JUST SETH

Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs

• FAQ: Who is Seth
  
  
• FAQ: Who would most benefit from reading the Seth books?
  
  
• FAQ: What are the fundamental teachings presented in the Seth Teachings?
  
  
• FAQ: Is there a basic summary of Seth teachings available?
  
  
• FAQ: What do other spiritual leaders say about Seth?
  
  
• FAQ: Are there any old published mainstream articles about Jane Roberts and Seth?
  
  
• FAQ: Where can I find a Timeline of Jane-Rob-Seth main events?
  
  
• FAQ: Can you recommend a good online repository of the most well known Seth books to download for free?
  
  
• FAQ: Where can I find free downloads of “The Personal Sessions” books
  
  
• FAQ: Where I can hear Jane Roberts channelling Seth?
  
  
• FAQ: Where I can hear Jane Roberts channelling Seth II?
  
  
• FAQ: What is the URL for the Seth Material search engine?
  
  

FAQ Section 2 - Quote Summary

• FAQ: What did Seth say about the distribution and success of the Seth Books?
  
  
• FAQ: What did Seth say about self promotion and book publicity?  New!
  
  
• FAQ: What did Seth dictate in his letter to correspondents?
  
  
• FAQ: What did Seth say about Fake News?  New!
  
  

FAQ Section 1 Replies

FAQ: Who is Seth?

Seth is the internationally acclaimed spiritual teacher who spoke through the author Jane Roberts while she was in trance and whose empowering message literally launched the New Age movement.

The books written by Seth have sold over seven million copies and have been translated into over eleven languages.

Seth's clear presentation of the furthest reaches of human potential, the eternal validity of the soul, and the concept that we create our own reality according to our beliefs, has rippled out to affect the lives of people in every corner of the globe.

Seth's voice clearly stands out as one of the major forces which led to the current New Age philosophical movement. His work (first published in the late 1960’s) has withstood the test of time and is still the most dynamic, comprehensive, brilliant and undistorted map of inner reality and human potential available today.

If you want answers to life’s most important questions, if you want to improve your life conditions, Seth will show you how, not by relying on him, but by accessing and using the tremendous source of power and wisdom that lies within each of us.

Source: (Internet Archive) : www.sethlearningcenter.org

FAQ: Who would most benefit from reading the Seth books?

According to Seth, the use of these books will encourage the flowering a consciousness. The mental, spiritual, and psychic acceleration will permit readers to use all of their abilities better.

Source: The Personal Sessions: Book 4 of The Deleted Seth Material; Deleted Session May 15, 1978 © 2016 Laurel Davies-Butts

FAQ: What are the fundamental teachings presented in the Seth Teachings?

Many claim that the Seth material kicked off the New Age movement. Since the overall teaching is very profound, the following summary is a very simplified assessment.

You Create Your Own Reality, according to your thoughts, emotions and beliefs.

You are an important part of the universe.

You will survive physical death and continue to exist in other realities.

You have been born into physical reality to learn, to grow, to enjoy, and to materialize the great joy and spontaneity of your being.

Everyone and every creature on this planet is connected.

We are all manifestations of ALL THAT IS and we are all “family.”

GOD (All THAT IS), the universal spirit, the universal intelligence, cares for you and supports you REGARDLESS of what religion you believe in.

We are supposed to learn to EXPAND our consciousness and become aware of our GREATER IDENTITY, our ETERNAL SOUL.

ALL TIME IS SIMULTANEOUS. Time as we experience it is a “camouflage.”

We each have access to AWESOME AMOUNTS OF ENERGY. We are being trained on how to use this energy skillfully, wisely and responsibly. We are learning how to become responsible co-creators with ALL THAT IS.

One of the most imporant skills to master is learning how to handle beliefs, thoughts, emotion and imagination. Whatever beliefs, thoughts and emotions you habitually focus on will be materialized in your reality.

Source: (Internet Archive) www.sethlearningcenter.org

FAQ: Is there a basic summary of Seth teachings available?”

The following are a set of links to www.sethlearningcenter.org webpages with short summaries:

What is the purpose of existence?

Seth on "You Create Your Own Reality”

Seth on What Happens After Death

Seth on War and Violence

Seth on Illness and Suffering

Seth on God and Religion (All That Is)

Seth on Your Eternal Soul (Inner Self/ Entity)

Seth on Time and Space as Camouflage

Seth on Wealth and Abundance

Source: (Internet Archive) : www.sethlearningcenter.org

FAQ: What do other spiritual leaders say about Seth?

The Seth books are considered essential reading by many best selling authors in the field of human potential. Here is a sample of their comments about Seth:

“I would like to see the Seth books as required reading for anyone on their spiritual pathway. The amazing in-depth information in the Seth books is as relevant today as it was in the early 70s when Jane Roberts first channeled this material.”

-Louise Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life

Re: (The Nature of Personal Reality:A Seth Book) “Quite simply one of the best books I've ever read.”

Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull

For more testimonials and source: (Internet Archive) : www.sethlearningcenter.org/Testimonials

FAQ: Are there any old published mainstream articles about Jane Roberts and Seth?

In November 1970, there was an article titled, Modern Psychics: A Profile of Jane Roberts that was published in the Inner Space magazine of the psychic and the occult. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Jane Roberts: Modern Medium by C. C. Chambers Jane Roberts sits in her pleasant living room. She talks animatedly, and suddenly, almost at the snap of a finger, she goes into trance. The lights have not been dimmed, nor have any elaborate breathing exercises preceded her trance. Her voice lowers to a male register, the pupils of her eyes darken and dilate perceptibly. The personality of Seth has come.

Most mediums supposedly receive messages from another realm, often from the recently departed. Some have special guides, or "alternative personalities." It is not yet clear who or what a control personality is. Eileen Garrett, for example, has Uvani; Douglas Johnson, Chiang; Mrs. Leonard had Feda. Jane Roberts has Seth. Seth uses Jane Roberts' body to some extent. Her facial characteristics change. Her eyes look directly at you as she speaks in Seth's voice, but they are no longer her eyes.

Full length article (Internet Archive): www.sethlearningcenter.org/InnerSpace1970.pdf

There are also a few local newspaper articles written by Peg Gallagher who, along with her husband Bill, became close friends with Jane and Rob. Details can be found at the Seth Research Project website Two Interesting Articles about Jane and Seth

FAQ: Where can I find a Timeline of Jane-Rob-Seth main events?

There is an in depth timeline of the life of Jane Roberts and her husband Robert Butts which includes details about close family members and pets here

FAQ: Can you recommend a good online repository of the most well known Seth books to download for free?

The website http://lukaali.com/seth/ has a large selection of Seth e-books, but not all of them are .pdfs. Epub books can be easily converted using free software like Calibre.

The website https://ebook-hunter.org/ also has a large selection of Seth e-books, some in multiple formats. Epub books can be easily converted using free software like Calibre.

FAQ: Where can I find free downloads of “The Personal Sessions” books

The website ebook-hunter.org link has all the Personal Session books plus but only in epub format. Epub books can be easily converted using free software like Calibre.

FAQ: Where I can hear Jane Roberts channelling Seth?

This video comes from Barrie Gellis, who was an original member of Jane’s weekly Seth classes. There is a long write-up here and reference to a book that he wrote from his own perspective, after studying the Seth material for 47 years. YouTube | 19 Jun 2023 The Only Existing Video of Seth Speaking Through Jane Roberts With Some Additional Goodies

FAQ: Where I can hear Jane Roberts channelling Seth II?

There is audio recording of Seth Two on the Seth Research Project webpage Seth Two Speaks (and so do I!), that comes with a transcript.

FAQ: What is the URL for the Seth Material search engine?

The Seth Material search engine can be found here. However, not all the results come back sorted correctly. Therefore, having copies of the books is the best way to verify results.

FAQ Section 2 Replies

FAQ: What did Seth say about the distribution and success of the Seth Books?

The following long quote provides details of how the slow rollout of the Seth books by mainstream publishers was highly beneficial for a variety of reasons. This included getting the message out to the general public and bypassing the usual occult groups.

    (I asked Jane to hold this session so that we could get information on two questions: 1. The sales of her books, both hardcover and paperback. 2. Her status concerning her symptoms.)
    Good evening.
    (“Good evening, Seth.”)
    The session to cover the points you requested.
    Now, you mentioned some important issues pertaining to the books yourself this evening, having to do with their particular nature. When you publish a paperback of ours, this is like publishing a new book for the first time. I am speaking of our books only—not, for example, of novels or other “occult” tracts.
    If you remember, it took a while for The Seth Material , with Prentice, to do well. It was distributed to bookstores and areas specifically involved with the conventional occult field. Even though such people are familiar with the general area of our work, still the book did not fit into a general mold. It took a while, then—though not too long— before the book began to sell well. The other books quickly followed with, to that degree, a now built-in sales advantage.
    The general public, however, has been obviously largely ignorant of the books. Publishing them in paperback presents a different picture. Again, they do not fit into the overall occult picture as even the general public understands it. There is no position, no God from the mountain top, and no dumb or docile medium to be taken advantage of by the spirits or otherwise. The work is not simplistic.
    It will take longer then for the general public than it did, for example, with The Seth Material hardcover, for several reasons. As you mentioned, you are outside, not fitting into any acceptable mold. The general public, moreover, in those terms does not know how to respond. Many, picking up those paperbacks, do so on impulse, and are unfamiliar with any such books. They cannot laugh the matter off. The books require personal questioning. Some people are frightened. They are also intrigued. But many put off spending more money, say, for a hardcover book, because this would involve a commitment involving the ideas themselves. The books are immediate in a way, for example, that the Castaneda books are not. Castaneda speaks of what is really exotic behavior from your cultural viewpoint. We are saying that changes can be made from within the culture. You do not have to be an Indian guru, or appear and disappear at will, so the books invite instant challenge. People do not feel silly buying such a paperback, but many of these people, in the general public now, have to make certain mental adjustments before they will spend more. Spending more means that they consider the ideas to be worthwhile.
    The three paperbacks are like balloons sent up with news items written upon them. While there is a lag, therefore, the overall picture is as I have given it in the past. (That the books will do well. RFB.)
    The paperbacks are important, regardless of sales values, because they appear in the ordinary marketplace, out of esoteric cubbyholes. You have a loyal core of readers who were already acquainted generally with “occult” books—but to a larger overall extent, that is a steady but dead-end road. It can be counted upon, may grow slightly, but will not affect the overall culture to any considerable degree.
    Moreover, from this other general (paperback) market, you will consistently pick up a newer group of readers. To some extent you have been “hitting the underground movements.” Well and good, and important. You are competing now, as you were not before, however, in that general market with all of the conventional cultural goodies. As mentioned, you are not packaging our material either in such a way that it builds upon the cliches of the occult field believed in as the public sees it.
    Many of these people also are generally not book readers. Ruburt (Jane) mentioned that. Many are not culturally advantaged. They do not naturally go into bookstores—but they will.
    The paperbacks will not go out of print except for short periods. They will not build up quickly in sales, but they will, and they will provide a dependable income. In ways the entire picture will change.
    The paperback Personal Reality will be highly important in the ultimate changes that do take place. You are in an in-between period. If you went out in a grand manner, publicizing the books, appearing on shows, you could indeed quicken the pace—but in so doing other intangibles would also be altered. There is a great difference between keeping the people always in mind, and playing to the crowd for whatever reasons, but there would be a tendency for purposes to be altered.
    It is not that those challenges would not be met, but in meeting them you would end up with a different kind of work and experience.
    I have nothing against bestsellers, and as I predicted the books will succeed financially beyond anything you would have thought—but over a period of time, in a dependable fashion, and in a way that will also best be suited to the temper of the times. That is, the books will have a strong active part to play over the period of your lifetimes, rather than for example selling in the millions in a year or two, then vanishing from the scene.
    We are hopefully educating people, and this does not give you a bestseller overnight, even when my humor is added to amuse people. You will be more than financially comfortable—far better off in the future— though not necessarily in the near future, like next year, than you are now.
    To be an overnight financial sensation, however, would present a reality that does not fit into your joint plans and purposes. This does not mean there is anything wrong with such an overnight sensation. Most likely, Ruburt will do some teaching in the future, not immediately, with a different format entirely. Your purposes and the purposes of the three publishers all mix and merge, with unconscious knowledge of the importance of the books, and the ways in which they are to be presented—not that there won’t also be some “natural” misunderstandings here and there, also.
    Issues operate so clear to me it is difficult for me to understand that they seem to escape your notice. It is hard for me to separate them. They are minute to me. The two Bantam sales, for example, Material and Seth Speaks, served purposes for you and Ruburt, and Prentice as well.
    The immediate money resulting with the contracts served as financial reinforcement at a time when you and Ruburt needed it. This was more important than you seem to remember. (Although I do keep this in mind. So does Jane, I think.) Ruburt was worried about money in the bank then—not six months or a year hence with royalties. Prentice wanted to set up a paperback mass connection, for to them this means that a book is good and has value financially. They also wanted quick cash. It was a poor year financially speaking for them. They also needed financial reinforcement. You and Ruburt also wanted the books to be in the general market.
    The paperbacks have not cut down the occult market that you had secured. Those people have already read the books, and are waiting for more. There would have been a lag in sales until the next book, which then triggers the loyal to pick up any of the others they might have missed along the way.
    The paperbacks in the meantime are picking up new readership that will broaden your base. Saleswise, then, you would more or less be in the same position now, whether or not the books had been sold to mass markets. The advantage, however, has not yet shown; for the people are still immersed in the books they have.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
    The books require far more on the part of the reader than most books. Therefore our readers feel a sense of accomplishment when they are done.
    On the other hand their ideas are so challenged that it takes them a while. They read one book several times. “Unknown” Reality will do far better than even Personal Reality did.
    Prentice knows that the hardcovers will continue to do well over the years. They also understand that the general market paperbacks do not last— that is, they come apart. The people who really enjoy these books will buy Prentice editions as their own wear out, using hardcovers to make notations, etc.
    Many also will not spend money for a hardcover unless they have first found the book valuable enough through reading the paperbacks.

The Personal Sessions: Book 3 of The Deleted Seth Material, DELETED SESSION JULY 4, 1976

FAQ: What did Seth say about self promotion and book publicity?

The following long quote was dictated by Seth when Jane Roberts and her husband Robert Butts complained that they were not being fairly paid for their efforts. This is a rare occasion when Seth pointed out in an oblique way the soul age of the popular market. So, their specific market was smaller and they were not playing the normal game that people expect. Seth’s remarks have a wider implications for how society and the New Age Movement/Cultic Milieu operates.

    “Popular novelists and writers are above all things people of their times. They are socially oriented, dealing with lively discourse. They cannot see beyond the times. As a rule, however, they enjoy people as people are. They enjoy stupid people, wicked people, cowardly people, bigoted people, and sometimes wise people too. They do not make demands. They share the belief systems of their times, and they are richly rewarded—generally speaking, now—for there is overall no great conflict between their natural works, their writing, and the world at large.
    (I should take the space here to set the scene. After supper this evening I read a news account of the riches accruing to a nationally known popular writer, his son and daughter, who shall be nameless here. Royalties, primetime TV series, movies, TV specials—there was no area in which the family wasn’t making incredible amounts of money. All they produce is garbage. I was of course especially angry that they were world renowned while I thought Jane’s great abilities were largely unappreciated and ill paid for by Prentice, Bantam, etc. The recent sale of Oversoul Seven to an English publishing house for an unbelievable $100, and Prentice’s recent notice to us of a possible sale of Seth Speaks for translation and publishing by a German house for only $300 bothered me greatly; I just couldn’t believe that so little money was available in Europe, no matter what Prentice told us. [I still don’t.]
    (My discussion upset Jane, of course, as she made ready for tonight’s session, and I was left feeling angry and taken advantage of. I also felt that Jane was largely unconcerned by the foreign rights questions, and to me this was rather inconceivable, if such a word can be so qualified.
    (I mention these points because Seth deals with them also this evening.) The world responds to such people’s acceptance. Obviously escapism is involved—but at certain levels of interaction the beliefs smoothly flow from creation to market. No great challenges are presented, and no real condemnations; and when these do occur they are of a conventional nature, perhaps already stylish accusations. They are part and parcel of the social world.
    A great many people belong to that world. Even intelligent men and women, some original thinkers, depend upon more or less organized procedures and recognized channels, through which communications with others like them are made. These are, for example, the psychological societies, the medical or scientific groups in which people who share common interests and backgrounds have a meeting place. While these people may sometimes be quite original in their particular field and interest, they are still used to dealing with others, through various means that are established—workshops, seminars, and so forth. Seldom do they leave those social rituals.
    Not only is our own work rather unique, but you have no academic credentials. You have avoided, for example, holding seminars of that nature. In that framework many psychologists, for example, would feel comfortable, but you offer no such bridge to anyone. You avoid “the wild psychic world” of cults, semicults, and so forth, and above all you are individualists who do not play according to game rules.
    Those rules are extremely important to others. You did not, for example, fall in with the Monroes. He considered that a slight.
    Psychics are supposed to stick together, at least informally, before the world. They expect from each other a kind of blanket approval that neither of you give. Our books are being read by many “important people” in medicine, science, religion, and the arts. They are indeed forming events. You are to that extent affecting your society. You do not, however, through your attitudes play the kind of game that is necessary.
    For one thing, you do not respect position, and your attitudes are clear, through your notes and Ruburt’s introductions. You do not play up whatever “important” contacts you have made. Ruburt could easily have given impressions concerning, say, Richard Burton, to Goodheart (Bill) , who would have been initially impressed, and would have spread the word. Ruburt disdains such maneuvers.
    You have little patience, jointly, with that kind of world. The Hollywood director (Alan Neuman) who called, for example. Ruburt was warm, curious, and solitary. He did not reinforce the director’s sense of his own importance, and the man was used to that. Nor did he speak in the honeyed spiritual tones that the man expected from the psychics he dealt with.
    You do not fit any of the current patterns, and you make no effort to— nor do you offer any face-saving devices for scientists of high stature. Anyone of the highest stature will come to you if you offer them personal readings. They will not come to you when you say “You create your own reality” in the same fashion.
    You are remarkably free, believe it or not, of weird strangers at your doors, under the circumstances. You cannot honestly criticize your society, stand apart from it, and expect it to pat you on the back—that is asking too much of people.
    The society is supporting you. It is accepting your work, and in your terms—those terms that exist because of your beliefs and your attitudes. The books are being read, though you do not go on tours. You do not play any of the games, and you do not have a healthy give-and-take with that society. You are ahead of the times, and behind them—yet through the point of power you affect those times. You change them.
    You have continued along these lines because of your intents. I placed no demands upon you from the beginning. You made certain decisions and you have stuck more or less with them. You want to affect your society in your time — indirectly: you do not want to put up with the people.
    Flattery is no social crime. It is a psychological art of its own, taken for granted in all circles. You do not flatter others in personal encounters. You make no effort to cultivate the kind of characteristics involved. Ruburt has them, and ignores them. Some important people, in your terms, do not contact you personally except on rare occasions. Those who bang at your doors are the antisocial, the drifters, the troubled, or those so enthusiastic that they also ignore all social rules, in which case you two rise up in arms. There are publishing games also, and you do not play these. If you play those games and do poorly, you at least have a right to shout “foul” now and then—and I will tell you something: Prentice looks out for your interests in the person of John (Nelson) far more than you give him credit for. He likes you.”

—The Personal Sessions: Book 3 of The Deleted Seth Material; Deleted Session June 27, 1977 © 2016 Laurel Davies-Butts

Comment: I truly respect this analysis and I respect the stance taken by Jane Roberts and Robert Butts. This couple were not interest in ingratiating themselves with anyone just to fit in.

FAQ: What did Seth dictate in his letter to correspondents?

The following long quote was dictated by Seth when Jane Roberts and her husband Robert Butts began to be bombarded by correspondence that became impossible to handle.

Image found using Yandex.com. Click image for link

    Dear correspondent:
    Ruburt has read your letter. So has Joseph. I am aware of its contents. We have no organization yet of an exterior kind, so there are no secretaries to take dictation, no middlemen—or—women to write flowery, prepackaged replies.
    Ruburt and Joseph, or Jane and Rob if you prefer, are private people. They also have a kind of one-to-one relationship with the universe. This particular quality means that they resist forming any kind of organization, even though such an organization might help in answering the mail. I am, therefore, dictating this letter, while it will be sent to many of you, it is written to each of you, and I only regret that I cannot go into your aspirations, challenges and problems on a more individual basis. Some of you have written in joy, some in sorrow. Some of you have written to tell of answers you have found, and some of you have written requesting answers. In any case, energy is being sent out to you with this letter.
    That energy will arouse in you your own abilities. It will lead you to insights and solutions that can be yours alone. It will put you in touch with the ground of your being—from which, eventually, all exultation and answers spring. My purpose is not to solve your problems for you, but to put you in touch with your own power.
    My purpose is not to come between you and your own freedom by giving you “answers,” even to the most tragic of problems. My purpose is to reinforce your own strength, for ultimately the magic of your being is wellequipped (?) to help you find fulfillment, understanding, exuberance, and peace.
    Your problems are caused by your own doubts. These doubts arise because you have been out of touch with the validity of your own existence. Let me here reinforce that validity. Let me reinforce faith in your innate ability to find joyful acquiescence, and to rise above any problems that you have.
    If I presume to solve problems for you, then I deny you your own power, and further reinforce any feelings of powerlessness that you have. I know that you can grow tired, however, and that sometimes a gift of energy can be quite a boost; so, again, with this letter I send my joyful recognition of your existence—and energy that you can use to reinforce your own vitality and strength.
    All mail does not come from the postman, so each of you should have your own kind of inner response from me to whatever letter you have sent by mail. I serve in many ways as a speaker for your own psyche, however, so the inner message will be from your own greater being to yourself, and at that multidimensional level of reality I salute you.
    Seth

The Personal Sessions: Book 3 of The Deleted Seth Material @2016, DELETED SESSION, APRIL 29, 1975

FAQ: What did Seth say about Fake News?

The following long quote was dictated by Seth when giving another viewpoint as to why Jane Roberts was taking a long time to recover from her self-imposed restrictions. For those readers familiar with the Seth books, it will be already apparent that Jane and her husband Robert Butts considered themselves intellectuals, but they also generally believed much of the mass media narrative.

    Good evening.
    (“Good evening, Seth.”)
    Now: in basic terms you form your reality, privately and en masse— through your beliefs, of course, and those beliefs cause you to organize your psychic world in certain fashions.
    You use such belief organizations to concentrate upon certain data and ignore other, so that consciously and unconsciously you organize inner and outer stimuli so that it makes sense according to your beliefs, and forms therefore a more or less dependable framework in which action and response are possible.
    History is written according to the present beliefs of a historian in his time. As you know, your western world followed its own mixture of Christianity, Darwinism, and Freudian psychology. Because those ideas still are largely in the mainstream of your society, your television news, newspapers, and magazines are invisibly slanted. The news is invisibly organized to fit certain patterns, so that when you read or hear it, it carries the seemingly indelible mark, confirming the basic beliefs of the culture.
    I am not speaking strictly of political parties or political newspapers, or of any specialized journals or magazines, but of the overall pattern displayed by all of your mass communications. You can see easily, however, the highly specialized, intensified view of the world that is apparent in scientific journals. These are in sharp conflict with, for example, religious journals. If you look you can easily become aware of these specialized worlds.
    Regardless of these differences, the overall picture is largely the same: you cannot trust yourself, your body, the natural world. You are everywhere presented with the evidence. The headlines speak of problems between nations, mass and private crime, illness. The misuse of animals, man’s stupidity and cruelty, so it seems that the species is nearly insane. Let us look at the invisible organization behind such material, however. I do not want to shock you, but there are quite as many cases of honest heroism as there are crimes committed. There are patterns of highly constructive change that never show, as far as your media is concerned. There are as many people recovering from diseases, even by themselves, as those who succumb. There are compensating, creative earth patterns occurring in terms of energy, but these do not show.
    If you do not understand this, then you will take your newspapers and other news unthinkingly, thinking that a fairly adequate picture of world events is being portrayed—a picture that only deepens the negative feelings that are behind the invisible organization of such data. In such a way you miss any significant evidence to the contrary.
    Privately, then, you will to some extent or another have to take up defenses against that reality. As long as you think that your physical information about the world, through newspapers and so forth, presents a fairly adequate, objective view of events, then all of the evidence to the contrary will literally be invisible, for you will continue to organize your view of the world in the old way. You will think, for example, when a story about misuse of political power is concerned “That’s only one story. How many more politicians do the same thing?”
    For the newspapers also act in a suggestive fashion, further programming your expectations. In a way you organize your physical experience as you do your inner life, through association, through emotional association. I am not simple speaking of sensationalism in newspapers or on TV. When you read the news or hear it, however, because of cultural beliefs you are programmed to behave in a certain fashion, in a fashion that validates, seemingly, the concepts of Freud and Darwin, and the most unfortunate aspects of Christian pessimism.
    This is not done with any ill intent. Individuals collect the news and write it. To many people, some kind of organization, even one that is wobbly, is far better than facing the task of setting up an entirely new view of reality. The inner structure of most of your organizations and institutions are based on those old precepts. Individual lives have been constructed along those frameworks.
    (With gentle irony:) You made a remark earlier this evening to the effect that the individual could do nothing in the face of such organized behavior—a remark that by now I’m sure you regret voicing. (I laughed.) Those ideas to begin with began with individuals. The people who make and report the news are individuals. The people who read or view the news are individuals. To some extent through the books you are helping people alter their psychic organizations, to look at the world in a different fashion, and therefore to view a different world—a world in which their experiences are different than they would have been otherwise.
    Many people are already beginning to alter their picture of the world, but they are afraid of trusting their own intuitions. Consider the lengthy letter from the young English gentleman. In a large measure, the world in which he now lives is a highly more enjoyable and productive one than it was before.
    His experiences are entirely different than they would have been. In terms of probability, he took a new probable road, which means that his individual impact upon the world, and everyone he meets, will also be different and more creative than it would have been before.
    Unless Ruburt does, no one will remark about this young man. No one will trace the beneficial change in his life, and their effects upon others. People generally have been taught to play down their own heroism, and to concentrate upon man’s weaknesses, and so your newspapers contain categorized fact upon fact, emphasizing man’s errors and stupidities. It has become virtuous to keep track of these, as if concentrating upon errors will do anything but compound them.
    I am, again, not telling you to be blind to physical events, but to realize that the news media, and your organizations, are not giving you an “objective” view of the world, but a view compounded and composed by Freudian and Darwinian beliefs. I would also like to remind you both of the difference between direct experience and second-handed tales. Examine your own personal experience with physical reality now and then when you have a moment (with irony), relying only upon your own experience. It is impossible, I know, and not really beneficial, to try to separate yourselves entirely from the cultural world, but you should understand the makeup of that world, and be able now and then at least to separate your private experiences from it, even though they must occur in its context.
    How many crimes have you each personally encountered? How many people have been generally well-disposed toward you? How many have been actively vicious? What has actually been your own experience with war, with prejudice, with hatred? How much of your view of reality has been formed by direct experience, and now much has been formed through secondary sources, such as communications media, or tales brought to you by others?
    This is an excellent exercise because it puts you in touch with your own experience, and at least gives you a point from which you can make judgments of your own.
    Your neighbor, Joe, had pneumonia, or a cold, or the snivels (upon returning from Florida last week). To Margaret he had pneumonia, because she organizes reality in a certain fashion, and by slightly exaggerating certain data, she then uses it to reinforce certain beliefs. She then must take steps of course to protect herself against illness, and she is in fear of robbers for the same reason.
    She does not trust her body nor her fellow men. She watches news for stories of illnesses and robbers.
[... 3 paragraphs...]
    To some extent, it is because you have accepted the newspapers’ view of reality as real, that you have allowed yourselves to dwell upon certain attitudes about your fellows—so that for example sometimes the world does not seem to deserve great art; or that you even feel you do not want to share your work with the stupid bastards (Seth said, staring at me. I laughed again).
    I am trying to induce Ruburt to drop his muscular armor. In the world of his experience he does not need it. His direct experience has not included it, the cruel adult world that he must protect himself against. It certainly does not include a frightening psychic world, actually or otherwise. Any fears he had there he picked up through reading, or through the reports of others, so let him also separate his private experience in that respect.
    Collecting such distorted data about inner or outer worlds can only make an individual build up defenses, or want to. The newspaper world is, then, highly distorted, organized in such a manner that its data reinforce negative beliefs, and constantly give evidence only of negative patterns. These then are taken as an objective picture of the fact world.
    All of the heroism, the private and even mass triumph, and the good intent, have been left out. The world is seen as a patient, sick in body, insane of mind, a thing that needs treatment, a Freudian and Darwinian monster. Even with your own changed beliefs, the two of you still see that mirror when you read a newspaper, and do not realize the invisible organizations behind the news. It makes it seem foolhardy to relax, doesn’t it?
    All of these things to some extent stand in the way of Ruburt’s recovery. They point precisely to those areas in which both of you heartily agreed, though Ruburt’s way of getting work done was not yours. This session must be taken into consideration with other ones, for I am making certain points here that are important, but that do not of course stand alone.
[... 3 paragraphs...]
    The newspapers act as hypnotic suggestion of a potent kind. There is no one present who can confirm the newspaper’s evidence. You cannot ask questions of a newspaper, or of a news program. The entire pattern of these latest sessions deals with your inner reactions to your beliefs about yourselves and the world. Tonight I am dealing with a specific area. To some extent, however. These newspaper beliefs shut you off from full utilization from Framework 2’s potency.
    Hopefully, I am teaching you to reorganize your inner lives, so that you attract the best to yourselves from inner and outer reality. [...]
[... 1 paragraph...]
    If the world seems too unsafe, you set up projections often against shadows, because you have accepted those shadows unthinkingly as facts. Those ideas, mentioned earlier, even inhibit the free creative flow of our books into the world to some extent, for you do not have as clear a channel as possible.

—The Personal Sessions: Book 4 of The Deleted Seth Material; Deleted Session December 3, 1977 © 2016 Laurel Davies-Butts

Comment: There is a lot of information in the Personal Sessions series about this couples attitude to the world. In my opinion, they had no idea how much they had been programmed and Seth deliberately did not make a big deal of it either..... So, the influence of society and culture on these old souls is actually very interesting, because despite the negative influence, it did not stop their search for truth.