inexplicably and unexplainably. We have made up many hypotheses, stories, and so-called theories, including the Big Bang theory, and everyone tells you that this is only a hypothesis.

Although we are supposedly formed by irregular, accidental things, we nevertheless want to study those non-accidental things, and none of the accidental things are acknowledged -- this is what is now called science.

All of this applies to your situation.

He is speaking of Ruburt and Rob, but he is also speaking of the situation of all of us humans.

Because I want you to understand thoroughly, intellectually and emotionally, the fallacies of the current trends of thought, so that you can understand that our information indeed not only provides you with this creative information, but gives you a more realistic display of the framework within which you now exist.

Seth says that he is telling you these things so that you will thoroughly understand, on the intellectual level -- logical thinking, reason, and thought -- and on the emotional level, both, the errors and fallacies of our current so-called science-first trend of thought. He is not merely telling you about the simple conflict between rationality and intuition, creativity and assembly-line time in artistic creation; rather, he is revealing the larger framework of reality that truly exists for humanity and the whole world -- he is revealing to you the truth of the world. The truth of the world as you now believe it is fundamentally wrong. Many people find this very hard to accept, because it is too subversive.

So in modern times, the intellect is ultimately left with only one acceptable worldview, one set of assumptions, one primary method of processing reality and experience.

In modern human society, the intellect originally could process information from many systems, and could operate very well in both material and nonmaterial fields. Yet we have been restricted by current science or society to only one worldview: the material world is truly real, and everything else is false. Originally there were many sets of assumptions -- whether the inner world is also a kind of nonmaterial reality is also an assumption; the material world is also an assumption. But now, in facing the world and in daily life, we have only one method of processing -- the material method of processing.

The acceptable assumptions directly conflict with part of humanity's heritage, its inherent biological, spiritual, and psychological assumptions.

Developed to the extreme, it directly conflicts with humanity's inherent biological, spiritual, and psychological assumptions, and is completely incompatible with them. Because it inherently believes these things do not exist, these conflicts are manifested through the contrast between assembly-line time and creative time that he mentioned earlier.

How the Intellect Gets Limited to a Single Worldview

You can feel it: whenever you do any creative work, you are first in conflict with the society you currently live in.

He says the intellect does indeed try to regulate experience and rationalize perception. When the intellect enriches itself by having several worldviews at its disposal, and then blends them into a meaningful pattern, sorting and categorizing information and sending it to the appropriate places, the intellect does very well.

What he means by this passage is that when the intellect combines information from the inner world and the outer world, and at the same time can also incorporate information from those unknown worlds and unknown realms that we do not know, it will rationalize and organize this information very well, and will give us good conclusions and reasoned results, and will then send those results to the places where they need to go. It will perform very well in these areas.

That is to say, you must give it complete information. It must be when the inner information and the outer information -- the information from the external environment perceived by our five senses, plus your inner information -- are mixed together that your intellect synthesizes, judges, and applies all of this information, and only then can it arrive at a meaningful and complete conclusion. Otherwise it is impossible; it can only be one-sided and incomplete.

He says, for example, the intellect can receive clairvoyant data -- the data of the celestial eye; data means information -- which is a part of the overall characteristics of the personality, so it is not afraid to perceive it. It feels that this is an ability human beings originally have, and it is not afraid of this celestial eye. And it has the ability to separate this kind of informational confusion from the present physical sense perceptions.

Many people ask this kind of question: this person has opened the celestial eye, so won't the things seen by the celestial eye and the things seen by the physical eye get mixed together and become confused? Has he already become unable to distinguish reality from what the celestial eye can see? Because the celestial eye itself transcends distance and space, isn't that confusing? He tells you it will not be, and in fact it is not. Whether it is your conscious ability or your intellect, it automatically distinguishes which perceptions come from the physical eye and which come from your celestial eye. It can form a complete image and an overall picture in your mind, but it itself is able to tell them apart. You do not need to worry. You ask how it knows; that kind of knowing is not arrived at through your logical analysis, it simply knows. It is very interesting. I will not give examples here, because there would be too many.

He says, then, there is order -- one of the main characteristics of the intellect is that it requires order. That is, the intellect must make things very standardized and orderly. When it is given only one worldview and this one set of assumptions, its orderly nature causes it to discard all information that does not fit.

When you command it, saying that your logical thinking ability can only process the material world, this one worldview and this one assumption, then what does it do? It inherently requires order. It wants to rationalize and order these things, but it is not given enough information; it is given only one side of the information. Originally it should receive information from both the nonphysical world and the physical world at the same time, but when you only let it receive information from the physical world, it is like a jigsaw puzzle: when it has less than half of the small pieces, it is forced to form an orderly picture.

For example: I have a big box of puzzle pieces, and I only give you half of the small pieces and ask you to put together the whole picture. Can you do it? You cannot, and even if you do, it will be wrong. So what he means is to tell you that your intellect is handling problems in exactly this way -- its information is incomplete, and yet it is forced to piece together an orderly picture. Having no choice, it just pieces things together blindly. We cannot blame the intellect. If you do not give it the information, under those circumstances it has already done its best. The intellect has already worked very hard, doing its utmost. You only gave it half the information, and it is still desperately trying to turn it into something orderly as much as it can.

The Source of Physical Reality Lies in the Magical Dimension

He says now in this dream of yours — right in Rob's dream — you saw quite clearly the threshold between physical reality and the magical dimension. You saw this matter of the glass door being able to open a hole and the dog being able to come in.

He says the source of physical reality is within the magical dimension. The source of our physical world lies within the magical dimension — very interesting. You were shown — or you showed yourself — the different rules and assumptions between the two. You can see that the physical world and the nonphysical world operate under different rules and different assumptions. That dog's desire to eat food magically led it through the door. The glass door clearly could not be entered, yet in nonphysical reality, in his dream, the dog simply came straight through the glass door. Because the desires of natural creatures are fulfilled effortlessly, in a way completely unrelated to your concepts of work.

What does this mean? It means that the desires of natural creatures are fulfilled effortlessly, in a way completely unrelated to our concepts of work — our usual notion that we need to toil hard to obtain food, to obtain money. He is revealing a principle here: the desires in your heart can also be fulfilled effortlessly, just like the desires of animals in nature. And this process is completely unrelated to our usual concepts of work. Our concept of work holds otherwise — that desire solves nothing, that you must work desperately hard at your job to earn money, to feed yourself.

He says this dream was meant to tell you that this is the natural, inherent attribute of the animal kingdom. What I want to do is introduce a different concept of work. Keep this in mind — he wants to introduce a different concept of work, and this is a very valuable and important work, one that is carried out on another level and in another manner.

He says the work of keeping every living creature alive and breathing is already done; the work of keeping the planets in their places is already done; the work of enabling an evolutionist to contemplate his theory is already done.

What he means by this passage is: the magical approach has already accomplished many, many things that we in this world think of as things we need to do. Those magical things — they are all already accomplished, all accomplished by the magical approach behind the scenes. In other words, from another angle, those important things, those core things, are all already done — how humans survive, how they breathe, how humans came to be — all of these things are already done. So what remains for us to do? He will say next.

All of these were accomplished effortlessly. You did not expend any effort, yet you exist on this earth. You do not know how the earth came to be, how the earth hangs suspended in space like this, how it maintains a position in the solar system with the sun that is neither too far nor too near, how there came to be such a suitable climate, and such an atmosphere, and the suitable oxygen and air composition in our air, and so on and so forth. All of these — what seem like a series of coincidences that make up our earth and our world — all of these have already been magically, naturally accomplished. They were accomplished so effortlessly, and it seems as though you did nothing at all. If you do not believe in magic, then he uses these things to tell you: all of this is the magical approach working behind the scenes.

Value Fulfillment: The Natural Attribute of the Soul

He says now in your dreams, you feel that kind of sense of work or action, and they are the gifted power of the world. It is originally the power gifted to you by heaven, the natural gifted power, and it is very natural. It is the power guided by value fulfillment.

Value fulfillment is something he brought up in his previous book—the book he had just finished before this one is called Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment¹. He brought out this value fulfillment. In The Nature of Personal Reality⁸, he also briefly mentioned what value fulfillment is. Value fulfillment means that, just as seeds in nature naturally sprout and grow, and all things grow, value fulfillment is a basic assumption of our spiritual world, just as growth is a basic assumption of our physical world. You do not need to worry about how it grows. Before humans were born, all things in this world were already growing, without needing human participation, and they were already growing very well—including us humans, who grew out of that very process.

Growth is the most basic attribute and assumption of our physical world. It is gifted. You do not need to do anything; it has this ability, it has this attribute, and it is going to grow. You cannot stop it even if you want to. When we were young and studied textbooks, there was "the power of a seed"⁹ and so on, meaning that this is how all things grow.

And what is value fulfillment? Value fulfillment is a basic ability and attribute of our psyche. Our soul, our person, our inner being are all composed of the inner self. Our inner soul, or entity, or fragment personality—whatever you call it, it does not matter—let us just use "soul" as the assumption: your soul must necessarily accomplish value fulfillment. Value fulfillment is one of its basic attributes. You do not need to deliberately do this or that, or say "I must do such and such." No, it is not needed. It is inevitable and natural, so it is a natural attribute.

He says you feel a sense of work or action, and this sense of work and action is the gifted power of the natural world. You naturally want to do it; you want to create, you want to accomplish. It is very interesting. This is innate in you. Your original soul has this ability and this attribute, so it is the power guided by your value fulfillment. Your value fulfillment is going to guide such a power to work, to create, to act. It is instinctive, it is gifted. In other words, of course it is the energy of All That Is. All That Is itself is this energy, and it must constantly create and constantly experience.

Ruburt's Contradiction: Wanting to Move Forward While Not Daring To

The problem lies in the rational view of life -- this so-called rationality of ours toward life, which is the rational approach corresponding to the magical approach -- it separates people from the source of their own power. Where is our source of power? It is the natural innate power, as has already been said, you are the natural innate power. Yet we insist on cutting ourselves off from this source, saying I do not have the power of the magical approach, I do not have the power of this natural source, I do not have the power of these other realities, I only have the power of the physical world, and what I can use is the resources of this physical world and this thinking ability that I do not know where it comes from.

When we have a problem, the rational way of solving it seems to be the only answer, and often it is not an answer at all. When we encounter a problem, we often find an answer through our own so-called rational way, our logical reasoning, and he says that is not an answer at all, yet we think that is the only answer. We treat something that is not an answer as the only answer, so of course you are bound to be wrong.

So, Ruburt's thinking is indeed correct. He is trying to move forward and not move forward at the same time -- he puts it in an interesting way. Ruburt wants to be sure his own ideas are right, so he tries to move forward -- forward and not forward at the same time. He tries to be bolder while also being very cautious; brave while also being very safe.

Here he is using Ruburt as an example. That is, this person Ruburt both wants to move forward and does not want to move forward. For example, on the matter of spirituality, Ruburt originally had very high talent and ability, and he should have developed them even better, but he both wants to develop in this direction and does not develop in this direction, and he spends a great deal of time writing novels and poetry. He also feels that the role of a psychic is too lowly, too unreasonable. So in the previous session he said that Ruburt has always wanted to be the most reasonable person among psychics, the most scientific, the most rational. He himself is a psychic, he himself is in contact with these nonphysical things, but deep down he looks down on these so-called irrational things -- quite conflicted, right? So he says Ruburt both wants to move forward and does not move forward, and he tries to be bolder, to break through, to break the stale conventions of the world, but he also does not dare, and he is also very cautious; he wants to be brave and he also wants to be safe. This is Ruburt's state of mind. You see, Seth does not mince words at all; he points it out directly. But we humans in society also often find ourselves in such situations.

He says of course this also applies to each of you to some degree. Each of us will have this experience of both wanting to let go and take a bold leap, to break through and do something, both wanting to trust our own intuition and inspiration, yet in reality shrinking back, hesitating, looking ahead and behind, fearing wolves ahead and tigers behind, both wanting to believe in ourselves and not daring to believe in ourselves -- very interesting.

Precisely because both of you have strong talents in the intellectual and the intuitive aspects, to a certain degree you two try to rationalize your creativity. What does it mean to rationalize creativity? It means you use the rational way to think about your creative ability. Creation itself is an irrational thing, and rational thinking feels that creativity causes a great deal of division. When you use rational thinking to consider the matter of creativity, you feel that creativity causes a great deal of division.

So what do you do? In that sense, as very gifted creators -- here he is specifically referring to Rob, but it actually applies to everyone -- you will encounter some difficulties no matter what. If you were not doing creative work, if you were a worker on an assembly line, you might not have so many difficulties. That would be simple; you would just do your own job well, because there is not much creativity in your life. But for you two creators -- a painter, a writer, a psychic, and at the same time both of you are transmitting the Seth material -- for you, you are bound to encounter difficulties, because you try to understand creativity in a rational way. You try to rationalize it, and trying to rationalize it means using the rational way to create. So using rational thinking will lead you to feel that creativity is split from yourselves.

However, he says, now it is time. You should regard this difficulty as a challenge. It is time; you should treat the difficulty you are now facing as a challenge, as part of a creative adventure you yourselves have chosen. The two of you are yourselves doing work that is part of a creative adventure. You chose such an adventure because it best suits your own individual value fulfillment. See, here we come to individual value fulfillment. You chose to take risks in this creative field, including transmitting the Seth material -- this itself is a kind of adventure, but you chose it because it suits your individual value fulfillment. In other words, this is one of the main purposes of your value fulfillment in this lifetime. While you are reconciling many concepts and contradictions for yourselves, you are also leading the way for many others.

This sentence is very interesting. He says while the two of you are reconciling the rational mode of thinking and the creative mode of thinking for yourselves, you are also leading the way for many other people -- the problems the two of them encounter are also problems many people encounter.

Work as Creative Adventure

Once again, if you regard your work as an adventure -- if you treat work as an adventure, an exciting creative adventure -- rather than as work in your old way of speaking, it will be of great help. Seth says you should take these things that you now call work every day -- passing on the Seth material every day is also work, organizing the transcripts is also work, writing books and painting are all work -- if you treat this work as a creative adventure, that will be a tremendous help to you. That is, do not approach it in the way of work, but work in a creative way.

He says this will allow you to include the inner magical feeling of work in your calculations. It will also begin to give you a feeling for the magical support that inspires you both and your lives. That is, when you work creatively, your inner magical feeling will be incorporated into your overall calculations -- in other words, inner information will also be brought into the scope of your intellectual consideration. And then it will begin to inspire you, to give you a feeling of life's magical support, making you feel that there is a magical force of life supporting you from behind.

That is something Ruburt can rely on and be supported by, and it can bring about the resolution of his physical difficulties, can help resolve his physical difficulties. Here, once again, the key word is ease and effortlessness. He says at this point I want to emphasize again that the resolution of the physical problems and the relief of Ruburt's health issues both come easily and effortlessly. He emphasizes this.

If you want to feed a dog in the physical world, and it is on the other side of a door, you must open the door; but in the inner world, you or the dog can pass through that door effortlessly.

Because desire is action. He emphasizes once more -- "desire is action" is the title of this session. Do not forget the title of this session: desire is action. So he is emphasizing this point. Your desire is action, only in our physical world, for desire to become action there may be some physical-world things to overcome in between. But in your inner world, desire is action, accomplished instantly -- even if there is a door, you can pass right through it.

In the inner world, your desires effortlessly bring about their own fulfillment -- "they" refers to desires, desire itself will bring about its own fulfillment. The inner world and the outer world intersect and interweave with each other; they intersect and interweave together, they only appear to be separate -- you think they are separate, but they only appear to be separate, they are actually interwoven together.

In the physical world, time may have to pass, but in any case, circumstances may have to change, yet desire brings about an appropriate result. He says in your physical world, desire will also bring about a result. For example, if you want to eat hotpot, you may not have time today, conditions may not allow it, maybe tomorrow -- but sooner or later you will be able to eat that hotpot. Although conditions will change and time may change, eating hotpot may not mean you eat it right now, that you can sit down and eat it the next minute, but you can always bring about a result -- you will probably get to eat hotpot. That is in the physical world; in the inner world, needless to say, it is realized directly.

The feeling of effortlessness is the most important point. He says whether in the outer world or the inner world, you should focus on this word and what the core is -- effortlessness. Like he said earlier about the dream, that ease -- he asks you to take ease as the key point. And in this process, effortlessness is the key point. That is, the action that your desire brings about, or the desire fulfilling itself -- that is, realizing itself -- and this process itself requires no effort. This is what you need to understand.

You say if you go eat hotpot, what effort do you need to exert? You just walk to the hotpot restaurant and eat, just swipe your phone, swipe WeChat, and you have eaten, right? You say, well, do you not still have to earn money before you can swipe -- let us not talk about that earlier part for now, let us just talk about the eating hotpot part. What effort do you need to exert? No effort needed, it is that simple. Do not drag it out and say, oh, but you still have to earn money and get a salary before you can eat hotpot. Yes, you are not wrong, but today we are only talking about the act of eating hotpot itself. From when you want to eat hotpot to when you finally eat hotpot, what effort did you exert in this process? Maybe you just took a taxi to the hotpot restaurant, or you drove there. That is what he wants to tell you: the more you emphasize this effortlessness, the more you focus on this effortlessness, then in your future life, in this process, all of this will gradually become effortless. If you treat it as something very effortful, if you treat eating hotpot as an extremely complicated, arduous goal that can only be achieved with great difficulty, then it really will be very effortful.

He says it is quite appropriate for Ruburt to understand this point intellectually, and now simply say:

That is not my field, and I will leave that problem where it belongs. There, we will use the magical approach.

What he means is, as for how your desire gets realized -- he says this question is not a field I can work in, this is not something I should manage, this is something the inner magical approach should manage, so I will just leave it to the magical approach. Do not say this is my logic and reasoning ability -- I cannot solve it, and I will not solve it either, I do not need to manage it, just leave it to the magical approach. So he says Ruburt's thinking is correct; Ruburt thinks exactly this way: I do not need to manage it, that is not the field I should operate in, I will just leave the problem where it is, leave it in the place where this problem belongs -- how it realizes itself, how it fulfills its own dream, in that place, we will use the magical approach.

Seth's Criticism of Jane and Rob: No Overall Change

He says, for now, one brief remark: in the next session we will continue the above discussion. He says Ruburt sometimes feels hopeless, because the assumptions of the rational approach tend to lead in that direction—toward hopelessness—and because in those other areas, he is not yet confident enough that he can get the kind of lasting results he wants. This also applies to the attitudes the two of you sometimes have.

What does this mean? Ruburt often, at times, feels a sense of hopelessness. The reason for the hopelessness is that he feels the result he wants—that lasting result, not a temporary one, a lasting result—he has no confidence in it, not enough confidence yet. Sometimes he feels it will work, sometimes he feels it won't, so he gets a sense of hopelessness. He says this also applies to the attitudes the two of you sometimes have. That is, the two of them sometimes believe in the magical approach, and sometimes they don't believe in the magical approach. When he doesn't believe in the magical approach, and he uses the rational approach to reason things out, he feels as though the future is quite hopeless.

What does this mean? When you use the rational approach to analyze Ruburt's health condition at this time—when he can only walk twice a day—think about it: if you want him to recover to a normal state, doesn't it feel as though there is no hope left? That is exactly how he feels. But when you think about it using the magical approach, then he could get better very quickly. But he doesn't think so—one moment he feels Seth makes sense, the next moment he says, oh, but my body is just like this, how could I possibly get better? So this is his state of mind, and it is the same for both of them.

So when Seth wrote this book, The Magical Approach, the key point, to put it bluntly, was actually mainly meant for Rob and Jane to hear. He actually wanted to change some of Jane's ideas, so that Jane's health could be restored. Of course, at the same time, it was also meant for all of us to hear. Just as he said earlier, if the two of you solve your own problems, you will also solve many of humanity's problems—it is the same principle. But here you can see that while he was giving these sessions, he kept interweaving discussions of Jane and Rob's health problems and their actual, current life problems. You can tell that Seth was really putting his heart into helping the two of them. But after this book was finished, the two of them still didn't seem to get the point. Seth had no choice but to write another book called The Way Toward Health¹⁰, in which he spoke even more concretely and in greater detail. This book is still relatively theoretical; The Magical Approach is not an easy book, and its theoretical content is quite strong. On the application of the rational and the magical approaches, on the application of the intellectual and the magical approaches, in the later process you will come to understand how to specifically balance and harmonize the functions of the two—he has a great deal of genuine insight. But these two people seemed not to have fully gotten the point, so Seth had no choice but to say many specific methods, concrete methods, in The Way Toward Health¹⁰—he was always trying to help them.

He says, of course, on the conscious level, neither of you has realized, or wanted to realize, the complete abolishment and overhaul that our sessions imply. And for many years, along with the newer ideas about reality, you have also found ways to retain many official viewpoints, not ready to understand that this involves an entirely new way of thinking, a new relationship between the individual and reality. Therefore, here and there you try out some new methods in a piecemeal fashion, with quite good results.

What he means is: the two of you, in the material I have transmitted to you—including from The Nature of Personal Reality⁸, Seth Speaks, and the whole series of books that followed—you never intended to thoroughly change your values and your belief system. You only occasionally used some of it in your lives, thinking, Seth makes sense here, let me try it; he seems to make sense there too, let me try that as well. But your overall values and belief system never changed at all. You have been retaining many official viewpoints—the so-called official viewpoints are the viewpoints of mainstream society—you have been holding on to such viewpoints all along.

You never thought about the fact that this involves an entirely new way of thinking. In other words, this is an overturning of your values and worldview, and the two of you never saw it that way. You never felt that this is a brand-new angle for understanding the world, never felt that this is a new relationship between the individual and your world. Seth has been emphasizing all along that this is a brand-new angle and a brand-new way of looking at the relationship between you and the world, but the two of you don't see it that way. You are just, in a piecemeal fashion, trying out some new methods here and there in your lives, and although these methods have produced quite good results, you have not made an overall change.

What he says in this passage applies to each of us as well. We have studied The Nature of Personal Reality⁸, we have studied Seth Speaks, we studied the earlier "21-Day Abundance Journey"¹¹, and we are now studying the twenty-four-week training of The Master Key System¹²—including meditation and the daily text readings. But in our lives, in our practice, have you ever had a moment—including right now—when you could make such a resolution, to fundamentally change the angle from which you view the world? Rather than saying, whatever benefits me I'll use, and whatever still seems more practical in the secular way I'll stick with the secular method—the so-called official viewpoint.

Do you have the resolve to completely overturn the official viewpoint? Do you have what the Buddha spoke of—this upside-down dreaming—do you have the resolve to turn it back right side up? Since we are all upside down, since we are all mistaken, looking at this issue from the wrong direction and the wrong angle, can we turn it back around? Do you dare to make such a decision? So you can see from Rob and Jane that the two of them never made such a decision. This is a question every person must think about.

So studying The Magical Approach goes a step further than The Nature of Personal Reality⁸. The Nature of Personal Reality⁸ only tells you to apply it in every aspect of your life, tells you what the individual and this world really are, what the relationship between the two of you is. But what is this book actually doing? It is asking you to overturn your entire worldview and value system, to look at it from a brand-new angle, to handle your life using the methods of the magical approach—not that back-and-forth approach of using whichever one works. That kind of pragmatism in one's own heart: what if this doesn't work? Half believing, half doubting—what if the magical approach doesn't work, and I've also thrown away my traditional survival skills, then what would I do? He wavers in between, unwilling to lose either one. Just as Seth said earlier: wanting to be both brave and safe, wanting to move forward and not wanting to move forward. Seth just said this earlier. Wanting to be bold and wanting to be cautious, wanting to be brave and wanting to be safe, wanting to move forward and not wanting to move forward—it is the same thing. He says this applies to every person; everyone is like this.

So here, after you finish studying this, what is the change you need to make? You need to genuinely think through Seth's entire framework and system of knowledge. If you believe that the magical approach he describes truly works, and you have already verified it in small ways here and there in your life—I think many people here have already verified it, right, I don't need to say more. When this course ends, we can share the sharing from Simon in our group¹³, and look at the little details of his life that he shared. But can we really change our values on an overall level?

He says, of course, these sessions have all implied a complete reorientation. In these sessions, although I have not emphasized—I have not said you must change your worldview and values, I have not said those words, I have not said what a new value system and worldview should look like, and I have not said that your current views are all wrong—but he says, I have been implying it. All the sessions I have given have been implying a complete reorientation. And this complete reorientation would effortlessly bring about a new relationship between Ruburt and his body, his life, and the adventure that the two of you have already begun. He would automatically become healthier, because that framework allows him to do so—when you consider the inner framework as included within the whole framework, within such a framework, it would allow him to do so.

At this point he has already made it very clear. Did he do it? You can see that the two of them actually didn't. He is saying, if you accept this complete reorientation, this complete worldview and value system—that is, if the two of you accept the values of Seth's magical approach—then their lives, their life force, their life trajectory would all undergo major changes, and his body would naturally become healthy, automatically become very healthy, automatically change. But he didn't.

Concrete Suggestions About the Bedroom, Lunch, and Daily Life

What are the few worldly but useful points? He says, of course, Ruburt must be allowed some undisturbed writing time -- that is to say, specifically, how to make that happen in practical terms.

Neither of you understands your attitude toward the bedroom. You do not understand the bedroom -- the bedroom you have now, the place where you sleep -- and both of you avoid making love in it, so it has become just a place for sleeping. You might say Seth is poking his nose into a lot of things, but just look at what comes next. He says, of course, the bedroom is the only room that is not part of your overall activity. What is their overall activity? It is talking about Seth, transmitting Seth, recording, organizing, and then one of them painting and the other writing novels -- that is the main part of their lives. But the bedroom seems to be excluded from the overall activity of their lives, so this bedroom seems isolated from your lives, as if it has nothing to do with your lives.

For example, the two of you do not decorate this bedroom. This is partly the result of old ideas, the kind of thinking that regards sleep as a separate, isolated part of life or of the personality. You think sleeping is just sleeping; during the day you work, transmit the material, and so on, you work, paint, create, and when it is time to sleep you just sleep normally -- does sleeping require decorating the room beautifully? Sleeping in a nice-looking bedroom? It is not important. It is separate from the whole personality. But is sleep separate from our personality? No, it is not. Once you have studied the Seth material, you know that sleep is very important.

If the bedroom showed more of your other interests, the two of you would feel much better in it. What he says next are all concrete suggestions for the two of them -- before this was a theoretical point. For example, you could put some books or a bookshelf in there; Ruburt likes to read. That room shows no evidence of his work; it has nothing at all to do with his work. So putting some books there would connect it with his work -- books he has published or books he likes to read. And do you understand, it perhaps should also have some of the paintings you yourself are currently working on -- the paintings you have just created or completed. In other words, it should be a place more closely connected with your lives.

This point of his is directed at Jane and Rob, and it does not necessarily apply to every other person. But what is this idea of his telling us? It is telling us, first, that sleep is very important, and second, that the bedroom is very important for each of us. The bedroom should be a whole, connected with our lives. For example, if you do some kind of work or something, things connected with your life, with your work and your creativity, you can bring some of them into your bedroom, making your bedroom and your life as a whole more closely connected, rather than letting it feel isolated.

Ideally, he says, a new bed should be beneficial -- both in physical terms and in symbolic terms. He says, whether it is an actual bed or a new bed in a symbolic sense, it is helpful. For example, relaxing -- lying down, for instance -- would be easier for Ruburt. And then perhaps on a cot or something similar, as part of his writing room. Ruburt has a writing room; it should be part of his writing room, so that something like a reclining chair, where he can lie down and think, rather than the writing room having only a chair, a typewriter, and a desk, meaning serious, earnest writing -- it should not be like that. You can lie there in a relaxed way and conceive your novel or conceive your things.

This is his practical suggestion. What does his suggestion mean? It means breaking down the rules and boundaries in your life -- sleeping is just sleeping, work is just work. This is our traditional view; traditionally we have all been indoctrinated with this -- do not bring work home, work is just work.

He says, Rob, he says you like to take naps in the living room. You have a lovely view there. Your metabolisms are different, and this is also very natural -- that is, your metabolism and Jane's are not the same, and your life rhythms and biological clocks are also different. And under ordinary circumstances, as far as your established lunchtime is concerned, Ruburt needs a good meal, and undoubtedly sometimes it ends up being eaten as late as five or six o'clock.

What he means by this, he says it very subtly. He means that you eat lunch too late -- basically at noon you -- in the morning the two of you do not eat early either, probably around nine or ten, and then at noon you may not be hungry, so the time often drags on until three or four in the afternoon before you start eating lunch, and then the meal may go on until five or six. That is too late, and it is also not good for the body. You can imagine that the lives of these two people are just like this.

What is the most crucial point in what follows? He says, otherwise, if you do not make this change, Ruburt will have a natural restlessness. What kind of restlessness? As you yourself have discovered, you need your painting time, and he likes to be in his writing room at dusk. Ruburt likes to eat lunch at three or four in the afternoon and eat until five or six, and then after finishing the meal he can go back to his writing room; he likes to stay in the writing room during that dusk time. So he does not like the normal dinner time -- for example, if dinner normally starts at six-something and goes on until after seven, then he would lose his favorite dusk time. So he prefers this kind of arrangement. But in that case, it causes their lunchtime to stretch out too long, and the food is not good enough. Regarding the problem of the two of them not eating well enough, Seth has also suggested it in other books, if you remember -- he suggested that they eat better, spend some time on cooking, and not just eat that kind of American food. You can probably guess: hamburgers, spaghetti, pizza, that sort of thing.

He says, although the seasons have a slight bearing on it -- the seasons have a slight bearing on Ruburt wanting to stay in the writing room at that dusk time -- still, when possible, it remains a good idea. The assurance and confidence you give him are very helpful. And remember, they do not operate in physical terms. Do you see? The help that this assurance and confidence give him does not operate in the material way that Rob assumes; it operates in the way of the magical approach.

Summary

This section is also a very core and key point. What he says in this last part means: don't take work and life so seriously; it's better to treat them as an exploration, as an adventure. As for the bedroom, he also hopes the two of them will spend more time there, and not treat the bedroom like a hotel -- only going back to the bedroom to collapse into sleep when they're utterly exhausted and overwhelmed with work, with neither more communication between the two of them nor more physical intimacy. At this time, Rob and Ruburt -- you can imagine from Seth's description -- may not have had sex or made love for a long time, so when the two of them were in the bedroom it had become just sleeping. But Rob -- Seth told him -- all of this was not good, none of it was a very good thing for the two of them. They should spend more time in the bedroom, and could put some books there, could put some paintings there, and so on. This was advice aimed at the two of them, hoping they would apply their magical approach in a relaxed, effortless way. As for how much they actually put into practice, we won't know for now -- sometimes he would mention a bit here and there, but some things we have no way of knowing.

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注释与核实

1. Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment ↩ ↩²

2. God Does Play Dice ↩

3. Approximately 10^-35 to 10^-36 meters ↩

4. Approximately 10^-30-something seconds ↩

5. Approximately 10^-16 meters ↩

6. Approximately 90-some billion light-years ↩

7. The process by which life on Earth first began ↩

8. Source: Jane Roberts, The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book (https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Nature_of_Personal_Reality.html?id=_uSztdbBToAC) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩

10. Source: Jane Roberts, The Way Toward Health: A Seth Book (1997) (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/601897/the-way-toward-health-by-jane-roberts-foreword-and-epilogue-by-robert-f-butts/) ↩ ↩²

11. This claim could not be verified. ↩

12. Source: Wikipedia, "The Master Key System" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Key_System) ↩

13. This claim could not be verified. ↩