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 block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This session records Seth's explanation regarding the publisher's plan to add a disclaimer. Seth explains that the publisher simultaneously accommodates traditional textbooks and anti-establishment spiritual books, that the Seth books combine intellect and intuition, and that the publisher is facing legal pressure because the books criticize conventional medicine. He points out that Jane and Rob used the rational approach to treat the most pessimistic possibility as fact, and reminds them to switch to the magical approach and trust that they are protected. After the session, Rob records an out-of-body experience in which he glimpsed the light of the universe through a crack in the door.
Key Points of This Chapter
- The publisher houses both traditional textbooks and anti-establishment spiritual books, while the Seth books combine intellect and intuition, making them hard to place at either end.
- The publisher faces legal pressure because The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events attacks traditional medicine, and plans to add a disclaimer.
- Jane and Rob treat the possibility of a disclaimer as an inevitable fact, and project it onto past and future books, sinking into pessimism.
- Seth reminds them to give up the pessimistic reasoning of the rational approach, to use the magical approach instead, and to trust that they and their work are protected.
- During an out-of-body experience, Rob glimpses the light of the universe through a crack in the door, and decides to paint it.
Main Text
Background Introduction
This session began at 9:04 p.m. on Monday, September 22, 1980. As usual, Rob gave a brief introduction before the session began. He said that last Wednesday evening Jane did not hold his regular session; they had fixed Seth sessions every Monday and Wednesday evening. Tonight she did not much feel like having a session either, but she decided to go ahead with it anyway, because she did not want to just sit around the whole evening.
After a day when the temperature had reached ninety degrees Fahrenheit, the weather was still extremely hot and humid. According to the television, starting at 5:09 p.m. today, it was already the first dusk of autumn, meaning the beginning of autumn had arrived1. But Jane's condition had been quite good all along. Yesterday she got up and walked around once or twice; without having specifically verified it, I remember that seemed to be the most times she had walked around in a single day. Her body was still making continuous progress.
All week they had been making additional medical notes for the edited manuscript of The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. Even today, Jane had talked with the publisher's editor, Tam Mossman, about various matters concerning that book. Rob very much disliked this whole situation. What matters? Being caught in this kind of distress. Last weekend Rob had told Jane, told her that he wanted to go back to painting. What he meant by that was, I do not want to write these books anymore; he wanted to go back to painting.
Starting this morning, things had not happened as he had expected. He had even considered withdrawing The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events and simply not publishing it. Although this morning Tam reassured Jane once again that things would be resolved satisfactorily.
Then Rob continued, saying that he had not mailed the long letter Jane had written to Tam over the weekend. Why? You can imagine the letter probably did not say anything pleasant. If it had been sent, his relationship with the publisher's editor and the publishing house would probably have come to an end. Jane was also a person with quite a temper; Jane had a rather big temper, she was not a person without one. So you can imagine that if he had mailed that long letter, the consequences might have been very serious. But in this morning's phone call, although he had not mailed the letter, Jane had already mentioned all the key points to Tam. She said everything she needed to say, the nice and the unpleasant, basically all the unpleasant things were said too.
So Rob was now thinking about attaching their own statement, independent of the publisher, to the preface of The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. This disclaimer is the kind we often see, meaning something like: the content of this book is unrelated to the position of this publishing house and represents only the author's personal views. It is that kind of statement, meant to draw a clear line, so the publisher bears no legal responsibility, and so on. That statement was a very appropriate quotation from a piece of Seth material subsequently found in that book. Today Rob sent a copy of it to Tam.
The cause of this matter was that in that book Seth had once again launched an attack on traditional medicine. Seth had in fact attacked traditional medicine in more than one book, but in that book he was perhaps especially direct. So the pressure the publisher faced, when confronted with that kind of attack on the entire medical system, was enormous.
In this session they were going to discuss this issue again. Rob said this whole matter had caused him a certain degree of depression. He told Jane that he felt the disclaimer the publisher planned for one of their books was only the beginning of this kind of thinking. Due to overreaction, he imagined that all their books, when published, including those previously published, because books are often reprinted, would have this disclaimer added in the second printing or later. The very thought of this made Rob especially depressed, because he felt that adding this disclaimer was a great insult to his and Jane's work, including Seth's work over so many years. It was a kind of non-recognition, and he absolutely could not accept it.
So over the weekend they discussed various possible scenarios, including terminating the cooperation, no longer publishing, and so on. All options were within their consideration.
Seth's Explanation to the Publisher
This is the background before this session began. Rob said that tonight he had not asked Seth to discuss the publisher's situation, but Seth appeared with a rather ironic smile. He wanted to discuss this matter, because the matter itself carried two implications: one was to discuss the matter itself; the second was to discuss the influence of Seth's ideas on the society of that time, meaning the influence and significance of Seth's ideas on the society of 1980. Another point was that he also wanted, through this matter, to let Rob and Jane truly see that when we have learned the magical approach and apply it in real life, we often do not use this magical approach; what we often use is the rational approach.
Seth came, and Seth said:
I have some brief comments. First, regarding why the publisher is our publisher, I would like to give you some opinions, which may clarify some things that often seem to contain some mystery.
He was very interesting. He said that once these explanations are spoken, they will obviously be very clear. If I point it out, it becomes obvious, but before I point it out, you may not have realized it.
He said:
We can say that the publisher represents the most diverse ways of thinking currently held in your country. That is to say, under the overall sponsorship of this publishing house, you have the most traditionally institution-oriented textbooks, that is, science-oriented textbooks, devoted to preserving the concept of tradition.
The publisher publishes both traditional scientific textbooks. There you have the devotion to education, the devotion to traditional education, as education is understood at that level. You elaborate this devotion to education as much as possible within this publishing house. The publisher of course values education; all the textbooks we see come from publishers. Books are a key step in the source, storage, and sharing of human wisdom and knowledge.
So Seth said, first, do not underestimate the publisher. In a relatively open system like the United States, with its protections of freedom of speech, the publisher is actually a great mix; it has all kinds of books. Yet under the sponsorship of this publisher, you also have books like this one, that is, a series of books devoted to quite anti-establishment ideas and concepts, including the psychic, scientific, and religious eccentricities of various popular schools. The so-called eccentricities are anti-traditional, enthusiastic about resisting the establishment, challenging it everywhere and opposing it. And there is also devotion to education there, because those books are also used to teach people.
His meaning was that within the publisher there are both traditional books, scientific books similar to textbooks, and also anti-traditional ones similar to Seth's, as well as various other psychic and religious ones, including some frontier science, and even some pseudoscience, no matter what kind. What are they all doing? They also want to educate others. So the publisher is a relatively inclusive system.
He said:
Our books did not appear under a label such as Parker's.
Parker is a publisher, possibly a small publisher that specializes in publishing this kind of spiritual material. In their own way, they are two opposite kinds of thought. Parker as a publisher serves as a bridge between the traditional and the anti-traditional. The things published by Parker could not appear in university libraries, nor could they appear in university teaching materials, because they are too anti-establishment. But at the same time they are too reasonable in themselves to be considered eccentric.
He said that Seth's books are not the kind of thing so eccentric that they would be published by a small publisher as psychic books, like ghost stories or Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. But Seth's books are also too anti-establishment; they are practically a subversion of the establishment. Therefore they also cannot become university textbooks.
He said:
Our books are in the regular retail division, because they are sold to the outside, so the retail division here means they will be seen in bookstores and libraries. So for the legal department, the legal department is the department devoted to translating reality entirely according to law.
The so-called legal department is the legal affairs department; large companies and publishers all have legal departments. This creates a problem:
Between Parker's book line and the Prentice retail bookstore, there exists almost what you could call a schizophrenic relationship.
Parker puts out those psychic, strange and odd things. He said:
The representatives of the textbook division, in the terms of ordinary rational thought, are an intellectual operation. In such books there is a considerable lack of imagination, psyche, poetry, and creative qualities, and such qualities are indeed considered threatening.
Because it does not accept easy answers, and it also does not conform to the status quo. It lacks imagination, lacks psyche, poetry, and creative qualities; it does not conform to the status quo. The world we live in is itself a life full of spirituality, psyche, imagination, and creativity, with many emotions in it. Therefore these textbooks do not truthfully reflect our real world.
On the other hand:
Many of Parker's books emphasize creativity, intuition, imagination, yet relatively lack any clear reasoning, logic, or any respect for tradition at all.
Publishers like Parker, these spiritual publishers, the spiritual things they publish emphasize creativity more, emphasize intuition, emphasize the use of imagination. But within them there is no clear reasoning; they themselves have neither a theoretical framework, structure, and system, nor a process of logical reasoning, or any respect for tradition at all.
Seth himself does not respect tradition much either, but you can see that although Seth does not respect tradition, relatively speaking the measure and balance of his books is still handled quite well; they do not make people feel repulsed at first glance. But deep down he does indeed subvert the existing theoretical system. He is not like those books, which are entirely based on mockery, ridicule, sarcasm, and derision toward tradition. If you do not respect tradition, you make others feel repulsed. Then you are telling others that you are all fools, that you ordinary beings living in this purely material world, with materialism as your main worldview, do not understand the truth and essence of the world. You strike down the majority of people in that, and if you do not respect them, it is very hard for them to accept you.
So you see, when Seth was introducing and promoting his theories, he used many techniques, so he was easily accepted by everyone at the beginning. He did not emphasize opposing or overthrowing anything; he did not come up and say that all your perceptions are wrong, that your world is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow, that you are all living in inverted delusion. He did not say that. He spoke like an old friend, slowly and gradually drawing you in, and only after you were drawn in did you discover that many of his thoughts and ideas completely subvert existing perceptions.
He said:
Here, I am simplifying.
He simplified, because not all of Parker's books are like that; he could not expand on it, he just used this example to illustrate his meaning.
He said:
To some degree, Prentice is always in a state of creative tension.
Because seemingly opposite, seemingly contradictory elements are all expressed through these divisions. It embodies two completely different, opposite, or contradictory viewpoints within one division, and this is a kind of creative tension. He said:
However, because of those divisions, there is indeed a great deal of publishing room for books that could not possibly be mixed together.
This publisher has done more than you know, more than it knows itself. From Seth's perspective, this publisher has done many books that it itself did not realize were very important and influential to human development. Think about it: if Prentice had not published the Seth books, if a very small publisher had put them out, then their influence would probably be far less than it is now.
He said:
As a corporate entity, like all organizations, it also has conscious and unconscious intents.
Any entity, whether a company or an organization, even a nation or a country, has its own conscious and unconscious intents. Just like people, each person also has conscious intents and unconscious intents.
He said:
Because they must reflect the people who belong to the company, it must reflect the intents of the people who make up the company. This publisher is to some extent an educational institution.
No matter how you put it, it is still an educational institution, because it publishes textbooks itself; it publishes many university teaching materials. It tries to fly forward with avant-garde concepts; it wants to lead human wisdom. But at the same time it must also protect its flank of college textbooks. The translation here as "大专" is not correct; the English should be "college," and in America "college" does not only mean junior college; here it refers to all universities in general. It must maintain its avant-garde forward-leading flight, while at the same time protecting its own university textbook system, because that part makes money. Even up to now, as long as a publisher is connected with university educational institutions, it will make money. Several of China's most profitable publishers, apart from those famous ones, are basically all related to education, such as Tsinghua University Press, Science and Technology Press, and various university presses. Therefore it cannot afford to lose its textbook market share just because it is too avant-garde.
But:
What it does not know is whether our works are fact or fiction.
Although Rob and Jane both know this is real, from the publisher's perspective it cannot confirm this. As a publisher, how can it know whether a book written by a so-called bodiless author through channeling is actually true or fictional? The publisher cannot be certain.
Although the publisher knows that the work is not forged. For example, it knows that I appear in the sessions, meaning the publisher also knows that Seth is indeed teaching these sessions. Why? Because as long as you, as the publisher, have read the manuscript and edited this material, you can understand and feel it, because if you have seriously read the Seth books, you know this is not something an ordinary human could write.
But it does not know:
Whether my concepts correspond to a larger reality, or whether they are the result of a remarkable psychological creativity.
Simply put, they know that these books came through Jane from Seth; they know that is real. But what they do not know is whether the things Seth says reflect a true description of a larger real world. In other words, whether it is a true description of our larger universe, or of a world we have not yet perceived. They also do not know what level this is, because they have no way to verify or experience it.
Now, after many people have studied and comprehended it on their own, we can know from various levels that this body of Seth material indeed has an indelible contribution and significance for humanity. But for the publisher at that time, it could not be one hundred percent certain. So you can imagine that under such circumstances, its ability to publish this entire body of Seth material indeed involved a great deal of risk-taking and avant-garde spirit. Most publishers probably would not be willing or would not dare to publish these things, especially as Seth's statements later became more and more anti-traditional, including toward religion.
You may now think, what is so remarkable about that? But you must never, ever forget that the United States is a Christian country; seventy to eighty percent of the people believe in Christianity2, and its president takes the oath of office by placing his hand on the Bible3. Seventy to eighty percent of the population believes in one religion, so you know that the population ratio of this society determines that it is a religious country. And in such a predominantly Christian country, Seth repeatedly and tirelessly declared that the very foundation of Christianity, that Christ was nailed to the cross and burned to death, and then went to redeem humanity's sins, and so on, he subverted this very foundation. He said more than once, tirelessly, that this is not true. You can imagine how much pressure this publisher was under.
If the publisher only had to bear this pressure, perhaps others could only attack it on the level of belief, and in a country with freedom of belief they could not do much to it except slander it. But when he began to challenge traditional medicine, that is, what we now call the modern medical system, then the publisher felt the risk was somewhat greater, that this step was a bit too big. Because if you do this, suppose someone read Seth's books, became ill and did not see a doctor, and then because of misdiagnosis or delay ultimately died, or suffered some serious harm, and if that person or their family sued the publisher, in America's rule-of-law society, if the court ruled that the publisher was indeed liable, then the loss would truly be unaffordable.
So with such considerations on the publisher's part, you can know that in a rule-of-law country like the United States, under such a system, where everyone can file lawsuits and everyone can go to court and casually sue another person, the pressure on the publisher is also enormous. Especially for a serious publisher that normally publishes university textbooks, if you openly declare in your published books that people do not need to see a doctor when they are sick, you can imagine the pressure on the publisher.
Persuading Jane and Rob
Seth was actually here all along persuading Rob and Jane to understand the publisher. He said:
Of course, the particular quality I have mentioned as applying to this publisher applies also in some measure to Tam, and also to the editor they have working on the publication. He can indeed show extraordinary enthusiasm for highly intuitive work.
You see, this editor was able to recognize Jane's material, and besides these books, he had published some other books as well. So he really did have great enthusiasm for this kind of intuitive work.
At the same time:
On the other hand, he also has, in his own way, great respect for established learning and education.
In his own way, he has both tremendous enthusiasm for work that comes from intuition and inspiration, and at the same time great respect for traditional culture and traditional education. So this is the editor -- Tam, this editor -- his actual psychological state at the moment.
Then:
As far as the various people at the publishing house are concerned, these tendencies also tend to show themselves separately.
That is, some people lean toward enthusiasm for the intuitive, and some people lean toward respect for traditional culture and traditional education. Some people will cling very firmly to old conventions and dislike flexibility, while at the same time others may respond to avant-garde, emotionally exciting work. He said:
That publishing house represents in microcosm the two poles of thought in your times.
From the most traditional to the most outlandish. Therefore it represents all sorts of different public opinions.
He said:
The legal department knows how to deal with Prentice books.
That is, as long as a book is published under the Parker imprint, every book will carry a disclaimer. Because they know how to deal with traditional textbooks, they know how to distinguish this kind of spiritual material from traditional textbooks.
He said:
But our books combine all of these elements, and go beyond them.
The Seth books are not quite the same as the others. They combine all of these elements; they contain both spiritual material and also very logical and rational material within them.
He said:
If the publishing house were at heart as traditional as its legal department, it would not publish your books at all, except for the textbooks.
What he means is that the publishing house does want to publish your books, but it has to face the risks it must face as a company, as a publishing house. There is no way around that. If they did not want to publish your books, if their thinking were the same as their legal department's thinking, they would not publish your books at all, and they would not keep going back and forth with you.
So from this matter you can see that Seth was in fact all along persuading Jane and Rob. You can also tell that the two of them were really stubborn, really prone to getting stuck in a corner, really rigid. The two of them firmly refused; they would rather not publish at all than write this disclaimer. So you see, in order to get his books published, Seth had to do work on both sides. On one side he worked on Rob and Jane, and the moment their tempers flared up they both wanted to quit. Rob even said, I want to go paint, I do not want to deal with this stuff anymore. So Seth had to persuade the two of them as well.
He said:
Our books are put together through the powers of the intellect and the intuitions.
We have brought the two powers together; it has both its rational side and its spiritual side.
He said:
Attempting to insert new concepts into the existing world.
This is the title of this session -- bringing new concepts into the world. He used the word "insert," which is very interesting. It is neither merging nor overturning. In other words, through this publishing house, the two extremes are brought together. This publishing house publishes both very scientific, rational textbooks and scientific books, and also spiritual books like the Seth books. So he said our book, precisely because it is published through this publishing house, brings these two extremes together -- one rational, one spiritual.
He said:
Let me gently remind you both that I said you must be willing to change over from the old orientation system completely to the new one.
Seth said this in Sessions 4, 5, and 6. What he means is that you have studied the magical approach, but you have not completely shifted from an old system to a new system. You only use a little here and a little there, in a scattered, sporadic way. Here he emphasizes it again. He said, let me gently remind you both -- actually what he means is that the two of you have not done well; the two of you have not truly and completely used the magical approach. If you want the new approach to function fully in your lives, then you have to switch over to the new one. And unfortunately, that includes the way you deal with this publisher.
In other words, you should also use the magical approach in dealing with the publisher, not the rational approach. You see, up to this matter, up to today, Jane and Rob were using a very rational way of handling things. What is the rational way? Being full of pessimism about the future. He thought, is this disclaimer going to have to appear in every book from now on? Then what is the point of publishing at all? And they were also arguing strenuously with the publisher. They were using entirely rational ways of handling it. But the ways of handling things that we talked about earlier in the magical approach -- they did not use any of them. They did not use their intuition. They kept using reason to think and to handle things.
So Seth used this matter, besides explaining the role of the publishing house, besides persuading the two of them not to be overly fixated on this issue, besides getting them to publish this book as soon as possible, to also point out to them the problem they had in applying the magical approach in actual life -- the moment something comes up, it shows. Many people practice for a long time, but the moment something comes up, they are just the same as before.
He said:
Now also as I said before, when you are faced with difficulties, the conventional rational approach tells you to examine the problem thoroughly, then project it into the future, and imagine its dire consequences. And therefore, faced with a denial of the book, to some extent that is what you two have done.
That is, what the two of you reasoned out according to your rational approach. You regarded the disclaimer as a fact; you felt it was certainly going to happen, and in your minds you already imagined it on the pages of our books. You already imagined this disclaimer appearing in the preface of every book, projecting all of that onto future books, and you even thought about how future reprints would all be like this. And furthermore, you did your best to embellish it, imagining this disclaimer appearing on all books, embellishing and imagining the worst possible situation.
And then, that is the best example of what not to do. So Rob wanted to go paint, and Jane could not muster any energy either; Jane was also very listless and depressed.
What does he mean by this? He means that when you use the rational approach to handle problems, when we face difficulties in reality, we involuntarily and automatically use this rational way of reasoning and analyzing, and it inevitably leads to a very pessimistic situation and outcome. So Seth used this matter with the publishing house to give the two of them a very good lesson -- when facing difficulties in real life, and this was a very big difficulty, involving whether this book would be published or not. He reminded Rob and Jane, do not keep using the traditional rational approach to handle this kind of problem; you should return to the magical approach's way of handling things.
All right, indeed the two of you had already begun to pull back. He said:
You both began to draw back, and you at least questioned that approach. And at the same time, your nervous systems responded to the threat implied by your work, a threat that now exists in the past, present, and future.
Your work -- that is, whether the poems you write or the paintings you paint -- will all respond to this fear of the future, to this threat.
You Are Protected
So Seth had to come out and resolve this issue. Seth began to emphasize to the two of them:
You are protected.
This statement is an affirmation; you do not need to question it. Your works are protected, and all the books you have written are protected. When you realize that point, you will act from confidence. Seth was giving them encouragement, boosting their morale -- you are protected, and your books are protected as well. When you understand that your books are protected, you will know that you act from confidence, rather than anxiously arguing and fighting with others.
He said:
You did indeed become aware of this error of your own, and you also found that something was a bit off with you. Ruburt mentioned those areas he felt worried about, but not with the same feelings he would have had on Saturday. And when you realize that you are protected, your own intellect can receive sufficient assurance through experience, so that in that instance where the rational approach does not work, you will not feel the need to use it to solve the problem.
To put it simply, when the rational approach does not work in your real life, you must use the magical approach to solve the problem.
He said:
In the deepest terms, if a disclaimer were used, it would thereby be made retroactive, and then to continue using it -- such an assumption is unreasonable.
When you think of this disclaimer, you think of things that happened before, that it could be made retroactive -- whether previously published books would also need to carry this, whether reprints would also need to include it. He said this assumption is unreasonable. You yourselves always consider problems from the most pessimistic angle; that conclusion is not based on fact, but only on a reason applicable to one possibility, to a series of possible actions, or first of all on the possible act of using a disclaimer.
That is, all your pessimistic ideas about the future are built on a single possibility; they are not facts.
He said:
So once again, what we are dealing with is an overall lesson concerning how the reasoning mind has been taught to react.
Through this event we are meant to learn that if you use the reasoning mind to handle things, this is the result. He said:
These are in fact examples of the intellect being trained to use only a portion of its abilities, rather than all of them, to narrow the distance, to focus on the most pessimistic action among the possible actions in any given system, and then to treat them as facts.
Treating possibilities as facts, treating the most pessimistic possibility as a fact to be dealt with. He had already explained earlier what the magical approach is and what the rational approach is, and here he used an event to emphasize it. When we use our intellect to judge, this is the conclusion that emerges. Rob's thinking and Jane's thinking are what any normal person would think. When you use the rational approach to handle a problem, when you only use a certain portion of the intellect, this is the result. You focus only on the most pessimistic thing, and then you treat that most pessimistic possible behavior as a future fact to be dealt with. This is what we need to change, and this is why we need to learn the magical approach.
He said:
Let me add that in that book I protected your flanks.
He said, let me make it clearer to you: in that book I have already protected your flanks. Then Rob said -- this next part is Rob speaking:
You certainly did.
Rob knew what he meant. Seth's humorous remark referred to page 457 of the manuscript of The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, where Jane and he had decided to add a note using his words. Because he had emphasized that people should continue to see doctors until they were clear in their own minds about their beliefs.
So you understand: before this, if you did not have enough confidence in yourself, and did not understand your belief system very well -- or in other words, if you did not understand how this entire spiritual system operates, and you still had strong faith in traditional medicine -- then you should go see a doctor. So this is what Seth emphasized. Seth said, I have already added protection for you in this book, and I have already made this responsibility very clear, so no reader or anyone else could possibly use this to find fault with it.
So you can see that Seth was actually very clever. He said:
But do not forget that in your own way, you and the corporate entity do indeed share an educational intent.
Although I said that, do not forget that this book of ours, and this publishing house, the purpose of publishing this book carries a certain educational quality. What educational quality? It is a reflection on traditional medicine, a reflection on the traditional medical system -- whether we should open up a new medical system and establish a new medical system more suited to the healthy development of human beings. It does indeed have an educational quality; we cannot deny this.
He said:
Of course I have more to say. Hopefully that will allow you to use your intellect in a clear manner.
How do you use it in a clear manner? It means letting the intellect use both the information of this three-dimensional material world and also the information of intuition, inspiration, and the inner senses. That is, unshackle the intellect; do not restrict it. Do not use only your reasoning ability. Before you use your reasoning ability, you must give the intellect sufficient known conditions -- and these known conditions include the inner information that comes from intuition, telepathy, and clairvoyance, including the information that comes from dreams. Give all these things to your intellect as known conditions, and then it will produce a very correct result of reasoning, rather than only giving it the things of the three-dimensional world as the sole known conditions.
He said:
And improve your performance. Again, if you say that in this situation, or in any situation, there are elements impossible for my intellect to know, that is quite correct, and therefore the intellect can take that fact into consideration.
You may not actually know what he was trying to say in this passage; the translation of this book is really not very good. What he means is that whether in this matter with the publishing house or in any other matter, if you still insist that there are some unknowable, unknown elements for my intellect, he said you must understand that this is a quite correct statement. Indeed there are some elements you do not know, but those elements should be taken into consideration as that fact -- that is, those elements you do not know are indeed factors your intellect should consider.
In other words, beyond rational reasoning, you must take into account that so-called intuitive, inspirational, dream-based, inner information, and you must treat it as fact. Rather than only considering the elements you know while ignoring the elements you do not know. Otherwise, you expect the intellect to reason while at the same time denying it the comfort it deserves. The so-called comfort it deserves means giving it more information. If you do not give it more information, yet you ask it to reason, how can it possibly arrive at a result?
He said:
That is, knowing that it does not need to rely on its knowledge alone to reason, but can also depend upon the vast magical storehouse of intuitive information, from which, in larger terms, all intellectual information must emerge.
What he means is still an expansion of the previous statement. You must understand that the final result your intellect reasons out does not use the computational methods and reasoning processes that you humans can understand; its final computation and result are calculated on a higher level beyond yourselves, where more complex computation is used. So here you must give it intuitive information, open up that spiritual information to it, and it will produce the best result. Because all the information of your intellect, all your intellectual information, emerges from there -- from this magical storehouse of information. Your wisest decisions and the information of your intellect all come from here; you must open it up, rather than only looking at the facts before your eyes and the things happening before you.
He said:
So I think both of you are finally moving in that direction, using the new approach.
You will both ultimately turn in that direction, toward the magical approach.
He said:
Now, Ruburt's condition is much improved; he feels more active than before.
He was referring to his body; his body would gradually become more active. He should read this recent group of sessions often. Now he said:
Paint your picture of your experience with light, and of course continue with your other paintings.
Here he gave Rob another suggestion, which was to paint that kind of picture of light.
He said:
Ruburt is anxious for the publisher to bring our book out in their best fashion.
Ruburt is too impatient; he wants the publisher to publish our book in their best fashion. But they also have to struggle with their own paranoid tendencies, because the publishing house is intellect-oriented, so they have to struggle with the publisher's own excessive use of the intellect. And at this time, if you can use your magical approach, it will get you through. If at this time you insist on using your rational reasoning power, if you insist on fighting with the publisher, this will be very difficult. If at this time you use your magical approach to handle it, a solution will naturally appear.
He said good night to them, with heartfelt regards.
Rob's Out-of-Body Experience
This session was actually quite long. Ten-ten, and for someone who didn't much feel like having a session, he did wonderfully today.
Then the passage after this is a vision, that is, an out-of-body experience Rob had on Sunday night, September 21, 1980, at 11:45 p.m. It was the inspiration for the painting about light that Seth had just told him to do.
How did Rob describe his out-of-body experience? He said:
I lay on the bed fully dressed, waiting for Jane to finish in the bathroom. As usual, the small lamp on the bureau to my right was on. I lay on my back, my head turned slightly toward that faint light. I was quite sleepy, drifting in and out of a dozing state.
Then:
I became aware that I was once again perceiving the light of the universe.
He had perceived it before. If you read his earlier books, he described it: a kind of light, as Seth called it. This experience was gentler than the previous three times, but still very intriguing.
He said:
I didn't want to complicate the situation by speculating that I was in an out-of-body state.
He meant, I won't say whether this is out-of-body or not; no need to make it so complicated. But he felt that:
As I lay on my back with my head turned slightly to the right, I undoubtedly saw to my left.
Interesting. When his head turned to the right, he saw his left side. Actually, he was already out of body. He saw:
The top of a plain, solid wooden door leading into a room. And my viewpoint was above this door, just above the door frame.
Look, above the door frame. His perspective started from there, looking down. The door frame was very close to the low ceiling, meaning the door frame was already very near the ceiling, with little space left. He said:
On my side the door was dark, and it was open toward me at most three centimeters. Now behind the door, there was a brilliant and throbbing light.
The door was open just a crack, and behind it was a field of light. But he could only see a small portion of it at the top of the nearly closed door.
He said:
This time my reaction in this experience was quite objective.
He was very calm. He knew what he himself was creating. For example, he didn't have the kind of hair-raising sensation that might sweep over one at such a time. There was no such feeling. He was very clear-headed, very calm, very composed.
He said:
A little while after I came out of this experience, I decided to paint it as a picture.
Just as he had done after his previous three perceptions of the light of the universe earlier that year, on February 9, February 19, and June 16.
He said:
Obviously in tonight's little adventure I once again protected myself. He didn't go into that light. He took a glance through the crack of the door, not facing head-on the full creative intensity of the light of the universe, but allowing himself only a careful glimpse of it at the top of the door crack.
Seth had told him:
As a creature with a physical body, if I had come even slightly closer to facing that awesome conscious and creative force, I would not have been able to bear it.
Seth had spoken to him about similar topics in the early sessions before. So here, you see, his feeling toward this light of the universe, or creative light, or energy light, whatever you call it, was that he was stealing a glimpse. He didn't really open the door and walk into that light. Seth said that if you still have a physical body, the energy and frequency of that light is so high that ordinary people cannot bear it. So you don't need to worry. At such times, people protect themselves. You protect yourself very well. You don't need to worry about anything going wrong. He knows very clearly, far more clearly than you do. When you reach a certain level, a certain stage, you will naturally be able to walk in. When you can approach it, you will naturally approach it.
Through this incident in reality, we also see what kind of method we should use when applying the magical approach. And we can also notice that in practice, our traditional beliefs and rational ways of handling things are still very stubborn, and they keep popping up. We need to constantly maintain this awareness, to step out and take a step back to look at ourselves: when we deal with these difficulties and contradictions, are we using the magical approach or the traditional rational approach? From Seth's point of view, since you have accepted these Seth theories and the viewpoints of the magical approach, you should accept them wholeheartedly. You should use the magical approach in every aspect of your life, not just think of it occasionally and use traditional methods the rest of the time. That won't work.
注释与核实
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According to Mike’s original words, “Today, starting at 5:09 p.m., it is already the first dusk of autumn, that is, the beginning of autumn”; upon verification, it should be “The beginning of autumn is the thirteenth solar term among the twenty-four solar terms, occurring between August 7 and 9 each year in the Gregorian calendar (when the sun reaches 135° ecliptic longitude), not around September 22—what occurs around September 22 is the autumnal equinox.” (Source: Wikipedia “The Beginning of Autumn,” https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E7%AB%8B%E7%A7%8B) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩