Mike's commentary · Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Session 903

The "Introduction" and "Key Points" of this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This session centers on Session 903, held on February 25, 1980, and puts forward the earth's perceptual grid: humans and all species are its living components, and the major categories of species are like layers within the network, which must exist simultaneously, otherwise the grid cannot operate. The lesson covers how the physical universe is copied over from another reality, how different versions of the earth exist in succession, and how the perceptual grid does not exist forever. After the session, Rob asks about reincarnation and cats, double dreams, and fragment personalities. Seth responds that animals reincarnate within the same major category, that human fragment personalities can be projected onto animals, and explains how dreams form collective frameworks.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Humanity perceives the physical world through the earth's perception grid, and is a living, integral part of that grid.
• All major categories of life are absolutely necessary parts of the perception grid; if any one category were missing, the grid would cease to function because of the resulting gap.
• The physical universe is copied from another reality, coexists and interacts with other realities; once a world exists, it is imprinted upon eternity.
• After consciousness selects the larger category of physical existence, reincarnation remains within that category; animals do not reincarnate as humans, but fragment personalities of humans can project into animals.
• All dreams form a collective dream framework, and the actions of the world are resolved within the communication of the collective dream.

Main Text

The Earth's Perceptual Grid and the Simultaneous Existence of Species

This session began at 9:16 PM on Monday, February 25, 1980¹. Rob came up first and gave a basic introduction: he said that whenever he types up the contents of each session from his notebooks, he files them into one of two archives. One archive is for regular sessions or book-related sessions, which we can call the official version of the Seth material, and these now fill 77 volumes; while the private material, or the material he would delete, amounts to 22 volumes. Because this Seth material involves their personal lives, their friends, and other personal privacy issues, in this country that protects privacy, he cannot casually or lightly make these private matters public. So we can roughly understand that in 1980, the ratio of Seth material was about 77 volumes to 22 volumes², one quarter being private sessions and three quarters being public sessions³.

Jane wrote a small note this morning, and Rob wanted to insert it into volume 77, into the official sessions. In that note, Jane said that last weekend she received something from Seth, something about the earth's perceptual grid -- she would explain it below, having found no better word to describe it. What it says is that we perceive this world, we cognize this world, and for that we need such a perceptual grid. Here "grid" is a good word for it; it is like a grid, like the coordinate paper we used as children, or the lines of latitude and longitude on the earth -- that is a good way to understand it. We humans perceive this world precisely through this perceptual grid -- we are both a part of this perceptual grid, and it is only through this grid that we can perceive this world. Without this perceptual grid, humanity would be unable to perceive the existence of this material world.

And everything must be created simultaneously, otherwise there would be holes in that grid. This "hole" was the best word Seth could think of at the time, but such a formulation is not complete. You may still find it hard to understand -- you might say, can't you just fill the hole in? Actually, this hole is not a hole; you will understand it better if you think of it as a "fault line."

Then, as we sat waiting for the session to begin, Jane told Rob that after dinner today, she had received some material from Seth, material she was not sure about -- she did not understand what Seth meant. At dinner she knew what tonight's session would be about, but she said she could not make sense of it; this material had already gone beyond the limits of Jane's cognition. Here it involved questions about mammalian species, subspecies, and other classifications among living things. Actually, it was not just this question, not just a matter of biological terminology. Rob believed this came from Seth's intuition, clearly directly relevant, and that some creative part of her psyche never stopped working. Rob said this perceptual grid and the classification of animal species should have some connection, and indeed there was a great deal of connection. He said he would soon try to explain biological taxonomy -- this is a discipline, a very large body of knowledge within it. It divides all the species of this world into many categories: the largest is called a kingdom, such as the plant kingdom or the animal kingdom; beneath the animal kingdom there are further divisions into class, order, family, genus, and so on, very fine and detailed.

Since we did not have a dictionary at hand to verify my memory, this was all basic biology that Rob learned when he was very young, perhaps in high school, and it was rather vague. He could not find material to verify it. However, he did help Jane understand that mammals are not a subspecies under any other group, but rather a major category of warm-blooded animals -- mammals are the warm-blooded class under vertebrates, the kind whose offspring need to drink mother's milk, abbreviated as mammals. What is very interesting is that the knowledge of taxonomic vocabulary was very limited; Jane did not understand these biological classification terms, and yet Seth was able to use correct, general terminology to teach this session. Even so, he still added his own meaning to certain basic concepts of classification.

All right, let us look directly at the content. Seth began directly by saying:

The world as you know it exists as it does because you yourself are a living part of the great, conscious grid of perception. (Session 903)

What he means is that you can feel this world existing as it is, or as you feel it should be, precisely because you are a living component of this world's conscious grid. In other words, you are within the conscious grid, the conscious perceptual grid of the entire earth, and that is why you can feel the existence of this earth. I emphasize once again: the reason you feel the existence of this earth and this material world is premised on the fact that you are a member of this entire earth's conscious grid.

I said earlier I would give you a vivid example, and I will use today's ubiquitous internet to help you understand it. Today's younger generation perceives this world largely through the internet. The reason they can perceive the existence of the whole world is that they are a member of the entire internet -- they also post their own content and information, and they also watch the content and information others post; they both produce content and consume and follow others' content. I use the internet to help you understand this conscious grid of the earth because the two share many similarities in form, but I emphasize again that this is only an example to help you understand it; you cannot equate the two completely. Later, when we find it hard to understand this perceptual grid or conscious grid, just think of the internet, and you will be able to gain a certain intuitive understanding.

Then Seth continued:

In those terms, each cell is a sender and a receiver of information.

In such terms, all the larger divisions of life -- such as our mammals, fish, birds -- are living, absolutely necessary parts of the grid network. Here he begins to emphasize: within this grid of the earth, these classifications of animals, these classifications of plant and animal species, are part of the entire grid, an absolutely necessary part.

The picture of the world, however, is not just the result of transmitting and receiving those messages, but is also caused by the relationships between those messages.

This part is very much like the internet. Our world is not just about these messages being sent back and forth, received back and forth, and that is the end of it; rather, it lies in the fact that the senders and receivers of this information develop certain relationships in the process of transmitting this information. This relationship is very important; this relationship, together with the senders and receivers of information, and with this information itself, jointly constitutes our world.

Let me say it again, because this session has a certain difficulty of understanding: within this conscious grid, or perceptual grid, or grid of sensation -- whatever you call it -- the most basic components of this grid perception system are every species that exists on this earth, each one an indispensable part of this perceptual grid, without which it cannot function. And every component within this grid is made up of three parts: first, every member that makes up this grid -- cells, atoms, small animals, a tree, a blade of grass, including humans -- is a member of this earth's conscious grid; second, these members themselves have their own consciousness, their own information, and they are linked together through this conscious grid, exchanging information with one another; third, the mutual relationships among them. These three parts together build such an earth conscious grid.

The reason we can feel this material earth as so alive, so real in its existence, is that you are both a member of this grid and you live within this grid; it is only through this grid that you can understand the entire world -- from the smallest particle to the greatest mountains and continents, all are members within this grid. Just as, although you do not understand all the knowledge on the entire internet, in theory once you are connected to the internet, you can obtain the shared knowledge of all participants on the internet -- if you want to obtain it, you can, because you are connected to this network. Through our outer senses -- eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind -- we attach ourselves to such an earth conscious grid, and therefore we can feel the existence of this earth grid; we see that whether plants, animals, or the surrounding environment on this earth, all are perceived by us.

Speaking of this, what does it remind you of? Does it not have a cyberpunk feel, a metaverse feel? Does it not feel as though our entire material world is a networked, grid-like existence? Let us continue reading; this session will absolutely blow your mind.

In your terms, all of the large classifications of life existed at the beginning of the world. Otherwise the grid of perception that makes the awareness of physical life itself possible would have large holes in it. (Session 903)

This passage is very important; it is the core of this entire session, and this is the one question he wants to address in this session. Let me explain again what he wants to say. The "large holes" here may cause you to misunderstand -- you might think, so what if there are large holes? Can't we just skip over the holes? Can't we just not perceive that part? For example, suppose the category of cats did not exist on our earth, or the extinct dinosaurs did not exist -- would our earth then not exist? Would our perceptual grid then be unusable? He says, yes, and why is that? Because the concept of a hole is hard for you to understand.

First, let me show you the layered structure of this network. Since we are using the internet as an analogy, you need a basic understanding of the internet. Apart from those who study computer science and IT, most people do not have a basic understanding of networks -- you do not know how networks operate, but you use them every day; you browse Weibo, browse TikTok, watch videos, chat, and you use them all very well, but you do not know how the underlying layers work.

To put it simply, the entire network is divided into seven layers according to the OSI layered standard⁴. The bottom layer is called the physical layer, which is the network cables, the computer's network card, and today's WiFi network card -- all called the physical layer. The physical layer defines the bits of our digital transmission, that is, the 0s and 1s. Then the data link layer establishes data links -- how the network card communicates with the switch or router; this is the lowest-level interface for machine-to-machine communication. When your network cable is plugged in and WiFi is set up, that is its link layer. Each layer in between has its own protocols; the physical layer's protocols and transmission specifications are all different.

Above the physical layer is the data link layer -- how do they communicate with each other? How much data do you transmit to me at one time? If you throw an entire movie at me all at once, how do I play it? Or do I transmit a little at a time? This transmission protocol is the data link layer. The network layer is one level higher -- how to build the network, what protocol to use to build the network. Above the network layer is the transport layer -- once the network is built, how do you transmit? A network is like a road network or railway network; your goods also have to be transported car by car. Data also has to be divided into packets for transport, one packet per data packet. Transmitting on the physical layer is the same principle as transporting in our real lives.

Once you have a network, you also need transmission protocols -- how does this truck deliver goods, which address do I deliver to, where do I send it, what receives it. After the truck delivers, how do you hand the goods over to the other party -- is there not a session layer for this? Through delivery orders, bills of lading, or nowadays QR code scanning, you have to know how to handle it. Above the session layer is the presentation layer -- whether this thing is an encrypted protocol or an unencrypted protocol, what the data content it expresses is, that is, how this data is presented. Above the presentation layer is the application layer -- whether this data is video data, or email data, or a text in a WeChat chat, or an image in WeChat. This part is called the application layer.

We ordinary users generally only come into contact with the application layer; we ordinary users do not touch the layers below. And at the TCP/IP protocol level, it is simplified into four layers⁵: the application layer, presentation layer, and session layer are unified into the application layer; the transport layer is what we usually call the TCP protocol or UDP protocol; the network layer is the network layer; and the data link layer and physical layer are merged together and called the network interface layer. We will not expand on the protocols and standards between them.

The internet we see today, which has everything on it, everything you could want, is premised on being built within this layered network architecture; only then can you make use of today's internet. And the earth's perceptual grid, the earth's conscious grid that Seth speaks of, is like today's internet -- it is also layered. Within the layering of this earth's perceptual grid, each major species classification is one layer: mammals are one layer, plants are one layer, fungi are one layer, microorganisms are one layer. Within animals there are also fish, birds, and land-dwelling classes. You can imagine these major categories as one layer in the internet's layering.

Now you understand why Seth says every major species had to exist simultaneously at the very beginning. If they did not exist simultaneously, this earth conscious grid would not exist; if the earth conscious grid did not exist, humanity would not perceive the existence of its own life, nor would it feel the existence of this world. Why is this so? Here I will explain it to you using the principle of layering, and you will understand it well. It is not the principle of a large hole.

Take the example of a large hole: suppose North Korea or Iran, assuming they have no connection at all to the world's internet, with a complete firewall or closed system, their network is isolated from the whole world's network -- it exists like a hole, but this hole only affects the people inside it; people outside are not affected by this hole. Everyone outside goes about their business as usual, watching movies as usual, browsing TikTok as usual. So if you use the concept of a hole, you cannot understand why it must exist, why it is absolutely necessary. If you use layering, you will understand it well: suppose mammals are the transport layer; if you remove mammals from the earth, the entire conscious grid, this network system, cannot operate, cannot function. Because each layer depends on the layer below it; if you remove the transport layer, if you remove mammals, then the layers above, from the session layer to the presentation layer, are all gone. If this network only has the link layer and no application layer, we humans would not know how to use it; the videos we see and the sounds and music we hear from the network are all at the application layer.

So you can understand why it is said that all the species of the world had to be created simultaneously at the very beginning, because they are such a layered structure. But here you must remember, do not think of it as the structure of evolutionary theory -- according to evolutionary theory, without the bottom layer, the layer above would not exist; without the earliest single-celled organisms, there would be no multicellular organisms. That is the view of evolutionary theory; remember, these are two completely different things. To put it simply, our consciousness, from the lowest layer to the highest layer, simultaneously builds an integrated conscious network, and within it exist all kinds of species.

I have told you all this, given you this example, precisely to help you understand why this thing is absolutely necessary. He says:

All mammals, birds, fish, are absolutely necessary parts of that grid. (Session 903)

What I want to emphasize is: it is not a hole; it is a fault line -- without this layer, the network is paralyzed.

Then continue reading what Seth says:

In a certain fashion, the physical universe was moved over from another reality that necessarily was its source.

It was moved over as is, in its entirety, all at once, not a little at a time. That is to say, our physical universe was directly moved over from the dream universe, and this dream universe is certainly not within our physical universe, not within such a space-time as ours.

The world was, and is, created in dimensions outside of time, and outside of space as you understand it.

The universe was, and still is, being created. Our universe is, moment by moment, ceaselessly, under the creation of other dimensions, this world is constantly being created. The source of its creation is in another dimension, not in this dimension.

Other realities, as legitimate as your own.

Those worlds that created our reality in other realities, that created our world in other dimensions -- what exactly are they? He says other worlds are just as valid, just as important, just as real as your world -- this "real" does not refer to material reality, but they are indeed truly existent.

Those other realities, they coexist with you, and in your terms, in the same space.

If we use humanity's understanding of space and time, and you ask him where the other parallel worlds are, Seth says, in terms you humans can understand, they are right in this space of yours. Remember, this statement is made from your viewpoint, from human understanding; it is a statement of necessity, not an ultimate statement. They are in the same space as us, overlapping layer upon layer, a multiverse -- this is our ordinary understanding. But of course, in your experience, those spaces and realities will appear to be quite separate from one another. That is to say, that other world that is constantly creating our material world appears separate from us, completely isolated.

However, he continues:

No system is closed, however, so basically speaking, the living grid of perception that causes one world or one reality is also wired into other such systems, and there is an interaction between them. (Session 903)

Every world, every reality, has its own perceptual grid, and the perceptual grids of different worlds are connected in their links, in their wiring. You may not feel their existence, but they are mutually connected and mutually influencing. If this were not so, how could our world be created by another world, and moreover be continuously created? So they are linked in their wiring, and they interact.

Seth's words paused at 9:30. Seth continued, saying he was thinking about how to phrase it:

The grid of perception that composes your world gives you the picture of the world that you experience.

The perceptual grid determines how you experience, how you undergo our world. Because your physical senses place you at a certain position within the entire grid -- eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind place you at a certain position within the entire perceptual grid; you have a definition of space and time, and based on this definition of space and time, you are fixed at a certain position in this grid, and then from this position you set out, and based on this position you perceive this world. And what is magical is that within such a grid-like world, you always feel that you are the center of this world.

This is why every person, every consciousness in this world feels that they are the center of the world. Using the internet makes this especially easy to understand: on the internet, everyone feels they are the center, that the network spreads out from their own point, that the whole world is making connections with them. But when they look at the entire earth's internet from another perspective, from a higher vantage point, they will see that they are merely one small existence among the many linked units in the grid. But because they are connected to this network, they are both a small existence and a part of this vast existence, a member of the whole, of the entire earth's conscious grid. So this is what is magical about it.

Animals, for example, while being part of your experience, are also, on another level, tuned into that grid.

This sentence is very profound. He says:

Mammals, fish, birds, humans, reptiles, and plants, and so forth, each are absolutely necessary parts of that larger pattern of perception -- that is, of the grid. (Session 903)

He emphasizes again: they are part of the entire perceptual system, part of the entire network grid perceptual system, an absolutely necessary part. Not just ordinarily necessary, but absolutely necessary. What this means is that without the existence of these mammals, birds, and fish, the network of this perceptual system would not exist. Can you understand this?

In those terms, even at the beginning of your time, that pattern had to be complete.

Do you remember the layers I just talked about? From the application layer to the physical layer, imagine each layer as a major species -- animals, birds, humans. If humans were used as an analogy, they would be at the application layer, the highest layer; mammals could be represented at the presentation layer, vertebrates could be assigned to the session layer. Just push it down layer by layer like this. So these species, the existence of all these biological forms on earth -- let us just say the ecosystem -- had to be completely established from the very beginning. If it had not been completely established at the beginning, it would not exist. So it is not like evolutionary theory imagines, with the simple coming first, then the complex, step by step.

It had to be -- to use our traditional Chinese culture's phrasing -- a balanced system of mutual generation and mutual restraint established from the very beginning. If we followed the view of evolutionary theory, there would be no later stages. For example, according to evolutionary theory, this earth first had plants; when plants were at their maximum flourishing, they would no longer produce animals -- because they had already occupied all the resources on earth, they reproduced very well on their own, and there was no need to give birth to animals that specifically eat plants; herbivorous animals would never be born; without herbivorous animals, there would be no birth of carnivorous animals. So the reason the earth is the way it is today, with its ecological environment and biological chain so perfect and harmonious, is that it was like this from the very beginning -- they have both mutual cooperation and relationships of mutual generation and restraint. Their cooperation, in Seth's words:

In a cooperative venture, each doing its best while also benefiting the existence of the entire earth's ecosystem. (Session 903)

They are in a state of cooperative venture. In the view of evolutionary theory, this is a question of ecological environment or ecological chain. So you understand why it is said here that every species is indispensable -- because without it, the network loses a layer, and the network ceases to exist.

In the middle, he mentioned that his cat, as before, jumped onto the sofa, curled itself into a ball, and settled on his left side. Seth introduced:

At various times, the grid -- the conscious grid or perceptual grid -- may carry more signals along certain circuits than at other times.

What he means is that certain parts of the grid have wider bandwidth, thus allowing for much creative surplus, especially for those species that make up your larger classifications. For example, mammals are an indispensable layer within the large grid, but within this mammalian class, there may be a great deal of informational surplus. Within this bandwidth surplus, an infinite variety, or many kinds, of mammalian branches will develop.

There have always been birds, for example. But in the great interaction of inner and outer communication between all parts of this vast living system, there is a creative interplay. Within any one category, and within other categories, there are infinite variations.

In other words, mammals are indispensable, but how many small branches exist under mammals -- such as cats or dogs -- those are all variations; whether they exist or not has no major impact on the perceptual system as a whole. But if mammals did not exist, that would not work; the entire earth's grid system would cease to exist. Under this large branch, some branches can be very rich -- such as mammals; some branches are relatively simple -- such as reptiles. Snakes, for instance, are all very similar in form, whereas the forms of mammals are vastly diverse. So for reptiles, we would say their variations are relatively small; for mammals, their variations are relatively large. But for each kind, there are actually infinite variations.

Your technological communication system is a remarkable construction.

Our present communication network is a very meaningful, remarkable construction. Your network--by 1980 the Internet already existed; the Internet has existed since 1969⁶, built beginning with that APPANET, a network of the U.S. military, and gradually spread from universities outward. By 1980, the Internet already existed in America, but it was only used among research institutions and universities; it had not yet spread among ordinary people, because computers had not yet become widespread either. The Internet really became widespread abroad in the middle to late 1980s⁷, around 1986 or so; it reached mainland China around 1992 or 1993, when China first connected to the world Internet from the Institute of Atomic Physics in Beijing⁸; at that time it was connected through a very small link, only a dozen or a few dozen K--I forget. So by that time Seth had in fact already foreseen the Internet as a major future form of transmission for humanity's future network.

He said your network, your communication network, is very remarkable, but:

This network, remarkable as it is, is nevertheless built upon knowledge that is innate to you. That knowledge concerns the inner, cellular communication that exists among all species. In saying that, I do not deprive reason of the right to take pride in its technology. (Session 903)

This inner knowledge is already yours--although scientists invented the Internet, this Internet is built upon the innate knowledge you already possessed.

Then let us continue:

These broad classifications of life give you those patterns.

What kind of patterns? A pattern of a consciousness network, or a perceptual network. Consciousness forms itself within it, within this network. This is quite miraculous--consciousness must have its own place within this overall grid of consciousness.

And because those patterns appear to be fairly stable, it is easy to miss the fact that they are filled with fresh energy at every moment.

Because the pattern of the perceptual grid--that is, the pattern of our physical world--looks so stable, you do not notice that it is actually entirely new at every moment, filled with new energy at every moment.

In its physical development, humanity did not pass through the stages that hypothetical creatures are assumed to have followed: leaving the water, clambering onto land, and then becoming mammals.

That is, it did not go through the process described by evolution, in which human beings gradually came from primitive life, from the ocean all the way to land. But:

Each species does indeed contain within itself knowledge of its "past."

This "its past" is in quotation marks--it is not the past as we understand it; it means that it contains the knowledge of other species, because they all exist within one network. And this "past" is what we humans regard as an evolutionary temporal sequence, but it is not.

Let us return to the diagram I mentioned earlier. Every layer of the network depends on the support of the layer beneath it; without the lower layer there is no upper layer. From a certain angle, you could say that the lower layer is the past of the upper layer. From the perspective of time, it seems that without the lower layer there would be no upper layer, so the lower layer seems like the upper layer's past. But is it actually its past? No, they come into being simultaneously. I emphasize this again: this concept is one you must have. So here, every species contains the knowledge of the layer of network below it; that is what it calls "its past."

Again, some parts of this are difficult to express, and I must try to give old words new meanings.

This is not something easy to explain clearly; he has to give old words new meanings, otherwise you cannot easily understand. So he puts many quotation marks around it.

However, the reincarnational aspect of physical life has a very important purpose--it provides an inner subjective background, and such a background is needed by every species. (Session 903)

He says this cycle of reincarnation in physical life has a very important purpose: besides providing life with experience in the physical world, it also has a major purpose, which is to give you an inner subjective background. He is saying that every reincarnation of our physical lives in this physical world provides the entire large biological community with the great subjective background of existence--it needs to provide this background for all species, and it is a component of that great background. If a species did not provide this subjective background, then other species could not survive either. Remember, it does not provide an inner subjective background for its own species alone; it provides such a background for all species--each species provides the inner subjective background for the other species, and the other species depend on the existence of this species for their existence.

So far as all species are concerned, reincarnation exists. Because their reincarnations provide that inner background, that inner subjective background, for others.

But once a consciousness has chosen the larger category of its physical existence, it remains within that framework in its reincarnational existences. (Session 903)

For example, when a physical being--a kitten, a puppy, a lion, a tiger--chooses to reincarnate within a large category, say within the large category of mammals, it still reincarnates as a mammal. Here you must remember: if it is now a fish, then in its future reincarnation it will still become a fish, but it can choose among the kinds of fish; it may be another kind of fish, not necessarily this kind.

This provides a great genetic power. Within the same large category, the genetic variation is comparatively small, and then these genes play a very great role in the next reincarnation. As for the part about genes, it will be discussed later; for now let us not discuss it.

And among the consciousnesses of these classifications--divided by species, such as mammals, reptiles, and so on--they chose that category because of their inclinations and purposes. You may ask, why did they choose this? Is it like the six realms of rebirth, which fixes them rigidly so that they can only be reborn as that? No, it is because they want to experience that, they want to do that. In other words, why are you willing to be a human again in your next life? Because you want to be human; it is that simple. You may say, can I reincarnate as an animal? If you are willing, if you have that inclination, if you have that idea, you can. But theoretically speaking, no one would like or be willing to reincarnate as an animal; we are just saying it with words. But it is not to say it is impossible.

For example, as far as consciousness is concerned, you think that animals have what seems to be a limited range of bodily activity. For instance, an animal cannot decide to read a newspaper.

You think this is a limitation, that every animal's actions are limited, that the newspaper is outside its reality, that there is no newspaper in the animal world.

Speaking practically, in certain other areas animals have a much broader range. They have a far keener awareness of their environment, of themselves as separate from the environment, and also of themselves as part of the environment.

Animals indeed do not read newspapers, but in other areas animals have a greater range of awareness and a larger field of activity. Like us humans, they can perceive themselves and their environment, themselves as separate from the environment, themselves and their own species, animal to animal, animal and environment, and themselves as part of the environment--they all have very close observation and awareness, far stronger than we humans have in this respect.

Seth said earnestly:

In that respect, their experience deals with another kind of relationship.

Let us return to the network layering I mentioned earlier. For example, the session layer is beneath the application layer: when two pieces of data need to make a handshake link, before exchanging data they first make a negotiation and agreement--what protocol the two of us will use for transmission, what to do if data is lost, what to do if data is wrong, how to correct errors; these layers of processing are not handled at the application layer. We humans are at the application layer. For example, what we see is an app, the electronic newspaper in the app; what you see is only us at the application layer, humans dealing with newspapers. Other animals, on the other hand, deal with the environment at other layers--but without them it cannot work; without them, the underlying protocols cannot function, and the application layer above us would also cease to exist.

During the transmission just now, he paused several times; I think Seth was searching for the words that could make his meaning as clear as possible. Then Seth continued:

These grids of perception--these perceptual grids--within your time dimension do not exist forever.

Very interesting: it exists within our time dimension, but it does not exist forever. This point may confuse you...

The perceptual grid is the core concept running through this session. It exists within our time dimension, but it does not exist forever--the reason is that the time we inhabit is a finite dimension, while it exists far longer than this dimension. With the evolution of our physical world, these perceptual grids will eventually disappear within physical reality as well. Because our physical dimension cannot hold onto anything that lies outside it.

But then Seth said another very interesting sentence:

Once a world exists, it is stamped upon eternity.

Any world, so long as it has existed, is stamped upon eternity. Therefore it exists both within time and outside time. Outside time, it is an eternal existence; within time, it is what we see.

When you ask when the world began, or what really happened at the world's beginning, or whether there was a single point of origin, you are referring to the world as you understand it.

The questions you ask all refer to this physical world that you can now understand. But before the Earth you know existed, there had already been Earths in the same space. You think that our physical Earth has existed for 4.6 billion years, but within the space of the solar system where this Earth is located, there had already been other Earths before it, different versions of Earth. They were also Earth. And they began in the manner told to you in earlier chapters of this book.

The pattern of Earth is continuous within your time dimension. Although those worlds will eventually disappear within this time dimension, they will last for a very long time. They disappear in order to continue their existence outside time. Then that pattern is filled in again, and a new Earth is produced again according to the same pattern.

What Seth explains in this passage is: why a world exists both within time and outside time. He gives a very good interpretation--once this world comes into being, it is stamped upon eternity, but within our time range it will eventually disappear. From the standpoint of eternity, in another time dimension it never disappears. The pattern he used will also generate the next physical Earth.

To put it plainly: there is an inner, invisible world, and once it has created the physical world, it does not much manage it. After endowing it with all its abilities and creativity, it lets it develop on its own. When this world disappears within our space-time range, it then goes on to create the next one. Just as when a dream ends, the next dream is made according to the same pattern. Do not think that there is some All That Is watching the development of Earth with a predatory glare--if Earth veers left, it yanks it to the right; if it veers right, it drags it to the left. Not at all. All of this operates autonomously, self-managing, spontaneously. All That Is is automatic and spontaneous; spontaneity is one of its basic attributes. There is nothing higher supervising the operation of the universe. At the very beginning of creation, it gave you all the rules and patterns; within this pattern you can play as you wish and do as you please. When it says it does not manage it, from its perspective it means--it simultaneously incarnates as the existence of this physical world, experiencing this process in this way. But it also exists simultaneously in another dimension; it is not that once it incarnates as the existence of the physical world, it no longer exists in the nonphysical world.

In the example of Earth, the perceptual grid is simply used differently. Earth disappears and is created, disappears and is created again; each time it uses the same perceptual grid, just utilizing it in different ways.

Different Versions of the Earth

If you think of the birth of the Earth as different versions of the utilization of a consciousness grid, a perception grid, then it becomes easier to understand. Each era utilizes different facets of the perception grid differently—in some eras certain regions become important, while in other eras they are less important. Let me give an example: in one civilization on Earth, people's perception and recognition of sound was completely different from ours now, and that era focused on developing sound or other means. In another era, something else was applied. In some versions of the Earth, the mother continent was a very important place; in some eras, Atlantis was the highest point of the entire Earth's technological and civilizational development. In different periods and different regions, sometimes the era of spiritual development was important, sometimes the era of technological development was important, sometimes the development of primitive, uncivilized civilizations was important. Do not think that they all followed the same developmental pattern; they are different facets of the perception grid being utilized differently.

When a certain gestalt of consciousness forms a particular Earth, it forms its reality to the best of its ability.

In terms of the concept of time, how did a particular version of the Earth come about? It was the entire gestalt of consciousness of the whole Earth—not some individual of some species, but the whole—and it had already formed all of its realities to the best of its ability, fulfilling all the individual and collective capacities within that reality. Then:

Then with love, they hand over this grid of perception to others, and continue to participate, in your terms, in nonphysical existence.

After this gestalt of Earth consciousness finished its creation, it let go. It handed the perception grid over to others—those early sleepwalkers, those early dreamers, those who jolted awake from dreams, the ones Seth described in earlier chapters. What it handed over to them was a perception grid, a consciousness grid. And it itself, meaning this gestalt of Earth consciousness, continued to participate in nonphysical existence, no longer participating in physical existence. This kind of thing has happened many times already.

Your story of the Garden of Eden, then, is a legend about the most recent beginning of the Earth.

The story of the Garden of Eden is the legend of the most recent beginning of this version of the Earth.

And once again, each world is so cleverly constructed that each consciousness, regardless of its size or degree, plays an important role.

Every different parallel Earth, every version of the Earth, is constructed so cleverly that every consciousness, regardless of its size, plays an important role.

And each of your actions, no matter how insignificant, is connected in one way or another to every other reality and every other world.

Your small actions, small thoughts, small ideas, small movements, will all be connected in some form—a form you may not necessarily know—to every other reality and every other world. This sentence tells you: all the different versions of the Earth have inner connections. Do not think that those other versions of the Earth have nothing to do with you. All the actions, thoughts, deeds, and movements in this version of the Earth will affect the realities on other Earths parallel to it; likewise, the reality of our Earth is also affected by the realities on other Earths. Behind all known realities, there are countless unknown realities serving as support.

Beyond Time

At this point, Seth said, with great emphasis:

Although I see that not much time has passed while I have been speaking here in this living room, tonight we have to some degree transcended time. For in what I have said, there is indeed a rhythm of suggestion and fantasy. If you are ready, it can allow you to sense, however slightly, an existence beyond the categories of time.

Seth was saying: I came here today to tell you these things, and in the process of transmitting them, I am transcending time. You feel as though I have been speaking for a long time, but if you look at the clock, only a little over half an hour may have passed. This session began a little after nine, and now it is only 10:08. The whole thing took less than an hour, and there were many long pauses in between. Seth wanted you to actually feel that time can be transcended -- the very fact that he came to do this is itself a transcendence of time.

Such an experience cannot be understood by those who have not gone through it; only those who have experienced it can truly appreciate it. In our offline activities in Los Angeles, there was a woman named Helen. She was doing a 21-day meditation, and on the fourteenth day or some such day -- the whole meditation was 21 minutes or 24 minutes, I forget. She said she glanced at the time before starting, and after she finished, she had followed the entire audio recording to the end, and when it was over, she looked -- the time had not changed. She sat there a bit stunned, wondering if she had misread it, checked again and again, and did not dare tell anyone, afraid they would think she was crazy. This is something only those who have experienced it can understand.

Even if he tried to express this material in words, it would necessarily involve an alteration of perception.

Because that grid is quite stable as far as your senses are concerned, and it gives you a reliable picture of reality, but this is also because you have trained yourselves to accept only certain signals from the outer senses, while other signals from the inner senses are available at other levels. For example, you can tune in to cellular consciousness -- when you tune in to cellular consciousness, it means you have already transcended time, because for cellular consciousness there is no concept of time. This is why we have psychological time.

Since this material must be understandable:

Therefore Ruburt and I together form our own pathway of perception, he from his end and I from mine, and so we shuttle back and forth, as though passing through the circuits of some vast computer -- but a living computer.

In the process of transmission, Seth and Ruburt formed a pathway of perception, a circuit of perception. Ruburt linked from his end to Seth's end, and the information passed back and forth. Why back and forth? Because it has to do with Ruburt's comprehension. In the process of transmission, Seth had to search for the right vocabulary -- vocabulary that existed in Ruburt's consciousness -- to express his meaning. This process is not a one-way pouring in; it is a shuttling back and forth. Ruburt had to perceive it before he could speak it, at least at the subconscious level. This is like the two ends of a computer: one end is connected to a server, to a vast network, but that network lies far beyond our perceptual network, and yet they are internally connected. Seth is not within the perceptual network of our space and time, but through the living fact of the Seth material, he tells us that the connections between these different times and spaces and different parallel universes do exist, and are possible.

Rob's Questions: Cats, Dreams, and Fragment Personalities

At this point, Seth said the dictation was over, the session was over, unless there were questions. Then Rob began asking questions. These questions are all very important—Rob asked very well today.

Rob said: Right now, besides keeping the record for this book, I am also organizing a session for The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. In organizing that session, there was Session 837 from a year ago about the death of our cat Billy One, where you said: there is fundamentally no such thing as a cat's consciousness. Tonight's session reminded me of that one, and I can see how they echo each other.

That session was about the issue of the focus of consciousness—there is no cat soul, and there is no cat consciousness, only a focus of consciousness. He wanted to be a cat, to experience the feelings of a cat, so he came.

Seth said: They indeed do. Billy could, as he chose, be born as any kind of mammal within his classification.

Rob then asked: Wouldn't this become the idea of the six realms of reincarnation? Humans are mammals, and you originally said humans do not reincarnate as animals, but here you say a cat can reincarnate as any kind of mammal—so can a cat reincarnate as a human? Can a human reincarnate as a cat?

Seth replied: That is another matter. That refers to humans as animals, being born as animals. Humans are not in the animal category—although according to scientists' classification humans belong to a branch of mammals, Seth separates humans and animals. He will give many levels of this branching below. But he said: Also remember, there is the existence of fragment personalities, and that is also another matter.

Rob's Double Dream

Rob continued: Last Saturday morning, I had what seemed like two completely identical dreams, side by side or simultaneous. But they were not like one inside another as in a double dream; it was not a dream within a dream, but two parallel dreams.

Seth interrupted him: At one time you can have more than one dream, and you can also experience a probable self's version of a dream, that is, you experience the dream that probable self had. But there are always some points of contact, and there is always an inner reason why these two dreams come together.

All of people's dreams form a collective dream framework.

All dreams—your dreams, my dreams, all dreams, including the dreams of your probable selves—form a collective dream framework. Dreams exist on other levels, in a dream world. That is the collection of all our dreams, just as there is a physical world that is the collection of everyone's waking daily life.

And of course on the physical level, they affect the state of the body.

Dreams affect our bodies on the physical level, and can bring healing.

In such a way, the actions of the world are resolved in the communication of the collective dreams.

All the actions of the world while we are awake are communicated and resolved within the dream world.

That is at once both public and private.

Any personal event is at the same time a public event. You may think that who you have dinner with or do not have dinner with is entirely a private matter, but it is also a public event.

Nations in that fashion resolve matters of national concern.

National affairs are also resolved collectively in dreams. When you are sleeping and when you are awake, you are always thinking. When you are asleep, your thoughts have a richer dimensional projection, enriched by symbols and images—in that dream world, there are many symbols and images, so the content appears very rich.

Then Seth said the session was over, and wished everyone good night.

Jane and Rob After the Session

The session ended at 10:25. Jane came back from trance and said: Wow, I have a feeling we had a really wonderful moment. Jane's feeling was right on target. She said: I really tried to get rid of science, the beliefs about evolution, and anything like that. The theory of evolution still has an influence on me in my mind, but I tried my best to get rid of it.

Because when Seth was transmitting this material, he had to pass it through Jane's consciousness in order to understand it. If Jane could not accept these things, a lot of the material could not come through.

Rob wrote in his dream notes for Saturday, February 23, 1980: A dream in color as usual, and I can hardly remember anything. But Jane suggested I try to write it down. I had two dreams side by side, and I believe they were identical to each other -- two identical dreams, each with the same characters and the same resolution. The dreams were all the same. I made a decision in a new house on a hillside, and this decision involved a male character from a famous television program that I watched last night. But I thought it was very strange -- how could I have two dreams side by side? It seemed as though they should have been in sequence. I did not have the feeling of one dream being inside another dream, not like what you would call the usual kind of double dream.

Rob's notes are also very interesting. Because many of the ideas in this book by Seth, even after Rob and Jane had been transmitting the Seth material for seventeen or eighteen years, were still overturning their understanding. Every time such a wonderful session came through, their feeling was always like this -- they would have many questions to ask, and they would go back and sort through the previous content once again.

Rob said: In this session, Seth told us a great deal about a subject we had rarely explored together with him, and we wanted to know even more about this matter.

Mammals are the highest class among warm-blooded vertebrates. According to our human terminology, mammals are usually hairy, and their young are fed by the mother's milk. Dogs, cats, manatees, lions, dolphins, apes, bats, whales, gophers, sloths, deer -- these are all mammals. My interpretation on Seth's behalf is this: a consciousness can choose what it wants to be within the range of such forms. However, for reasons hinted at later in this session, primates -- human beings -- from a certain angle are not included here among the mammals Seth was referring to. Because Seth said that human beings are not included among these mammals.

Rob also said: I find the systematic classification of organic science utterly fascinating. Taking human beings alone as an example, they can be classified from the broadest categories down through increasingly finer divisions in the following way: human beings belong to the animal kingdom, the phylum Chordata, the class Mammalia, the order Primates, the family Hominidae, the genus Homo, the species Homo sapiens -- kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species: seven levels.

The Value Climate of Psychological Reality

Almost from the very beginning of these sessions, Seth told us that, in our terms, the earth we know is only the best one among a series of earths that have existed in the same space or the same value climate of psychological reality. This is something Seth said repeatedly from the early sessions. As for whether it is the best one -- I personally think this is Seth's way of comforting humanity. In fact, there is no such thing as best or not best. It is the best for the person we are now, because the others have nothing to do with you, so they are not the best for you. Do you understand what I mean?

Here he quotes from Early Session 29, February 6, 1964⁹:

There are innumerable planes upon your earth, or rather innumerable planes occur simultaneously with your earth.

You can understand "planes" as parallel space-times, multidimensional worlds, or multiple universes.

To the inhabitants of what seems to be another space occupying your earth, your solid earth is not so solid.

The so-called concept of "occupying the same space" is itself wrong. Remember, Seth is doing his "erasing motion" again -- he is not giving you a concept, he is erasing it. He goes on:

But I cannot see how I can avoid such terminology and still make you understand.

He says, this way of putting it is itself wrong, but if I do not say it this way, you will not know how to understand this state. In fact, they are in different dimensions. Even at that time, Jane and Seth and Rob did not much like using the term "planes." The value climate of psychological reality is Seth's attempt to coin a better term.

In Volume 1 of The "Unknown" Reality, Seth specifically discussed what the value climate of psychological reality means. You can regard it as a plane. How to understand it? Use an analogy: people in the desert all experience a desert climate, people in temperate zones experience a temperate climate, people in the Mediterranean region experience a Mediterranean climate. Take weather as a metaphor -- take our inner world, psychological reality, take the different value orientations of the inner world as different climate states. A consciousness with the same cognition will form one of their worlds within that kind of psychological world. People who hold another cognitive value viewpoint will form another plane or another world within the inner world. So he says the statement that "many parallel worlds exist in the same space" is not ultimate, and is even wrong. The correct way of saying it -- he used a new term: psychological reality. The moment you see psychological reality, think of the inner world, the internal world.

Reincarnation, Fragment Personalities, and the Early Sessions

Rob's note 3 says: Jane and I had always thought that the Buddhist concept of reincarnation meant a person's soul being reborn in animal form¹⁰. But actually, that term refers to the soul being born into any form whatsoever, whether human, animal, or other life forms. It therefore differs from the usual notion of reincarnation or being reborn as the same kind.

Buddhist reincarnation can cross categories: you as a human can become an animal; if you do bad things you are downgraded to an animal, and if you do good things you are upgraded to an asura, and then further upgraded to a deva. But what Seth says is different: animals reincarnate as animals, and humans reincarnate as humans.

Seth says in The "Unknown" Reality:

There is no reincarnation of souls in which a person's entire personality comes back as an animal. There is no such thing.

There is no complete personality's soul that comes back carrying all the memories of its previous life. When it comes back, it is already a completely different one -- it is a focus of consciousness. After completing the previous life, it will have a new focus of consciousness; what it wants to experience and feel, its identity, gender, role, and the events it wants to experience are all completely different. It is already a brand-new soul. But the previous soul does not disappear either; once it has existed, it is eternal, and it will continue developing in its own world. The new personality also contains the memories of all past personalities, but between them there is both connection and separation.

But within the physical framework, there is frequent mutual mixing -- meaning the mixing of humans and animals. What is this mixing? Seth calls it "the projection of a personality fragment onto an animal." In other chapters it has been discussed that a person can project a portion of their personality fragment onto an animal, continuing to live by means of the animal's body, projecting a part of your consciousness into it. Therefore a person's cellular molecules can become the cells of a plant or an animal, and vice versa. When you die and are buried in the ground and become the cells of plants, isn't that exactly what happens? Our bodies also contain plant and animal cells.

In note 2 of Session 840 of The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Rob excerpted what Seth said on March 5, 1979, in Session 838¹¹:

I want to avoid stories of human souls reincarnating as animals, which are extremely distorted versions of something entirely different.

It is not that a human reincarnates as an animal; it is that a person places one of their personality fragments onto an animal.

Rob goes on to explain: In Session 4 on December 8, 1963¹², the personality Jane and I contacted through the Ouija board was called Frank Watts. Frank was the first one contacted, and Seth appeared only afterward. In that session, Frank used the pointer to spell out the information that he preferred to be called Seth. When he first came, Seth had followed along by grabbing hold of Frank's coattails. Frank was also one of Seth's reincarnational identities, if you want a rough understanding -- Frank was one of the physical incarnations of Seth's soul.

Shortly before Frank declared himself to be Seth, Rob asked Frank: Has a person ever been born as an animal? His answer was very direct: No. Rob then pressed further: Then is part of your psyche living on Earth as a human? At the time, that answer seemed very strange to Rob and Jane, because Frank said:

There is a very small portion, which I have almost forgotten. I observe him, but I do not interfere. It is a dog fragment.

Frank refused to tell them where that dog was. By Session 8 of The Early Sessions on December 15, he gave his first answer spoken on behalf of Seth. Although by then he had already received the answers to many questions in his mind, he still often cautiously verified those responses -- he did so by having the beginnings of the answers spelled out word by word through the Ouija board. The very first few sessions of The Early Sessions were extremely difficult; everything was spelled out letter by letter, and there were often spelling errors. But Jane had an ability: before the pointer of the Ouija board had given the answer, Jane already had the answer in her mind, and the word finally spelled out was that answer. After a period of time, Jane discovered that she did not need the Ouija board and could know the answers from within. But she remained very cautious; generally she would let the Ouija board first give the first few words or a sentence, and only when they matched what she had received in her mind would she begin to speak the rest. It was not until Session 8 that Seth could speak paragraph by paragraph, and Jane no longer needed the Ouija board.

In Session 8, Seth said the following:

In a manner of speaking, the entity fragments of a personality exist within an entity, each with their own individual consciousness, and they are not aware of the entity itself.

A personality has many fragment personalities, and all of these fragments are placed within something called an entity. Each fragment has its own individual consciousness and cannot yet perceive the existence of the entity itself -- it considers itself unique and independently conscious. The entity employs these fragments in a subconscious manner. It gives each fragment independent life, and then more or less forgets about them, does not interfere, and lets them develop on their own. It is like giving birth to a child, and after the birth the child is taken away by someone else, and you simply do not look after it -- will it develop? It will develop. Understand this: the child was born from you, but after the birth you did not look after it.

The example he gives is thoughts. Your thoughts are fragment personalities of the overall thoughts of you as a whole person. You say this today and that tomorrow; add up all your thoughts and ideas, and they are the fragment personalities of your overall thoughts as a person. Once this thought fragment is produced, it is no longer controlled by the overall thought. Does it come from the overall thought? Yes. Is it a part of the overall thought? Yes. But does the overall thought control every single thought? No, it does not control them. It gives every thought complete independence and free will; this thought can think, reason, and feel according to its own inclinations. But all these thoughts added together constitute the existence of your thought system as a person.

The most important sentence in that session is:

Another kind of fragment is called a personality fragment, which operates independently, although under the auspices of the entity.

Every one called a personality fragment operates independently, only with the support of the entity.

When Rob asked Seth in that same session -- about his invention of the word "fragment":

Rob asked: What does this word mean? Did you invent it?

Seth answered:

As far as I know, it is a word of my own origination.

In the mind-body-spirit community, almost no one has used this word; it was originated by Seth. Yet within two sessions, as Seth continued to discuss and develop the material on personality, entity, reincarnation, time, dreams, and related topics in greater depth, he began to let the word "fragment" gradually give way to other terms. In the later part of The Early Sessions, Seth rarely used this word anymore, switching instead to words like "personality," "individual," and "identity." But after a gap of sixteen years -- these were matters from 1963 and 1964, and now it was 1980 -- when Seth mentioned the word "fragment" again in this book, Rob was very surprised, because the word had not been used for over a decade.

Rob designed this note to supplement the description of fragments in the psychic information, because that book does not record it as fully as The Early Sessions does. At the time, Rob had no plans to publish The Early Sessions, and fearing that readers would not understand fragments, he excerpted passages from these early sessions so that everyone could get a glimpse of The Early Sessions. The Early Sessions has 510 sessions in total¹³; only a few scattered words from the first several sessions are cited here -- so you can see that as early as this, in Sessions 4 and 8, Seth was already exploring such profound questions.

Several years after Session 4 of The Early Sessions was held, Seth suddenly volunteered on his own that his dog fragment had already died. We did not press further -- where it died, or when it died.

As for our Buddhist understanding of reincarnation, you cannot say it is entirely wrong. At least there are people who placed their own fragments onto dogs, forming dog fragments -- this is something the Buddha could see, but he did not subdivide or investigate it further. He used this method to warn people to do good deeds and to study. But such things were later taken up by later generations to frighten those who did not believe in the religion or did not want to practice the Dharma -- if you do not practice well, in your next life you will become an animal. This turned into a threat and intimidation, completely misusing the direction.

Even a Westerner understands Buddhist reincarnation this well, which shows how wide its influence is and how deep it goes. Breaking down this concept is difficult.

The content of this session is very important -- the classification of animal species, the concept of the consciousness grid or perception grid, and the emergence of our physical world are all inseparable. I hope everyone can seriously and correctly understand this content, and not lean to either side -- these concepts can easily tip from one side to the other if you are not careful. Maintaining a middle way in the midst of this is not an easy thing. That is all for my introduction to this session. I wish everyone a magical and beautiful day.

注释与核实

1. This claim could not be verified. ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. This claim could not be verified. ↩

4. Source: International Telecommunication Union, "ITU-T X.200: Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model," 1994 (https://www.itu.int/rec/dologin_pub.asp?id=T-REC-X.200-199407-I%21%21PDF-E&lang=e&type=items) ↩

5. Source: R. Braden, "Requirements for Internet Hosts—Communication Layers" (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1122/) ↩

6. Source: Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, et al., "A Brief History of the Internet" (https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/) ↩

7. This claim could not be verified. ↩

8. According to Mike's original words, it was "the first to connect to the world internet from Beijing's atomic physics institute"; upon verification, it should be "In August 1988, the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences connected to CERN via a satellite data communication line, and its VAX785 computer became the first computer in China to be connected to the international internet; this institution was not the 'Beijing atomic physics institute.'" (Source: Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, "Historical Evolution," https://www.ihep.cas.cn/gk/lsyg/) ↩

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩

10. This claim could not be verified. ↩

11. Source: Jane Roberts, "Dreams, 'Evolution,' and Value Fulfillment" (https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Jane%20Roberts%20-%20Seth%20-%20Dreams%2C%20Evolution%20and%20Value%20Fulfillment.pdf) ↩

12. Source: Jane Roberts, Robert F. Butts, "The Early Sessions: Book 1 of The Seth Material," 1997 (https://mestredapropriarealidade.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/The-Early-Sessions_-Book-1-of-The-Seth-Material.pdf) ↩

13. Source: Paul Cunningham, "The Problem of Seth's Origin: A Case Study of the Trance-Possession Mediumship of Jane Roberts" (https://www2.rivier.edu/faculty/pcunningham/research/problem_of_seths_origin.pdf) ↩