Mike's commentary · Seth Speaks, Chapter 13

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 his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter begins with Jung and his encounter with The Secret of the Golden Flower, using that as a starting point to explain that within every person there exists a latent incarnation of the other sex, namely the male psyche and the female psyche. They carry the memories and traits of past lives lived as the other sex, balancing gender identity and influencing both the individual and civilization. The chapter also discusses the openness of gender choice in reincarnation, the different timings and ways in which a personality enters the fetus, the birth experience, differences in identification with the body, and how decisions about the next life can be reached in dreams.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Within every person there is a latent incarnation of the other sex: within the male there is a female psyche, within the female there is a male psyche.
• The female psyche and the male psyche carry the memories and traits of previous lives as the other sex, serving to balance gender identity and influencing both the individual and civilization.
• The pattern of reincarnation is open; it does not force alternation between male and female, but both sexes must be experienced and different characteristics developed.
• The timing of the personality's entry into the fetus varies from person to person; it may enter at conception, at birth, or after birth, depending on past-life connections and emotional attachments.
• Decisions concerning future lives are reached not only between lives, but can also be reached in the dream state during any given lifetime.

Main Text

The Title of This Chapter

Today I will continue introducing Chapter 13 of the Seth book Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. The title of this chapter is "Reincarnation, Dreams, and the Male and Female Within the Self." We will now begin with the first part.

Jung and the Anthology He Bought

Early this month, Jane and I bought an anthology. What kind of anthology? A long passage written by Carl Jung¹, the Swiss psychoanalyst who died in 1961. I don't know which book he bought, and I can't be certain, but he definitely bought a book or a pamphlet by Jung.

We now recognize Jung as a famous psychologist, and he is also one of the founding figures of psychology. He was, in a sense, a student of Freud², but his views were very different from Freud's, and there were many points he completely disagreed with. Later, because of their differing academic views, they had a falling out. After the falling out, he went off and founded his own school, which was characteristic of him. But his views had their own completely unique aspects, and from today's perspective, I think his views are more in line with the essence of humanity, or the essence of the human psyche.

Speaking of this, let me briefly mention it, because later in this chapter a great deal of material related to Jung is used. Moreover, this book by Jung was actually something Seth was behind the scenes nudging Jane to come across. He was the one pulling the strings, but Jane didn't know it. She just felt that discovering this book was quite good, so she bought it. Actually, Jane was a poet, and Rob was a painter. They really shouldn't have had any intersection with psychoanalysis, yet somehow they ended up buying such a small pamphlet to read.

Jung's Life

So let's go to Wikipedia and look at the introduction to this person, Jung.

He lived from 1875 to 1961, roughly eighty-six years old, a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, the founder of analytical psychology. He was born in a small village in Switzerland, and when he was six months old his family moved to a castle, the castle by the Rhine Falls. His father was a pastor, so from a young age Jung was influenced by the religious atmosphere of his family and developed an interest in religion. But because he felt that his father, though a pastor, had lost his genuine faith and could not face reality, only able to preach hollow theological dogma, and because when he himself took communion as a youth he felt nothing in his heart, which did not meet his expectations, he became very disappointed with Christianity. Jung once had a dream in which God's excrement smashed a beautiful church to pieces, and because of this Jung turned away from Christianity. In his later years he wrote a book harshly criticizing Christianity, which I will not go into here.

From 1895 to 1900 he studied medicine, and then worked as an assistant physician at a psychiatric hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, interning under a doctor. While there he conducted a very interesting study, the Galton word-association study³, in which he was researching the human subconscious, wanting to find out whether human beings have a shared subconscious. Later he became very interested in Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams⁴, published in 1900, got in touch with him, joined Freud's psychoanalytic movement, and together with him co-founded the International Psychoanalytical Association⁵, serving as its first president. Later the two had a falling out over academic differences, and Freud struck Jung's name off the record and expelled him from the association. Jung later became a professor at his alma mater and received honorary doctorates from Oxford University and Harvard University, and died in 1961.

After Jung and Freud broke with each other, he was depressed for many years, saw visions, and felt that many ghosts had gathered in his home. One of these visions was a winged, lame, limping old man named Philemon, and another vision was a beautiful woman. These two later became the models for his wise old man, his self-confidence, and the anima.

What does this mean? It means that after Jung broke with Freud, he was despondent for a long time. We can imagine that in that situation at the time, Freud's position in psychoanalysis was unshakable. Jung had followed him, then raised different views about his academic ideas, and finally they parted ways. At that time his own academic system had not yet been established, had not yet become systematic, and he was attacked by everyone. In Chinese terms this would be called betraying one's teacher and ancestors, and in any case it was very bad. And Freud was also a very petty person, completely rejecting anyone whose views differed entirely from his own, and in every field he excluded Jung to an extreme degree. So Jung had no standing in the entire field at that time and was extremely depressed.

It was during his depression that he met a famous sinologist, the person who wrote the book we will discuss later. This sinologist introduced him to a book called The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶. Let us look at the following sentence: he had no taboos whatsoever regarding religion, and in both Eastern and Western learning, he made deep studies of The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶ and The Book of Wisdom and Life⁷, as well as the I Ching⁸ and the Chinese text of the Tibetan Buddhist method of deliverance⁹, and also Zen Buddhism. Moreover, he was fascinated by Western alchemy¹⁰, and in both The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶ and Western alchemy he found the same idea of individuation, which was to reconcile the conscious ego with the unconscious psyche. This was one of his main systems of thought.

Speaking of this, you will find that he actually matches many of Seth's theories very closely. Seth believes that our inner self is unconscious; you cannot perceive him, cannot feel his existence; our ego is conscious. Seth also emphasizes that you must reconcile your conscious ego with your unconscious inner self, and use them well together, in order to reach your best state.

About The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶

So what exactly is The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶? Let's look at the introduction to this book. Jung later translated this book into German, and later still, people translated it into French, Italian, English, and various other versions. He translated it under the title The Secret of the Golden Flower¹¹. He co-authored it with Richard Wilhelm.

Who was Richard Wilhelm? He was a sinologist in Qingdao during the late Qing dynasty, and he lived in Qingdao for 22 years¹². While living in Qingdao, he once met a Daoist priest, and the priest gave him this book. At the time, Jung was in a very low period: his mental state was poor, his academic work had made no progress, his own theoretical system had not yet taken shape, and he did not know when it ever would. At such a time, the two of them happened to have an intersection — actually, they should have had no intersection at all, none whatsoever, but through this coincidence of fate, this arrangement that cannot be put into words, the two of them met in Switzerland. After they met, Wilhelm solemnly introduced this book to him.

When the Daoist priest gave it to him, he said that originally it was Lu Dongbin who founded this teaching. Lu Dongbin's courtesy name was Chunyangzi, and the teaching was also called the Chunyang teaching; the earliest beginnings of Daoism as a lineage started from Lu Dongbin. The followers of Lu Dongbin revered Laozi and Lu Dongbin both as their founding patriarchs. In legend, Lu Dongbin is one of the Eight Immortals, a model of a mortal who successfully cultivated immortality. He organized the process of his own cultivation into an immortal into a book, which later became the Golden Elixir teaching, and from this book it began to turn into a mystical sect. But the content of this sect was too mystical and too supernatural, so although it was widely supported for a period and was very prevalent during the Yuan dynasty¹³, later, because it was too mystical and too full of supernatural talk, the ruling classes of successive dynasties basically adopted a policy of suppressing it, so fewer and fewer people transmitted it. This book was known to very few people in China, whether in ancient times or modern times. It used to be passed down orally, not shared with outsiders. The last time, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 1,000 copies were printed in Beijing at the time¹⁴, using the printing blocks of that period. These 1,000 copies also circulated only within their small circle — if he felt you could understand it, or that you were a person of wisdom, he would give you one of these booklets. And the copy he obtained was one of those 1,000 copies that had been passed down since then.

This book had an enormous influence on Jung afterward. Jung studied this book, and under the influence of Wilhelm's Eastern philosophy — including the Dao De Jing, the I Ching⁸, the Laozi, and so on — he formed his own theoretical system, established his own school, and only then could he be called a great master in psychology and a master of his generation.

Jung's Break with Freud

So what exactly is the relationship between Jung's theoretical system and the Seth material we are going to study? Why bring up Jung at all?

First, he was a follower of Freud. Freud's theory held that the basic primal drive of human beings comes from the subconscious, and he mainly studied the subconscious. He further divided the subconscious into the preconscious and the unconscious: the preconscious is the part that human beings can vaguely sense, which is different from our conscious ego; this hazy subconscious is further divided into what can be sensed, and the unconscious, which cannot be sensed at all. Freud believed that the primal drive of human beings, including human society, all comes from sex, from dissatisfaction with sex or with desire, and that this is the most primal drive of humanity.

But Jung did not see it that way. After studying with Freud for a period of time, Jung found this theory a bit too far-fetched, too primitive, primitive to the point that it could not be more primitive. It was not that he felt this way out of idealism, but through actual analysis—they both analyzed dreams, Freud did, and so did Jung. We also know how important dreams are to human beings. Once you have studied Seth, you know that dreams are not what mainstream science tells you they are, that dreams are just fragments of daytime experiences and reactions manifesting at night. Dreams are not that at all. Dreams are the process of your soul experiencing in another dimensional space, the process of the inner self experiencing. Dreams are divided into many, many kinds, and their meanings and uses are different—as complex as your life is, so complex are your dreams.

The truly scientific and systematic study of dreams, in the modern sense, began with Freud and Jung. In ancient China we also had the Duke of Zhou's dream interpretations and various methods of analysis, but from the perspective of modern science, from psychology and psychiatry, or in terms of applying it to psychotherapy, the two most famous representatives are Freud and Jung.

By Jung's own estimate, he interpreted more than eighty thousand dreams in his lifetime, and he kept records. He was a psychotherapist, and those mental patients had to be treated through him, so he would record the patients' dreams, and he also recorded his own dreams. During the period when Jung and Freud were separating, Jung himself was plagued by constant nightmares—earlier it was mentioned that he saw ghosts in his room, right? Every night he had nightmares, especially terrifying dreams. He wrote all the dreams down, and he also drew the things in the dreams, turning the drawings into a book called The Red Book¹⁵, red as in the color red. Those who are interested can go search for Jung's The Red Book¹⁵; the book is filled with the pictures from his dreams.

After he met Richard Wilhelm and read The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶, he stopped writing The Red Book¹⁵, brought that phase to a close, and devoted himself to studying The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶. After studying it, he had a sudden realization and gained tremendous inspiration from it. In a later article commemorating Richard Wilhelm, he said that this book and this man had an enormous influence on him, impossible to describe in words, and that it became the theoretical foundation of his entire life. So it was at this point that Eastern and Western civilizations collided, and sparks flew from that collision.

Pauli and Synchronicity

We'll leave the dream stuff aside—if you're interested, you can study Jung on your own. Let's look at his main ideas—why do we bring up his thought? Because we'll need it later.

First, he posited a "complex," which is a component of the personal unconscious—we won't go into that. Then there's "synchronicity"—synchronicity holds that when two or three things happen simultaneously, it must mean many significant things—we won't expand on that either. Regarding synchronicity, he even discussed it with Einstein: Einstein's theory of relativity influenced him, and he influenced Einstein too; they both spent time in Switzerland. He also discussed synchronicity with Pauli.

Who is Pauli? Pauli was a famous physicist, a genius. He started writing papers at eighteen, and his first paper was on relativity¹⁶, right after he graduated from high school. By twenty-one, he was already publishing papers that shook the entire physics community of the time. The Pauli exclusion principle¹⁷—anyone who's studied physics knows this. He also did a great deal of foundational work in quantum mechanics. In the 1920s, Pauli played a crucial role in the founding of quantum mechanics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, alongside Heisenberg and the others.

Because of his theory, Einstein nominated Pauli, and Pauli won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945¹⁸. But Pauli wasn't fond of publishing papers—he discussed all his ideas with his fellow physicists, through letters, writing dozens at a time, sometimes letters dozens of pages long. He didn't care about fame or gain; he didn't bother publishing papers that should have been published—it all happened in discussions. But later generations knew him, and even the physicists he inspired praised him, saying their ideas were influenced by Pauli. Pauli was a key figure in the founding of quantum mechanics; he influenced countless people. He also became the conscience of the physics community—he couldn't tolerate a single erroneous viewpoint, being a perfectionist himself.

But at that time, Pauli was suffering from depression, deeply mentally distressed. He divorced his wife, and after the divorce she found someone he utterly despised—a very ordinary man, someone not even fit to carry Pauli's shoes—he simply couldn't accept it, and he completely collapsed. After the breakdown, he drank heavily every day, went out at night to find prostitutes, lingered in brothels—it was total self-abandonment, self-destruction. Although his wisdom was extremely high, he was still young, lacking life experience.

Just then, he went to Jung for treatment, and while Jung was treating him, the two became acquainted. Because Pauli was much younger than Jung, he became a student of Jung's psychology, studying psychology with Jung; Jung learned some core concepts in physics from Pauli—Pauli was a founder of quantum mechanics, and his ideas influenced Jung enormously. Much of Jung's psychology carries the shadow of quantum mechanics—quite ingenious. You find this story threads together very interestingly.

Pauli himself was also influenced by Eastern culture, having read the I Ching⁸ and the Laozi. After they later parted ways, Pauli and Jung continued a long correspondence, always exploring—one exploring psychology through physics, the other exploring physics through psychology. In other words, Pauli was the best psychologist among physicists, and Jung should be the physicist with the richest knowledge among all psychologists. Their letters were later collected and published as Atom and Archetype¹⁹. This book explores the possibility of fusing physics and psychology across disciplines. They kept exploring the two most fundamental disciplines of humanity—physics, which studies matter, the tangible; and psychology, which studies the human, the invisible mental state. They both believed these two could surely be fused, but didn't know where, and kept exploring. If you're interested, find a copy of Atom and Archetype¹⁹—it can spark tremendous inspiration; it could be called a landmark masterpiece.

Why is it called "archetype"? That's where we get to this point.

Jung's Thought: Archetypes, the Collective Unconscious, Anima and Animus

We say "libido." Freud believed libido was desire, sexual desire, and all kinds of desires. Jung believed it should not be just that; there was more to it. Jung also had a most basic concept: the human psyche can be divided into two broad categories, introverted and extroverted, and each of those is further divided into several types, eight in total -- later personality analysis all came from him.

But that is not the most crucial part. The most crucial part is some of the theories he proposed, which even now have not been accepted by the mainstream, because they are too absurd and too far ahead of their time. But those of us who study Seth can understand at once what he was trying to say.

First, he said there is an "archetype" -- the common symbols of humanity, regardless of region or culture, that Jung discovered in the collective unconscious. He studied many primitive tribes in Africa and South America²⁰, back in the early 1900s, when civilization had not yet spread everywhere. He observed those indigenous people, analyzed their dreams, communicated with them, and studied their legends, culture, and ancient drawings. He was not a theoretical scholar; he was a practitioner, and he stayed there for many years.

Through long-term research, he found that human beings, whether Europeans or people from primitive tribes, all share common traits. At the level of human thought, in the unconscious, there is a fundamental commonality, and this commonality is unknown to people. At the deepest bottom of our unconscious, apart from individual characteristics, there is also a commonality. This commonality gives rise to all of a person's reactions -- our normal reactions and our primitive reactions are all based on this archetype. Our thinking, our ways of considering problems, and our ways of handling things -- if we set aside education, learning, and reason -- the most instinctive and primitive reactions of human beings share a commonality. This is a commonality of humanity that crosses cultures, races, and regions. This thing is called the archetype. So Jung had a basic theory: humanity has a collective unconscious, like the ocean floor, bottomless and boundless. And the consciousness we can normally be aware of is only like the tip of an iceberg.

Then he also made two other points. He said there is something called the anima -- the feminine personality in the human unconscious. In a man's unconscious there is a feminine personality, and there is only one. This feminine image is an embodiment of the man's idealized image of women, so when a man falls in love with a woman at first sight, generally he is projecting the anima in his heart onto the woman he has met, and so to him this woman feels like the lover of his dreams.

He also believed that in a woman's unconscious there is a masculine personality, called the animus, which has one more "s" than anima. But in a woman's unconscious, there are several masculine personalities, not just one -- there are aspects of the father, the elder brother, the teacher, and so on. So in a typical woman's dreams, there often appear a bunch of robbers, a bunch of bad people, or several men. This is something he worked out himself through analyzing dreams.

Then he said there is the "shadow" -- in the unconscious there is also a personality completely opposite to your ego, and he called it the shadow. There is also something called the "self" -- does this sound like a Buddhist term now? Buddhism often speaks of the self-nature. This is very similar to Buddhism, that is, mind, nature, or original nature, the center and core of the human psyche. We say the part that you call yourself -- in other words, this part is actually your inner self. There is also the monster, very great, but very cold, making people feel that they are unimportant. These are all things in the unconscious, and everyone has them in their unconscious. We give the image of a monster to everything we cannot control.

But the following passage is very important. He believed that individuation, or individualization -- the goal of psychic growth -- is the realization of the self, that is, self realization, which is your self-knowledge. This is the same as the idealized self to be realized in Conversations with God²¹, and it is also what Seth repeatedly emphasizes -- you must find yourself, you must have a clear understanding of yourself, you must know what your true self is, which is to return to the inner heart.

So at this level, they have many points in common. And if you remember who influenced Jung -- he was influenced by The Secret of the Golden Flower⁶ -- then you will understand that in Lu Dongbin's exposition there are indeed such viewpoints. These viewpoints are very much in harmony with Eastern religion, but they are completely incompatible with Western theory, Western science, and even Western religion. We will not expand on this here. Why do I bring up Jung at this point? Because the content that follows is related to this.

Male and Female Spirits

Let's skip what came before. He said Jane went to get this spinal adjustment, and said you shouldn't go on a cloudy day, you should go on a sunny day, and gave a bunch of theory about it. Then he said the title of this chapter is Reincarnation, Dreams, and the Male and Female Hidden Within the Self -- doesn't that connect right back to what I was just saying?

Session 555

Let us look at the content:

As mentioned earlier, every individual has experienced both male and female lives.

In reincarnation we have all experienced both male and female lives, every one of us. As usual, we retain no conscious memory of these.

To prevent an individual from over-identifying with his or her present sexual role.

To prevent us from over-identifying with our present gender — that is, we think we are male, and we over-identify with this male identity.

Within the man there resides an inner female personification.

Is this view not consistent with Jung's idea? Within your male subconscious there is a female personality.

This female personification in the male is what Jung called the anima.

Right, he mentions Jung here. This female personification within the male is what Jung called the anima — the anima within every man's heart.

The anima in the male is, therefore, a psychic memory and identification of all the previous female lives in which the inner self has been involved.

What is this anima? It is the inner self's memory of the life processes in which she was certainly female in several previous incarnations, along with the sense of identification — the sense of identification with the female identity — and what is reflected from this is called the anima.

It contains the knowledge of the past female history of the present man, and an intuitive understanding of all the female characteristics with which the person is innately endowed.

That is, although this person is male, he has also been female, and he has an innate intuitive knowledge and understanding of the female identity. So every man has a woman within him.

The anima is therefore an important safeguard.

What important safeguard is this anima? It prevents the man from over-identifying with the cultural male characteristics imposed upon him by his present background, environment, and education.

The existence of the female personality within this person's character is what prevents your gender from becoming overly one-dimensional, from over-identifying with your male identity — "I am a man, so what if I am a man, I am a real man," taking maleness as the starting point for every consideration.

It affects not only the individual but also the civilization of the group.

Remember this: it has an influence on the whole of human society.

It softens strong aggressive tendencies.

It softens the male's aggressive tendencies.

And in family relationships it also serves as a bridge for communication with women.

In family relationships, when you communicate with your wife, if you do not understand her at all and have no feminine thinking or behavior whatsoever, you cannot understand her at all, and you cannot communicate with her — that empathy simply would not be there.

And when it is applied through art and language in the areas of communication and expression, it is also a bridge.

The anima is especially good at expression and communication, so when it is applied through the language of art in communication or expression, it is also a bridge — women are better at communicating, better at interacting, and also better at listening.

Men, therefore, often dream of themselves as women, and the particular way in which they do so can tell them much about their reincarnational background as women.

It is highly important that the male and female are obviously not opposites but merging tendencies.

Through the way of dreaming, you are made to dream sometimes that you are a woman. This dream is not common, but some people may dream of themselves as women. What is its purpose? It is to make you realize that male and female are not opposites, not in conflict, not antithetical, and not the two sides of yin and yang — they should be merged together.

In the dreams there will be priestesses, mothers, young witches, wives, and wise old women.

This whole series consists of archetypes, all archetypes of the anima. They symbolically represent different female characteristics, as well as the different female lives that the man has experienced. These are what you sometimes encounter when you are dreaming.

They are experienced by women also, of course.

Women also dream of these female experiences of priestesses, witches, and wives, but women do not need to be reminded — they do not need to be reminded.

But in the same way, so that they do not over-identify with their present sex, there is in the woman what Jung called the animus, or the hidden male.

Within the female personality there is a hidden male personality. Likewise, this represents the male lives in which the self has been involved — the male lives this woman once lived.

In her dreams there will appear youths, priests, aggressive jungle men, or bandits, and so forth.

Many women dream of savage men in their dreams. This is a very distinctive and very common kind of dream. Of course she will also encounter wise old men, sages.

These types generally and symbolically represent the past male lives of the present woman.

They are symbolic — remember this.

By studying the dreams in which these types appear, or in which they themselves appear as males, women can learn much about their past lives as men.

The same is true for men. Through the so-called anima and animus, the present personality can draw upon the knowledge, intuition, and background gained in past lives as the other sex. Only through the anima or animus in your heart can you draw upon the intuition, knowledge, and background from your past life as a man or a woman — otherwise you cannot draw upon it. For example, suppose your past life was as a woman. With the mentality of a man, how can you understand a woman's intuition, a woman's feelings? The feelings of being someone's wife, someone's daughter, someone's mother in that female life — how can you, as a man, experience those? Only through the attributes of that previous-life female personality deep within you can you go back into the experience of the previous life and retrieve that knowledge and intuition.

In some cases, for example, a woman may act out exaggerated female characteristics.

She is overly feminine — some women are truly women among women; there are such women.

In such instances, the animus, or the male within her, comes to her aid, giving her a barrage of knowledge through dreams, resulting in compensatory masculine-like reactions.

If a woman is overly feminine, then in her dreams the latent male aspects within her will come out to help her, imparting to her some knowledge, imparting to her some masculine-like reactions.

The same happens when a man over-identifies with what he thinks of as male characteristics, for whatever reason.

When a man over-identifies with the male identity, the female within him will give him a certain compensation — giving him a whole range of intuitive abilities. Women tend toward intuition, right? Bringing in creative elements to counterbalance aggression.

Ideally, left alone, these operations would result in a balanced individual and a balanced group.

If left alone — what does "left alone" mean? Not over-analyzing it with too much intellect, not interfering with it through too much rational identity-identification — then what you finally get is a balanced individual and a balanced group, whether individual or group, both balanced.

Creatively utilizing aggression forever.

As indeed she can and should be.

What is aggression? Aggression is not a derogatory term. Among all the primal drives of human beings, aggression is not a derogatory term. It is somewhat like the most primal impulse, the most primal drive spoken of in Freud, and also similar to the most primal life force spoken of by Jung. In other words, all of our actions are expressions of aggression. Whether male or female, there is aggression in everything you do — as soon as you act, it is aggression. What is aggression? To put it vividly: when you really want to do something in your heart, you want to get up and do it right away, you want to accomplish something — whether it is cooking a meal, negotiating a big project, or building a large stadium, all of this is aggression. Of course, getting into a fight with someone is also aggression, and when you are furious and raging, those are also aggression. So aggression is not a bad thing, but you must utilize it creatively — and at this point you need the help of the other, you need your other personality, your other gender attribute, to help you.

The Body Memories of the Male and Female Psyches

The male psyche and the female psyche are naturally highly charged psychologically.

They are not dead. They have always existed.

But the origin of this psychic charge and the inner fascination is the result of a very reasonable inner identification with these personified characteristics of the opposite sex.

Why charge the female character within a man's psyche, and charge the male character within a woman's psyche? Its origin lies in this personification -- if you are originally a male, the female characteristics within your psyche must be personified, must be a simulated set of female characteristics, because your own physical structure is male. Why do you charge this female character within your psyche? If you did not charge it, would it not simply remain inactive? Yet you charge it from time to time, precisely because you inwardly identify with this personified character of the opposite sex, and that is why it gets charged. The same is true for women.

But you do not only have a real existence within the psyche.

They are also deeply embedded within the heart by the inner self, in the manner of genetic codes.

The genetic memory of past psychic events is transferred into the genetic memory of the cells that compose the body.

The existence of these male and female psyches within your body is not merely an existence within the psyche. They are also deeply lodged in the heart by the inner self in the form of genetic code data -- how are they deeply lodged in the heart? The genetic memory of past psychic events is transferred into the genetic memory of the cells that compose the body. That is to say, your psychic events can be inherited. Do not think that only the DNA of physical cells can be inherited. These psychic events of yours, the things you have experienced, can all be inherited.

Many people do not understand how this can be. That is perfectly normal. For example, some people are born afraid of water, keep their distance from water, are inexplicably afraid of it, and no amount of reasoning helps. This is a psychic memory from a past life that has become a memory within the cells of the physical body in this life. Some people are extremely afraid of water; in some lifetime they may have drowned, and they forever remember the experience of drowning, and they write it into the memory of this lifetime.

Each inner self, when it adopts a new body, imposes upon the new body the memory of the previous bodies it has designed.

Imposes it upon its entire genetic composition.

It imposes it, without consulting you. That is to say, when your entity projects into this human world to be born and reincarnate, it also brings along the memories of previous bodies -- the memories of past bodies, that is -- and adds them onto the new body.

In other words, what does this mean? If in your last life you were a woman, your body memory is that of a woman; in this life you have reincarnated as a man, yet it imposes the memory of the old body onto this new body, and even adds it onto the genetic structure. So now you know where the male psyche and female psyche within your body come from, right? That is how they come about.

The present characteristics, however, screen out the past ones.

What does "present" mean? Right now you are male or female, and that screens out the past. I am not referring only to male and female -- though male and female are obvious -- the characteristics of your present psychology and body, the characteristics of your personality fragment, will cover over the things from your previous lives, and they will not manifest.

They are therefore dominant.

They are your present characteristics, and the present characteristics are dominant. The others -- the others being your past, your previous bodies -- are recessive, but they still exist.

All are inherently within the pattern.

The physical pattern of the present body therefore possesses its own genetic memory of past physical forms.

And contains both their strengths and their weaknesses.

Remember, it is not only the strengths; the weaknesses are in there too. Both are present.

I will try to simplify this.

There are many invisible layers within my present body.

This includes the consciousness, the subconscious, and the deeper consciousness within the subconscious that Jung was studying and Freud was studying as well. These are all invisible. The uppermost layer you can see, of course, represents the present physical form; what you can see is the physical form. But within it there are also invisible layers -- there are also shadows, recessive layers. It specifically emphasizes this shadow here, which is the shadow we mentioned earlier when introducing Jung: the self that is completely opposite to, and in opposition to, your present ego, dwelling within your subconscious. It actually serves to balance you -- just as the male and female psyches balance your over-identification with your identity. But be sure to remember, they are all recessive.

They represent the images of previous physical forms that belonged to earlier times.

They have an electromagnetic connection with the atomic structure of the present body. They have been set aside, but they are connected in an electromagnetic manner, connected in a way that is invisible to us, in a way of energy.

In your way of thinking, they would be out of focus, with no clear focal point.

Our conscious focus has not been aimed at them, and our thoughts have not been focused there either -- our identification with the sense of identity is not focused on them. We focus on the uppermost physical attributes, and on the most visible expressions of consciousness.

Through this you can analyze what homosexuality is about, or what that sense of non-identification with one's identity is about. For example, why some people need to undergo sex reassignment surgery -- now you understand, right? They have aimed their focus precisely at that part within their body. Their body is clearly male, yet they have aimed their focus at the female character within, and so their sense of identity is that of a female. This is why many people go for sex reassignment surgery, why they become transsexuals.

But they are part of your psychic heritage.

They are recessive, but they are part of your psychic heritage.

You can often call upon a past strength of a previous body to help you compensate for a present weakness.

The body is therefore not only biological, carrying the memory of its own past conditions in this life.

But the memories of the other bodies that this person formed in previous reincarnations are also indelibly present with it in physical terms.

It does not merely carry these memories biologically; it also brings over the experiences of its previous reincarnations indelibly, present with it in physical terms. When he says "in physical terms," remember, it is not symbolic, not a mere memory; it is physically right here.

The female psyche and the male psyche are closely bound up with these inner body images.

The female psyche and the male psyche are closely connected with the body images of your previous lives. These body images are also highly charged psychically -- that is, they are active, not hidden and motionless.

They also appear in the dream state.

They appear in dreams.

They serve a compensatory and reminding function, to prevent you from over-identifying with the present body.

Why prevent you from over-identifying? For fear that you will become obsessed with this present physical body, or obsessed with a single attribute. You are clearly a multidimensional, multi-temporal, multi-reincarnational being. If you only obsess over the identity of this one present lifetime, or over the identification with the physical body, you will not be able to learn from the experiences gained in other lifetimes, including physical experiences. For example, when we learn to ride a bicycle, after many years you can pick it up and ride it right away, right? The things you once learned -- you will find that some people learn certain things especially quickly, with better physical coordination and faster learning speed than usual. That is because they are able to draw upon the body memories -- not only from this life, but from past lives.

Of course, they are also male and female.

When you draw upon them, when you are ill, in dreams you often feel as though you are another person who is completely healthy. Anyone who has experienced illness knows this very clearly. I remember when my father was ill, in the late stages of cancer, when his body was already in great pain and bedridden, he would often dream -- he would come back and tell me his dreams -- he would often go up into the mountains, to places covered with flowers, playing and running wildly with others, as if he had become a young boy, or a man in his prime. When others went to work, he went to work; when others went to do chores, he did chores; when others went to play, he played, running wildly all over the mountains. He had that sense of freedom, an indescribable lightness and ease. And then when he came back, when he returned to this sick body of his, he would be extremely excited telling you about the things in his dream, even though his body had long been unable to move.

This is therapeutic, often therapeutic. If a person often has dreams of this kind of physical health, it has a healing effect on the body. This is how, among the memories of your previous bodies, their strengths can help you when in this life you have weaknesses, when you lack a healthy body -- by drawing back the attributes of previous lives to help heal the deficiencies of the present body. These older bodies -- the bodies of previous reincarnations -- come to help you. And you draw strength through the memory of their health.

Do you know what a healthy body feels like? Do you understand what health feels like? If you have been ill for too long, you have forgotten what health feels like, so how can you get well? You do not even know what health is; if this feeling of health is gone, then basically you are not likely to get well. So when you always have that feeling of health, you can know that you are about to recover. Many people are especially aware of this when they are about to recover from illness -- some people wake up and feel, I am going to get well. Why? Because that feeling of health has come to them. Once the feeling of health returns, they will get well immediately, very quickly.

Reincarnational Experience and the Structure of the Whole Self

First, he says that reincarnational experience is part of the structure of this "self." This self refers to the entire self, the complete whole self, or the soul, or the entity — he put it in quotes — it is part of the structure of the entire self, one aspect of the living psyche's multidimensional reality. Each of our psyches is multidimensional, so many people ask whether they actually live in a three-dimensional world or a four-dimensional world or a multidimensional world — you yourself live in a multidimensional world, and you yourself are a product of a multidimensional world. He says this is a living example, a living example of yourself in terms of the psychic structure.

Therefore, these experiences will be reflected not only in dreams, but also in other levels of activity. This multidimensional psychic structure is not only in dreams; on other levels as well — that is, your successive lives will have a certain influence on this life of yours. Many people say, well, doesn't that make it cause and effect? If you insist on calling this kind of thing cause and effect, then there is no way around it. Because if you discuss it within the three-dimensional world, it certainly is — since you are talking about successive lives, there is a temporal sequence; but if you can understand the simultaneity of this kind of time development, then you will understand that this thing is not called cause and effect.

He says that the fabric of the "present self," this piece of cloth, this material, is interwoven with these reincarnational "pasts." The present self refers to the you right now, and he uses cloth and material to hint at the texture, the attributes, the nature of your present self. This material is interwoven with the reincarnational past — he put it in quotes — interwoven with your reincarnational past.

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And from these past lives, the "present self" unconsciously draws personality characteristics, activities, and insights from its own storehouse.

That is, all of these past lives of yours can serve as personality characteristics, activities, and insights that your present self can draw upon and extract, all to help you.

Often memories of past lives rise to the surface without being recognized.

We say, how come we don't know we would have these feelings from past lives? We don't know, we've never had them, never experienced them—because sometimes they surface but are not recognized, and we can't see them. Because they appear in the form of fantasy:

They appear in the form of fantasy, or are projected into artistic creation.

Many times you say, how come I don't know I would have these things from past lives? He says it's because after they surface you still don't notice, and the reason is that it's a fantasy. For example, you might think, oh, in the future I want to become such and such—this kind of expectation for your future or this kind of fantasy—he says sometimes it is a hidden memory of your past life: that is, what achievements you once reached in a past life, or what standard you once attained. In your heart you have impressions of these things, in your unconscious. Sometimes it can also become a kind of artistic creation.

For example, many writers who write historical stories write based on their direct experience from that period. Many people who write history—those who write Qing history, those who write Ming history—some write very well, but some write just passably, treating it as a job. But those who write exceptionally brilliantly, exceptionally wonderfully, making you feel as if you were there, vividly alive, or those who depict that history in fine detail—what are they often doing? They are writing their direct experience; this is their experience from past lives. They extract it from the unconscious, and when they write it, it's as if they themselves were there, as if this person had been at the scene. He may not be there now, but his past-life self may have been at that historical scene. So you see, some histories are written very well. He says this kind of example represents an extremely useful rapport between the present self and the unconscious.

So now you can connect this to what he said earlier about Jung's basic theory—Jung's theory is about reconciling the conscious self and the unconscious self²². Isn't it the same principle?

The unconscious in such a way brings these memories to the surface, enriching the present life.

He says this person often becomes almost consciously aware of the situation. In most cases he will become almost truly intuitive about the situation; he has a feeling, and he knows that his reliable source of material lies just beneath the level of his perception—just beneath his conscious level. He can roughly sense this material; the person himself can sense it. This includes many writers who, when writing books, find their talent flowing like a spring, simply unable to stop, completing it in one breath. Many who write history, who write novels, are like this. Now do you know where this talent comes from? Actually there is something like firsthand experience from past lives in it.

In dreams, this reincarnational material is likewise often cast into dramatic patterns.

In dreams, this reincarnational material is also often cast into dramatic molds, becoming the stuff of drama. When this reincarnational material is displayed in dreams, you will find that it often enters your inner world.

Beneath all of these, the female spirit and the male spirit work together, again not in opposition to each other but as merged characteristics.

Your male spirit and female spirit work hand in hand; they are not opposed but merged. Remember this: the male spirit and the female spirit, male and female, are never opposed; their essence is merged together.

Combined, of course, they represent the source of creation both psychically and physically.

When the male character and the female character are merged together, when there is no gender discrimination, no such self-view—saying I am male, I am female, when there is none of that—this merging represents the source of creation both psychically and physically. You need to understand this: only after this merging will there be creative power.

Characteristics of the Female Psyche and the Male Psyche

The female psyche represented that necessary initial "inwardness."

The female psyche represents that necessary, most fundamental, most primal inward attribute. The feminine is inclined inward; women are more concerned with inner things than men. Contemplative — the female psyche itself is also contemplative; caring — its concern for surrounding things and surrounding people is greater than that of men; more intuitive — its intuitive nature is stronger; characterized by turning inward — it transforms external sensations into internal emotions. Many women are rich in feelings and rich in emotions because they transform these external reactions and happenings into internal moods and internal feelings. It is inclined inward.

Creativity came from this inward focus.

This creativity comes from the inward focus. Without this inward focus of the female psyche, creativity would lack its most fundamental source.

"Passivity" is a poor adjective for the characteristics of the female psyche, for it implies "lack of action," and nothing could be further from the truth.

So you must never hold onto the impression that "passivity is feminine." The terms he uses are inwardness, contemplative, caring, intuitive, turning inward — all neutral or positive terms. "Passivity" is a comparatively derogatory term, and he says it is a very poor adjective.

It is true that the female psyche allowed itself to be acted upon by others, but the motive behind this was the desire and the necessity to adjust itself to other forces of great power.

It allows itself to be acted upon by others, but you must not regard this as passivity. This is its attribute. What is the motive behind it? It is adjusting itself. It accepts the actions of others, and its purpose is to adjust itself, to align with other forces of tremendous power — that is, external forces. Their desire and necessity are aligned, meaning they share the same extremely strong force of wanting to do things and wanting to create. In the midst of being acted upon, it seems to have no impetus at all, but in fact its inner desire and its inner necessity for action are extremely strong.

The desire of the female psyche, therefore, to be swept along was as strong as its opposite desire for rest.

Many people do not understand why women have this attribute of depending on a certain person or a certain thing. Where does this dependence on men come from? He says you can see it from here: deep in her bones there is a desire to be swept along, a desire to be carried along by external forces and external things. She needs to rely on these external things to mobilize what is within herself and to adjust what is within herself. At the same time, she also wants rest — women give you the feeling that life is fine just as it is, that living a plain and ordinary life is enough, that there is no need for such great pursuits or such great desires, that life right now is already happy and they do not need those things.

So she has both of these states: she longs for violent storms to sweep her up and carry her along passively, and she also hopes for a stable and settled life. These two desires exist simultaneously within the female body. So why are many women willing to follow those so-called outlaws and wander the world, or be passively swept up in a great historical event? She could completely extract herself, so why does she insist on being swept up in it? This is a factor of her inner essence.

If you are not quite clear about this part, you can look at what the I Ching says about the Kun hexagram. Kun refers to the feminine; the Kun hexagram refers to women. Look at the description in the Kun hexagram — it is the truest depiction of the female psyche: great virtue that carries all things. Like the earth itself, Kun in ancient times referred to the earth, and also to women, or to what is called the yin aspect. Whatever you give to the earth, it can bear it all. Its virtue is manifested in magnanimity, kindness, and the capacity to carry all things. It bears and accepts the actions given to it by others, and through this way it manifests its own value. Only upon it do all things have the foundation to stand or establish themselves. Without the existence of the earth, those actions, without its bearing, could not manifest their value or their power of action.

Then he talks about the male psyche. What are the characteristics of the male psyche?

The male psyche provided the aggressive thrust.

The characteristic of the male psyche is this aggressive thrust, always outward — you must remember this: outward — and then he adds "back into bodily activity." What does it mean to say outward and yet back? Outward means that these things are originally all internal — they are activities within the human heart, within the psyche and the inner self. The male psyche itself exists deep within your heart, within your unconscious, within your inner self. So he calls it outward, and then sent back into bodily activity — from the body's perspective, it is as if an aggressive and impulsive force has come from somewhere else, as if something has arrived in the body again, so he says "back again." In fact, it is sent outward into the body, giving the body activity, impact, and aggression.

Then, triumphantly holding aloft the creations that came about through the characteristics of the female psyche.

This image is particularly well chosen. The male psyche takes this outward impact, aggression, and activity, and holds it up with great pride, saying, "Look at what I have created, look at what I have obtained, look at what I have accomplished." It regards these things as its own proud achievements and accomplishments, holding them high and saying, "Look, I did this." Many men say, "I am supporting the family, I am building a career, I am making money" — all of these are such characteristics. But he often forgets that the things he has done are only possible because the female psyche within his own character serves as the fundamental basis. Only then can he obtain these creations — that is, the bearing of these actions is surely borne by the female psyche. Without the earth as the bearer, these creations would have no result and no created object.

The male psyche is like the Qian hexagram in the Eight Trigrams; Qian represents heaven. The characteristic of the Qian hexagram is that heaven moves with vigor, and the noble person strives ceaselessly to strengthen himself²³ — the male psyche is constantly creating, with extremely strong aggression, endlessly generating, with inexhaustible vitality. If you do not know what the male psyche is, just look at a seven- or eight-year-old boy and you will know: his creativity is simply inexhaustible, to the point of driving people crazy. As the old saying goes, at seven or eight years old, even dogs find them annoying²⁴ — that is the stage where he cannot stop for a single moment, constantly stirring things up, constantly creating.

Yet this kind of creation, without the bearing of the earth, means heaven can create nothing at all. Heaven represents thunder, lightning, sunlight, air, wind, and rain — these are all things of the heavens. Without the earth as the bearer, without the female psyche as the bearer, you can create nothing at all; everything remains empty against empty. It is precisely because of the earth as the bearing thing that the sunlight and rain from heaven, nourished and borne by the earth, bring forth the growth of all things. But if there were only earth and no heaven — no sunlight, rain, air, thunder, or lightning — a dead and silent earth would also have nothing at all. So the mutual response of heaven and earth is needed; only when heaven and earth unite do all things in the world come into being. This is a principle that our Chinese ancestors discovered long ago. And we often use man and woman as metaphors for the characteristics of the male and the female.

And Seth here tells you that every person contains within themselves both male attributes and female attributes; it is only a matter of which one is displayed on the outer layer and which one is displayed on the inner layer. It is like the yin-yang fish diagram of the Eight Trigrams: why is there a dot of yang within yin, and a dot of yin within yang? The dot is not about quantity; it is only a hint telling you that within every yang there must be yin, and within every yin there must be yang. Only in this way are all things harmonized and blended together. This part also arrives at a fundamentally consistent viewpoint. If you can understand it, that is wonderful; if not, you can look at the I Ching's discussion of Qian and Kun, or of yin and yang.

The whole self is obviously the sum of these characteristics, and more.

This whole self after harmonization is the entirety of you, your inner self. It is not only your external male or female personality; within it there is also another male psyche or female psyche. Besides the harmonization of these two, there is even more — it is the result of one plus one being greater than two. Your inner self is never simply male plus female combined; it is greater than that number, which is why he uses the word "more."

After the final reincarnation, your physical, sexual form of creation is no longer necessary.

When you have completed all reincarnations, this form with a physical body and a gender — "I am a man and I created something," "I am a female scientist, a female artist, a female pianist" — this gender is no longer important, nor is it necessary. In other words, you no longer need physical reproduction. Once the cycle of reincarnation is complete, you are no longer coming back.

The whole self, in other words, contained male and female characteristics, finely tuned, interwoven, so that the true identity could then arise.

It contains all male and female characteristics within it. It is not simply mixed together directly as you might imagine — you add a bit of female characteristics to a man, or a bit of male characteristics to a woman, and that is it? It is not like that. It must be finely adjusted, blended, and mixed with each other, and only then can the true self arise in the state after this blending.

For when one group of characteristics had to be emphasized over the other, as in our present existence.

You could say that men should be stronger than women, or many feminists say that women should be stronger than men. Whichever it is, when you believe that one gender's attributes should surpass the other's, your true identity cannot arise.

We in ancient China discovered this characteristic long ago. In ancient China, people would often say that to judge how well an old monk has cultivated himself, how advanced his state of practice is, you can look at his face — if this old monk has a round head and round face, looking increasingly prosperous and content, and the more he looks like an old woman, if a male monk increasingly looks like an old woman in his face, speech, and mannerisms, we say that this person's practice may have reached a certain level. This is what we often call "a man with a woman's countenance, a woman with a man's countenance." The same is true when you look at a nun's practice: after she has practiced, the feminine qualities of grace, gentleness, and charm are also gone by the end — but they are not gone in a way that turns her fierce; no, she becomes a kindly elder whose gender is hard to tell. After her head is shaved, you cannot tell from her face whether she is male or female; when she does not speak, you cannot quite distinguish. A person like that has reached a certain level of cultivation and practice. The face is born from the heart; the outer appearance is projected from within. The male and female attributes within her body are harmonized extremely well. So there is an old Chinese saying, in the arts of face reading and fortune telling²⁵, that a man with a woman's countenance or a woman with a man's countenance²⁶ are both auspicious faces.

There were many reasons for adopting this separation in your dimension.

So why, when creating humans, could they not be made hermaphroditic? Why go to all this trouble, being male in one life and female in the next? He says there are many reasons for adopting this separation in our dimension.

The reasons had to do with the particular manner in which mankind chose to evolve and use its abilities.

That is, we humans set it up this way from the very beginning, because only in this way could we exercise our abilities. He says, "I will add more explanation, but not in this chapter" — we will not discuss it further in this chapter; he will explain later why it was set up this way.

The Deeper Meaning of the Male and Female Psyche

It is quite natural for a man's female psyche, or hidden female self, to be projected onto "his" interpersonal relationships.

The female psyche is the hidden female self. The female psyche within a male, projected onto his interpersonal relationships, is quite natural, allowing him not only to understand those relationships more deeply, but also to relate to his own life experiences as other females.

What this means is: the female psyche within you has two main functions at the same time. One is to give you some intuitive and instinctive understanding in your real-life interactions with the opposite sex—because you yourself have a female character within you, and you also know how women think and how women feel. You cannot say it is a great deal, but to some extent you can empathize, which helps you gain more understanding of these relationships. Another point is that it is also a very important channel for you to draw upon the experiences of your past lives when you were reincarnated as a female. If you did not have this female psyche within you, you would have no way of making use of those reincarnational experiences and intuitions as a female.

A woman projects her male psyche onto male relatives and friends in the same way.

We project these male characteristics and impulses onto the male relatives, friends, and classmates around us.

The truth of the female psyche and the male psyche is far more profound than what Jung hypothesized.

Here he brings up Jung again. Jung earlier spoke of the male psyche and the female psyche—the female psyche in the unconscious is the anima, and the male psyche is the animus²⁷. In Jung's system, what role their fusion and harmonization would play—Jung had his own discussion of this, treating it as a kind of unconscious inner projection. In fact, the truth of these two is far more profound than what Jung hypothesized. Here he is actually affirming Jung's theory and then expanding upon it—Jung's conception was correct, but there is far more to it than he thought.

Symbolically speaking, the two together represent the whole self with greater abilities, desires, and characteristics.

Where does its profundity lie? It means that only when the male psyche and the female psyche merge and unite can they represent the true whole self. This is a fundamental attribute of the whole self, namely, being both male and female, androgynous. In the nature of the psyche, in the book The Nature of the Psyche, he will also specifically emphasize this point: each of us exists in a state where male and female are both present.

Together they serve as an innate, unconscious stabilizing factor, not only on the individual level, but also on the cultural level, acting behind the face of our civilization.

You must remember this: it is an unconscious stabilizing factor that is inherently present, that we have within us from the start. Jung spoke more about it on the individual level, but he says it is not only on the individual level, but also on the cultural level. In other words, behind our human civilization—whether cultural, artistic, or social—there is a stabilizing factor in which male and female are fused together. The harmonization of male and female is the cornerstone of this society, this civilization, this humanity. When he says its profundity goes beyond what Jung imagined, he is referring to these aspects—Jung approached it more from the individual perspective, studying the problem of the male psyche or female psyche within each person, but he says it goes far deeper than that.

The personality as you know it cannot be understood unless the true meaning of the female psyche and the male psyche is taken into consideration.

We often say that a personality cannot be fully understood, because we often say "this is a man" or "this is a woman," and we consider it from the male perspective or the female perspective. You rarely think of this person as being both male and female, so when you consider him, there are many of his thoughts and many of his decisions that you do not understand at the time. When you want to understand a true personality, you must take into consideration the true meaning represented by both the male and the female.

The Openness of Reincarnational Patterns and Gender Choice

Generally speaking, the pattern of reincarnation is open, meaning there is room for all kinds of variation within it.

There are no rules to the pattern of reincarnation; there is room for variation.

Each whole self has its own individual characteristics, and within the guiding outline it can choose the life of each incarnation in whatever way it sees fit.

The guiding outline is what we learned in the previous few chapters: in reincarnation there is choice, why one chooses, and on what basis one chooses — that is a basic principle. Within this principle, it can choose in whatever way it sees fit.

You may have a series of uninterrupted male or female lives — it can choose to be male ten times in a row, or female ten times in a row, whatever, there are no rules restricting it. But he tells you that choosing this way has some drawbacks:

There is no law that compels you, compels you to say you cannot be male in consecutive lives.

You cannot force the development of gender across different reincarnations; you cannot say you must alternate, once male and once female — that is not the case. But there is one premise: you must accept the experience of both genders. Across all your reincarnations this time, you must have experienced both being male and being female. But it does not insist that you must be male a certain number of times and female a certain number of times; there is no such rule. But you must have the experience of the other gender, and develop various different characteristics — you must develop not only the characteristics of gender, but also other characteristics; gender is only one of them.

This does not mean you must experience the same number of male and female lives.

For example, some people find it much easier to develop as one gender than as the other. When someone finds that being male allows him to express himself more fully, he will feel that he is someone who prefers to reincarnate as a male identity; some people feel that being female makes it easier to develop themselves, so they use more female reincarnations. Therefore this entity carries a certain gender characteristic — although it is androgynous, it has a certain gender characteristic, which is why Seth appears as a male entity, and Ruburt also appears as a male identity, and Joseph also appears as a male identity; that is, they have their own personality characteristics.

As for certain characteristics, he needs more experience in the gender that he finds difficult.

If you are good at being male, then you do not need to keep coming back to experience being male; a few times is enough. You need to be female more times, so that you can develop yourself more in the area you are not so good at developing. It needs to reach a state of balance.

When a series of single-gender lives is chosen, the male spirit and female spirit become more important in such cases.

When you choose to be male ten times, then this female spirit within you as a male becomes very important; if you continuously choose to be female, then this male spirit within your reincarnational life becomes even more important.

The original patterns of the male spirit and female spirit come from this whole self that has not yet begun reincarnation — these patterns are born together with the physical life.

This original pattern — you have a female self within your maleness, and a male self within your femaleness — existed before you began reincarnation; this pattern already existed before you began your first reincarnation.

This solves a problem many people have: in the first reincarnation, for example, if I choose to be a man, and I have never been a woman and have no experience of female life, where does this female spirit within me come from? He tells you not to get tangled up in this: it is generated simultaneously. In your first reincarnation, an opposite-sex inner self is already placed within your body.

And as an inner pattern, to remind the personality of its basic unity.

Why is it set up this way? He is telling you that your personality is unified, that male and female are unified. We often say our world is a dualistic society — there is good and bad, good and evil, yin and yang, up and down, left and right, inside and outside, and male and female are the most basic duality. But at this point he tells you that your interior is actually unified. If even male and female can be unified, then are other things also unified? Through this matter of male and female, can you understand the unity of this world and its oneness within? This is its origin.

This is why there is strong psychic energy behind these symbols.

What symbols? The symbol of the female within your maleness, and the symbol of the male within your femaleness. They carry strong psychic energy — that is, the unity of the personality.

And another reason why they can transfer and project such godlike qualities.

When the male spirit and female spirit unite, and you transcend male and female, your divinity begins to manifest. That kind of godlike magical quality can then be projected outward, precisely because you have transcended this gender.

Tension and Creativity

Man yearns for the anima because, to the deep unconscious, it represents those other characteristics of the whole self.

He just talked about the attributes of the animus and the attributes of the anima. The animus especially yearns for the anima, and here he uses the word "yearns."

On the one hand hidden and unexpressed, and on the other hand struggling to be released.

This feminine characteristic, on the one hand is hidden inside and cannot be seen, and on the other hand it wants to break free from the outer gender limitations and express itself.

The tension between the two causes him to temper aggression with creativity, or to use aggression creatively.

This is very key. Why does a man have this tension of yearning for the feminine character within him? Because it is the other half of his personality's attributes, and he needs that half. This is the way the anima wants to express itself, yet because of his outer character he cannot fully express it -- if he did fully express it, the man would become very effeminate, very girlish, and we would say this man is so effeminate. Nowadays in mainland China some males have this characteristic: some very famous male idols and actors, including young boys now, are becoming more and more like girls, dressing up really beautifully and attractively, with looks even better than many girls, and some wear earrings, put on makeup, draw eyeliner, and do face masks every day -- these feminine characteristics are very obvious. This is an example of its manifestation.

What he means is that the anima within a male wants to express itself but cannot fully express itself. What benefit does this kind of inner tangled tension bring him? It can temper the male's aggression -- not letting it become too savage or too crude, but making it gentler; or it can express this aggression in a creative way -- taking that savage brute force and letting it express itself in an artistic, creative manner, rather than in a primitive manner. This is the main role of the anima within the male. So many men who are courteous and gentle toward others -- those are actually feminine characteristics. Why do we call a gentleman a gentleman? Because a gentleman is very gentle -- a person who treats others very gently is called a gentleman, a gentle man. A very soft man, we would say this man is very gentlemanly, very much a gentleman. And the gentle way of treating others within "gentleman" is the feminine way. So he tempers his aggression, or turns it into creativity, using it creatively. You will find that the feminine is the source of male creativity -- without the feminine character within him, his creativity could not be tempered, nor could it be well utilized.

Secondly, there is a deep relationship between these symbols and the struggles in which mankind is involved.

Your consciousness as you know it is a particular kind of tension, a statement of "awareness" that arises from a particular focus that emerges from the true unconsciousness of the whole self.

You may not have understood this passage. What he wants to say is that the animus and anima are not merely simple symbols of reconciliation between male and female; they fundamentally foreshadow or demonstrate something essential about you as a human being. What is it? It is that there is something within you that you do not know, and it wants to express itself. What is this unknown thing? It is the unconscious. This unconscious is the thing of your inner nature and origin; we call it the unconscious, which is your inner self. The inner self is your essence, and your essence must express itself through your outer means -- through the actions, language, and thoughts of the outer self. But it is essentially unconscious; you fundamentally do not know it exists, and your inner self cannot be perceived by you. Yet it internally initiates all your outer expressions; everything is mobilized and initiated by it.

So only from within your unconscious can your particular focus arise, and only then can it bring about the statement of your awareness. This is a particular kind of tension: not just the tension between male and female. That is to say, there dwells within you a feminine self that you yourself do not know; this feminine self always wants to express itself, yet it cannot fully express itself, because if it did, would you not be thrown into chaos? Would you not become a person with gender confusion? So your outward expression is still your masculine side, still the side with aggression. But because there exists a feminine self that you cannot see and do not know, it makes your aggression more creative, and it can also creatively temper your aggression. This precisely foreshadows the relationship between the unconscious part of your inner self and your conscious part -- does your consciousness not arise from within the inner unconscious? This kind of tension, the tension between the unconscious wanting to express itself and the outer consciousness, is precisely our basic attribute as human beings, and it is also the fundamental driving force by which this world is created.

He is saying that the deeper meaning of the animus and anima is far more profound than what Jung conceived. Later on he keeps talking about where this profundity lies -- it is not just about letting a male understand female thoughts, getting along better with women in interpersonal relationships, or projecting an opposite-sex figure of love at first sight when choosing a partner. It is not such a simple thing as Jung imagined. Jung would treat the animus and anima as a kind of projection in human relationships, a kind of psychological suggestion; he says it is not merely this.

The true unconscious is not unconscious.

Does this sentence not sound very much like something from Buddhism? Neither perception nor non-perception. Many people do not understand what he is saying, but what he is actually saying is this: you think it is unconscious, which is "non-perception" -- no thought means no ideas at all; then he says this is also not unconscious, which is "neither perception nor non-perception." Non-perception is not thinking about nothing; "neither perception nor non-perception" means exactly this.

It is instead so profoundly and indescribably conscious that it overflows.

Is this not very profound? Inside it is entirely consciousness, conscious to the extreme, so much that it cannot stay contained and overflows.

The life that you know is merely one of the many areas in which it is conscious.

The life we know is only one of the many areas of the part in which it is conscious -- one of them. Within this unconscious there is a great deal of consciousness, and the consciousness that we think we can feel in our brains is only one small part of this unconscious. And the part that is perceived by our consciousness becomes our conscious mind. The part you do not perceive -- that goes far deeper and is far greater -- that is your whole self. What you can perceive -- sitting and eating, reading and studying -- is only the consciousness of one part among the infinite consciousness within your unconscious, the part that you are aware of. Your consciousness arises from within this unconscious, and there are still many conscious parts within the unconscious that you cannot be aware of, but that does not mean they do not exist.

In each face of its consciousness, it must indeed maintain great force and balance so that this particular conscious experience is separated from all other portions.

What is this passage saying? It is saying that the conscious part that emerges from your unconscious becomes the conscious part of us humans. The root and foundation of this part comes from that ocean of the unconscious -- this is Jung's term; Jung spoke of the collective unconscious shared by humanity. From Seth's viewpoint, within every person there is a very, very, very deep unconscious, and it must expend tremendous force to maintain balance. To do what? To ensure that what each conscious part experiences does not get mixed up with what other conscious parts experience; each must remain distinct and cannot be mixed.

How do we understand this? You dream and experience dream events -- and dreaming has many levels: daytime dreams, dreams of daily life, dreams of going to other dimensional spaces to communicate with other personalities, dreams of going to the in-between zone to serve as a guide, and so on. Those are all done by the unconscious; those are all things done by the deep unconscious. The experiences gained in those different dimensional spaces and different worlds must also be kept separate; they cannot be mixed together, cannot be brought into the conscious level of your waking life, nor can the conscious things of your waking life be mixed into those places. Otherwise, your experiences on different levels would become mixed together, and you would be unable to distinguish reality from illusion, dreams from reality.

This is somewhat like those people who are frail and sickly; when they are ill to a certain degree and their bodies are very weak, when their energy and strength are insufficient, when they cannot maintain that energy and power, they will often see things they should not see, or things from other dimensions, things from other levels. At that time you will understand that actually the experiences of those inner unconscious parts and the present conscious part have become mixed together -- it is like a channel crossover. Because his strength is insufficient. The same is true for many very young children: when their conscious focus is not strong enough, they often have that kind of channel crossover phenomenon, where different perceptions all get mixed together. What he is saying here is exactly this: for each consciousness to maintain its own experience, it requires a great deal of focused attention upon it, a great deal of force and balance within it.

Your reality exists in a particular area of activity in which the quality of aggression, the characteristic of thrusting outward, is absolutely necessary.

Here you must underline this as key: absolutely necessary.

To prevent you from falling back into the infinite possibilities from which you have only lately emerged.

Seth's books are sometimes difficult precisely here; if you only look at this sentence you may not understand it. What he wants to say is this: in our human three-dimensional world, the quality of aggression is absolutely necessary. Just treat it as action -- aggression and thrusting outward are our action. This characteristic of action, this human characteristic of outward action, is absolutely necessary, because action prevents you from falling back out of the one possibility you have chosen from among your many possibilities. In other words, do not sit there every day thinking about all kinds of possibilities -- I want to do this thing but I do not do it, I want to do that thing but I do not do it. Are these thoughts not all various possibilities? Among them you choose the one thing you most want to do, and then you go do it -- is that not manifestation? You want to drink water, you also want to lie in bed, you also want to go out for a walk -- these are all possibilities you are thinking about; you choose the one you most want to do right now and manifest it, and the things you did not choose do not get manifested. This is a typical example.

But if you do not have this action-oriented nature, do not have the impulse or desire to do this thing, do not have the impulse to stand up and go out, then this thing will not be manifested. If it is not manifested, it remains your imagination, remains a possibility -- you wanted to go but did not go, and this possibility falls back. You did not do it, so it remains a possibility, and nothing will become reality. So this impulsiveness, this power of action, is very important, far more important than your idle fantasies. After thinking, you must go do it. Some people are good at thinking but unwilling to act; they think of countless possibilities in their minds and do none of them, hesitating and overthinking, feeling that no matter which one they do, none is absolutely safe, none can guarantee the best outcome. How could there be a best? In this world there is no best and no better; your endless weighing has no meaning. Just look at what you want to do right now, and go do it.

So this is your aggression, your thrusting force. He says that as a human living in our world, this is absolutely necessary. He adds this premise -- in the physical world, our power of action and aggression is absolutely necessary. But when you go to another place, this premise no longer applies: in places that are not physical reality, action there is only mental action, not physical bodily action. So on the basis of human society, in the physical world, the importance of action is exactly this.

But from this unconscious bed of possibilities you get your strength, your creativity, and your own fragile yet powerful individual consciousness.

This sentence is an extension of what was just said. Within all the possibilities -- these possibilities are all unconscious, just as in a quantum state all possibilities exist -- in this state, only from within it can you obtain strength, only then can you have creativity. And you yourself are both fragile and powerful. What is the fragility? It emerges from within this unconscious possibility, so it is fragile. But it is also powerful -- after it emerges, when you manifest this idea through your actions, the action itself gives you great feedback of experience and experiential learning, and it is powerful. This feedback and action will produce in you an individual consciousness, giving you a sense of self-identification and affirmation.

In other words, to put it more simply and plainly: the reason this life is called the person "you" -- assuming from an objective and detached viewpoint -- is that it is synthesized from the series of actions you have taken; your actions represent you. Although the inner source of these actions emerges from your thoughts or from your inner unconscious, in the physical world how do we evaluate you? By looking at your actions, by looking at what you did rather than what you thought. Of course your actions come from what you thought, but if you only think and do not act, it is meaningless.

The division of the sexes was adopted to separate and balance these most necessary but seemingly opposite tendencies.

This division of the sexes is to balance this dualistic, polarized division. Without division there would be no need for balance -- if it were unitary, what would there be to balance? So only with division is balance needed. Balance what? The most necessary but seemingly opposite tendencies. What tendencies? Exactly what he said earlier: the conscious arising from within the unconscious -- this itself is opposition; possibility and action -- these two are also opposition.

Only the initial consciousness needs this kind of control.

The most primitive consciousness -- and our present human consciousness belongs to initial consciousness -- needs this kind of division and then rebalancing, finding the source of its creativity within this conflicting tension. When your consciousness evolves to advanced consciousness, you no longer need this division nor this balance; once you recognize the oneness and unity of all things in the world, you no longer need it. So he says only initial consciousness needs it -- our present human initial consciousness still needs it.

The anima and the animus are therefore deeply embedded with these tendencies that are apparently opposite to them yet necessarily facing toward them, and they are very important in maintaining the characteristics of your human consciousness.

This is yin within yang and yang within yin. They must be deeply embedded within the other attribute that is diametrically opposite to them, because they necessarily face toward each other -- yin and yang are ultimately one, and yin and yang were separated from oneness. Why are there male and female? Because this is very important in maintaining our human consciousness. He already said earlier that this division and this balance are absolutely necessary. Initial consciousness needs this kind of control, and it is very important in maintaining the characteristics of our human consciousness.

There is, then, a natural tension between the sexes, built upon causes far deeper than physical ones.

This natural tension between male and female is not merely caused by physical reasons, by physical differences; it is far deeper than that. This tension comes from the nature of your consciousness. Your unconscious is your -- if you are male, there dwells within you a feminine self, and that is an unconscious self.

Consciousness rises from the anima, but is sustained through the "aggression" of the animus.

This sentence is very key. Where does consciousness originally come from? It comes from the anima. Why from the anima? The anima is the representative of the unconscious, of that subconscious quality; it is a hidden thing, as was said earlier. It is this characteristic of the anima -- consciousness arises from here, and it needs the aggression of the animus to be sustained.

This reminds you of the Tao Te Ching -- if you are familiar with or have studied the Tao Te Ching, you will find that the Tao Te Ching holds the feminine in extremely high esteem; it regards the female reproductive organ as the source of all wonders of all things in the world, as something profoundly mysterious. Laozi held the maternal in the highest reverence. Why did he revere the feminine so much? Because the root and origin of all human consciousness arises from the anima; it is the part that rises from that most primordial "one."

I have somewhat explained the fascination of one for the other as being the result of the inner knowledge of the whole self.

He has explained a bit of it: the fascination of one for the other -- the animus's fascination with the anima, the anima's fascination with the animus -- is because the whole self inwardly knows it is incomplete, and it needs the other half to complete it.

The whole self strives to unite, and to fulfill the two seemingly opposite tendencies that are part of it, and thereby achieve its true identity and personhood.

This sentence is very convoluted. What he means is this: the whole self strives, letting the animus and the anima -- these two seemingly opposite, completely different tendencies, one aggressive and one inward -- reconcile together, and only through this means can it achieve its true identity and personhood.

At the end of the reincarnational cycle, the whole self is far more developed than it was before. It has experience in realities that it did not know previously.

It is certainly more developed than before, since it has ended. It has gained realization and experienced itself in dimensions of reality it had not experienced before, had not known before.

And in so doing, it has of course added to its own being.

In the process of realizing and experiencing itself, it naturally added to its own being.

This is not, then, simply a matter of the whole self splitting in two, and then returning to itself.

He emphasizes here that it is not a matter of splitting the whole self into male and female parts, then letting the two separate genders go experience, and then returning to itself -- such a thing. He tells you it is not like this: it is not that the whole self itself has no male or female, and deliberately splits into a male and a female, letting the male character go through reincarnation and the female character go through reincarnation, and then combining the reincarnational experiences of these two genders into the whole self. No. In each reincarnation, it is always male and female experiencing in coordination, not a single gender experiencing alone. When a male reincarnates, he carries the female character with him; when a female reincarnates, she carries the male character with her. In this process, whether you are male or female, you are always reconciling with the opposite gender of your inner self, reaching a state of harmony, and only then can you truly experience your fundamental self. When you experience, you are always experiencing with this fundamental self, not with your outwardly manifested male character or female character. How does the fundamental self emerge? He already said earlier -- the true identity and personhood can only be produced after the male and female have merged.

Conception and the Mother's Role

There are many things about conception that should be discussed here, though again there is room for movement and many variations.

This conception is a question we often care about: at the instant the sperm and egg combine, when does the soul enter? Or when does this fragment personality come in to incarnate?

Usually between lives, you choose your children in advance, and these children also choose you as their parents.

Before you incarnate, you have already chosen your children, and these children have also chosen you as their parents.

If you are to be born a man, then your mother becomes a stimulus that activates the symbol of the inner female spirit within you.

See how precise his wording is: it is a stimulus.

Causing your own previous female life patterns to become a part of this life of yours. If you have known her in the past, your mother, at the time of giving birth to you, will have a series of dreams concerning other lives in which the two of you were together.

He is explaining how the female spirit first comes into being: your mother is the stimulus for your female spirit. Before you are born, she is already within you, acting as a stimulus to the symbol of your female spirit. Then she causes the personality fragments of your past lives -- there may be many past lives -- the female lives of your past, to become a symbol of being female within this life of yours, to become a female spirit existing within your subconscious, within your unconscious. What happens here is that all the female life experiences of your past lives are condensed into a part of this life, but not in a manifested way; they are placed there at the bottom layer of the unconscious.

If you knew your mother in past lives -- in other words, when you chose this mother, you knew her with a purpose -- then at the time your mother gives birth to you, she will have a series of dreams. You can ask your mother later whether she had this series of dreams. Within these dreams, of course, the meaning of the dreams is not so direct or obvious; dreams have different meanings, but the dreams spoken of here are generally about some life experiences you and your mother had in past lives.

These dreams may not even be consciously recorded by her, but in many cases they are recorded.

Probably most mothers will not remember, but some mothers remember very clearly -- saying that before giving birth she had such-and-such dreams. Many mothers, at the time of giving birth to their own child, have very deep and very clear impressions of the strange dreams they had before giving birth, though these may later be forgotten.

Her past male lives will help her relate to you as her son.

That is, the male lives of this mother in past lives will help her relate to you as her son.

In these cases, the new mother may feel that she is very aggressive and tense.

Basically this happens with the first child. This feeling of aggression and tension is because the male energy activates the inner male spirit within her, bringing with it a feeling of aggression.

After a woman becomes pregnant or after she gives birth, her personality will change. We have an old saying in China: a mother becomes strong through motherhood. Before she has given birth, she is just a delicate little girl, someone's girlfriend, someone's wife, gentle and tender, as if she cannot do anything and needs to be protected by others; but once she becomes pregnant, once she gives birth, she completely changes. She can do anything, she can handle anything, she becomes all-capable. A mother is all-capable. So why is this? Because at this time she draws upon the male spirit within her, activating that part of her male spirit, and so at this time she brings forth a very strong aggressiveness. So do not provoke a mother; a mother is very formidable -- her aggressiveness is no less than that of a male.

(Session 556) We will stop here for this session. In the following session he will continue to elaborate, explaining in detail at the time of conception when the fetus obtains its soul, when the soul enters -- in other words, how incarnation is completed. It is very interesting.

Session 557: The Process of Entering the Womb

Rob raised two questions of his own -- questions he had thought up. We don't need to worry about his questions for now, because they were his own ideas.

He had been wondering: if Jane had not read that article about Jung this month, then what would this Chapter 13 have been about? Because the earlier part of this chapter was all about the male and female psyche, developed out of Jung's theories. So Rob was saying, if he had not read Jung's article, then how would this Chapter 13 have begun? That was what he meant.

He also said that although the Jung influence appeared, in other processes, in their own lives, it would also affect the progress of this book, affecting every chapter of it. Because sometimes he would go out traveling, sometimes there would be other activities, and this book would be influenced by these particular aspects of his life. He wanted to know whether this influence was Seth's original intention, or whether the influence itself was also part of the book.

Then Seth was absolutely delighted about this. Seth has a very distinct personality; he was especially pleased, and said:

I am delighted that you approve of my book. (Session 557)

It was the Jung incident that led to the result in Chapter 13. He said that writing the book this way also felt very interesting. Rob said he thought it was great, truly great. Then Seth said, there is still much that has not been said -- Seth is also very playful, as if to say, this is nothing, there is still so much more that hasn't been said.

Then he went on to say:

It is a living work... we use the events that happen in your own lives. (Session 557)

He uses the events that happen in life to illustrate the principles in the book. It is not a rigid, stiff, dogmatic article or body of knowledge; it is intimately connected with life.

He said, first of all, it was I myself who prompted Ruburt -- Ruburt is Jane -- to see that article by Jung; it was he who made Ruburt read it. Rob said, I never thought of that layer; I think Jane probably didn't think of it either -- it was Seth behind the scenes. After he had made Jane read so much, after she had read what she was supposed to read, or what he wanted her to read, he made her put the book down and leave it for later. Why did he make her put the book down? Because he wanted to explain the issues concerning the male and female psyche from his own angle. If she read too much of Jung's material, she would develop a preconceived notion that would affect her transmission of information. So Jung's views on the male and female psyche have their limitations.

Now we begin the main content of this session -- this session is mainly about how this personality comes to be reincarnated, that is, how the soul comes to be reincarnated. It is very interesting.

The Consciousness of the Fetus Itself

He said, every atom that makes up the fetus, at the most basic atomic level of the fetus, has its own kind of consciousness. Atoms have atomic consciousness:

They are variant perceptions that exist independently outside of matter.

Variant perceptions that exist outside of matter -- that is consciousness; perception is consciousness.

According to their abilities and degrees, they form matter.

According to their abilities and degrees, they come to form matter. Therefore the fetus has its own consciousness:

The fetus has its own consciousness, the simple component consciousness made up of the atoms that compose the fetus. (Session 557)

What he is saying here is that before the soul has arrived, the most basic primitive consciousness of this fetus is the consciousness of matter. Any matter, as long as there is matter, this matter itself will be composed of consciousness. So all matter has consciousness, and therefore the fetus has its own consciousness:

It exists before the reincarnating personality enters it. (Session 557)

After the fetus has formed, before the soul has entered, the primitive consciousness of the fetus itself already exists. Why? Within any matter, whether it is a fetus, a rock, a blade of grass, or an iron nail, the consciousness of matter exists. Because our matter itself is composed of units of consciousness, so it is inherently one hundred percent conscious within -- consciousness is a basic attribute of matter.

The Reincarnating Personality Enters the Fetus

The reincarnating personality enters the new fetus according to its own inclinations, wishes, and characteristics, and with certain pre-implanted safeguards.

The reincarnating personality is the person coming to be reborn. He has his own inclinations, wishes, and characteristics; every reincarnating personality is different. With certain pre-implanted safeguards -- these safeguards ensure that he enters the fetus. This is a kind of agreement, a kind of contract made between them beforehand; he chooses this fetus as his physical existence. The pre-implanted safeguards are the contract between the two incarnations.

But:

There is no rule, however, saying that the reincarnating personality must take over the new form prepared for it. (Session 557)

Whether at the moment of conception, in the earliest stages of the fetus's growth, or even at the moment of birth -- he does not expand on this here -- what he means is, you may have arranged for a fetus to be reborn into, but that does not mean he must accept this fetus as his physical existence. It is not that once it has been agreed upon it is fixed; no, he can change his mind at any time. The process of entering the womb is full of changes and variables. If he does not accept it, then he simply will not be reborn into this fetus.

The process is gradual, and determined by experience in other lives. (Session 557)

What process? The process of acceptance is gradual, varying from person to person. It is determined by the experience of your many lifetimes.

He especially emphasizes:

It is particularly dependent upon emotional specifics. (Session 557)

Be sure to remember this. The process of his coming to be reborn is a gradual process, not like what you imagine, where at a certain minute and second, "boom," he comes in. And the most important basis of this gradual process is his emotional dependence.

And this emotional dependence is not necessarily determined by the self of the most recent previous life, but by the existing emotional tension resulting from many past lives. (Session 557)

He will explain later exactly what this emotional dependence is all about.

Various Methods of Entering the Womb

All right, let us continue reading:

There are various methods of entry adopted. (Session 557)

"Entering the womb" refers to this personality fragment entering the fetus; we just call it the method of reincarnation.

If there is a deep relationship between the parents and the future child, then if he desperately desires to be reunited with them, the personality may enter at the moment of conception. (Session 557)

If there is a deep relationship between the parents and the future child -- here he explains emotional dependence -- the child desperately desires to be reunited with his parents, then this personality may enter the womb at the moment of conception, that is, at the very instant the sperm and egg unite, he enters.

However:

Even in this case, the greater portion of self-consciousness continues to operate in the between-life dimension. (Session 557)

That is, although the personality fragment coming to be reborn has already entered the womb at the moment of conception, the greater part of his perception has not yet fully entered the fetus; his attention and focus are still operating in that in-between zone between the two lives.

Initially under these conditions, his state in the womb is like a dream. (Session 557)

For him, from the perspective of that perception between the two lives, he is still in the process of choosing -- perhaps the choosing is already done -- but he is still doing other preparatory work. His state in the fetus, in the womb, is like a dream to the one who is between the two lives. This personality fragment still keeps his focus concentrated in that existence between the two lives.

Gradually, the situation reverses itself. (Session 557)

Toward the end, when he wants to invest focused energy into that in-between state between the two lives, it becomes harder to maintain that kind of clear concentration -- he can no longer concentrate his energy on that state between the two lives. His union with the fetus becomes closer and closer, and the focus of his attention is placed more and more on this physical body.

When the personality enters at conception, this is almost without exception because of a deep past-life connection between parents and child. (Session 557)

Remember this; this is a statement born of experience.

Or there is a constant, almost obsessive desire to return to earthly existence. If not for a specific purpose, then because the reincarnating personality is still fascinated with earthly life. (Session 557)

Two possibilities. One is returning at the moment of conception, which means there is a deep emotional connection, a past-life connection, with the child's parents. The second is a very obsessive desire to return quickly to the human world. This desire to return is of two kinds: one is that there may be a specific purpose; he comes with a purpose, wanting to accomplish something. The other is that his purpose for coming is very simple -- he is simply fascinated with earthly life; there is no purpose, he just wants to enjoy this dazzling world -- that is his purpose.

But this is not disadvantageous.

It does not say that being obsessed with earthly life is bad.

He may simply recognize that he most enjoys physical experience, and feels that the earthly atmosphere provides a rich dimension for the growth of his abilities. (Session 557)

He simply likes physical experience; his heart and mind are entirely on the mortal world, and he feels that only here can he quickly develop his abilities.

Some personalities are attracted into the womb at conception for what seems to be a less worthy motive. (Session 557)

For example, greed:

Or a lingering desire composed of partially unresolved problems. (Session 557)

Many come because of greed, because of desire, because of something that lingers and will not go away; they are in a hurry to return, and are drawn back.

There is also another kind:

Personalities who have never fully committed themselves to earthly existence may delay full entry for a while. (Session 557)

That is, when he has never wholeheartedly thrown himself into this worldly life, he will delay for a while.

Even after entry, they may keep a distance from the body. (Session 557)

Such people always keep a distance from worldly life; they have never wholeheartedly thrown themselves in. They always have a sense of detachment, always a feeling that they are just passing through, that they don't know what they came here for, dazed and confused. So after entering the womb, they still keep a distance from the fetus's body.

He says, this situation, at the other end of the scale -- that is, in the process of dying, before a person's death -- the same scenario occurs:

Some people, before death, remove their focus from the physical world, leaving behind only the body's consciousness; while others remain with the physical body until the very last moment.

When a person is dying, when his focus is removed from the physical world, he leaves behind the primitive consciousness of the body; while another kind of person keeps his personality fragment with the body until the very last moment of death. What he means is that the scenario of entering the womb and the scenario of death are the same; both vary from person to person, and everyone is different.

The State Before Birth

He says:

In any case, during the infant's swaddling period, the personality's focus is not stably concentrated within the physical body.

During the little baby's swaddling period, the personality fragment's focus is not stably concentrated within this body, just as at the time of death, the focus is not entirely within the body either.

As we have told you, in all cases the decision is made beforehand. (Session 557)

When he wants to come to be reborn, this decision has long since been made; it is not that he only decides at the last minute. He has long since chosen his parents, chosen the environment of his life; he is just waiting for the parents to conceive at some point so that he can come to be reborn.

While he may choose whether or not to enter at the moment of conception, he is nevertheless irresistibly drawn to that time and that place. (Session 557)

Some people choose to enter at the moment of conception; some choose to enter a while later. But no matter which way you choose, because you have already chosen your parents, at the very moment they make love and conceive, because you know your physical body is about to be produced, the fertilized egg is about to be produced, that kind of energetic attraction will draw you over, and you will arrive at that scene, at that point in time.

And it is not very common:

Long before conception occurs, the personality who will become the future child may visit the future parents and environment. (Session 557)

This is being drawn over; it is entirely natural. But remember, this is occasional, not common. Generally, contact only begins at the very moment of conception, but in a few cases, before conception has even occurred, this person wants to come and see what his parents are like, what his living environment will be like. What is he drawn over by? He must have an emotional entanglement with these parents; he wants to be reborn as their child. This is an emotional attraction.

Between lives, a person may see flashes of the coming life's scenes.

He may not necessarily see any specific events:

But rather experience the essence of the new relationship. (Session 557)

This point is very interesting. That is, in the state before he is reborn, in the state where he has made his choice between the two lives, he has already chosen his future parents, and he may be able to see the essence of the relationship between himself and his parents in this coming life -- what kind of relationship they will have, whether intimate or distant. He can feel the essence of that relationship and feeling, but he does not see specific events; it is that essence. In anticipation, he reminds himself of the challenges he has set for himself -- the essence of this relationship may be good, or it may not be good.

He says:

In this way, the future ghost in your home, that is, the person who has not yet been reborn, will also often come to your home to look at you, the future parents. (Session 557)

The ghosts of the past are the relatives who have already passed away, the elders of one's own family, parents, and so on; they are just as real. So in your home there are both future ghosts and past ghosts.

You do not have an entirely empty physical shell waiting to be filled, because the new personality is often flying within or nearby. (Session 557)

This new personality -- the personality about to be reincarnated -- is often flying within or nearby. That is to say, this shell of your physical body is not waiting to be filled; when your physical body is produced, this reincarnating personality is already inside it. It is not that before the shell is produced there is first an empty shell waiting for the soul to be injected; rather, before the shell is produced, the new reincarnating personality is already waiting for this shell.

Particularly after conception, the frequency and intensity gradually increase.

If conception has occurred, he is inside; if conception has not occurred, he waits outside. After conception, the frequency of his coming increases, and the intensity is greater.

The Shock of Birth

But the shock at the time of birth, the shock of emerging from the body, usually pulls the personality completely into physical reality all at once.

The shock of the fetus being born -- originally in the mother's womb he had been in a state of sleeping, or sleeping and waking intermittently, sleeping most of the time -- but the entire process of delivery, this shock of being born into life, will pull this reincarnating personality all at once from that nonphysical world into the physical world.

Before this, the situation is fairly monotonous. The body consciousness is nourished almost automatically, and responds strongly, but under highly controlled conditions. (Session 557)

Before birth, the body consciousness is nourished almost automatically; the soul comes in and out, and is nourished automatically. Although the response is very strong, because the soul must control this physical body, it is all under the highly controlled conditions of the mother's body, so none of this is a big deal. Only after being born does everything change.

At birth, all of this is suddenly over. (Session 557)

This high degree of control, this automatic protection, is all gone. Then "new stimuli" are introduced so rapidly -- he adds quotation marks. "New stimuli" -- why does he call them "new" in quotation marks? Because you have already been born many times; it is actually no longer new, because this is not your first reincarnation. But he adds quotation marks; for this new life, it is new.

Which the body consciousness has never experienced up to this point. (Session 557)

The fetus's body consciousness has always been inside the mother's womb and has never experienced these things. It urgently needs a stabilizing factor -- the process of birth is an even greater challenge to it than the challenge of death, because it must go from a soul state that flies about freely into the very clumsy, helpless physical body of a little baby.

First of all, the body consciousness is nourished and supported because of a deep physiological and telepathic identification with the mother. (Session 557)

The body consciousness refers to this most basic, bottom-level, material consciousness of the fetus itself. It receives nourishment and support:

The communication between cells is far deeper than you imagine.

The communication between the fetus's cells and the mother's cells is far deeper than you can imagine.

If only the body consciousness is considered, its identification is almost complete before birth. (Session 557)

If we only speak of the body consciousness of the fetus's physical body itself, their sense of identification before birth is almost complete. That is to say, before the new personality enters, the physical consciousness of this fetus always considers itself to be a part of the mother's body.

At birth, however, this support is suddenly denied. (Session 557)

Originally it considered itself to be one with the mother's body, but after being born it is separated from the mother's body and becomes an independent part.

If before this the new personality has not yet fully entered, he usually -- you remember, usually, not absolutely -- does so at the time of birth.

If at the time of conception or shortly after conception this new personality has not yet entered the womb, then at the time of birth he usually must come in. Why? Because he must stabilize this new organism. Because before this, the fetus's consciousness considered itself to be a part of the mother's body, and then suddenly, after being delivered from the mother's body, it is stunned -- wasn't I one with you? How did we get separated? It is utterly bewildered, at a loss. Then this reincarnating personality must come in and reassure this subject, saying, don't panic, there is still a self; you are you and I am me; this is Mama, this is Mama. In other words:

He reassures the new organism. (Session 557)

The Timing and Experience of Entry

Therefore the new personality experiences the birth process to varying degrees according to when he enters this dimension. (Session 557)

One kind is being with the fetus from the moment of conception, in which case he experiences the entire birth process completely; another kind is coming in after birth, when the little infant's physical body is very bewildered. So his experience of birth is not the same; not everyone's experience is the same.

When he enters at the moment of birth, he is still fairly independent, not yet identified with the form he has entered. (Session 557)

Who is he? He is that new personality who has come to be reborn. If he enters the womb only at the moment of birth, he feels that the physical body is the physical body and he is he; he does not fully identify with it.

He plays the role of a supporter instead. (Session 557)

He does not feel that the two of them are one; he acts as a supporter, helping to reassure this new organism. This is very interesting.

If the personality enters at conception or before birth, then he identifies to some extent with the body consciousness of the fetus.

Entering before birth and entering after birth -- his sense of identification with this body is different. If he entered from conception or before birth, he will feel that this fetus is himself and he is this fetus; he has a sense of identification with this body.

Then he begins to direct perception. (Session 557)

The new personality begins to direct his consciousness, begins to carry out conscious operations. Perception is feeling.

Although perception has already begun whether or not it receives such direction. (Session 557)

Whether or not you consciously direct it, as soon as birth occurs, this fetus's perception has already begun.

It will experience the shock of birth in the most immediate, most direct way. (Session 557)

There is no distance.

Therefore, there is no distance between the personality and the birth experience. (Session 557)

There is no gap between the new reincarnating personality and birth; the two are one, with no sense of distance.

The personality newly entering the infant is, as a consciousness, flickering. (Session 557)

Because there is still a period of time before stability is achieved. When this infant, this little child, is sleeping, for example, the personality often leaves him -- he leaves the little baby's body and returns to that in-between state between the two lives, because that is where he came from.

Gradually his identification with the between-life state diminishes, until he settles his focus completely within the physical body.

This is why many people say that in childhood they could have certain perceptions, some vague impressions of their past and future lives. Now you understand: actually, at that time, he was straddling both ends -- sometimes in that in-between zone between the two lives, sometimes returning to the little body of this infant. So why do you have no memory of that period? Because your consciousness was not entirely within your body; you had no sense of self-consciousness. At that time you were basically operating on the subconscious level, that is, your inner self was operating. In other words, the soul portion of your personality fragment was operating, so you had no conscious portion being generated, and therefore you have no memory.

Differences in Identification with the Body

He says:

Obviously some people identify with the body far more completely than others. (Session 557)

Generally speaking, there is an optimum period for the focus upon physical reality, a period of intensification, regardless of its length, which may last a week or three years or thirty years, after which it begins to diminish, imperceptibly beginning to shift to other planes of reality. (Session 557)

The body is physical reality. Your focus upon the body, upon physical reality, has an optimum period, and this period has a process of intensification. It has nothing to do with the length of time; some people need a week, some people need thirty years -- some people may not even accept their bodies after thirty years; it is possible not to accept the physical body. After that, from the point at which he reaches maximum intensification, it begins to diminish, imperceptibly, not deliberately, shifting to other planes of reality.

A crisis may so damage the person's identification with the body that he temporarily leaves it. (Session 557)

This is like what we call being scared out of one's wits. When a sudden crisis appears, it directly damages, directly interrupts this personality's sense of identification with the body, and the personality leaves the body. Especially when this crisis occurs at the earliest or latest events of a person's life -- just after birth, or just before death -- once such a crisis appears, it will cause the soul to temporarily leave the physical body, and thus a state of drowsiness or coma will appear.

If the body consciousness is also shocked, he may leave so completely that the body enters a coma. (Session 557)

This crisis or shock is not merely at the mental level, the psychic level; if the physical level is also shocked, then he leaves rather thoroughly, the entire consciousness completely withdraws, and the person will enter a deep coma.

If the shock is psychological, and the body consciousness can still more or less function normally, then he may regress to an earlier reincarnational personality. (Session 557)

Psychological shock, for instance being frightened out of your wits, running into a ghost or something terrifying in the middle of the night, or an emotional impact such as a breakup, an intense stimulus, and so on, and if the body can still function normally, then he does not go into a coma, but instead returns to a reincarnational personality from a past life. So many people say that when someone suffers a strong mental shock, physically nothing is wrong, but the whole person seems to become a different person, with a complete change of character, turning into someone you do not recognize. We often treat such people as mentally ill, or think they have lost their minds, and send them to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. He says what is this state actually? It is actually a personality from some previous life coming out, an old personality fragment manifesting in this physical body -- the new personality was frightened away, and the old one came out.

In such cases, this is simply a regression. (Session 557)

It will usually pass, basically it will pass. After treatment, after soothing, once this psychic shock lessens, he will slowly come back.

Returning to the Male Psyche and the Female Psyche

Here he is again concerned with the problem of the male psyche and the female psyche.

If a personality believes he has done poorly as a male, he may activate feminine characteristics and take on the features of a very successful female life, reversing the picture. (Session 557)

If a person feels that in this life as a male he has been a complete failure, that nothing is working out, at that point he may bring out the very successful feminine characteristics that once existed in past reincarnations within him, and take on the features of the other gender, so that the whole state is completely reversed. The same thing can also happen to a woman. So when this kind of drastic change of character occurs, it is extremely baffling.

On the other hand, this kind of thing is not common, it is very, very rare:

If the personality finds that he has identified so strongly with his present sex that it deeply threatens his individuality, then he may bring the opposite picture into such prominence, and do it so excessively, that he again identifies with the past personality of the opposite sex. (Session 557)

He is going between two extremes. He identifies too strongly with his present personality, for example with the male identity, and that harms the essence of his personality -- because the personality is a blending of both sexes. If he identifies too strongly with the male identity, that harms the part of the female psyche. The female psyche certainly will not agree -- the unconscious part at the bottom of the personality, the inner self, certainly will not agree. So he takes the part of the female psyche, which was originally something inner and hidden, beyond the reach of your conscious perception, and moves it into a state where you can see it, where it is extremely conspicuous, where you cannot avoid it no matter what. When you cannot avoid it no matter what, you begin to identify with this new identity -- when you have over-identified with being male, he will instead make you feel that you are a woman.

Then you over-identify with this female-psyche identity, and again over-identify with this opposite personality. This is very much like what some people often call gender identity confusion. He is clearly male, but he believes he is female, and he is even more feminine than the average woman. This kind of identification is actually often caused by his having over-identified with the male identity, which leads to this situation.

After he becomes female, the ones he likes most are usually men. Have you not noticed this characteristic? He turns himself into a woman, for what? In order to like men. He himself is male, is that not very strange, very confusing? But actually, if you have ever been around people with this kind of gender confusion or who need to transition, you will understand that their psychology is basically this kind of positive-negative relationship: first he over-identifies with his own identity, and when he identifies with it, his inner self says this will not do, you still have the other side of your character -- the side of the opposite sex -- so it puts that side out in front of you to see. Because it is put out so conspicuously, and because you were already an obsessive person, someone who especially identifies with a certain identity, when a new identity appears within your consciousness, you then develop a strong identification with this new identity as well. You identify with being a woman, dress yourself up as a woman everywhere, wear women's clothes, and then you especially love men.

Early Choices

He says:

The early personality's hold upon itself is quite weak, but it gradually strengthens. (Session 557)

The personality, for its own reasons, may decide to choose a body that is not aesthetically lovely.

A body that is not good-looking -- chubby, overly fat or overly thin, with unsuitable proportions. He will have his own reasons for choosing such a body:

Because he feels he may never feel associated with it, and clearly this particular life can achieve the purpose he has set for himself. (Session 557)

The purpose he has set is precisely not to over-identify with this identity, with this body. Therefore between this body and the personality within it, there is always a basic perceivable distance.

He chooses this body precisely because he does not especially like it. He neither likes it nor dislikes it, he is indifferent anyway -- I am me, the body is the body, I do not identify with my body. So at this time, between him and his body there is always a basic, perceptible distance. We also encounter such people in life: people who have an indifferent attitude toward the material world, including toward this physical body, toward their own body; they do not identify with it, and they do not like their own body.

Two Types of Personalities

The personalities mentioned earlier who enter the fetus at the moment of conception:

Are usually extremely eager for earthly life, and therefore they develop more completely. (Session 557)

Because your reincarnation is precisely for development. He is waiting there early, does not want to wait one extra minute, wants to experience everything, wants to experience it all from the very beginning of pregnancy:

And show their individual characteristics very early. (Session 557)

They seize the new body and begin shaping it, consciously shaping it, with very powerful control over matter, very powerful control over this physical body:

And they usually remain in the body, rather than dying immediately in accidents, but die in sleep, or die of illness. Generally speaking, they are manipulators of matter. (Session 557)

He came at the moment of conception, and when he dies he will also stay until the very end. So he does not die unprepared; basically everything is arranged, everything is prepared. He will not die in an accident, nor will he die suddenly in his sleep. Because his sense of manipulation over the physical body is extremely strong, his degree of control is very strong, he will not allow these accidents to happen to himself, so they are manipulators of matter. Then by reverse inference we can know that those who die in accidents, die in sleep, or die of illness, should not be the people who entered the fetus at the moment of conception; we can understand it that way.

They are emotional, and they often solve their problems in immediate, impatient, definite ways. (Session 557)

Impatient by nature, they want it solved immediately, want it realized immediately.

They make good use of the materials of the earth, translating their concepts into physical images with great force.

They build cities, they build monuments, they are architects; what concerns them is forming matter and shaping it according to their wishes. This is one type of person: they love life very much, they long for earthly life, and once they arrive they create; they want to turn their beliefs and thoughts into material things, build all kinds of buildings and sculptures, especially full of drive, especially full of energy.

And those who do not enter your plane of existence until the very moment of birth:

Generally speaking, in those particular respects, they are comparatively less powerful manipulators.

So their operation on the material plane is not so formidable, because they are not especially interested in the material world, and when it comes time to incarnate they are also the last to arrive. They have a sense of estrangement from this physical body, and a sense of distance from the material world itself; they are indifferent, anything is fine.

So they are not extreme, they are not emotional. If it can be said this way, they are the mediocre ones, or ordinary people. (Session 557)

They do not have such a great desire to manipulate the material world, and their lives are not lived so spectacularly.

Resisting the New Life

As for still other people:

They resist the new life as much as possible. (Session 557)

Although this is also their own choice -- they chose a kind of life themselves, and then they do not like this kind of life themselves; this is very common.

They must to some extent be present at birth. (Session 557)

At the moment the infant is born he must be there, but he:

Still avoids any complete identification with the newborn. (Session 557)

They hover within or about the form, half reluctantly. (Session 557)

He does not settle down, does not want to dwell within this physical body, so he flies around nearby, and also goes in and out of the body, very reluctantly.

There are many reasons for such behavior:

Some personalities simply prefer the existence between lives. (Session 557)

He is attached to that in-between zone, he likes it there, and does not want to come back.

And are far more concerned with theoretical problem-solving than with this practical application. (Session 557)

He prefers to discuss in theory what should be improved in the next life, what experiences should be gained in the human world; he is a theorist, not especially interested in solving things through practice.

Other people:

Find that earthly life does not satisfy their needs as well as they had imagined, and that they would make greater progress in another reality and place of existence. (Session 557)

He feels that the three-dimensional world of human life cannot satisfy his needs, and that only on other nonphysical planes or in other times and spaces can he make greater development and progress.

Then many people say, if he does not want to come, then just do not come; if he does not want to incarnate, why does he come? Because when he has not fulfilled the requirements of the cycle of reincarnation, he must come back and reincarnate. This is somewhat like what? It is like those who study well graduate and leave, while those who study poorly are always made to repeat a grade, going through it again and again. But he cannot finish the sixth grade, and he also extremely hates going to school, and his homework is not done well, and as a result he still has to come back and do it again. He feels he should go to another plane, and does not want to develop on this plane, but he still has to come back. He actually does not understand that he should throw himself into it wholeheartedly, complete this cycle of reincarnation, and then he would not have to come again. But he insists on saying, "Why should I suppress my character? If I hate it, I hate it; I just do not like life in the human world" -- this state of his exactly proves that in this process of incarnation and reincarnation, every person is different, every person is unique.

A Sense of Distance from the Body

But because of their own characteristics:

Some people prefer to set up a certain distance between themselves and the physical body. (Session 557)

He does it deliberately, wanting to maintain a sense of estrangement between the soul and the physical body.

They are far more concerned with symbols, and regard earthly life as highly experimental, looking at it almost with a suspicious eye, so to speak. (Session 557)

Their interest in manipulating matter is not as great as their curiosity about the way concepts appear within matter. This type is the theoretician, the theorist; he is more concerned with the way this concept expresses itself within matter, and does not have much interest in manipulating matter. So he always looks at our three-dimensional world, at our human life, with a suspicious, experimental eye.

Generally speaking, they are forever more at ease with concepts, philosophy, and realities that cannot be grasped.

They do not like the material kind of thing, doing something with their hands, creating something; they are not interested. They are thinkers, and always keep a little distance from people and matters -- toward people they always have that faintly detached feeling.

Their body type shows underdeveloped muscles. But here he makes a special distinction:

Poets and artists, although they also have some of this nature, generally speaking have a deeper appreciation of the material values of earthly life. (Session 557)

What does this mean? Although artists and poets share part of the same nature, they are not the same as those people. Because poets and artists have a very deep capacity for appreciating material life; otherwise they could not write poetry -- if they had no understanding of life, no appreciation, no feeling, they could not write poetry. But those people are actually not very interested in the material side of life; they only like pursuing metaphysical, purely theoretical philosophical things. Although they share many of the same characteristics, they are not the same.

People's attitudes toward the body always differ:

He may choose many different types, but in terms of the whole self, there is always a general preference. (Session 557)

Each person's chosen attitude toward the body is different, but on the level of the overall soul, there is always a preferred direction, and it dominates certain characteristics of the whole self.

Therefore the various lives that are usually lived still have his personal flavor.

Although he has reincarnated many times, and every life is completely different -- being a king, being a minister, being a beggar -- if you carefully savor each of his lives, you will find that each carries his own unique flavor; his individuality is very strong. There is a thread in this, as if this thread has always existed.

The Connection Between Birth and Death

He says:

It is almost impossible to discuss when personality enters the body without discussing the manner in which personality leaves the body. (Session 557)

If we do not discuss death, it is hard to discuss birth; the two are two sides of one thing. Because all of this has a great deal to do with individual characteristics and with the attitude toward physical reality. When we discuss birth, we must also discuss the state of death -- at death, his attitude toward the body is the same.

Decisions for the Next Life Made in Dreams

Finally, the most crucial sentence of this session:

Decisions having to do with the next life can be made not only in the between-life state, but also in the dream state of any given life. (Session 557)

This is a very important sentence, one to underline. The arrangement of how you will live your next life does not necessarily have to be decided in the intermediate state after the previous life ends and before the next life begins; it can also be made in the dream state of any given life of yours. Remember this "any given life" -- not your previous life, but any given life. In the previous chapter he also said that this choice regarding reincarnation may possibly be realized in dreams.

Here you understand why we often say cause and effect does not exist. Your next life is not decided only in the middle of your previous cycle of reincarnation; he tells you it can be made in the dreams of any given life, so what does that have to do with cause and effect?

He says that right now you may already have decided the environment into which you will be born in your next life. Although from your perspective, your new parents may still be infants right now -- for example, you are now 60 years old, and you want to incarnate 25 or 30 years later, and at this point you have made the decision, yet the parents you will choose for your incarnation may have just been born -- or on your time scale, they may not even have been born yet:

But arrangements can still be made in advance. (Session 557)

This is beyond our understanding of time and space. If they have been born and are infants, that is still understandable; they may not even have been born yet, so how do you arrange it? He says arrangements can still be made. On this level that transcends time and space, this is beyond the scope of human imagination. It is not the way you imagine it -- this life connected to the next life, with a decision made in between. No, you can decide it in the previous life, or even in the life before that.

In the next part we will begin Chapter 14.

注释与核实

1. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Carl Jung" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung) ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. Source: Francis Galton, "Psychometric Experiments" (Brain, 1879) (https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/2/2/149/370680) ↩

4. Source: Wikipedia, "The Interpretation of Dreams" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpretation_of_Dreams) ↩

5. Source: Wikipedia, "International Psychoanalytical Association" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Psychoanalytical_Association) ↩

6. Source: Wikipedia, "The Secret of the Golden Flower" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%A4%AA%E4%B9%99%E9%87%91%E8%8F%AF%E5%AE%97%E6%97%A8) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

7. Source: James Michael Nicholson, "The Huiming Jing: A Translation and Discussion" (https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0089774) ↩

8. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Yijing" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yijing) ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. According to Mike's original words, it was "the Chinese teaching of salvation in Tibetan Buddhism"; upon verification, it should be "the correct name of this text is the Bardo Thödol (in Tibetan, meaning 'liberation through hearing in the intermediate state'; commonly known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead), traditionally transmitted by Padmasambhava and revealed in the 14th century by the tertön Karma Lingpa, not a 'Chinese teaching of salvation.'" (Source: Wikipedia, "Bardo Thodol," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol) ↩

10. This claim could not be verified. ↩

11. Source: Wikipedia, "The Secret of the Golden Flower" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_the_Golden_Flower) ↩

12. Source: Qingdao Daily, "Sinologist Richard Wilhelm's 'Out-of-Print Book' Comes to Qingdao; He Lived in Qingdao for 22 Years" (http://www.dailyqd.com/news/2018-03/24/content_423726.htm) ↩

13. According to Mike's original words, it was "very prevalent during the Yuan dynasty"; upon verification, it should be "The Secret of the Golden Flower is not a text that was prevalent in the Yuan dynasty; it is an inner alchemy work produced in the early Qing through spirit writing under the name of Lü Dongbin, with the text dictated in two batches of planchette sessions in 1688 and 1692." (Source: Wikipedia, "The Secret of the Golden Flower," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T'ai_i_chin_hua_tsung_chih) ↩

14. According to Mike's original words, it was "in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 1,000 copies were printed in Beijing at the time"; upon verification, it should be "The Secret of the Golden Flower, together with the Huiming Jing, was printed in Beijing in an edition of 1,000 copies and distributed only within a small circle in 1920 (the twentieth century), when Richard Wilhelm obtained one of the copies in Beijing; the seventeenth century refers only to the date of the incomplete woodblock edition on which the text was based." (Source: Wikipedia, "The Secret of the Golden Flower," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_the_Golden_Flower) ↩

15. Source: Wikipedia, "The Red Book (Jung)" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Book_(Jung)) ↩ ↩² ↩³

16. Source: Norbert Straumann, "Wolfgang Pauli and Modern Physics" (https://arxiv.org/pdf/0810.2213) ↩

17. According to Mike's original words, it was "Pauli exclusion principle"; upon verification, it should be "the correct term is the 'Pauli exclusion principle,' named after the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, not 'Baoli.'" (Source: Wikipedia, "Pauli exclusion principle," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_exclusion_principle) ↩

18. Source: Official website of the Nobel Prize, "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1945" (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1945/summary/) ↩

19. Source: C. G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, "Atom and Archetype: The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958" (Princeton University Press updated edition) (https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/pauli-wolfgang) ↩ ↩²

20. According to Mike's original words, it was "studied many primitive tribes in Africa and South America"; upon verification, it should be "the so-called 'primitive tribes' Jung investigated in the field were in Africa and North America, not South America—he traveled to Tunisia and Algeria in North Africa, led the 'Bugishu Psychological Expedition' to Mount Elgon in Kenya and Uganda in 1925–1926 to study the Elgonyi people, and visited the Taos Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, United States, in 1924–1925; there is no evidence that he ever went to South America." (Source: Wikipedia, "Carl Jung," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung) ↩

21. Source: Wikipedia, "Conversations with God" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E8%88%87%E7%A5%9E%E5%B0%8D%E8%A9%B1) ↩

22. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Individuation (psychology)" (https://www.britannica.com/science/individuation-psychology) ↩

23. Source: Hong Kong Education Bureau, "Classical Chinese Sayings (Primary Schools)" (https://www.edb.gov.hk/attachment/tc/curriculum-development/kla/chi-edu/chinese-culture/Proverb-C3-01_pri.pdf) ↩

24. Source: Lao She, "The Biography of Niu Tianci" (https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hans/%E7%89%9B%E5%A4%A9%E8%B3%9C%E5%82%B3) ↩

25. This claim could not be verified. ↩

26. This claim could not be verified. ↩

27. Source: International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), "Anima and Animus" (https://iaap.org/jung-analytical-psychology/short-articles-on-analytical-psychology/anima-and-animus-2/) ↩