SETH

THE NATURE OF PERSONAL REALITY

by Jane Roberts

Bantam Books, 4th Printing of Bantam Edition, Dec. 1980

1. You make your world

A. YOU CREATE YOUR REALITY

1. The events that appear to happen IQ you are initiated by you within your mental or psychic environment. (1:4)

2. Altering the state of the psyche automatically alters the physical circumstances. There is no other valid way of changing physical events. (1:10)

3. You make your own reality. There is no other rule. (1: 14)

4. The joy of creativity flows through you as effortlessly as your breath. From it the most minute areas of your outer experience spring. Your feelings have electromagnetic realities that rise outward, affecting the atmosphere itself. They group through attraction, building up areas of events and circumstances that finally coalesce, so to speak, either in matter as objects - or as events in "time". (1: 1 1)

5. Look about you. Your entire physical environment is the materialization of your beliefs. Your sense of joy, sorrow, health or illness - all of these are caused by your beliefs. (2:25)

6. Your beliefs form your reality, your body and its condition, your personal relationships, your environment, and en masse your civilization and world. (4:71)

7. If all of your beliefs, not just your "fortunate" ones, were not materialized, you would never understand on a physical level that your ideas create reality. (5; 103)

8. The conscious mind is meant to direct the flow of your experience through your beliefs. (1 1;235)

9. The inner self keeps the physical body alive even as it formed it...'.But in all cases the inner self looks to the conscious mind for its assessment of the body's condition ... and forms the body in line with the conscious mind's beliefs ... You form reality through your beliefs and your most intimate production is your physical body.... You organize on an unconscious level the atoms and molecules that compose your cells to form your body. But the blueprint is made by your conscious beliefs. To change your body you change your beliefs, even in the face of physical data or evidence that conflicts .... Except for some conditions, which will be mentioned later, you can become healthy if you are HI, slim if you are overweight... or alter your physical image in profound fashion through the use of your ideas and beliefs. (5:86)

10. You change even the most permanent-seeming conditions of your life constantly through your varying attitudes toward them.... Interactions with others do occur, of course, yet there are none that you do not accept or draw to you by your thoughts, attitudes or emotions. (1: 10)

11. YOU MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR BEING. (2:27).... IF YOU BELIEF THAT YOU ARE AT THE MERCY OF PHYSICAL EVENTS, YOU ENTERTAIN A FALSE BELIEF. IF YOU FEEL THAT YOUR PRESENT EXPERIENCE WAS SET IN CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND YOUR CONTROL, YOU ENTERTAIN A; FALSE BELIEF.

You had a hand in the development of your childhood environment. You chose the circumstances. This does not mean that you are at the mercy of those circumstances. It means that you set challenges to be overcome, set goals to be reached. (2:31)

12. The inner self is embarked upon an exciting endeavor in which it learns how to translate its reality into physical terms. The conscious mind... is often so dazzled by what it perceives that it is tempted to think physical phenomena is a cause, rather than a result. (2:32)

B. YOU CREATE YOUR FUTURE

1. What suggestions and ideas are you giving yourself? Realize that these will be materialized in

your personal experience. (2:32)

2. A family can constantly reinforce its joy, gaiety and spontaneity by concentrating on ideas of

vitality, strength and creativity. (3:46)

3. Suppose you have a particular goal in mind as a youngster, toward which you work. Your intent, images, desires and determination form a psychic force that is projected out ahead of you, so to speak. You send the reality of your self from your present into what you think of as the future. (21.441)

4. Your acceptance of yourself and your own integrity can, at any moment in your present, alter your past and future. (21:441)

2. You are of greater dimensions

A. YOU ARE A MULTIDIMENSIONAL SELF

1. You are aware, alert and participating in many more realities than you know, as your soul expresses itself through you. (1:5)

2. Taking it for granted that you are indeed multidimensional, you can perceive only so much of your own experience at a time because of the characteristics of physical creaturehood; the three-dimensional system automatically specializes in before-and-after effects. You exist, say, in seven different centuries at once. However the normal experience of your temporal being prevents any comprehensive view of all those lives in creature terms. (19:388-389)

3. During certain stages in sleep states you short-circuit the neuronal structures, and perceive experiences of a multidimensional nature that you then attempt to translate ... into stimuli that can be physically assimilated - hence you often convert these into symbolic images, that can be understood ... by your bodily structure. (14;294)

RAIN CREATURE

4. One night Ruburt (without drugs)...saw a rainy puddle below suddenly turn into an alive, beautifully fluid creature who stood up and walked while the rain slid off its liquid sides .... He knew that in the physical world the puddle was flat, but that he was perceiving another just-as-solid reality; a larger one in fact, in which that rain creature had its being. (10;183)

B. WITH MANY SIMULTANEOUS (REINCARNATIONAL) LIVES

1. All time is simultaneous.... Reincarnation is a conscious-mind interpretation in linear terms. On the one hand it is highly distorted. On the other hand it is a creative interpretation.... But there is no karma to be paid off as punishment unless you believe there are crimes for which you must pay. In larger terms there is no cause and effect either, though these are root assumptions in your reality. (9;160)

2. These multiple [reincarnational] existence, however, are simultaneous and open-ended. In your terms the conscious mind is growing toward a realization of the part it has to play in such multidimensional reality. It is enough that you understand your part in this existence.

WHEN YOU FULLY COMPREHEND THAT YOU FORM WHAT YOU THINK OF AS YOUR CURRENT REALITY, ALL ELSE WILL FALL INTO PLACE.

Your beliefs, thoughts and feelings are instantly materialized physically. Their earthly reality occurs simultaneously with their inception, but in the world of time, lapses between appear to occur. So I say one causes another, but all are at once...... At once" does not imply that all things have been done, for all things are still happening. You are still happening - but both present and future selves; and your past self is still ... experiencing events that you do not recall, that your linear attuned consciousness cannot perceive on that level. (9;161)

3. The lives you have lived are not you, [but] they are of you .... Think of your breath as lives, and you [as] the entity through which they have passed and are passing. Then you will feel your state of grace. (9;162)

4. Not only do children choose their parents ahead of time, but parents choose their children, of course. (19;384)

5. [Some] ask..."Am I bound to follow the rules of karma? Since all is simultaneous, your present

beliefs can alter your past ones, whether from this life or a previous one. (19;387)

6. Within the abilities of your creaturehood, your current beliefs can change your experience; you can reconstruct your "reincarnational past You have a gigantic pool of information and experience to draw upon, but this will be utilized according to your present conscious beliefs. If you understand that the point of power is in the present, then you have an inexhaustible realm of ability and energy at your command. (19;387) 7. Consciously ... you will interpret those simultaneous lives in reincarnational terms, one seemingly before the other. (9;164)

C. YOUR MANY SELVES MAKE UP THE ENTITY - OR GREATER SOUL

1. The you that you consider yourself is never annihilated. Your consciousness is not snuffed out, nor is it swelled, blissfully unaware of itself, in some nirvana. (9;163)

2. All of your cells that make up your physical form obviously exist at once. Imagine that you have many lives enduring in the same fashion. Instead of cells you have selves .... Think of the greater you - call it the entity if you want to - as forming a psychic structure quite as real as your physical one, but composed of many selves The cells, however, while a part of this body, are not aware of the entire dimension in which your consciousness dwells. They do not perceive all of the elements that are available even in 3 - dimensional experience. Yet your present consciousness physically rests upon cellular awareness. (9;163)

3. So the entity is aware of much larger dimensions of activity than you are, yet in the same way its more sophisticated consciousness rests upon your own, and one is necessary to the other. (9;164)

4. In terms of consciousness, the entity or greater you knows as much more than you know, as you know more than your cells. (9,;165)

5. A group of cells forms an organ. A group of selves forms a soul [on page 170 Seth decides to call it an oversoul]. I am not telling you that you do not have a soul to call your own. You are part of your soul. it belongs to you and you to it. You dwell within its reality .... The entity then, or greater self, is composed of souls .... The entity has its existence in multitudinous dimensions, its souls free to travel within boundaries that would seem infinite to you. (9; 165)

6. Your recognition of the soul and entity can help you direct energies from these other dimensions into your daily life. (9;166)

7. 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. (19;395)

8. The inner portions of your being operate spontaneously, joyously, freely; all of this occurs because your inner self believes in you. (2;20)

FREQUENCY

9. The physical reality into which you are born is not nearly as solid or predetermined or definite as it appears to be. Instead there is a field of rich interaction. Your consciousness must be focused at one particular range of frequencies before it can even perceive matter, much less solidity. In sleep your consciousness fluctuates between ranges of intensities, literally flowing into and out of the physical-matter grouping, and forming from more plastic pre-matter stages, the final shape that matter will take in your world. (20;413)

10. You have great energy and power

A. INEXHAUSTIBLE ENERGY IS AVAILABLE TO YOU

1. In this existence you are learning to handle the inexhaustible energy that is available to you. (1:10) ....The energy comes from the core of BEING ... and represents the source of never ending vitality. (1:13)

2. The energy of your being exists outside your system, and impinges upon it in your terms, becoming 'alive' physically at certain points of time and space. Your own greater energy dips in and out of the space-time continuum as you understand it. (19;388)

3. What ... happens is that the energy of your being impinges, say, at seven (moment] points into the three dimensional system. At each of these points what seems to be an isolated life is experienced. Just beyond these intersections, however, there is a more or less unitary and overall recognition of wholeness that 'rides' above them. This represents the multidimensional entity .... The great miracle ... is that each consciousness, whatever its degree, is itself and no other, even while in the unending fields of interaction it may be a portion of another - as ... an individual is part of a family. (19;389)

ENERGY CYCLES

4. There are rhythms having to do with energy. Practically speaking, this means that certain times are more effective than others for these communications in the dream state .... The energy of the personal self constantly comes from the entity. (19;391)

5. These cycles merge at several points, so that you do not have major changes in all areas in any span of two thousand years.... These are simply rhythms depicting the greatest impact of spirit as it intersects with flesh and time.... In a manner of speaking you can say that the energy of an entity is dispersed, striking the space-time continuum at certain angles and always bouncing back. (19:391-392)

6. There are peak periods when the self and the soul (or entity) coincide - when communication is at its best. All of this happens through the window of your present. (19;392) 7. Apexes are therefore formed within each self. These apexes serve as attractions, now opened, through which the magnified potency of the entity can flow.... Privately, this is when human beings find themselves aware of greater lluminations...and experience new strengths. (19;393)

B. THE MOST CONCENTRATED FORMS OF ENERGY

(1). EMOTIONS

1. Imagination and emotion are the most concentrated forms of energy that you posses as physical creatures .... Emotions ... send thoughts from this interior reality through the barrier between nonphysical and physical into the "objective' world - no small feat. (5;99)

2. Your feelings have electromagnetic realities that rise outward, affecting the atmosphere itself. (18;361)

3. Your conscious thinking largely determines your emotions .... You are not at the mercy of you emotions ... for they are meant to follow the flow of your reasoning .... If your beliefs about existence are fearful, then the emotional reactions will be those leading to stress. (4;67)

4. You must accept the validity of your feelings while realizing that they ... are not necessarily factual statements of your reality. [For example] 'I feel that I am a failure'. This is an emotional statement and should be accepted as such .... [But] you may be most successful in reaching your goals while still thinking yourself a failure. (1 1;222)

5. You may believe that you are too easily swayed...and are afraid of your emotions ... You think that all reason can be drowned within them .... You will nevertheless accept certain emotions that you think of as safe, and ignore others, because you are afraid of following them further. (1 1;223)

THE INNOCENCE OF ALL EMOTIONS

6. The emotions follow beliefs .... To refuse them is futile. They are one of the means by which personally attuned consciousness knows itself. They are not destructive. One emotion is not good and another evil. Emotions simply are. They are the elements of the power of consciousness, filled with energy. They merge into a powerful sea of being when left alone. You cannot affirm one emotion and deny another without setting up barriers. (21;417)

7. It is very important that you understand the true innocence of all feelings, for each of them, if left alone and followed, will lead you back to the reality of love .... Trust no one who leads you away from the reality of yourself. Do not follow those who tell you that you must do penance, in whatever form. (22;452)

8. Dogmas that tell you to rise above your emotions can be misleading - even ... dangerous. Such theories are based on the concept that there is something innately...base or wrong in man's emotional nature, while the soul is depicted as being calm, 'perfect,' passive and unfeeling. Only the most lofty, blissful awareness is allowed. Yet the soul is above all a fountain of energy, creativity, and action that shows its characteristics in life precisely through the ever-changing emotions. Trusted, your feelings will lead you to psychological and spiritual states of mystic understanding, calm and peacefulness. (21;422)

9. Experiencing your emotions as such is not the same as accepting them as statements of fact about your own experience. (1 1;217)

10. [Suppose a] man inhibits the expression of many of the normal irritations ... between, say, his superior and himself at work ... All these inhibited reactions seek release .... When his system has had enough, [he] ... may react with violent behavior .... The sense of power felt during such episodes is the result of repressed energy suddenly released, but the individual is always at the mercy of that energy then - submerged within it and passively carried along with it .... The fear of your own emotions can do far more damage than their expression. (I 1;21 1)

(2) IMAGINATION

1. The birth of imagination initiated the largest possibilities, and ... put great strain upon the biological creature whose ... structure would now react to not only present ... situations, but imaginative ones. (12;242-243)

2. Often you do not trust your imagination, considering that it deals with phenomena that cannot be called fact ... You do not understand the great clues (your imagination] gives you. (19;396)

3. Often you inadvertently use [your imagination to prolong "negative" circumstances, as you think of all the things that could go 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 ... 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 .... 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 thatyou know. (19;397)

4. You must, of course, be able to distinguish between the world of imagination and the physical world of fact in order to be able to manipulate effectively. But physical reality springs from the imagination, which follows the path of your beliefs. (19;398)

5. Such work with the imagination acts as a trigger, drawing information to you from other levels of your greater reality, and concentrating it on the specific problem at hand. It will then appear in terms [you can understand] .... Such practice also activates within the self all of its unconscious but quite valid experiences, drawing out similar episodes on the part of other simultaneous lives. In one existence the old person is young. The unloved person is indeed loved. These unconscious realities become turned on through the use of imagination. Each day is a window into each life. (19;399)

C. POWER

1. Your effective power of action follows the lines of your beliefs. To believe in your own weakness is to deny yourself the power of action. To accept uncritically all beliefs that come to you is to open yourself to a barrage of conflicting data at best. (6; 108)

2. You are not at the mercy of unconscious events. (7; 132)

3. The need to act and be in control of action is paramount to conscious beings. (17;351)

4. You [may] consider goodness and powerlessness to be somewhat synonymous, and equate power with evil. Not wanting to face such 'evil" in yourself, you may then direct it outward and transfer it to some other area .... As a society you may project it upon the criminal, as a nation upon a foreign country. As an individual, you may place this power upon an employer, labor union, etc. (17;351)

5. Power does not necessarily imply superiority over. There is the power of love for example, and the power to love. Both imply great action and vitality, and an aggressive thrust that has nothing to do with violence. (17;351)

6. You are the power of God manifested. You are not powerless. Through your being the power of God is strengthened, for you are a portion of what He is. You are not simply an insignificant ... lump of clay through which He decides to show Himself. You are He manifesting as you. (21;429)

7. If you recognized the power of your own being, you would know that it ever seeks greater realms of creativity and experience, in which new challenges are inherent - for all problems are challenges. (19;380)

D. AGGRESSION IS NOT THE SAME AS VIOLENCE

1. NATURAL AGGRESSION IS SIMPLY THE POWER TO ACT. (17;353)

2. The real nature of aggressiveness, in its truest sense, simply means forceful action. This does not necessarily imply physical force, but the power of energy directed into a material action .... Birth is perhaps the most forceful aggression, in your terms, of which you are capable. (8; 143)

3. Your problem is ... how to handle [normal aggressiveness] when it has remained unexpressed, ignored and denied over a long period of time .... Consider this blocked energy. Consciously most people are afraid of it they did not repress it because they considered it good. When I use the word "repressed' I do not mean ... shoved into the unconscious or beyond reach. You may pretend that such material is hidden but it is quiet within your conscious reach. You only have to honestly look for it. 8;(144)

4. A cat playfully killing a mouse and eating it is not evil. It suffers no guilt. On biological levels both animals understand. The consciousness of the mouse, under the innate knowledge of impending pain, leaves the body. The cat uses the warm flesh. The mouse itself has been hunter as well as prey, and both understand in ways that are difficult to explain. (145) .... They will struggle to live, but...they have a built-in unconscious sense of unity with nature in which they know they will not be lost or immersed. Man, pursuing his own way, chose to step outside of that framework- on a conscious level. The birth of compassion then took the place of the animal's innate knowledge. (8;146)

5. In your fear of negative thoughts you often attempt to deny all normal natural aggressiveness. (8; 147)

6. If you cut your finger it bleeds. In so doing the blood clears away any poisons that may have

entered. The bleeding is beneficial and the body knows when to stop it. (150) .... When you consider aggressive thoughts wrong, using this analogy, you do not even begin to allow the system to clear itself. Instead you shut up the poisons inside. (8;151)

VIOLENCE

7. You confuse violence with aggression, and do not understand aggression's creative activity or its purpose ... to prevent violence ... Violence is a distortion of aggression. Birth is an aggressive action - the thrust outward with great impetus of a self from within a body into a new environment. Any creative act is aggressive. Violence is not aggressive. It is instead a passive surrender to emotions which is not understood or evaluated, only feared, and at the same time sought .... In all violence there is a great degree of suicidal emotion, the antithesis of creativity. Both killer and victim in a war, for instance, are caught up in the same kind of passion, but the passion is not aggressive. It is ... the desire for destruction. Know that yearning is made up of feelings of despair caused by a sense of powerlessness ... Aggression leads to action, to creativity and to life. It does not lead to destruction or violence. (I 1;2 10)

E. LOVE

1. Love is outgoing, as aggression is. You cannot inhibit one without similarly affecting the other. (8;154)

2. Love perceives the grace in another ... The state of grace is unconscious in the animals .... They do not have conscious memory, but the instinctive memory of the cells and organs sustains them. (9; 157)

3. Natural aggression is the creative loving thrust forward, the way in which love is activated, the fuel through whose agency love propels itself .... Aggression in the most basic terms has nothing to do with physical violence...

[Aggression is the force through which love is perpetuated and creatively renewed. When you think in other terms, then you fall into distorted views in which power is ... seen as threatening, or wrong, or even given demonic connotations. In contrast good is seen as powerless, passive, and in need of great defense.

(11;218)

4. Love is propelled by all the elements of natural aggression, and it is powerful; yet because you have made such divisions between good and evil, love appears to be weak and violence strong. (17;352) 5. You must first love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and joyfully being what you are, you fulfill your own abilities, and your simple presence can make others happy. (21;427) 6. When you love others you grant them their innate freedom and do not cravenly insist that they always attend to you. There are no divisions to love. There is no basic difference between the love of a child for a parent, a parent for a child, a wife for a husband, a brother for a sister. There are only various expressions and characteristics of love. It can accept deviations from the ideal without condemning them. (21;428) 7. To some extent you want to identify with those you feel deeply about .... You often do love another individual because such a person evokes within you glimpses of your own "idealized' self. (21;423)

F. HATE (IS A CALL FOR LOVE)

1. In their way the hateful or revengeful thoughts are natural therapeutic devices, for if you follow them, accepting them with their own validity as feelings, they will automatically lead you beyond themselves; they will change into other feelings, carrying you from hatred into ... fear - which is always behind hatred. (1 1;220-22 1) 2. Regardless of what you have been told, hatred does not initiate strong violence ... The outbreak of violence is often the result of a built-in sense of powerlessness. (21;418) 3. There are adults who quail when one of their children say, "I hate you'. Often children quickly learn not to be honest. What the child is really saying is, “I love you so. Why are you so mean to me?' or 'What stands between us and the love for you that I feel?' (21;423)4. You become conditioned so that you feel guilty when you even contemplate hating another. You try to hide such thoughts from yourself. You may succeed so well that you literally do not know what you are feeling on a conscious level. The emotions are there but they are invisible to you because you are afraid to look. To that extent you are divorced from your own reality and disconnected from your own feelings of love. (21;424)

5. Even your hateful fantasies, left alone, will return you to a reconciliation and release of love. A fantasy of beating a parent or a child, even to death, will if followed through lead to tears of love and understanding. (2 1;424)

6. You may love a parent, and if the parent does not seem to return the love...you may 'hate' the parent .... Hatred is not a denial of love then but an attempt to regain it. (2 1;422)

G. THE SENSE OF POWERLESSNESS

1. [A lady, Dineen felt she had no power in the moment. This is an abdication of the severest kind .... The withheld power is itself transferred then. In Dineen's case it was put onto another. If she could not make decisions, this other person could, through long-distance hypnosis, force her to act whether she wanted to or not.... Dineen believes in good and evil ... Convinced she was at the mercy of demoniacal forces, she began to pray.... However the prayers themselves were merely a weak surrender to the idea that evil is so powerful. They were not based on any real belief in the power of good .... Anytime you assign elements of your experience to exterior sources, you are already doing the same thing that Dineen did. (17;342)

2. If you believe that you come down with a cold every time you are in a draft, you are using natural hypnosis. If you think you must come and go at everyone's beck and call, then you are like Dineen, who believes she must do what this hypnotist tells her to do. (17;343)

3. Remember Augustus .... He felt powerless, considering power in terms of aggression and violence, so he isolated that portion of himself from himself and projected it into a "second self". Only when this self became operative could he display any power. Because his basic concept held aggressiveness and power as one,...then the strength to act automatically meant the strength to be aggressive. And here aggression was equated with violence .... He had to pretend amnesia to hide this mechanism from himself. (17;350-351)

4. It is a sense of powerlessness that also causes nations to initiate wars. This has little to do with the 'actual' world situation or with the power that others might assign to them, but to an overall sense of powerlessness even, sometimes, regardless of world dominance. (21;419)

CRIMINALS

5. Most criminals, in or out of prison, share a sense of powerlessness and a feeling of resentment because of it. Therefore they seek to assure themselves that they are indeed powerful through antisocial acts, often of violence .... They feel isolated and alone, unappreciated, filled with rage which is constantly being expressed - in many cases but not all -through a steady series of minor social crimes .... In the case of criminals and their belief systems, aggression has a positive value. (17;348-349)

6. You isolate the criminal element .... The entire framework of a prison - with its bars - is a constant reminder to the convict of his situation, and reinforces his original difficulty .... In their ways the warden and guards subscribe to the same set of beliefs as that held by the prisoners - the idea that force and power is accentuated on both sides, and each believes the other is its enemy. The guards are certain that the prisoners are the dregs of the earth and must be held down at all costs. Both sides accept the concept of human aggression and violence as a method of survival. (17,350)

DEPRESSION

7. One of the strongest general causes of depression ... is the belief that your conscious mind is powerless either in the face of exterior circumstances ... or before strong emotional [tides] from within. (I 1;206)

4. Within certain limits

A. CREATUREHOOD (See Topic #7)

1. You are confined only to the extent that you have chosen physical reality, and so placed yourself within its context of experience. (1: 14)

2. Within the basic framework of the body chosen before physical birth ... the individual has full freedom to create a perfectly healthy functioning form. The form is, however, a mirror of beliefs, and will accurately materialize in flesh those ideas held by the conscious mind .... That is one of the body's primary functions. A sick body is performing that function then, in its way, as well as a healthy one. (5:102)

3. You cannot appreciate your spirituality unless you appreciate your creaturehood. It is not a matter of rising above your nature, but of evolving from the full understanding of it. There is a difference .... You can learn more from watching the animals than from a guru or minister - or from reading my book. (I 1:212)

DESIRE

4. You may follow one of the schools of Buddhism in which great stress is laid upon the denial of thebody and the avoidance of desire. These elements are quite characteristic of charismatic of Christianity also Philosophies that teach denial of the flesh must ultimately end up preaching a denial of the self and building a contempt for it The soul is meant to experience that reality, not to re fute it. In whatever terms, the devotee is told that there is something wrong with earthly experience. You are, therefore, considered evil as a self in flesh by virtue of your very existence. (12:244)

I L.)

BOTH THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL ARE IMPORTANT NOW

5. You attempt then to further banish the characteristic enjoyment of your own creaturehood, denying the lusty spirituality of your flesh and the strong corporeal leanings of your soul. You will try to rid yourself of very natural emotions, and so be cheated of their great spiritual and physical motion. (12:245)

6. You are now rooted in your creaturehood, graced to perceive through your. body a unique, living experience. So when I mention techniques that will allow you to perceive other fields of reality besides your own,...realize that these should be used to enhance your enjoyment of that creaturehood, and to enrich your sensual as well as spiritual expression. (14:294)

CHANGE THE PAST

7. The past is still happening. You create it from your present according to your beliefs. A removed apendix will not reappear physically. There are certain frameworks that are accepted, built into your reaturehood. There is far greater freedom, however, even on the cellular level. (15:313)

TIME

8. All existence are simultaneous. Within the bounds of creaturehood certain things are possible and certain things are not. You cannot regenerate a limb, or grow a new one. You can cure yourself of an 'incurable' disease if you realize that your point of power is in the present. (381)

9. There may be physical circumstances involving birth defects that are beyond alteration, where experience must be focused along other than usual pathways. (19:397-398)

10. There is no condition you cannot change, except one indisputably physically accepted at birth within the realms of creaturehood, such as a liability in terms of a missing organ, or a functional lack. (22:452)

B. LAG TIME

1. Usually there is a lag, a lapse of time, during which your beliefs cause material actualization. When you try to change your convictions in order to change your experience, you also have to first stop the momentum that you have already built up, so to speak. You are changing messages while the body is used to reacting smoothly, unquestioningly, to a certain set of beliefs .... When you alter these conscious beliefs through effort, then a period of time is necessary while the structure learns to adjust to the new preferred setup. If the beliefs are changed overnight, comparatively less time is required. In a manner of speaking, each belief can be seen as a powerful station, pulling to it from fields of probabilities only those signals to which it is attuned and blocking out all others. When you set up a new station, there may be some static or bleeding-through from an old one for a while. Any ability you have, then, can be "brought in more clearly', amplified, and become practicable instead of probable. But in such a case you must concentrate on the attribute - not ... upon the fact that you have not used it well thus far. (15;301)

5. And governed by your beliefs

A. BELIEFS

1. If you find great exuberance, health, effective work, abundance, smiles on the faces of those you meet, then take it for granted that your beliefs are beneficial .... But if you find poor health, a lack of meaningful work, a lack of abundance, a world of sorrow and evil, then assume that your beliefs are faulty and begin examining them. (2;35)

2. Ideas have an electromagnetic reality. Beliefs are strong ideas about the nature of reality. Ideas generate emotion. Like attracts like. (3;38)

3. You make your own reality. I cannot say this too often...."Wealth is everything." Now this idea is far from truth. The person who accepts it completely, though, will be wealthy and in excellent health .... Yet this is a belief about reality, and so there will be invisible gulfs in his experience of which he is ignorant. While the person seems quite content, beneath there will be the knawing knowledge of incompletion .... [Such a] rich man ... may suddenly realize that his belief is limiting .... The shattered belief may leave him open to illness. (3;48-49) 4. No idea slips insidiously past your awareness to affect your involuntary system unless it fits in with your own conscious beliefs. (5;101)

5. Your beliefs about yourself will automatically attract thoughts that are consistent with your ideas. (11;222)

TIME

6. Although time does not basically exist as you "know' it, you are neurological forced to perceive your life as a series of passing moments. As creatures you are born young and grow older. Yet the animals, as creatures, are not as limited in their experience in that regard. They have no beliefs in old age that automatically shut down their abilities: so left alone, while they do physically die as all creatures must in those terms, they do not deteriorate in the same way .... If you could convince yourself that you were ten years younger, or ten years older, then it would be faithfully reflected in your personal environment .... If you were sixty, you would be able to use the physical strength [you had at twenty but that] you imagine was denied you now, but available then. (15;305) 7. (Suppose a child] is told that is [good looking] and has a likeable personality. The idea takes hold. The person acts in line with this belief in all ways; but also a variety of subsidiary beliefs grow up about the main one. The belief in personal worth draws about it the belief in the personal value of others .... He may or may not be as attractive, feature by feature, as dome other individuals who believe, in fact, that they are unattractive. The belief in his own comeliness is so important that others will react to him in the same fashion. An individual can have great native beauty, for example, but this beauty is not apparent to others, or to the individual. The person does not believe that he or she possesses it, and mars the actual physical features so that the comeliness becomes literally invisible. (16;332-333)

8. You must understand ... that your ideas and thoughts do not exist as phantoms or shadow images without substance. They are electromagnetic realities. They affect your physical being. (6;107)

INHIBITED ABILITIES

9. If you believe that wealth is evil .... you automatically rob yourself of any ability that might bring you riches. Talents that are accepted as good in themselves may be inhibited simply because their fulfillment might lead to success in financial terms. (17;354)

B. OPPOSING BELIEFS

1. You may ... [hold] two quite conflicting ideas simultaneously, and with equal vigor. In such cases, you stalemated yourself. You may believe that you have a right to health, and yet with equal intensity believe that the human condition is by nature tainted. (4;66)

2. You may be poor ... You may try to alter the belief and say, 'My wants are taken care of and I have a great abundance'. Yet you may still find yourself unable to meet your bills .... So you think, "My conscious thoughts mean nothing". Yet upon examination of your beliefs you may find a deep conviction of your own unworthiness. You may find yourself thinking, 'I am no one to begin with", or "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer' or "The world is against me" or 'Money is wrong. People who have it are not spiritual". You may discover [many] beliefs that lead to the fact that you do want to have money or are afraid of it. (4;77)

3. [A woman, Andrea] has been told often that a woman without a man is in a very difficult situation, particularly a woman with children. She believes that a new mate will be almost impossible to find. She has been informed that children need a father, and feels at the same time that no man wants to become involved with a woman with children .... So her beliefs put her in a state of crisis. Change them and no crisis exists. (216) .... Andrea believes that her desirability as a woman decreases with the passage of each day. So she feels and acts less attractive when that belief holds sway. (I 1;217)

4. [Rubert] came face to face with two conflicting core beliefs. His 'writing self" followed one belief, in which writing certain material was permissible and good .... [Then] he found himself wanting to write about {his psychic experiences]. The previous beliefs in himself as a writer, however, clashed with these new urges because he did not consider anything but fiction as the [proper] work of a writer - except for poetry. (I 1;23 1) 5.

Rubert also saw that he believed he had to justify his existence through his writing. This is because he did not trust the basic right of his being as it existed, and does [exist now], in space and time. (1 1;233)

C. LINKED BELIEFS

1. I have frequently said that beliefs cause reality, and that no symptom will simply fade away unless the 'reason' is ascertained - but such reasons go far beneath your current ideas of cause and effect. They involve intimate philosophical value judgments on the part of each individual. (15;308)

2. You condition your body to react in certain fashions. Dealing with this is not a simple problem, of course, for the original suggestion of dis-ease was in itself given because of another belief. (16;330)

3. [Make a list of your beliefs]. You will finally come to what I call core beliefs, strong ideas about your existence .... Subsidiary beliefs ... appear as offshoots of core beliefs .... It is the core belief which is strong enough to so focus your perceptions that you perceive from the physical world only those events that correlate with it .... (An example:] It is a blanket belief: human nature is inherently evil. (3;47)

4. Questions you cannot seem to answer as you study your own ideas may lead you to suspect the existence of such invisible core beliefs... They are consciously available. (1 1;227)

D. BELIEFS VERSUS DESIRES

1. The unconscious accepts those orders given to it by the conscious mind When you [are] dissatisfied question the orders you are giving in that particular area of experience. The results do not seem, now, to follow your conscious desires. But you will find that they do follow your conscious beliefs, which may be quite different. (16;323)

E. CHANGING YOUR BELIEFS

1. There are two ways to get at your own conscious beliefs. The most direct way is to have a series of talks with yourself. Write down your beliefs .... 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. (11;222)

2. [Me other way:] You can work backward from your emotions to your beliefs .... Both approaches require honesty with yourself. (11;222)

3. Your point of power is in the present ... You hold beliefs that you can alter at any time. Many individuals die young, for example, because they believe so strongly that old age represents a degradation of the spirit and an insult to the body. They do not want to live under the conditions as they believe them to be. (18;366)

4. 'Mere are various ways of altering [a] belief .... Generate the emotion opposite the one that arises from the belief you want to change, and turn your imagination in the opposite direction .... Consciously assure yourself that the unsatisfactory belief ... is not an aspect of reality. (4;65)

5. You have not as yet completely examined your beliefs. [Example:] You are overweight .... You say “I will think of myself at my ideal weight". But you still overeat. In your mind's eye you still see yourself as overweight .... [But] examine your beliefs further .... You may, for instance, find that you believe you are not worthy, and hence should not look attractive. Or that health means physical weight and it is dangerous to be slim .... Or you may find that you feel and believe that you are so vulnerable that you need the weight so people will think twice before they shove you around. In all cases these ideas are conscious. (4;76)

F. YOU MUST ACT ON THE BASIS OF YOUR NEW BELIEF

1. You are not at the mercy of past beliefs ... On the other hand, the sooner you begin to act upon new ones the better. Otherwise you are not trusting them in the present. If you are poor and want to have more money, and try to maintain a belief in abundance - while still faced with the present fact of poverty - you must in your reality make some symbolic move that shows you are willing to accept a change. As foolish as it may sound, you should give some money away, or in whatever manner it suits you, act as if you did have more money than you physically have. You must respond to the new belief, so that neurological the new message gets across .... If you willfully change some of those [related] habits then you are also getting the message across. The initiative must come from you, and in the present .... This means changing your viewpoint. (15;310)

G. BELIEF IN NEGATIVES

1. Many who make a practice of "denying" negative suggestions from others, asserting positive affirmations instead, actually do so because they are fully convinced that the power of negative beliefs is stronger than that of positive ones. (16;320)

H. THE LAW OF ATTRACTION WORKS THROUGH BELIEFS

1. This operates in individual and mass terms. Suppose that today your home was robbed .... In one way or another, through your conscious thought you attracted such an event, and drew it from probability into actuality. The occurrence would be an accumulation of energy- turned into action - and be brought about by corollary beliefs. You may be convinced that human nature is evil, or that no one is safe from another's aggression, or that people are motivated by greed. Such beliefs attract their own reality. If you have anything worth losing, you are then automatically convinced that someone else will take it from you, or try their hardest to do so. In your own way you send out messages to just such a person. (15;300)

2. The fear of robbers attracts robbers. (15;301)

3. You can overcome fear

A. FEAR BLOCKS YOUR FLOW

1. When you are aware of the existence of the entity and of the soul, you can consciously draw upon their greater energy, understanding and strength .... Your conscious intent brings about certain changes in you that automatically trigger such benefits. The benefits will be felt down to the smallest cells within your body, and will affect even the most mundane events in your daily life .... Your understanding and desire are [very] important. The processes initiated are beyond your normal awareness. They occur automatically within your intent if you do not block them throgh fear, doubt or opposing beliefs. (9; 166-167)

2. If you do not believe in the natural healing processes you will simply block them. Your fear of not seeing a doctor then will only cause more damage ... If you have faith in medical help, this alone will bring therapeutic benefit. This can only go so far, though, if the inner problems are not dealt with. Often they are resolved regardless of what you do or believe, simply as a result of the vast creative energies within your being. (10;202203)

3. You may believe that good mental health means always being cheerful ... and kind, and never crying or showing disappointment. That belief alone can lead you to deny quite natural dimensions of human experience, and to impede the flow of emotions that could otherwise cleanse your body and your mind. (10;208)

4. When you refute such emotions ... you impede the flow ... You set up dams. Any emotion will change into another if you experience it honestly. Otherwise you clog the natural movement of your entire system. (I 1;22 1)

B. PERFECTION IS NOT DESIRABLE

1. Trying to be perfect all the time can be disastrous because of your misunderstanding. (8;141)

2. If you have been told that the spirit is perfect, and that you must be perfect in all your ways, while at the same time you believe in the imperfection of the body, you will always be in conflict with yourself. Many people are convinced that anger is always negative. It can be the most arousing and therapeutic emotion under certain circumstances. (I 1;209)

3. Perfection is not a state of being, for all being is in a state of becoming. This does not mean that all being is in a state of becoming perfect, but in a state of becoming more itself. (21;427)

C. EXERCISE #1

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 this 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. See this image exploding into your own consciousness, which is unbelievably bright. Realize that it is a portion of a far greater multidimensional structure, spread out in an even richer dimension. 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 there is a physical event that you strongly desire, then use that energy to imagine its actual occurrence as vividly as you can .... Energy may be directed to any portion of the body, and if you do not block its actions by disbelieves, that portion will be cured .... Here we are speaking about conditions that can be physically cured -but not the growth of an arm if you were born without one, for example, or the correction of other lacks in the body at birth. (9;167)

Starting with your right to BE

A. AFFIRM YOUR RIGHT TO EXIST (See Topic #4A)

1. Affirmation means saying 'yes' to yourself and to the life you lead, and to accepting your own unique personhood .... Affirmation means that you embrace the life that is yours and flows through you. Your affirmation of yourself is one of your greatest strengths. You can at times quite properly deny certain portions of experience, while still confirming your own vitality. You do not have to say "yes" to people, issues, or to events with which you are deeply disturbed. Affirmation does not mean a bland wishy-washy acceptance of anything that comes your way, regardless of your feelings about it. Biologically, affirmation means health. You go along with life, understanding that you form your experience, emphasizing your ability to do so. Affirmation does not mean sitting back and saying, "I can do nothing. It is all in Fate's hands, therefore whatever happens, happens."....[Affirmation] is the acceptance of your individuality in flesh. Basically it is a spiritual, psychic and biological necessity, and represents your appreciation of your singular integrity. (21;415-416)

2. Affirmation means accepting your soul as it appears in your creaturehood ... You cannot deny your creaturehood without denying your soul, and you cannot deny your soul without denying your creaturehood. (21:417)

3. [Affirmation] means saying 'yes' to your own being. It means acquiescing to your reality as a spirit in flesh. Within the framework of your own complexity, you have the right to say 'no" to certain situations, to express your desires, to communicate your feelings. If you do so, then in the great flow and sweep of your eternal reality there will be an overall current of love and creativity that carries you. Affirmation is the acceptance of yourself in your present as the person that you are. Within that acceptance you may find qualities that you wish you did not have or that annoy you. You must not expect to be "per-fect"...Your ideas of perfection mean a state of fulfillment beyond which there is no future growth, and no such state exists. (21;425-426)

4. Affirmation always involves the acknowledgment of your power in the present ... Denial is the surrendering of that power. Affirmation then is the acquiescence to your ability, as a spirit within flesh, to form the physical reality of your creaturehood. (21;440-441)

5. YOU ARE GIVEN THE GIFT OF THE GODS; YOU CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY ACCORDING TO YOUR BELIEFS; YOURS IS THE CREATIVE ENERGY THAT MAKES YOUR WORLD; THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS TO THE SELF EXCEPT THOSE YOU BELIEVE IN. I AM SETH. I SPEAK MY NAME JOYFULLY, THOUGH NAMES ARE NOT IMPORTANT. THEN EACH OF YOU SPEAK YOUR NAMES WITH AFFIRMATION EACH MORNING. (22;452)

B. ACCEPT PRESENT POSITION

1. If you have a loving regard for yourself, then you will trust in your own direction. You will accept your present position, whatever it is, as being part of that direction, and realize that from it can come all the creative elements that you need. (22;442-443)

C. DO NOT SACRIFICE

1. Regardless of what you have been told, there is no merit in self-sacrifice.... A child who says, “I gave up my life for my parents and devoted myself to their care" means "I was afraid to live my own life, and afraid to let them live theirs. And so, in "giving' up my life I gained the life I wanted. (21:426-427)

D. KNOW YOU ARE IN A STATE OF GRACE

1. The feeling of grace is your emotional recognition of the necessity, purpose and freedom, the innate appreciation, of your rightness and your place in existence. (9;164)

2. When you are fairly happy and content in your daily life, you can be said to be in a state of grace. On those occasions when you feel at one with the universe, or come upon an exceptional experience in which you seem to go beyond yourself, you can said to be in a state of illumination, and this has many degrees and levels. In any such state your physical health benefits. (10;175-176)

3. You certainly have as much of a place in the universe as a squirrel, an ant or a leaf. You do not question their right to exist. Why question your own? (I 1;233)

4. The state of grace is, practically speaking, the cause of your sense of well-being and accomplishment. (12;238)

E. SAY NO WHENEVER YOU WISH

1. A frown is a natural method of communication, saying,..."I am upset". If you tell yourself to smile when you feel like scowling, then you are tampering with your natural expression and denying to another a legitimate communication that tells how you feel. (1 1;212)

2. Many who say they believe in the power of thought are so afraid of it that they inhibit it in themselves, avoiding any that appear negative or harmful. (1 1;212)

3. Individuality grants you the right of making decisions of saying 'yes" or "no'. By implication, to always acquiesce may very well mean that you are denying your own personhood A person who says "I hate' is at least stating that he has an "I" capable of hating. The one who says 'I have no right to hate", is not facing his own individuality Many disavow the experience of feelings they consider negative. They try to 'affirm' what they think of as positive emotions. They do not permit themselves the dimensions of their creaturehood, and by pretending to not feel what they feel, they deny the integrity of their own experience. (21;416)

4. Many who unexpectedly commit great crimes find it difficult to express the most normal denial, or to go against their given code of conventionality and respect. (21;418)

F. DON'T USE DENIA