Exercises from the Seth Material Inner Consent, and Pre-sleep Suggestions Unknown Source Suggestion is no more and no less than an inner willingness and consent to allow a particular action to occur; and this consent is the trigger which sets off the subconscious mechanisms that allow you to construct inner data into physical reality. This is one of the reasons why health suggestions given immediately before sleep are so effective. Incidentally, they are excellent practice. Expectation can aid you also. I would suggest that you tell yourselves that you will henceforth be able to remember dreams from the deeper levels of your personality, and you should find that you will be able to do so. You can also tell yourselves when you wish that you will give special attention to the nature of time and space, as these appear within your dreams. You will discover then upon awakening that many perceptions concerning time and space within the dream state will remain within you. You can indeed suggest to the subconscious that it carry on in such a manner regardless of your conscious concern. As a result the ego can apply itself to the job at hand while the subconscious works for you and your inner purposes. This is very practical, and works without much difficulty. You may obviously also direct your subconscious to react only to constructive suggestions from any source. This is in fact an excellent habit to cultivate. It will indeed be beneficial for you both to suggest to your subconscious that it enable you to develop your psychic abilities, and then consciously forget the matter. ...suggestions should always be given before sleep, that the subconscious will maintain the organic integrity of the physical
organism. This is basic. Suggestions should also be given so that a harmonious relationship be maintained among all levels of the personality structure. Suggestions should be given that constructive tendencies are given free reign. Perhaps more important, suggestions should be given that only constructive suggestions will be reacted to. Suggestion can shape dreams, and the dreams themselves then operate as action. A strong dream can be a more significant psychic action than any physical experience, and it can change the course of the personality completely. The inner senses will also react to suggestion. If you suggest that you become more aware of their activities, then so you shall…. Suggestion given before sleep will greatly add to your chances of conscious projections from the dream state. It is not necessary, basically speaking, that you notice some small incongruous detail in order to realize while dreaming that you are dreaming. There is however one good method to use. The suggestion "I will realize while dreaming that I am dreaming" can also be used, as another method, or both of these may be utilized together. The Muscle-bound Ego, Dissociation, and Yoga The Early Sessions, Book 1, Session 17, p.108 The ego, as I have said before, is extremely important. It is however only a part of what you call yourself. Your artistic ability does not belong to your ego, dear Joseph... Nevertheless, the ego is the tool by which the hidden self manipulates in the physical universe. In your case, it enables you to focus your artistic ability along lines necessary to make it effective on your plane. However, when the ego becomes involved with fears, it ceases to be an effective tool and becomes instead a hammer hitting you incessantly over the head… Now when the ego becomes overly concerned, it becomes overly conditioned to negative responses. The creative energies build up their thickly-dimensioned pseudo-realities of pain. For a certain
amount of time, according to your condition, they automatically create the patterns of fear that belong to the ego. These fears do not belong to what you think of as the subconscious. Then these materializations of panic and pain play about the physical body, projected by the ego, and steal the powers of the subconscious mind from their natural constructive tasks…In other words, the ego becomes a tool to disrupt rather than to create. In the past you did not understand properly this relationship. You understood the destructive tendencies but you placed them in the subconscious. The endless or seemingly endless circle need not occur now, or in the future. This dissociation of which Ruburt has spoken to you is an excellent discipline that will insure your use of energy in the best possible manner. I am not suggesting that the ego be ignored in any manner, merely that the tool is not allowed to become the master. You see, dear Joseph, the subconscious and the ego, of course, are both you. For simplicity’s sake I will speak of the ego and the subconscious, though they are actually one. The subconscious forms and projects the materializations of the ego as a tool to enable it to attain its goals. When these goals and talents are attributed to the ego alone they are so to speak decapitated. Your own subconscious is the fountain of your individuality and personality; from it springs your talent. When the ego becomes too concerned with daily matters, with worry, then it becomes far less effective. The freely working subconscious – or the inner you – is completely capable of taking care of all practical considerations and will use the ego as a tool to do so. Dissociation puts the power back where it belongs... Daily methods of dissociation are extremely practical… You will notice within a few weeks time, if not sooner, an added energy. So-called impulses on your part are often quelled because your ego finds them impractical. The subconscious knows its own meat and its own sauce, and the best means for its nourishment.
Begin the yoga exercises and follow them faithfully. Your few experiments with autosuggestion upon falling asleep have been egobound. Think of this in terms of muscle-bound, and you will see what I mean. Be in a drowsy state and suggest, Rubert, suggest – suggest, Joseph. Do not attempt to bully or command the subconscious. Suggestions are all that are needed. Your love of nature, Joseph, and Ruburt your love of nature, is another method of dissociation, or can be if you use it as such... My affection for you is strong. If I speak heavy-handedly, it is because I want you to have a light touch. Dissociation brings about a strong unity with the creative aspects of personality. It puts you back, or it puts your creative talents back, in the driver’s seat. Yoga and Self-Hypnosis for Relaxing the Ego and Body Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness, Book 1, Session 18 Following Seth’s suggestions, Rob began doing a few simple yoga exercises, and the night before the eighteenth session he used selfhypnosis to relax his muscles. The results were so immediate and excellent, and Rob was so limp when he finished, that both of us were amused. He looked so like a before-and-after advertisement. Before he began the exercises, he was very uptight, with sore muscles and a repressive body pose. Afterward, he was like some happy rag doll… "Good evening, Seth. What did you think of my performance last night?" "Very good, if you are referring to the hypnosis session. Your condition following this and your first exercise bout should show you how badly you were in need of the treatment. When I suggested that you dissociate, incidentally, I didn’t mean that you should break up into pieces…. "At times, the ego can hold you in a tight vice, which the dissociation breaks. This is what happened after your exercises. You have been doing very well…in allowing yourself psychic freedom. However, conscious fears cause the ego to tighten its grasp, and some effects
of this nature were starting up. This is why I suggested the exercises at this time. “The fact that the fearful ego was beginning to tighten explains your reaction to the exercises. The ego can build up around the inner self like a glacier, and the exercises help melt it away. Even the prickles in your neck are like tiny picks chipping away at icy fears….You were released so quickly as a result of the exercises that you didn’t know what had happened…. “Incidentally, while we are on the subject, often when you thought you were dealing with a matter or a person in a dissociated manner, you were instead exhibiting a cold, conscious detachment. This is a pose of the ego and is not to be confused with the lithe subconscious detachment which is actually warm, flexible, and expansive.” Exploring Empty Spaces The Early Sessions, Book 1, Session 19, p.135 It is only the inner senses which will give you any evidence at all of the basic nature of life itself. Since very often the vitality or stuff of the universe seems as innocuous as air might seem to you, then look for what you do not see. Explore places that appear empty, for they are full. Look between events. What you see clearly with your outer senses is camouflage. I am not suggesting that you take everything on faith, nothing of the sort. I am saying that what seems vacant lacks camouflage, and therefore if this is explored it will yield evidence. I hope I have not carried you too far too fast. Effects would seem to be evidence, and therefore when you probe into seemingly empty spaces you will receive effects which will be evidence. In concrete terms, if a tree branch blows you can take it for granted that something moves the branch. You know wind by its effects. No one has seen wind but since at times its effects are so observable it would be idiocy to say that wind did not exist. Therefore you will come up against the basic stuff of the universe and feel its effects, though your outer senses will not necessarily perceive it.
An Inner Vibrational Touch Experience The Early Sessions, Book 1, Session 22, p.160 (Similarly, last night I stood at a window and looked out across the Walnut Street Bridge. I visualized myself walking across this bridge, feeling the wooden flooring beneath my feet. I felt myself walk beneath the signal lights at the far end, and continue on up the street. I tried to reach out and envelop the feeling of the house and trees on each side of me, to sense then as if by touch as I passed each one by. Jane resumed dictation at 7:30.) Your experience yesterday Joseph was an exercise of the inner senses, and one that you should try for again and again. A Description of Disassociation The Early Sessions, Book 1, Session 28, p. 214 You can have two doors open at once. You can listen to two channels at once. But until you learn to focus in two directions, and this is simplified to a pathetic degree, in the meantime you simply turn down the volume of the first channel, while you attract your attention to the second. This process you call disassociation. Experiencing an Idea Intuitively The Early Sessions, Book 1, Session 37, p. 298 I will also go into this more deeply. You should be able to see now why a concept such as I refer to is difficult to achieve on your plane. You cannot focus upon it thoroughly. When the fourth inner sense is exercised, (I will outline exercises and all three of you would certainly benefit by following my suggestions) you will discover what an idea really is. You will discover this by experiencing the idea directly, and you can best achieve some approximation of accomplishment by using psychological time. Your idea of experiencing a concept is doubtlessly to follow it through from beginning to end. Sweet tootsies, there is no beginning or end, and this idea of yours is the result of a complete and utter concentration upon camouflage time.
Nor does the evolution of either an idea or a species involve time. It merely involves time in your universe. You insist upon labeling as laws of absolutes what is actually your distorted and limited vision of concepts as they seem to appear to you. Using psychological time, sit in a quiet room; and I hope this is not impossible, when an idea comes to you, and I presume it will, do not play with it intellectually. You can dissect it to your heart's content after the experience. Reach out to the idea intuitively. Do not be afraid of or reject unfamiliar bodily sensations. With practice, and to a very limited degree, you will find that you can become the idea. You will be inside the idea, looking out, not looking in. This is thought. If you think you think you are in for a surprise. Expanding the Tissue Capsule and Universe The Early Sessions, Book 1, Session 40, p. 317 The tissue capsule of which I have spoken earlier surrounds every living consciousness. To some extent it could be compared to an extra layer of skin surrounding the physical body, except that it is not constructed in the same manner upon your plane, and is invisible to you under ordinary circumstances. It is actually a field, that is energy field, boundary. It protects the inner self by acting as a barrier that keeps the whole self’s energy controlled, and keeps it from seeping away. At the same time it protects the whole self from certain radiations which do not here concern you. No living consciousness exists on any plane without this tissue capsule enclosing it. The capsule of course is not a solid on any plane. To some inhabitants of other planes that have access to your plane, all that can be seen of you is this tissue capsule, since suck inhabitants have had no experience in your particular type of camouflage construction. There fore your camouflage patterns are invisible to them, but the tissue capsules are not.
These capsules can be seen by you under certain circumstances, and have been called astral bodies - a term which does not meet with my pleasure... Now that we have briefly discussed the meaning of a tissue capsule I will go into the seventh inner sense a bit more deeply. This sense allows for an expansion or contraction of the tissue capsule. Theoretically there is no limit to the contraction or expansion allowed, but practically there are usually definite limitations. I am only going to hint of something here. For fun, think of the expanding tissue capsule in terms of or in connection with, the theory of your expanding universe. Such contemplation should be excellent exercise. This is quite evocative, and I hope I can peek in sometime when you are trying to deal with it. Dream Recall Instructions Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness, p. 196-198 Seth gave us our first instructions in 1964. The whole idea of deliberate dream recall was new to us. the methods are not new, though we had never heard of them at the time. I’ll paraphrase them here: Simply buy a notebook to be used exclusively for dreams. Keep it with a pencil or pen by your bed. Before you fall to sleep at night, give yourself this suggestion: "I can remember my dreams and write them down in the morning." You will find that your dreams actually are in your mind when you awaken. Write them down at once, before getting out of bed. If you have a tendency to scribble, then use loose sheets of paper and later transcribe them in the notebook. Don’t worry about neatness, but concentrate on capturing as much of the dream content as possible. If you recall several dreams, jot down a quick sentence about each, then add the details. Leave space after each entry for future notes. This method is really easy and workable – but it can be sabotaged. One of my students, Gloria, had great difficulty remembering her dreams until I discovered that she was using a clock radio to awaken her in the morning and the news happened to be on. The dreams
must be recalled before you become mentally involved with the world’s activities…. The method of dream recall just given will allow many people to remember more dreams in a month than they previously did in their entire lives. Variations will occur, however. Periods of excellent recall are sometimes followed by poorer ones, and each individual seems to have his own cycle of significant activity. A recorder may also be used, of course. You must still play back the tape and transfer the dreams into a notebook, however, so that the records are easily accessible. This actually takes more time, but many people prefer to speak their dream recollections into a recorder at once, rather than to write them down. Dream Locations Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness, p. 205 Seth had told us to leave room in our dream records to note the locations and advised us to examine them carefully. I was quite surprised at the different kinds of dream locations in my own dreams and made the following list of them. Look for these when you examine your dreams: • Dream locations that represent places familiar to you in your present daily life. • Dream locations that represent places (such as foreign countries) to which you have never really traveled. • Dream locations that represent definite places that appear as they were in the past. If your dream of your childhood home as it was, not as it is now, then the location would belong in this category. • Dream locations that represent places that no longer exist physically. • Strange, completely unfamiliar, dream locations. • Indistinct dream locations • Strange dream locations to which you keep returning.
Solving Problems with Dreams Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness, Session 173 As the personality is changed by any action, so it is changed by its own dreams. As it is molded by the exterior environment, so is it molded by the dreams that it creates and which help form its interior world. To the whole self, there is little differentiation made between exterior and interior actions. The ego makes such distinctions. The core of the personality does not….As an individual changes his physical situation through reacting to it, so he changes his interior or psychic situation in the same way…. In dreams, you give freedom of actions that cannot adequately be expressed within the confines of normal waking reality. If the personality handles his dream activities capably, then problem actions find release in dreams…. It follows that [by] using suggestion, various problems can be solved in the dream state. The inner ego of which we have spoken is the director of such unifying activities. It is the 'I' of your dreams, having somewhat the same position within the inner self as the ego has to the outer physical body. Upon proper suggestion, the personality then will work out specific problems in the dream state, but if the solution is not clear to the to the[conscious] ego, this does not necessarily mean that the solution was not found. There will be cases where it is not only unnecessary but undesirable that the ego be familiar with the solution. The suggestions will be followed by the sleeping self in its own fashion. The solutions may not appear to the conscious self in the way it expects. The conscious self may not even recognize it has been given a solution, and yet it may act upon it…. Both psychological and physical illnesses could largely be avoided through dream therapy. Rather harmlessly, aggressive tendencies could also be given freedom in the dream condition. Through such therapy, actions would be allowed greater spontaneity. In the case of the release of aggressiveness, the individual involved would experience this within the dream state and hurt no one. Suggestions
could also be given so that he learned to understand the aggressiveness through watching himself while in the dream state…. If aggressiveness is the problem, for example, then the preliminary suggestion should include a statement that in the dream, the aggression will be harmlessly acted out and not directed against a particular individual. The subconscious is quite capable of handling the situation in this manner. This may seem like a double censor, but in all cases it is the aggressiveness itself that is important and not the person or persons against whom the individual might vent his aggressiveness. A Study of the Characteristics of the Dream World Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness, Session 181 We will be involved with a study of the characteristics of the dream world in general and attempt to isolate it as a separate reality for the purposes of examination. Then we shall regard it in relation to physical reality, using comparisons and dissimilarities. This will then allow us to proceed into the relationship between the waking and sleeping personality and discover the many ways in which the personality's aims and goals are not only reflected but sometimes achieved in and through the dream condition. Usually the dream state is considered from a negative standpoint and compared unfavorably with the waking condition. Emphasis is laid upon those conditions present in the waking state but absent from the dreaming experience. We shall consider those aspects of consciousness which are present in the dream environment and absent in the physical one. No study of human personality can pretend to be thorough that does not take the importance of dream reality into consideration. In some discussions we will state the ways in which conscious goals can be achieved with the help of the dreaming self. All of this material will be reinforced with experiments that, I hope, you will conduct yourselves.
It is amazing how man regrets the hours spent in sleep. He does not realize how hard he works when his ego is unaware. We hope to make this clear. We hope to let you catch yourselves in the act of doing so. You will realize how productive dream experiences are and the ways in which they are woven into the tapestry of your entire experience. As mentioned previously, we will also deal with the nature of space, time and distance, as they appear in the dream environment. Some of our experiments along these lines will be the most illuminating. Here the ego cannot go, but it can benefit from the information, and perhaps in time, even a shadow of the ego may pass through that strange land and feel in some small way at home. Therapeutic Dreams Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness, Session 198 We have not spoken of the inner senses for some time. By now, you should realize that they have an electromagnetic reality also and that the mental enzymes act as sparks, setting off inner reactions. In the dream state, these reactions are easily trigged. This is the result of the lowering of egotistical guards, for the ego sets up controls that act as resistances to various inner channels {during the waking state]…. A destructive attitude of mind has been changed overnight in the dream state to a constructive situation in many instances, and the whole electromagnetic balance has been changed. In such a case, negative ions form an electrical framework in which healing is possible. Such healing dreams come most often when the self feels a sense of desperation and automatically opens up channels to deeper layers of personality. Often we find an almost instant regeneration, a seemingly instant cure, a point from which the organism almost miraculously begins to improve. The same happens in less startling cases where, for example, a merely annoying health condition disappears. Through self-suggestion, these therapeutic dreams can be brought about with practice. The suggestions (being action) has its own
electromagnetic effect and already begins to set certain healing processes into action, while sparking the formation of others. Such inner therapeutics may occur at various levels of consciousness, where they may be sparked by exterior stimuli of a aesthetic or pleasing nature. Other exterior conditions also have an effect. To involve oneself in large groups, for example, is often beneficial not simply to take attention away from the self for a change, but because of the larger range of electromagnetic ranges readily available. The overall health of the individual is important, as is the delicate balance of electromagnetic properties… When the organism is set deeply in destructive patterns, then this is something felt in the dream state, so that destructive dreams then add to the entire situation….For this reason, the use of self-suggestion in bringing about constructive dreams is of great benefit. Excellent Dream Suggestions Dreams And Projections Of Consciousness, Session 200 Ruburt's dream notebook is coming along very well. In most cases, however, he writes only those dreams he remembers upon awakening in the morning. Suggestions will allow you to awaken yourself as soon as a dream is completed. The dream will be fresh. If the recorder is suitably at situated with the microphone easily at hand, then you can speak you dream with less effort than is required to write it down. Of course records must be kept. The simplest part of this experiment will involve the use of suggestion to awaken yourself at the completion of each dream. The number of remembered dreams should be much higher than your present system allows… I also suggest that the first recalled dream for any given evening be compared with the first recalled from other evenings, and that the second recalled dream from any one evening be compared with the second dream from other evenings, and so forth.
This should prove highly interesting, and if such experiments are carried on consistently over a period of years, then the results could lead to excellent evidence for the various layers of the subconscious and inner self, of which I have spoken for so long. Particular notice should also be taken of characters and setting and approximate period in history in which the dream action occurs. If the dream seems to happen in no specific location and in no particular time, then these facts should also be noted. Unknown characters within the dream action, persons unknown to you in daily life, should be given careful attention also, and the roles which they play within the dream drama. The primary colors should be noted. It goes without saying now that all dream events should be checked against physical reality so that any clairvoyant elements are clearly checked and recorded… There are many ways in which you can approach these newer dream experiments. You may, if you prefer, begin by suggesting that you will waken after the first five dreams…If possible, we want to get the dreams in order here… Now, there is something else to be considered. The very selfsuggestions that will enable you to recall dreams will also change their nature to some extent. This is all right, and the effect will be minimized when the newness has worn off. Again, we want the dreams in the sequence in which they occur. If you do not want to wake up after each dream of the evening, then the suggestion should always include 'I will recall the first three dreams…or the first five dreams, or whatever.' You may try two different wordings for a start, and now I am speaking of precise wording. The first: 'I will wake up after each of my first five dreams and record each one immediately.' The second alternative wording would be the same as the one I had just given, but the 'wake up' would be omitted. That is, it is possible for you to record the dream, speaking into the microphone without awakening in your terms.
This is not only possible but by far the most convenient. You should try both methods and discover which one works the best for you. If at all possible, the recorder should be in the bedroom (not in another part of the house.) It is the immediate recall we are after. We want you to record the dream at the instant of awakening or at the instant the dream is about to dissolve. The time involved in going from one room to another could result in the loss of dream content and vividness. The very motor response demanded on the part of the body and the extra arousal tendency would force you to lose a good deal of valid material. I would prefer that you work less, if necessary, using the recorder in the bedroom, than work more intensively leaving the recorder in another room. It is the dream we are after, the dream experience in all the vividness that we capture, and if you are going to get a watered-down version in any case, then you may as well continue with your present method (of writing them down in the morning) and save your sleep. With the method I have just given you, you will be able to capture as much of the whole dream experience as any investigators manage to do (in dream labs) when the awakening is done by mechanical device or by another person. You will also be gaining excellent discipline and training over your own states of consciousness and this, in itself, will be an important yardstick of progress for both of you…. Now, mankind uses but a portion of its capabilities. When well along with these experiments, you will find that you handle them very well, with no draining of energies. Your sleeping hours are already productive. We shall also use them to give you training in the utilization of various stages of consciousness. Added to this, the training will give you valuable insight into the nature of dream in general, the stages of the subconscious and the inner life of the personality when it is dissociated from its physical environment to some considerable extent. Much later, there will be other suggestions for you in which you will direct your dreaming self to perform certain activities, visit certain locations and bring back information. This is obviously still very much in the future, but well within the abilities of the inner self.
Awakening after Each Dream, and the Layers of the Inner Self The Early Sessions, Session 206 Suggestion will allow you both to awaken yourselves as soon as a dream is completed. The dream will then be fresh. If your recorder is suitably situated with the microphone easily at hand, then you can speak your dream with less effort than is required to write it down. Of course records must be kept. The simplest part of this experiment will involve the use of suggestion to awaken yourself at the completion of each dream. The number of remembered dreams should be much higher than your present system allows….I also suggest that the first recalled dream for any given evening be compared with the first recalled dream from other evenings, and that the second recalled dream from any one evening be compared with the second dream from other evenings, and so forth. This should prove highly interesting, and if such experiments are carried on consistently over a period of years, then the results could lead to excellent evidence for the various layers of the subconscious and inner self, of which I have spoken for so long. Particular notice should also be taken of characters and settings and the approximate period of history in which the dream occurs. If the dream seems to happen in no specific location and in no particular time, then these facts should also be noted. Unknown characters within the dream action, persons unknown to you in daily life, should be given careful attention also, and the roles which they play within the dream drama. The primary colors should be noted. It goes without saying now that all dream events should be checked against physical reality so that any clairvoyant elements are clearly checked and recorded…. There are many ways in which you can approach these newer dream experiments. You may, if you prefer, begin by suggesting that you will waken after each of the first five dreams…If possible, we want to get the dreams in order here….
Now, there is something else to be considered. The very selfsuggestions that will enable you to recall dreams will also change their nature to some extent. this is all right, and the effect will be minimized when the newness has worn off. Again, we want to dreams in the sequence in which they occur. If you do not want to wake up after each dream of the evening, then the suggestion should always include ‘I will recall the first three dreams…or the first five dreams, or whatever.’ You may try two different wordings for a start, and now I am speaking of precise wording would be the same as the one I have just given, but the ‘wake up’ would be omitted. That is, it is possible for you to record the dreams, speaking into the microphone without awakening in your terms. This is not only possible but by far the most convenient. You should try both methods and discover which one works the best for you. If at all possible, the recorder should be in the bedroom (not in another part of the house.) It is the immediate dream recall we are after. We want you to record the dream at the instant of awakening or at the instant that the dream is about to dissolve. The time involved in going from one room to another could result in the loss of dream content and vividness. the very motor responses demanded on the part of the body and the extra arousal tendency would force you to lose a good deal of valid material. I would prefer that you work less, if necessary, using the recorder in the bedroom, than work more intensively leaving the recorder in another room. It is the dream we are after, the dream experience in all the vividness that we can capture, and if you are going to get a watered-down version in any case, then you may as well continue with your present method (of writing them down in the morning) and save your sleep. With the method I have just given you, you will be able to capture as much of the whole dream experience as any investigators manage to do (in dream-labs) when the awakening is done by a mechanical device or by another person. You will also be gaining excellent
discipline and training over your own states of consciousness and this, in itself, will be an important yardstick of progress for you both…. Now, mankind uses but a portion of its capabilities. When you are well along in these experiments, you will find that you handle them very well, with no draining of energies. Your sleeping hours are already productive. We shall also use them to give you training in the utilization of various stages of consciousness. Added to this, the training will give you valuable insight into the nature of dreams in general, the stages of the subconscious and the inner life of the personality when it is dissociated from its physical environment to some considerable extent. Much later, there will be other suggestions for you in which you will direct your sleeping self to perform certain activities, visit certain locations and bring back information. This is obviously still very much in the future, but it is well within the abilities of the inner self. Healing with the Vitality of the Universe The Early Sessions, Session 248 The husband, now, should follow this exercise three times daily: He should imagine the energy and vitality of the universe filling his wife's form with vitality and health. Not a wishful thinking sort of thing, but a definite effort to understand that her form is indeed composed of this energy, and in this way he can help her use it to her advantage. If possible he should touch her during this exercise, and it should be done morning, noon and evening. Catching Oneself in Simple Actions The Early Sessions, Session 248 As an exercise, occasionally catch yourself in some insignificant action - speaking, touching. If you speak for example be conscious of speaking and hearing yourself speak. Try to think of the words, or to experience them in terms of color. In terms of bulk, density, of distance. Think of the beginnings of the simple act of which you are normally almost completely unaware, the muscular motions that must be made before one word can be uttered.
Catch yourself in a simple thought and try to experience the beginnings of that action. You will be led into action indeed in a completely new way. Then try to experience this simple action as it affects others, not only emotionally and physically in terms of the changes it elicits from their complicated structures, but also the new actions it requires of them. Picking up Symptoms The Early Sessions, Session 252 He picked up her physical symptoms, you see sympathetically, and he must learn to guard himself now against such occurrences. This can be done by clearing his mind, and suggesting that all alien impulses or conditions be removed. The Three Projection Forms Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 261 For all practical purposes, of course, you will usually find yourself in some sort of body form in your out-of-body experiences. These are a necessary camouflage, for you cannot yet think of identity without some kind of body, so you project in such a form. It varies according to your abilities, and without it, you would feel lost indeed. The form it self is not important, but it can tell you something about the dimension in which you are having the experience. The dream body is the one with which you are most familiar. It has been called the astral. It strikes you as being physical when you are in it, but you can do things with it that can't be done ordinarily. You can levitate, for example. As a rule, however, you do not go through walls with this body. This is the body you use for ordinary dreams. Levitation is possible with it but on a limited basis. When you enter a different dimension, the abilities of the body form change, and for all intents and purposes, it is a different body form which we will now call a mind form. It still seems physical in shape, but you can walk through physical matter with it. You can levitate much more freely, traveling within the solar system. But you cannot go further with it.
In the first form, it is possible to perceive the past, present or future on a limited basis. In the second form, this perception is increased, the scope of consciousness widened. This is the form you will use if you meet by appointment with others in the dream state. The third we may call the true projection form. In it, it is possible to travel beyond the solar system, and to perceive the past, present and future of other systems as well as your own. The various forms that you use do not dictate your experience, however. You may begin in one form and change into another - or go from the first to the third. On such occasions you must pass through in reverse direction on returning. The forms merely represent stages of consciousness. At physical death, after the last reincarnation, then the normal form is the dream body, and excursions are made from this point. It is possible, as mentioned to suddenly switch from the third form to the dream body, but with a considerable jolt to consciousness. There are, indeed, others who can who can help you in such experiences, and they can be of great assistance as guides. You will find projections much easier if your head is to the north. Now, when you project from the dream body, consciously you are already outside of the physical one. You have already made the initial change away from physical focus.. The mass of valid projections are made from the dreaming body. When the excursion is over, the return to the dream body is made with no strain, you see, for the ego is little concerned. In many such cases, however, the knowledge is not available to the waking self. As you become more accustomed to the experience, the waking self will recall more and more and not become frightened. Projections from the Dream State Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 262 I want to give you some idea of the conditions you may expect to meet in any successful projections, so that you will be prepare to
some extent. For simplicity's sake, we will call the body form discussed in our last session forms one, two and three. Form one will spring out of an ordinary dream state. In spontaneous projections, you may become conscious in form one, project, return to the ordinary dream state and from there project again several times. You can expect these particular projections to be difficult to interpret now, though you may find the experience intact in the middle of any given dream record. Your excursions with form one will be within your own system, largely earth, although past, present and future may be involved. You may, for example, visit New York in the year 2000. The projections here are fairly short in duration, though exceptionally clear. You may encounter phantoms from your own subconscious, however, and they will seem exceedingly real. If you realize that you are projecting, you may simply order any unpleasant phantoms to disappear, and they will do so. You may banish a nightmare also, if you realize that it is a product of your own subconscious. If you treat it as a reality, however, then you must deal with it as such until you realize its origin or return to the ordinary dream state. In form two you will not, as a rule, encounter any subconscious phantoms. Ordinary dream elements will not be as frequent, nor will they intrude as much. A longer duration of projection is possible. The vividness is extraordinary. Here you will begin to perceive quite clearly constructions that are not your own, where earlier these are but thinly glimpsed. A certain period of orientation will be necessary, simply because these other constructions may seem bewildering. Some will exist in your future. Some may have existed in your past, and some were thought of, but never materialized. But the reality of all these constructions will be equally vivid, you see, for they are, indeed, quite real. I will give you a simple example. You may find yourself in a room with certain people. Later, upon awakening, you realize that both the people and the setting belong to a particular sequence in a novel. You think then: 'This was no projection, then, but only a dream.'
It may, however, be a valid projection. The room and people exist but not in the way you endorse as reality. They exist in another dimension, but as a rule you cannot perceive it. [To Rob:] The paintings that you will paint exist now. It is possible for you to project yourself into one of your own future landscapes. This would be an imaginative projection. This is what I'm trying to tell you. You may find yourself, for example, in the middle of a battle that was once planned in some general's mind, a battle that never materialized into physical reality. In such a case, incidentally, you were not a part of the battle and could not be harmed. However, you might be attracted enough to project yourself spontaneously into the body of one of the soldiers, in which case you could experience pain until your fear pulled you back. As you learn to control, such mistakes vanish. There are various situations you must learn to handle, attractions and repulsions which could pull you willy-nilly in any direction. Experience will teach you how to handle these. What is needed is a steady maintenance of identity under conditions which will be new as far as your conscious awareness is concerned. I cannot emphasize too strongly that projections into other dimensions do occur. Many such instances are often considered chaotic dreams because there is no way to check them against physical events since they did not occur in physical terms. It is possible for you to project to a future event in which you will be involved and by an act that you will make in the projection, will alter the course the future will take. Such an action would therefore appear to happen twice, once in your present and once in your future. But in the future, you would be the one whose course is altered from the traveling self from the past. Let us take an example: While asleep, you project into 1982. There you see yourself considering various courses of action. For a moment you are aware of a sense of duality as you view this older self. You communicate with this other self; and we will go into this sort of thing more deeply in another session. In any case, your future self heeds what you say. Now in the actual future you are the self who hears the
voice of a past self, perhaps in a dream, or perhaps in a projection into the past. Projections from Trance and Dream States Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 265 Whatever information I can give you will be of great practical benefit. I do not want either of you traveling about unless you know what you are doing. Again I want to mention the matter of subconscious fabrications. Initially, particularly, you will meet with them. You must remember that you are wandering in completely different dimensions, and the rules with which you are familiar simply do not apply. You may, then, encounter images that are subconsciously formed, quite valid images that belong in another dimension; or constructions created by others in other systems. For any control at all, you must learn to distinguish one from the other. Again, if you meet a disturbing image, you must first will it to disappear. If it is a subconscious construction of your own it will vanish. But if you do not will it to disappear or realize its nature, then you must deal with it. I have told you that the form in which you are traveling can be a tipoff to you. If your levitation experience seems to carry you outside the solar system, then you know that you are in the third form and that your abilities for the time are almost limitless, comparatively speaking. Any image you see here must be accepted. It does no good to call these forms hallucinations, for they are no more hallucinations than the chair in which my friend Ruburt now sits. Ruburt told one of your friends to respect physical reality. 'Whether or not the automobile is a sensory hallucination, it can kill you,' he said. And I tell you that whether or not these projection images are hallucinations, they can be dangerous and you must respect the reality in which they exist. I want to be sure that you realize that some of these constructions belong to other systems. You are safe as long as you do not meddle. You may explore, and freely, and that is all. Now here are my instructions. You may induce a medium trance in whatever way you choose. On occasion, this will be almost spontaneous, as you know. For best results in the beginning, make a projection attempt when you feel slightly drowsy, but pleasantly so.
When you have induced the trance state, then begin to examine your own subjective feelings until you find recognition of the inner self. This involves a recognition of yourself as distinct from the flesh fibers in which you reside. Then, begin to imagine this inner self rising upward. You should experience at this point an internal sense of motion. This motion may be from side to side as you gently shake yourself loose. It may, instead, be a rushing upward. Whichever motion you experience, there will be a moment when you feel your identity and consciousness definitely withdrawing from the physical organism. Before you begin the experiment, the suggestion should also be given that the physical organism will be well protected and comfortable. When you feel your consciousness withdrawing, the first step is this: Forget the physical body or what you are to do with it. Will yourself out in a quick motion. There is no need to experience hallucinations. If the projection is a success, you will instantly lose contact with the body using this method. You will simply not be in it. It will be far from lifeless, of course. Its maintenance is being controlled by the consciousness of the individual cells and organs of which I have spoken. I will give you alternative methods of projection, but I will be concerned now with what you can expect the first few moments after leaving the body. Once you are out of body, then you are dealing with a different kind of reality, but the experience is as valid as any other. You may or may not have the sensation of traveling through doors or windows. This is dependent upon the kind of projection involved. The molecular structure of the projecting self is of a different nature than that of the physical body. There is no change in the physical nature of the door, for example. The molecular structure of the traveling self changes. There is no danger of not returning to the body, generally speaking. If in your projection you seem to be flying past treetops, then you are doing so.... You can meet and speak with others on some of these excursions. It is possible, with training, to arrange such meetings. For
any kind of scientific proof, of course, this would be a necessary preliminary. Remembering that I told you that you may visit not only the past, present and future as it exists or will exist in your terms, but you may also visit realities that never existed physically. In our earlier sessions, I mentioned that intensity regulated the 'duration' of experience. Now, many events that were only imagined never took place physically, yet they exist. They simply are not a part of your dimension of reality. You may, therefore, visit a museum that was planned in the sixteenth century, but never built. Such a museum has a reality as valid as the house in which you live. I have been speaking of projection from a trance state. Projection from a dream is something else again, and when executed successfully, you have a fine example of the self as it changes the focus of awareness. Here the critical consciousness can be fully alert while the body sleeps. Spontaneous, unrecalled projections of this kind happen often. It is beneficial that they be carried out by the conscious wish of the projector. You learn, therefore, to manipulate your own consciousness and to experience its mobility. Quite simply, such projections allow you practice in dealing with realities that you will meet when you no longer operate in the physical system. Using the Inner Senses During Projection Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 268 You remember that I listed the three forms used during projections. In the first form, you usually use certain inner senses. In the second form, you use more of these, and in the third form you attempt to use all of them, though very rarely is this successful. You should notice the overall form of perception that you seem to be using. You automatically shield yourselves from stimuli that are too strong for your rate of development. This kind of balancing can lead to an unevenness of experience, however, in any given projection. As you know, it is almost impossible for you to be aware of the full perceptions possible, for the ego would not stand for it. Often, even in simple dreams, however, you will feel concepts or understand a particular piece of information without a word being spoken. In some
projections, you will also experience a concept, and, at first, you may not understand what is happening. In these, you experience as actual the innermost reality of a given concept. Ruburt (in a dream given before this session) was in the third form, and he did project beyond your solar system. This was still a projection within the physical universe, however. He was given information that he did not remember. When you explore the inside of a concept, you act it out. You form a temporary but very vivid image production. If Ruburt's had only been this, it still would have been pertinent, for when you understand a concept in such a way the knowledge is never forgotten. It becomes part of your physical cells and your electromagnetic structure. I want to make this clearer, however. Suppose that you suddenly understand the concept of oneness with the universe, and that this inner sensing of concepts is to be used. You would then construct dream images, a multitudinous variety of shapes and forms meant to represent the complicated forms of life. You would then have the experience of entering each of those lives. You would not think of what it was like to be a bird. You would momentarily be one. This does involve projection of sorts, yet still must be called by contrast a pseudo-projection. A normal projection would involve one of three body forms. Some experiences, then, will be simple attempts to use the inner senses more fully. They may appear to be projections, and as we go along, I will tell you how to distinguish between them. You will be able to look back and see your physical body upon the bed on some occasions, and in other cases you will not be able to do this. In the first body form, for example, you can look back and see the physical body. If you project from this form into the next, in order to intensify the experience, then from this second form you will not see the physical one. You will be aware of it, and you may experience some duality. In the third form, you will no longer be aware of the physical body, and you will not see it. In the third form, your experiences will be the most vivid. They may involve you in other systems besides your own, and you will have little contact with the physical environment. For this reason, projections in this form are the most
difficult to maintain. There are dangers that do not exist when the other two forms are used. Using the third form, there could be a tendency for you not to recognize your own physical situation. It would be difficult to carry the memories of the present ego personality with you. This third form is the vehicle of the inner self. The disorientation that it feels is the same that it will feel when the physical body is deserted at the point of death. This disorientation is only temporary, and when at death the form is severed from the physical body, then all the memories and identity within the electromagnetic structure become part of the inner self. This form is sometimes used for purposes of instruction, however, or to acquaint the whole personality with the circumstances that strongly affect it. Most of your projections will be in the first and second form, in any case. Usually you will project from the physical body into the first form and then, perhaps, into the second. Occasionally, this will happen and you will not know it, despite all your attempts to ascertain your circumstances. There are ways of knowing when you switch forms, of course, and we shall see that you get this information. You should both have several projections within the first and second forms in the following months if your development continues at its present rate. I want to mention the difference in experience and sensation between projections from a dream state and those from a trances state and also what Ruburt calls awake-seeming dreams, for there are many things here that you do not know, and they are fairly important. Awake-Seeming Dreams Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 269 There are some notes I wanted to give you concerning dreams in which you feel certain you are normally awake. When these dreams are unusually vivid, then the ego is aware and participating, but generally it is not using its critical faculties. As you know, you can become critically alert, but when you do so, you realize that you are not in your normal waking condition.
In awake-seeming dreams you are indeed awake, but within a different psychological framework, indeed, within a different framework of reality. You are operating at a high level of awareness, and using the inner senses. These enable you to perceive an added depth of dimension which is responsible for the vividness and sense of exhilaration that often occurs within the kind of dream. The next step, of course, is to allow the ego to awaken its critical faculties while within this state. You are then able to realize that while you are indeed awake as you seem, you are awake while the body is asleep. When this occurs, you will be able to use your normal abilities in addition to those of the dream condition. You will be certain of your identity, realize that the physical self is sleeping or in a dream state and that the inner self is fully awake. This represents a definite increase in the scope of consciousness and a considerable expansion over the usual limitations set by you upon yourself. Only then can you fully begin to manipulate the conditions that exist and communicate this knowledge that you receive to the ego. For the time, you see, the ego becomes a direct participator in such experience, at least to a degree. Almost all of your dreams experiences do involve projection of one kind or another. These vary in intensity, type and even duration as any other experiences vary. It takes a good deal of training and competence to operate with any real effectiveness within these situations. All in all, the intellect plays some part, but the intuitional qualities are the most important. There are chemical changes, also, that occur with the physical body when projections happen, and electromagnetic variations. These vary according to the form in which the projection occurs. The projected form does make some impressions upon the physical system. It is possible for it to be detected. It is a kind of pseudoimage, materialistically speaking, but it has definite electromagnetic reality and chemical properties. Animals have sense such
apparitions. They react to the chemical properties and build up to the perception of the image from these. These chemical properties are more diffused in such an apparition than in a physical form, however. The chemical composition of a storm, perhaps, will give you an idea of what I mean.... They cause small disturbances in the physical system. As a rule, they are not solid, and yet they have shape and to a certain extent, boundaries and movement. They definitely have a reality, though you cannot usually perceive it with the physical senses. Perhaps this diffused quality is the most important difference, from your point of view, between an apparition and a physical form. There is an atomic structure, but in some ways it is less complete than the physical one. There is always a minute difference in the body's weight when the individual is projecting. Projections Hints and Chemical Excesses Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 274 Certain chemical changes must come about in the physical organism before projection can occur. Were it not for these, you would still be imprisoned within the physical image. You know that dreaming has a definite chemical basis, that chemicals built up during the period of waking experience are released through dreams. Not only are these released, but they form a propelling action that allows energy to flow in the opposite direction. As chemical reactions allow the body to utilize energy and form physical manifestations, so the excess becomes, then, a propelling force, allowing action to flow in what you would call subjective directions. This same chemical reaction must also occur, only more strongly, before legitimate projection can occur. This is one of the main reasons why deliberate projections are not more numerous. Usually the chemical access is used in normal dreaming. In periods of exuberant energy and well being, a more than normal excess accumulates. This can trigger a projection. In periods of momentary indisposition, however, the dreaming process may be blocked and the chemical accumulated. Again, a good time to try projection.
These chemical excesses are a natural byproduct of consciousness that is bound up in physical materialization. The more intense the characteristic experience of reality, the greater the chemical excess that is built up. Consciousness itself, when physically oriented, burns up chemicals. The more intense the individual, the hotter the fire, so to speak, and the greater the chemical excesses released. Released they must be, or the organism would not survive. Periods of intense activity may also generate this additional chemical propellant. Although this is generated through activity, it is released, making projection possible, in alternating periods of quietude and rest. There must be a disciplined focus, therefore, of this propellant. Periods of heightened sexual activity of a strong and deep nature will help. Periods of no sexual activity will also help, however. On the one hand, the chemical excess is built up as a result of great intensity, and in the latter case it is built up because psychic and sexual release has not been granted. Eggs and asparagus are helpful as far as diet are concerned. I am obviously not suggesting a whole diet of eggs and asparagus. These plus fish oils are beneficial, however, but not when taken with acid foods. I still suggest a more thorough examination of your dreams for many of them contain spontaneous projections. They are most apt to occur in the early hours, between 3:00 and 5:00 A.M. The body temperature drops at such times. Five in the afternoon is also beneficial from this standpoint. The drinking of pure water also facilitates projection, although for obvious reasons, the bladder should be empty. The north-south position is extremely important, and, indeed, is a necessary dream recall.... Energy is most easily utilized in this position for one thing, and this cuts unnecessary restrictions to a minimum. There is a vast difference between ordinary dreams and projections, whether or not projections occur from the dream threshold. Dreams are constructed and sent upon their way. As you know, they maintain an independence within their own dimension.
Projections involve many more aspects of the whole self and are a mark that the personality is progressing in important ways. The inner senses are allowed their greatest freedom in projection states, and the self retains experience that it would not otherwise. When this knowledge becomes a part of the ordinary waking consciousness, then you have taken a gigantic step forward. An almost automatic determination must be established, however, in conscious projections are to be anything but rare oddities. With both of you (Jane and Rob) the problem is somewhat different than it might be with others. These chemical excesses are used up, for one thing, in your own creative work. You do this automatically. It goes without saying that your own work will gain immeasurably through extended experience of projection. The yoga exercises allow you to draw an abundance - indeed, a superabundance - of energy. This energy results, also, in chemical excess that can be utilized in projections, without drawing energy away from your other work. The expectations and knowledge that you are a part of all energy will allow you to realize that all the energy you require will be given. Your attitude toward what is possible determines what is possible for you in very definite terms.... Now, there are also electromagnetic changes during projections that can be perceived with instruments. Certain electrical fields will make themselves known under these conditions. The fields have always existed, but they will become apparent to physical instruments only when they are crossed - in other words, at the very act of projection. Other hints: A cool body temperature but with room temperature between 73.8 and 75.9. High humidity is poor. The color of the room is important. Cool colors are best. Too warm colors are detrimental, being too closely allied with earthly conditions. In your climate (Elmira, New York), October, February and March are best. August can be beneficial, according to the weather. Too warm weather is detrimental.
More Projection Hints Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 276 Projections actually involve change of atomic structure. Consciousness simply changes its form. When projection is first accomplished, there is a strong charge of adrenaline in the body and high activity of the thyroid gland. There is a charge of sexual hormones which are utilized in projection. After projection is accomplished, however, there is a marked decline in chemical activity and hormone action, a drop in body temperature and a drop in blood pressure. The rapid eye movements noted by dream investigators cease entirely. The eye muscles are not used. The normal muscular activity that usually occurs in sleep vanishes. The physical body is in a deep trance state. The trance may also be masked by sleep if the projection happens from a dream threshold. According to the intensity of the projection and to the system visited, the body may become more or less ridged when consciousness returns. There is a subtle difference in the way sugar molecules are utilized. Momentarily, the body uses less sugar. However, the sugar is important in fueling the consciousness on its journey. It also aids in connecting the consciousness to the body. In other words, there is indeed a connection that is and must be partially physical, between the body and the traveling consciousness, and it is based upon a certain sugar molecule in a form not normally seen. Before conscious projections I would therefore recommend that you take a small amount of starchy or sugar food. A small snack before bed is a good idea from this viewpoint. Alcohol is of some benefit, though not to any great degree. Excellent results can be achieved in a dream-based projection during the day, in a nap. When these are good they will perhaps be the best of any dream-based projections. They are also exceedingly safe. The body itself is well stocked, so to speak, and it is possible to maintain projections for a longer period than usual in night projections.
Conscious Projection, and Projection into the Future The Early Sessions, Session 277 Your waking consciousness only participates in projections as a rule when you are in a period of high vitality, and exceptional health. On occasion the waking consciousness does participate during other usually very depressed periods. But generally speaking high energy is needed in order to maintain overall stability, and in order that the ego is not overstrained. Such conscious projections are automatically spaced out. In this way there is little danger that problems will arise. It is the same with the conscious retention of dreams in general. You are indeed exercising what amounts to an added ability. You are learning to manipulate within other dimensions of consciousness. Automatic controls are therefore used. You proceed as your abilities and control develop. Suggestion given before sleep will greatly add to your chances of conscious projections from the dream state. It is not necessary, basically speaking, that you notice some small incongruous detail in order to realize while dreaming that you are dreaming. There is however one good method to use. The suggestion "I will realize while dreaming that I am dreaming" can also be used, as another method, or both of these may be utilized together. At your stage it is of course easier if the actual separation of consciousness from the physical body occurs without your awareness. However the experience itself is excellent training. I have told you that these projections may carry you to different systems. In the beginning you are safer perhaps in those projections that involve your own reality. There is not any great matter of danger, only that you could fall into blunders. The north-south position is most beneficial. It might be of benefit if you concentrate before sleep upon a simple projection that involves leaving the body, walking out into this room, for example, (the living room) or perhaps strolling around the block.
When falling off to sleep for example, imagine that you are in your yard, in another room of your apartment, or in front of the house. When this method is effective you will not be consciously aware of the actual separation however. I do not suggest at this point that you or Ruburt attempt to contact me during any projection. Later, when you have more training. If by chance you blunder (smile, eyes open) into my territory, then I will know it, and seek you out. Whenever you find yourself in any potentially dangerous dream situation during a projection, immediately terminate the dream. You will then return to an ordinary state of consciousness. Now. Mr. Fox is quite correct. When you know you are in a projection do not be tempted to tamper. There are forces that you do not yet understand. You will find that these projections become more vivid. I must repeat that these are quite valid. They are not hallucinations. Conscious projections do not occur with any frequency as far as a large percentage of humanity is concerned. Note that I speak only now of projections in which you are self-consciously aware. The reasons are somewhat obvious. Conscious projections are dependent upon abilities and control. Also this ability and control presupposes a fairly disciplined personality. Otherwise we would have explosive outbursts of suddenly released aggressions in systems where they do not belong. It is quite possible to meet survival personalities, incidentally, during such projections. This does not happen often, because so many other issues are necessary. It is also possible of course to move into your own future. - This occurs regularly, though not always with awareness. Projections into the past are also frequent. Because of some matters we have not yet discussed, at any rate deeply, it is possible to meet your own projection. You are accountable for acts committed during projections, of course, and these alter the personality as any acts do. If you have your wits about you, you can gain information concerning the future by studying your projection environment, if for any reason you suppose it to be ahead of you in time.
Some of this is extremely complicated. You may for example request before sleep that you project into your own future, to see what occurs there. This is legitimate enough, if you are willing to accept the results of your projections. For what you see will influence what you do in the present. You will be projecting of course into the probable future as it exists for you at this point. The very act of projecting will alter these probabilities. I am not saying that this future environment is not real, however. It is as real as your present. Eight Root Assumptions of the Inner Universe Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 284 You agree to accept certain data in the physical universe. You agree to form this into certain patterns, and you agree to ignore other data completely. These now, called root assumptions, form the main basis for the apparent permanence and coherence of your physical system. In your journeys into inner reality, you cannot proceed with these same root assumptions. Reality, per se, changes completely according to the basic root agreements that you accept. One of the root agreements upon which physical reality is based is the assumption that objects have a reality independent of any subjective cause and that these objects, within definite specified limitations, are permanent. Objects may appear and disappear in these other systems. Using the root assumptions just mentioned as a basis for judging reality, an observer would insist that the objects were not real, for they do not behave as he believes objects must. Because dream images may appear and disappear, then, do not take it for granted that they do not really exist. There is a cohesiveness to the inner universe and to the systems that are not basically physical. But this is based upon an entirely different set of root assumptions and these are the keys that alone will let you manipulate within other systems or understand them. There are
several major root assumptions connected here and many minor ones: 1) Energy and action are basically the same, although neither must necessarily apply to physical action. 2) All objects have their origin basically in mental action. Mental action is directed psychic energy. 3) Permanence is not a matter of time. Existence has value in terms of intensities. 4) Objects are blocks of energy perceived in a highly specialized manner. 5) Stability in time sequence is not a prerequisite requirement for an object, except as a root assumption in the physical universe. 6) Space as a barrier does not exist. 7) The spacious present is here more available to the senses. 8) The only barriers are mental or psychic ones. Only if these basic root assumptions are taken for granted will your projection experiences make sense to you. Different rules simply apply. Your subjective experience is extremely important here; that is, the vividness of any given experience in terms of intensity will be far more important than anything else. Elements from the past, present and future may be indiscriminately available to you. You may be convinced that a given episode is the result of subconscious fabrication, simply because the time sequence is not maintained, and this could be a fine error. In a given dream projection, for example, you may experience an event that is obviously from the physical past, yet within it there may be elements that do not fit. In an old-fashion room of the 1700's, you may look out and see an automobile pass by. Obviously, you think: distortion. Yet you may be straddling time in such an instance, perceiving, say, the room as it was in the 1700's and the street as it appears in your present. These elements may appear side by side. The car may suddenly disappear before your eyes, to be replaced by an animal or the whole street may turn into a field. 'This is how dreams work,' you may think. 'This cannot be a legitimate projection.' Yet you may be perceiving the street and the field that existed 'before' it, and the images may be transposed one upon the other. If you try to judge such an experience with physical root
assumptions, it will be meaningless. As mentioned earlier, you may perceive a building that will never exist in physical reality. This does not mean that the form is illusion. You are simply in a position where you can pick up and translate the energy pattern before you. If another individual under the same circumstances comes across the same 'potential' object, he can also perceive it as you did. He may, however, because of his own make-up, perceive and translate another portion of allied pattern. He may see the form of the man who originated the thought of the building. To a large extent in the physical system, your habit of perceiving time as a sequence forms the type of experience and also limits it. This habit also unites the experiences, however. The unifying and limiting aspects of consecutive moments are absent in inner reality. Time, in other words, cannot be counted on to unify action. The unifying elements will be those will be those of your own understanding and abilities. You are not forced to perceive action as a series of moments within inner reality, therefore. Episodes will be related to each other by different methods that will be intuitional, highly selective and psychological. You will find your way through complicated mazes of reality according to your own intuitional nature. You will find what you expect to find. You will seek out what you want from the available data. In physical experience, you are dealing with an environment with which you are familiar. You have completely forgotten the chaos and unpredictable nature it presented before learning processes were channeled into its specific directions. You learned to perceive reality in a highly unified fashion. When you are dealing with inner, or basically non-physical realities, you must learn to become unspecialized and then learn a new set of principles. You will soon learn to trust your perceptions, whether or not the experiences seem to make logical sense. In a projection, the problems will be of a different sort. The form of a man, for example, may be a thought-form, or a fragment sent quite unconsciously by another individual whom it resembles. It may be
another projectionist, like yourself. It may be a potential form like any potential object... a record of a form played over and over again. It may be another version of yourself. We will discuss ways of distinguishing between these. A man may suddenly appear, and be then replaced by a small girl. This would be nonsensical development to the logical mind; yet, the girl might be the form of the man's previous or future reincarnated self. The unity, you see, is different. Basically, perception of the spacious present is naturally available. It is your nervous physical mechanism which acts as a limiting device. But acting in this manner it forces you to focus upon what you can perceive with greater intensity. Your mental processes are formed and developed as a result of this conditioning. The intuitive portions of the personality are not so formed, and these will operate to advantage in any inner exploration. You are basically capable of seeing any particular location as it existed a thousand years in your past or as it will exist a thousand years in your future. The physical senses serve to blot out more aspects of reality that they allow you to perceive... yet, in many inner explorations you will automatically translate experience into terms that the senses can use.... Any such translation is, nevertheless, a second hand version of the original - an important point to remember. Physical Root Assumptions, Perception, and Symbols Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 285 Root assumptions represent the basic premises upon which a given existence-system is formed. These are the ground rules, so to speak. Your physical mechanisms are equipped to function in such a way that reality is perceived through the lens of particular root assumptions, then. Using the physical senses, it is almost impossible for you to perceive reality in any other way. Physically speaking, you will find nothing to contradict these assumptions, since they are all that you can experience or perceive physically. These root assumptions are the framework of the camouflage system. As you explore other realities, you almost
automatically interrupt such data in terms of root assumptions of your own system. This highly falsifies such information. The inner senses are not bound by those assumptions, however.... This is why so many psychic or subjective experiences seem to contradict physical laws. You must learn the 'laws' that apply to other systems. The root assumptions that govern physical reality are indeed valid, but within physical reality alone. They do not apply elsewhere. There is a natural tendency to continue judging experience against these assumptions, however. With experience, the habit will lose much of its hold. Inner experience must be colored to some extent by the physical system, while you exist in it. In order for such data to rise to conscious levels, for example, it must be translated into terms that the ego can understand, and the translation is bound to distort the original experience.... (Seth discusses LSD…) Development of the inner senses is a much more effective method of perceiving other realities, and, followed correctly, the ego is not only stronger but more flexible. Even consciousness of physical reality is increased. Such development becomes an unfolding and natural expansion of the whole personality. These root assumptions are so part of your existence that they cloud your dreams. Beneath them, however, portions of the self perceive physical reality in an entirely different fashion, free of the tyranny of objects and physical form. Here you experience concepts directly, without the need for symbols. You have knowledge of your 'past' personalities and know that they exist simultaneously with your own. The practice of psychological time will allow you to reach these portions of the self. The ego is not artificially disorganized by such practice. It is simply bypassed for the moment. The experience gained does become part of the physical structure, but there is no massive disorganization of perception, since the ego agrees to step aside momentarily.
It is not bombarded, as with the drug experiment, and forced to experience chaotic and frightening perceptions that can terrify it into complete disorder. Survival in your system is dependent upon highly specialized, focused, limited but specific qualities of the ego. It should not be rigid. Neither should it be purposely weakened. The root assumptions upon which physical reality is formed represent secure ground to the ego. We always operate with the ego's consent. It interprets the inner knowledge gained in its own way, true, but it is immeasurably enriched by so doing. The ego can exist only within the context of these assumptions. The primary dream experience is finally woven into a structure composed of these assumptions, and it is these you remember. These serve you as basic information but the information is in symbolic form. Objects, you see, are symbols. Dream objects are often symbols of realities that the ego could not otherwise perceive. Projections into Uncamouflaged Areas and Other Systems of Reality Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 287 You will sometimes automatically translate this reality into physical terms. Such images will be hallucinatory, but it may take awhile for you to distinguish their true nature. It must be understood, however, that all physical objects are hallucinatory. They may be called mass hallucinations. There is constant translation of inner reality into objects in waking state and a constant translation of ideas into pseudo-objects in the dream state. Within a certain range of dream reality, ideas and thoughts can be translated into pseudo-objects and transported. This is what happens when you adopt a pseudo-form in projection, though I am simplifying this considerably. When you travel beyond a certain range of intensities, even pseudoobjects must vanish. They exist in a cluster about, and connected to, your system. The lack of these, obviously, means that you have gone beyond your own camouflage system. If it were possible, you would then travel through a range of intensities in which no camouflage
existed. Then you would encounter the pseudo-camouflage of the next system. This would or would not be physical matter, according to the system. You would then encounter the heart of the camouflage area. The completely uncamouflaged areas at the outer edges of the various systems should remind you of the undifferentiated areas between various life cycles in the subconscious. This is no coincidence. As a rule, you see, there is little communication within the uncamouflaged areas. They act as boundaries, even while they represent the basic stuff of which all camouflage is composed. (Without the camouflage, you would perceive nothing with the physical senses.) The sentence is really meaningless, however, because the physical senses are themselves camouflage. There would be nothing to translate. It is only the inner senses that will allow you to perceive under these circumstances. Theoretically, if you can bridge the gap between various reincarnations, then you can bridge the gap between your system and another. Once more: The undifferentiated layers are composed of the vitality that forms the camouflage of all systems. Such an area is not really a thing in itself, but a portion of vitality that contains no camouflage, and is therefore unrecognizable to those within any given system. You are in touch with infinity in such areas, since it is only camouflage that gives you the conception of time.... Now, during some projections, you may be aware of nothing as far as surroundings are concerned. There will only be the mobility of your consciousness. If this occurs, you will be traveling through such an uncamouflaged area. You could then expect to encounter next a more differentiated environment that seems to become clearer as you progress toward the heart of another system. This completely uncamouflaged would be rather bewildering. You might automatically be tempted to project images into it. They would not take, so to speak, but would appear and disappear with great rapidity. This is a silent area. Thoughts would not be perceived here, as a rule, for the symbols for them would not be understood.
If a certain intensity is reached, however - a peak of intensity - then you could perceive the spacious present as it exists within your present native system. You could, from this peak, look into other systems, but you would not understand what you perceived, not having the proper root assumptions. I have used the idea of neighboring systems for simplicities sake, as if they were laid out end to end. Obviously, such is not the case. The systems [of reality] are more like various segments of a tangerine, with the uncamouflaged boundary areas like the white membrane between the tangerine sections. The tangerine, then, would be compared to a group of many systems, yet it would represent in itself but one portion of an unperceived whole. The tangerine would be but one segment of a larger system. You can see, then, why some projections would lead you in a far different direction from your linear sort of travel and why time as you know it would be meaningless. Nor do such projections necessarily involve journeys through space as you know it. There are systems, vivid in intensity, that have no existence in physical reality at all. It is now thought, I believe, that time and space are basically one, but they are both part of something else. They are merely the camouflage patterns by which you perceive reality. Space as you perceive it in dream states comes closer to the reality. Projections within your own system will, of course, involve some kind of camouflage. If none is present, you will know you are out of the system. The dream universe is obviously closely connected with your own, since pseudo-objects are present. Even there, you are to some extent free from the space-time elements of your own system. Within the dream state, then, you are in the 'outward' areas of the physically oriented universe. One point: There are other systems all about and within your own. The undifferentiated areas move out like spirals, through all reality. Little resistance is encountered within them. They represent inner roads that connect systems, as well as divide them. The traveler must
leave his own camouflage paraphernalia behind him, however, or he will get nowhere. It is possible, theoretically, to travel to any system in this manner and bypass others, you see. Such a traveler would not age physically. His body would be in a suspended state. Only a few individuals have traveled in this manner. Most of the knowledge gained escapes the ego, and the experiences cannot be translated by the physical brain. However, it is possible to travel under such circumstances and some of the data would be retained by the inner portions of the self. In a creative individual, some of this information might be symbolically expressed in a painting or some other work of art. Projections in the Middle of the Night Dreams and Projections of Consciousness, Session 298 When you awaken - or seem to awaken - in the middle of the night, try to get out of the body. Simply try to get out of the bed without moving the body and go into another room. This is a pleasant and easy method. With some experience you will discover that you can maintain control, walk out of the apartment and outside. You may then attempt normal locomotion or levitate. There is little strain in this method. Keep it in mind so the you are alert to the initial favorable circumstances. You may be half awake. You may be in a false awakening. The method will work in either case. You can, if you want to, look back at your body. You must want to do this, however. Often, you do not want to see the body by itself, so to speak, and so choose methods that make this more difficult. Just this one exercise will sharpen your control greatly. It is an ABC. This experience is also less startling to the ego than a more abrupt projection, and the ordinary nature of these activities - walking into the next room, for example - will be reassuring. You are more calm in your own surroundings. Now it is possible for someone within the body to perceive someone who is not, but it is not usual. The perceiver must be a person of strong psychic abilities or the projecting personality must be driven by high emotional intensity to make himself known.
Infinity, Illusions, Basic Reality, and a Projection Experiment The Early Sessions, Book 7, Session 305, p.199-200 Individual selves will retain identity. They will be able to participate at a high level of awareness with the whole of which they are part. The whole is far more infinite than you can conceive. In a basic sense, the whole is aware of all of its parts, and in a basic sense all of its parts are aware of the whole. But each self must go its own way and develop its own abilities and explore the possibilities which it creates itself, otherwise the whole would stagnate. The whole gains vivid experience through the life of its parts. The whole needs its segments. The vitality must constantly create itself in new patterns and each new pattern, of course, brings forth new possibilities of development. Infinity has nothing to do with space or time as you know it. Infinity is the state of becoming and can never have an end for it is never completed. Infinity has to do with value fulfillment, and the unfoldings of ever-new possibilities, the exploration of moment points, the traveling through dimensions that ever creates the illusion of time. But since there is no time, what is there to end? The experience of projection will give you some small glimmering of infinity. Pretend that in an exploration during a projection you found yourself beside a tree. You entered the tree. You stayed there and followed it through the seasons. Then you grew restless and entered a bird who perched upon the branches and you flew merely several feet away. A child stands nearby and you entered the child. You intruded upon the child in no way. You were there within the child like air. All of this seemed to take no time at all. The child became old. You traveled to a nearby lake and became a fish. In succession you entered many things and finally returned to your body. You had experienced centuries, yet only an hour of your time had passed. The feeling that you would have inside this highly improbable projection would give you some idea, though a very weak one, of the feeling of infinity.
Now, in one sense, all selves are projections of the whole or that which is. New universes such as your own constantly come into existence. Systems and planes far different develop and in turn form other systems. Infinity has meaning only in subjective and psychic terms. The physical brain cannot contain the idea of infinity. The concept will not fit into three-dimensional terms. The whole self, the inner self, moves within the concept of infinity as you move within physical reality through space. Infinity contains all that will ever be known, and, of course, all that will ever be known is known within the spacious present. Yet these very terms, all that will ever be known, are distortive, for they suggest an ending of knowledge and experience and there is none. Now, "There is no place to go" if you know what is truly meant by that statement. It is also true that there are as many places to go as you wish to find. You always create the places and the destinations at which you arrive. There are no places, and there are infinities of places. The inner self forms all systems and all places. On the one hand you can indeed call them illusion. On the other hand, these illusions are quite real. They are the clothing over the basic reality. The basic reality is indeed within the illusions. Look beneath them and within them and you will feel it. But they are themselves composed of it, and you cannot really separate the two. Words are inadequate to explain what I mean here. Basic reality cannot know itself without creating diversity. The diversity is the various forms that reality takes, the various systems within which it expresses itself through projecting itself into infinite individualized experience. Now that sentence is an important one. Each inner self is a portion of the basic inner reality. It cannot know itself, however, except through experience, and it must create in order to experience. The experience constantly deepens the value fulfillment of basic reality itself There is no alternative between diversity and nothingness.
That which is, is constantly aware of its growing, surging existence, through the diversity of experience which it creates constantly and simultaneously. You are part of that which is, you are that which is. It is impossible for any part of that which is not to be individualized. Every part of that which is, is alive, and knows itself. Projecting Universal Vitality for the Sick The Early Sessions, Book 7, Session 364, p.126 The husband, now, should follow this exercise three times daily: He should imagine the energy and vitality of the universe filling his wife's form with vitality and health. Not a wishful thinking sort of thing, but a definite effort to understand that her form is indeed composed of this energy, and in this way he can help her use it to her advantage. If possible he should touch her during this exercise, and it should be done morning, noon and evening. Negative Suggestions, and What to Do about Them The Early Sessions, Book 7, Session 332, p. 333-334 There is an inability to handle his own energy- At times his own energy frightens him, and then it seems to abandon him completely. Here, however, he has abandoned it, for he succumbs easily to negative suggestions. Because he is sensitive to various elements, he also soaks up atmosphere and suggestions like a sponge, and he has not learned to protect himself. In poor periods he is almost completely vulnerable to negative suggestion, so that it operates through his own psychic and physical system. He should then often give himself the following suggestion: "I will only react to constructive suggestions." You may take a break and we shall continue. Now, listen to me. When you find yourself facing such negative images in your mind and projecting them into the future, you should at once mentally wipe out that image and replace it with a constructive image, seeing yourself, for example, sitting in command of a well-ordered room.
This must be done immediately and upon every such occasion and under every such circumstance. This exercise will indeed wipe out the previous negative image. You must mentally wipe out the negative image, for example. If you think that tomorrow Johnny F will misbehave in study hall, you should, in your mind, replace this with the image of Johnny F behaving very well. In the first place, if you imagine that a particular student will misbehave, you are automatically sending him a telepathic message to that effect. If he is highly susceptible to suggestion, he will carry out the suggestions that you have given. When you replace this with a constructive thought, you are sending that constructive suggestion to which he will also react. Any time you see yourself in your mind as unhealthy or staggering, you must immediately wipe the image away and make an effort to see instead a mental image of yourself as healthy and strong. Such images affect your whole physical system through the manufacture of hormones and chemicals. Suggestions, whether given to you or given by you, cause an emotional situation that automatically affects the production of hormones and chemicals. I told you to tell yourself- I will only react to constructive suggestions. If however, you find yourself harboring a negative suggestion, then instantly counter it by replacing it with a constructive one. This can be compared and correctly to errors in a painting. When you are in a poor state of mind, you automatically affect the others you meet, negatively. You then react to their behavior and complete the circle. Now this leads into a highly charged emotional environment, which is the cause of the depressions of which you have spoken. When the peak is reached then self-pity controls your emotions so completely that there seems to be no escape. In a mood of self-pity there is indeed an almost perverted luxury, the luxury of despair, for despair says: There is nothing I can do, and relieves you of any responsibility for change. This applies not to you only but to such a state in general. You become incapable of getting out of yourself, even to the extent of enjoying small pleasures and, little by little it
seems every joy is withdrawn from you until nothing is left but despair. This is caused by the culmination of negative suggestions and of negative thought. They build up until you can take it no longer. In the natural state of affairs, however, sooner or later, some highly charged positive suggestion then begins to clear the emotional air. Tips for Artists The Early Sessions, Book 8, Session 401, p.221 You should in any case whenever possible sketch outdoors, for you are personally renewed by such an encounter, And the implications are very different. When you are outdoors sketching there is before you a large expanse. It is easier to think in terms of size and expansion. Thoughts of expansion will help your work, so that the energy and vision are not imprisoned by form but are within form, even while in the process of change. When you are sketching outdoors, as a helpful exercise I suggest the following: attach your focus of attention to one small thing. It may be a flower or a stone. Something however that catches your own eye. Imagine the energy within that object perpetual, but in terms of being endlessly alive and vital. Pretend that the energy within that object is the center of life, so that the whole rest of the universe derives its energy within that stone or flower. Do this until you can feel that energy pulsate within the form of the object, so that the form itself is ever mobile while it retains the semblance, as in a stone, of immobility. Think of the energy as radiating outward from the object, giving life to all other things, whether or not many specific objects are to be in any given painting. This will result in paintings in which your chosen point of attention radiates through the form, illuminating all other objects in the painting, and psychically radiating outward from the painting. It will automatically be evocative of other objects not in the painting, and will automatically remind the viewer of the universe that you did not paint. Expansiveness is built in psychically in this manner.
I believe that some Spanish artists in the past utilized this same sort of idea. Now in other ways it was also utilized by your old masters. The expansiveness then was also of a spiritual nature. Whatever objects were shown in the painting automatically presupposed the existence of spiritual realities, and other universes, though these presuppositions were highly ritualistic. The meaning behind them was known to all. Each of the great masters' paintings somehow suggest the existence of far greater realities, of which the paintings were a part. They saw the objects within their paintings as portions of a greater whole that was suggested by the painting. Now the suggestion I have given you is the same sort of thing. There is no dependence upon agreed ritualistic symbol, however. The exercise itself will allow you to make the necessary transformation, where the one becomes all. Now this is the expansion of which I am speaking. It will cause immediate physical evocative reactions. Do you follow me here? The timeless quality will be built in, for the painting itself, though flawless in form, will suggest the changing quality of form, and stress the permanent quality that gives it its meaning. If you as artist are also aware that the same energy that fills the form that you paint also forms your own image, then the transformation into something better than excellent art is made. Now the energy can be best suggested by transparents, rather than opaques, for the opaques arc too ponderous. The opaques can be used effectively to suggest the form, superimposed lightly over the transparent energy, but never with a heavy hand. A good use of transparents in oils will make you more pleased with using them. Movement can be best portrayed also with transparents, and even for rocks. While opaques may be used to suggest physical heaviness,
transparents should be used also to show that in actuality rocks are as light as air, and to hint at the ever-mobile energy that forms them. Now again, much of this has to do with your own interest. Opaques are excellent to suggest a heavy or dark mood. In portraits, while the inner skeletal structure must be hinted at, and while the figure should be well done, still the should be the suggestion of the personality going beyond the image, and of personality's energy radiating outward. In a portrait, do the same exercise as given earlier. Imagine the individual as the center of all life, so that when the painting is completed it automatically suggests the whole universe of which the individual is part. Nothing exists isolation, and this is the secret that the old masters knew so well. Ideas of Plenty The Early Sessions, Book 8, Session 404, p.246 Your subjective life has been somewhat permeated by thoughts of want, and literally poverty, until you have indeed exaggerated your own situation. The exaggerated situation could come to pass however if you persist in protecting those images outward. They would not help you get a raise but act to the contrary, and they have done so in the past. I am giving you advice in very practical terms. What you do with it is up to you. But you have severely limited yourself in this respect. In the past Ruburt helped you generate such negative ideas, but he has been making an attempt to combat them. His own experience has proven to him that I was right in other regards. As long as you believe that others are taking advantage of you, they will do so. The origin is in yourself, and this is what you have not so far understood. The origin is not in others. For fifteen minutes a day agree to suspend critical judgment, and following the Maltz method imagine yourself vividly in the position you would like to be. The rest of the time consciously make an effort to control your attitude when you find yourself thinking in terms of want or poverty. Then switch your
thoughts to ideas of plenty. This need not involve hypocrisy, indeed must not. You must feel that this is legitimate and practical, because the thoughts of plenty will automatically begin to attract plenty. This is sufficient. There should not be an overemphasis (underlined) on material possessions or security however. Now this program if faithfully followed will bring results. It will initiate intuitive concepts, ideas in your work which will automatically attract others to possess them. It will initiate other actions that will result in financial betterment Do you have any questions pertaining to this particular material? Plunging into Irritating Sounds The Early Sessions, Book 8 Session 418, p.325-326 Now I have an experiment for you. You may not think much of it. But try it. When you are bothered by noise and tumult, by traffic and the sound of neighbors' voices, by lawn mowers and other irritating sounds, try this: do not fight them. Purposely plunge into them; go along with them as action, and they can refresh you. Do it as an act of will, and your intuitions, oddly enough, will be refreshed. They need not serve automatically as inhibiting factors unless you allow them to. But it is not enough in your case to ignore them and despise them. Let them work for you. If done in the correct spirit, this will help free your intuitive nature, and to a large extent help wash away automatic blocks that have been inhibiting. You do not have to be afraid of going along with what these sounds represent. You will not lose your sense of isolation nor your individuality. This is basically behind your reaction having to do with your early life. You felt your mother's liveliness and vitality threatening, for it was not disciplined in any manner, but erratic. This was added to by the sensed power of your father's inhibited vitality. You felt the combination could sweep you aside, and literally
destroy you. Undirected vitality and undisciplined vitality has frightened you, and noise to you represents the tumultuous undisciplined emotions that you feared. The exercise will do much to override this, for you are strong enough and you need inner freedom. There is behind such seemingly undirected, abstract tumult and energy, direction that cannot be intellectually perceived, but can be intuitively sensed. And this is the force that is behind your own art and all creativity. It can even serve as a framework for creativity, for from these raw materials you can forge and direct energy for your own purposes. You can take that tumult and use it, but not if you set yourself up against it. Then, it is threatening to you. Various sounds rush at you. From one inharmonious high-pitched yell for example, if you listen, you as an artist can sense the self that was forced to make that sound, perhaps emerge with a prize, an excellent portrait, or simply an unique and individual mouth. Or a landscape that screams out as the voice did. From the sound, the assaulting onrushing sound of traffic, if you listen you can emerge with the prize-perhaps an abstract, with the pulsating sounds transferred to rhythm and color; or perhaps again a portrait, here, of a compulsive personality, driven, and yet behind it all the purpose which is not easily seen, and the reason. I have given you a few examples simply to clarify my remarks. But these evidences of action, apparently chaotic and undisciplined, are parts of inner frameworks that do have both purpose and reason. As you know, even your physical system reacts when you brace yourself against these things as irritations. But properly used they can lead you to exaltations, and you would use such exaltations then in a disciplined, directed manner. The struggle; now you must not struggle, Joseph, to close out those stimuli that annoy you. Your mother has done this. Use them for your benefit. Those things that annoy you precisely represent the greatest challenges to your personality and abilities.
Used, they can help you fulfill yourself to the utmost…. The sounds can be used in your paintings like colors. A freedom will result from this exercise, though you may be uneasy at trying it. Painting the Future The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 437, p. 77 When your portrait of the artist was done your own psychic abilities had grown as much as your artistic knowledge. There has been a leap that you did not realize you had accomplished. It has appeared in your psychological climate, rather than in specific instances. You should be able to tune in, so to speak, on some future probable events, I believe in image form, after a few attempts. Do this as if you were starting out to paint a picture, requesting to see the images of certain persons at a given time or situation in the future, and let your abilities then fill in on the imaginative pattern. This procedure should suit you well. Make sure you do not force the images. Imagine a blank canvas or board, or blank framed picture if you prefer. I will give you an example. This is not a specific suggestion but an example of what I mean. Say that you are going to try to see Prentice-Hall's reaction - will they accept the manuscript or not? Then imagine the blank picture as if you were going to paint it in your mind. Either see Ruburt painted in with the expression on his face as he reads the significant letter, and instead of the title the date of the letter. Another method: pretend you are painting Ruburt with a picture of the book in his hand, then the details as to the publisher and so forth would be painted in for you. I suggest in your case therefore an approach using imagery, although there will be several ways of trying to get given information, as you see. You should find this a valuable training. Now colors may be significant, particularly to you, and so the colors used in the imaginary
painting may be symbolic. If so you will have to interpret them. The painting technique will call forth your creative powers more strongly, and give impetus to the psychic work involved. Painting the Viewpoint The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 437, p. 79 Give us a moment. A circle with segments cut into it like a pie may also be used by you to signify time segments. You will have to work out your own interpretation here, for the whole circle will represent various amounts of time, according to what you require. If you want to discover in what month something will come about for example, you may visualize the circle cut into 12 segments, or have this idea in your mind. Then as the painting is painted, so to speak, so many of these segments would be removed, representing the months that will pass before the event. A trick you may use, though you do not need it, when you want an idea for a new painting, is as follows. Pick a day in your future and simply request that you see that painting you will be working on at that time. Now we are involved with something rather tricky here, and I will explain the mechanics of it but not this evening. The picture of the painting should be available to you however. You can then use it in this present. If you are looking for a refreshing change, a lighthearted experiment, then imagine what painting you would paint if you were a particular other person, gifted with your own abilities. The painting would be your own in any case, sifted through your own individuality. There were paintings planned by various great masters that were never painted, and these ideas exist. Sifted through your own individuality they become your own. Many sessions ago I gave you some information concerning painting the viewpoint, and suggestions also as to how to approach a natural object, to become it. (Sessions 400 & 401). You can also imagine how that natural object would appear to others of various ages and temperaments, or to me, or how curious it would seem to someone who does not dwell within your own system.
All of these suggestions tend to activate your creative and psychic abilities and that is why I have given them to you together. Now unless you have questions I will end the session. I hope you look forward to some psychological time experiments of your own. I have given you a good manual. Finding the Center of Yourself The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 448, p. 145 Now, with all you have been told about the nature of personality, and of the many of which you are a part, it would now be a help if you could find the center of your larger self. You can intuitively become aware to some extent of your own reincarnations, so that you feel a recognizable sense of familiarity. Now there is unity in all. You have been told that there is a point where all dimensions and systems of reality merge. Now the same is true of consciousness. You are a part of a larger self, an entity, and because you are there is a portion of you that has access to the knowledge of your entity. All of it would not be translatable. Some of it would have no meaning for you, but much of this is accessible. There are ways of finding what I will call this center of yourself. It will give you direct experience with many concepts that we have been discussing. I will give you more reincarnational data on your own lives; as you travel to the center of yourself however you will feel and know your own pasts as directly as the circumstances permit. More than this however, your abilities and your challenges will appear to you in a much clearer light, and uncluttered focus. The experience will deepen and reinforce your sense of individuality, and you will know for yourself that you are one in many, and yet many in one. There are five steps. It is possible to cover all of them at once, or the process may take you some time. First however imagine your consciousness out of your body in its astral form. Next, feeling that you are in the astral form, tell yourself that from that image you will be able to see the image of the person that you were in your immediately past life.
I cannot tell you whether you will succeed at once, as you may, or whether you will find it difficult. You, Joseph, being proficient with images, may find it easier than Ruburt. Now when you feel that you have this new image of your past self before you, then imagine that your consciousness is moving from your astral form into this past self You should not do this until you see the whole form. Before you see the whole form you may try to mentally communicate with it however, asking it questions. This is one approach. You may for example end up using this as the main method of communication between your present and your past one. Otherwise will your consciousness as mentioned earlier into the image, then ask yourself. Who am I? Where was I born? What memories are mine? If you have succeeded here, then memories and images will flash through your mind in the same way that your present self would ordinarily recall its past. Then, will yourself to return to your own astral image, then to your physical body. From here repeat to yourself what you have learned, and whatever data you have received, reminding yourself that this is also a part of your identity. This may be done very well imaginatively, in other stages of the process. After you have managed to feel yourself above your body in your astral form, you again tell yourself to see the image of the same past self You may then imagine its image merging with your own, and its memories a part of your own consciousness. When you have succeeded, then still feeling yourself in the astral form, tell yourself that you will next see the image of the life before last: the image of the person you were, then repeat the other steps. The whole exercise, or any part of it, must only be done in order to avail yourself of wisdom, so that you can use your own abilities to help yourself and others. The purpose is very important, for when the purpose is a good one then it unites the other images about you and your purpose
beneficially. It is part of the equation, as important as a plus sign rather than a minus sign, and as important to your results. Various kinds of experiences may develop. You may request information concerning abilities for example, and hear your answer internally. You may instead feel the stirrings of memory, and experience yourself using abilities developed as a past personality. At any point in the exercise, for it can happen at any stage, you will suddenly feel the you of you, the center identity that runs through all the selves of which you have been part. You may also in a flash see glimpses of further realities that would be future to your present self. According to the circumstances and your own condition, results can be amazingly rapid, or slow. You may try many times and then succeed... the methods are extremely important however, and should be definitely included in our material. There are also some variations on these that I will give you. Those who try the exercises with wrong purposes will not succeed, for they will not have the proper equation, and it is the one part that cannot be given to them. Do you understand? Flexibility Enhancement Visualization The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 456, p. 203 I will then give Ruburt some suggestions as to normal living habits that if followed will enable him to stay in good health. One of these will be a mental exercise, taking no more than ten minutes, and if done properly, only three times a week, will be of great benefit in keeping joints and muscles loose and free. I should perhaps give you that exercise now. When resting, and in a tranquil state of mind, he should simply imagine the limbs slowly stretching out, becoming somewhat longer, and then slowly returning to their original length. He should then imagine the neck revolving easily and normally three times in each direction; mentally here doing the yoga neck exercise that he recalls. The lengthening exercise is to be emphasized with the arms particularly. The toes and fingers should be visualized as lengthening
also, easily and slowly, and then returning to normal position. The joints should be imagined as moving easily. At the same time, he should dwell on the idea of flexibility and freedom, mental, spiritual, psychic and physical flexibility. That is the end of the exercise. It will do good also if during the day occasionally he imagines the exercise as he goes about his chores, but he should not do this willfully, with an intent to command physical performance. The whole thing should be done with a mental lightness, more as if it were a children's game, and he must remember this for it is the whole point of the procedure. The potato is effective, and highly. The symbolism in holding the potato, you see, is that tensions and poisons pass from the fingers into the potato, which is a root vegetable. It is symbolism, but highly effective for that reason, and for that reason it does indeed draw out tensions and poisons. Some Projection Advice, and Destroying Negative Constructions The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 481, Page 285 (Below, Seth discusses a projection experience of Jane’s on Friday, May 9, that involved her perception of my astral presence of the apartment, although I was at work at Artistic Card Company that day.) Now. Rubert’s experience of you was quite legitimate, although you are not consciously aware of your activities. You are nevertheless largely responsible for the encounter as it took place. You are thinking both consciously and below consciousness about Rubert’s appointment at the dentist. You wanted to give him confidence and to reassure him. This acted as an emotional impetus. Rubert was working and without realizing it telepathically was aware of your emotional presence. It was this that gave him the idea of a projection experiment that morning. He wanted to see if he could become aware of your form. You did not want to project, per se. He wanted to be here to offer reassurance. The desire got you here. Your conscious mind was
taken up fully with your activities, giving the inner self full reign. In the same way do you travel in other realities without being aware of your journeys. You were not frightened, either of you, because of the familiar surroundings, and you were unusually free to express your feelings for each other, released from the restraints of time. You perceive to normal fashion, which should tell you that perception is not dependent upon the physical image. You were well aware of your relationship. You have both traveled together in such a fashion often from the dream state, without your knowledge. There is no reason why you cannot try such experiments by trying to project at the same time. If you try to do this from a dream state that you must set aside two and one-half hours, for the first portion will be used as preliminaries. You can also give yourselves such suggestions before you go to sleep. You might begin by making an appointment to meet each other, say at three in the morning in the living room. You would feel more comfortable if your initial journeys were within the apartment. You sleep more deeply as a rule than Rubert, hence you must be sure to give yourself the suggestion to awaken to remember. It might also help you to place an object to which you are strongly attached to the living room. Impressed yourself with the thought that you want to get up and retrieve it. For your own purposes at unfinished painting under on your easel would help you project to your studio, for you would psychically wish to return to study it. You have in fact often done this, though you do not remember. It would be to your advantage to try some experiments together, however. Besides this the two of you traveling together could help each other retain proper consciousness and purpose during projection. It Rubert, knows he is projecting he should try to remember you, and to rouse you astrally. He can be of great help to you here when he learns to remember. You can also suggest dreams in which you are flying airplane, and tell yourself you will awaken to project. You will know the play is a dream image but be able to retain it for your convenience, so that you do not fear falling.
In such instances you are withdrawing your perceptive abilities from the physical body. They will seem to operate as usual, but they are more vivid far-reaching. Your thoughts instantly attentive for that you can perceive. If you think of a dog for example, quite unconsciously you form the image of a dog, which you do then perceive. It is because of this instantaneous creation and projection of inner reality into form that you experience time within the physical system – to train you literally, to give you time to learn to handle your own creations. Projection experiments should only be adopted therefore, when you are in a peaceful state of mind, as Rubert should know after his creature experience. Now there are, in quotes, "objective" realities that exist within astral reality itself. There are more than your thought forms in other words. Your thought forms however can be used as definite aids when you are in the proper mental condition, and they can impede your progress if you are not. It physical reality a man in a desperate frame of mind is more apt to emphasize horrible aspects in the news for example, and to see desperation rather than joy in the faces of those he meets. He will ignore the contented playful child on one side of the street and notice instead a dirty ragged boy even though he is further away. So your frame of mind when projecting will largely determine the sort of experiences you have, and the environments in which you exist. Now. The original intensity behind the construction determines the length of its existence, in your terms, rather than the duration. Do you follow me? ("Yes." During break, I wondered, for instance, how long it would take to supplant a negative habit that existed for say ten years with a positive one.) Left alone, any such construction will eventually vanish. It will however leave a trace. This does not necessarily mean it will leave a trace in your consciousness. A trace in electromagnetic reality, where
it can then be activated by anyone when certain conditions are met, or are favorable. Denying energy to such a construction can be like pricking a balloon. It can instantly disintegrate, be deflated. The prick however is comparable to a conscious and subconscious denial of the construction’s validity. Then all attention must be taken from it, for thrives on attention. To replace it with the new construction, it is a good idea to suggest that the old construction has indeed vanished, and in it’s place a new more acceptable one is being built. Now symbolism may be used here. The following mental exercise is most effective. It may be varied according to your interest. In your mind’s eye however imagine a run-down, shabby, deteriorating shamble of a house with rotting floorboards and sagging porches. Then imagine that it is burned to the ground and the remaining rubble carted away and burned. Imagine the land now free beneath it, open to the blessing of wind, rain, and sun. Then imagine a new house being built there, of your preferred choice, with all new materials, of splendid design, and see this always in your mind where before you saw the previous image. Imagine the summer winds that blow over the land that now fills the interior of the house with scented air. Let the first house represent all negative ideas or constructions, and the new house represent the desired ideas or constructions. Have it firmly in your mind however as to what ideas these refer, specifically. The first object must be seen as completely destroyed, and the area cleared before the new object is imagined in its place. The first object should be deliberately destroyed. What a relief to see it vanish. The symbolism will help activate those forces that are necessary in any replacement of ideas. Any object you see can be used in place of the house. Do you follow me? ("Yes.")
If the exercise is done correctly it is literally impossible for its continuance and your attention is directed to the desired end. The object should be something you can visualize easily however. If you have difficulty imagining the deliberate destruction of the negative object, this is merely a sign of its hold. You may then instead imagine its destruction by an act of nature. The house being struck by lightning for example. If this is the case then the exercise should be continued until you imagine you yourself deciding upon and bringing about the destruction and replacement. If you are not ready to burn down the structure itself, imaginatively, then you are not prepared to rid yourself of the negative behavior, you see. The symbolic destruction is the real destruction. The symbolic creation is the real creation. Such exercises will cut down the physical time involved however. Now there is no doubt that you cause your dream environment as you cause your physical environment. As I have told you negative patterns of thought are reflected in both states. Proper suggestion before sleep can doubly work to your advantage then, for you are holding your ground in two worlds at once. The same exercise can be done while dreaming, you see. This is entirely different from Ruburt's attempt with his creature, for he was trying to form an evil creature, in those terms, to slay-a thing conscious of its own evil in those terms, and that is always dangerous. Do you see the difference? In a very real manner, all conditions exist in your mind. The amount of conscious thought given to any construction obviously reinforces it. Ruburt became a writer because he thought of being a writer constantly. He became ill, generally speaking, for the same reason. If a desire for health leads to an emphasis upon symptoms to be overcome, you would be better off to avoid all thoughts of health or illness, and concentrate in another direction such as work. This follows regardless of the desired end, be it wealth, fame, or so forth.
Such an emphasis can lead to a focus upon the obstacles that stand in the way. This reinforces the negative condition. Confidence is extremely important. It will lead to more confidence, and of itself wipes out the fear that causes most negative conditions. It the exercise you see the house can simply represent fear, for a basic therapeutic method, and the new house confidence. Wile Ruburt tells himself he is weak or sick, he causes the organism to behave in that manner. Dreams of health are of great benefit. He can tell himself that his dream self becomes his physical image. He knows his dream self is real. The energy from any construction can be weakened if it is countered by another strong energy force. The desire to work well, enthusiastically and emotionally held, can offset bad health for example. You do not need the direct opposite. Do you follow me? ("Yes.") - but something of equal or stronger intensity. Womanly pride in Ruburt’s case is a help for example. Other elements also come into play. As your inner environment changes you also begin to attract others. You will begin to attract people who want to buy paintings for example. There is a snowballing effect - an acceleration that is quite evident as soon as the first groundwork has been laid. First you are clearing up negative debris, you see, and reversing a trend. When the results show they appear magical. Stepping Outside Yourself, and Spiritual Healing The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 483, p. 301 [Jim Crosson] "How do you discover those answers for yourself" Now, there are many ways ... but only one real way. And the way is to begin the journey, as Ruburt told you, into the nature of your own consciousness, for the answers are within you and not out from you... and no one can tell you the answers. Now in one way, each individual
will find his own answer... and yet all answers, in another way, are one. You must try to forget for a period of time each day the self that you think of as yourself ... the adult pretensions, the adult bignesses. You must remember the childhood spontaneity. You must think of the freedom that is within a flower. Now it seems to you that a flower cannot move, and therefore has no freedom. And yet I tell you, you must think about the freedom of a flower. You must dissociate yourself from the person that you know. Close your eyes. Imagine anything that you like that is pleasant to you. It makes no difference what it is. Then imagine yourself stepping apart from yourself in whatever way you choose. And then imagine that all about you there is another dimension and you need only take one step at a time ... and you will find your answers. You have only to begin. There is an adventure and it is within you. And there are answers, and they are within you... and you can find them. Now. You have more questions? (Jim Crosson] "How do you develop the power of spiritual healing? You already have the power of spiritual healing. You want to know how to use it. Now you use it whether or not you know that you do. When you think thoughts of peace and vitality, and when you wish a man well, then you help heal him. Now in order to direct this power consciously, you must again get used to the feeling of your own subjective experience...so that you can tell subjectively when this energy is pouring through you and outward. You can use your imagination and imagine perhaps that you hold an arrow and want to direct it to a proper location. But with practice, there is a subjective knowing that you will recognize and understand. But you use the ability whether you realize you use it or not. You are a healer, whether you realize this or not.
Projection and Dream Advice The Early Sessions, Book 9, Session 497, p. 367 Your faith in your own work is highly important. Your own out-of-body experiences, if followed through, will even reinforce the sessions, for you will be experiencing circumstances of which I have already told you. You will think of questions, therefore, matters that I take for granted. Do you follow me here? The more work you do the better I can help you. There will be seasonal and other variations in your own out-of-body work. Over a period of years however this sort of thing will iron out. There are many factors that operate to help or impede our communications, on both your side and mine. The structure of the sessions was set up because I felt that in the long run the structure itself would be permanent, able to withstand any natural strains, and also strong enough and flexible enough to permit maximum fulfillment. Many kinds of experience are possible within it, for example. It is a psychological structure, as I have explained, and you and Ruburt are both a part of it. Now you may take your break or end the session as you prefer. I suggest that on the two evenings, Ruburt take a warm shower-not a hot one-before retiring. I also suggest contrary to Muldoon that you have a light snack. Not a heavy one, but enough so the body is comfortable. You should be comfortably warm, but not overburdened with blankets. A note to Ruburt: he should keep a robe handy. Use one book for dreams, and leave it on his desk overnight. As a preliminary to the instructions I have given you, for 7 days he should give himself dream suggestions, and on several occasions, though not every night, tell himself that he will awaken after a dream and record it. As he knows, this facilitates out-of-body states on his part. This should be done a week before you begin your joint experiments.
Now you should begin the same week with new suggestions to recall your dreams, but do it this way, as follows: Before you sleep, simply imagine your open dreambook in the morning, with the dreams recorded. Imagine that you see so many lines of written words. You understand – visualize it, and feel yourself pleased that you have succeeded. The pleasure at your success is important. You have been too intellectual. Do you follow me? The Ego And The Flashlight Of Consciousness The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p275 "You must, first of all, cease identifying completely with your ego, and realize that you can perceive more than your ego perceives. You must demand more of yourself than you ever have before. The material is not for those who would deceive themselves with pretty, packaged, ribboned truths that are parceled out cut apart so that you can digest them. That sort of material serves a need, but our material demands that you intellectually and intuitively expand…. "You are your identity. Pretend that you hold a flashlight, and the flashlight is consciousness. You can turn this light in many directions but instead you are in the habit of directing it along one certain path, and you have forgotten that there are other paths. "All you have to do is swing the flashlight in other directions. When you shift it, the path upon which you have been focusing will momentarily appear dark, but other realities and images will become available to you, and there will be nothing to prevent you from swinging the flashlight back to the earlier position. "You have more than one conscious mind. We want to change the channels of awareness…. If you consider the conscious mind that you usually use as one door, then you stand at the threshold of this mind and look out into physical reality. But there are other doors…you have other conscious selves…. "You are not expected to become unconscious, then. There is no need to feel that when you block out the ordinary conscious mind, there is only blankness. It is true that when you close one conscious
mind-door - there may be a moment of disorientation before you open another. "It is also true that you may need to learn methods by which you can perceive other realities, simply because you are not used to manipulating these other conscious portions of yourself. But these portions are critical - and even as intellectual - as valid and as real as the consciousness with which you are ordinarily familiar." Seth insists that there is only one way to learn what consciousness is: by studying and exploring our own awareness, by changing the focus of our attention and using our own consciousness in as many ways as possible. He says, "When you look into yourself, the very effort involved extends the limitations of your consciousness, expands it, and allows the egotistical self to use abilities that it often does not realize it possesses." Inner Vibrational Touch The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p278 Think of the Inner Senses as paths leading to an inner reality. The first sense involves perception of a direct nature - instant cognition through what I can only describe as inner vibrational touch. Imagine a man standing on a typical street of houses and grass and trees. This sense would allow him to feel the basic sensations felt by each of the trees about him. His consciousness would expand to contain the experience of what it is to be a tree-any or all the trees. He would feel the experience of being anything he chooses within his field of notice: people, insects, blades of grass. He would not lose consciousness of who he was, but would perceive these sensations somewhat in the same way that you would now feel heat and cold. This sense is much like empathy, but far more vital. Psy-Time And The Inner Senses The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p280 Psychological Time is a natural pathway that was meant to give an easy route of access from the inner world to the outer, and back again, though you do not use it much. Psychological Time originally
enabled man to live in the inner and outer worlds with relative ease…. As you develop you use of it, you will be able to rest within its framework while you are consciously awake. It adds duration to your normal time. From its framework you will see that physical time is as dreamlike as you thought inner time was. You will discover your whole selves, peeping inwards and outward simultaneously, and know that all divisions are illusions. Actually, in practice, psychological time leads to the other inner senses. In psy-time, as we call it, you simply turn your focus of attention inward. Sit or lie quietly alone and close your eyes. Pretend that there is a world within as vivid and real as the physical one. Turn off your physical senses. If you want, imagine that they have dials and you flip them off, one by one. Then imagine that the inner senses have another set of dials. Imaginatively, turn them on. This is one method of beginning. You may, instead, just lie quietly and concentrate on a dark screen until images or lights appear on it. Do not concentrate on worries or daily trivia that may arise as soon as you block out physical distractions. If such thoughts do come into the foreground of attention, then you are not ready to proceed. First you must get rid of them. Since we can't concentrate fully on two things at once, you may focus your attention on the screen again or any imaginary image - this will banish the annoying worries. Or you may pretend that the worries themselves have images and then "see" these vanish away. At a certain point you will feel alert and conscious but very light. Within your mind you may see bright lights. You may hear sounds or voices. Some may be telepathic or clairvoyant messages. Some may simply be subconscious pictures. As you practice, you will learn to tell one from the other. Gradually as you progress, you will feel apart from time as we know it during the exercise. You may have various kinds of subjective experiences, from extrasensory episodes to simple periods of inspiration and direction. I sometimes have out-of-body travels, for instance, during psy-time. The sense leads to refreshment,
relaxation, and peace. It can be used in many ways, for different purposes. Many of my students now utilize this sense quite well, and use it as a preliminary to other experiences. Perception Of Past, Present, And Future The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p281 "If you will remember our imaginary man as he stand on the street, you will recall that I spoke of his feeling all of the unitary essences of each living thing within his range, using the first inner sense. Using this third sense, this experience would be expanded. If he chose, he would also feel the past and future essence of each living thing within his range." Remember, according to Seth these inner senses are used by the whole self constantly. Since past, present, and future have no basic reality, this sense allows us to see through the apparent time barriers. We are seeing things as they really are. Any precognitive experience would entail use of this inner sense. It is often used spontaneously when psy-time is practiced. Direct Cognition Of A Concept The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p282 "The fourth inner sense involves direct cognition of a concept in much more than intellectual terms. It involves experiencing a concept completely. Concepts have what we will call electrical and chemical composition [as thoughts do]. The molecules and ions of the consciousness change into [those of] the concept, which is then directly experienced. You cannot truly understand or appreciate any living thing unless you can become that thing. "You can best achieve some approximation of an idea by using psychological time [as a preliminary]. Sit in a quiet room. When an idea comes to you, do not play with it intellectually, but reach out to it intuitively. Do not be afraid of unfamiliar sensations. With practice and to a limited degree, you will find that you can 'become' the idea. You will be inside it, looking out-not looking in.
"Concepts such as I am referring to reach out beyond your ideas of time and space. If you become proficient in the use of the third inner sense [perception of past, present and future] when cognition is more or less spontaneous, then you can utilize the conceptual sense with more freedom. Any true concept has its origins outside of your camouflage system and continues beyond it. Unless you use the Inner Sense in this manner, you will only receive a glimmering of a concept, regardless of its simplicity." I was using this sense, I believe, in the episode described in Chapter 17, experiencing a concept that could not be expressed adequately in words, when everything in the room seemed to grow to a tremendous size. Entering Another Being The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p283 "Remember that these inner senses operate as a whole, working together smoothly, and that to some degree the divisions between them are arbitrary on my part. The fifth sense differs from the fourth [conceptual sense] in that it does not involve cognition of a concept. It is similar to the fourth in that it is free from the past, present and future, and involves an intimate becoming, or transformation of self into something else. "This is difficult to explain. You attempt to understand a friend by using the physical senses. Use of the fifth sense would enable you to enter your friend. In the fullest sense, it is not available to you within your system. It does not imply that one entity can control another. It involves direct instantaneous cognition of the essence of living 'tissue.' I use the word 'tissue' with caution and ask you not to think of it necessarily in terms of flesh. "All entities are in one way or another enclosed within themselves, yet also connected to others. Using this sense, you can penetrate through the capsule that encloses the self. This inner sense, like all the others, is being used constantly by the inner self, but very little if the data received is sifted through the subconscious or ego. Without the use of this sense, however, no man would ever come close to
understanding another." This sense is a stronger version of inner vibrational touch. Spontaneous Knowing The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p284 "This is an extremely rudimentary sense. It is concerned with the entity's innate working knowledge of the basic vitality of the universe, without which no manipulations of vitality would be possible-as, for example, you could not stand up straight without first having an innate sense of balance. "Without this sixth sense and its constant use by the inner self, you could not construct the physical camouflage universe. You can compare this sense with instinct, as you think of it, although it is concerned with innate knowledge of the entire universe. Particular data about specific areas of reality are given to a living organism to make manipulations within that area possible. The inner self has at its command complete knowledge, but only portions are used by an organism. A spider, spinning its web, is using this sense in almost its purest form. The spider has no intellect or ego, and its activities are pure spontaneous uses of the inner senses, unhampered and uncamouflaged to a great extent. But inherent in the spider, as in man, is the complete comprehension of the universe as a whole." Seth always maintains that the answers to your questions about reality lie within us. They reveal themselves to us when we turn out attention away from physical data and look inward; this is when the sixth inner sense comes into play. It also shows itself in inspiration, and episodes of spontaneous "knowing." Surely this sense suddenly came into operation during my experience with "cosmic consciousness" and was partially responsible for my "Idea Construction" manuscript. This sense gives rise to most experiences of a revelatory character. The trouble is that we must somehow translate the data into terms that we can understand, explaining verbally or with images-and distortions are bound to result. Some such experiences can't be expressed physically, yet the individual concerned is convinced of their validity.
Expansion Or Contraction Of The Tissue Capsule The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p285 "This sense operates in two ways. It can be an extension or enlargement of the self, a widening of its boundaries and of conscious comprehension. It can also be a pulling together of the self into an ever-smaller capsule that enables the self to enter other systems of reality. The tissue capsule surrounds each consciousness and is actually an energy field boundary, keeping the inner self's energy from seeping away. "No consciousness exists in any system without this capsule enclosing it. These capsules have also been called astral bodies. The seventh Inner Sense allows for an expansion or contraction of this tissue capsule." Rob and I have some experience using this inner sense. So have several of my students. In psy-time this results in a peculiar "elephantiasis" feeling: I feel as if I am expanding and yet getting lighter and lighter in weight. The sensation can also arise just before an out-of-body experience. I have felt this in reverse in several sessions with the other personality, Seth Two. Disentanglement From Camouflage The Seth Material, Chapter 19, p285 "Complete disentanglement from camouflage comes rarely within your system, although it is possible to achieve it, particularly in connection with psychological time. When psychological time is utilized to its fullest extent, then camouflage is lessened to an astounding degree. With disentanglement, the inner self disengages itself from one particular camouflage before it adopts another set smoothly or dispenses with camouflage entirely. This is accomplished through what you might call a changing of frequency or vibrations: a transformation of vitality from one particular pattern or aspect to another. In some ways, your dream world gives you a closer experience with basic inner reality than does your waking world, where your inner senses are so shielded from your awareness."
We've had very little conscious experience with this inner sense. Only in one small episode, mentioned earlier, when I felt bodiless and formless, like conscious air, have I ever approached it. Becoming Aware Of Seth And His Reality Seth Speaks, Session 510, from Seth’s Introduction There will be final chapter in which I will ask the reader to close his eyes and become aware of the reality in which I exist, and of his own inner reality. I will give the methods. In this chapter I will invite the reader to use his "inner senses," to see me in his own way. While my communications will come exclusively through Ruburt at all times, to protect the integrity of the material, I will invite the reader to become aware of me as a personality, so that he may then realize that communication from other realities is possible, and that he himself is therefore open to perception that is not physical. Changing The Physical Environment Through Dreams Seth Speaks, Session 514 You can learn to change your physical environment, therefore, by learning to change manipulate your dream environment. You can also suggest specific dreams in which a desired change is seen, and under certain conditions these will then appear in your physical reality. Now often you do this without realizing it. Following Thoughts Seth Speaks, Session 520 What happens to a thought when it leaves your conscious mind?. It does not simply disappear. You can learn to follow it, but you are usually frightened of turning your attention away from its intense focus in three-dimensional existence. Therefore, it seems that the thought disappears. It seems also that your subjectivity has a mysterious unknown quality about it, and that even your mental life has a sort of insidious dropping-off point, a subjective cliff over which thoughts and memories fall, to disappear into nothingness. Therefore to protect yourself, to protect your subjectivity from drifting, you erect various psychological barriers at what you suppose to be the danger
points. Instead, you see, you can follow these thoughts and emotions simply by realizing that your own reality continues in another direction, beside the one with which you mainly identify. For these thoughts and emotions that have left your conscious mind will lead you into other environments. These subjective openings through which thoughts seem to disappear are in fact like psychic warps, connecting the self that you know with other universes of experience - realities where symbols come to life and thoughts are not denied their potential. There is communication between these other realities and your own in your dream states, and a constant interaction between both systems. If there is any point where your own consciousness seems to elude you or escape you, or if there is any point where your consciousness seems to end, then these are the points where you have yourselves set up psychological and psychic barriers, and these are precisely those areas that you should explore. Otherwise you feel as if your consciousness is enclosed within your skull, immobile and constricted, and every lost thought or forgotten memory at least symbolically seems like a small death. And such is not the case. Developing The Inner Senses Seth Speaks, Session 522, 10:20 In a large manner, the physical senses actually form the physical reality they seem to only perceive. they are themselves part of the camouflage, but they are like lenses over your natural inner perceptions that force you to "see" an available field of activity as physical matter; and so they can be relied upon only to tell you what is happening in a superficial manner. You can tell the position of the other actors for example, or time by clock, but these physical senses will not tell you that time is itself a camouflage, or that consciousness forms the other actors, or that realities that you cannot see exist over and beyond the physical matter that is so apparent. You can, however, using your inner senses, perceive reality as it exists apart from the play and your role in it. In order to do this you must of course, momentarily at least turn your attention away from the constant activity that is taking place – turn off the physical senses,
as it were – and switch your attention to those events that have escaped you earlier… Your particular set of camouflages is not the only set, you see. Other realities have entirely different systems, but all personalities have inner senses that are attributes of consciousness, and through these inner senses communications are maintained about which the normally conscious self knows little. Part of my purpose is to make some of these communications known. The soul or entity, then, is not the self that reads this book. Your environment is not simply the world about you as you know it, but also consists of past life environments upon which you are not focusing. Your real environment is composed of your thoughts and emotions, for from these you form not only this reality but each reality in which you take part. Your real environment is innocent of space and time as you know them. In your real environment you have no need for words, for communication is instantaneous. In your real environment you form the physical that you know. The inner senses will allow you to perceive the reality that is independent of physical form. I will ask you all to momentarily forsake your roles therefore, and try this simple exercise. Now, pretend you are on a lighted stage, the stage being the room in which you now sit. Close your eyes and pretend the lights have gone out, the setting has disappeared and you are alone. Everything is dark. Be quiet. Imagine as vividly as you can the existence of inner senses. For now pretend that they correspond to your physical ones. Clear from your mind all thoughts and worries. Be receptive. Very gently listen, not to physical sounds but to sounds that come through the inner senses. Images may begin to appear. Accept them as sights quite as valid as those you see physically. Pretend that there is an inner world, and that it will be revealed to you as you learn to perceive it with these inner senses.
Pretend that you have been blind to this world all your life, and are now slowly gaining sight within it. Do not judge the whole inner world by the disjointed images that you may at first perceive, or by the sounds that you may at first hear, for you will be using your inner senses quite imperfectly. Do this simple exercise a few moments before sleep or in the resting state. It may also be done even in the midst of an ordinary task that does not take all of your attention. You will be simply be learning to focus in a new dimension of awareness, taking quick snapshots, as it were, in a strange environment. Remember that you will only be perceiving snatches. Simply accept them, but do not attempt to make any overall judgments or interpretations at this stage. Ten minutes a day to begin with is quite sufficient. An Intuitive Understanding Of The Soul Seth Speaks, Session 527, 9:50 Now, there are no closed systems in reality. In your physical system the nature of your perceptions limit your idea of reality to some extent, because you purposely decide to focus within a given "locale." But basically speaking, consciousness can never be a closed system, and all barriers of such a nature are illusion. Therefore the soul itself is not a closed system. When you consider the soul, however, you usually think of it in such a light - unchanging, a psychic or spiritual citadel. But citadels not only keep out invaders, they also prevent expansion and development. There are many matters here very difficult to express in words, for you are so afraid for your sense of identity that you resist the idea that the soul, for example, is an open spiritual system, a powerhouse of creativity that shoots out in all directions - and yet this is indeed the case. I tell you this, and at the same time remind that your present personality is never lost. Now another word for the soul is entity. You
see it is not a simple matter of giving you a definition of a soul or entity, for even to have a glimpse in logical terms you would have to understand it in spiritual, psychic, and electromagnetic terms, and understand the basic nature of consciousness and action as well. But you can intuitively discover the nature of the soul or entity, and in many ways intuitive knowledge is superior to any other kind. One prerequisite for such an intuitive understanding of the soul is the desire to achieve it. If the desire is strong enough, then you will be automatically led to experiences that will result in vivid, unmistakable subjective knowledge. There are methods that will enable you to do this, and I will give you some toward the end of the book. For now, here is one quite effective but simple exercise. Close your eyes after reading this chapter to this point, and try to sense within yourself the source of power from which your breathing and life forces come. Some of you will do this successfully at your first try. Others may take longer. When you feel within yourself this source, then try to sense this power flow outward through your entire physical being, through the fingertips and toes, through the pores of your body, radiating outward from your physical form like rays in all directions, with yourself as the center. Imagine the rays undiminished, reaching through the foliage and clouds above, through the center of the earth below, extending even to the farthest reaches of the universe. Now I do not mean this to be merely a symbolic exercise, for though it may begin with imagination, it is based upon fact, and emanations from your consciousness and the creativity of your soul do indeed reach outward in this manner. This exercise will give you some idea of the true nature, creativity, and vitality of the soul from which you draw your own energy and of which you are an individual and unique portion. Perceiving Other Realities With The Inner Senses Seth Speaks, Session 539, 9:18 After-death environments exist all about you now. It is as if your present situation and all its physical phenomena were projected from within yourself outward, giving you a continuous
running motion picture, forcing you to perceive only those images that were being transposed. These seem so real that you find yourself in the position of reacting to them constantly. They serve to mask other quite valid realities that exist at the same time, however, and actually from these other realities you gain power and the knowledge to operate the material projections. You can "set the machine on idle," so to speak, stop the apparent motion, and turn your attention to these realities. First of all, you must realize that they exist. As a preliminary to the methods I will give later, it is a good idea to ask yourself now and then: "What am I conscious of at this time?" Do this when your eyes are open, and again when they are closed. When your eyes are open, do not take it for granted that only the immediately perceivable objects exist. Look where space seems empty, and listen in the middle of silence. There are molecular structures in every inch of empty space, but you have taught yourself not to perceive them. There are other voices, but you have conditioned your ears not to hear them. You use your inner senses when you are in the dream state, and ignore them when you are waking. The inner senses are equipped to perceive data that is not physical. They are not deceived by the images that you project in threedimensional reality. Now, they can perceive physical objects. Your physical senses are extensions of these inner methods of perception, and after death it is upon these that you will rely. They are used in out-of-body experiences so that you can become familiar with the nature of perception after death, now. In other words, the environment, conditions, and methods of perception will not be alien. You are not suddenly thrust into an unknown; that unknown is part of you now. It was part of you before this physical birth, and will be after physical death.
Examining Thoughts Seth Speaks, Session 550, 9:35 If you examine your thoughts for five minutes at various times during the day for several times a month, you will indeed receive a correct impression of the kind of life you have so far arranged for yourself in the next existence. If you are not pleased with what you discover, then you had better begin changing the nature of your thoughts and feelings. Probable Selves, Dreams, Changing The Past And Future Seth Speaks, Session 566, 9:28 The invisible environment within your mind is not as lonely as you might think, and your inner isolation is caused by the ego's persistent guard. It sees no reason, for example, why it should be informed by information that it does not consider pertinent to day-by-day daily activity. I do not like the phrase, "to advance," yet in your terms "to advance" as a consciousness is to become more and more aware of these other materializations of your identity. The probable selves are to gain awareness of the other probable selves, and realize that all are various manifestations of the true identity. They are not "lost", buried or negated in some superself, without free will, self-determination, or individuality. Instead the identity is what they are, with full freedom to express all probable actions and developments, both in this reality and in others you do not know about. As you sit reading this book in the present moment of time, you are positioned in the center of a cosmic web of probabilities that is affected by tour slightest mental and emotional act. Your thoughts and emotions, therefore, go forth from you not only in all physical directions but in directions that are quite invisible to you, appearing in dimensions that you would not presently understand. Now you are also the receiver of other such signals coming from other probabilities that are connected with your own, but you choose
which of those probable actions you want to make real or physical in your system, as others also have the freedom of choice in their systems. You originate ideas then and receive them, but you are not forced to actualize unrealized probable acts that come to you from other probable selves. Now there is a natural attraction between yourself and other probable selves, electromagnetic connections having to do with simultaneous propulsions of energy. By this I mean energy that appears simultaneously both to you and probable selves in other realities; psychic connections having to do with a uniting, sympathetic, emotional reaction and a connection that shows up very strongly in the dream state. In that state, with the functions of the ego somewhat stilled, there is some considerable communication between various portions of the entire entity. In dreams you may have had glimpses of probable roads you might have taken. You may think that these are fantasy, but instead you may be perceiving a legitimate picture of events that did occur within another system of probabilities. Now: One event can be actualized by more than one probable self, however, and you will resemble some probable selves more than others. Because you are involved in an intricate psychological gestalt such as this, and because the connections mentioned earlier do exist, you can avail yourself to some extent of abilities and knowledge possessed by these other probable portions of your personality. Your connections make for quite constant "bleed-throughs." Once you are aware of the probable system, however, you will also learn to become alert to what I will here call "benign intrusive impulses." Such impulses would seem to be disconnected from your own current interest or activities; intrusive in that they come quickly into consciousness, with a sense of strangeness as if they are not your own. They can often offer clues of various kinds. You may know absolutely nothing about music, for example, and one afternoon while in the middle of some mundane activity be struck by a sudden impulse to buy a violin.
Such an impulse could be an indication that another probable portion of your identity is gifted with that instrument. I am not telling you to run off and buy one, but you could however act on the impulse as far as is reasonably possible-renting a violin, simply acquainting yourself with violin concerti, etc. You would learn the instrument far quicker, you see, if the impulse was originating with a probable self. It goes without saying then that probable selves exist in your "future" as well as your past. It is a very poor policy to dwell negatively on unpleasant aspect of the past that you know, because some portions of the probable self may still be involved in that past. The concentration will allow greater bleedthrough and adverse identification, because that part will be one background that you will have in common with any probable selves who sprang from that particular source. To dwell upon the possibility of illness or disaster is equally poor policy, for you set up negative webs of probabilities that need not occur. You can theoretically alter your own past as you have known it, for time is no more something divorced from you than probabilities are. The past existed in multitudinous ways. You only experience one probable past. By changing this past in your mind, now, in your present, you can change not only its nature but its effect, not only upon yourself but upon others. Pretend a particular event happened that greatly disturbed you. In your mind imagine it not simply wiped out, but replaced by another event of a more beneficial nature. Now this must be done with great vividness and emotional validity, and many times. It is not a selfdeception. The event that you choose will automatically be a probable event, which did in fact happen, though it is not the event you chose to perceive in your given probable past. Telepathically, if the process is done correctly, your idea will also affect any people who were connected with the original event, though they can choose to reject as well as accept your version.
This is not a book on techniques, so I will not go into this particular method deeply, but merely mention it here. Remember, however, that in a most legitimate way many events that are not physically perceived or experienced are as valid as those that are, and are as real within your own invisible psychological environment. There are in your terms, then, unlimited probable future events for which you are setting groundworks. The nature of the thoughts and feelings you originate and those that you habitually or characteristically receive set a pattern, so you will choose from those probable futures those events that will physically become your experience. Because there are bleedthroughs and interconnections, it is possible for you to tune into a "future event," say of an unfortunate nature, an event for which you are headed if you continue on your present course. A dream about it, for instance, may so frighten you that you avoid the event and do not experience it. If so, such a dream is a message from a probable self who did experience the event. So can a child then in a dream receive such communications from a probable future self, of such a nature that its life is completely changed. The entire identity is being now. All divisions are merely illusions, so one probable self can hold out a helping hand to another, and through these inner communications the various probable selves in your terms begin to understand the nature of their identity. Now this leads to other adventures in which whole civilizations may be involved, for as individuals have their probable destinies, so do civilizations, nations, and inhabited planetary systems. Your historical earth as you know it has developed in many different ways, and there is a deeply unconscious connection that unites all such manifestations. Symbols And Other States Of Dream Consciousness Seth Speaks, Session 571, 10:44 All symbols stand for inner realities, therefore, and when you juggle symbols, you are juggling inner realities. Any exterior move that you
make is made within the interior environment, within all the interior environments with which you are involved. Symbols are highly charged psychic particles and that includes physical objects that have strong characteristics of attraction and expansion that stand for inner realizations and realities that have not been perceived through direct knowing. (By direct knowing here, I mean instant cognition and comprehension, without symbolization.) Even the symbols, then, at various stages of consciousness will appear differently, some seeking to have stability and permanence as your physical objects following the principles or root assumptions of corporeal reality, and some changing much more quickly, as in the dream state, these being more immediate and sensitive indicators of feeling. Various states of consciousness seem to have their own environments which these symbols appear, again, as objects appear in a physical environment. Seemingly non-stable mental objects appear in the dream environment at certain levels. The symbols follow rules then in both cases. As mentioned earlier, again, the dream universe is as "objective" as the corporeal one. The objects and symbols within it are as faithful representations of dream life as physical objects are of waking life. The nature of the symbol, therefore, can serve as an indication not only as to your environment but your state of consciousness within it. In normal dreaming within the normal context of an ordinary dream drama, the objects seem permanent enough to you. You take them for granted. You are still physically oriented. You project upon dream images the symbolism of your waking hours. In other states of dream consciousness, however, houses may suddenly disappear. A modern building may suddenly replace a shack. A child may turn into a tulip. Now symbols are obviously behaving in a different manner. In this environment, permanency is not a root assumption. Logical sequence does not apply. Symbols that behave in this way can be clues to you that you are now at another stage of consciousness, and within an entirely different
interior environment. Expressions of feelings and of experiences are not limited to the rigid framework of objects stuck into consecutive moments. Feelings are automatically transformed and expressed in a new, mobile, immediate manner. In a way the tune of consciousness is quicker. Actualization does not need to wait for hours or days. Experience is free from a time context. In this realm of consciousness an entire book may be written, or one's life plans thoroughly scrutinized. Your present time is one of many dimensions that help form this particular stage of consciousness. Therefore your past, present, and future exist within it, but only as portions of that interior environment. You have to learn your way about, for the states of consciousness and their environment stretch out in their own way as your world stretches out, say, in space. It is not difficult, however, to be aware of yourself in this stage through giving yourself proper suggestions before sleep. Hypnogogic Images And Their Symbols Seth Speaks, Session 572, 9:40 To some extent this transmutation of symbol can be observed in various stages of waking consciousness also. When you are at rest, awake but with eyes closed, images and pictures will often appear to your inner eye. Some will be physical-like materializations, images of trees or houses or people. Others will be simply shapes that change swiftly and seem to flow one into the other. As a rule, even the images that are recognizable will quickly be replace by others in a kaleidoscope of constantly changing forms. There may seem to you to be no logic to these inner pictures , and certainly no connection between them and what you were thinking a moment before, or even an hour before. To some extent they seem disconnected from you and not of your doing. Often, however, they represent the characteristics shown by consciousness when it is somewhat turned away from physical stimuli. The form of symbols is changed as the states of consciousness change. The images that you see in this circumstance represent the thoughts and feelings experienced just before you closed your eyes, or those that were paramount in your mind somewhat previously. The minute
your eyes are closed, the thoughts and feeling express themselves through this symbolism. Because the images may seem to have no direct connection logically to these thoughts and feelings, you do not recognize them either as your own, nor are you able to tie them up with what they represent. I am putting this rather simply here. Imaginatively you have greater freedom to express feelings than you do practically. An earlier particular fear felt during the day involving, say, a loss of a job may then be translated when you close your eyes into a series of seemingly unrelated symbols, all however connected to that one fear. You may see in a quick series of pictures a deep hole in the ground. It may be replaced by a street urchin, obviously poor and from another century. A casket may appear, or a black wallet fly through the air. You may see a severe, dark, wintry scene. The picture of a character from an old book long forgotten may appear and disappear. In between may be a grouping of opposing symbols, representing your hope-a spring flower, a table loaded with food, a new suit of clothes, any sign of abundance that would have meaning to you. Nowhere would the thought of potential job lose enter in. It would seem to you that you had forgotten it. Through the use of symbols, however, your feeling would be given full play, each image rising and falling in flow with feelings so far underneath consciousness-pools of emotion-that you were not aware of them. They would automatically bring about these images however. Now with reflection you could connect these with their origins, but usually they would pass you by. If you let yourself lie still longer with your eyes closed, the symbolism would continue to change character, losing perhaps some of its visual characteristics and growing more intense in other directions. You might think you smell a particular odor, for example, that is distasteful to you (following through with the situation given). You might, instead, translate the fear into a frightening physical sensation, and suddenly feel that you are falling, or that something unpleasant touched you. Any of these changing characteristics of symbols should alert you to the altered state of your consciousness. If you let yourself drift off into
sleep here, you would probably manufacture two or three dreams that symbolize the fear, dreams in which you consider and try out possible solutions within the dream context. The job situation might never appear as such within any of the dreams, of course. Still, to the unconscious the problem has been set and given. In the following deep protected areas of sleep, the higher centers of the inner self are allowed to function and come to the aid of the threedimensionally oriented portion of the personality. This more liberated self sees the situation much more clearly, suggests a given line of action (but does not order it), and informs the dreaming self. The dreaming self then manufactures a group of dreams in which the solution is stated within a symbolic dream situation. The final and more specific interpretation is done in areas of dreaming closer to the waking self, when the symbols grow more and more specific. There is a much more narrow aspect to symbolism, therefore: the closer you get to waking consciousness, the more limited and narrow the symbol. The handier it is in a given physical circumstance, the less valuable it is as a waking lifetime characteristic symbol. To some extent the more precise the symbol is, the less meaning it can contain. In the most important dream work, done in the deep protected sleep periods, the symbols are powerful enough and yet condensed enough so that they can be broken down, used in a series of seemingly related dreams as connectives, retain their original strength and still appear in different guises, becoming in each succeeding dream layer more and more specific. Now even as you go about your day, your consciousness fluctuates, and you can catch yourself "symbolizing" in these different ways if you get in the habit of observing but not interpreting the state of your mind. Each physical event that has happened to you is filed away within your psyche as a definite group of symbols. These do not represent the experience, they contain the experience. These represent your personal symbol banks as far as your present life is concerned.
There is a great unity between your daytime symbols and your dreaming ones. In a miraculous shorthand, many symbols carry the burden of far more than one experience, of course, and one symbol will therefore evoke not only one given experience, of course, but similar ones. Personal associations, therefore, is highly involved with your personal bank of symbols, and it operates in the dream states precisely as in waking life-but with greater freedom, and drawing from the future, in your terms, as well as from the past. Therefore, you have greater use of symbolism in the dream state, for you are aware of the past and future symbols. These vary in intensity; often they cluster together. Such multidimensional symbols will appear in many ways, not simply visually. They will affect not only your physical reality, but all realities in which you are involved. In a manner of speaking the symbols that you know are but the tail end of greater symbols. Blank Spots, Latent Symbols, And The Alpha State Seth Speaks, Session 573, 10:32 Pauses then occur. To put it as simply as possible, there is an almost inconceivable moment in which a no-reality occurs, in which a symbol is caught between motion and no motion, a time of uncertainty. This is of course translated in many ways, and reflected. In such periods, certain symbols can be lost to all intents and purposes, dropping out of an individual's experience, leaving gaps of inertia. These gaps exist quite literally in many systems. You encounter them on many levels. You may find yourself experiencing a state of consciousness, for example, in which nothing seems to happen, and no psychological landscape or recognizable symbols occur. These exist not only psychologically or psychically, but as blank areas in terms of space. The spaces may be filled finally with new symbols. If you are perceptive enough, you can sometimes catch yourselves encountering such states of reality in which nothing appears and no signs of any consciousness outside of your own is apparent. Such blank spots can be seeded with new symbols, and are often used as channels through which new creative ideas and inventions are inserted. These gaps are recognized by others, therefore, and
viewed as dark spaces. They also represent areas of no resistance for those mind-travelers who are probing inner realities. They represent uncluttered areas, but also open channels, inactive in themselves but passively waiting. Now some symbols also wait in such a passive manner to be activated. They represent future experience, in your terms, that presently lie latent. These blank spots of inertia, therefore, are creative to some extent, in that these other symbols may swim into view within them. The alpha level is undifferentiated. The energy there is available to be used as you want to. It is the fountainhead or pool in which the reservoirs of energy are held in reserve, pulled between the more interior self and the outer self. Into this area comes signs and portents from deeper levels of the personality. Because it is so situated, it is of particular use in manipulating the physical organism. As you are learning, spontaneity is extremely important here. Your intent before you enter the alpha state largely predetermines the kind of experiences you will have, automatically focusing your attention in those specific areas. It also beneficial to dip into those areas with no purpose in mind, for here whatever necessary information that you require without your conscious knowledge can be made available. When you learn to explore this region you can use it as a launching pad for other activities. In doing so you leave your physical body in good hands. When your consciousness leaves your body, the alpha state maintains its good condition for you. It does this of course in any case. The answer to past lives lies in a deeper level, however. You can fish for it from the alpha state in you prefer. You can use direction to some extent, but you must seek direction from the alpha state, requesting it from deeper layers. Or you may enter those areas yourself, with more training. This is more direct.
The Mental Landscape Seth Speaks, Session 574 With greater practice, the contents of your own mind will become as readily available. You will see your thoughts as clearly as your inner organs. In this case you may perceive them symbolically through symbols you will recognize, seeing jumbled thoughts for example as weeds, which you can then simply discard. You can request that the thought content of your mind be translated into an intense image, symbolically representing individual thoughts and the overall mental landscape, then take out what you do not like and replace it with more positive images. This does not mean that this inner landscape must always be completely sunny, but it does mean that it should be well balanced. A dark and largely brooding inner landscape should alert you, so that you begin immediately to change it. None of these accomplishments are beyond my readers, though anyone may find any one given feat more difficult than another. You must also realize that I am speaking in practical terms. You can correct a physical condition for example, in the manner just given. If so, however, by examining the inner landscape of thoughts, you would find the source here that initially brought about the physical ailment. Feelings can be examined in the same way. They will appear differently, with much greater mobility. Thoughts, for example, may appear as stationary structures, as flowers or trees, houses or landscapes. Feelings will appear more often in the changing mobility of water, wind, weather, skies and changing color. Any physical ailment, then, can be perceived in this state by looking inward into the body and discovering it; then by changing what you see you may find yourself entering your body or another’s as a very small miniature, or as a point of light, or simply without any substance, yet aware of the inner body environment. You change what needs to be changed in whatever way occurs to you, then - by directing the body’s energy in that direction, by entering the flesh and bringing certain portions together that need this adjustment, by manipulating areas of the spine. Then from this
adjacent platform of A-1 consciousness, you perceive the mental thought patterns of yourself or the other person in whatever way you find characteristic of you. You may perceive the thought patterns as quickly flashing sentences or words that are usually seen within your mind or within the other mind, or as black letters that form words. Or you may hear the words and thoughts being expressed, or you may see the earlier mentioned "landscape" in which the thoughts symbolically form into a picture. This will show you how the thoughts brought about the physical malady, and which ones were involved. The same thing should then be done with the feeling pattern. This may be perceived as bursts of dark or light colors in motion, or simply one particular emotion of great force may be felt. If it is very strong, one emotion may be felt in many such guises. In the case of both thoughts and emotions, with great confidence you pluck out those that are connected with the malady. In such a manner you have made adjustments on three levels. The Many Uses Of Alpha Levels Seth Speaks, Session 574, 9:26 Let us begin with normal waking consciousness that you know. But one step away from this is another level of consciousness into which you all slip without knowing. We will call it "A-1." It is adjacent to your normal consciousness, separated from it very slightly; and yet in it very definite effects can appear that are not present in your usual state. At this level many abilities may be used, and the present moment can be experienced in many different fashions, using as a basis the physical data with which you are already familiar. In your normal state you see the body. In A-1 your consciousness can enter the body of another, and heal it. You can in the same manner perceive the state of your own physical image. You can, according to your abilities, manipulate matter from the inside consciously, with lucidity and alertness.
A-1 may be used as a side platform, so to speak, from which you can view physical events from a clearer standpoint. Using it you are released momentarily from bodily pressures and with that freedom, you can move to relieve them. Problems that seem beyond solution can often, though not always, be solved. Suggestions given are much more effective. It is easier to form images, and they have a greater mobility. A-1 is a sidestep away, therefore, and yet an important one. Now it can be used as the first of a series of steps, leading to "deeper" states of consciousness. It can also be used as the first of a series of adjacent steps. Each of the deeper layers of consciousness can also be used as first steps leading to other adjacent levels. A-1 is simple to enter. When you listen to music that you like, when you are indulging in an enjoyable quiet pursuit, you can sense the different feeling. It may be accompanied by your own characteristic physical clues. You may tap your fingers in a certain way. There may be a particular gesture. You may stare or look dreamily to the left or right. Any such physical clues can help you differentiate between this state of consciousness and the usual predominating one. You have only to recognize it, learn to hold it, and then proceed to experiment in its use. As a rule, it is still physically-oriented, in that the abilities are usually directed toward the inner perception and manipulation of matter or physical environment. You can therefore perceive the present moment from a variety of unique standpoints not usually available. You can perceive the moment's reality as it exist for your intestine, or your hand; and experience, with practice, the present inner peace and commotion that exist simultaneously within your physical body. This brings a great appreciation and wonder, a sense of unity with the living corporeal material of which you are physically composed. With practice you can become intuitively aware of your internal physical environment, as [of] your external physical environment. With greater practice, the contents of your own mind will become readily available. You will see your thoughts as clearly as your inner organs. In this case you may perceive them symbolically through symbols you will recognize, seeing jumbled thoughts for example as weeds, which can then simply discard.
You can request that the thought content of your mind be translated into an intense image, symbolically representing, symbolically representing individual thoughts and the overall mental landscape, then take out what you do not like and replace it with more positive images. This does not mean that this inner landscape must always be completely sunny, but it does mean that it should be well balanced. A dark and largely brooding inner landscape should alert you so that you immediately begin to change it. None of these accomplishments are beyond my readers, though anyone may find one given feat more difficult than another. You must also realize that I am speaking in practical terms. You can correct a physical condition for example, in the matter just given. If so, however, by examining the inner landscape of thoughts, you will find the source here that initially brought about the physical aliment. Feelings can be examined in the same way. They will appear differently, with much greater mobility. Thoughts, for example, may appear as stationary structures, as flowers or trees, houses or landscapes. Feelings will appear more often in the changing mobility of water, wind, weather, skies and changing color. Any physical aliment, then, can be perceived in this state by looking inward into the body and discovering it; then by changing what you see you may find yourself entering your body or another's as a very small miniature, or as a point of light, or simply without any substance, yet aware of the inner body environment. You change what needs to be changed in whatever way occurs to you, then-by directing the body's energy in that direction, by entering the flesh and bringing certain portions together that need this adjustment, by manipulating areas of the spine. Then from this adjacent platform of A-1 consciousness, you perceive the mental thought patterns of yourself or the other person in whatever way you find characteristic of you. You may perceive the thought patterns as quickly flashing sentences or words that are usually seen within your mind or within the other mind, or as black letters that form words. Or you may hear the words and thoughts being expressed, or you may see the earlier-mentioned "landscape" in which the thoughts symbolically from into a picture.
This will show you how the thoughts brought about the physical malady, and which ones were involved. The same thing should then be done with the feeling pattern. This may be perceived as burst of dark or light colors in motion, or simply one particular emotion of great force may be felt in many such guises. In the case of both thoughts and emotions, with great confidence you pluck out those that are connected with the malady. In such a manner you have made adjustments on three levels. A-1 may be used also as a great framework for creativity, concentration, study, refreshment, rest and meditation. You may evolve your own image of this state to help you, imagining it as a room or a pleasant landscape or platform. Spontaneously, you will find your own symbol for this state. Now: this state may be used also as a step into the next state of consciousness, leading to a deeper trance condition; still relating however to the reality system that you understand. Or it may be used as a step leading to an adjacent level of consciousness; two steps away, therefore, on the same level from normal reality. In this case it will lead you not into a deeper examination and perception of the present moment, but instead into an awareness and recognition of what I will call alternate present moments. You will be taking steps aside from the present that you know. This leads to exploration mentioned earlier in this book, into probabilities. This state can be extremely advantageous when you are trying to solve problems having to do with future arrangements, decisions that will affect the future, and any matters, in fact, in which important decisions for the future must be made. In this state you are able to try out various alternative decisions and some probable results, not imaginatively but in quite practical terms. These probabilities are realities, regardless of which decisions you make. Say, for example, that you have three choices and it is imperative that you select one. Using this state, you take the first choice. The alternative present is the moment in which you make that
choice. Having made it the present is changed and what actions and events will flow from the change into the future that belongs to that particular alternate present. You do the same with each of the choices, all from the framework of that state of consciousness. The methods in each case are the same. You make the decision. You then become aware in whatever way you choose of the physical effects within your body. You enter the body as you did in the way I gave you earlier for healing. With great sensitivity you are able to see what physical effect the decision will have-whether the state of the body remains the same, whether there is a great sense of health within in it, or the incipient beginning of great difficulties. In like manner you explore the mental and feeling aspects, then you turn your attention "outward," toward the environment that results from this alternate present. Mentally, events will appear to you. You may experience these strongly, or merely view them. They may become so vivid that you momentarily forget yourself, but if you maintain your contact with this level of consciousness, this will seldom happen. As a rule you are very aware of what you are doing. According to the situation, you can do the same thing to find out the effect of this decision on others specifically. You then return to normal consciousness, going through the A-1 state that you used as a preliminary. After a period of rest, return and make the second decision, and again the third, following through in the same manner. Then in your normal state of consciousness, of course, you make, you make the decision that you want from the information and experience that you have received. The names make little difference. For simplicity's sake call this level of consciousness A-1-a. There is an A-1-b, you see, still adjacent to this one, and still starting off from an alternate present that can be used for many other purposes. It is not easy for the ordinary individual to enter, and it deals with group presents, mass probabilities, racial matters, the movement of
civilization. It is one that would be most beneficial to politicians and statesmen, and it also can be used to probe the probable pasts as well. Here it would be of benefit in learning of old ruins for example, and vanished civilizations, but only if the specific probable past were probed in which these existed. The next adjacent level now would be A-1-c, which is an extension of the one just given, in which there is greater freedom of action, mobility and experience. Here to some extent there is some participation in the events perceived. There is no need to go deeply into any of these beyond this point, because ordinarily you will not be involved with them, and they lead into realities that have little reference to your own. They are states of consciousness too divorced from your own, and under usual circumstances, this is as far as your present consciousness is able to go in that particular direction. The first state, A-1-a, is the most practical and easiest for you, but often you must still have a good feeling for the A-1 level before you are willing to take the next adjacent step. It allows for great expansion, however, within its limitations. Using it, you can discover for example what would have happened if "I did this or the other." Remember, these are all adjacent levels, going out horizontally. Directly beneath A-1, now, you will have A-2, which is a slightly deeper state, using the analogy of up and down direction. It is less physically oriented than A-1. You still have excellent lucidity and awareness. This state can be used to explore the past in your terms of reference, within the probable system that you know. Reincarnational pasts are known to you here, and if some personal malady cannot be solved from A-1, you may have to go to A-2 discovering that it originated from another existence. This state is distinguished by a slower breathing pattern and, unless other directions are given, by a somewhat lowered temperature and longer alpha waves; a slower frequency. There is still relation to environment, however, and awareness of it. This may be purposely blocked off for greater efficiency, but it is not necessary. In many cases the eyes may be open, for example, though it may be easier to close them. Here sensitivity is quickened.
Without necessarily following the method given in A-1, the mental, physical and feeling aspects of past personalities will appear. They may be perceived in various ways according to the characteristics of the individual who is in this state. This can be used to discover the origin of an idea in the past, or to find anything that has been lost there, as long as it is within your probable system. Directly beneath this is A-3. You have an extension, again, here dealing with mass events, issues-movements of land, the history of your planet as you know it, the knowledge of the races that inhabited it, the history of the animals, the layers of gas and coal, and of the various ages that swept across the planet and changed it. More Layers Of Alpha Seth Speaks, Session 575, 9:05 A-4 brings you to a level that is beneath matter formation, a level in which ideas and concepts can be perceived, although their representations do not appear in the present physical reality that you know. From this layer the deepest inspiration come. These ideas and concepts have their own electromagnetic identity, nevertheless appear as "the symbolic landscape" at this level of consciousness. This is difficult to explain. The thoughts do not appear as pseudoimages for example, or assume any pseudo-materialization, yet they are felt vividly, perceived and picked up by portions of the brain-those seemingly unused portions for which science has found no answer. These ideas and concepts obviously came from consciousness. However, they represent incipient latent developments that may or may not occur in physical reality. They may or may not be perceived by any given individual. The characteristic interest and abilities of the personality involved will have much to do with his recognition of the realities within this layer of consciousness. The material available, however, represents building blocks for many probable systems. It is an open area into which many other
dimensions have access. It often becomes available in sleep states. Complete innovations, world-shattering inventions-these all lie waiting, so to speak, in this huge reservoir. Strong personal "conversions" are often effected from this level. Now an individual can pass through these levels and remain relatively untouched and unaware, can travel through them unperceiving. The overall intentions and characteristics of the personality will determine the quality of perception and understanding. The material mentioned is available in each of the levels of consciousness given, but it must be sought out, either through conscious desire or strong unconscious desire. If it is not, then the gifts available and the potentials simply remain unused and unclaimed. The states of consciousness merge also one into the other, and it is obvious that I am using the terms of depth to make the discussion easier. Starting with the ego or waking consciousness as the outer self focused toward exterior reality, these states are broad, more like plains to be explored. Each one, therefore, opens in great adjacent areas also, and there are many "paths" to be taken according to your interest and desires. As your ordinary waking state perceives the entire universe of physical data, so each of these other states of consciousness perceive realities as complicated, varied, and vivid. It is for this reason that it is so difficult to explain the experiences possible within any given one. A-5 opens up a dimension in which the vital consciousness of any personality can at least theoretically be contacted. This involves communicating not only with the past personalities in your terms, but future ones. It is a level of consciousness very seldom reached. It is not, for example, the layer used by most mediums. It is a meeting ground in which personalities from any time or place or probable system can communicate with each other in clear terms understood by all. Since past, present, and future do not exist, this is a level of crystal clear communication of consciousness. Those involved have an excellent knowledge of their own backgrounds and histories, of
course, but in this state possess also a much larger perspective, in which private and historical backgrounds are seen as a portion of a greater perceivable whole. At this level, messages literally flash through the centuries from one great man or woman to another. The future speaks to the past. The great artists have always been able to communicate at this level, and while living literally operated at this level of consciousness a good deal of the time. Only the most exterior portions of their personalities bowed to the dictates of historical period. For those who reach this state and utilize it, communication is clearest. It must be understood that this communication works both ways. Leonardo Da Vinci knew of Picasso, for example. There are great men and women who go unknown. Their contemporaries ignore them. Their achievements may be misunderstood or physically lost, but at this level of consciousness they share in these communications, and at another level of existence their achievements are recognized. I do not mean to imply, however, that only the great share in this communication of consciousness. A great simplicity is necessary, and out of this, many of the most lowly in men's terms also share in these communications. There is an unending conversation going on throughout the universe, and a most meaningful one. Those from both your past and your future have a hand in your present world, and at this level the problems that have been met and will be encountered are being discussed. This is the heart of communication. It is most usually encountered either in a protected deep level of sleep or in a sudden spontaneous trance state. Great energy is generated. The information received in any of these states of consciousness must be interpreted for the normal waking consciousness, if any physical memory is to be maintained. In many cases memory remains unconscious as far as the waking self is concerned, but the experiences themselves can completely change the structure of an individual life. Disastrous courses can be
averted through such inner communications and illuminations, whether the ego is aware of them. The experiences at these various levels may be interpreted symbolically. They may appear in the form of fantasy, fiction, or art work, without the conscious self realizing their origin. Now at any of these various stages of consciousness, other phenomena may also be perceived - thought forms for example, energy manifestations, projections from the personal subconscious, and projections from the collective unconscious. Any or all of these may take symbolic form, and may appear beneficial or threatening according to the attitude of the personality involved. They should be regarded as quite natural phenomena. Often they are incipient forms given activity by the personality who encounters them. The nature of their activity, therefore, will be projected outward from the personality onto the relatively passive materialization. The person encountering these has only to turn his attention away to "deactivate" the phenomena. This does not mean that the phenomena is not real. Its nature is simply of a different kind and degree. It has some energy of its own, but needs additional energy from a perceiver for any interrelationship to take place. If such a materialization appears threatening, then simply wish it peace and withdraw your attention from it. It draws its main activating energy from your focusing, and according to the intensity and nature of your focus. You must not take the root assumptions of physical existence with you as you journey through these levels of consciousness. Divest yourself of as many of them as possible, for they can cause you to misinterpret your experiences. There are other layers of awareness beneath this one, but here there is a much greater tendency for one to merge into the other. In the next level, for example, communication is possible with various kinds of consciousness that has never been physically manifested, in your terms-personalities who do not have physical reality in either your present or future, yet are connected with your system of reality both as guardians and custodians.
Almost all experiences from this level will be symbolically represented, for otherwise they would have no meaning to you. The experiences will have to do in one way or another with nonphysical life, noncorporeal consciousness and forms, and the independence of consciousness from matter. These experiences will always be supportive. Out-of-body experiences will often be involved here, in which the projectionist finds himself in an unearthly environment or one of great beauty and grandeur. Blank Spots And Memory Seth Speaks, Session 576, 10:05 As mentioned somewhat earlier in this book, while your normal waking consciousness seems continual to you, and you are aware usually of no blank spots, nevertheless it has great fluctuations. To a large extent it has memory only of itself and its own perceptions. In normal consciousness, then, it seems as if there are no real other kinds of consciousness, no other areas or levels. When it encounters "blanks spots" and "returns" it blots out awareness that the moment of nonfunction occurred. It forgets the stumble. It cannot be aware of alternate kinds of consciousness while being itself, unless methods are taken that allow it to recover from this amnesia. It plays hopscotch in and out of reality. It is gone sometimes and you are not aware of it. On such occasions your attention is focused elsewhere, in what you might call mini-dreams or hallucinations, or associative and intuitive processes of thought that go quite beyond normal focus. In these lapses you are perceiving other kinds of reality with other than normal waking consciousness. When you return, you lose the thread. Normal waking consciousness pretends there was never any break. This happens with some regularity, and to varying degrees, from fifteen to fifty times an hour, according to your activities. At various times many people do catch themselves, the experience can be so vivid that it leaps the gap, so to speak, with perception so intense that even normal waking consciousness is made aware of it.
These intervals are quite necessary to physical consciousness. They are woven through the fabric of your awareness so cleverly and so intimately that they color your psychic and feeling atmosphere. Normal waking consciousness weaves in and out of this infinite supportive webwork. Your inner experience is so intricate that verbally it is almost impossible to describe. Normal waking consciousness, while having memory of itself, obviously does not retain all memory of all the time. It is said that that memory of past events drops back into the subconscious. It is still intensely alive, and by alive I mean living and active, although you do not focus upon it. Inner portions of your personality also have memory of all of your dreams. These exist simultaneously, and suspended, so to speak like lights over a dark city, illuminating various portions of the psyche. These memory systems are all interconnected. Now in the same way you have your memory of past lives, all quite complete and all operating in the entire memory system. In periods of conscious "blank spots" or certain fluctuations, these memory systems are often perceived. As a rule the conscious mind with its own memory system will not accept them. When a personality realizes that such other realities exist and that other experiences with consciousness are possible, then he activates certain potentials within himself. These alter electromagnetic connections both within the mind, the brain, and even the perceptive mechanisms. They bring together reservoirs of energy and set up pathways of activity, allowing the conscious mind to increase its degree of sensitivity to such data. The conscious mind is set free of itself. To a large measure it undergoes a metamorphosis, taking on greater functions. It is able to perceive, little by little, some of the content before closed to it. It need no longer perceive the momentary "blank spots" fearfully, as evidence of nonexistence. The fluctuations mentioned earlier are often quite minute, yet highly significant. The conscious mind knows well of its own fluctuating state. When once it is led to face this, it finds not chaos, or worse, nonexistence, but its source of its own abilities and strength. The personality begins to use its own potential.
Examining Subjective States Seth Speaks, Session 591, 9:03 You will not find yourself running from teacher to teacher, from book to book. You will not meet yourself through any particular specialized method of meditation. Only by looking quietly within the self that you know can your reality be experienced, with those connections that exist between the present or immediate self and the inner identity that is multidimensional. There must be a willingness, an acquiescence, a desire. If you do not take the time to examine your own subjective states, then you cannot complain if so many answers seem to elude you. You cannot throw the burden of truth upon another, or expect a man or teacher to prove to you the validity of your own existence. Such a procedure is bound to lead you into one of the subjective trap after another. As you sit reading this book, the doorways within are open. You have only to experience the moment as you know it as fully as possible-as it exist physically within the room, or outside in the streets of the city in which you live. Imagine the experience present in one moment of time over the globe, then try to appreciate the subjective experience of your own that exists in the moment and yet escapes it-and this multiplied by each living individual. This exercise alone will open your perceptions, increase your awareness and automatically expand your appreciation of your own nature. The "you" who is capable of such expansion must be a far more creative and multidimensional personality than you earlier imagined. Many of the small exercises given earlier in this book will also help you become acquainted with your own reality, will give you direct experience with the nature of your soul or entity, and will put you in contact with those portions of your being from which your vitality springs. You may or may not have your own encounters with past reincarnational selves or probable selves. You may or may not catch yourself in the act of changing levels of consciousness. Certainly most of my readers, however, will have success with some of the
suggested exercises. They are not difficult, and they are within the capabilities of all. Each reader, however, should in one way or another sense his own vitality in a way quite new to him, and find avenues of expansion opening within himself of which he was earlier unaware. Finding Coordinate Points Seth Speaks, Session 593, 9:06 The great religions of the world all had their births near the major coordination points. (See Chapter Five.) In such localities, changes are apt to appear rapidly, for ideas and emotions are propelled into physical actuality with great vigor. Ideas sweep like fire among the people. The psychic atmosphere is fertile. Creativity springs forth easily, and so such locations are not necessarily peaceful, although they are the best ground in which peace could grow. Any ideas for good or bad become materialized with such strength, however, that the contradictory feelings of mankind are more apparent near coordination points. There are effects, not as yet ascertained by your scientist, that appear in such areas: effects that were known however at the time of Atlantis, and also utilized by the Lumarians. In a strange manner, space puckers to an unobservable degree, as far as your instruments are concerned, near these coordination points. Some of my readers may be familiar with "black" and "white holes" in space, that your scientist have recently discovered. These points have somewhat the same qualities. The electromagnetic aspect of thoughts and emotions, the animations, are drawn through points that can compare to miniature black holes. Here their energy momentarily disappears from your system, is immeasurably accelerated, however, and returned through what you might call a miniature white hole-concentrated now, and highly directed back into your system of reality.
This is only an analogy, but for working purposes it is fair enough one. There is, again, a wrinkling effect about these points, though not as yet observable to you, where space itself, it seems, yearns to disappear inside the first point. There are other distortions in physical laws. A few of these have been observed, but ignored as pertinent signs. The activities of atoms and molecules quicken as they approach these points, but the distance between the atoms and molecules remains the same. That is important. These coordination points also serve to give your system additional source of energy. The law of entropy does not apply, therefore. The coordination points are actually, then, sources of additional energy. They only open however when concentrations of energy build-up within your system. I would like to make the idea clearer. A physical vehicle, a space ship, for example, could never survive that kind of exit and reentry from your system. In Atlantis there were those who utilized this knowledge, accelerating certain thoughts through concentration, emphasizing certain feeling so as to send them through these coordination points. Great stability was therefore achieved as far as road, buildings, and the like were concerned. Such projects were carried out with great consideration for their position between various coordination points. This pocketing-of-space effect can be perceived in certain trance states. This can be compared to wading up of air. Now sit quietly with your eyes closed and try to ascertain the directional proximity of main or subordinate coordination points. Here are some aids to help you. With the intent in mind, you will find your inner vision inclining toward a particular direction of the room, and even your thoughts will seem to follow in the same direction. An imaginary line will help you properly identify he place, in any given location, closest to any given coordination point. Imagine a line drawn from the point of your inner vision, coming from the inner eye you seem to be using, outward. Let it be joined by an imaginary line from the top of your skull, following the same direction in which your thoughts seem to flow.
You have an imaginary line, then, in this case, from here, and here. There is an angle, and then both lines form together. They will point unerringly to the direction closest to a coordination point. The subordinate points permeate space. Ruburt will be able to tell you, for example, the nearest point in this room. Sometimes the angle will be longer, but the two lines will point in the right direction. Energy is, therefore, most effective in those areas. Using this analogy of the white and the black hole: to make this clearer, the white hole is within the black hole. Do you follow me? Electromagnetic properties are drawn into the black hole, and accelerated beyond imagination. The acceleration and the activities within the black hole draw unbelievable proportions of additional energy from other systems. This greater acceleration changes the very nature of the units involved. In the meantime, the characteristics of the black hole itself are changed by this activity. A black hole is a white hole turned inside out, in other words. The electromagnetic "matter" may reemerge through the same "hole" or "point" which is now a white hole. The reemergence, however, again alters its characteristics. It becomes "hungry" once more, and again, a black hole. The same sort of activity goes on in all systems. The holes, therefore, or coordination points, are actually great accelerators that reenergize energy itself. Basic Affirmations The Nature Of Personal Reality, p24 Your beliefs can be like fences that surround you. You must first recognize the existence of such barriers - you must see them or you will not even realize that you are not free, simply because you will not see beyond the fences. They represent the boundaries of your experience.
There is one belief, however, that destroys artificial barriers to perception, an expanding belief that automatically pierces false and inhibiting ideas. Now, separately: The Self Is Not Limited That statement is a statement of fact. It exists regardless of your belief or disbelief in it. Following this concept is another. There Are No Boundaries or Separation of the Self Those that you experience are the result of false beliefs. Following this is the idea that I have already mentioned You Make Your Own Reality To understand yourself and what you are, you can learn to experience yourself directly apart from your beliefs about yourself. What I would like each reader to do is to sit quietly. Close your eyes. Try to sense within yourself the deep feeling tones that I mentioned earlier. Using The Pendulum To Uncover Beliefs The Nature Of Personal Reality, p 69 The pendulum would be a method of allowing you to view conscious material that is not structured to recognized beliefs. Rest And Refreshment The Nature Of Personal Reality, p 98 Now thoughts in general possess an electromagnetic reality, but whether you know it or not, they also have an inner sound value. You know the importance of exterior sound. It is used as a method of communication, but it is also a by-product of many other events, and it affect the physical atmosphere. Now the same is true about what I will call inner sound, the sound of your thoughts within your own
head. I am not speaking here of body noises, though you are usually oblivious to these also. Inner sounds have an even greater effect that exterior ones upon your body. They affect the atoms and molecules that compose your cells. In many respects it is true to say that you speak your body, but the speaking is interior. The same kind of sound built the Pyramids, and it was not sound you would hear with your physical ears. Such inner sound forms your bones and flesh. The sound exists connected with but quite apart from the mental words you use in thinking. It does not matter in which language you are addressing yourself, for example. The sound formed by your intent, and the same intent - I am putting this simply now - will have the sound effect upon the body regardless of the words used. But usually you think in your own language, and so in quite practical terms the words and intent merge. For all practical purposes then the two are one. When you say, "I am tired," mentally you are not only giving silent messages to yourself - I say messages rather than message because the general statement is broken down; many portions of the body must be affected before you feel tired - but besides this the inner sound value of the messages automatically affects the body in just that way. What you should do, then, if you find yourself feeling tired? This is your conscious assessment of your body's reality at a given time. You want to change it so you do not reinforce it. Instead you say mentally that the body can now begin to rest and refresh itself. You take your initial judgement for granted then without restating it, and instead suggest the remedy be carried out (positively). You can, if the conditions warrant, physically rest by lying down or making whatever adjustments seem appropriate. If none are possible then several such suggestions-that the body can refresh itself-will give you benefit. To tell yourself over and over that you are tired, however, reinforces the condition.
The inner sound value of the countering suggestion automatically begins to refresh the body. Inner Visual Beliefs and Om The Nature Of Personal Reality, p105 I told you that thoughts are translated into this inner sound, but thoughts always attempt to materialize themselves also. As such they are incipient images, collectors of energy. They build up their own embryonic form until it is in one way or another physically translated. Mental images therefore are extremely powerful, combining inner sound and its effects with a clear mental picture which will seek physical form. Your imagination adds motivating and propelling power to such images, and so you will find that many of your beliefs are entertained by you in an inner visual manner. They will have mental pictures connected with them. One such image may represent one particular belief or it may stand for several. As you make lists of your beliefs you will find some of these pictures coming into your mind. Look at them as you would a painting you have created. If you do not like what you see then quite consciously change the picture in your mind. These images are interior, yet because they are so a part of your beliefs you will see them exteriorized also in your experience. There is then light that you do not see with physical eyes, as there is sound you do not hear with your ears. These combine to mentally form the physical image that you know, so you must work from the inside out. Your beliefs are your palette, using the analogy of a painting again. Your thoughts give the general outline of the reality that you physically experience. Your emotions will fill in the patterns with light. Your imagination will force these together. The sound of your inner thoughts is the medium that you actually use. This is far more than an analogy, however, for in simple terms it explains quite clearly the way in which your beliefs form your reality.
In quiet moments the word "O-O-O-O-O-M-M-M-M-M," said slowly, mentally or aloud, will be of benefit in toning up your general physical condition. The sounds contain within them a built-up impetus toward energy and well being…. A Dialogue Technique The Nature of Personal Reality, p232 "Dialogues" is now a book, just completed, but it also represented a movement of the self through a question-and-answer format, through which Ruburt recognized and faced many diverse beliefs. Each reader can utilize the same method whether or not artisitc achievement is also involved, through objectifying personal beliefs in a dialogue form. This also happens frequently in the dream state, when you allow dreams in which "you" are two separate people, either strangers or familiar, each asking questions of the other. Emotions Are Reactions To Beliefs The Nature Of Personal Reality, p241 Ruburt advised Andrea to accept the validity of such feeling as feelings-not to inhibit them, but to follow their flow with the understanding that they are feelings about reality. As themselves they are real. They express emotional reactions to beliefs. The next time Andrea feels inadequate, for example, she is to actively experience that feeling, realizing that even though she feels inferior this does not mean she is inferior. She is to say, "I feel inferior," and at the same time to understand that the feeling is not a statement of fact but of emotion. A different kind of validity is involved. Experiencing your emotion as such is not the same as accepting them as statements of fact about your own existence. Andrea is then supposed to ask, "Why do I feel so inferior?" If you deny the validity of emotion itself and pretend it away, then you will never be led to question the belief behind it. A Feeling Tone Exercise Nature of Personal Reality, Session 613, 9:40
Basically you create your experience through your beliefs about yourself and the nature of reality. Another way to understand this is to realize that you create your experiences through your expectations. Your feeling-tones are your emotional attitudes toward yourself and life in general, and these generally govern large areas of experience. They give the overall emotional coloration that characterizes what happens to you. You are what happens to you. Your emotional feelings are often transitory but beneath there are certain qualities of feeling uniquely your own, that are like deep musical chords. While your day-to-day feelings rise or fall, these characteristics feeling tones lie beneath. Sometimes they rise to the surface, but in great long rhythms. You cannot call these negative or positive. They are instead tones of your being. They represent the most inner portion of your experience. This does not mean that they are hidden from you, or are meant to be. It simply means that they represent the core from which you form your experience. This is not difficult to do. Your knowledge of their existence will help you recognize their deep rhythms within you. Each individual will sense these tones in his or her own way, so do not worry how they feel. Simply tell yourself that they exist, that they are composed of the great energies of your being made flesh. Then let yourself experience. If you are used to terms like meditation, try to forget the term during this procedure. Do not use any name. Free yourself from concepts, and experience the being of yourself and the motion of your own vitality. Do not question, "Is this right? Am I doing it correctly? Am I feeling what I should feel?" You are not to use other peoples criteria. There are no standards but your own feelings. No particular time limit is recommended. This should be an enjoyable experience. Accept whatever happens as uniquely your own. The exercise will put you in touch with yourself. It will return you to yourself. Whenever you are nervous or upset, take a few moments to
sense this feeling tone within you, and you will find yourself centered in your own being, secure. When you have tried this exercise several times, then feel these deep rhythms go out from you in all directions, as indeed they do. Electromagnetically they radiate out through your physical being; and in ways that I hope to explain later, they form the environment that you know even as they form your physical image. Rearranging Belief Furniture The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 618 You can stub your toe as easily on a misplaced idea as you can upon an old chair. It will help you, in fact, if you think of your own beliefs as furniture that can be easily arranged, changed, renewed, completely discarded or replaced. It is up to you to accept those that you choose to accept. Imagine yourself then rearranging this furniture. Images of particular pieces will come clearly to you. Ask yourself what ideas these pieces represent. Open up the drawers inside. There will be no mystery. You know what your own beliefs are. You will see grouping, but it is up to you to look inside your own mind and to use the images in your own way. Throw out ideas that do not suit you. If you read this, find such an idea in yourself and then say, "I cannot throw this idea away," then you must realize that your inner remarks is in itself a belief. You can indeed throw the idea away, the second one as easily as the first. You are not powerless before ideas. Using this analogy, you will certainly find some furniture that you did not expect. Do not simply look in the center of your inner room of consciousness; and make sure that you are on guard against certain invisibility that was mentioned earlier where an idea, quite available, appears to be a part of reality instead…. Imagination also plays an important part in your subjective life, as it gives mobility to your beliefs. It is one of the motivating agencies that helps transform your beliefs into physical experience. It is vital
therefore that you understand the interrelationship between ideas and imagination. In order to dislodge unsuitable beliefs and establish new ones, you must learn to use your imagination to move concepts in and out of your mind. The proper use of imagination can then propel ideas in the direction you desire. Imagination And Emotion Changes Beliefs The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 622 Your emotions and your imagination both follow your belief. When the belief vanishes then the same emotional context is no longer entertained, and your imagination turns in other directions. Beliefs automatically mobilize your emotional and imaginative powers. Few beliefs are intellectual alone. When you are examining the contents of your conscious mind, you must learn, or recognize, the emotional and imaginative connotations that are connected with a given idea. There are various ways of altering the belief by substituting its opposite. One particular method is three-pronged. You generate the emotion opposite the one that arises from the belief you want to change, and you turn your imagination in the opposite direction from the one dictated by the belief. At the same time you consciously assure yourself that the unsatisfactory belief is an idea about reality and not an aspect of reality itself. You realize that ideas are not stationary. Emotions and imagination move them in one direction or another, reinforce them or negate them. Quite deliberately you use your conscious mind playfully, creating a game a children do, in which for a time you completely ignore what seems to be in physical terms and "pretend" that what you really want is real. If you are poor, you purposely pretend that you have all you need financially. Imagine how you will spend your money. If you are ill, imagine playfully that you are cured. See yourself doing what you would do. If you cannot communicate with others, imagine yourself doing so easily. If you feel your days dark and pointless, then imagine them filled and joyful.
Now this may sound impractical, yet in your daily life you use your imagination and your emotions often at the service of far less worthy beliefs; and the results are quite clear- and let me add, unfortunately practical. As it took awhile for the unsatisfactory beliefs to become materialized, so it may be a time before you see physical results; but new ideas will take growth and change your experience as certainly as the old ones did. The process of imagining will also bring you face to face with other subsidiary ideas that may momentarily bring you up short. You may see where you held two quite conflicting ideas simultaneously, and with equal vigor. In such a case, you stalemated yourself. Improving Interactions The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 622 You are setting out to experience the most fulfilled reality that you can. To do this you have, hopefully, begun to examine your beliefs. You may want others to change. In doing so you begin with yourself. I told you to imagine a game in which you see yourself acting in line with the new desired belief. As you do, see yourself affecting others in the new fashion. See them reacting to you in the new way. This is highly important because telepathically you are sending them interior messages. You are telling them that you are changing the conditions and behavior of your relationship. You are broadcasting your altered position. Some will be quite able to understand you at that level. There may those who need the old framework, and someone, if not you, to play the part you played before. Those people will either drop out of your experience or you must drop them from yours. Once more, if you think of daily life as an ever-moving threedimensional painting with you as the artist, then you will realize that as your beliefs change so will your experience. According to your energy, power and intensity, you can help change the beliefs of many people, of course.
Listen to your own conversation as you speak with friends, and to theirs. See how you reinforce each others beliefs. See how your imagination often follows the same lines. All of this is quite out in the open if you realize that it is. Triggering Bodily Memories The Nature of Personal Reality, Session 633 Try a simple experiment. The results will be self-explanatory. Think of a sad event from your life. Similar feelings will soon follow, and with them memories of other such unpleasant episodes strung together through association. Scenes, odors, words, perhaps half-forgotten, will suddenly come upon you with new freshness. Your thoughts will activate the appropriate feelings. Beneath your awareness, however, they will also trigger the cells’ ever-present memory imprints of stimuli received when those events occurred. There is, to some extent now, a cellular memory playback - and on the part of the entire body, the recognition of its state at that time. If you pursue such sorrowful thoughts persistently you are reactivating that body condition. Think of one of the most pleasant events that ever happened to you and the reverse will be true, but the process is the same. This time the associated memories are pleasant, and the body changes accordingly. Remember, these mental associations are living things. They are formations of energy assembled into invisible structures, through processes quite as valid and complicated as the organization of any group of cells. Comparing them with cells, they are of briefer duration, generally speaking, though under certain conditions this does not apply. But your thoughts form structures as real as the cells. Their composition is different in that no solidity is involved in your terms. As living cells have a structure, react to stimuli and organize according to their own classification, so do thoughts. Thoughts thrive on association. They magnetically attract others like themselves, and like some strange microscopic animals they repel their "enemies," or other thoughts that are threatening to their own survival.
Using this analogy, your mental and emotional life forms a framework composed of such structures, and these act directly upon the cells of your physical body. Visualizing Breaths As Lives The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 636 In some ways, the rhythm of birth and death is like a breath taken and exhaled. Feel your own breath as it comes and goes. You are not it, yet it comes into you and leaves you, and without its continuous flow you could not physically exist. Just so your lives go in and out of you you and yet not you. And a portion of you, while letting them all go, remembers them and knows their journey. Imagine where your breath goes when it leaves your body, how it escapes through an open window perhaps and becomes a part of the space outside, where you will never recognize it - and when it has left you it is no longer part of what you are, for you are already different. So the lives you have lived are not you, while they are of you. Close your eyes. Think of your breath as lives, and your are the entity through which they have passed and are passing. Then you will feel your state of grace, and all the artificial guilts will be meaningless. None of this negates the supreme and utter integrity of your individuality, for you are as well the individual entity through whom the lives flow, and the unique lives that are expressed through you. Contacting The Entity The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 637 When you are aware of the existences of the entity and of the soul, you can consciously draw upon their greater energy, understanding and strength. It is inherently available, but your conscious intent brings about certain changes in you that automatically trigger such benefits. The results will be felt down to the smallest cells within your body, and will affect even the most seemingly mundane events of your daily life.
You are growing in consciousness; therefore using it expands its capabilities. It is not a thing, but an attribute and characteristic. That is why your understanding and desire are so important. The processes initiated are beyond your normal awareness. They occur automatically with your intent if you do not block them through fear, doubt or opposing beliefs. Imagine yourself as a portion of an invisible universe, but one in which all the stars and planets are conscious and full of indescribable energy. You are aware of this. Think of the universe as having the form of a body. If you want to, visualize its outline brilliant against the sky. The suns and planets are your cells, each filled with energy and power but awaiting your direction. Then see this image exploding into your consciousness, which is unbelievably bright. Realize that it is a portion of a far greater multidimensional structure. Feel the entity sending you energy as you send energy to your cells. Let it fill your being and then direct it physically any place within your body that you choose. If instead there is a physical event that you strongly desire, then use that energy to imagine its actual occurrence as vividly as you can. If you follow these directions and understand the meaning of them as given, you will find the results most startling and effective. Energy may be directed to any portion of the body, and if you do not block its actions by disbeliefs, that portion will be cured. The Emotional Approach To Discovering Beliefs The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 644 There are two ways to get at your own conscious beliefs. The most direct is to have a series of talks with yourself. Write down your beliefs in a variety of areas, and you will find that you believe different things at different times. Often there will be contradictions readily apparent. These represent opposing beliefs that regulate your emotions, your bodily condition and your physical experience. Examine the conflicts. Invisible beliefs will appear that unite those seemingly diverse attitudes. Invisible beliefs are simply those of which you are fully aware but prefer to ignore, because they represent areas of strife which you have not been willing to handle
thus far. They are quite available once you are determined to examine the complete contents of your conscious mind. If this strikes you as too intellectual a method, then you can also work backward from your emotions to your beliefs. In any case, regardless of which method you choose, one will lead you to the other. Both approaches require honesty with yourself, and a firm encounter with the mental, psychic and emotional aspects of your current reality. …you must accept the validity of your feelings while realizing that they are about certain issues or conditions, and not necessarily factual statements of your reality. "I feel that I am a poor mother," or, "I feel that I am a failure." These are emotional statements and should be accepted as such. You are to understand, however, that while feelings have their own integrity as emotions, they are not statements of fact. You might be an excellent mother while feeling very inadequate. You may be most successful in reaching your goals while still thinking yourself a failure. By recognizing these differences and honestly following the feelings through-in other words, by riding the emotions-you will be led to the beliefs behind them. A series of self-revelations will inevitably result, each leading you to further creative psychological activity. At each stage you will be closer to the reality of your experience than you have ever been. The conscious mind will benefit greatly as it becomes more and more aware of its directing influence upon events. It will no longer fear the emotions, or the body, as threatening or unpredictable, but sense the greater unity in which it is involved. The emotions will not feel like stepchildren, with only the bestdressed being admitted. They will not need to cry out for expression, for they will be fully admitted as members of the family of self. Now, again, some of you will say that your trouble is that you are too emotional, too sensitive. You may believe that you are too easily swayed. In such cases you are afraid of your emotions. You think their powers so strong that all reason can be drowned within them.
No matter how open it may seem that you are, you will nevertheless accept certain emotions that you think of as safe, and ignore others, or stop them at particular points, because you are afraid of following them further. This behavior will follow your beliefs, of course. Trusting The Emotions The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 644, 10:37 Each individual must examine his or her individual beliefs, or begin with feelings which will inevitably lead to them. In this area, as in all others, those of you who are proficient verbally might use the method of writing. Either write down your beliefs as they come to you, or make a list of your intellectual and emotional assumptions. You may find that they are quite different. If you have a physical symptom, do not run away from it. Feel its reality in your body. Let the emotions follow freely. These will lead you, if you allow them to flow, to the beliefs that cause the difficulty. They will take you through many aspects of your own reality that you must face and explore. These methods release your withheld natural aggressiveness. You may feel that you are swamped by emotion, but trust it - again, it is the emotion of your being, and it arouses your own creativity. Followed, it will seek the answers to your problems. Ruburt in his Dialogues has an excellent example, in the way in which he allowed his feeling to arise, though he was initially frightened of them. Everyone cannot write poetry, but each person is creative in his or her own way, an can follow the emotions as Ruburt did whether or not a poem results. He will know the passage to which I refer. Use it. (See book) You must realize that your conscious mind is competent, its ideas pertinent, and that your own beliefs affect and form your body and experience.
Getting At Bridge Beliefs And Invisible Beliefs The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 645, 9:40 As you examine the contents of your conscious mind, it may seem to you that you hold so many different beliefs at different times that you cannot correlate them. You will find a grouping of core beliefs about which others gather. If you think of these as planets, then your other ideas orbit around them. There may be some "invisible beliefs," and there may be one or two invisible core beliefs. These, following the analogy, would be hidden behind the brighter, more obvious "planets," and yet would show their presence through their effects upon your relationships with all of the other visible core beliefs in your "planetary system." Questions you cannot seem to answer as you study your own ideas, for example, may lead you to suspect the existence of such invisible core beliefs. Let me emphasize that they are consciously available. You can find them through approaches mentioned earlier, working from your feelings or by beginning with beliefs that become most readily available. This subject leads to what I call bridge beliefs…. As you examine your ideas you will discover that even some apparently contradictory ones have similarities, and these resemblances may be used to bridge those gaps between beliefs-even those that seem to be the most diverse. Because you are the individual who holds the beliefs you will stamp them, so to speak, with certain characteristics that you will recognize. These aspects will themselves emerge as bridge beliefs. They contain great motion and energy. When you discover what they are, you will find a point of unity within yourself from which you can, with some detachment, view your system of beliefs. The emotions connected with these bridge beliefs may indeed surprise you, but standing upon such unifying structures you are also free to let the emotional flow sweep past, feeling it, but aware for the first time, perhaps, of the origin of those feelings in your beliefs, and no longer afraid of being swept away by them.
It is impossible to tell you of the emotional reality of such an experience. You will have to discover it for yourself. Such bridge beliefs often allow you to perceive the "invisible" beliefs mentioned earlier this evening, and these can appear to you as a revelation. On second thought, however, you will realize that another belief blocked that one from your view, but that you were always aware of it; and that in a strange way it was also invisible because you took it for granted. You did not consider it a belief about reality but reality itself, and never questioned it. Andrea never doubted the "fact" that life was more difficult for a woman than a man. (See the 643rd session.) When she examined her beliefs this escaped her. The invisible belief, however, affected her behavior and experience. Now she understands it and can deal with it as belief, and not as a condition of reality over which she has no control. Bridge beliefs may become available to you in the dream state. If so, the conscious knowledge may appear suddenly in the middle of your waking day. A reconciliation will be felt within the self following such a conscious understanding, though the dream itself may not be consciously remembered. In the dream various symbols may be used. Each person will vary in this regard. When such dreams are remembered, however, individual symbols, such as crossing a river safely or an ocean, or bridging a gap or an abyss, are often involved. At such times there can also be strong emotional content, as of finally triumphing over psychological chaos, or even rising from the dead. You can suggest to yourself the emergence of such bridge beliefs. The conscious idea itself represents a statement of intent. Various core beliefs, not well assimilated, will give you conflicting self-images. Now there is a difference between freely experimenting with and enjoying various styles of dress, attitudes and behavior-and finding yourself "lost" in a compulsion to change your appearance, attitude and behavior. The latter usually involves contrary core beliefs that are alternately pulling you one way and then the other. Usually exaggerated opposing emotions will also be apparent. Once you understand this, it is not difficult to look at your beliefs to identify these, and to find a bridge to unite the seeming contradictions.
Altering Sleep Patterns The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 651, 11:19 As mentioned in Seth Speaks, my earlier book, great distinctions are made between your waking and sleeping states. (See the 532nd session in Chapter Eight of that book.) They are neatly divided, with little effort really made to relate the two. Many of you will not find it practical to alter your sleeping hours because of work commitments. Some of you will be able to do so, however, those of you who are really interested in this endeavor can at least achieve some variation, on occasion, that will allow you to connect your sleeping and waking activities with far greater effectiveness. Those of you who are able will discover that a somewhat altered arrangement will work greatly to your advantage. I suggest a six-hour sleeping block of time at one session, and no more. If you still feel the need for a greater amount of rest, then a two-hour-at-the-most nap can be added. Many will find that a five-hour steady sleeping period is quite sufficient, with a nap required. A four-hour block is ideal, however, reinforced by whatever nap feels natural. In such circumstances, there are not the great artificial divisions created between the two states of consciousness. The conscious mind is better able to remember and assimilate its dreaming experience, and in dreams the self can use its waking experience more efficiently. Often in the aged you find such frameworks coming into being naturally, but those who awaken spontaneously after four hours consider themselves insomniacs because of their beliefs, and cannot utilize their experience properly. Both the conscious and unconscious would operate far more effectively, however, under an abbreviated sleeping program, and for those involved in "creative" endeavors this kind of schedule would bring greater intuition and applied knowledge. Individuals following such natural behavior would feel much greater stability in themselves. Within the general patterns I have mentioned, each will, of course, find his or her own particular rhythm, and some
experimentation might be necessary until you learn the maximum balances. But the flow of vitality would be heightened. It is true that the patterns will have their own flow at certain points in your life. Following your own rhythm, longer or shorter periods will naturally ensue. Your consciousness as you think of it will be expanded through such practices. Generally speaking, eight-hour sleep periods, or longer ones, are not beneficial, nor in larger terms are they natural for the race. There is a give-and-take chemical reaction, or rather chemical rhythms of reactions, that are far more effective in the shorter sleep periods. Many of you sleep through periods that should be those of your greatest creativity and alertness, in which the conscious and unconscious are most beautifully focused and at one. The conscious mind is often drugged with sleep just when it could be deriving is greatest benefits from the unconscious, and be able to poise most meaningfully in the reality that you know. In these instances the beauty and illumination of your dream state can be clear in the conscious mind, and used to enrich your physical life. Contrast in your experience will appear to you in their united clarity. Concentrate On Subordinate Abilities: A Point Of Power Exercise The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 654, 10:37 Cellular memory can be changed at any point. Present beliefs can insert into the past new memory, both psychologically and physically. The future is in no way predetermined in basic levels. This does not mean that the future cannot be predicted sometimes, for in practical terms you will often continue with certain lines of probability which can be seen "ahead of time." Such predictions can affect the probabilities, of course, and reinforce a present line of belief…. You rule your experiences from the focal point of your present, where your beliefs directly intercept with the body and the physical world on the one hand, and the invisible world from which you draw your energy and strength on the other. This applies to individuals,
societies, races and nations, and to sociological, biological and psychic activities. In daily practical experience, try to concentrate for awhile upon seemingly subordinate abilities, ones you think of as latent. If you do so consistently, using your imagination and will, then those abilities will become prominent in your present. The current beliefs will reprogram and alter past experience. It is not simply that past, forgotten, unconsciously perceived events will be put together in a new way and organized under a new heading, but that in that past (now not perceivable), the entire bodily response to seemingly past events will change. Your desire or belief will literally be reaching back into time, teaching the nerves new tricks. Definite reorganizations in that past will occur in your present, allowing you to behave in entirely new fashions. Learned behavior therefore alters not only present and future but also past conduct. Your power as a rational consciousness focused in the present provides you with opportunities for creativity that you are but vaguely learning to understand. As you do learn, you will automatically begin to appreciate the multidimensional nature of not only your own species but of others as well. The moment as you think of it, then, is the creative framework through which you, the nonphysical self, constantly form corporeal reality; and through that window into earthly existence you form both its future and past. Drawing Upon Probable Abilities And Events Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 655, 10:47 … Since your conscious beliefs determine those unconscious functions that bring about your personal experience, your first step is to enlarge those beliefs. The concepts given in this book should have already helped you to do that to some extent. Within your own subjective reality are traces of all those roads not taken, those abilities not used. You may think of yourself as primarily a parent, or mainly in terms of your job or profession. As much as possible, for now, forget the normal familiar light in which you see yourself, and consider your identity.
Write down or enumerate all of your known physical and mental abilities, whether they have been developed or not, and all of those inclinations toward particular activities - even those only remotely considered - as well as those that have come at all vividly to mind. These represent the varied and probable characteristics from which you have chosen to activate your particular main interest. Out of these attributes, therefore, you choose what you now consider to be your hard-bed reality. Any of those directions, followed, can enrich the existence that you know, and in turn open up other probabilities that now escape you. The main image of yourself that you have held has, to a large extent, also closed your mind to these other probable interests and identifications. If you think in terms of a multidimensional self, then you will realize that you have many more avenues open to expression and fulfillment than you have been using. These probable achievements will lie latent unless you consciously decide to bring them into being. Whatever talents you sense you have can be developed only if you determine to do so. The simple act of decision will then activate the unconscious mechanisms. You, as a personality, regardless of your health, wealth or circumstances, have a rich variety of probable experience from which to choose. Consciously you must realize this and seize the direction for your own life. Even if you say, "I will go along with all life offers," you are making a conscious decision. If you say, "I am powerless to direct my life," you are also making a deliberate choice-and in that case a limited one. The path of experience is nowhere settled. There is no one road that does not have avenues to another. There are deep veins of probable actions ever available to you at any given time. Your imagination can be of great value, allowing you to open yourself to such courses; you can then use it to help you bring these into being. If you are poor, you chose that reality from many probable ones that did not involve poverty-and that are still open. If you chose illness, again there is a probable reality ready for initiation in which you
choose health. If you are lonely there are probable friends you refused to meet in the past, but are readily available. In your mind, therefore, see those probable abilities or events taking place. As you do, the intensity of your desire brings them into your experience. There are no boundaries, again, set about the self. There are literally many other probable yous. You can draw upon their abilities, as in their own way they call upon your own, for you are all intimately connected. You must realize that you are indeed a probable you. Your experience is the result of beliefs. Your neuronal structure necessitates a certain focus so that other experiences counter to your conscious assumptions remain probable or latent. Alter the beliefs and any probable self can, within certain limitations, be actualized. Probabilities, The Past And Future, And The Point Of Power The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 656, 10:01 You can change the picture of your life at any time if only you realize that it is simply the one portrait of yourself that you have created from an unlimited amount of probable ones. The peculiar aspect of your own probable portraits will still be characteristic of you, and no other. The abilities, strengths and variants that you may want to actualize are already latent, in your terms, and at your disposal. Suppose that you are unhealthy and desire health. If you understand the nature of probabilities, you will not need to pretend to ignore the present situation. You will recognize it instead as a probable reality that you have physically materialized. Taking that for granted, you will then begin the process necessary to bring a different probability into physical experience. You will do this by concentrating upon what you want, but feeling no conflict between that and what you have, because one will not contradict the other; each will be seen as a reflection of belief in daily life. As it took some time to build up your present image with its unhealthy aspects, so it may take time to change that picture. But concentration upon the present unhealthy situation will only prolong it.
Each condition is as real or unreal as the other. Which you? Which world? You have your choice, broadly, within certain frameworks that you have chosen as part of your creaturehood. The past as you think of it, and the subconscious, again as you think of it, have little to do with your present experience outside of your beliefs about them. The past contains for each of you some moments of joy, strength, creativity, and splendor, as well a episodes of unhappiness, despair perhaps, turmoil and cruelty. Your present convictions will act like a magnet, activating all such past issues, happy and sad. You will choose from your previous experience all of those events that reinforce your conscious beliefs, and so ignore those that do not; the latter may even seem to be nonexistent. As mentioned in this book (in Chapter Four, for instance) the emerging memories will then turn on the body mechanisms, merging past and present in some kind of harmonious picture. This means that the pieces will fit together whether they are joyful or not. This joining of the past and present, in that context, predisposes you to similar future events, for you have geared yourself for them. Change now quite practically alters both the past and the future. For you, because of your neurological organization, the present is obviously the only point from which past and future can be changed, or when action becomes effected. I am not speaking symbolically. In the most intimate of terms, your past and future are modified by your present reactions. Alterations occur within the body. Circuits within the nervous system are changed, and energies that you do not understand seek out new connections on much deeper levels far beyond consciousness. Your present beliefs govern the actualization of events. Creativity and experience are being formed moment by moment by each individual. You must understand that your present is the point at which flesh and matter meet with the spirit. Therefore the present is your point of power in your current lifetime, as you think of it. If you assign greater force to the past, then you will feel ineffective and deny yourself your own energy.
For an exercise, sit with your eyes wide open, looking about you, and realize that this moment represents the point of your power, through which you can affect both past and future events. The present seen before you, with its intimate physical experience, is the result of action in other such presents. Do not be intimidated therefore by the past and the future. There is no need at all for undesirable aspects of your contemporary reality to be projected into the future, unless you use the power of the present to do so. If you learn to get hold of this feeling of power now, you can use it most effectively to alter your life situation in whatever way you choose again, within those limitations set by your creature hood. …the point of power is the present, and from that moment you choose which you, and which world. The experience of a country is the cumulative result of the choice of each individual in it, so as you choose your own circumstances you affect each other person within your country and your world. Restructuring The Past, Acting Symbolically On Beliefs The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 657, 9:05 To rid yourself of annoying restrictions then, my dear friend, you repattern your past from the present. Whatever your circumstances, you use the past as a rich source, looking through it for your successes, restructuring it. When you search it looking for what went wrong, then you become blind to what was right, in those terms, so that the past only mirrors the shortcomings that now face you…. As foolish as it may sound, you should give some money away, or in what ever manner that suits you act as if you did have more money than you physically have. You must respond to your new beliefs, so that neurologically the message gets across. You perform habitually in certain manners as a result of your beliefs. Now if you willfully change some of those habits then you are also getting the message across. The initiative must come from you, and in the present. In a very real manner of speaking, this means changing your viewpoint, that particular perspective with which you view your past and present and imagine your future.
You must look within yourself for evidences of what you want in terms of positive experience. Examine your past with that in mind. Imagine your future from the point of power in the present. In such a way at least you are not using the past to reinforce your limitations, or projecting them into the future. It is only natural to contrast what you want with what you have, and it is very easy to become discouraged in so doing, but looking for errors in the past will not help you. A correctly utilized five-minute period can be of great benefit, however. In this period concentrate upon the fact that the point of power is now. Feel and dwell upon the certainty that your emotional, spiritual and psychic abilities are focused through the flesh, and for five minutes only direct all of your attention toward what you want. Use visualization or verbal thought-whatever comes most naturally to you; but for that period do not concentrate upon any lacks, just upon your desire. Use all your energy and attention. Then forget about it. Do not check to see how well it is working. Simply make sure that in that period your intentions are clear. Then in one way or another, according to your own individual situation, make one physical gesture or act that is in line with your belief or desire. Behave physically, then, at least once a day in a way that shows you have faith in what you are doing. The act can be a very simple one. If you are lonely and feel unwanted, it can merely involve smiling at someone else. If you are poor, it can involve such a simple thing as buying an item you want that cost two cents more than the one you would usually buy-acting on the faith, even that feebly, that the two cents will somehow be given to you or come into your experience; but acting as if you had more than you do. In health terms, it involves conducting yourself once a day as though you were not sick in whatever way given you. But the belief in the present, reinforced for five minutes, plus such a physical action, will sometimes bring literally awesome results. Such effects will occur however only if you cease looking into the past "for things that went wrong," and stop reinforcing your negative experience. These same principles can be used in any area in your life, and in each you are choosing from a variety of probable events.
Changing Beliefs Through Hypnosis The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 658, 10:46 What is behind reality? Is physical life a hallucination? Is there some definable concrete reality, of which your own is a mere shadow? Your reality is the result of a hallucination, if by this you mean that it is the only picture shown by your senses. Physically, of course, your existence is perceived through the senses. In that context corporeal life is an entranced one, with the focus of attention largely concentrated through the senses' belief in the reality of their sensations. Yet that experience is the image that reality takes for you now, and so in other terms earthly life is one version of reality-not reality in its entirety, but a part of it. It is in itself an avenue through which you perceive what reality is. In order to explore that experience, you direct your attention to it and use all of your other (nonphysical) abilities as corollaries, adjuncts, additions. You hypnotize your very nerves, and the cells within your body, for they will react as you expect them to react, and the beliefs of your conscious mind are followed in degree by all portions of the self down to the smallest atom and molecule. The large events in your life, your interactions with others, including the habitual workings of the most minute physical events within your body-all of this follows your conscious beliefs. Again, if you are ill you may say, "I did not want to be sick," or if you are poor, "I did not want to be poor," or if you are unloved, "I did not want to be lonely." Yet for your own reasons you began to believe in illness more than health, in poverty more than abundance, in loneliness more than affection. You may have accepted some of these ideas from your parents. Their effects may have surrounded you, or you may have switched beliefs in one particular area of your life; but each can be changed if you utilized the power of action in the present. I am not saying that every one of you must or should be healthy, wealthy and wise. I am only addressing those here now who have effects in their lives with which they are dissatisfied. In one manner of speaking, then, the suggestions you give yourselves constantly operate as beliefs that are reflected in your experience.
Some of you are simply mentally lazy. You do not consciously examine the data you receive. Many who make a practice of "denying" negative suggestions from others, actually do so because they are so fully convinced that the powers of negative beliefs is stronger than that of beneficial ones. Each of you will find habitual thought patterns in your own life backed up by resulting action-conditional behavior as it were-by which you continually reinforce negative aspects, concentrate upon them to the exclusion of conflicting data, and so bring them into experience through natural hypnosis. Many people assign great power to a hypnotist, yet whenever you have the undivided attention of another, you act as a hypnotist to a large degree. When ever you have your own undivided attention you act as hypnotist and subject simultaneously. You give yourselves posthypnotic suggestions all the time, particularly when you project present conditions into the future. I want to impress upon you the fact that all of this simply follows the natural functions of the mind, and so to dispel any ideas you have about the "magical" aspects of hypnosis. For five or ten minutes a day at the most, then, use natural hypnosis as a method of accepting desired new beliefs. During that period concentrate your attention as vividly as possible upon one simple statement. Repeat it over and over while focusing upon it for this time. Try to feel the statement in whatever way possible-that is do not allow distractions, but if your mind insists upon running about then channel its images in line with your declarations. The repetition, verbally and mentally, is important because it activates patterns and reflects them. Do not strain. This exercise should not be done along with the point of power exercise given earlier. (See the 657th session in Chapter Fifteen or exercise #21.) One should not run into the other, but should be carried out on separate occasions during the day.
During the period, however, do remember that you are using the present as a moment of power to insert new beliefs, and that these will indeed be materialized. When the exercise is finished do not dwell on it. Put it from your mind. You will have utilized natural hypnosis in a concentrated form. You may have to experiment some for the proper wording of your message, but three days at the very least are necessary before you can tell, through results, how effective it has been. A change of wording may in order. When you feel right about the statement, then continue it. Your attention should be completely relaxed otherwise, for the time needed. You may experience spectacular results at once. But continue the exercise even if this happens. Inner channels must become repatterned. There will be a feel to this that will serve as your own individual guideline. There is no need to continue the practice over ten minutes. In fact, many will find that difficult to do. Spending a longer period of time simply reinforces the idea of problems involved. A Hypnosis Belief Script The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 659, 11:02 In those areas in which you are dissatisfied, you fell that you are powerless, or that your will is paralyzed, or that conditions continue despite what you think of as your intent. Yet if you pay attention to your own conscious thoughts, you will find that you are concentrating upon precisely those negative aspects that so appall you. You are hypnotizing yourself quite effectively and so reinforcing the situation. You may say, horrified, "What can I do? I am hypnotizing myself into my overweight condition (or my loneliness, or my poor health)." Yet in other facets of your life you may be hypnotizing yourself into wealth, accomplishment, satisfaction - and here you do not complain. The same issues are involved. The same principles are operating. In those positive life situations you are certain of your initiative. There is no doubt. Your beliefs become reality. Now: In the unsatisfactory aspects, you must understand this: there is no doubt. You are utterly convinced that you are sick, or poor, or lonely, or spiritually opaque, or unhappy.
The results, then, as easily and effortlessly follow. Natural hypnosis, in the terms given here, operates as well in one case as in the other. What should you do, then? First of all, you must realize that you are the hypnotist. You must seize the initiative as you have in other positive aspects of your life. Whatever the superficial reasons for your beliefs, you must say: For a certain amount of time I will momentarily suspend what I believe in this area, and willfully accept the belief I want. I will pretend that I am under hypnosis, with myself as hypnotist and subject. For that time desire and belief will be one. There will be no conflict because I do this willingly. For this period I will completely alter my old beliefs. Even though I sit quietly, in my mind I will act as if the belief I want were completely mine. At this point do not think of the future, but only of the present. If you are overweight, insert the weight that you think is ideal for you while following this exercise. Imagine that you are healthy if you have a belief that you are not. If you are lonely, believe that you are filled with the feeling of companionship instead. Realize that you are exerting your initiative to imagine such situations. Use visual data, or words - whatever is most natural to you. And again, no more than ten minutes is required. If you do this faithfully, within a month you will find the new conditions materializing in your experience. Your neurological structure will respond automatically. The unconscious will be aroused, bringing its great power to bear, bringing you the new results. Do not try to overdo this, to go through the entire day worrying about beliefs, for example. This can only cause you to contrast what you have with what you want. Forget the exercise when it is completed. You will find yourself with impulses that arrive with these newly inserted beliefs, and then it is up to you to act on these and not ignore them. The initiative must be yours. You will never know unless you try the exercise.
Conscious Creation, The Point Of Power, And Emotions The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 663, 11:19 In your terms, you are in a state of evolution as a species. Part of this experience includes a natural fascination with exterior events. You are developing properties of consciousness that are in their own way uniquely your own, as your environment is. A strong focus is a necessary counterpart, since you are involved in a learning process in which all elements inherent in the situation will be explored. Throughout this venture however you are, in the dream state, always kept in touch with the realities from which your physical experience springs. As you understand time, you will eventually be able to merge your inner comprehension with your physical self, and form your world on a conscious basis. Such manuscripts as mine are meant to help you do precisely that. The more involved you become with complicated physical organisms, the more energy you project outward and the more entranced you become with "exterior" manifestations. In itself this was - and is - a natural learning method. Your inner life is being translated into corporeal reality. As you perceive it and relate to it, you begin to question first its origin and then its meaning. This leads you back into yourself and to a recognition of your own abilities. What you now create unconsciously your species will create consciously. The infinite abilities of consciousness become individualized, focused into a particular reality which then becomes expanded. Your own temporal creations add to the abilities with which you made them. You learn through your creations. Mind, as physically directed, utilizes the greatest sources of power and energy along with unlimited aspects of creativity, so that each physical day is indeed absolutely unique. You cannot expect any portion of your environment to remain static, therefore, and the condition of your body is constantly in a state of flux and change. Your social structure, from the largest metropolis to the smallest farm, from the wealthiest areas to the poorest ghettos, from monasteries to the prisons, reflects the inner situation of the individual self and the personal beliefs that each of you hold.
If you utilize the point of power properly (as described in the 657th session in Chapter Fifteen), you will feel the nonphysical energy translated into effective personal power through your intersection with flesh. You will be able to use that power consciously, with purpose, to change your personal experience and so to change the social framework at least partially. Such exercises aid in the evolution of your consciousness, and will also serve you in fashions you may not suspect. The acquiescence to your own power will automatically flow through your own experience, activating your dream life as well as providing additional helpful impetus to your waking reality. You will no longer need to transfer your sense of power to others. All of the exercises given earlier in this book are prerequisites, however: they are necessary so that you understand how the point of power is to be used. The recognition of personal feelings and working through of beliefs-all of this will expand your understanding of yourself. If you hate a parent, for example, you cannot use the point of power to tell yourself that you love the parent instead. The earlier exercises will have helped you understand the reasons for the hate. You cannot use the point of power to gain control over another, for your own beliefs will automatically trap you. In any case you must be aware of your own power and believe you are worthy of it. Many of the previous chapters in this book have been written precisely to convince you of your own worth. You have been told to experience your own feelings and not to deny them, so you are not to use the point of power as an attempt to refute the reality of your emotions at any given time. As you understand the nature of natural hypnosis, you will no longer feel the need to generate new negative feelings. Your load of inhibitions will recede. As you trust yourself more you will naturally express your feelings, and their suppression will not bring about explosive reactions any more. They will come and go. The channel of power will be opened more clearly. Attention to your stream of consciousness is highly important. This alone will help you see in what areas you are denying the impulses or giving yourself directions that lead to powerlessness.
The point of power exercise is meant to familiarize you with your own natural energy and ability to direct it. The natural hypnosis exercise allows you greater effectiveness in directing and focusing that power. Each of you must work from the point of your own reality. There is no other way. Period. If you feel filled with rage, then do not say, "I am filled with peace," and expect results. You will only be blanketing your feelings and inhibiting your energy and power. If you are furious, then beat a pillow and experience the rage, but without violence to another. Work it through until you are physically exhausted. If you do this honestly, the reasons for the fury will come to you, and they will often be quite obvious. You simply did not want to face them. In almost all cases [of this kind], your feelings will represent a sense of powerlessness on your part, where you delegated strength to a situation or an individual and felt your effort futile in contrast. Then use the point of power and feel the energy of your own being surge through your experience. The knowledge of your own power releases you from your fears, and hence all rage. Reincarnation And Imagination The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 669, 9:56 Each day therefore is an incarnation, so to speak, but not only symbolically - for through soul's intersection with the flesh, each self mirrors daily its "reincarnational" or simultaneous selves. The same applies on what you may think of as a more practical level, in that each day also holds within it the answers to current problems. If your are aware of a particular problem (challenge), therefore, you can be assured that its solution is as much there and with you as the problem is. The solution is simply the problem's other side, upon which you may not be focusing. There will even be clear clues as to the proper direction for you to take-these will already be within your experience, but unrecognized because you are concentrating so upon the problem. This applies to any kind of dilemma.
Although you are an individual and with free will, you are also part of another you. You simply do not identify with your greater self now. You have your own unique characteristics. Your greater being also possesses its own originality, yet there will be what you may think of as a family resemblance, and so overall you and your other self often choose the same kind of challenges, if in dissimilar ways. In their own ways, other portions of your multidimensional being are involved in experiences, then, somewhat similar to your own, though on the outside the situation may be completely different. Their progress lies latent within the window of the moment point-the moment point simply being your current intersection with the reality that you know. The adventures of your simultaneous selves, again, appear as traces in your own consciousness, as ideas or daydreams or disconnected images, or sometimes even is sudden intuitions. They can be drawn upon, drawn out, to help you understand current problems. Now: This does not mean that you will necessarily have a flood of reincarnational information, instant intuitive recognition of "past" lives, or experience any such intrusive data. It does mean that in your own life such information automatically appears in intimate ways, but couched within the framework of your own comprehensions, even passing unobtrusively through your conscious thoughts. Many artists unknowingly paint portraits of their simultaneous selves. Many mothers find themselves feeling younger than their offspring at times, or about to call some of their children by different names. Impulses to try activities you have not tried before may indeed be messages from other portions of your own being. There is simply no time as you think of it, only a present in which all things occur. There are miracles of condensed information within the cells themselves that scientists cannot perceive, for they exist outside the scope of physical instruments. In their own way, cellular comprehension includes a vast recognition of probabilities in your terms, and works with flashing manipulations in which these probabilities are contended with and responded to-and therefore altered.
The physically attuned conscious mind in your now cannot handle those staggering probabilities while maintaining a sense of identity, yet there are conscious traces within your daily thoughts that are psychological representations of such knowledge. Often you do not trust your imagination, considering that it deals with phenomena that cannot be called fact. Therefore you artificially form a situation in which overall traces must be made. If you are too imaginative, for example, you may not be able to adequately deal with physical life. This applies only in the cultural media in which you presently operate, however. Originally, and in your terms of time, it was precisely the imagination that in its own way set you apart from other creatures, enabling you to form realities in your mind that you could "later" exteriorize. Because you now distrust the imagination so, you do not understand the great clues it gives you, both in terms of problem solving and creative expression. Many quite valid reincarnational memories come as imaginings, but you do not trust them. A good percentage of your problems can be worked out rather easily through the use of imagination. Often you inadvertently use it to prolong "negative" circumstances, as you think of all the things that you could do wrong. Yet you can employ it very constructively, altering past, present and future. To do so in your present, freely imagine a situation in which you are happy. To begin with your imaginings may seem foolish. If you are elderly, poor and lonely, it may seem highly ludicrous to think of yourself as twenty, wealthy, and surrounded by friends and admirers. Indeed, if after such an enjoyable exercise you look about you and compare what you have envisioned with what you have, then you may feel worse than before. You are to realize that this imaginative world does exist-but not in the world of facts that you know. To some extent, however, according to your freedom within it, such an exercise will automatically rejuvenate your body, mind and spirit, and begin to draw to you whatever equivalent is possible for you within the world of facts that you know.
Using age as an example now, it may seem that you are a given age, that within your subjective experience it must be paramount, that regardless of your age you are to some extent closed off from the experiences of being any other age. In some simultaneous existences you are very young, however, and in others very old. Some of your physical cells are brand new, so to speak-the regeneration of fresh life is physically within you;, in your terms this is true not only until your death but even after it, when your hair and nails can still grow. Identify then with the constantly new energy alive within you in this now of your being and realize that on all levels you are biologically connected with that greater identity that is your own. Dreams, Unconscious Knowledge, And Problem Solving The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 670, 9:25 Your moods and emotions have a greater mobility in the dream state. You may feel rooted like a tree at one moment and in the next experience yourself as a beautiful peacock, in which case you will perceive the tree change into the bird. Disconnected from their usual daily attention to physical events, your emotions will often form their own landscapes, utilizing dreams as their creative medium. I have explained the great correlation that exists between your feelings and beliefs and physical conditions such as weather. (See Chapter Eighteen.) In somewhat the same way, you have a part to play individually in the creation of the dream landscape. It is also the result of your feelings and beliefs on a different level, and while it is not perceivable in physical terms-laid out with its mountains and continents as your planet is, to be examined by your instruments - it exists in terms quite as valid. This does not mean that dreams can be deciphered by the use of any given [general] symbols. As you create and experience your daily life through your personal feelings and beliefs, so the same applies to dream reality. There, however, your thoughts and feelings become "instantly" alive, springing up one upon another, coming full-blown as it were. The dream world exists in terms of energy also, of course, but simply at ranges that are not physically obvious. Much of your interior creative
work and planning is done at this level. There must be some differentiation between dream and waking experience just so you can manipulate in the more narrowly focused daily life. However, there is no great reason for the vast separation that now exist between your waking and sleeping lives. As I mentioned earlier (in the 652nd session in Chapter Thirteen, for instance), the division is largely the result of your mass and private beliefs in the nature of reality, and in the habits the race has acquired of separating "objective" data from subjective. When you are determined to manipulate your environment, then you separate yourself from it. Since you are a part of it, this also leads you to try to place yourself apart from your own subjective reality. It is quite possible to take your normally conscious "I" into the dream state, to your advantage. When you do this will see that the dreaming "I" and the waking "I" are one, but operating in entirely different environments. Therefore, you become familiar with the depths of experience and knowledge unknown to you before. You acquire a true flexibility and expanded awareness of your own being, and open channels of communication between your waking and dreaming realities. This means you are far better able to utilize unconscious knowledge, and also to acquaint the unconscious with your present physical situation. Such a procedure can bring you in contact with wisdom you have been denying yourself, help unify your entire life situation, and release your energy for practical everyday purposes. Even the decision to try such a venture is beneficial, since it automatically presupposes a flexibility of attitude on the part of the conscious self. If you are afraid of your dreams you are afraid of yourself. As your present situation with all of its challenges, joys and problems is contained in condensed form within each of your days, so the same applies to your life. Each night's dreams then provide you with a rich bed of creativity. Spread out before you in great profusion, you will find not only any problems but their solutions.
Now, in physical terms it may take some time before your conscious mind accepts or recognizes a diagnosis given in a dream. It may come to you later in altered form as a hunch or sudden intuition, or an urge for action. If you do not trust yourself you may ignore such impetuses and not take advantage of the answers. The enlightened conscious mind is always alert for such messages. You can also steps go beyond into the dream condition itself, requesting certain dreams, certain solutions, and therefore shortening the time, so to speak, that may be involved otherwise. Self-Affirmation And The Spacious Mind The Nature Of Personal Reality, Session 675, 10:20 Affirmation then means the loving acceptance of your own unique individuality. It may involve denial, where you refuse to accept the visions and dogmas of others in order to more clearly perceive and form your own. Such affirmation will lead you to your own inner discoveries, and attract from the deepest portions of your being the particular kind of information, experience, or perception that you need. The loving acceptance of yourself will allow you to ride through beliefs as you would through to changing characteristics of a countryside. The more a belief encourages you to use your abilities and vitality, then the more affirmative it is…. Now: Ruburt's mind is far more aware of other realities than his brain is, but he consciously believes in the greater reality of himself and his perceptions. The brain also possesses this belief, and so opens itself as much as possible to the mind's activities. Because it does, certain intuitive psychic and "intellectually spacious" experiences can be physically felt to some extent. The knowledge is interpreted through alterations on body sensation, which give it an important corporeal validity. In such cases high mental and psychic activity is reflected in the body's experience, providing a beneficial unity. Here I have used the term "spacious" for workings of the mind and intuitions that exist in what you might call an accelerated range of
action. The normal intellect, oriented so precisely by beliefs to the inevitability of a one-focused kind of perception, is limited. A certain kind of affirmation of self allows the brain to tune into these more spacious methods of perception that are natural characteristics of the mind. There are very good reasons why this type of assertion must first occur. The brain (and the entire physical system) is meant to insure your bodily survival and to follow your conscious beliefs about reality. There is always a harmonious unifying connection between your beliefs and activities. Some people feel utterly confident in certain areas and are timorous in others. Some aspects of life may be ignored or even refuted for a time while others are focused upon. The individual will very cleverly and shrewdly go ahead in those areas in which he or she feels safe, often when in the process of altering beliefs. You will not use your spacious mind until you affirm its reality within yourself, and until you are ready to handle the additional data which will then become consciously available to one extent or another. But the spacious mind operates through your creaturehood; in your terms it represents latent abilities of consciousness that can be more or less normal functions. There are built-in biological structures that are activated for the reception of such messages, and they have always been a part of your physical nature as a species. They will not be triggered on a personal basis until your own beliefs allow you to perceive the multidimensional layers of your own experience - or at least to accept the possibilities. Self-Worth, Comparisons, And Uniqueness The Nature of Personal Reality, Session 676 Use your conscious mind and its logic. If you discover that you feel unworthy, then do not simply try to apply a more positive belief over that one. Instead discover the reasons for your first belief. If you have not already done so, write down your feelings about yourself. Be perfectly honest. What would you say if someone else came to you with the same reasons?
Examine what you have written. Realize that a set of beliefs is involved. There is a difference between believing that you are unworthy and bring unworthy in fact. Then write a list of your abilities and accomplishments. These should include such issues as getting along well with others, being attractive, being good with plants or animals, being a good carpenter or cook. Any talent of achievement should be noted as honestly as you recorded the most minute "defects" earlier. There is no human being alive who does not have creative abilities in his or her own way, achievements and excellent characteristics, so if you follow these instructions you will find out that you are indeed a worthy individual. When you catch yourself falling into a mood in which you feel inferior, look at your second list, of abilities and accomplishments. Then use the positive suggestion in your own worth, backed up by your own personal self-examination. You may say, "But I know I have great abilities that I am not using. When I compare myself to others, then I fall far short. What difference does it make if I have a few mundane achievements that are shared by many others, that are in no way unique? Surely my destiny involves more than that. I have yearnings that I cannot express. In the first place you must understand that in your own uniqueness it is futile to compare yourself to others, for in so doing you try to emulate qualities that are theirs, and to that extent deny your own miraculous being and vision. Once you begin comparing yourself to others there is no end to it. You will always find someone more talented than you are in some way, and so will continue to be dissatisfied. Instead, through working with your own beliefs, take it for granted that your life is important; begin with it and where you are. Do not deride yourself because you have not reached some great ideal, but start to use those talents that you have to the best of your ability, knowing that in them lies your own individual fulfillment. Any help that you give to others will come through the creative utilization of your own characteristics and no one else's. Do not get
upset with yourself when you find yourself dwelling on negative issues in your life. Instead, constructively ask yourself why you are doing so. The answer will come to you. Use the knowledge as a bridge. Let whatever emotions are involved happen. If you do this honestly, feelings of self-worthlessness or despondency will go through and vanish, changing of their own accord. You may even find yourself impatient with the feelings themselves, or even bored, and hence dismiss them. Do not tell yourself automatically that they are wrong, however, and then try to apply a "positive" belief like a band-aid. Have a sense of humor about yourself - not a malicious one but a kindly humorous regard for yourself. High seriousness is fine when it comes naturally and is not forced. But it can become pompous if it is prolonged. If you allow yourself to be more and more aware of your own beliefs, you can work with them. It is silly to try to fight what you think of as negative beliefs, or to be frightened of them. They are not mysterious. You may find that many served good purposes at one time, and that they have simply been overemphasized. They may need to be restructured rather than denied." The Safe Universe And The Reckless Pursuit Of The Ideal The Unknown Reality, Introductory Notes in Vol. II Apropos of personal sessions Seth gave Jane and me, in which he reiterates the importance of the individual and the pursuit of the ideal. Seth initiated the following passages by talking to me about "the safe universe" that each person can create, and live within. Although his words were directed to me, they have a broad general application: "In your mind you creatively envision the ideal - the sanity of some future culture that, you hope, our work and [that of] others will bring about. If not tomorrow, then sometime. "When you thoroughly understand what is meant by the entire safeuniverse concept, then the physical, culture climate is seen as a medium through which the ideal can be expressed. The ideal is
meaningless if it is not physically manifest to one degree or another. The ideal seeks expression. In so doing, it often seems to change or alter in ways that are not understood. Yet those distortions may be the very openings that allow others to perceive. "In a way, with [this] book and with your art, your purpose is the expression of the ideal, and that expression must be physically materialized, obviously. Your joy, your challenge, should be in the manifestations of the ideal as you see it, whether or not you can in your terms count the consequences or the impediments - whether or not the expression comes to fulfillment in your terms - and even if it seems to fall on ground on which it will not grow. "As an artist alone your purpose is expression, which involves disclosure, the difference between the ideal and the actual. Be reckless in the expression of the ideal, and it will never betray you. Treat it with kid gloves and you are in the middle of a battle.". Probabilities In Memories The Unknown Reality, Session 687 Take any remembered scene from your own past. Experience it as clearly as possible imaginatively, but with the idea of its probable extensions. Sometime, immediately or after a few tries, a particular portion of the scene will become gray or shadowy. It is not a part of the past that you know, but an intersection point where that past served as an offshoot into a series of probabilities that you did not follow. Instead of a shadowy element, you yourself may feel unsubstantial "ghostly," as Ruburt did. Instead of any of those things, the imagined dialogue - if there is any - may suddenly change from the dialogue that you remember; or the entire scene and action may quickly alter. Any of these occurrences can be hints that you are beginning to glimpse the probable variations of the particular scene or action. It is, however, the subjective feeling that is the important clue here, and once you experience it there will be no doubt in your mind. Some people will have little trouble with the exercise, and others will need to exert persistence before finding any success at all. (Pause.)
This method is even more effective if you choose from your past a scene in which a choice was involved that was important to YOU. In such a case, begin imaginatively, following through with the other decision or decisions that you might have made. At one point a shadowy effect - grayness, or other characteristics just mentioned will occur. One or several of these may be involved, but again your subjective feeling is the most important clue. Imagination may bring you a clear picture, for example, that may then become fuzzy, and in that case the blurred quality would be your hint of probable action. Until you have tried the exercise and become fully acquainted with it, you will not understand its effectiveness. You will know, for instance, when the remembered event and imagination intersect with another probability. Whether or not you have any great success, the exercise will begin a neurological reorientation that will be most important if you hope to glimpse realities that are outside of your present neurologically accepted sense-reality. This exercise is a mental and biological doorway that can expand both your concepts of yourself and reality. There may be instances in which it seems that little progress is made during the exercise itself. During the day, however, having made an important decision in one direction, you may begin to feel the reality of the opposite decision and its ramifications. The exercise may also result in a different kind of a dream, one that is recognized within the dream state, at least, as an introduction to a probable reality. You deal directly with future probabilities in the dream state in any case. (Pause.) For example, in a series of dreams you may try out various solutions to a given problem, and choose one of these. That choice becomes your physical reality. Your Earth God The Unknown Reality, Session 691, 11:02 You each have your own earth god. The term may not be the best, but it is meant to express that portion of you that is as yet unexpressed in your terms - the idealized earth version of yourself, which you are becoming. The idealized earth version is not meant to mean a perfect self in flesh at all; instead, it represents a psychic
reality in which your own abilities fulfill themselves in relationship with your earthly environment to the fullest extent possible, within the time and place you have already chosen. The earth-god portion of yourself attempts to direct you through probabilities. Again, on deep biological levels beneath normal consciousness, and on psychic levels above normal consciousness, you are aware of the integrity of your being - but also of your great connection, while living in flesh, with the natural environment of time and space. The earth-god concept can be consciously used, but only to your greatest advantage if you understand the purposes of your conscious mind and its relationship with your biological nature. The Dimensions Of Events The Unknown Reality, Session 695 Take any incident that happens to you the day you read this page. See the particular chosen event as one that came into your experience from the vast bank of other probable events that could have occurred. Examine the event as you know it. Then try to trace its emergence from the thread of your own past life as you understand it, and project outward in your mind what other events might emerge from that one to become action in your probable future. This exercise has another part: When you have finished the procedure just given, then change your viewpoint; see the event from the standpoint of someone else who is also involved. No matter how private the experience seems, someone else will have a connection with it. See the episode through his or her eyes, then continue with the procedure just given, only using this altered viewpoint. No one can do this exercise for you, but the subjective results can be most astonishing. Aspects of the event that did not appear before may be suddenly apparent. The dimensions of the event will be experienced more fully.
Probability Pictures The Unknown Reality, Session 695 For the second exercise, take a photograph of yourself and place it before you. The picture can be from the past or the present, but try to see it as a snapshot of a self poised in perfect focus, emerging from an underneath dimension in which other probable pictures could have been taken. That self, you see, emerges triumphantly, unique and unassailable in its own experience; yet in the features you see before you - in this stance, posture, expression - there are also glimmerings, tintings or shadings, that are echoes belonging to other probabilities. Try to sense those. Intersection Points In Probabilities The Unknown Reality, Session 695 Take another photograph of yourself at a different age than the first one you chose. Ask yourself simply: "Am I looking at the same person?" How familiar or how strange is this second photograph? How does it differ from the first one you picked this evening? What similarities are there that unite both photographs in your mind? What experiences did you have when each photograph was taken? What ways did you think of following in one picture that were not followed in the other one? Those directions were pursued. If they were not pursued by the self you recognize, then they were by a self that is probable in your terms. In your mind follow what directions that self would have taken, as you think of such events. If you find a line of development that you now wish you had pursued, but had not, then think deeply about the ways in which those activities could now fit into the framework of your officially accepted life. Such musings, with desire - backed up by common sense - can bring about intersection points in probabilities that cause a fresh realignment of the deep elements of the psyche. In such ways probable events can be attracted to your current living structure. We have been speaking about probable men, and do intend to deal more deeply with probable man [or woman], as that is applied to your species. The events of the species begin with the individual, however. All of the powers, abilities, and characteristics inherent in the species are inherent in any individual member of it. Through understanding
your own unknown reality, therefore, you can learn much about the unknown reality of the species. A Picture Of A Human The Unknown Reality, Session 695 Choose another photograph. I want you to look at this one somewhat differently. This should also be a photograph of yourself. See this as one picture of yourself as a representative of your species in a particular space and time. Look at it as you might look at a photograph of an animal in its environment. If the photograph shows you in a room, for example, then think of the room as a peculiar kind of environment, as natural as the woods. See your person’s picture in this way: How does it merge or stand apart from the other elements in the photograph? See those other elements as characteristics of the image, view them as extended features that belong to you. If the photograph is dark, for example, and shows shadows, then in this exercise see those as belonging to the self in the picture. Imaginatively, examine your image from the viewpoint of another place in the photograph. See how the image can be seen as a part of the overall pattern of the environment - the room or furniture, or yard or whatever. When you see a picture of an animal in its environment, you often make connections that you do not make when you see a picture of a human being in his or her environment. Yet each location is as unique as the habitat of any animal - as private, as shared, as significant in terms of the individual and the species of which that individual is a part. Simply to stretch your imagination: When you look at your photograph, imagine that you are a representative of a species, caught there in just that particular pose, and that the frame of the photograph represents, now, "a cage of time." You, from the outside looking down at the photograph, are now outside of that cage of time in which your specimen was placed. That specimen, that individual, that you, represents not only yourself but one aspect of your species. If you hold that feeling, then the element of time becomes as real as any of the other objects within the photograph. Though unseen, time is the frame.
Now: Look up. The picture, the photograph, is but one small object in the entire range of your vision. You are not only outside yourself in the photograph, but now it represents only a small portion of your reality. Yet the photograph remains inviolate within its own framework; you cannot alter the position of one object within it. If you destroy the photograph itself, you can in no way destroy the reality that was behind it. You cannot, for instance, kill the tree that may be depicted in the picture. The person within the photograph is beyond your reach. The you that you are can make any changes you want to in your experience: You can change probabilities for your own purposes, but you cannot change the courses of other probable selves that have gone their own ways. All probable selves are connected. They each influence one another. There is a natural interaction, but no coercion. Each probable self has its own free will and uniqueness. You can change your own experience in the probability you know - which itself rides upon infinite other probabilities. You can bring into your own experience any number of probable events, but you cannot deny the probable experience of another portion of your reality. That is, you cannot annihilate it. As you are looking at one photograph in your personal history, that represents your emergence in this particular reality - or the reality that was accepted as official at the time it was taken - so you are looking at a picture of a representative of your species, caught in a particular moment of probability. That species has as many offshoots and developments as you have privately. As there are probable selves in private terms, there are probable selves in terms of the species. As you have your recognized, official personal past, so in your system of actuality you have more or less accepted an official mass history (see Note 2). Under examination, however, that history of the species shows many gaps and discrepancies, and it leaves many questions to be answered. The Ancestral Land Of Time The Unknown Reality, Session 695 In your terms, think of those ancestors in your family history. Now think of yourself and your contemporary family. For this, try to
imagine time as being something like space. If your ancestors lived in the 19th century, then think of that century as a place that exists as surely as any portion of the earth that you know. See your own century as another place. If you have children, imagine their experience 50 years hence as still another place. Now: Think of your ancestors, yourself, and your children as members of one tribe, each journeying into different countries instead of times. Culture is as real and natural as trees and rocks, so see the various cultures of these three groups as natural environments of the different places or countries; and imagine, then, each group exploring the unique environment of the land into which they have journeyed. Imagine further of course that these explorations occur at once, even though communication may be faulty, so that each group has difficulty communicating with the others. Imagine, however, that there is a homeland from which our groups originally came. Each expedition sends "letters" back home, commenting upon the behavior, customs, environment, and history of the land in which it finds itself. These letters are written in an original native language that has little to do with the acquired language that has been picked up in any given country. (Pause, then humorously.) Mama and Papa, back at the homestead, know where their children have gone, in other words; they read with amusement, amazement, and wonder the communications from their offspring. In this homespun analogy, Mama and Papa send letters back - also in the native language to their children. As time goes by, however, the children lose their memories of their home tongue. Mama and Papa know that times are like places or countries, but their children begin to forget this, too, and so they grow to believe that they are far more separate from each other than they actually are. They have "gone native" in a different way. Mama and Papa understand. The children forgot that they can move through time as easily as through space. Give us a moment ... Remember, in this analogy the various children represent your ancestors, yourself, and your own children. They are exploring the land of time. Now in your physical world it is obvious that nature grows more of itself. In the land of time, time also grows more of itself. As you can climb trees, both up and down the
branches, so you can climb times in the same way. Back home, Mama and Papa know this. The family tree exists at once - but that tree is only one tree that appears in the land of time. It has branches that you do not climb and do not recognize, and so they are not real to you. There are probable family trees, then. The same applies to the species. Give us a moment ... There are alternate realities, and these exist only because of the nature of probabilities. Now give us a moment ... The potentials of the true self are so multidimensional that they cannot be expressed in one space or time. Any person who loves another recognizes the infinite potential within that other person. That potential needs infinite opportunity; the true self’s reality needs an ever-new, changing situation, for each experience enriches it and, therefore, enhances its own possibilities. En masse, in your terms, the same is true of the race of man. Mama and Papa, in our analogy, represent the infinite potential within one basic unit (of consciousness). Then think of your ancestors, your immediate family, and your children, and sense in them the vast potential that is there. Now: Imagine your species as you think of it, and the literally endless capacities for expression and creation simply in the areas of which you are aware. No single time or space dimension could contain that creativity. No single historic past could explain what you are now as an individual or as a member of a species. Period. Give us a moment ... A photograph is to some extent a materialization of an idealization carried to a certain degree. At another level, your body and your experience is a far richer fulfillment, a living, presently experienced materialization. The picture of your world is still another. Interactions In A Group Photo, And Viewing The Waking State From A Dream The Unknown Reality, Session 697 If you can, find a photograph of yourself as a member of a class a graduation picture, perhaps, or a photograph of club members.
Examine what you see there. Then contemplate what is not seen. Imagine the emotional reality of each person present, in the time that the photograph was taken. Then try to feel the emotional interactions that existed between the various individuals. Take your time. When you are finished, try to get a glimpse of those intimate relationships that each person had with other persons not present in the picture, but contemporary. Let your mind, after that, follow through by imagining contacts involving family interactions reaching back through time prior to the taking of the photograph. Then think of all of the probable actions that were either accepted or discarded, so that in time terms these people assembled (for the photograph). Biologically, there were illnesses avoided, deaths that could have occurred but did not. In space there were endless varieties of probabilities and decisions. People could have moved and did not, or others did move, and so came into that particular space area. There were an infinite number of ideas behind all of those decisions. You form your own experience. In greater terms, therefore, those people decided to be at that particular time and place, so that the photograph is the result of multitudinous decisions, and represents a focus of experience, rising from myriad probabilities. The picture of the world represents in a greater dimensional fashion the same kind of focus. Your most intimate decision affects the species. You are the creator of yourself in space and time. You also have your hand in the larger creativity of mankind"s experience. The picture is a relatively simple one, all in all - one in which each consciousness is assumed to be directed toward a particular focus, is ensconced in one body, with its existence bounded by birth at one end and by death at the other. (Pause.) Unfortunately, that picture is as limited as any one of your photographs. You are used to examining your dream state from the viewpoint of your "waking" condition, but sometime in the dream state try to examine your normal waking reality. Simply give yourself the instructions to do so. You may be quite surprised with the results. Speaking as simply as I can, and using concepts that you can understand, let me put it this way: From the other side - within what is loosely called the dream state there is an existence quite as valid as your own, and from that viewpoint you can be considered as the
dreamer. "You" are the part of you concentrating in this reality. You form it through information and through energy that on the one hand has its source outside this system, and that on the other constantly flows into this system - and so in that respect the systems are united. Dream-Art Science The Unknown Reality, Session 700 ...The trouble is that many in the sciences do not comprehend that there is an inner reality. (Intently) It is not only as valid as the exterior one, but it is the origin for it. It is that world that offers you answers, solutions, and would reveal many of the blueprints that exist behind the world of experience. The true art of dreaming is a science long forgotten to your world. Such an art, pursued, trains the mind in a new kind of consciousness—one that is equally at home in either existence, wellgrounded and secure in each. Almost anyone can become a satisfied and productive amateur in this art-science; but its true fulfillment takes years of training, a strong sense of purpose, and a dedication— as does any true vocation. To some extent, a natural talent is a pre-requisite for such a true dream-art scientist. A sense of daring, exploration, independence, and spontaneity is required. Such work is a joy. There are some such people who are quite unrecognized by your societies, because the particular gifts involved are given zero priority. But the talent still exists. Give us a moment, and rest your hand... A practitioner of this ancient art learns first of all how to become conscious in normal terms while in the sleep state. Then he becomes sensitive to the different subjective alterations that occur when dreams begin, happen, and end. He familiarizes himself with the symbolism of his own dreams, and sees how these do or do not correlate with the exterior symbols that appear in the waking life that he shares with others. I will have more to say about these shared symbols later, for they can become agreed upon signposts.
Taking An Alternate Path Of Consciousness, And Inner Microscopic Images The Unknown Reality, Session 701 Using your conscious mind as a threshold, however, you can discover still more. Figuratively speaking, stand where you are. Think of that moment of conscious awareness as a path. Imagine many other such paths, all converging; again, imaginatively take one of them in your mind and follow it. Accept what you experience uncritically. To some small extent you are "altering" your consciousness. Of course, you are not "altering" it at all. You are simply using it in a different fashion, and focusing it - however briefly in another direction. This is the simplest of exercises. Suppose that you stood in one spot all of your physical life, and that you had to do this because you had been told that you must. In such a case you would only see what was directly before you. Your peripheral vision might give you hints of what was to each side, or you might hear sounds that came from behind. Objects - birds, for example - might flash by you, and you might wonder at their motion, significance, and origin. If you suddenly turned an inch to the right or the left you would not be altering your body, but simply changing its position, increasing your overall picture, turning very cautiously from your initial position. So the little exercise above is like that. Give us a moment ... You are presently little aware of the dimensions of consciousness - your own or those seemingly "beneath" your own. The true physicist is one who would dare turn around inside his own consciousness. Give us a moment ... There are inner structures within matter. These are swirls of energy. They have more purposes than one. The structures are formed by organizations of consciousness, or CU"s. You have the most intimate knowledge of the nature of a cell, for example, or of an atom. They compose your flesh. There is, in certain terms, a continuum of consciousness there of which your present physical life is a part. You are in certain kinds of communication and communion with your own cells, and at certain levels of consciousness you know this. A true physicist would learn to reach that level of consciousness at will. There were pictures drawn of
cellular structures long before any technological methods of seeing them were available, in your terms. Give us a moment ... There are shapes and formations that appear when your eyes are closed that are perfect replicas of atoms, molecules, and cells, but you do not recognize them as such. There are also paintings - so-called abstracts - unconsciously produced, many by amateurs that are excellent representations of such inner organizations. Keeping Notes, Probabilities In Dreams, And The Archeology Of The Psyche The Unknown Reality, Session 707 For an exercise, keep notes for a day or so of all the times you find yourself thinking of probable actions, large or small In your mind, try to follow "what might have happened" had you taken the course you did not take. Then imagine what might happen as a result of your chosen decisions. You are a member of the species. Any choice you make privately affects it biologically and psychically. You can literally choose between health and illness; between a concentration upon the mental more than the physical or upon the physical more than the mental. Such private decisions affect the genetic heritage of the species. Your intent is all-important -for you can alter your own genetic messages within certain limits. You can cause a cell, or a group of cells, to change their self-image, for example; and again, you do this often -as you healed yourselves of diseases because of your intent to become well. The intent will be conscious, though the means may not be. Period. In such a case, however, the self-healing qualities of the cells are reinforced, and the self-healing abilities of the species are also strengthened. Now. Your private psyche is intimately concerned with your earthly existence, and in your dream state you deal with probable actions, and often work out in that condition the solutions to problems or questions that arise having to do with probable sequences of events. On many occasions then you set yourself a problem "Shall I do this or that" and form a dream in which you follow through the probable futures that would result, from the courses available. While you are
sleeping and dreaming, your chemical and hormonal activity faithfully follows the courses of the dreams. Even in your accepted reality, then, to that extent in such a dream you react to probable events as well as to the events chosen for waking physical experience. Your daily life is affected, because in such a dream you deal with probable predictabilities. You are hardly alone, however, so each individual alive also has his and her private dreams, and these help form the accepted probability sequence of the following day, and of "time to come." The personal decisions all add up to the global happenings on any given day. There are lands of the mind. That is, the mind has its own "civilizations," its own personal culture and geography, its own history and inclinations. But the mind is connected with the physical brain, and so hidden in its [the brain’s] folds there is an archaeological memory. To some extent, what you know now is dependent upon what will be known, and what has been known, in your terms. The "past" races of men live to some extent within your Now, as do those who will seemingly come after. So, ideally speaking, the history of your species can be discovered quite clearly within the psyche; and true archaeological events are found not only by uncovering rocks and relics, but by bringing to light, so to speak, the memories that dwell within the psyche. Remembering Yesterday, Imagining Tomorrow, And Sleepwalking Through Life The Unknown Reality, Session 708 You can hold within your conscious attention far more data than you realize. You have hypnotized yourselves into believing that your awareness is highly limited. Think back to yesterday. Try to remember what you did when you got up; what you wore. Attempt to follow the sequence of your activities from the time you awakened until you went to sleep. Then flesh in the details. Try to recall your feelings at all of those times. Most of you will be lucky to get this far. Those who do, go even further and try to recall the daydreams you might have had also. Try to remember what stray thoughts came into your mind.
At first, doing this will take all of your attention. You might do the exercises sitting quietly or riding a bus or waiting for someone in an office. Some of you might be able to do the exercise while performing a more or less automatic series of actions-but do not try to carry it out while driving your car, for example. As you become more expert at it, then purposely do something else at the same time-a physical activity, for instance. When most of you begin this exercise it will almost seem as if you were a sleepwalker yesterday. The precise, fine alignment of senses with physical activity will seem simply lost; yet as you progress the details will become clear, and you will find that you can at least hold within your mind certain aspects of yesterday’s reality much as you are maintaining your hold in today. In larger terms there are other entire lives, which for you are forgotten essentially as yesterday is. These too, however, are a secondary series of activities, riding beneath your present primary concern. They are as unconsciously a part of your present, and as connected with it, as yesterday is. Now - the second part of the exercise. Imagine vividly that you will do tomorrow, and in detail plan a probable day that will rise naturally from your present experience, behavior, and purposes. Follow through as you did with the first part of the exercise. (Pause.) That days reality is already anticipated by your cells. Your body has prepared for it, all of its functions precognitively projecting their own existences into it. Your "future" life exists in the same manner, and in your terms grows as much out of your present as tomorrow grows out of your today. Doing the exercise will simply acquaint your normal consciousness with the sense of its own flexibility. You win be exercising the invisible muscles of your consciousness as certainly as you might exercise your body with gymnastics. To other portions of yourself you would seem to be a sleepwalker. Full creative participation in any moment, however, awakens you to
your own potentials, and therefore allows you to experience a unity between your own consciousness and the comprehension of your physical cells. Those cells are as spiritual as your soul is. Expanding Awareness Of The Present The Unknown Reality, Session 716 You must learn to use this mechanism consciously for your own purposes, for it is extremely handy. Many of you do not pay attention to your own experience, subjectively speaking, so you drift in and out of clear focus in this reality, barely realizing it. Often your daily program is not nearly as clear or well-focused as it should be, but full of static; and while this may annoy you, you often put up with it or even become so used to the lack of harmony that you forget what a clear reception is like. However, in this world you are surrounded by familiar objects, details, and ideas, and your main orientation is physical so that you can operate through habit alone even when you are not as well focused within your reality as you should be. When you go traveling off into other systems, however, you cannot depend upon your habits. Indeed, then they can only add to your mental clutter, turning into "static" so you must learn first of all what a clear focus is. You will not learn it by trying to escape your own reality, or by attempting to dull your senses. This can only teach you what it means not to focus, and in whatever reality you visit the ability to focus clearly and well is a prerequisite. Once you learn how to really tune in, then you will understand what it means to change the direction of your focus. One of the simplest exercises is hardly an original one, but it is of great benefit. Try to experience all of your present sense data as fully as you can. This tones your entire physical and psychic organism, bringing all of your perceptions together so that your awareness opens fully. Body and mind operate together. You experience an immediate sense of power because your abilities are directed to the finest of their
capacities. In a physical moment you can act directly on the spot, so to speak. Sit with your eyes open easily, letting your vision take in whatever is before you. Do not stare. On the other hand, do explore the entire field of vision simultaneously, listen to everything. Identify all the sounds if you can, mentally placing them with the objects to which they correspond even though the objects may be invisible. Sit comfortably but make no great attempt to relax. Instead, feel your body in an alert manner-not in a sleepy distant fashion. Be aware of its pressure against the chair, for example, and of its temperature, of variations: Your hands may be warm and your feet cold, or your belly hot and your head cold. Consciously, then, feel your body’s sensations. Is there any taste in your mouth? What odors do you perceive? Take as much time as you want to with this exercise. It places you in your universe dearly. This is an excellent exercise to use before you begin-and after you finish with-any experiment involving an alteration of consciousness. Now: Bring all of those sensations together. Try to be aware of all of them at once, so that one adds to the others. If you find yourself being more concerned with one particular perception, then make an attempt to bring the ignored ones to the same clear focus. Let all of them together form a brilliant awareness of the moment. When you are using this exercise following any experiment with an alteration of consciousness, then end it here and go about your other concerns. You may also utilize it as an initial step that will help you get the feeling of your own inner mobility. To do this proceed as given, and when you have the moments perception as dearly as possible, then willfully let it go. Let the unity disappear as far as your conscious thought is concerned. No longer connect up the sounds you hear with their corresponding objects. Make no attempt to unify vision and hearing. Drop the package, as it were, as a unified group of perceptions. The previous clarity of the moment will have changed into something else. Take one sound if you want to, say of a passing car, and with your
eyes closed follow the sound in your mind. Keep your eyes closed. Become aware of whatever perceptions reach you, but this time do not judge or evaluate. Then in a flash open your eyes, alert your body, and try to bring all of your perceptions together again as body and dearly as possible. When you have the sense world before you this time, let it climax, so to speak, then again close your eyes and let it fall away. Do not focus. In fact, unfocus. When you have done this often enough so that you are aware of the contrast, you will have a subjective feeling, a point of knowing within yourself, that will clearly indicate to you how our consciousness feels when it is at its finest point of focus in physical reality. As you go about your day, try now and then to recapture that point and to bring all data into the clearest possible brilliance. You will find that this practice, continued, will vastly enrich your normal experience. You find it much easier to concentrate, to attend. To attend is to pay attention and take care of. So this exercise will allow you to attend - to focus your awareness to the matters at hand as clearly and vividly as possible. The subjective knowledge of your own point of finest focus will also serve as a reference point for many other exercises. Your Point Of Finest Focus, And The Different Stations Of Consciousness The Unknown Reality, Session 716 You must work from your own subjective experience, so when you find your own finest focus point, that is your clearest reception for your own home station. You may feel that it has a certain position in your inner vision, or in your head, or you may find that vou have vour own symbol to represent it. You might imagine it if you want to, as a station indicator on your own radio or television set, but your subjective recognition of it is your own cue. In our just-previous exercise, when I spoke of having you let your clear perception drop away, and told you to disconnect vision from hearing, you were drifting in terms of your own home station. Your consciousness was straying. This time begin with the point of your
own finest focus, which you have established, then let your consciousness stray as given. Only let it stray in a particular direction to the right or the left, whichever seems most natural to you. in this way you are still directing it and learning to orient yourself. In the beginning, fifteen minutes at most for this exercise; but let your awareness drift in whatever direction you have chosen. Each person will have his or her own private experience here, but gradually certain kinds of physical data will seem to disappear while others may take prominence. For example, you might mentally hear sounds, while knowing they have no physical origin. You may see nothing in your mind, or you may see images that seem to have no exterior correlation, but you may hear nothing. For awhile ordinary physical data may continue to intrude. When it does, recognize it as your home station, and mentally let yourself drift further away from it. What is important is your own sensation you experience the mobility of your consciousness. if ever you grow concerned, simply return to your home station, back to the Ieft or right according to the direction you have chosen. I do not suggest that you use "higher" or "lower" as directions, because of interpretations that you may have placed upon them through your beliefs. Do not be impatient. As you continue with this exercise over a period of time you will be able to go further away, orient yourself as you grow more familiar with the feeling of your mind. Gradually you will discover that this inner sense data will become clearer and clearer as you move toward another "station", it represent reality as perceived from a different state of consciousness. The first journey from one home station to another unfamiliar one may bring you in contact with various kinds of bleed throughs, distortions, or static. These can be expected. They are simply the result of not yet learning how to tune your own consciousness clearly in to other kinds of focus. Before you can pick up the "next" station, for example, you may see ghost images in your mind, or pick up distorted versions from your own home station You have momentarily dispensed with the usual, habitual organizational process by which you unite regular physical sense perceptions, so while you are "between stations," you may then encounter signals from each. When you alter your conscious focus in such fashion, you are also moving away from the part of your
psyche you consider its center. You are journeying through your own psyche, in other words, for different realities are different states the psyche - materialized, projected outward and experienced. That applies to your home station or physical world as well. Even your home station has many programs, and you have usually tuned in to one main one and ignored others. Characters in your "favorite programs" at home may appear in far different guises when you are between stations, and elements of other programs that you have ignored at home may suddenly become apparent to you. An Expanded World View, Stepping Out Of The Photo The Unknown Reality, Session 719 Close your eyes. Imagine a photograph of yourself (in parentheses: Yes, we are finally back to photographs). In your mind’s eye see the photograph of yourself on a table or desk. If you are working mentally with a particular snapshot, then note the other items in the picture. If the photograph is strictly imaginary, then create an environment about the image of yourself. Look at the image in your mind as it exists in the snapshot, and see it as being aware only of those other objects that surround it. Its world is bounded by the four edges of the picture. Try to put your consciousness into that image of yourself. Your worldview is limited to the photograph itself. Now in your mind see that image walking out of the snapshot, onto the desk or table. The environment of the physical room will seem gigantic to that small cell. The scale and proportion alone will be far different. Imagine that miniature image navigating in the physical room, then going outside, and quite an expanded world view will result. Many of you do not really want to step out of the photograph, or leave your worldview, yet in the dream state you are far freer. You can pretend that dreams are not "real," however, so you can have your cake and eat it too, so to speak.
Dream Snapshots The Unknown Reality, Session 719 In dream travel it is quite possible to journey to other civilizations those in your past or future, or even to worlds whose reality exists in other probable systems. There is even a kind of "cross-breeding," for you affect any system of reality with which you have experience. There are no closed realities, only apparent boundaries that seem to separate them. The more parochial your own world view, however, the less you will recall of their dreams or their activities, or the more distorted your "dream snapshots" will be. Now here is another brief but potent exercise. Before you go to sleep, tell yourself that you will mentally take a dream snapshot of the most significant dream of the night. Tell yourself that you will even be aware of doing this while asleep, and imagine that you have a camera with you. You mentally take this into the dream state. You will use the camera at the point of your dearest perceptions, snap your picture, and-mentally again-take it back with you so that it will be the first mental picture that you see when you awaken. You will of course, try to snap as good a picture as possible. Varying results can be expected. Some of you will awaken with a dream picture that presents itself immediately. Others may appearing later in the day, in the middle perform this exercise often, however, selves able to use the camera consciously even while sleeping, so that it becomes an element of your dream travels; you will be able to bring more and more pictures back with you. These will be relatively meaningless, however, if you do not learn how to examine them. They are not to be simply filed away and forgotten You should write down a description of each scene and what you remember of it, including your feelings both at the time of the dream, and later when you record it. The very effort to take this camera with you makes you more of a conscious explorer, and automatically helps you to expand your own awareness while you are in the dream state. Each picture will serve as just one small glimpse
of a different kind of reality. You cannot make any valid judgment on the basis of one or two pictures alone. Now this is a mental camera we are using. There is a knack about being a good dream photographer, and you must learn how to operate the camera. In physical life, for example, a photographer knows that many conditions affect the picture he takes. Exterior situations then are important: You might get a very poor picture on a dark day, for instance. With our dream camera, however, the conditions themselves are mental. If you are in a dark mood, for example, then your picture of inner reality might be dim, poorly outlined, or foreboding. This would not necessarily mean that the dream itself had tragic overtones, simply that it was taken in the poor light of the psyche’s mood. Inner weather changes constantly, even as the exterior weather does. One dream picture with a dreary cast, therefore, is not much different from a physical photograph taken on a rainy afternoon. Many people, however, remembering a dark dream, become frightened. You even structure your dreams, of course. For that matter, your dream world is as varied as the physical one. Each physical photographer has an idea of what he wants to capture on film, and so to that extent he structures his picture and his view. The same applies to the dream state. You have all kinds of dreams. You can take what you want, so to speak, from dream reality, as basically you take what you want from waking life. For that reason, your dream snapshots will show you the kind of experience that you are choosing from inner reality. Expanding Dream Space The Unknown Reality, Session 721 In a dream, attempt to expand whatever space you find yourself in. If you are in a room, move from it into another one. If you are on a street, follow it as far as you can, or turn a corner. Unless you are working out ideas of limitations for your own reasons, you will find that you can indeed expand inner space. There is no point where an end to it need appear.
(Long pause.) The properties of inner space, therefore, are endless. Most people are not this proficient in dream manipulation, but surely some of my readers will be able to remember what I am saying, while they are dreaming. To those people I say - "Look around you in the dream state. Try to expand any location in which you find yourself. If you are in a house, remember to look out the window. And once you walk to that window, a scene will appear. You can walk out of that dream house into another environment; and theoretically at least you can explore that world, and the space within it will expand. There will be no spot in the dream where the environment will cease. Now, what you think of as exterior space expands in precisely the same manner. In this respect, dream reality faithfully mirrors what you refer to as the nature of the exterior world. Expanding Dream Time The Unknown Reality, Session 721 When you find yourself within a dream, tell yourself you will know what happened before you entered it, and the past will grow outward from that moment. Again, there will be no place where time will stop. The time in a dream does not "displace" physical time. It opens up from it. Exterior time, again, operates in the same fashion, though you do not realize it…. Time expands in all directions, and away from any given point. The past is never done and finished, and the future is never concretely formed. Language Play The Unknown Reality, Session 726 Part of the unknown reality, then, is hidden beneath language and the enforced pattern of accustomed words - so, for an exercise, look about your environment. Make up new, different "words" for the objects that you see about you. Pick up any object, for example. Hold it for a few seconds, feel its texture, look at its color, and spontaneously give it a new name by uttering the sounds that come into your mind. See how the sounds bring out certain aspects of the object that you may not have noticed before.
The new word will fit as much as the old one did. It may, in fact, fit better. Do this with many objects, following the same procedure. You can instead say the name of any object backwards. In such ways you break up to some extent the automatic patterning of familiar phrases, so that you can perceive the individuality that is within each object. To get in direct contact with your own feelings as they are, again make up your own spontaneous sounds sometimes. Your emotions often cannot be expressed clearly in terms of language, and such unpatterning can allow them to flow freely. An Affirmation The Unknown Reality, Session 733 "We will trust that our creativity will find its own way, and if there are any nightmares we will waken from them. We will even learn from them. We dare to push aside the dimensions of being into those realms in which the gods have only gone before - and through our utter vulnerability to experience, discover the divinity that gives our humanity its meaning. Brain Waves, Beta, And Dreams The Unknown Reality, Session 760 The beta waves quicken. They seem to be the official pulses of your civilization, giving precedence to official reality, but you have little idea that the psyche is inherently able to seek its conscious experience from all the known ranges, according to the kinds of experience chosen at any given "time." Beta was not meant to carry the full weight of conscious activity, however, although its accelerating qualities can lead to initiations into "higher" realms of consciousness, where indeed the brain waves quicken. The other patterns (delta, theta, and alpha) are highly important to physical and mental stability, being very interwound with cellular consciousness. In cases usually called schizophrenic, the beta acceleration is not supported by the stabilizing attributes of the other known frequencies.
It is possible, then, for a brain to register all of the known patterns at once, though your machines would note only the predominating rhythm. A kind of inverted beta pattern, difficult to describe, often appears suddenly in the mist of the other ranges, driving through them, accelerating consciousness to a high degree of creativity. The brain waves as they are known are separately registered segments of a greater "whole" kind of consciousness, and your machines are just as segmented, perceiving only those patterns [they were designed to recognize.] Other activity escapes them. They cannot note the rapidity with which you move through all of the known patterns constantly. This behavior can be learned by anyone willing to take the time and effort. Some courage would also help. I told you that you flashed in and out of the reality that you know. In between one moment and the next of the waking day, there are, in your terms, long delta and theta waves that you cannot recognize. They are not recorded by your machines because quite literally they go in a different, "unofficial" direction. Each official waking brain wave is a peak in your world of a far deeper "wave" of other experience, and represents your points of continuity. Each beat waves rides atop the other patterns. In normal sleep, the "conscious" waves ride beneath the others, with the face of consciousness turned inward, so to speak. All the recognized characteristics of consciousness are "inverted," probing other realities than the one you know. They are quite effective and lightening fast. In sleep the beta waves are not turned off - the "conscious" part of you, with its beta rhythm, is elsewhere. In these sessions the full range of brain waves is utilized as you understand them. Here, in a highly creative, disciplined, and yet spontaneous performance, a situation is set up in which knowledge is obtained from the known frequencies, combined so that the consciousness can use itself more fully, reaching into many area closed to one range of consciousness alone. The various diverse, unique characteristics on each level of awareness are given play. In a way this is like an accelerated, chosen, well-organized "conscious" dream venture, in which Ruburt travels through mediums of
consciousness until finally he, still being himself, is nevertheless no longer himself, but me. He is combining and alternating frequencies so that he literally brings forth a different creature of consciousness-one that in your terms is not alive, yet one whose very reality straddles the life that you know. The most elemental portions of my reality begin at the furthest reaches of your own. In sleep your ordinary brain waves as you understand them register a chaotic jungle of experience not normally processed. Biologically or psychically, there is little need for such disorientation. The normal waking consciousness, with its characteristic patterns, can indeed follow [into sleep]. A mixture of brain waves would result. Consciousness as you think of it expands tremendously under such conditions. You follow your own pattern of continuity and understanding, weaving this into the sleep and dream states, forming a "new" pattern that triumphantly combines all, as to some extent this occurs in our sessions. In an ideal society, each brain wave would be utilized purposefully. You would go to sleep to solve certain problems…There is an overall general difference, nationally speaking-that is, people of various nations do differ to some extent in their prevalent brain frequencies…All in all, however, the beta has predominated, and been expected to solve many problems unsuited to its own characteristics. Despite your reliance upon one range only, your world of consciousness draws heavily upon all of the known wave patterns, and from others of which you are unaware. For now that is the end of this material, though I will continue it at any time at your request. Examining The Waking State When Dreaming The Unknown Reality, Session 899, 10:25 You have painted a pretty enough picture of what you think of as your own reality, as an individual and as a species. All of your institutions, beliefs, and activities seem to justify your picture, because everything within the overall "frame" will of course seem to agree.
The picture is a relatively simple one, all in all - one in which each consciousness is assumed to be directed toward a particular focus, is ensconced in one body, with its existence bounded by birth at one end and death at the other. Unfortunately, that picture is as limited as any one of your photographs. You are used to examining your dream state from the viewpoint of your waking condition, but sometime in the dream state try to examine your waking reality. Simply give yourself the instructions to do so. You may be quite surprised with the results. Speaking as simply as I can, and using the concepts that you can understand, let me put it this way: From the other side - within what is loosely called the dream state - there is an existence quite as valid as your own, and from that viewpoint you can be considered as the dreamer. "You" are the part of you concentrating in this reality. You form it through information and through energy that on the one hand has its source outside this system, and that on the other constantly flows into this system - and so in that respect the systems are united. Memory, Emotion, And Belief The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 764, 9:20 As I have mentioned many time, cellular comprehension deals with probabilities and encompasses future and past, so at that level of activity time as you understand it does not exist. You are not consciously aware of such data, however. The psyche - at the other end of the scale, so to speak - is also free from time. Often, however, your own stream of consciousness leads you to think of events outside of their usual order. You may perceive a letter from your Aunt Bessie, for example. In a matter of moments it may trigger you to think of events in your childhood, so that many mental images fly through your mind. You might wonder in your aunt will take an anticipated journey to Europe next year, and that thought might give birth to images of an imagined future. All of these thoughts and images will be colored by emotions that are connected to the letter, and to all of the events with which you and your aunt have been involved. The next time you find yourself in the middle of a like experience, with association flowing freely, then become more aware of what you are doing. Try to sense the mobility involved. You will see that the events
will not necessarily be structured according to usual time, but according to emotional content. Thoughts of your own next birthday, for instance, may lead you to think of past ones, or a series of birthday pictures may come to mind of your own twelfth birthday, your third, your seventh, in an order uniquely your own. The order will be determined by emotional associations-the same kind followed by the dreaming self. What did you wear to work three days ago? What did you have for breakfast a week ago? Who sat next to you in kindergarten? What frightened you last? Are you afraid to sleep? Did your parents beat you? What did you do after lunch yesterday? What color shoe did you wear three days ago? You remember only significant events or details. Your emotions trigger your memories, and they organize your associations. Your emotions are generated through your beliefs. They attach themselves so that certain beliefs and emotions seem almost synonymous. The next time an opportunity arises, and you recognize the presence of a fairly strong emotion in yourself, then let your emotions flow. Events and images will spring to mind in an out-of-time context. Such remembered events will make sense to you. You will see clearly the connection between the emotion and event, but others will not be so obvious. Experience the events as clearly as you can. When you are finished, purposefully alter the sequence. Remember an event, and then follow it with a memory that actually came earlier. Pretend that the future one came before the past one. A Picture Exercise, Creating A Dream, And Blocking Associative Processes The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 764, 9:40 Now for another exercise. Imagine a very large painting, in which the events of your life are clearly depicted. First of all, see them as a series of scenes, arranged in small squares, to be viewed as you would, say, a comic-book page. The events must be of significance to you. If school graduation meant nothing to you, do not paint it in. Have the picture begin at the upper left-hand corner, finally ending at
the lower right-hand corner. Then completely switch the sequence, so that the earliest events are at the lower right hand corner. When you are done, ask yourself which scenes evoke the strongest emotional response. Tell yourself that it will become larger and larger, then mentally watch the size change. Certain dynamics are involved here, so that such a scene will also attract elements from other scenes. Allow those other scenes to break up, then. The main picture will attract elements from all of the others, until you end up with an entirely different picture-one made up of many smaller scenes, but united in an entirely new fashion. You must do this exercise, however, for simply reading about it will not give you the experience that comes from the actual exercise. Do it many times. Now: Consciously construct a dream. Tell yourself you are going to do so, and begin with the first thought or image that comes to mind. When you are finished with your daydream, then use free association to interpret it to yourself. Some of you will meet resistance in these exercises. You will enjoy reading about them, but you will find all kinds of excuses that prevent you from trying them yourself. If you are honest, many of you will sense reluctance, for certain qualities of consciousness are brought into play that run counter to your usual experience. You might feel as if you are crossing your wires, so to speak, or stretching vaguely sensed psychic muscles. The purpose is not so much perfect execution of such exercises as it is to involve you in a different mode of experience and of awareness that comes into being as you as you perform in the ways suggested. You have been taught not to mix, say, waking and dreaming conditions, not to daydream. You have been taught to focus all of your attention clearly, ambitiously, energetically in a particular way - so daydreaming, or mixing and matching modes of consciousness, appears passive in a derogatory fashion, or nonactive, or idle. "The devil finds work for idle hands" - an old Christian dictum.
Unfortunately, certain aspects of Christianity were stressed over others, and that dictum was based of the belief in a wicked self that needed to be disciplined and diverted into constructive activity. The belief in such an unsavory self stops many people from any exploration of the inner self-and, therefore, from any direct experience that will give them counter-evidence. If you are afraid of yourself, if you are afraid of your own memories, you will block your associative process, fearing for example that they will bring to light matters best forgotten-and usually sexual matters. Sexuality is the only strong area of energy with which some people are connected, so it becomes the focal point for all of their beliefs about the self in general. In doing some of these exercises, you might come across images of masturbation, homosexual or lesbian encounters, or simply old sexual fantasies, and immediately back track because your beliefs may tell you that these are evil. You will not remember, or want to remember, your own dreams for the same reasons. Many people, therefore, tell themselves that they are very impatient to discover the nature and extent of the psyche, and cannot understand why they meet with so little success. At the same time, such beliefs convince them that the self is evil. These beliefs must be weeded out. If cannot honestly encounter the dimensions of your creaturehood , you cannot surely explore the greater dimension of the psyche. This blocking of associations, however, is a very important element that impedes many people. The psyche's organization are broader, and in their own way more rational than most of your conscious beliefs about the self. Many individuals are afraid that they will be swept by inner explorations, that insanity will overtake them, when instead the physical stance of the body and personality is firmly rooted in these alternate organizations. There is nothing wrong with the conscious mind. You have simply put a lid on it, allowing it to be so conscious, and no more. You have said: "Here it is safe to be conscious, and here it is not." Many of you believe it is safe to make a nuclear bomb, but that it is insane to use your dreams as another method of manipulating daily life; or that it is all right to be consciously aware of your virus, wars,
and disasters, but it is not all right to be consciously aware of other portion of the self that could solve such problems. The idea, then, is not to annihilate normal consciousness, but quite literally to expand it by bringing into its focus other levels of reality that it can indeed intrinsically perceive and utilize. I will suggest many exercises throughout this book. Some of them will necessitate variations of normal consciousness. I may ask you to forget normal stimuli, or suggest that you amplify them, but I am nowhere stating that your mode of consciousness is wrong. It is limited, not by nature, but by your own beliefs and practice. You have not carried it far enough. Some Dream Hints, And The Qualities Of Consciousness The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 764, 10:43 Some night as you fall asleep, try telling yourself that you will pretend you are awake while you are asleep. Suggest that instead of falling asleep, you will come into another kind of wakefulness. Try to imagine that you are awake when you sleep. On other occasions when you go to bed, lie down and settle yourself, but as you fall asleep imagine you are awaking the next morning. I will not tell you what to look for. The doing of these exercises is important - not the results in usual terms. I said that there were different kinds of knowledge in another way. Done over a period of time, they will open up alternate modes of perception, so that you can view your experience from more than one standpoint. This means that your experience will itself change in quality. Sometimes when you are awake, and it is convenient, imagine that your present experience of the moment is a dream, and is highly symbolic. Who are the people? What do they represent? If that experience were a dream, what would it mean? And into what kind of waking life would you rise in the morning?
The qualities of consciousness cannot be elucidated. These exercises will bring into contact with other kinds of knowing, and acquaint you with different feelings of consciousness that are not familiar. Your conscious self will then have a different feel as the exercises are done. Certain questions that you may have asked may be answered in such a state, but not in ways you anticipate, nor can you necessarily translate the answers into known terms. The different modes of consciousness with which I hope to acquaint you are not alien, however. They are quite native, again, in dream states, and are always present as alternatives beneath awareness. Projection Hints, Making Predictions The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 764, 10:58 Sometimes as you walk down a street, pretend that you are seeing the same scene from the sky in an airplane, yourself included. On another occasion, as you sit inside your house and imagine that you are outside on the lawn or street. All of these exercises should be followed by a return to the present: your focus of attention outward in the present moment as clearly as possible, letting the sounds and sights of the physical situation come into your attention. The other exercises, in fact, will result in a clearer picture of the world, for they facilitate the very motion of your perception, allowing you to perceive nuances in the physical situation that before would have escaped your notice. We will be dealing with direct practical experience. It will do you no good if you are simply intellectually aware of what I say, but practically ignorant Period. Therefore the exercises will be important because they will offer you evidence of your own greater perceptive abilities. Continue to rely upon known channels of information, but implement these and begin to explore the unrecognized ones also available. What information do you have, for example, presently unknown to yourself? Try your hand at predicting future events. In the beginning, it does no matter whether your predictions are "true." You will be stretching your consciousness into area usually unused. Do not put any great stake in your predictions, for if you do you will be very disappointed if they do not work out, and end the entire procedure.
If you continue, you will indeed discover that you are aware of some future events, when such knowledge is not available in usual terms. If you persist, then over a period of time you will discover that you do very well in certain areas, while in others you will fail miserably. There will be associative patterns that you follow successfully, leading toward "correct" precognitions. You will also discover that the emotions are highly involved in such procedures: You will perceive information that is significant to you for some reason. That significance will act like a magnet, attracting those data to you. Now, in the normal course of events you attract events in the same fashion. You anticipate events. You are aware of them before they happen, whether or not you ever succeed in conscious predictions. You form your life, however, through the intimate interworkings of your own goals and beliefs. While your future can on occasion be correctly perceived ahead of time by a gifted psychic, the future is too plastic for any kind of systemized framework. Free will is always involved. Yet many people are frightened of remembering dreams because they fear that a dream of disaster will necessarily be followed by such an event. The mobility of consciousness provides far greater freedom. In fact, such a dream can instead be used to circumnavigate such a probability. Only if you understand your own freedom in such areas will you allow yourselves to explore alternate states of consciousness, or the environment of dreams. Such exercises are not to be used to supersede the world you know, but to supplement it, to complete it, and to allow you to perceive its true dimensions. There is no need to divorce the waking and dreaming states in the particular fashion that currently operates-for they are complementary states, not opposite ones. A good deal of life's normal dimensions are dependent upon your dream experience. Your entire familiarity with the world of symbols arises directly from the dreaming self. In certain terms, language itself has its roots in the dreaming condition - and man dreamed [that] he spoke long before language was born.
He dreamed of flying, and that impetus led to the physical inventions that made mechanical flight possible. I am not speaking symbolically here, but quite literally. From the beginning, I said that the self was not confined to the body. This means that the consciousness has other methods of perceiving information, that even physical life experience is not confined to what is sensed in usual terms. This remains a fine theory, however, unless you allow yourself enough freedom to experiment with other modes of perception. A Vaster Self, Subspecies Of Consciousness, And Reading Yourself Adjacently The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 779, 9:17 . Now you "are around yourself" all the time. You are ever becoming your self. In a manner of speaking you are "composed" of those patterns of yourself that are everywhere coming together. You cannot help but be yourself. Biologically, mentally, and spiritually you are marked as apart from all others, and no cloak of conventionality can ever hide that unutterable uniqueness. You cannot help but be yourself, then. In a way, physically you are a molecular language that communicates with others, but a language with its own particularities, as if speaking an accepted tongue you spoke with a biological accent that carried its own flavor and meaning. When you ask: "What is my psyche, or soul, or who am I?" you are seeking of course for your own meaning as apart from what you already know about yourself. In that context, God is as known and as unknown as you are to yourself. Both God and the psyche are constantly expanding-unutterable, and always becoming. You will question, most likely, "Becoming what?" for to you it usually seems that all motion tends towards a state of completion of one kind or another. You think therefore in terms of becoming perfect, or becoming free. The word "becoming" by itself seems to leave you up in the air, so to speak, suspended without definitions. If I say: "You are becoming what you already are," then my remark sounds meaningless, for if you already are, how can you become what is already accomplished? In larger terms, however, what you are is
always vaster than your knowledge of yourself, for in physical life you cannot keep up with your own psychological and psychic activity…. You think that your consciousness is the only logical culmination of your body's reality. You read yourself in a certain accepted fashion. In the "entire book of life," however, just physically speaking, there are interrelationships on adjacent levels that you do not perceive, as other portions of your own biological consciousness or biological language relate to the entire living fabric of the world. In physical terms you are alive because of substructures-psychic, spiritual, and biological-of which you have hardly any comprehension at all…. Within your biological experience, however, plant, mineral, animal, and human consciousness intersect. They encounter each other. In the language of the self that you speak, these encounters are like implied causes in your verbal language. These other kinds of consciousness then form inner rhythms upon which you superimpose your own. These encounters of consciousness go on constantly. They form their own kind of adjacent identities. You would call them subspecies of consciousness, perhaps, but they are really identities that operate in a trans-species fashion. If you "read yourselves" sideways in such a manner, you would discover portions of your own consciousness stretching across the entire fabric of the earth as you understand it-becoming a part of earth's material, even as those materials become part of the self that you recognize. Your consciousness would be far less hemmed in. Time would expand adjacently. You think of yourselves physically as "top dogs," however, separate from the other species and all kinds of life, so in effect you limit your own experience of your psyche. If you thought or felt in such a fashion, then you would appreciate the fact that biologically your body is yours by virtue of the mineral, plant, and animal life from which it gains its sustenance. You would not feel imprisoned as you often do within one corporal form, for you would understand that the body itself maintains its relative stability because of its constant give-and-take with the materials of the earth that are themselves possessed of consciousness.
You could to some extent feel your body coming together and dispersing constantly, and understand how you hover within it without fearing your own annihilation upon its dismantlement…. If you read yourselves adjacently, you would build up confidence in the body, and in those cooperative consciousnesses that form it. You would have an intimate awareness of the body's healing processes also. You would not fear death as annihilation, and would feel your own consciousness gently disentangle itself from those others that so graciously couched it. The Formation Of Events, Multiple Dreams, And Spontaneous Creative Play The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 786, 10:44 Your earth exists in the context of the physical universe. You exist in the context of your psyche. The events that you recognize as real are dependent upon all of the other events occurring within your psyche, even as the existence of the earth is dependent upon the other aspects of the physical universe. Events as you understand them are only intrusions of multidimensional activities into space and time. Events are reflections of your dreams even as your dreams reflect the events you know; those you experienced, and those you anticipate in one way or another. In a manner of speaking, then, and without denying the great validity of your experience, events as you know them are but fragments of other happenings in which you are also intimately involved. The inner multidimensional shape of events occurs in a framework that you cannot structure, however, because as a rule you are not focused in that direction. You prefer to deal with activities that can be physically manipulated. The physical manipulation of events is indeed a psychological knack of considerable merit, in which consciousness and attention are exuberantly and wholeheartedly focused, bringing vitality and meaning to one relatively small range of activity.
Again, I do not mean to deny the validity of that experience, but to point out its specialized nature. By its nature, however, that precise specialization and tuning of consciousness in to space and time largely precludes other less-specialized encounters with realities. Dreams often present you with what seems to be an ambiguity, an opaqueness, since they lack the immediate impact of psychological activity with space and time. From your viewpoint it seems often that dreams are events, or that they happen but do not happen. The lack of normal time and space intersections means that you cannot share your dreams with others in the way that you share waking events. Nor can you remember dream events - or so it seems - as you do your normal conscious experience. In actual fact you remember consciously only certain highlighted events of your lives, and ordinary details of your days vanish as dreams seem to. You have a dream memory, of course, though you are not aware of it as a rule. There is a craft involved in the formation of events. You perform this craft well when dreaming. Event making begins before your birth, and the dreams of unborn children and their mothers often merge. The dreams of those about to die often involve dream structures that already prepare them for future existence. In fact, towards death a great dream acceleration is involved as new probabilities are considered - a dream acceleration that provides impetus for new birth…. Some of this is most difficult to explain, yet it is true to say that no event has a beginning or ending. This is true of a life. It is true of a dream. The information is not practical in your terms, because it denies your direct experience. Upon request, however, and with some practice, you can suggest in the middle of a dream that it expand to its larger proportions. You would then experience one dream wrapped in another, or several occurring at one time -all involving aspects of a particular theme or probability, with each connected to the others, although to you the connection might not be apparent.
Each event of your life is contained within each other event. In the same way, each lifetime is contained in each other lifetime. The feeling of reality is "truer" then in the dream state. You can become consciously aware of your dreams to some extent - that is, consciously aware of your own dreaming. You can also allow your "dream self" greater expression in the waking state. This can be done through techniques that are largely connected with creativity. Creativity connects waking and dreaming reality, and is in itself a threshold in which the waking and dreaming selves merge to form constructs that belong equally to each reality. You cannot begin to understand how you form the physical events of your lives unless you understand the connections between creativity, dreams, play, and those events that form your waking hours. In one respect, dreams are a kind of structured unconscious play. Your mind dreams in joyful pleasure at using itself, freed from the concerns of practical living. Dream's are the minds free play. The spontaneous activity, however, is at the same time training in the art of forming practical events. Probabilities can be juggled, tried out without physical consequences. The mind follows its natural events. It has far more energy that you allow it to use, and it releases this in great "fantasies" - fantasies from which you will choose fact that you will experience. At the same time dreaming is the art of the highest nature, in which all are proficient. There are structured dreams as there are structured games in waking life. There are mass dreams "attended by many." There are themes, both mass and private, that serve as a basis or framework. Yet overall, the mind's spontaneous activity continues because it enjoys its own activities. Making Up Dreams, The Playfulness Of And Interpretation Of Dreams The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 790, 10:07 It is not easy to explain the inner workings of the inner psyche, or the activity behind dreams, for such experience exists beyond the framework of verbalization or images, and deals basically with the nature and behavior of psychological and psychic energy.
I am a personified energy source - but so are you. I have had many lives, in your terms, yet in other terms I have not lived physically, but rather lent or loaned my energy to lives that rose from my reality but were not me. In the same way you give birth to dream images of your own-hardly aware that you have done so, unconscious of the fact that you have provided impetus for a kind of psychological reality that quite escape your notice. The dream stories you begin continue on their own. No dream is stillborn. Each chapter of this book is written in such a way that the idea presented will activate your own intuitions, and open pathways between your dreaming and waking states. Your own greater reality hovers about you in each instant. If you knew in precise terminology how you grew physically from a fetus to an adult, if you could consciously follow that process, you would not necessarily be better off, but possibly hindered in your growth; for you would begin to question: "Am I doing this right?" The perfection of the process would make you ill at ease. In the same way, a step-by-step illustration of the nature of the dream state might well make you too self-conscious. You would begin to question: "Am I doing this right?" Many people are in awe of their dreams. They are afraid of anything they do not consciously control. Yet if you think of your dream as a extensions of your own experience in another context, then you can indeed learn to gain ease with them. You will recall them more easily, and as you do you will be able to maintain a sense of continuity between the waking and dream states. As this happens the contours of your own psyche will appear more clearly. Those contours will not show themselves in terms of definite mathematical-like propositions, however, but will emerge through the techniques, symbols, feelings, and desire usually attributed to creativity. The characteristics of creativity appear most clearly in children. Creativity implies abandon within a framework that is accepted for itself, and itself only. If in your waking hours you playfully make up a dream for yourself, and then playfully interpret it without worrying about implications, but
for itself only, you will unwittingly touch upon the nature of your own nightly dreaming. Your regular dreams and your "manufactured" ones will have much in common, and the process of manufacturing dreams will acquaint you with the alterations of consciousness that to a greater degree happen nightly. This is an excellent exercise. It is particularly beneficial for those who have a too-rigid framework. The playfulness and creativity of dreams is vastly underrated in most dream studies. Children often frighten themselves on purpose through games, knowing the game's framework all the time. The bogeyman in the garden vanishes at the sound of the supper bell. The child returns to the safe universe of tea and biscuits. Dreams often serve the same purpose. Fears are encountered, but the dawn breaks. The dreamer awakes for breakfast. The fears, after all, are seen as groundless. This is not an explanation for all unpleasant dreams by any means, yet it is a reminder that not all such events are neurotic or indicative of future physical problems. Ruburt and Joseph have a kitten. In its great exuberant physical energy it chases its own tail, scales the furniture, tire itself out-and man's mid exuberantly plays with itself in somewhat the same fashion. In dreams it uses all those splendid energetic abilities freely, without the necessity of physical feedback, caution, or questioning. It seeks realities, giving birth to psychological patterns. It uses itself fully in mental activity in the same way that the kitten does in physical play. When you try to explore the psyche in deadly seriousness, it will always escape you. Your dreams can be interpreted as dramas, perhaps, but never as diagrams. Do not try to bring "dream interpretation"-and kindly now-down to your level, but instead try to playfully enter that reality imaginatively, and allow your own waking consciousness to rise into a freer kind of interpretation of events, in which energy is not bounded by space, time, or limitations.
Time Variations And Imagination The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 793, 10:31 You have inner senses that roughly correlate with your physical ones. These, however, do not have to be trained to a particular space-time orientation. When children dream, they utilize these inner senses as adults do, and then through dreaming they learn to translate such material into the precise framework of the exterior senses. Children's games are always in the "present"- that is, they are immediately experienced, though the play events may involve the future or the past. The phrase "once upon a time" is strongly evocative and moving, even to adults, because children play with time in a way that adults have forgotten. If you want to sense the motion of your psyche, it is perhaps easiest to imagine a situation either in the past or the future, for this automatically moves your mental sense perceptions in a new way. Children try to imagine what the world was like before they entered it. Do the same thing. The way you follow these directions can be illuminating, for the areas of activity you choose will tell you something about the unique qualities of your consciousness. Adult games deal largely with manipulations in space, while children's play, again, often involves variations in time. Look at a natural object, say a tree; if it spring now, then imagine that you see it in the fall. Alter your time variations in other such exercises. This will automatically allow you to break away from too narrow a focus. It will to some extent break apart the rigid interlocking of your perception into reality as you have learned how to perceive it. Children can play so vividly that they might, for example, imagine themselves parched under the desert sun, though they are in the middle of the coolest airconditioned living room. They are on the one hand completely involved in their activity, yet on the other hand they are quite aware of their normal environment. Yet the adult fears that any such playful unofficial alteration of consciousness is dangerous, and becomes worried that the imagined situation will supersede the real one. Through training, many adults have been taught that the imagination itself is suspicious. Such attitudes not only drastically impede any
artistic creativity, but the imaginative creativity necessary to deal with the nature of physical events themselves. Man's creative alertness, his precise sensual focus in space and time, and his ability to react quickly to events, are of course all highly important characteristics. His imagination allowed him to develop the use of tools, and gave birth to his inventiveness. That imagination allows him to plan in the present for what might occur in the future. This means that to some extent the imagination must operate outside the senses' precise orientation. For that reason, it is most freely used in the dream state. Basically speaking, imagination cannot be tied to practicalities, for when it is man has only physical feedback. If that were all, then there would be no inventions. There is always additional information available other than that in the physical environment. These additional data come as a result of the brain's high play as it experiments with the formation of events, using the inner senses that are not structured in time or space. Put another time on. Just before you sleep, see yourself as you are, but living in a past or future century-or simply pretend that you were born 10 or 20 years earlier or later. Done playfully, such exercises will allow you a good subjective feel for your own inner existence as it is apart from the time context…. Dictation: To encourage creativity, exert your imagination through breaking up your usual space-time focus. As you fall to sleep, imagine that you are in the same place, exactly in the same spot, but at some point in the distant past or future. What do you see, or hear? What is there? For another exercise, imagine that you are in another part of the world entirely, but in the present time, and ask yourself the same questions. For a variety, in your mind's eye follow your own activities of the previous day. Place yourself a week ahead in time. Conduct your own variations of these exercises. What they will teach you cannot be explained, for they will provide a dimension of experience, a feeling about yourself that may make sense only to you.
They will teach you to find your own sensations of yourself, as divorced from the official context of reality, in which you usually perceive your being. Additionally, you will be better able to deal with current events, for your exercised imagination will bring information to you that will be increasingly valuable. Do not begin by using your imagination only to solve current problems, for again, you will tie your creativity to them, and hamper it because of your beliefs about what is practical. Playfully done, these exercises will set into action other creative events. These will involve the utilization of some of the inner senses, for which you have no objective sense-correlations. You will understand situations better in daily life, because you will have activated inner abilities that allow you to subjectively perceive the reality of other people in a way that children do. There is an inner knack, allowing for greater sensitivity to the feelings of others than you are presently acknowledge. That knack will be activated. Again, the powers of the brain come from the mind, so while you learn to center your consciousness in your body - and necessarily so -nevertheless your inner perceptions roam a far greater range. Before sleep, then, imagine your consciousness traveling down a road, or across the world - what ever you want. Forget your body. Do not try to leave it for this exercise. Tell yourself that you are imaginatively traveling. If you chosen a familiar destination, then imagine the houses you might pass. It is sometimes easier to choose an unfamiliar location, however, for then you are tempted to test yourself as you go along by wondering whether or not the imagined scenes conform to your memory. To one extent or another your consciousness will indeed be traveling. Again, a playful attitude is best. If you retain it and remember children's games, then the affair will be entirely enjoyable; even if you experience events that seem frightening to you, recognize them as belonging to the same category as the frightening events of a child's game.
Double And Triple Dreams The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 794, 11:10 Now: While consciousness enjoys physical orientation, it is also too creative to confine its activities in one direction. Dreams provide consciousness with its own creative play, therefore, when it need not be so practical or so "mundane," allowing it to use its innate characteristics more freely. Many people are aware of double or triple dreams, when they seem to have two or three simultaneous dreams. Usually upon the point of awakening, such dream suddenly telescope into the one that is predominant, with the others taking subordinate positions, though the dreamer is certain that in the moment before the dreams were equal in intensity. Such dreams are representative of the great creativity of consciousness, and hint of its ability to carry on more than one line of experience at one time without losing track of itself. In physical waking life, you must do one thing or another, generally speaking. Obviously I am simplifying, since you can eat an orange, watch television, scratch your foot, and yell at the dog - all more or less at the same time. You cannot, however, be in Boston and San Francisco at the same time, or be 21 years of age and 11 at the same time. In double dreams and triple dreams consciousness shows its transparent, simultaneous nature. Several lines of dream experience can be encountered at the same time, each complete in itself, but when the dreamer wakes to the fact, the experience cannot be neurologically translated; so one dream usually predominates, with the others more like ghost images. There are too many varieties of such dreams to discuss here, but they all involve consciousness dispersing, yet retaining its identity, consciousness making loops with itself. Such dreams involve other sequences than the ones with which you are familiar. They hint at the true dimensions of consciousness that are usually unavailable to you, for you actually form your own historical world in the same manner, in
that above all other experiences that one world is predominant, and played on the screen of your brain. Take a simple event like eating an orange. Playfully imagine how that event is interpreted by the cells of your body. How is the orange perceived? It might be directly felt by the tip of your finger, but are the cells in your feet aware of it? Do the cells in your knee know you are eating an orange? Take all the time you want with this. Then explore your own conscious sense perceptions of the orange. Dwell on its taste, texture, odor, shape. Again, do this playfully, and take your time. Then let your own associations flow in your mind. What does the orange remind you of? When did you first see or taste one? Have you ever seen oranges grow, or orange blossoms? What does the color remind you of? Then pretend you are having a dream that begins with the image of the orange. Follow the dream in your mind. Next, pretend that you are waking from the dream to realize that another dream was simultaneously occurring, and ask yourself quickly what the dream was. Followed in the same sequence given, the exercise will allow you to make loops with your own consciousness, so to speak, to catch it "coming and going." And the last question - what else were you dreaming of? - should bring an entirely new sequence of images and thoughts into your mind that were indeed happening at the same time as your day dream about the orange. The feel and practice of these exercises are their important points-the manipulation of a creative consciousness. You exist outside your present context, but such statements are meaningless, practically speaking, unless you give yourself some freedom to experience events outside of that rigid framework. These exercises alter your usual organizations, and hence allow you to encounter experience in a fresher fashion. A double dream is like a double life lived by some families who have two families - one in each town - and who seemingly manipulate series of events that other people would find most confusing. If the body can only follow certain sequences, still consciousness has inner
depths of action that do not show on the surface line of experience. Double dreams are a clue to such activity. While each person generally follows a given strand of consciousness, and identifies with it as "myself," there are other alternate lines beneath the surface. They also quite as legitimately the same identity, but they are not as focused upon because the body must have one clear, direct mode of action. These strands are like double dreams that continue. They also serve as a framework to the recognized self. In periods of stress or challenge the recognized self may sense these other strains of consciousness, and realize that a fuller experience is possible, a greater psychological thickness. On some occasions in the dream state the recognized self may then enlarge its perception enough to take advantage of these other portions of its own identity. Double or triple dreams may represent such encounters at times. Consciousness always seeks the richest, most creative form, while ever maintaining its own integrity. The imagination, playing in the arts and dreaming, allow it to enrich its activities by providing feedback other than that received in the physical environment itself. Imagining Oneself As The Opposite Sex The Nature Of The Psyche, Session 795, 9:35 In their play children often imaginatively interchange their sexes. The young selfhood is freer in its identification, and as yet has not been taught to identify its own personality with sex exclusively. In the dreams of children this same activity continues, so that the boy may have many experiences as a girl, and the girl as a boy. More than this, however, in children's dreams as in their play activity, age variances are also frequent. The young child dreaming of its own future counterpart, for example, attains a kind of psychological projection into the future of its world. Adults censor many of their own dreams so that the frequent changes in sexual orientation are not remembered.
Play then at another game, and pretend that you are of the opposite sex. Do this after an encounter in which the conventions of sex have played a part. Ask yourself how many of your current beliefs would be different if your sex was. If you are a parent, imagine that you are your mate, and in that role imaginatively consider your children. Your beliefs about your dreams color your memory and interpretation of them, so that at the point of waking, with magnificent psychological duplicity, you often make last-minute adjustments that bring your dreams more in line with your conscious expectations. The sexual symbols usually attached to dream images are highly simplistic, for example. They program you to interpret your dreams in a given manner. Give us a moment… You do have a "dream memory" as a species, with certain natural symbols. These are individually experienced, with great variations. The studies done on men and women dreamers are already prejudiced, however, both by the investigators and by the dreamers themselves. Men remember "manly" dreams-generally speaking-while women in the same manner remember dreams that they believe suit their sex according to their beliefs. People often program their waking memory in the same fashion. The psyche, again, not only has no one sexual identification, but it is the larger psychic and psychological bank of potentials from which all gradations of sexuality emerge. It is not asexual, and yet it is the combination of those richest ingredients considered to be male and female. The human personality is therefore endowed sexually and psychologically with a freedom from strict sexual orientation. This has contributed to the survival of the species by not separating any of its mental and psychological abilities into two opposite camps. Except for the physical processes of reproduction, the species is free to arrange its psychological characteristic in whatever fashion it chooses. There is no inner programming that says otherwise. In dreams this psychological complexity is more apparent. Because of programming, many people refrain from natural reactions of a most harmless nature, and these are often given expression in the dream
state. Those dreams, however, are precisely the ones least remembered - censoring it is so habitual. The Fairy Godmother The Individual And Nature Of Mass Events, Session 824 The fairy godmother is a creative personification of the personalized elements in Framework Two – a personification therefore of the inner ego, that rises to the aid of the mortal self to grant its desires, even when the intents of the mortal self may not seem to fit into the practical framework of normal life. When the inner ego responds in such a fashion, even the commonplace, ordinary, seemingly innocuous circumstances suddenly become charged with a new vitality, and appear to "work for" the individual involved. If you are reading this book you are already too old to clearly remember the constant fantasies of your early childhood. Children however know quite well, automatically, that they have a strong hand in the creation of the events that then seem to happen to them…. To some extent or another, however, the child in you remembers a certain sense of mastery only half realized, of power nearly grasped, then seemingly lost forever – and a dimension of existence in which dreams quite literally came true. The child in you sensed more, of course: It sensed its own greater reality in another framework entirely, from which it had only lately emerged – yet with which it was intimately connected. It felt itself surrounded, then, by the greater realities of Framework Two. Past And Future Lives Within Memories And Dreams The Individual And Nature Of Mass Events, Session 806, 9:31 Because events do not exist in the concrete, done-and-finished versions about which you have been taught, then memory must also be a different story. You must remember the creativity and the open-ended nature of events, for even in one life a given memory is seldom a "true memory" of a past event. The original happening is experienced from a different perspective on the part of each individual involved, of course, so that the event's implication and basic meaning may differ
according to the focus of each participant. That given event, in your terms happening for the first time, say, begins to "work upon" the participants. Each one brings to it his or her own background, temperament, and literally a thousand different colorations - so that event, while shared by others, is still primarily original to each person. The moment it occurs, it begins to change as it is filtered through all of those other ingredients, and it is minutely altered furthermore by each succeeding event. The memory of an event, then, is shaped as much by the present as it is by the past. Association triggers memories, of course, and organizes memory events. It also helps color and form such events. You are used to a time structure, so that you remember something that happened at a particular time in the past. Usually you can place events in that fashion. There are neurological pockets, so to speak, so that biologically the body can place events as it perceives activity. Those neurological pulses are geared to the biological world you know. In those terms, past or future-life memories usually remain like ghost images by contrast. Overall, this is necessary so that immediate body response can be focused in the time period you recognize. Other life memories are carried along, so to speak, beneath those other pulsesnever, in certain terms, coming to rest so that they can be examined, but forming, say, undercurrents upon which the memories of your current life rides. When such other-life memories do come to the surface, they are of course colored by it, and their rhythm is not synchronized. They are not tied into your nervous system as precisely as your regular memories. Your present gains its feeling of depth because of your past as you understand it. In certain terms, however, the future represents, say, another kind of depth that belongs to events. A root goes out in all directions. Events do also. But the roots of events go through your past, present, and future. Often by purposefully trying to slow down your thought processes, or playfully trying to speed them up, you can become aware of memories form other lives-past and future. To some extent you allow
other neurological impulses to make themselves known. There may often be a feeling of vagueness, because you have no ready-made scheme of time or place with which to structure such memories. Such exercises also involve you with the facts of the events of your own life, for you automatically are following probabilities from the point of your own focus. It would be most difficult to operate within your sphere of reality without pretension of concrete, finished events. You form your past lives now in this life as surely as you form your future ones now also. Simultaneously, each of your past and future selves dwell in their own now, and for them the last sentence also applies. It is theoretically possible to understand much of this through an examination-in-depth of events of your own life. Throwing away many taken-for-granted concepts, you can pick a memory. But try not to structure It - a most difficult task - for such structuring is by now almost automatic. The memory, left alone, not structured, will shimmer, shake, take other forms, and transform itself before your [mental] eyes, so that its shape will seem like a psychological kaleidoscope through whose focus the other events of your life will also shimmer and change. Such memory exercises can also serve to bring in other - life memories. Edges, corners, and reflections will appear, however, perhaps superimposed upon memories that you recognize as belonging to this life. Your memories serve to organize your experience and, again, follow recognized neurological sequences. Other-life memories from the future and past often bounce off these with a motion to quick for you to follow. In a quiet moment, off guard, you might remember an event from this life, but there may be a strange feeling to it, as if something about it, some sensations, does not fit into the time slot in which the event belongs. In such cases that [present life] memory is often tinged by another, so that future or past life sheds its cast upon the recalled event. There is a floating quality about one portion of the memory.
This happens more often than is recognized, because usually you discount the feelings of strangeness, and drop that part of the memory that does not fit. Such instances involve definite bleedthroughs, however. By being alert and catching such feelings, you can learn to use the floating part of the otherwise-recognizable memory as a focus. Through association that focus can then trigger further past or future recall. Clues also appear in the dreaming state, with greater frequency, because then you are already accustomed to that kind of floating sensation in which events can seem to happen in their own relatively independent context. Dreams in which past and present are both involved are an example; also dreams in which the future and past merge, and in dreams in which time seems to be a changing ingredient. Now: In certain terms the past, present, and future [of your present life] are all compressed in any given moment of your experience. Any such moment is therefore a gateway into all of your existence. The events that you recognize as happening now are simply specific and objective, but the most minute element in any given moment's experience is also symbolic of other events and other times. Each moment is then like a mosaic, only in your current life history you follow but one color or pattern, and ignore the others. As I mentioned [in other books], you can indeed change the present to some extent by purposefully altering a memory event. This kind of synthesis can be used in many instances with many people. Such an exercise is not some theoretical, esoteric, impractical method, but a very precise, volatile, and dynamic way of helping the present self by calming fears of a past self. The past self is not hypothetical, either, but still exists, capable of being reached and of changing its reactions. You do not need a time machine to alter the past or the future. Such a technique is highly valuable. Not only are memories not "dead," they themselves are ever-changing. Many alter themselves almost completely without your notice. In his (unpublished) apprentice novels, Ruburt did two or three versions of an episode with a priest he had known in his youth. Each version at the time he wrote it represented his honest memory of the event. While the bare facts
were more or less the same, the entire meaning and interpretation of each version differed so drastically that those differences far outweighed the similarities. Rob's Framework Two Credo The Individual And Nature Of Mass Events, Session 815, Notes (Suggestion: Write your own version of a credo.) I have the simple, profound faith that anything I desire in this life can come to me from Framework Two. There are no impediments in Framework Two. Framework Two can creatively produce everything I desire to have in Framework One - my excellent health, painting, and writing, my excellent relationship with Jane, Jane's own spontaneous and glowing physical health and creativity, the greater and greater sales of all of her books. I know that all of these positive goals are worked out in Framework Two, regardless of their seeming complexity, and that they can show themselves in Framework One. I have the simple, profound faith that everything I desire in life can come to me from the miraculous workings of Framework Two. I do not need to be concerned with details of any kind, knowing that Framework Two possesses the infinite creative capacity to handle and produce everything I can possibly ask of it. My simple, profound faith in the creative goodness of Framework Two is all that is necessary. The Rockbed Reality The Individual And Nature Of Mass Events, Session 830, 9:15 Your world and everything in it exist first in the imagination, then. You have been taught to focus all of your attention upon physical events, so that they carry the authenticity of reality for you. Thoughts feelings, or beliefs appear to be secondary, subjective -or somehow not real and they seem to rise in response to an already established field of physical data. You usually think, for example, that your feelings about a given event are primarily reactions to the events itself. It seldom occurs to you that the feeling themselves might be primary, and that the particular event was somehow a response to your emotions, rather than the
other way around. The all-important matter of your focus is largely responsible for your interpretation of any event. For an exercise, then, imagine for awhile that the subjective world of your thoughts, feelings, inner images and fantasies represent the "rockbed reality" from which individual physical events emerge. Look at the world for a change from the inside out, so to speak. Imagine that physical experience is somehow the materialization of your own subjective reality. Forget what you have learned about reactions and stimuli. Ignore for a time everything you have believed and see your thoughts as real events. Try to view normal physical occurrences as the concrete physical reactions in space and time to your own feeling and beliefs. For indeed your subjective world causes your physical experience. The Practical Idealist And Following Impulses The Individual And Nature Of Mass Events, Session 873, 9:31 In a manner of speaking, you must be a practicing idealist if you are to remain a true idealist for long. You must take small practical steps, often when you would prefer to take giant ones - but you must move in the direction of your ideals through action. Otherwise you will feel disillusioned, or powerless, or sure, again, that only drastic, highly unideal methods will ever bring about the achievement of a given ideal state or situation. Life at all levels of activity is propelled to seek ideals, whether of a biological or mental nature. That pursuit automatically gives life its zest and natural sense of excitement and drama. Developing your abilities, whatever they may be, exploring and expanding your experience of selfhood, gives life a sense of purpose, meaning, and creative excitement - and also adds to the understanding and development of the society and the species. It is not enough to meditate, or to imagine in your mind some desired goal being accomplished, if you are afraid to act upon the very impulses to which your meditations and imaginings give rise. When you do not take any steps toward an ideal position, then your life does lack excitement. You become depressed. You might become an idealist in reverse, so that you find a certain excitement in
contemplating the occurrences of natural disasters, such as earthquakes. You may begin to concentrate your attention on such activities. You may contemplate the end of the world instead, but in either case you are propelled by a sense of personal frustration, and perhaps by some sense of vengeance, seeing in your mind the destruction of a world that fell so far beneath your idealized expectations. None of the unfortunate situations discussed in this book have any power over you, however, if you understand that events do not exist by themselves. All events and situations exist first within the mind. At the deepest levels of communication no news is secret, whether or not you receive it by way of your technological gadgets. Your thoughts and beliefs and desires form the events that you view on television. If you want to change the world, you must first change your thoughts, expectations, and beliefs. If every reader of this book changed his or her attitudes, even though not one law was rewritten, tomorrow the world would have changed for the better. The new laws would follow. Any new laws always follow change in the belief. It is not the other way around. Give us a moment… There is no civilization, no system of science, art, or philosophy, that did not originate in the mind. When you give lip service to ideas with which you do not agree, you are betraying your ideals, harming yourself to some extent and society as well, insofar as you are denying yourself and society the benefit of your own understanding. Each person is an idealist. I simply want to help you practice your idealism in the acts of your daily life. Each person alive helps paint a living picture of civilization as it exist at any given time, in your terms. Be your own best artist. Your thoughts, feelings and expectations are like the living brush strokes with which you paint your corner of life's landscape. If you do your best in your own life, then you are indeed helping improve the quality of all life. Your thoughts are as real as snowflakes or raindrops or clouds. They mix and merge with the thoughts of others, to form
man's livingscape, providing the vast mental elements from which physical events will be formed. As you learn to allow your impulses some freedom, you will discover their connection with your own idealized versions of what life should be. You will begin to discover that [those spontaneous urges] are as basically good and life-giving as the physical elements of the earth, that provide the impetus for all biological life. Beyond that, however, those impulses, again, connect you with the original impulse from which all life emerges. Give us a moment…You will discover the natural cooperative nature of your impulses, and you will no longer believe that they exist as contradictory or disruptive influences. Your impulses are part of the great multi-action of being. At deeper levels, the impulsive portions of the personality are aware of all actions upon the earth's surface. You are involved in a cooperative venture in which your slightest impulse has greater meaning, and is intimately connected with all other actions. You have the power to change your life and the world for the better, but in doing so you must, again, reevaluate what your ideals are, and the methods that are worthy of them. Science and religion have each contributed much to man's development. They must reevaluate their ideals and methods, however. In larger terms, there are really only scientific and religious men and women, however, and fields of science and religion would be meaningless without those individuals who believe in their positions. As those men and women enlarge their definitions of reality, the fields of science and religion must expand. You must be reckless in the pursuit of the ideal-reckless enough to insist that each step you take along the way is worthy of the ideal. You will understand, if you are a practicing idealist, that you cannot kill in the name of peace, for if you do so your methods will automatically undermine your ideal. The sacredness of life and spirit are one and the same. You cannot condemn the body without ultimately condemning the soul. You cannot condemn the soul without ultimately condemning the body.
I would like each of my readers to be a practicing idealist, and if you are then you will automatically be tolerant of the beliefs of others. You will not be unkind in the pursuit of your own ideals. You will look upon the world with a sane compassion, with some humor, and you will look for man's basic good intent. You will find it. It has always been there. You will discover your own basic good intent, and see that it has always been behind all of your actions - even those least fitted to the pursuit of your private ideals. The end does not justify the means. If you learn that lesson, then your good intent will allow you to act effectively and creatively in your private experience, and in your relationship with others. Your changed beliefs will affect the mental atmosphere of your nation and of the world. Give us a moment… You must encounter the selves that you are now. Acknowledge your impulses. Explore their meanings. Rely upon yourselves. You will find far greater power, achievement, and virtue than you suppose. Conclusion: You are individuals, yet each of you forms a part of the world's reality. Consciously, you are usually aware only of your own thoughts, but those thoughts merge with the thoughts of all others in the world. You understand what television is. At other levels, however, you carry a picture of the world's news, [one] that is "picked up" by signals transmitted by the c-e-l-l-s (spelled) that compose all living matter. When you have the impulse to act, it is your own impulse, yet it is also part of the world's action. In those terms, there are inner neurological-like systems that provide constant communication through all of the world's parts. If you accept the fact that man is basically a good creature, then you allow free, natural motions of your own psychic nature-and that nature springs from your impulses, and not in opposition to them. There is no event upon the face of the earth in which each of you has not played some part, however minute, because of the nature of your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.
There is no public act in which you are not in that same manner involved. You are intimately connected with all of the historic events of your time. To some extent you participated in putting the man on the moon, whether you had any connection at all with the physical occurrence itself. Your thoughts put a man on the moon as surely as any rocket did. You can become involved now in new exploration, one in which man's civilizations and organizations change their course, reflecting his good intent and his ideals. You can do this by seeing to it that each step you personally take is "ideally suited" to the ends you hope to achieve. You will see to it that your methods are ideal. If you do this, your life will automatically be provided with excitement, natural zest and creativity, and those characteristics will be reflected outward into social, political, economic, and scientific worlds. This is a challenge more than worth the effort. It is a challenge that I hope each reader will accept. The practical idealist…Give us a moment… When all is said and done, there is no other kind. I bid you each success in that endeavor. Expectation, Imagination, Will, And Framework Two Dreams, 'Evolution' and Value Fulfillment, Session 891, 9:07 Any of the probable actions that a person considers are a part of that person's conscious thought. Just underneath, however, people also consider other sets of probabilities that may or may not reach conscious level, simply because they are shunted aside, or because they seem to meet with no conscious recognition. I want you to try and imagine actual events, as you think of them, to be the vitalized representations of probabilities - that is, as physical versions of mental probabilities. The probabilities with which you are not consciously concerned remain psychologically peripheral: They are there but not there, so to speak…. Great expectations, basically, have nothing to do with degree, for a blade of grass is filled with great expectations. Great expectations are built upon faith in the nature of reality, a faith in nature itself, a faith in the life you are given, whatever its degree - and all children, for
example, are born with those expectations. Fairy tales are indeed often - though not always - carriers of a underground knowledge, as per your discussion about Cinderella (also see the 824th session for Mass Events), and the greatest fairy tales are always those in which the greatest expectations win out: The elements of the physical world that are unfortunate can be changed in the twinkling of an eye through great expectations. Your education tells you that all of that is nonsense, that the world is defined by its physical aspects alone. When you think of power you think of, say, nuclear energy, or solar energy - but power is the creativity energy within men's minds that allows them to use such powers, such energies, such forces. The true power is in the imagination which dares to speculate upon that which is not yet (intently). The imagination, backed by great expectations, can bring about almost any reality within the range of probabilities. All of the possible versions of 1980 will happen. Except for those you settle upon, all of the others will remain psychologically peripheral, in the background of your conscious experience-but all of those possible versions will be connected in one way or another. The important lessons have never really appeared in your societies: the most beneficial use of directed will, with great expectations, and that coupled with the knowledge of Framework 1 and 2 activities. Very simply: You want something, you dwell upon it consciously for awhile, you consciously imagine it coming to the forefront of probabilities, closer to actuality. Then you drop it like a pebble into Framework 2, forget about it as much as possible for a fortnight, and do this in a certain rhythm. Some Great Affirmations Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Session 891 I will approve of myself, my characteristics, my abilities, my likes and dislikes, my inclinations and disinclinations, realizing that these form my unique individuality. They are given to me for a reason. I will approve of and rejoice in my accomplishments and I will be as vigorous in listing these-as rigorous in remembering them-as I have
ever been in remembering and enumerating my failures or lacks of accomplishments. I will remember the creative framework of existence, in which I have my being. Therefore the possibilities, potentials, seeming miracles, and joyful spontaneity of Framework Two will be in my mind, so that the doors to creative living are open. I will realize that the future is a probability. In terms of ordinary experience, nothing exists there yet. It is virgin territory, planted by my feelings and thoughts in the present. Therefore I will plant accomplishments and successes, and I will do this by remembering that nothing can exist in the future that I do not want to be there. The Attitude Of The Intellect The Magical Approach, Session 2, p. 16 …the intellect can take it for granted that its own information is not all the information you possess. It can realize that its own knowledge represents the tip of the iceberg. As you apply that realization to your life you begin to realize furthermore that in practical terms you are indeed supported by a greater body of knowledge than you consciously realize, and by the magical, spontaneous fountain of action that forms your existence. The intellect can then realize that it does not have to go it all alone: Everything does not have to be reasoned out, even to be understood. This information is factual. I am not saying that I do not use analogies often, or that I am not forced at time into symbolic statements, but when I am I always say so, and even those statements are my best representations of facts too large for your definitions. Translating Inner Knowledge The Magical Approach, Session 17, p. 130 When the species needs certain abilities, they rise to the fore, as in the case of Ruburt now. When you are painting pictures you are also translating inner knowledge. Early artists drew pictures to share images they saw in their dreams. In a fashion they practiced dreaming in their sleep, and thus learned to think in terms of the
measurement of physical images, and to move objects around in their minds before they did so physically. Poetry was an art and a science. It conveyed quite necessary information about man and the universe. The same can be said of many cave drawings. What you had - you still have, though you are not nearly as aware of it - was an excellent give-and-take between the inner and outer senses. Through chanting, dancing, playacting, painting, story telling, man spontaneously translated inner sense data into physical actualization. The physical senses only represent you with clues as to your own sensitivities…. Now: The species has multitudinous abilities, each necessary, each adding to the entire fulfillment and attributes of your people. Some individuals choose to specialize, following specific abilities throughout many existences - accommodating these, however, to the times in which they are born. Both of you have been speakers in that regard. The methods may change. You may "speak" through art or music, through trance activities, but you will specialize in the use of the inner senses, and in translating the inner knowledge of the species, bringing it to whatever level of ordinary consciousness that is considered the official one. Inborn Leanings And Attitudes The Way Toward Health, Ch. 2, p. 65, 67 Now: I bid you a fond afternoon and we will begin Chapter 2, to be titled: "Biologically Valid Thoughts and Beliefs." When you are born you possess a group of attitudes toward yourself and toward life. These allow you to grow with the greatest possible impetus into childhood. They are also important in every period of your life. You can see the results in life all about you, though in animals or plants these are experienced as a matter of feelings rather that, say, thoughts or attitudes. It may sound simplistic to tell you that you must have sunny thoughts as well as rays of the physical sun in order to be healthy - but sunny thoughts are as biologically necessary to your well-being as are the rays of the sun that shines in the sky. Even as infants, then, you are
predisposed naturally toward certain feelings, thoughts and attitudes that are meant to insure your healthy survival and emergence into adulthood. These are actually composed of inbred psychological information as necessary and vital to your life as the data transmitted by your genes and chromosomes. Indeed, these inbred, inner psychological predispositions are all-important if the information carried by your genes and chromosomes is to be faithfully followed. It is difficult to translate such biological and psychological material into words of any language, even though these inbred psychological prerequisites form a kind of language of their own. It is a language that promotes growth, exuberance and fulfillment, and stimulates the entire organism of the body signaling the proper responses that are required for health and growth. Later we will discuss contrary feelings, thoughts, and emotions. I want to substitute beliefs for emotions that greatly curtail the natural progression of health and vitality. Here, however, we will deal primarily with those inner predispositions that encourage life and vitality…. Dictation. These inborn leanings and attitudes can be roughly translated as follows: I am an excellent creature, a valuable part of the universe in which I exist. My existence enriches all other portions of life, even as my own being is enhanced by the rest of creation. It is good, natural, and safe for me to grow and develop and use my abilities, and by doing so I also enrich all other portions of life. I am eternally couched and supported by the universe of which I am a part, and I exist whether or not that existence is physically expressed. By nature I am a good and deserving creature, and all of life's elements and parts are of good intent.
All of my imperfections, and all of the imperfections of other creatures, are redeemed in the greater scheme of the universe in which I have my being. Self-Approval, And Getting Rid Of Worries The Way Toward Health, p. 97 A feeling of self-approval is absolutely necessary for any true sense of well-being; it is not virtuous in any way to put yourself down, or to punish yourself, because you do not feel you have lived up to your best behavior at any given time…. As much as possible, playfully (underlined twice) imagine your worries floating away. It might help if you imagine balloons, one labeled insurance, another health, and so forth -- the imagine them floating away, or popping open, or whatever. Again, this should be playfully done. You might surprise yourself, and find yourself as delighted as a child with a new game. Steps Toward Ease And Peace Of Mind The Way Toward Health, p. 183 The following material is for dictation, but I am giving it here also so that Ruburt will take it specifically to heart. There are certain simple steps that can be followed, whenever you find yourself in a difficult situation, whether the condition is one of poor health, a stressful personal involvement with another, a financial dilemma, or whatever. These steps seem very obvious, and perhaps too easy - but they will bring an immediate sense of ease and a peace of mind while your inner reserves are being released and activated. I have mentioned these steps many times, because they are so vital in clearing the conscious mind, and bringing some sense of relief to the frightened ego. Immediately begin to live in the present as much as possible. Try to become as aware as you can of present sense data - all of it. Often, while you are in pain, for example, you concentrate upon that sensation alone, ignoring the feelings of ease that may be felt by other portions of the body, and unaware of the conglomeration of
sounds, sights, and impressions that are also in the immediate environment. This procedure will immediately lessen the pressure of the problem itself, whatever it is, and give you a sense of refreshment. Refuse to worry. This fits in automatically with Step 1, of course. Tell yourself you can worry all you want tomorrow, or on some other occasion - but resolve not to worry in the present moment. When your thoughts do touch upon your particular problem in that present moment, imagine the best possible solution to the dilemma. Do not wonder how or why or when the ideal solution will come, but see it in your mind's eye as accomplished. Or if you are not particularly good at visual imagery, then try to get the feeling of thanksgiving and joy that you would feel if the problem was solved to your complete satisfaction. These steps will allow you breathing time, and actually help minimize the pressure of your situation, whatever it is. Then, quieted, you will be able to consider other suitable steps that may more directly address your particular solution. Using Play And Imagination For Healing The Way Toward Health, p. 223 I have mentioned before that play is essential for growth and development. Children learn through play-acting. They imagine themselves to be in all kinds of situations. They see themselves in dangerous predicaments, and then conjure up their own methods of escape. They try out the roles of other family members, imagine themselves rich and poor, old and young, male and female. This allows children a sense of freedom, independence, and power as they see themselves acting forcibly in all kinds of situations. It goes without saying that physical play automatically helps develop the body and its capabilities. To a child, play and work are often one and the same thing, and parents can utilize imaginative games as a way of reinforcing ideas of health and vitality. When a child is ill-disposed or cranky, or has a
headache, or another disorder that does not appear to be serious, parents can utilize this idea: have the child imagine that you are giving it a "better and better pill." Have the child open its mouth while you place the imaginary pill on its tongue, or have the child imagine picking the pill up and placing it in its mouth. Then give the child a glass of water to wash the pill down, or have the child get the water for himself or herself. Then have the youngster chant, say, three times, "I've taken a better and better pill, so I will shortly feel better and better myself." The earlier such a game is begun the better, and as the child grows older you may explain that often an imaginary pill works quite as well - if not better - than a real one. This does not mean that I am asking parents to substitute imaginary medicine for real medicine, though indeed, I repeat, it may be quite as effective. In your society, however, it would be almost impossible to get along without medicine or medical science. While I want to emphasize that point, I also want to remind you that innately and ideally the body is quite equipped to heal itself, and certainly to cure its own momentary headache. You would have to substitute an entirely different learning system, at your present stage, for the body to show its true potentials and healing abilities. In other cases of a child's illness, have the child play a healing game, in which he or she playfully imagines being completely healthy again, outdoors and playing; or have the youngster imagine a conversation with a friend, describing the illness as past and gone. Play could also be used even in old peoples' homes, for it could revive feelings of spontaneity and give the conscious mind a rest from worrying. Many ancient and so-called primitive peoples utilized play and drama, of course - for their healing values, and often their effects were quite as therapeutic as medical science. If your child believes that a particular illness is caused by a virus, then suggest a game in which the youngster imagines the virus to be a small bug that he or she triumphantly chases away with a broom, or sweeps out the door. Once a child gets the idea, the youngster will often make up his or her own game, which will prove most beneficial.
Instead of such procedures, children are often taught to believe that any situation or illness or danger will worsen, and that the least desirable, rather than the most desirable, solution will be found. By such mental games, however, stressing the desirable solution, children can learn at an early age to utilize their imaginations and their minds in a far more beneficial manner. One of the most disastrous ideas is the belief that illness is sent as a punishment by God. Unfortunately, such a belief is promoted by many religions. Children who want to be good, therefore, can unfortunately strive for poor health, in the belief that it is a sign of God's attention. To be punished by God is often seen as preferable to being ignored by God. Adults who hold such views unwittingly often let their children in for a life of turmoil and depression. In all cases of illness, games or play should be fostered whenever possible, and in whatever form. Many dictatorial religions pointedly refuse to allow their congregations to indulge in any type of play at all, and frown upon it as sinful. Card-playing and family games such as Monopoly are actually excellent practices, and play in any form encourages spontaneity and promotes healing and peace of mind. Suggestions For Cancer Patients The Way Toward Health, p. 273 Many cancer patients have martyr-like characteristics, often putting up with undesirable situations or conditions for years. They feel powerless, unable to change, yet unwilling to stay in the same position. The most important point is to arouse such a person's beliefs in his or her strength and power. In many instances these persons symbolically shrug their shoulders, saying. "What will happen, will happen," but they do not physically struggle against their situation. It is also vital that these patients are not overly medicated, for oftentimes the side effects of some cancer-eradicating drugs are
dangerous in themselves. There has been some success with people who imagine that the cancer is instead some hated enemy or monster or foe, which is then banished through mental mock battles over a period of time. While the technique does have its advantages, it also pits one portion of the self against the other. It is much better to imagine, say, the cancer cells being neutralized by some imaginary wand. Period. Doctors might suggest that a patient relax and then ask himself or herself what kind of inner fantasy would best serve the healing process. Instant images may come to mind at once, but if success is not achieved immediately, have the patient try again, for in almost all cases some inner pictures will be perceived. Behind the entire problem, however, is the fear of using one's full power or energy. Cancer patients most usually feel an inner impatience as they sense their own need for future expansion and development, only to feel it thwarted. The fear that blocks that energy can indeed be dissipated if new beliefs are inserted for old ones - so again we return to those emotional attitudes and ideas that automatically promote health and healing. Each individual is a good person, an individualized portion of universal energy itself. Each person is meant to express his or her own characteristics and abilities. Life means energy, power, and expression. Those beliefs, if taught early enough, would form the most effective system of preventative medicine ever known. Again, we cannot generalize overmuch, but many persons know quite well that they are not sure whether they want to live or die. The overabundance of cancer cells represents nevertheless the need for expression and expansion - the only arena left open - or so it would seem. Such a person must also contend with society's unfortunate ideas about the disease in general, so that many cancer patients end up isolated or alone. As in almost all cases of disease, however, if it
were possible to have a kind of "thought transplant" operation, the disease would quickly vanish. Even in the most dire of instances, some patients suddenly fall in love, or something in their home environment changes, and the person also seems to change overnight - while again the disease is gone. Reprogramming Yourself The Way Toward Health, p. 275 Healing can involve help on many levels, of course. The world of normal communication I call Framework One, while Framework Two represents that inner world, in which indeed all time is simultaneous, and actions that might take years in normal time can happen in the blinking of an eyelid in Framework Two. Briefly, Framework One deals with all the events of which you are normally conscious. Framework Two involves all of those spontaneous processes that go on beneath your conscious attention. When you are very young your beliefs are quite clear - that is, your conscious and unconscious leanings and expectations are harmonious. As you grow older, however, and begin to accumulate negative beliefs, then your conscious and unconscious beliefs may be quite different. Consciously you might want to express certain abilities, while unconsciously you are afraid of doing so. The unconscious beliefs are not really unconscious, however. You are simply not as aware of them as you are of normally conscious ones. Negative beliefs can block the passageways between Framework One and Framework Two. It is an excellent idea for those in any kind of difficulty to do the following simple exercise. Relax yourself as much as possible. Get comfortable in a chair or on a bed. Tell yourself mentally that you are an excellent person, and that you want to reprogram yourself, getting rid of any ideas that contradict that particular statement.
Next, gently remind yourself again: "I am an excellent person," adding: "It is good and safe for me to express my own abilities, for in doing so I express the energy of the universe itself." Different phrases with the same meaning may come into your own mind. If so, substitute them for the ones I have given. There are endless exercises that can be used to advantage, but here I will only mention a few that appear most beneficial. Sweeping Disease Debris Away The Way Toward Health, p. 275 For another exercise, then, relax yourself as much as possible once more. If you have some disease, imagine it as particles of dirt. Tell yourself that you can see inside your body. You may see streets or boulevards instead of muscles and bones, but go along with the image or images that appear. You might see streets lined with dirt or garbage, for example. Then mentally see yourself sweeping the debris away. Order trucks to come and carry the garbage to a trash heap, where you may see it burn and disappear in smoke. Instead of the drama I just outlined, you may instead see invading armies, attacking home troops. In such a case, see the invaders being driven off. The pictures you see will follow your own unique leanings and characteristics. The unconscious levels of the self are only unconscious from your own viewpoint. They are quite conscious in actuality, and because they do deal with the spontaneous processes of the body, they are also completely familiar with your own state of health and well-being. Asking The Advice Of The Helper The Way Toward Health, p. 276 The unconscious levels of the self are only unconscious from your own viewpoint. They are quite conscious in actuality, and because they do deal with the spontaneous processes of the body, they are also completely familiar with your own state of health and well-being.
These portions can also be communicated with. Once again, relax yourself as much as possible. Sit comfortably in a chair or lie on a bed. A chair is probably preferable, since it is easy to fall off to sleep if you are lying down. You can refer to these portions of the self altogether as the helper, the teacher, or whatever title suits you best. Simply make a straightforward request, asking that some picture or image be presented in your inner mind that will serve as representative of those portions of your own inner reality. So do not be surprised, for you may see a person, an animal, an insect, or a landscape – but trust whatever image you do receive. If it seems to be that of a person, or angel, or animal, then ask it to speak to you, and to tell you how best to rid yourself of your disease or problem. If the image of a landscape appears instead, then ask for a series of such images, that will again somehow point the way toward recovery, or toward the resolution of the problem, Then follow through with whatever reply you receive. In all such cases, you are opening the doors of Framework Two, clearing your channels of communication. Since your physical body itself is composed of the very energy that drives the universe, then there is nothing about you which that energy is unaware of. Simply repeating these ideas to yourself can result in release of tension, and an acceleration of the healing process. These exercises may suggest others of your own. If so, follow through on them – but to one extent or another each reader should benefit from some of them. Medical Advise, Expressing Anger, And Rearousing Love The Way Toward Health, p. 279 The more actively and fully such a diversion can be indulged, the better…the mental playing of games can be quite fruitful, and serve to give the conscious mind a needed rest.
Everything should be done to insure that the patient is given a hand in whatever physical treatment is involved. He or she should be enlightened enough through doctor-patient discussions to make choices about the treatment. In some cases, however, patients will make it clear that they prefer to hand over all responsibility for treatment to the doctor, and in such instances their decisions should be followed. It is a good idea for the doctor to question the patient sometimes, to make sure that the decision is not one of the moment alone. Whenever possible, it is far better for the patient to remain home, rather than live steadily at a hospital. When hospitalization is required, however, family members should try to act as honestly and openly as possible. It is a good idea for such family members to join other groups of people who are in the same situation, so that they can express their own doubts and hesitations. Some family members, in fact, may be quite surprised by a barrage of unexpected reactions. They may find themselves furious at the patient for becoming ill, and then develop unfortunate guilt feelings over their own first reactions. They may feel that their lives are being disrupted through no cause of their own, yet be so ashamed of such feelings that they dare not express them. A therapist or a group of other people facing the same problem can therefore be of great assistance. The patient may also feel abandoned by God or the universe, and may feel unjustly attacked by the disease, thus arousing a whole new tumult of anger, and it is most important that the anger be expressed, and not repressed. Such a person might imagine his or her anger or fury filling up the inside of a gigantic balloon that is then pricked by a needle, exploding in pieces from the pressure within, with debris falling everywhere - out over the ocean, or caught up by the wind, but in any case dispersed in whatever way seems agreeable to the patient. It is also vital that such people continue to receive and express love. If the person is mourning the death of a spouse or close family member, then it would be most beneficial for the individual or the family to purchase, or otherwise provide, a new small pet. The patient
should be encouraged to play with the pet as much as possible, and to nourish it, to caress and fondle it. Often such a procedure will reawaken new stirrings of love, and actually turn around the entire affair. This is particularly true if one or two beneficial changes simply seem to happen in other areas of life. The rearousal of love might well activate Framework Two to such an extent that the healing energies become unblocked, and send their threads of probable actions into the person's living situation as well that is, once the channels to Framework Two are open, then new possibilities immediately open up in all of life's living areas. And many of these, of course, have a direct bearing on health and the healing processes. Alleviating Depression, Fears, And Doubts With The Steps The Way Toward Health, p. 300 Before we continue, I would like to remind the reader that in the middle of these or any of the other problems we have been discussing, there may be a period of depression, or the feeling that one's own problem has no solution after all. Whenever this occurs, the steps I have given before should be followed. Briefly, immediately refuse to worry about the future or the past. Tell yourself you can worry another time if you want to - but for the moment you will not be concerned about the past or the future. Remind yourself that for all you might have read, or heard, or deduced earlier, it is certainly not inevitable that all unfortunate situations take the darkest of tones, and that indeed the opposite is true; for if such were the case, the world and all of life would have literally been destroyed through disasters and calamities. Concentrate upon the present moment - but more, concentrate upon the most pleasant aspects of the present moment. If that moment has distracting, unfavorable aspects, then resolutely bring into your mind whatever images delight or please you at the moment. These may be very simple. Remember the smell of lilacs, for example, or try to hear the crisp crunch of snow, or try to visualize an ocean or lake. All of
these procedures will serve to quiet your mind and body, and build up your own reserves. This is an excellent policy to follow, because you can start it wherever you are. It will help alleviate fears and doubts at least momentarily, so that then you can pursue the entire issue later, with more assurance. The Fear Ball, Letting Go, And Using Your Freedom Class Session 06/30/70 Imagine that your fear is a ball, and throw it out the window. You do not need it. You see, you are so convinced that you are guilty and you are so convinced that your ego is the most important part of you, when instead, it is only the portion of yourselves that you focused upon as a child. Once you realize your basic freedom you can use it. Psychological Time simply allows you to let go, to relax. Now, to get out of your body you must first get out of your mind. You must let your concepts go and experience the nature of your own reality. Without words or symbols you must learn to look through the props. You can still use them as props but you will know that more exists…. You do not need to keep such a tight rein upon yourself. You will not do anything so dreadful if you allow yourself some freedom. When you let yourself go you do not lose yourself, but you find yourself. This is perhaps the hardest lesson but it is one you must learn…. Now, I have had many selves and I have let them all go and so have you, you just do not realize the fact. You are free whether or not you realize that you are free, so you may as well enjoy and use your freedom as deny it. Now, in the dream state you enjoy much greater freedom than you do in the waking state and if you can catch ahold of this feeling, you can use it. You use many of your natural and native abilities when it seems to your ego that you are unconscious. Now, since in the dream state you are able, quite easily, to perceive the future, why do you find it such a frightening thing to do when you are awake? Because someone else will say "This is not real"? Because their idea of reality is limited, why should you limit yours?
Because another man is blind you do not close your eyes so that you can agree. That is what you are doing when you limit your own idea of reality. Seeing The Inner Self, And The Dream Candle Class Session 04/18/72 …I want you to realize that you can see your own inner self as clearly as you say the image of the flame within your mind. You can sense your own reality that clearly; it will not come necessarily as an image but it can appear to you that brilliantly if you close your eyes and expect it. It is within you now. It is in existence. As Ruburt mentioned earlier, he has only to wonder where Proteous or Lydia or Maah or Josephine are, and he can find them, but he first takes it for granted that somewhere they exist, so you must take it for granted that somewhere you exist. It does not matter that you try to pinpoint the somewhere, but you must let the self within you become aware of the environment in which it has its meaning and validity and not insist that it appear to you in certain terms. You must, therefore, learn to recognize yourselves in the spacious present…. The candle exercise will also help you come aware in the dream state. Remember the image of the candle as you go to bed at night. Let it be a guidepost, a sign that says, "I am here", meaning that you are here. Let it stand for the inner voice, the inner "I", not eye. You can correlate capital "I" with "eye" however, if you are not speaking of physical eyes. Your reality blossoms outward at every moment-point. Therefore, you are indeed born within each moment, but you have to understand the nature of the moment-points in order to understand that you are born many times within the moment. Now your potentials shout to me that you can be quite aware of your dreaming activities and of your out-of-body activities and yet often you are not, so think of the candle and use it as an image and a guidepost. Let it light up in your physical brains as you awaken, reminding you of what has gone on while you sleep, for your adventures are every bit as exciting as those of Ruburt’s Proteous and et cetera. You have only to remember them.
Your Prime Belief Class Session 11/07/72 Seth - (For all of you,) on your papers, or the papers in your had, write down what I hope will be your prime belief - and it is hardly original, you have heard me say this often: I am a worthy deserving person. I have a right to my life in this universe. I have a right to be because I am." Now, as you examine your own beliefs, any beliefs that contradict that one, scratch out, and, if you do that, you will have no difficulties. And, do not compare yourselves with the idea of perfection. You are perfect as you are. You are a happening! A happening being as you are with all of those things that you consider your imperfections. Perfection is always a state of becoming. If you found it, and had it, you would not want it, but we do not tell you that! Now, I am letting you work with your own beliefs, so this ancient, old, decrepit ghost, in this middle aged old woman will let you continue wit your beliefs! And, remember what I told you - in your terms, perfection would be a cold, unresponsive reality. And the light of consciousness is always responsive, and giving, and flexible. A Guided Visualization Through Realities Adventures In Consciousness, Ch. 1, p. 4 First he told students to think of Alpha Two as a door. "I want you to realize that your perceptions at this point are limited only because you have chosen to limit them," he said. You are in the midst of other realities, but you are in the habit of blocking them out. You are now beginning to release your perceptions, to open doors that have been closed. Therefore, imagine Alpha Two as a doorway adjacent to your normal consciousness, and see it open." Seth went on to say that each person would interpret the experience in his or her own way:
"Beyond the door are other realities and people with whom you have always been acquainted. I want you to freely open your inner eyes. Walk with joy within these other realities that exist as surely as this room does. "Open your inner senses and direct them along these lines. The physical body will not hamper you; in fact it will help you, for hidden within the flesh are mechanisms that aid the inner senses in their functions. I want you to realize that you are getting glimpses of a reality that is instantaneous, and as much a part of you as your own heartbeat. You can learn to manipulate in that environment." The Seth asked students to pause awhile at that threshold of consciousness, and to imagine still another door, "or, if you prefer a path, avenue, landscape or alley, but still another reality that opens up adjacently from your present level. From this viewpoint you can sense other probabilities that you, yourself, have brought into existence. I want you to feel their strength and vitality and to realize that they also reinforce your own life. Seth continued to explain this level of consciousness for a few moments and asked students to pause there. Then he said: "Now, I want those of you who can to follow still further, for we will travel beyond these fields of probabilities in which all times are born, into another in which times are not manufactured and hours and years of any kind do not exist. Here, in your terms, all probabilities are as yet unborn, while in greater terms they are already accomplished and yet coming into fresh existence. You also have a reality here, and this dimension nurses your own world, reaching down into your system. These realities are still only those at the edge of the one in which you have your present existence. For beyond are others, so alien [to you] that I could not explain them. Yet they are connected with your own life, and they find expression even within the smallest cells of your flesh." I've only given the general highlights here of Seth's instructions. He spent quite a bit of time guiding students back to their normal stage of consciousness, for example, and teaching them to retrace their mental footwork.
A Pyramid To Probabilities Adventures In Consciousness, Ch. 3, p. 34 …he asked students to use the image of a pyramid as an aid: "Concentrate on the feeling in the back of your skull. The feeling itself is important thing, for from it the pyramid shape will form. The pyramid may appear differently to each of you, because it is your own personal path into probable realities. It may appear as a path or as a ray of light or in some other form, but follow it with full confidence and freedom. Use my voice simply as a thread to accompany you, but concentrate upon your own feelings and sensations." Seth went on to explain the various ways in which the pyramid might open - into paths or rooms or doorways. "Learn to use the mobility of your consciousness joyfully," he continued, "and follow even further into the pyramid, which is a channel between your world and others that also exist. I want you to draw energy and power from this voice, and use it in your own way. Let it become whatever you need it to become, in the particular probability system in which you find yourself. "If you find worlds that you do not understand, look upon them with wonder, but send your consciousness as far as it can go, with great vigor, with freedom and joy…" I've just quoted a few passages here to give an idea of how this exercise was conducted. As usual, he spent some time "returning" the students to their usual orientation. A Pyramid To Your Other Selves Adventures In Consciousness, Ap. 1, p. 264 You have allowed 'something' to become transparent, so that you can step through yourselves. Use the energy of this voice as a lifeline, and as a road and as a message, and follow it in whatever way you choose, into your experience, into your greater reality.
I will suggest certain images, but if others spontaneously come to you, then follow those. But imagine - those of you who want to - a pyramid. See it reaching into unimaginable distance, and realize that it is a channel into the antiquity and future of your being. Within it you will find selves that are so 'advanced' they seem alien, and selves that are so spectacularly simple that you cannot relate to them. For there (in the deepest reaches of your being), is a greater reality that knows your present existence and looks upon it with the fondest, the dearest, the most familiar of memories; a reality that has grown, in your terms, into entities indescribably vast; realities that form world more complex than the one in which you now dwell. And yet also, through that channel of being you will also find fossil cells that are not yet themselves, that have not [yet] grouped into complex organisms, but that lie filled with the desire of being, filled with the desire of God, for fulfillment and thought and complexity. These lie inert in the history of your craniums, still to be born in the knowledge of your being - selves in your terms still to be realized, wandering in the bowels of unknown worlds-selves that will become entities; fossils of yourselves that still, in certain terms, contains memories of the selves that you are. As they wander in what seems to you to be a dark world, as they seek toward a sun that is your brain; as they journey over unknown cliffs, seeking recognition; so do you wander within worlds of greater selves that you are, seeking the rays of other suns that are the brains of your own greater being. So are you all one, and so is my voice speaking from your own greater being - from which you are forever born and always reborn. Even in your secret and most private dreams do you form new selves with desires that lie latent in unknown worlds, and rise groping toward new probabilities. So are you couched tenderly in the soul of your being… Return now to your selves as you know them. Experience the divine privacy of the selves that you are. Those selves are the corner of your being in which all intersections occur, and in which your privacy is forever maintained and unique. Do yourselves just honor, and in so
doing, you give direction to cells not yet born, to fossils that are thoughts still unfreed from your own minds. Enjoy your selves and the gods of your being, in which you are forever safely couched. The Stages Of Psychic Evolution Psychic Politics, Ch. 24, p. 314 The state of consciousness that we consider normal, the official line of consciousness, is only a threshold to natural "progressions." To one extent or another, each person tries to grow out of that framework, or rather, to expand it. In doing so, the following stages of consciousness become apparent: STAGE ONE The focus personality initiates the beginning of the expansion process and begins to perceive unofficial information. This usually involves some startling dream, vision, or conversion experience. Automatic writing may be involved, use of the Ouija board, or any process that allows the psyche extra breathing space and motion. This stage may or may not include checkable precognitions or telepathic instances. There is great leeway here, and many variations in the intensity and depth of the initial experience. While the initial event may happen suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, it is the actual result of a long process in which the focus personality has been gradually casting about for new creative expression, and some freedom from restrictions that limit its range. STAGE TWO In Stage Two the focus personality tries to continue its expansion, while attempting to maintain its previous orientation with the world and to correlate its unofficial information in terms of its religious and cultural beliefs. At this stage, for example, we will usually try to prove that our visions are true in the world's terms. For example, if you begin with automatic writing that gives extraterrestrials as its sources, you might then try to prove that these beings exist. If the writing provides any checkable precognitions or telepathic data, then you will be convinced that the space people rather than you possess these abilities. If, like the engineer mentioned earlier, you discover that the space people don't exist in
those terms, you might throw the whole thing over in disgust, at this point, and not use the opening wedge or understand that the psychic events were important even if their clothing was symbolic. The initial psychic event is often dramatic, even outrageous in normal terms - simply to get our attention. It may be psychological art, involving the entire personality, bringing all the senses into play in a pageantry as brilliant as any stage drama - for our eyes and experience alone. Yet we judge it - at this stage - according to the most rigid true-and-false standards. In a way such experiences (visions, revelations, and some trance personifications) are bigger than life; or rather, bigger than our ideas of what life and existence are. For this reason many people stay in Stage Two, in a dilemma, trying to interpret psychic events in a framework too small, or staying in fairly cozy religious or pseudo-scientific circles which provide some freedom from the official line of consciousness by allowing psychic ventures if they follow certain conventions characteristic of the group. Unfortunately, such a course often hampers the focus personality from developing further, and if the latest unofficial data contradicts the "party line," then the person is out in the cold again. Many trance personalities developed in Stage One finally become psychologically invisible at Stage Two, or become frozen in development, mouthing the current psychic, religious, or pseudoscientific dogma. All of this can cloak the originality of psychic content. At the same time, genuine creativity can emerge; and when it does the individual is better able to cope in the normal world than before, better able to solve problems, and, perhaps, quite content to use such a dogma as a comfortable container until experience spills over the edges - and another stage is reached. In other words, ready-made symbols of religion and pseudoscience are probably helpful to many people, providing them with an orientation for inner activity and growth. If the arrangement becomes permanent, however, further experiences are programmed too rigidly. Such people never work through to the truly personal, original aspects hidden within.
These stages, left alone, will mirror the Aspects of the psyche being activated. They will show themselves in ways characteristic of the psyche and of the focus personality. Seth, Seth Two, Sumari, Seven, Cyprus, and Helper represent this kind of motion in my case. Latent creative abilities might be personified as a muse, for example, and the focus personality might be presented with new skills or interests. This personalized, tailor-made assistance of the psyche to the focus personality may not emerge, however, if rigid concepts continue to cloak the experience. Stage Two is replete more often than not with the good and bad spirits of religion and myth. STAGE THREE Stage Three is literally worlds away from Stage Two. Here, the focus personality becomes reassured enough to accept new data as a part of a greater reality in which the physical world is couched. It is ready for true self-fulfillment, which means identifying with portions of the psyche formerly considered not-self. The need for sacrifice or "death of the self" exists only in Stages One and Two, when arbitrary standards between self and not-self predominate. This third stage, however, is the one interpreted in religious terms as the death of the self and the new birth - the death of the will, or in other concepts of similar nature. To my way of thinking, these are quite distorted. Actually, the focus personality learns that nothing works for it but the new orientation, fully accepted: this means that it expands, accepts its own larger framework, and sees that nothing is lost. In fact, the world is gained - in a new way. This stage can be a quick moment of realization, or a gradual trial-and-error process in which the focus personality fluctuates between Stages One and Two until it finally receives enough momentum to break through to stage three. STAGE FOUR Stage Four is a new self-country, in which the focus personality realizes that the assumptions of the one-line official consciousness only apply at that level. They are dropped as valid descriptions of reality and treated as respected local ordinances. The seeming contradictions between the intellect and intuitions, good and evil, object and subject, vanish - the contradictions. This stage can be a
fleeting one of varying duration. For that matter, the divisions between the stages as given are arbitrary to some degree. Certain people will have flashes of Stage Four consciousness in any of the other trance states. Overall, though, these are the stages through which we come to psychic maturity. To some extent or another, they take place in each person, regardless of culture. They represent intuitive revelation and assimilation. Again, some ancient civilizations provided mobile groups of symbols as guidelines. In our society the official line of consciousness is pre-Stage One as given - a prerequisite for the other states as it provides a sturdy physical basis. We stifle its development at this point, however, and form an entire world and culture around a specific and local area of consciousness…. My own experience seems to involve frequent (but never frequent enough) journeys to Stage Four, followed by assimilation of data gained there by my usual consciousness. I have discovered that now the lines tend to blur considerably, in that I regard as normal alterations of consciousness that once seem exotic. That is, I switch to various stages with relative ease. Stage Four, though, is not a steady permanent stage by any means, practically speaking, but is casts its aura over the other stages, immeasurably adding enjoyment and appreciation of the natural world. Again, I think that these are natural stages, experienced to some degree by everyone. Beyond are states of ecstasy, almost impossible to sustain in normal living, and the mark of the mystic state. The God Of You The God of Jane, Ch. 7, p. 64 [Suggestion: Jane and Sue both wrote poems for their godselves…try doing the same.] We share the world with others, but portions of it carry personal significance. We see them as no one else does. So it was for me that morning. No one else was watching what I watched from my own personal viewpoint. I felt as if I were being privileged to view a beginning of the world - or my edge of it. Or, I thought suddenly, it was like seeing a new corner of your own psyche transformed into
trees, grass, flowers, fog and sky - a hopeful, magical, ever-cominginto-existence part of the psyche that we'd forgotten or I'd forgotten. I felt as if I were viewing that part of myself that I'm always pursuing, the part that is as clear-eyed as a child, fleet, at one with its own knowing; the part that exists apart from daily concerns; the part that was my direct communication with the universe; the part that represented that section of the universe from which I emerged in each moment of my life. And, in that moment, I named it the God of Jane. I remember that at the time the concept seemed audacious, daring and somehow simple and inevitable all at once. It almost made me breathless. And in those terms, I thought, we do each have our own personal "God," no matter who - or what - we are. There would be a God of Billy and a God of Mitzie for our cats. And why not? A "God" for each of us, a designation that would give us a sense of personal connection with the universe, yet be devoid of the nonsense that went along with the conventional idea of a personified God. The God of Jane, the God of Joe, the God of Lester, the God of Sarah... An appeal to that "God" would be an appeal to that portion of the universal creativity from which we personally emerge-the portion we're "plugged into," the hypothetical point from which our individual existences spring. It would stand for that otherwise inconceivable intersection between Being and our being, and hint of the universal pattern for each of us that must exist, out of which our private experience constantly happens…. In any case, imagine your own God of Bob or Carol or whatever your name is, and as you do you'll learn quite a bit about yourself. And if you're personifying All That Is, at least you'll be aware of the process and know what you're doing. My God of Jane, for example, is primarily a poet or psychic, and I think I'd be involved in those same activities if I were a man instead of a woman. Other people might discover that their main identification is sexually attuned in a precise manner, but the characteristics you give your "God of ----" will represent your own focus in life. They will show how you center yourself in the world.
Anyhow, I'm simply offering the God of Jane idea as an approach to the entire question of our relationship with an indefinable Source from which our lives emerge, and I believe that the concept is psychologically sound. It reinforces our uniqueness in the universe and also emphasizes the source of that separateness in the unity of All That Is. The Seen, And Mirrors The Worldview of Paul Cezanne, Ch. 11, 2:00 The eyes want to see, and enjoy fulfilling their function. So I also wondered if things without eyes enjoyed being seen. Did the tree, in its way, sense my scrutiny as I painted it? I often mused about such issues, and it seemed to me that the…sensation of being seen might be as active a sense or element as sight itself was. Certainly at times various parts of a landscape seemed to vie for my attention and actively seek it out. A dog comes over to me and wags its tail: I pet him and we are both pleased. But what about the trees and bushes? The flowers and rocks? It seemed to me that these send out their own attentiongetting signals, almost as if, like children, they were asking to sit for a portraits. I do not mean anything like trees talking, but the presence of some attention-seeking quality in natural objects. I have put a bush in such and such a place, for example, in a painting because-it belonged there. Not that I necessarily thought that it did, but it was as if some sensual quality in the bush itself got underneath my usual attention and inserted certain inclinations of its own. I don't mean that a rock or bush had wishes like ours, or that I felt myself surrounded by trees and bushes each silently shouting, "Paint me, paint me." I only mean to say that there is a correspondence or sympathy set up between the viewer and whatever he perceives, and a peculiar relationship results that is unsuspected by most people who just take sight for granted and forget about it. It does appear to me that objects, particularly natural ones, possess some kind of sense or quality that actively wants to be seen and knows when observation takes place. We always look at such issues from the point of view observer, of course, as if the perceived object
were an inert end of the perspective process. Objects in some fashion may tease us to perceive them in the first place, so that they actually awaken perception abilities. In that respect, they may not be inactive at all. Perhaps for this reason, mirrors fascinate me far more than cameras, for there is a constant give-and-take between perceiver and what is seen. Almost everyone knows of old legends in which some people or objects appear suddenly in a mirror although they are not present in the room being reflected. To look in a mirror and not see one's reflection would be a shock indeed, and to most people it would signify one's death. Conversely, there are tales of the dead person's image appearing in a looking glass, though not appearing in the room in which the mirror stands. But mirrors present us with a strange dimension, forever fascinating; for a visual area is framed, so to speak; isolated; showing depths and distances that obviously appear on a flat surface. Now our usual visual images swim to that mirror surface and predominate as they usually do; yet in a mirror you can almost glimpse these shapes forming…behind themselves, or rising up from within the mirror, filling themselves out. If you look at a mirror, for example, and the scenes in it, and examine the whole as you would if it were a painting (remaining perfectly still, however), then you can sense the "underpainting" layers that build up the predominating image. A Description Of Visualized Inner Images The Worldview of Paul Cezanne, Ch. 12, p. 165 No one really know how images exist in the mind or how they are seen within the mind when the eyes are closed. If the eyes are supposed to be the mind's camera, opening it to images that only exist outside, then closed eyes should present us with no pictures, much less with perfectly clear ones that, at least sometimes, move with the rapidity usually granted only to living creatures. Yet artist deal constantly with these two kinds of images - the ones seen with the eyes open and those seen by the inner mind. The artist is ever transposing one over the other, using objective models for a dream landscape or setting, or placing mental images of dream quality upon an objectified background.
My own theory at least, mentioned earlier, is that images as we perceive them are built up through excitation of an inner emotional nature, and that these further trigger the nerve endings to respond by setting forth electrical impulses. I imagine these impulses correlate with the squiggles of the artist's brushstrokes, and see them as forming electrical outlines in the mind that are filled in, in the same way that an artist first outlines a sketch. In some way, I do not pretend to understand, we then look through these inner images, projecting them over the world, transposing them upon it so that the world is perceived in a manner peculiar to ourselves. I believe, then, that an inner world of images exists beside the physical one; and that we are already presented at birth with a built-in picture of the world, through which we then look at reality. To some extent, and again in ways I do not pretend to understand, the artist doubles back to the original inner images and mimics the initial performance, utilizing brushstrokes instead of nerve ending to make his sketches; and yet even then, as mentioned earlier, I suspect that the shapes made by the brushstrokes are faithful replicas of the shapes of the nerves themselves, or of the electrical paths or squiggles of current that leap between. I myself have often felt that I was within a giant landscape when I sat in the fields; within a painting of such massive and gigantic proportions that I never quite caught on, for the entire picture was so gargantuan in scope that the frame never showed; a picture in which all the seemingly observed distances were but the result of a master artist's use of perspective so deceiving that we walk down the paths that seemed to stretch from foreground to background: and in which flat surfaces were somehow given dimensions that we were inside, fooled by the artist's divine technique. This was no passing fancy with me. I used to consider such an idea often, for it was impossible for me to consider the world or anything in it apart from my work. Whether or not that fancy really applies, I am convinced that images first exist within the mind. I did many exercises - or experiments if you will - opening my eyes and closing them;
focusing upon inner images, manipulating them, and comparing them to exterior ones. If I did not see inner images so clearly, consistently and well, then like most other men I would be convinced that images only existed in the world and were perceived only by the open eyes. Instead, I believe that that images are natives of the mind and that the eyes, when open, project these out onto a world that may, otherwise, be quite different than it appears. All of this led me to consider the motive power of images: That is, do mental images move through our power, their own, or through a combination of our power and theirs, each forming a necessary connection? I often arranged still lifes in my mind, for example, mentally changing the position of apples, pears, jars and so forth; finding usually no difficulty at all as the objects arranged themselves for my purposes, flying back and forth at my command, or vanishing from my mind to reappear where I wanted them. Yet now and then, suddenly one image would not budge from its mental shelf. I could move all of the other objects to my heart's content if I wanted, but that one remained where it was. Often, then, I would simply form a painting around that one unmovable image. On other occasions, however, one image would suddenly go wild, popping in and out of my mental compositions, turning up where it did not belong - at least as far as I was concerned - and otherwise acting as a nuisance. I could not tame it, nor would it pair up with other images with which I thought its position would be fitting. Such instances and others of a similar distraction made me wonder: Did the images themselves have a will of their own, however minute? And when my will and theirs differed to a certain degree, was the will of the image apparent - though in usual circumstances it was hidden? On some occasions, also, I was able to sense a troublesome image just before it came to mind, and I would try to dismiss it, believing that it did not belong in my composition and could be disruptive. I would feel a real dismay, but to no avail. The image, like a live thing, would flit about, looking for a place, as if it had conjured it from some unknown somewhere and then denied it a new home.
Other images would appear, seemingly from nowhere, in direct response to a painting problem, and fly directly to their places, or docilely allow me to change them about as I pleased. The troublesome images possessed a peculiar power, however, different from the others, as if they had their own life, their own motive energy - as if they flew into the cage of my mind from one outside but were wild and refused to take their niches inside or to fly out again. Either that, or all images have their own motive power, but it usually coincides with ours so smoothly that we think the power is all ours. On the other hand, these disruptive images also possessed other compensating characteristics. They seemed to attract other images like magnets when they wanted to, and to attract their own compositions. Nor was their strange power connected with their visual aspect particularly. They could be quite calm, visually; the images of a flower, bird, jar - no different from other such images except in their behavior and intensity. I wondered often if there were such a difference in the exterior images of nature and if the objects had a will of their own also, to what ever degree; and that this escaped our notice because, in some way we do not understand our will and the objects' merged so smoothly. Now, I was very good at controlling images usually. When I moved them mentally from place to place, trying out different compositions, they either moved with a suitable motion or vanished and reappeared where I wanted them. But these troublesome images either moved too fast, erratically, almost perversely, it seemed-or again, refused to vanish or budge an inch. Sometimes they would pop up time and time again in my paintings; odd imps of images, often colored blue; filled with vitality, and, I must admit, always enhancing the painting. They seemed to pull all other elements of a composition to themselves, so that the painting appeared to pucker in such places. Their creativity was indisputable; only it seemed at least sometimes that it belonged to them and not to me. Often I felt like an animal trainer, seeing these sprightly, untamable, erratic, frolicsome yet highly gifted images as animals of the most intelligent variety - who had to be made to play my tricks and not their own! I am quite aware that these could be symbolic, but calling such
images symbolic in no way explains their behavior or characteristics, or the peculiar aura they lend to a painting. For they do seem to imbue a landscape or still life with their own vitality. Over a period of time I learned to train them, to some degree. I would mentally command them to do what I wanted; would mentally force them into a position I required-"Go beside that apple, you naughty bore," or whatever. I would paint them the wrong color in my mind, something I sensed annoyed them, and something that I could do, even if I couldn't always impede their annoying behavior. I learned that blue was their favorite color; blue-green, but never red, for some reason that I never ascertained. Red or orange slowed them down considerably, so that it seemed they stood there, glaring; a jar with a scowl or an apple with a dour frown. For these images, even though they might be red or orange-toned in nature, still preferred a blue-green cast. These were in no way negative or evil images. They were though, I am convinced, images of a different order; with more vitality than most, and with a motive power that sometimes went along with my wishes but more often, did not. The other images were followers. I had little trouble with those and could move them around mentally at will. Again, either that, or all mental images have these strange characteristics, but only show them under certain conditions. Such "leader images" seem to distort the rules of perspective in their own directions also, and add a peculiar hue to their color or cast an odd light upon the other images nearby. At other times I have been aware of what would almost seem to be a flock of such images, like geese, flying just outside of my mind, wanting to light or land. I sense that I have no suitable structure for them - no creative nest - and finally they go by. I often felt that the leader images were trying to tell me something that I was too opaque to understand; that perhaps they did not fit into my patterns of composition because they were a grade above my usual images in some way; and they were trying to lead me to form new compositions of a higher nature.
Instead I usually swatted at them, cursed or cajoled them, and tried to tame them so that they would follow my ways. On a few occasions, however, in anger or desperation and sometimes in amusement, I tried to let them do what they wanted, form their own arrangements. When that happened I almost always grew mentally dizzy, and could not keep up with the rapidity of their transformations. A Child’s Own Authority, And The Personal Model (Conversations with Seth?) "I am a poor imitation of the of the voices of your own psyche to which you do not listen! "I speak to the world with it, and try to arouse within your beings the great exaltation that you realize is your own. If you had it, you would not be here! You sense it and you want it and I have it - but so do you! But the child does not need to listen to me. He is his own Seth and his own Sumari. And you have your own Seth and your own Sumari within you! "I will be as unneeded as all the ancient gods are unneeded, and gladly so, when you realize that the validity and the reinforcement and the joy is your own, and rises from the fountain of your own being: and when you realize that you do not need me for your protection, for there is nothing you need to protect yourselves against. You are as innocent as the dawn or as the twilight; as innocent as if you were created in this moment. You are innocent! There is nothing - no crime you are guilty of, no penance you need do {to Lauren], dear Pan!… "The power of your psyche, the authority of your own psyche, has brought you easily into the life that you know. When you were a fetus, you did not question, 'Where am I? Where am I going?' You exalted in the fantastic vitality of your own being. "I tell you to then, now, to listen to the authority of your psyche - of your being! To listen to the voices that you remember when you were children; the voices that spoke to you as you fell off to sleep.
"I ask you to recapture the courage and joy and expansion you felt as children - when each new day was a miracle to be explored, and there were no authorities to tell you how to explore it. Even your parents were but guides that had nothing to do with the reality of you in relationship to the day, or a flower, or a raindrop. I ask you only to rediscover your wonder. To look, even at the world that you know, from a different viewpoint, where there are no authorities but the joy and authority of your being; where time is not separated into moments; where you waken each moment as you did when you were a child - each moment is a new birth, a new fantastic reality in which you had your place and your part to play; where the miracles were you own, and rose from the fantastic joy of your own being. That is what I ask you to do: recapture those moments that existed before you were educated. "There are times, in your childhood, when you heard the voices of the Speakers - when, as you fell asleep, the very miracle of your own being came upon you, and you felt in the very depths and fibers of your being. Then feel it now! "The most I can do is acquaint you with the authority of your own psyche - to give you the trust in the nature of your being. For, if you trust what you are, you can never go wrong, in what ever terms you use. You can fly through belief systems as a butterfly flies through backyards. "Some of you, more clearly than others, understand what I am saying, and so your dreams will multiply with glory, and comprehensions will come to you. You will begin anew the building of your City - the City you began to build in your dreams as children. All of those childish, unintellectual, joyous dreams that were yours will be materialized into vitality "Not only that, but they will be beacons for other to use, if only - if only - if only! you trust the authority of your own psyche. And that psyche dwells in a world and a universe that is safe, in which you cannot be smothered or destroyed or ruined, in which you are always free." Seth withdrew, leaving many of us considerably more humble.
"You are your own great ceremonies, as the season are their own great ceremonies. If ever there was a time when natural ceremonies should be recognized, the ceremony - indeed, the loving ceremony of the seasons and the spontaneous song and of spontaneous joy, then this is, in your terms, the time!… "Now, within the psyche that is your own, there is your personal model," Seth said as he led us through an alter-state-ofconsciousness exercise in late 1974. "I want you to sense the models that exist within your own psyche… Within the psyche that is your own, there is your own personal model. It is the personal self that you have chosen, and you will follow it through all realities and in all worlds that you will ever know… Each of you will have your own images, and your own feelings, and your own symbols. These are highly important, for they are, at least symbolically, your personal paths to what may seem to be to you the impersonal nature of the universe. "If you remember some of the exercises in Personal Reality, then you can see how this correlates with your own true tone. You can follow that tone. You can get the feeling of your own model, or suggest that it appear to you in the dream state, and then follow it. It is your personal line to all the realities with which you will be involved. "If you really want to increase your experience here, then try to sense within [the other class members] the models that are within them, and feel the eccentricities, and learn to relate with the realities within yourself, and with the realities that exist between yourself and others… "You must make this information your own. Then, for you, it becomes psychologically valid and real. And, using it, you can indeed alter the nature of your reality. But you must be willing to be kindly to yourself. You must believe that when you send out pleas, they are indeed answered, no matter how impersonal the universe may seem at times. "You must realize that your personal self grows as naturally out of that universe as, in other terms, any star does, or any flower, or any
oak leaf. You are a part of that system. And when you send out a plea, you indeed set the universe in motion, so that the plea is answered! And so you do also send help to others, often when you are not aware of it, as a flower sends out help to someone simply because it is beautiful…" The Door Experiment Conversations With Seth, p. 62 Every weekday morning at 9:00 A.M., Jane would tack up a different something on the inside of her apartment door: a sketch, a page from a magazine, or perhaps an object inside an envelope. This object would stay on the door until 9:00 A.M. the following morning. During that 24-hour period, class members would try to "pick up" what might be on the door, and either draw their impressions of it or write down a description. Then during that week's class, everyone's results would be checked out against the five objects themselves. Class members rarely visited Jane and Rob except on occasional Friday nights, and thus before Tuesday, had few chances to see the five objects-in the usual sense. The 'hits' that occurred were often surprising, and not only for their correlation with the actual door objects. Some weeks there would be people who had every single object right; other weeks nobody had anything right-and then sometimes there would be a weird combination of the two, in which everyone's incorrect guesses would match! Shorthand Symbols, Alpha Trips, And Auras Conversations With Seth, p. 69 In September of 1974, class had again been trying out the door targets for several weeks, and Seth had this to say of our efforts: "You are involved more than you realize. These experiments will lead you to other areas - not only into the lands of your own symbolism, but into the realization of a different kind of communication. You can learn the ways in which you communicate always beneath language. You can, if you are curious and astute, discover the very patterns behind language through studying what you are doing.
"Become alert to your own symbolism as you decipher it here in class with your [door guesses]; as it appears to you in the dream state; as it appears to you through free association. You will find correlations. "You will also, if you are astute and curious, find in those symbols the patterns behind the objects in the physical universe. You have a shorthand kind of symbol for those. "There will be symbols, in other words, that you will use as you try to approach the target on the door. The methods that you use to approach that target are important; and yet, those methods will vary with each of you. In discovering your own methods, you can, again if you are astute, discover the way in which you personally perceive, create, and interpret the physical world that you know, and communicate with others. "Now at other levels of actuality, you are doing this all the time. But the more you learn - in your terms, on a conscious level - then again, in your terms, the more you will remember after death, and the more self-conscious you will be, and the more capable of carrying on new endeavors…You will open up avenues that exist within your own experience. You will find the symbols and the abilities that are uniquely yours, and belong to no other. "I bid you then, and now, a welcome into the threshold of your own being; and you are ready to take steps into those lands that are your own. And the work that you are doing here, and just beginning, will show benefits in all other areas of your life and of your experience." Within this threshold, class also did many different kinds of alteredconsciousness experiments (which Jane has described in several of her own books, including Adventures in Consciousness and Psychic Politics) using the Alpha trance state to imaginatively "travel" away from the usual apartment setting, later comparing what we had "seen." These mental gymnastics were, I think, like physical training, in that they toned us up in certain ways: heightened our inner alertness and helped us distinguish the levels of validity within the subjective experience.
One of Jane's favorite consciousness "trips" sent us playfully journeying into other living things, like a squirrel outside the living room windows, or the leaves of her many houseplants…. Class tried consciousness-expansions in nearly every phase of class - to explore probabilities, past-life information, alternate realities, or in healing experiments; and often the results were electrifying and filled with great personal import for the individuals involved. While in Alpha, we would occasionally try to see each other's auras-bands of energy that seem to emanate from physical bodies (and which have been recorded through Kirlian photography), visible to some while in mild trance states. We'd try to change our auras' colors, for example, to see if others could detect this. Some could - and described great multicolored bands of light broiling around fellow classmates' heads and shoulders. I rarely saw or cared much about auras; but then, that's a measure of impact of personal preference; what you feel a subjective affinity for is generally what you best perceive. Daily Predictions Conversations With Seth, p. 74 There was a sense of play and freedom about these consciousness experiments, and an emotional validity, that were unmeasurable in laboratory terms; yet ironically, it was this playful approach that gave us the most "measurable" results… …as an adjunct to the door test, class was suppose to keep records of daily predictions. During the day, each of us would take a few minutes, sit quietly, clear our minds, and quickly write down a list of ten to twelve words or phrases as they came into our heads-no matter how silly these sounded. Then we'd keep track of what ever happened during the next 24 hours or so and check events against this original lists. Basically, these predictions were asking such questions as: how much data do we constantly perceive beneath our usual perceptions? How much do we actually know about what our personal future holds? How do we consciously and unconsciously connect with the myriad details of our lives?
Mirror Trance Conversations With Seth, p. 126 …throughout class years, other members did do some unusual things with their consciousness. Gert Barber started experimenting with "mirror trances" - staring into a mirror while slipping into Alpha and deeper states - and soon reported that she'd developed the ability to see faces other than her own in the glass… Seth added, "You are…doing very well with this visualization of the various portions of the self." A Guide To Other Realities Conversations With Seth Vol. 1, p221 One Tuesday in June of 1971, Seth came through and suggested that we close our eyes and try to imaginatively follow his voice. "In Alpha One you are used to one short adjacent step away from what you call your consciousness," he said during the long soothing soliloquy. "Now I want you to take one step beyond this. I want you to realize that you are indeed highly perceptive, that around you and about you in all directions, the inner senses reach; that you are in the midst of other realities, you are in the habit of blocking them out, and you are now learning to accept them; to open doors that have been closed… "Beyond that door are realities of which you have always known and people with whom you have always been acquainted. I want you to freely open the inner eyes and see their faces. Open the inner core and hear their voices. "I want you to walk freely and with joy within these other realities that exist now as surely as this room exist now…and so one by one, the inner senses can begin to operate so that what you see can become clear and what you hear can become vocal and clear and strong…I want you to realize that you are getting glimpses of a reality that exists now, in your terms; that existed in the past; and in your terms, will exist in the future…" After about fifteen minutes of these smoothly delivered directions, Seth told us to "return fondly to your image and the knowledge of it;
to the intimate knowledge of flesh and bone and cell; to the intimate knowledge of the earth from which now at least you spring…trust it and open your eyes and return your attention to the room." Building An Inner Sumari City Conversations With Seth, p. 227 To the class in general, Seth continued: "Now, at certain times, dream activity is also accelerated, and this is indeed such a time. You have an opportunity, now, to know yourselves as you are, and as you also exist in inner reality." Seth's eyes were wide, dark, and penetrating. The room was stuffed with the magic of the autumn night and a fragrant wind blowing through the open windows. "You have an opportunity now to open new roads, if you will - to form your own inner city," Seth said, a smile creeping across Jane's features. "You will be the new inhabitants. It can be your own city. You will have to make your own politics! They will be any kind you desire. "You have enough class members now to form such a city. It will be used symbolically as a meeting place. You will have your own inner home, then, that you form yourself. "You should go there as a founder, each of you. You can begin forming that city now. And when you form such a city, you form it for yourself, and yet you also form it for others. And, in greater terms, of course, you have already formed it; and when you no longer need it, it will be used by others, and it will be a kind of inner landmark where other may use what you have created."… "Now, I have hinted at multidimensional art, and this is multidimensional art indeed," Seth was saying. "each of you has abilities peculiarly suited to form such an inner environment - such a 'Sumari City'-and so shall you then be the pioneers in your own way. There are inner lands still to be conquered, for there are inner lands still to be formed. For when you create this city, you create the landscape and the reality in which it exists. The planning of your city should begin about now. Keep track of your dream activity!
"Now I return you to yourselves, and to this room, and to the founding of your first inner Sumari city. You cannot complain about that city, for you have formed it! Make it pleasant and warm for other dream travelers"-here, Seth stared directly at me-"and always be courteous to those who knock at the new doors!"… "There are old tales telling you that 'the way' is prepared - that there are many mansions in God's house, but who made the mansions?" he boomed. "Now I am beginning to hint in 'Unknown Reality' at a different kind of culture and activity. And I would like to see, in this space and time, a beginning made again of that kind of activity. I would like to see you, then - and you can - build up an entirely valid culture, beginning with a city in another level of reality; where, if you believe what I am telling you, you can deal with mathematics mathematics that you have not dreamed of as yet, and realities of which you are not as yet aware. "You can, therefore, build an inner level of freedom that gives you access to far more information than you usually have. You can colonize an entire inner level of reality. To do so, you must give your best with dedication and joyful creativity. "This will not be an imaginary city! It will have a greater reality than any physical city you know…there, you will hopefully work on developing skills…you will learn what you have forgotten, and yet when you do so you will learn something new. For you have all changed, and there is no such thing as dead knowledge of a dead skill… "The city will have more than seven hills [like ancient Rome], and not all roads will lead to it; nor should all roads lead to it. Try, then, before you sleep, to remind yourself of your own endless creativity. Remind yourselves that what I say can definitely be accomplished. Try, before you sleep, to remind yourselves of the city, and to plan what you would do there, for you will do it!" George called out, "Seth? Is that the city that I dreamed about last week, and described a little bit in class?"
"It was a distorted version, but other class members have also had such dreams, but they do not remember them," Seth said. "In your own way, you have been working toward such a program." "Two things!" Rudy Storch shouted, waving his hand in Seth's face. "First off, a number of years ago, I had some dreams about a city. Could that be some kind of foreshadow? Secondly, is this city the kind of thing that Atlantis was?" "I will not answer the second question, and the answer to the first question is yes," Seth said, and then added, "Yes, and no, to the second." Rudy laughed loudly. "all right!" he shouted. Derek spoke up next. "When I was a really young child, I looked out one day from a window, toward the East, and I saw a very bright city off in the clouds somewhere, I was really impressed, and I still remember it, because it was so shiny. There is probably a connection between what I saw in that reality and the city you are talking about." "That is true," Seth affirmed. "But also, all of you will have an inner city, at which you are always at home, and among friends, and with your own family. You will always be with people who admire your integrity, and you need not fear," he added, speaking to Derek…. "Now, each of you in your own way have been working with the nature of reality and of creativity,’ he said. ‘There is much I have not told you about your city, for you will have to discover it for yourselves. And yet, there is, indeed, this other reality in which your creativity blossoms; and when you make your plans here, they do indeed come to fruition. I am merely encouraging you to focus your joint energies in that direction. And if you do, you will have in whatever terms, a dimension in which you can meet… "You will be dealing with symbols, yet you will learn that symbols are reality, for you are symbols of yourself that live and speak, and you do not think of yourselves as symbols. You do not understand that symbols live - that there is no symbol that does not have its own individual life.
"I speak to you theoretically of other realities. I challenge you now to be creative in another reality, as you are in this one. And if it seem to you - if it seems to you - because of your beliefs, that you are limited here, though you are not limited here, then I challenge each of you, joyfully, as in a game, to create a city, an environment and perhaps a world in which no such limitations occur. And if you had your choice, what kind of world would you create? "And so you have begun the building. For each of you, in your own way, will contribute in your own way. There are birds to be created to fly through those skies - and those birds are your thoughts, freed to their own fruition; and again, in other words, what wrens and robins and cardinals’ - ‘fly invisibly out of your skull to materialize in your city, and light upon the trees that are also the fruition of your desire? "Now, you take it for granted, most of you, the fact that you can, indeed, travel out of the body. For centuries, in your terms, there have been no pleasant, recognizable roads for out-of-body travelers to follow. So I am suggesting that you create such a road and such a destination. "Now, listen - you think there is nothing impossible, intrinsically, about building a platform in [outer] space - a handy place where supplies may be gathered. I am suggesting, then, a platform in inner reality; a safe place for travelers, and you can build it. It is as valid, and far more valid, than an orbiting city in the sky in physical terms, and it challenges your creative abilities far more. "You need a good challenge - it is fun! Not because you should do it, but because you desire it and because it is fun, and because there is no other such creative challenge that you can throw down to yourselves - and no one else has ever thought of a better one: thrown down to yourselves from future selves that you shall indeed encounter, and you know you can do this and you know that you have done it; and on the face of the Earth, as you know it, there is no greater challenge that you can give yourselves."
Practicing Your Alpha Scales Conversations With Seth, p. 234 Now Good evening to you, and what I want you to do is this. It is late, so we will only have a trial run. This will be in Alpha state, so close your eyes, and I will give you a lullaby. Now imagine anything that you choose, but have a line or a platform that represents Alpha 1. Have it in your mind as a symbol of adjacent consciousness at the same level, perhaps, as your eyes. Do whatever you choose. Imagine a road and yourself as a small figure on a line, for example. Imagine a road and yourself upon it. Now I will want you shortly to imagine other such lines of roads, so pick an image for yourself that you can use. See yourself clearly on this line or road or path. You may use a floor if you prefer, but see yourself upon it, for this will represent A-1. Now imagine another adjacent road or line parallel and still further away from your normal consciousness. Now pause to feel the difference in your consciousness as you move from one line or road to another. And this one represents A-2. Now imagine again a third line or path, still parallel and adjacent. Examine the feel of your consciousness as you do so. Move now further on this time to another path or road that you will call A-4, and that is still further in distance from you normal consciousness. Now imagine still another line which we will call A-5. Now here, pause for a moment. If you can, imaginatively look behind you to see those other four roads or paths that run adjacently and parallel. Now turn, step back to the previous road or path to A-4. Step again back to A-3. Step again back to A-2. Now carefully step back to A-1 and pause. Feel your consciousness at this point. And now imagine a step above A-1. Not adjacent or parallel, but above, and feel yourself step up upon it. And we will call it A-1a, though the names make little difference. Pause there and imaginatively look down to A-1, but hold your position.
Now above you, you will see another step. Go up this step again and notice the changes in the feel of yourself and of your consciousness. Above this is still another. Now step up this one, noticing again any change in the feel of yourself or in your consciousness. Above this is still another. Now step up here and pause. Imaginatively look down. Look at the other levels of consciousness from which you have come. Now very slowly, come back to the previous level, and keep coming down each step slowly until you reach again the original A-1 from which you began. Now, at A-1, realize that all of these other levels of consciousness are also available with the feeling of A-1as a threshold of activity, as a doorway into other kinds of perceptions and consciousness. Now, very gently step back from A-1 back to your normal state of consciousness and open your eyes. Now I will let Ruburt return. Now, this is the equivalent of scales. So I want you all to practice on your own. I will not say practice make perfect, but at least it gives you a chance. Now, I bid you all a fond good evening. But I want you to try these exercises as you fall to sleep at night, and you will have some excellent projections. You will also have some other experiences, so I suggest that you try these at that time. You may prolong the time, you see. We did this very quickly this evening. A Sound Exercise Conversations With Seth, p. 264 (Ed: Someone in class was having hearing problems, and this was Seth’s suggestion)
Listen to the rain. Do not "just" listen; but allow yourself to be open to the different pattering sounds and sound patterns that the rain makes. Become fascinated with the behavior of sound. Tell yourself that sound is like light; that it is easily available…. You must realize that you are a unique and a blessed individual, and you must be as kind to yourself, and kinder, even, than you try to be to others. For they also bathe in the joy that you feel. It is most important that you understand this. Imagine for an experiment, now, a world in which there is no sound. Do not imagine that you are deaf. That is not what I am saying. But imagine that the world itself has no sound for anyone to hear. Do you see the difference? You are imagining a situation in which there is no sound to be heard; whether or not you have ears, there is no sound. Then imagine that, suddenly, a raindrop falls and makes the first sound…the first sound that can ever be heard.. And imagine the impact and the beauty of that sound. Then slowly imagine other sounds appearing in the world, appearing in the same way that a flower might appear, so that sounds begin to be born in the universe. Imagine, then, the joy of hearing that sound in a world that had known none. Whatever sounds, then, that imaginatively come to you, feel the brilliance and miracle of them as they are born out of the silence. And then give thanks for the world of sound, and let yourself revel that you live in this world where sound is a part of your environment and surroundings. In all of this, do not think about your ears, but do the imaginative exercise exactly as I have suggested. That alone, done once a day, will help arouse again within you the joy and wonder of that particular sense. Now you can indeed progress, and you have progressed in many ways since you began Ruburt's class. And so has your husband. It has taken some time to develop these habits with such persistence. And so you can change them, using the same persistence and determination. The exercise I have just suggested to you will, if followed, help you open up sufficiently so that energy sent to you can be utilized for that specific difficulty. But while you refuse to hear, you would consider
energy sent to you particularly to make you hear also a threat to your survival, and would be determined to block it. You must realize that your survival depends upon enjoying all of your senses fully. Reading this session alone should help you realize that. Faith: How long a day, each day, should I practice what you just suggested? Seth: As long as it is enjoyable. That is, no more than a half-hour at the most. Faith: And an hour of painting every day? Seth: You should indeed. Faith: That'll be a pleasure. Seth: And enjoy it. All the exercise - do not strain it. Now, you use your imagination well. So imagine these new sounds as they would appear, until you are really dazzled. Love And Relationships Conversations With Seth, p. 281 There are human beings on the face of this earth who do not know what love means, or companionship; who do not have parents; who do not have sisters and brothers; who understand an isolation that is bleak and cold even if it is of their own making. Each of you in this room (of Jane and Rob's) who has the opportunity to share with another, then, know that is grace, and be thankful for that which you experience. And do not under estimate what you have. There are personalities who have traveled through the centuries, literally, without an understanding; and if this was their reality and if it was their making, still be glad that it is not yours and accept those relationships that you have and realize their potential and do not close yourselves off through stupid pride and through barriers of your own making. Now the atoms and molecules that compose you are glorious, impermanent things, and through the leadership of your consciousness and song, and through you do they experience what you experience. And when each of you come together in a personal relationship, are you then glorifying and adding to the reality of your consciousness that is within those atoms and molecules. You know
each other in each life a brief time. What joy and comfort you can give; then give. What support you can render, render. Do you realize that by doing this, you become more than you think you are. And I am not speaking to any of you of self-sacrifice, for there is no such thing and there is no such road and I do not advocate it. But if you demand the best that is within you, then you become more than you realize that you are and you must also demand more from the other persons within your relationship…. For the bone that you call your own will lie a long time in the grave. The physical beings of those that you know change even as I speak…for the moment is intimate and the voice that speaks besides you in the night, in your terms, will not speak for long. Therefore, comfort it while you can. Improving Hearing And Vision Conversations With Seth, p. 311 You can clear your own ears and your own vision … You must relax and trust the inner self to see and hear… When you try to hard to hear or see, you see or hear less. Relax and let this be taken care of for you. Mu Like Jane Conversations With Seth, p. 316 The "Mu" chant, like its sister "Om," are both word-sounds used by meditative sects and groups for a number of reasons, one of them being to utilize sound and energy to maintain light trance states. Class used "Mu" to send energy, or sometimes just for fun - but whenever we held a "Mu" contest to see who could keep this word going the longest, Jane always won. Strangers In The Night Conversations With Seth, p. 373, 377 From the earliest days of class, dreams and dream interpretation occupied much of our discussion. …And always, Seth coaxed,
teased, and admonished us to remember our dreams and write them down; and in particular, to suggest that we might meet in the dream state and be wide-awake and aware enough there to experiment with our consciousness - with our dream consciousness. "Our regular students have been experiencing an extra bonus," Seth explained early in 1971. "You are beginning your own dream classes, as you know. Some of you already know the evenings in which you will work and the area in which you will be involved. As you learn to live spontaneously on a physical level, so automatically you will be able to build up [dream classes]… You are all multidimensional realities. You are learning to use your consciousness to become conscious co-creators of your own reality. And some of you…after [physical] class will be involved in some adventures that I hope you will remember…. …my speculation is that Seth's challenge for us to "dream an Inner City"…was meant in part to propel us into something long term and heretofore unheard of, whether class continued or not. Certainly, Seth made constant references to "the Experiment" and its relationship to our dreams. For instance, one August night in 1971, Seth punctuated a lengthy discussion of dreams with some surprising remarks about their directions. "We mentioned some time ago an experiment," he began, interrupting some salacious speculations on the "meaning" of sex dreams. "Now, the visitors that have been here until this evening had a part to play in that experiment. Other portions of the experiment, however, are concerned with your dream states and those individuals that you are meeting [in dreams]. Besides the associates and friends that you know in your daily waking life, you also have quite a legitimate relationship with people that you do not know as you go about your daily concerns. And you perform work of which you are unaware as you go about your daily way. "Now, some of you are ready to meet these other associates. They are people living on the face of the earth at this time; people that you have never met physically and probably will never meet in those terms, but you are involved often as apprentices in joint endeavors, and it is time that you become aware to some extent of your
relationship. Therefore, I want you to take particular notice of people in your dreams who are strangers to you. You may encounter them in class dreams. You may also encounter them, however, in dreams that seem to have no great meaning. These people cooperate with you as you cooperate with them. You are involved [in] many activities: helping people who have died, in your terms; speaking to others who are quite alive, in the dream state; learning to understand and manipulate subjective realities." Seth rocked back in Jane's chair, crossing Jane's legs with a delicate grace, as if he were naturally familiar with the mechanics of the miniskirt. "Now, there are two main possibilities that can emerge here," he continued, "and these people can become quite real to you. You have begun to become aware of some of your own reincarnational existences [in dreams]. Because of this, you have been able to relate to yourself and to others in a more effective manner and understand others from a different point of view. Now, however, you should also become aware of other personalities who work with you when your normally conscious ego is quieted. Some of you already have clues. "This requires some study and means that you will have to remember your dream much more effectively than some of you are doing!" Seth scowled his familiar mock-stern scowl, pursing Jane's lips and scrunching her eyebrows together in an expression that Jane herself never used. "And I am giving you the impetus!" he roared. "When possible, think of these persons…so that in your daily waking life you can receive some more intuitional information as to the kind of work and endeavors in which you are involved." Seth paused, closing his eyes. For a moment, Jane's body sat motionless, hinting of the Seth II personality. Besides, that mysterious "Experiment" had been mentioned again-a favorite word of this other personality. Was this going to slide into a Seth II speech? "We want you to become aware of all of your activities, not simply your conscious ones," Seth said finally, opening Jane's eyes and staring out in his usual animated manner. "You are using abilities in that work that you are not using - as yet - in your conscious lives, and I want you to become aware of what these abilities are. They can also help you deal more effectively with physical reality, and help you
understand it far better. You may find, several of you, yourselves involved in the same work in the dream state. And so, also, keep track of whatever class members may appear within these dreams. Then, when you are doing well in class, you will be able to relate not only to some reincarnational selves [which we had been experimenting with at this time], but to the inner self and to its activities; and use these activities to enrich your normal daily encounters and to increase the nature and extent of your perceptions."… Gert Barber spoke up. "In the dream state, these, ah, strangers or associates-would we put them on a face that we would be able to relate to, say a member of our family?" she asked. Seth stared at her with a small, tender smile, holding the room in silence. It almost seemed as though Gert's question had reminded him of something else; some memory welling up in his Sethian mind that momentarily distracted him. "They will appear to you as strangers, and not as people you know," he said after a moment. In closing, he advised us also to watch out in our waking life for "strangers who approach you without effort, concerning mutual friends - and for clues, awake and asleep, on the nature of 'the Experiment.' " Was this tricky, evocative dream challenge reflecting Seth's knowledge of, or "memory" of, impending Sumari development that Jane would deliver that November? Whatever it comprised, Seth's "experiment" hint worked its usual understated charms: class dream records seemed to explode upon us. Suddenly our dream records were filled with correlations; strangers virtually overpopulated our dream landscapes: odd waking encounters leaped into our awareness - were we actually meeting more "strangers" than usual, or were we just more conscious of them now? Continuities In The Dream State, And The Un-Teacher Un-Ravels You Conversations With Seth, p. 384 "Good evening!" he (Seth) began, removing Jane's much-handled glasses. "The first lesson you have taught yourselves in the dream
state has to do with the continuity of your experience in the dream state - the simple fact so many of you had experiences using the same symbols and the same ideas; that you agreed upon so many objective issues appearing within your dreams. You did not agree upon the same room, or the same people, but the similarities were obvious to each of you. You can see for yourselves how, in the dream state, you were working with issues that concern you. You can see also a great correlation and give-and-take as you created your own images, allowed others to borrow them, borrowed some for yourselves. And out of the whole cloth, each of you made original dreams that were, on the other hand, like no other; and yet, the same issues were often found-and as you spoke, they became obvious. "Now, there are certain things that you must agree upon in physical reality: the tables, the chairs, yourselves as you look. There are many things upon which you agree, and when you speak, you agree on what is said-generally. What I want you to understand is that in the dream state also there are agreements. There are things upon which you agree. There is order in what may seem to be chaos. And, [to Camille, who hadn't remembered any dreams that week] there is memory in what at times may seem to be amnesia! I want you to see the similarity, the give-and-take, and communication-the order-that has appeared in your dreams. Then I want you to see if you can decide the individual issues - such as the foreign nationalities - mean. "You have witnessed a very simple demonstration that you have given yourselves about the nature of the dream state, and your own continuing work and play and validity within it-the continuity that exist between the waking and the dream state as you think of it. You are not momentarily insane-not when you are asleep! Some of you [to Rudy] may be insane when you are awake and walk through glass…but you cannot say that you are insane when you are asleep, or that there is no order! "Now, our regular students recognize my humor," Seth continued, "so they know when I am joking and when I am not; so I am not saying that you are 'insane' when you are awake! I want you to recognize the continuity of your consciousness as it passes through these thresholds of activity, however.
"Now, oftentimes, dreaming, you are not aware of your waking self; but waking, you are not often aware of your dreaming self! Try now, for example, without any [dream] record, to remember your activities but when you are dreaming, try to remember you waking activities! And yet, there is great continuity, in your terms, for of course both exist at once. "I have something to say to each of you, and all of you. In many areas of your lives, you go to learn discipline. You are taught by another and by a teacher and by a great authority. You are taught to become disciplined. In this class, there are other issues involved, and now I will tell you the terrible truth! "For I am an un-teacher. And an un-teacher un-ravels you, or lets you unravel yourselves, back to the truths of your being. An un-teacher helps you un-learn your 'discipline.' An un-teacher, hopefully-and it is a difficult task that I embark upon, playfully-an un-teacher, hopefully, lets you lead yourselves toward the freedom of your being. So, when you are used to discipline, you may, for a while, feel un-done, or without foundation. And then, when you let your disciplines go, you feel the great foundation of your own being, and its greater freedom. "There is a purpose to this class, as all of you know, and for all my talk, you see, you still have not un-learned enough. For when I tell you that you create your own reality, none of you are really sufficiently secure in that belief to take advantage of it as yet; to grasp this great creative freedom of yourselves; and use it to make your life that you presently [live] be the most creative and joyful for yourself and others. And so you give yourselves and others excuses, and you are in this position because of that, or you are in this position because of that person, or because of your background. "Now, this applies to everyone here, Ruburt included-to each of you. When you thoroughly recognize the majestic freedom of your own being, and your creative power, then you recognize yourselves as creators, creating your daily life and joyfully helping create the mass experience of the world as you know it. And then, you are ready to say 'I act out of full joyful knowledge of my creativity.' Then you do not blame events or others or circumstances. Then you are able to thank yourselves for the joys of your being, and the glory of your days. You
are able to say to the smallest cell within the ear, 'I give you greeting. I am thankful for our joint creativity; for our eternal knowledge which is ever new.' … "And your dream will help you point the way to your own freedom and they are pointing the way to your own freedom. "Again, from my reality to yours; if there is one gift that I would give you, it is the reflection of yourselves as I see you, returned to you so that you could sense, as I do, the miraculous joy and freedom, and trust it. If you make mistakes, they are your own mistakes, and you can learn from them. If you make decisions, they are your own decisions; you can make new ones. If you are afraid of making decisions, you cannot learn from them. "Your dreams for this week will clarify the issues involved in your past week's dreams. So-bring all of your records. You are piling up dream goodies for yourself. You are your own teachers; these are your own dreams, not mine. Mine are like winds that blow about the universe, and that are seen in different shapes and forms, according to your perspective, and upon which hilltop you happen to stand. "I give you, each of you, my deepest regards; and through my knowledge of your integrity, reassure you of that integrity, when you doubt it-for there is no need to doubt it. In the dream state, you will be reassured, and by yourselves; the selves you think, again, you have forgotten; the selves you hope you are, but the selves you are afraid you will never be. Those selves are, and they will speak to you and reassure you in the dream state, as they speak now when you are awake-but you do not listen. "And your dreams also, in their way, nourish worlds. There is no waste. Your dreams and thoughts have reality." Writing Down Dreams Opens Channels To The "Unconscious" Conversations With Seth, p. 398 Stewie Gould spoke up this time. "When I dream, and then wake up, I sort of take it all for granted. It's so obvious that I'll remember the dream that I don't even write it down-and I go back to sleep and then
I wake up and realize that I don't remember it and should have written it down! How come this happens?" "This applies to everyone," Seth answered. "The problem and the solution. The problem is simply that you fool yourself. You know very well, because it happens many times, that if you do not write it down you will forget it-and only a part of you wants to." "I usually tell myself," Stewie said. "But then, I seem to make a judgment, like, if it's good, I'll write it down; if it's a bad dream I won't." "That is your problem!" Seth stated. "You should not make any judgement! Simply write [your dreams] down! "Now, Ruburt has said this often, and it applies again to all of you. The very habit [that is] set up as you write down your dreams and recall them, opens up channels between what you think of, now, as your conscious and unconscious selves. The training teaches you to switch from one level of reality to another, and to bring back your goodies with both hands. Whether or not the dream is important in your terms, you can use this training." Coming Awake In Dreams Conversations With Seth, p. 405 Coming "awake" in dreams is an experience that you can train yourself to do - by suggesting, simply, that you will do so! Or tell yourself that when you dream of a certain person, place, or thing say, any time you encounter something inharmonious (such as wallpaper on the walls that you painted over ten years ago) - that you'll become aware that you are dreaming. It's an incredible profound experience; for one thing, it establishes a link of knowing between your dreaming and waking self and tends to give you a certain kind of "courage" in dream exploration (and who knows? maybe in the waking state too).
True Dreams From The Gates Of Horn, Unofficial Information And Stray Thoughts Conversations With Seth, p. 411, 417, 419-420 Then, without preamble, Seth gave us a dream hint that had tripped my warning bells: "During the week, before you sleep, tell yourself - if you want to - that you will have a 'True Dream from the Gates of Horn,' " he said. "Now, that is an ancient suggestion, given by the Egyptians: The Gates of Horn. I do not want to tell you what it means yet, simply to ask you to give yourselves the suggestion - those of you who want to! - for a True Dream, that will help harmonize the portions of your being. That is part of the suggestion! Ask for a True Dream that comes from the Gates of Horn, [and] that will help harmonize the portions of your being."… From these beginnings, "True Dreams" came to be used by class members as the infallible call-for-help dreams; as a special "signal" to the inner self that direction, answers - harmony - was needed. TDGH requests always seemed to result in vivid, direct information - "You don't ask unless you really want to know!" a student once remarked, a little incisively…. "Now the suggestion that I gave you, was given, of course for a reason," Seth told us of the Gates of Horn dreams. "Those dreams will involve you with the beliefs behind your daily reality; and, in certain form, you will see how you form that reality, and your most intimate living relationships. There will be, therefore, a correlation between those dreams, your beliefs, and your daily experience. "I want you to continue the suggestions as given, and then to interpret the dreams in light of your beliefs and your daily private experience. Later there will be suggestions, dealing with other levels of reality, as you will interpret them in the dream state. "Each of you must do this work - this play! - for yourself. It will teach you invaluable information if you allow it to. We are beginning a new series of exercises that will involve the dream state and your waking reality. And those of you who are able to follow will later be able to make appointments and keep them in the dream state. But the work or play - however you consider it, must be done. You must therefore
become intimately acquainted with the particular dreams that come to you from what we refer to as the Gates of Horn. Both the Gates of Ivory and the Gates of Horn, historically, in your terms only, were used by the Egyptians. Their idea was that dreams from the Gates of Horn were 'true,' and dreams from the Gates of Ivory were 'not.' But we [in class] are dealing with different definitions! "Now, listen. As you meet here in the waking state, so you indeed meet, many of you, in the dream state, at other levels of actuality. You exchange ideas. You help each other. You have in those terms, an interior family. Now, for those of you who do not like the idea of families, the analogy may not be a pleasant one! "However, the fact remains that in the dream state, many of you meet each other. You have a common bond, for you understand that you create your own reality. [And] each time you remember to wake up and record a dream, you are doing something with your consciousness, and it is important. For you think enough of your interior life to consciously record it as a physical event in your time. And with your beliefs, that is important… "Now, it seems safer, in your terms, to become aware of dream experience that it does to become aware of waking experience. Yet, in any given five-minute period of your life, you perceive information that you do not accept - it is not official information. You are aware of realities, and instead of accepting them, you say, 'No - you do not fit in here.' "So you do not have to dream in order to become aware of other realities. You must simply allow your conscious some freedom. Then in the middle of your ordinary activities, you can become familiar with other kinds of reality that are, in other terms, quite familiar to you. You are simply in the habit of blocking these out, and they represent strong portions of your reality and being. "You may find yourselves with a random thought that does not seem to fit in with what you are doing or thinking at the time, and so you dismiss it. It seems random because it does not appear to fit in with your organized picture of reality, but it is an important mosaic that you throw away.
So I also joyfully, and playfully, and creatively challenge you (even Jed over there!) to become more and more aware of your waking experience, and of those stray thoughts that come, like thieves in the night. They are not official. You do not accept them. The intellect says, 'Oh, no!' "Listen to those thoughts. Open your mind a mite further - in your ordinary waking life, in the middle of your ordinary pursuits, and see what miracles are there; and I say miracles. Miracles, because they can help you transform your own understanding, and your own reality. And you have been blind to them because you fear you will lose your identity. Your identity, instead, you see, can grow and include such experiences. "Now I told you that class was quickening, so the time is ripe for each of you. So…be gentle with your own experience. Do not be such disciplinarian that when stray thoughts or intuitions come to you, you dismiss them. The fields of your own being are filled with flowers that you do not recognize. You do not stop to look to them or smell their odors. They are not official flowers or official thoughts. Sometimes you try to be too practical! "There are no disagreements between your official reality and those unofficial realities that sometimes sneak through!" (Ed. See "Psychic Politics," Chapter 17- A Probable Class- approx. page 212 for some more on the Gates of Horn dreams. Discovering Counterparts Conversations With Seth, p. 493 That January, Seth explained to class that "You have specific counterparts that are more related to you than others. It is not up to me to tell you who they are, only to let you know that the reality exists. Once you know that, it is up to you to discover your own counterparts…for you can all do so!" And so for class member Fred Lorton, this counterpart challenge from Seth became a creative exercise in perception, like his discovery of "reincarnational" selves.
"Counterparts - I sat stunned when I heard this!" Fred says. "About two weeks later, I tried self-hypnosis [with the suggestion that he would see a counterpart]. My first experience was quite interesting. [I saw] one of my counterparts, who is between sixty and sixty five years old, lives in Turkey on a poor farm, knows all about raising and selling drugs and is responsible for some of my feelings about people who sell drugs to people, especially young people. She appeared to me, about twelve inches in front of my face, and stared at me for at least two minutes, and then her face softened a little when I realized who [this person] was. "Counterpart number two - about one week later. [I saw] a cocktail party scene in Los Angeles, mixed crowd, well-dressed, socially wellto-do. Suddenly, a girl about 5'11" turned to me, drink in hand, and stared, long and hard. When I realized I was staring back and that is was counterparts again, the scene faded…again, self hypnosis, six minutes." In Session 732 for January 22, 1975, of "Unknown's Volume 2, Seth had this to say about Fred's counterpart visualization: "Many of the [class members] became deadly serious as they tried to understand the [counterpart] concept. Some wanted me to identify their counterparts for them…Instead, during the last week, [Fred] let his creative imagination go wherever it might while he held the general idea in mind. He played with the concept, then. In a way his experiences were like those of a child - open, curious, filled with enthusiasm. As a result he himself discovered a few of his counterparts. "Most people, however, are so utterly serious that they suspect their own creativity…" More On The Inner City Conversations with Seth, Ch. 21 ...and we do have a city building. A city. Highly impractical, it seems, at this time. A city that does indeed exist mentally. But all things exist mentally first, or they will never be materialized. And some day that city might exist physically. But it will not be when you are here. Yet
your memories will be in it and your desires. And to that extent you will be founders. And you forge such dreams in your sleep and in your private imaginings, and in your inspirations. For when one member of a species dreams such dreams, those dreams are transmitted to all other members. They do not die. When a runner at the Olympics does better than the runner before, then all the sportscasters say, ‘How grand! We did not know man could run so fast!’ and so now records are being broken all the time. And mentally, the same thing applies. Dream a grand dream. For when one member of the species dreams, all members, to some extent, participate. and the psyche, and the soul, and the heart of man take new leaps, in your terms, not taken before. So trust yourselves, and trust your love and your dreams…. Now, I have spoken about a city. A dream city that you do not see now, Sue. It is not before your eyes. But this world as you know it came from some un-where. It came from a mental dimension and was then materialized. And so our city that is not manifest now, is a reality of the mind. And since it is a reality of the mind, it will somehow be a reality in physical fact. And it will be a realm, however small, however large, in whatever probability, and you will be a part of it. And it will be a realm in which men and women know themselves and walk in honor, and in freedom. And it will be a realm, however small, however large, in which there is indeed an infinite creativity, And it can be a creativity that seeds worlds. Your thoughts now seed worlds. It is only because you do not know that, that what I say sounds strange. You are here because your thoughts before your birth seeded this world into which you would grow. You did not come here strangers. There is still, you see, much to learn…
