The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the parts Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter records Rob discovering that Jane had privately accepted "supplementary sessions" from Seth and questioning her about it; Jane explained them as connection sessions but was unwilling to say much more. Jane was irritated because rest and exercise interrupted her creative work, and Seth discussed time use and natural rhythms in this regard: he pointed out that the creative mind keeps working even during rest, and that one should pay attention to good moods; early humans were night owls, and it was agriculture that shifted the rhythm toward daytime; clock time is a recent development, and people can use time according to natural rhythms. In Session 16, Seth briefly affirmed Jane's physical improvement and good mood.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Jane acknowledged that Seth gave her "supplementary sessions" or "floating data" outside the formal sessions, which she called connection sessions, but she was reluctant to discuss them much.
- Jane was irritated because rest and exercise interrupted her creative work. Seth pointed out that the irritability came from viewing lying down as useless time; the creative mind was still working, and she should pay attention to the periods of good mood.
- Early humans were night owls; it was agriculture that shifted life toward a daytime rhythm. Nighttime was more conducive to the union of intellect and imagination.
- Clock time is a recent phenomenon; people can make use of time according to natural rhythms and need not be limited only by the twenty-four-hour framework.
- In Session 16, Seth said Jane's body was continuing to improve, and she was doing very well at concentrating on good moods.
Main Text
The Natural Person and the Natural Use of Time
This session began on Wednesday, October 1, 1980, at 9:32 in the evening. Rob began by saying that during Jane's exercise and rest periods this morning, he asked her whether she had any thoughts about why Seth had transmitted that information, that data, to them in Monday evening's session.
At first she said, in a rather matter-of-fact way, that she didn't know, that she had no particular thoughts about it. Then she went on to say, "I haven't told you everything, but I've known for a while now -- Seth has been giving me what I call 'supplementary' sessions."
Seth has been giving her extra "supplementary" sessions, or this kind of "floating material," the kind of thing he can give at any time. She said that actually this wasn't a personal session, not a private session, and not a session for a book either; it was more like, somewhat like a "maintenance session." Right, it was that kind of good material.
There is something very interesting here. Actually, during the process of transmitting sessions at their regular weekly times, in the time when no session was being transmitted, Seth would sometimes give Jane separate sessions on her own. And when these separate sessions took place, Rob didn't know about them. So Rob was actually a little unhappy at this point -- as if to say, how come you never mentioned this?
Rob said, "Only after all these years do I find this out." He had been transmitting for over a decade, and it turned out that beyond each regular session, Seth had also been giving you extra private sessions, these supplementary sessions, and I never knew, and you never told me. He said, "Is there anything else you haven't told me?" Actually Rob was already quite angry by this point -- why did you treat this as such a big secret? Why didn't you tell me all these years?
Jane just made excuses. She said, "You never asked me either."
He said that her reply sounded very familiar. Later he found from earlier material that, regarding certain things in The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, this Seth material, she had also given him the same reply. During the transmission of that book, there were some questions that Jane actually knew about, but Rob didn't. Rob said, "How come you knew and didn't tell me?" and Jane said at the time, "You never asked me either."
Rob was already emotional by this point, very unhappy. He said, "I can't ask you about things I never suspected." What he meant was that she should have told him on her own initiative -- this was an obvious matter: Seth was giving you separate sessions outside the regular ones, and you never told me. Rob shot back at Jane: "Of course I can't ask you about things I never suspected. I never imagined such a thing could happen, so how could I ask you?"
Then I asked her -- you see, he phrased it very politely, but actually he was already very unhappy -- I asked her to write a short report about what she had just told me. After she finished her exercises and was sitting on the bed, she wrote it down.
Jane's Report
Below is the report Jane wrote. She wrote it rather perfunctorily as well. October 1, 1980 -- it had already been a while -- she first noted down the date, then wrote the report, saying she did not specify exactly how long, she was quite sly about it.
There are some sessions that I mentally mark as "supplementary sessions," or recognize them as a kind of "floating data" sessions, and they keep the sessions going.
These data and these supplementary sessions keep the sessions going, as if maintaining the sessions. But usually it is by discussing past data and connecting it with the present. She said that calling them "connecting sessions" might be more accurate -- that is, taking the old information previously discussed, and through discussing the old information, making a connection with the content that is to be transmitted now. She said calling them "connecting sessions" would be even better, but at the same time they do not necessarily add new momentum, and they do not push further on the knowledge level or depth of the sessions. That is, there is no further progress in the breadth and depth of the knowledge, so she felt there was no need to mention it. And they do not clearly discuss one theme; they are quite scattered.
Then for example, the earlier session on Christianity started in just this way. She said I think these connections occur between the sessions for writing the book in order to change the pace, and such data do not need to conform to the more concentrated overall focus of the book. That is, to make some adjustments -- because the book is very thematic, for example this book focuses mainly on the magical approach, what the magical approach is, and then how to apply the magical approach in life. And the matter of Christianity mixed in the middle of it -- actually the matter of Christianity does not have much connection with this book; it is more like a supplement to Chapter 21 of Seth Speaks.
Jane's report was finished, and that was all. Actually you can see that in this report she did not really say anything either; she did not say anything core, what had been transmitted, what transmissions had been done.
Regarding this question, let us not expand on it for now. After Jane passed away, in the nineties and after, Rob, before his own death, also made public their private sessions -- the so-called private sessions being sessions that Seth specifically addressed to Rob and Jane themselves, as well as their friends and some of their relatives, involving matters of personal privacy. Rob's idea at the time was very simple: he said since the Seth material was to be made public, then it should be made public completely and entirely, without anything hidden. He felt this might be of great help to human society, and perhaps some people, certain people, in their private sessions, in his early sessions, might gain great inspiration through some of the Seth material. He himself was not sure, so he made it public.
Therefore, regarding what content Seth transmitted privately to Jane, Jane was unwilling to talk about it. You can see that Jane was unwilling to talk about it; even though Rob was very angry, Jane still did not want to talk about it.
Jane's Irritability
So this was the state they were in. Jane, on this day, was becoming more and more impatient, more and more impatient with the interruptions to her activities. She wanted to do certain things, for example she wanted to take a walk after dinner, but then she had to hold a session again, and she had no choice but to hold the session, so she was impatient. Actually, I personally feel that Jane was in a very emotional state that day. Her mood today was not really about this. Her mood today was about -- there was actually a slight rift between the two of them as a couple at this time.
She said it was caused by the rest periods she took several times a day. Because Seth had suggested she move around every day, and once she moved around, her time was cut into segments. For example, she had to walk twice in the morning, then twice in the afternoon, and so on. At the same time, the fact that her back had now greatly improved was also a reason. As we sat waiting to hold these sessions, she was getting angry.
Rob's record of the process of this session is also very interesting. Jane was angry: she said I am so angry I cannot talk about this matter, so angry I simply do not want to talk about it. Talk about what, she said this -- but at the same time she talked for about twenty minutes. She kept saying I am angry, so angry I do not even want to talk about this matter, yet she went on chattering for twenty minutes.
I said to her -- at this point Rob came to console Jane -- he said I know she does not want to rest, and I have no alternative method to offer, except to tell her to reduce the number of rest periods -- except for having her reduce the number of rest periods, I have no solution. Jane did not want to be interrupted, did not want to be told to get up and walk a few steps every so often, she did not want to be disturbed. But Rob said, your body is like this, you need to recover, and your back has already improved a lot now, all because of the result of your constant exercise, and yet you are very impatient. When I ask you to exercise you feel it is interrupting you, so the only option is to reduce the number of times you exercise. If you do not want to exercise, then do not exercise. If you do not want to take breaks in between, then do not take breaks. If you want to keep sitting here writing your book, then just keep writing.
Actually you can see that both of them were already emotional at this point. Actually exercise and these breaks in between were very beneficial to Jane, but Jane was still throwing a tantrum about it. She felt that these breaks in between interrupted her creative train of thought. Then Rob said, if you yourself are unwilling, then so be it. You yourself do not even hope for your own body to get better, you yourself do not even care about your body, and yet you still blame me.
Actually Jane's mood was not directed at this matter, but in part, this was also one of the components of her mood. Her mood today was partly directed at the matter Rob had asked her about earlier.
Then he said I think she will change her schedule. She said, good heavens, Seth, you had better find a way to get me out of this, you had better help me. She said fiercely: because I am too emotionally involved, I am too emotional right now, I cannot hold a session about it, cannot hold a session about the emotions themselves, including a session about my rest and exercise. So before you can do that, you must calm me down first -- if you do not soothe my emotions right now, I cannot hold this session.
Then he said I did say that her walking was the key to recovery. The more she walked, the less sustained pressure there was on the other parts of her body. This was Rob himself saying it -- Rob said I did say her walking was very important, and now she was venting this anger on Rob, feeling that Rob was making her walk too much, that he was disturbing her, constantly interrupting these things of hers. However, I cannot equate the few minutes she spends walking with a half-hour rest period -- what he meant was, I have no way to equate the few minutes she walks with the half-hour rest period she still needs. What Rob meant was, I do not know what I should do anymore -- should I have her walk for a few minutes, or should I have her not walk, just sit there resting doing nothing for half an hour, which one is more correct, I am not sure either. Or was it that every time Jane walked for a few minutes she needed half an hour to recover and rest before she could continue her work. Rob may have meant both of these things here, but he was no longer sure either.
However, although she was protesting, while we were talking, Jane already felt that Seth was nearby. Yet when Seth appeared, he did discuss the subject that concerned us at that time.
Seth on Time and the Rhythms of Nature
Seth said:
Lately, our friend seems to have become somewhat more ambitious.
What does "more ambitious" mean here? It means he no longer wants to do his exercises.
A few weeks ago he could hardly wait to lie down at the appointed time.
Just a few weeks ago, Jane's body was in poor shape. She could not even wait until the agreed-upon rest time; she wanted to lie down right away, because at that time her body was very uncomfortable. Whether or not she liked it, she was willing to lie down then—why? Because lying down felt comfortable. Her body was in distress. Jane has always disliked resting; she is a workaholic. So whether she liked it or not, at that point she was willing to lie down—because lying down was comfortable, because her body was suffering.
But now things have changed somewhat. The sharp discomfort has passed.
That kind of truly unbearable pain has passed. Jane's body has now recovered very well. So she no longer wants to rest. She feels that other people are disturbing her, and the idea of getting up and walking a couple of steps feels extremely annoying to her.
A few weeks ago he could barely manage to walk two steps in the kitchen.
She could only walk two steps—one or two steps.
Let alone twice the length of the living room.
Now she can do that much.
Or now considering taking a walk after dinner.
She even wants to walk a few more steps. Jane's body has in fact recovered tremendously, and the fact that she now wants to take a walk after dinner is an obvious sign of progress. Her restlessness is to some extent natural, but it is also naturally built on the idea that when she is lying down, that time is dead time, useless time, time when she is forced into inactivity.
Jane's restlessness comes from this belief—she feels that lying there is doing nothing. We often have a saying, "playing dead"—just lying there like a corpse, doing nothing. In Jane's belief system, this is the most boring time, a waste of time, the most useless.
If Ruburt could remind himself in a different way, whether or not he is aware of it, whether or not he feels it, no matter what he is doing—whether lying down or getting up to walk a couple of steps or writing poetry or writing—his creative mind is still working.
And at the very least, this approach has the potential to accelerate creativity. If he would allow his intellect to enter a state of freewheeling at such times, he could be told to lie down when he is more aware of being really tired or uncomfortable.
What this passage means is that Seth wants Jane to understand that whether you are lying down or doing anything else, even when you think you are doing nothing, your mind has never rested. It is always doing creative work, and when you are lying down, its creative potential is sometimes even better. So he says, if you can let yourself enter a state of freewheeling—that is, autopilot—then perhaps this creative ability will become stronger for you, and it will be more beneficial to you. Seth says to Rob, you can let Jane herself sense when she is really tired or really uncomfortable. What he means is, do not let Jane control herself with too much rational method. Let her intellect function freely, and she will know on her own when she should rest and when she should not.
Of course, the walk after dinner is very good. But what is important is that in the evening before watching television, if he gets tired of sitting, he should lie down on the bed.
That is, in the evening before dinner, if Jane is watching television and she feels tired, then she should just lie down. So Seth means this is even more effective than your evening walk.
Once again, an important point to remember is that on any given day, there are often many periods when his mood is excellent. He should concentrate on those good periods, rather than on the periods when he feels gloomy or unhappy, berating himself for those reactions.
He says, how can I have such big emotions? Why is my mood not high? Why am I so gloomy, so restless? And then the more restless he gets, the more harshly he scolds himself, saying, how can I be like this? Seth says, do not do that. You should focus on those good-mood states. In that way, your good moods will become longer; they will increase; they will become more meaningful, of greater significance. In this way, he will discover what promotes these good moods—when he focuses on good moods and good emotions, he will discover what brings about his good moods, and then he can simply do more of those things.
Daily Assumptions
I still have a few more things to say about what I call "daily assumptions" -- because every person has such a daily assumption.
What is a daily assumption? It is like how our assumption about Friday may be very different from our assumption about Monday, and our assumption about the weekend is even more different.
Through such practical assumptions, you structure your daily experience.
I think working people all understand this very well. The feeling on Monday and the feeling on Friday are completely different, and the arrangements on Monday and the arrangements on Friday are also different. On Friday evening you will definitely arrange some activities, some leisure, some relaxation. Even if you have not arranged any activity at all, just thinking that it is Friday and you can go home and relax and rest, your mood instantly improves -- it is that simple. But as soon as Monday arrives, or even on Sunday evening, you already start feeling restless, thinking about having to go to work tomorrow. This is the assumption about each day, the daily assumption.
So what Seth is saying is, whether you want to live each day restlessly, live anxiously, or live every day as if it were Friday -- that is entirely something you can set for yourself. This is something you can completely set for yourself; it just depends on whether you know how to set it.
On one level, Ruburt's dissatisfaction with lying down after dinner means that he knows more about his own natural rhythms.
Because in the previous few sessions, Seth said that Ruburt's biological clock and Rob's biological clock in their daily lives were different. Ruburt prefers the time period of dusk and evening, so he especially hates lying down right after dinner. He feels that this is the most time-wasting, life-wasting thing, because for him that part of the day is his golden time. He wants to create, he wants to do something meaningful. But his body wants to lie down, so he would rather -- actually his body does not really allow him to go for a walk -- but he would rather take a walk after dinner than lie down after dinner. Because he feels that lying down during his golden time is simply a waste of life.
Because like you, he also senses that at that time, in the evening, and before nightfall, his rhythms are speeding up.
That is his golden time.
This is because you individually and jointly hold many beliefs that at night you can relax to some extent.
This is a belief common to humanity, because it tends to apply only to daytime activities. They are our normal conscious beliefs, used in daytime life.
And the rest of the world seems to be engaged in a nine-to-five, assembly-line kind of world experience.
That is, our feeling about daytime and nighttime is different. Many people can feel this -- they seem like a different person during the day and at night. Both men and women have this characteristic, though it may be more obvious in women. Many girls are simply workplace professionals during the day -- brisk, efficient, and very capable. But as soon as night falls, they immediately turn into artistic, sentimental young women, and all those emotions, feelings, and sensations come flooding in. At this time, night gives people a different feeling.
What Seth wants to emphasize here is that every natural person's feeling about the time of day is different, and then how to make use of one's own time -- that is what Seth wants to talk about in this session.
You do not project so many negative thoughts onto the evening hours.
You do not have many negative thoughts about the evening. In the evening, what you think of is warmth, quiet, peace, and even a little ambiguity -- and if it is a man and woman in the dating stage, there is even a little impulse. So at night there are no negative thoughts for you, and this applies to most people as well.
That is at least one of the reasons why these sessions are held in the evening.
That is, our Seth sessions now start at eight or nine in the evening every day. Why do we hold the sessions in the evening? This is also the reason. It is because at this time Rob and Jane do not have many negative thoughts.
And at that time, at least you are less likely to try to surround it with workday-style world values when approaching this session.
In the past, the sessions were held after nine-thirty at night. Recently, because Jane's health has not been very good, they have moved the start time to around eight. But whether it is eight or nine, at this time period the two of them have already finished their day's work. They feel that this is a relaxing time in the evening, and when Seth comes through to tell them things at this time, they do not have many negative emotions, nor do they have the excessive rational, work-state emotions of daytime work. It is like an old friend chatting, talking about life, about values, about ideals with an old friend. The whole person is relaxed, whether Jane or Rob. So Seth says this is why we always hold the sessions in the evening, rather than scheduling them for nine in the morning -- you see, there is reasoning behind all of this.
Generally speaking, that is also why Ruburt finds it easier to receive this kind of information in the evening.
Why the transmission generally happens in the evening -- it is easier in the evening.
Because jointly, in the evening you are less subject to the restrictions that would hinder you at other times of the day.
In the evening you are not subject to so many restrictions. It is not only because during the day many people come to visit and interrupt you -- during the day there is often a phone call, someone arrives, a knock on the door, neighbors, all kinds of things.
Also because you are less likely to be assailed by preconceptions about what you should be doing at any given time of day.
That is, you will not be assailed by this kind of preconception about time. A preconception is a fixed view. What is a preconception? It is that we humans have a feeling about what we should do during the day, what we should do at night, what we should do at what time, what we should do during what period -- we have our own set of rules. If you insist on disrupting these rules, it feels very uncomfortable. So if they were sitting there at nine in the morning transmitting the Seth material, both of them would feel somewhat uncomfortable and not quite suited to it -- because in their minds there is a concept that at this time they should be working. Even now they do not consider the transmission of the Seth material to be such an important job. They feel that painting is Rob's main work, writing books is Jane's main work, and the evening hours, the spare time, can be used to hold Seth sessions and take notes. You see, this is one of their preconceptions -- the preconception about what to do, and what to do at what time.
In the daytime, the natural and magical flow of your own rhythms is often interrupted.
During the day, you yourself have a natural magical flow, you have your own rhythm, and it is more often interrupted. This also applies to other people -- that is, if you want to be a natural person, a person who follows the magical approach, it is not easy during the day, because you will be interrupted by trivial daily matters and work matters -- phone calls, meetings, all kinds of things.
Because of your ideas of what you should be doing at any given time, or what is socially respectable, proper, upright, and even limited in its terms.
What is moral -- you have your own ideas. You believe that at any given time you should be doing certain things, and you all have your own ideas about this. For example, why must a married couple make love at night? Because they feel that doing this during the day always carries a sense of guilt -- during the day one should be working, striving, earning money. This is the human feeling about what to do at what time. So Seth uses the word "moral" here, and he does not elaborate, but that is the meaning.
We humans have this kind of feeling about what to do at what time. So why must breakfast be eaten very simply, not too lavishly -- a simple meal of fried dough sticks and soy milk, or a few steamed buns, or meat, eggs, and milk, a glass of milk, a slice of ham, and so on -- it is because he feels that if he spends a lot of time on breakfast early in the morning, that is too wasteful, and it is simply disrespectful to time. How can such good morning time be spent on eating for one or two hours? That will not do. But in the evening, you find that he can do it. Lunch also will not do -- lunch must be a simple work meal, eaten quickly. But in the evening it is fine; in the evening one can spend several hours eating. If you have lived abroad, you know that if a Western dinner is eaten in a formal restaurant, without two or three hours you basically cannot finish anything. It is very slow, the dishes come out slowly, the whole rhythm is slow, and you must finish the previous course before the next course is served. Generally, a three-hour dinner is the most normal amount of time. But you see, it is the same time -- what difference does it make whether you put this time in the morning or in the evening? When he does it in the evening, he feels perfectly at ease, and it feels very romantic and comfortable. If you just eat two hamburgers in the evening and call it done, he feels that is not right either. So we humans have our own theory about what to do at what time, our own set of preconceptions, and that is what Seth is talking about here.
Humans and the Night
You have settled into a system that seems to be naturally established.
You have always settled your lives into this kind of time system.
It is a unique result of your historical past, in which your main activities were daytime activities.
This is to say it was caused by a process in the development of human history. Because during the day we all have to -- since ancient times, the main activities have been during the day. Daytime was the agricultural period, when you had to go work in the fields, go hunting; at night it was hard to do these things.
So, for example, it seems natural that early humans carried out all their main activities during the day, and then hid away when it grew dark.
It seems as though we humans just think this way, as though it is quite natural -- rising with the sun and resting at sunset, this is the idea we have always advocated. In fact, this is not the case.
In fact, early humans were natural night owls.
Just as you think, we humans now stay up very late at night and do not sleep; you people are naturally like this, naturally night owls. It is not, as you think, that modern technological development made it this way. No, in very early times, early humans, in primitive times, were night owls. Why? Because you developed the use of fire for lighting very early on. Humans learned very early to use campfires for illumination, and carried out many activities after dark.
When many natural predators were asleep.
When those animals of nature, the natural hunters, were all asleep, humans at that time were also skilled at hunting in the dark -- when other animals were sleeping, he came out.
Humans could hunt at night, cleverly using all their senses with great accuracy.
The results of these learning processes have now vanished.
That is, we humans now no longer engage in very important activities at night. Although of course we still have overtime work and so on, for most people we think of night as a time for rest. But in fact, in ancient times humans could do a great many things at night, even go hunting at night.
If you have ever lived in a hunting area -- for example, in many places with primeval forests, in the mountains, including in the northeast, including in some mountainous places -- if you have ever hunted, you would know, all hunters know, that in many places in America now people go hunting, and when hunting, you really do often have to go out at night, always at night, often in the middle of the night, often staying out for several nights or several days, and often having to hunt at night. But most people do not have this experience.
In any case, humans are by no means solely daytime creatures.
No matter how you put it, humans are not beings that are only active during the day.
The fire in the cave extended activity late into the night.
People hid in caves around the campfire, and could carry on activities very late.
It was agriculture that transformed humans, turning them into creatures of a more daytime-oriented rhythm.
You cannot say it was entirely so, but agriculture greatly changed human living habits. So rising with the sun and resting at sunset mainly refers to the agricultural era, to agricultural society. It was because in the agricultural period you could not hunt at night, and you could not do farm work at night either, since the light was insufficient and you could not see clearly, so you rested at night.
And for quite a while, many beliefs from the earlier nighttime agricultural activities still lingered.
He says that some people still retained some nighttime agricultural activities -- now they are gone, basically no longer seen. But in the past, in ancient times, there were still some agricultural activities that could only be carried out at night. I do not understand this, because I have not had such experience in the countryside, but I guess it is possible.
Therefore, many people's natural rhythms still lean in this direction.
That is, many people's natural rhythms lean in this direction.
And for the race as a whole, they are always a viable alternative rhythm.
That is to say, this natural rhythm -- that humans still tend toward nighttime activity -- is one direction for humanity, and there is such a tendency. For humanity as a whole, nighttime activity is still a viable alternative, that is, another way of life. It is not only a matter of being active by day and resting at night; you can also be active at night.
Ruburt has tendencies in that direction.
Ruburt also has such a tendency; he favors the evening. So the evening hours are when Ruburt's creativity is strongest.
Many creative people are the same.
This explains why so many creative people are night owls, working at night.
But these rhythms are often almost entirely covered over by culturally learned rhythms.
This is a natural, innate rhythm, but this rhythm has gradually been covered over by the culture of our human society, and we still feel that we should not do too many things at night. But truly creative people, whether writing novels, painting, including composers and so on, as long as they are engaged in creative work, they themselves will feel that for many of them, the period of greatest inspiration or the time when they feel most attuned is at night, and many even in the middle of the night. Many people only get the feeling in the middle of the night; anyone who has had creative experience can understand this. But because of the changes of the times, people are gradually influenced by that traditional concept of time, and it is not so obvious anymore.
Night-oriented cultures appreciate the night in a different way.
He says here that this points out two cultural characteristics: one is rising with the sun and resting at sunset, and the other is the night-owl life where one only becomes spirited at night.
And in fact, they use their consciousness in ways that have been almost forgotten.
What he says here is very interesting: they use their consciousness in a way they have almost forgotten. This consciousness is completely different from daytime consciousness. Some people are completely different people by day and by night. Here I will not name a certain person -- for example, a once-famous host on our domestic evening news program. You could see him on the evening news every day, and by day he was absolutely righteous and stern. Do you know what he did at night? Because he happened to have a good friend whom I know. At night he would transform into a young girl, in chat rooms or on QQ (back then it was still QQ) he would become a girl chatting with everyone, and no one knew he was a man. It happened that a friend of mine was especially close to him and knew about this process, and inadvertently discovered that he had another mode of life -- as soon as night came he would transform into a young girl, while by day he was the host on the evening news.
He says he believes that the ancient myths, the stories of gods and immortals, and the myths still survive.
But when speaking of these underground worlds or dark worlds, they are not, as you usually interpret them, worlds of death. He says that including those mythological stories, whenever they speak of night it is always very frightening, gloomy and terrifying. He says no, it is not like that. The night has its own unique beauty, and moreover it can develop those consciousnesses that we humans do not ordinarily use.
Intellect and Imagination Go Hand in Hand
In other words, in this case, the intellect and the imagination go hand in hand.
Simply put, when you look at the world from the nighttime perspective at night, your intellect and imagination go hand in hand. The parts of the imagination that are suppressed during the day are all released at night, so you become more emotional, more intuitive, more moody. Girls may feel this more themselves, right? No matter how heroic and dashing you are during the day, once night falls you become a woman made of water, and all that tenderness, all that sweetness comes out fully at night. Why? Seth tells you: at night your feelings are different from the daytime, your imagination and your wisdom—your wisdom and imagination go hand in hand.
It is not that people value physical information less, but that it is combined in a different way.
He means that human beings combine it in a different way. In the darkness, human beings rely on their inner and outer senses in a more unified way. What he means is, it is not that human beings do not value material information—it is not that once night falls you no longer value the material, you have to understand this sentence—but rather that some inner senses are added in. While acknowledging the outer senses, he also makes use of many inner senses.
When we are in a dark situation, those inner senses come out. I do not know if you have ever felt this. If you are in very, very dark conditions at night, whether you live in the mountains or somewhere else, if you go out for a stroll and walk around in a very dark environment, your senses are different from the daytime. Because at this time your vision is restricted, and everything around you is pitch black. The world that you could originally take in at a glance, clear and unobstructed, becomes a stretch of darkness and chaos before you. Everything becomes shadowy and indistinct, some dark shapes, some dark things, and so on. At this time you are not only using your outer senses; your inner senses also come out, and your feeling becomes very sharp, very acute. More often it is a kind of feeling, a feeling that is very acute.
Let me give a simple example. When I used to drive in China, before there were highways, before things were developed, it was all national roads and provincial roads. When you drove on national and provincial roads, the road itself was not very wide, it was narrow, and the cars coming toward you were heading in the opposite direction. At night they were all big trucks, and the lights of big trucks are very bright and very high, and many trucks in China do not dim their lights for you; when they pass they do not switch off their high beams. Of course, people with good manners will switch to low beams, but many do not have this habit. You can imagine, at the moment when you pass another vehicle, you can hardly see anything on the road surface, because the other vehicle's lights are too bright and shine directly into your eyes, and outside it is so dark. But in many cases, I think everyone has had that feeling: you can sense that there is, for example, a rock on the road, or a tractor parked by the roadside ahead—a tractor has no reflectors, nothing reflective at all, and in the dark of night that is almost very dangerous—but very often, or in the vast majority of cases, or almost all the time, you can sense that anomaly. You will naturally slow down, or move aside to avoid the obstacle by the roadside. At this time, what are you actually using? It is not simply your vision; you are using some parts of your inner senses, and you can feel that there is something by the roadside. It is not necessarily that you actually see that there is something there; you can sense a shadowy, indistinct thing, and you just feel that this is definitely an obstacle to avoid.
The nighttime portion of your personality becomes a stranger to you.
That is, there is a part of your personality that is the nighttime part, and it becomes a stranger to you. So the example I just gave, the one about turning into a young girl at night, is like that—to him it is very unfamiliar. No matter how you think about it, it does not seem like a big, burly man with a broad, square face would have this kind of girlish sentiment. Everyone is like this. Many girls become tender and sweet at night, and they do not even recognize themselves; during the day they think, how could I have been like that last night? They themselves feel like strangers to it.
Because when you identify with what you think of as reason and rationality, then you further identify it with the daylight hours, with the objective world that becomes visible in the morning, and with the clearly outlined physical world before your eyes at that time.
Why does it feel unfamiliar? Because during the day you see this dazzling world, this bright and clear universe, clearly and distinctly, and the chaotic world, the dark world you see at night, feel different to you. Your cognition of the world during the day and your cognition of the world at night are different. A mountain that was originally clear and distinct, seen clearly and sharply, becomes dark and blurry at night, like a dark shadow. A tree that was originally clear and distinct, with its green leaves, all that green, at night may appear to you only as a shadowy, indistinct existence of a tree shadow. So things that look very concrete and materialized during the day lose much of their materiality at night, and come closer to that magical feeling. Therefore you feel very unfamiliar, because your daytime cognition and nighttime cognition are different, and the different facets of your personality will also show themselves differently.
Intuition and Dreams
But in those times, people identified more with their intuitive selves and with their imaginations.
In that era, that is, those people in ancient times who tended to be active at night, they leaned more toward their intuition and also placed more value on their imagination. And to a certain degree, at that time, more than now, this directed how they used their intellect—directed where their intellect was applied. In that era, when night came, he would more use this intuition and imagination of his to direct where his intellect was applied, that is, which areas to apply his logical reasoning and his wisdom to. Rather than, as in the daytime, applying it only to such a clear and bright physical world, he would mix in more elements of the nonphysical world, and his inner senses were also somewhat more sensitive than in the daytime.
Of course this implies a language that is somewhat more precise than your own.
That thing is more precise than what you can express with language. What he is referring to is intuition, intuition and imagination—these things are more precise than your language.
For it often expresses concepts that describe not only objective events, but also the vast complexity of subjective events.
He says that when you use intuition and imagination to look at things, it not only expresses the physical, objective existence of the thing itself, it also encompasses a vast subjective complexity. In this matter it carries more emotions, feelings, inner intuition, and senses. In the daytime it is not like that—in the daytime you look at a tree and it is just a tree, a stone is just a stone; at night you look at a stone and it seems like a human figure. If you have ever walked a night road, you will find that no matter how you look at a wooden barrel, it seems like a human figure crouching there—that is, you add a lot of subjective things into it.
For example, between a person and his dream self, and between the dream selves of all the members of that tribe, there were countless relationships that are impossible to describe now.
This "impossible to describe" does not refer to the kind of embarrassing things that cannot be described; he means it is very hard to make clear with language. He gives an example. In that era—he is talking about that era all along—when everyone in the cave was not sleeping at night—between a person and his dreaming self, and among the dream selves of all the members of the tribe who were dreaming, there were countless relationships that present human language cannot describe. The complexity and subtlety of these relationships cannot be depicted with language.
In other words, the boundary between inside dreams and outside dreams was not so clear for people. Things done in dreams, things learned, or information exchanged—those relationships and the daytime ones—when they were awake they also exchanged information—the two were mixed together. Even in some tribes they would have shared dreams; even within the tribe they would learn many production skills in dreams, and would do things together. Even in dreams they would know where the water source was; even in dreams they would know where they could hunt more prey—and these are things that present-day humans cannot explain or understand. Why would such things come out in dreams? For example, a group of people having one dream—this is something we find very hard to understand. But in that era such things happened often, and collectively having a dream—in the dream everyone doing their own things, and dreaming, and after waking everyone still remembered the dream, remembered the things done in the dream. So to put it simply, the boundary between inside and outside the dream was not so distinct; in dreams they would also learn some things, and there was a certain connection with the production work and the experiences of waking time.
Especially in warmer climates, people were naturally active at night, and spent much of the day sleeping and dreaming.
He is referring to that era, the tribal era, when people came out to be active at night. In warm climates—what he calls warm is actually hot climates—the daytime was not suitable for activity, so they came out at night. If you have ever lived in the Guangdong or Guangxi regions, you would know that their life only just begins at night. During the day they go to work and make money, and they also take a midday nap. The most typical example: if you go to Guangxi now—I do not know about Guangdong, but Guangxi is still very obvious now—if you go to any government office or large company in Guangxi now, as long as the leader has his own office, there is definitely a bed in it. People unfamiliar with Guangxi find it strange at first—why put a bed there? They need to take a midday nap; they need to take a very comfortable midday nap; they absolutely must take a midday nap. This is a very strange thing that people from other regions cannot understand. Then after they get off work in the evening, their life seems to have just begun—only then does life begin. So often at eleven at night they are still inviting you out for a late-night snack; going out at eleven is just the beginning, just starting to get lively. Usually after the late-night snack they still have to sing a bit and drink some tea, and this whole set of activities generally goes until two or three in the morning. So when he goes back—just think, if he did not take a midday nap, it would not work. Why? Because the daytime climate is too hot, and the daytime is not suitable for doing too much activity, so what do you do in the daytime? Sleep and dream. Of course there are no such places like that now; he is talking about that era.
The Age of Clocks and Natural Rhythms
Of course, you must remember that the use of clocks is a fairly recent phenomenon.
That is, clocks appeared quite late. If you look into it carefully, clocks may have appeared only two or three hundred years ago1, I do not know exactly how long. Bells are old, those big bells can be very old, but making something as small as a pocket watch has not been around for many years, because it is very complex.
People think in terms of the rhythmic sense of time and the flowing way of time.
That is, how do people normally think when they are thinking? They think in terms of the natural rhythmic sense of time and flowing time, that is, segment by segment, chunk by chunk, not in the way we now divide time into portions like this — one hour, a few minutes, a few seconds — in that way. When you truly enter a state of thinking, you forget time, and time has no concept or meaning for you. This is a typical example. When you humans think, you must think in the way of the rhythm of time and flowing time, not by saying I will think for a few minutes — you cannot control that. How much time you actually spend thinking, you yourself cannot determine before the thinking ends.
So biologically speaking, you have adapted to a time environment that you yourselves have formed.
From our biological nature, no matter what, we have already adapted to the current environment of living by clock time. This is a time environment, one that everyone recognizes, everyone has reached a consensus on, everyone agrees to.
However, again I say, creative people are often at least on certain levels aware of those connections.
Aware of those connections — that is, that watch time and natural time, and this natural rhythmic time, have a certain connection.
Ruburt especially has always had that feeling to some degree. And in this respect he has largely buried it.
He says in this respect, Rob, you have largely buried your own natural feelings. Rob is not very good at using natural time and rhythm. Rob is a very self-disciplined, very objective, very rigid person, living according to time. Whereas Jane, on the other hand, would have that feeling — although Jane is not much better than him, she still has that feeling. So Jane would want to work in the evening.
Whether you want to call these sessions supplementary sessions is up to you.
He says at this point Seth came out to smooth things over for Jane. He wanted to tell Rob, those supplementary sessions I had with Jane seem similar to these sessions, do not overthink it. I am not saying I gave her some extra meals of especially important content that you do not know about, secret undisclosed content, no; nor would I secretly flirt with Jane while transmitting material to her, do not let your mind run wild, there is no such thing. It is fine if you want to call these sessions supplementary sessions.
Rob said, I was just about to ask that kind of question — he said this is Ruburt's phrasing, not mine. Do you have any more questions?
Rob said no more, except about that supplementary session question — you see at this point Rob was still hung up on the supplementary session issue, Rob was still a little bothered by it.
Then Seth continued:
From the beginning, the sessions were built upon Ruburt's energy (the natural flow), and it was used in such a way.
Ruburt's energy is, the so-called energy is the natural flow — this is his parenthetical addition, it must have been him who had Seth add it. From the beginning, this session was built upon this kind of energy of Jane's, upon the natural flow of energy. It is in this way that we transmit the sessions, that we use it, use this natural flow of energy, so that the sessions can be transmitted naturally. What he means is that this session comes through Ruburt, built upon his flow of energy. So those floating pieces of information — at the beginning of this session Jane said he had some supplementary sessions, actually they are there in a way similar to this kind of floating information. Jane said no, it is not necessarily that Seth specifically taught me something, some things are as if he placed them, tossed them onto this natural flow, and Ruburt can go and retrieve those things at any time, more like that kind of feeling.
Seth's Reminder to Rob
Those rhythms are more natural to you than you ever suspected.
He says this is still meant to enlighten Rob. You might think this seems like deliberately giving some supplementary lessons, but he says no, this rhythm comes more naturally than you ever suspected.
You always have freedom, but you often do not use it.
The rhythm mentioned here, I think, refers more to Rob's natural sense of rhythm regarding time. It is natural.
You rather arbitrarily make use of only that twenty-four-hour time segment.
This statement is also a reminder to all of us. Your day is not just twenty-four hours. If you arbitrarily believe it is only twenty-four hours, then it really becomes only twenty-four hours. He says you are free, and you can make use of this time in many ways. Society has divided time into segment after segment, a twenty-four-hour block like this, but this only holds true with your permission. That is, if you allow this twenty-four-hour period to be a time standard, then it exists; if you do not acknowledge the existence of this twenty-four-hour time, and you live entirely according to your own rhythm, then this twenty-four-hour period has no effect on you. You can make use of it in any way you wish; however you want to use it, use it in the way you like, in any way.
In other words, Seth means that if you are restricted by the modern clock and time, then you are restricted by it; if you kick it aside and step outside this time restriction, then you are no longer bound by it. You simply follow your own sense of rhythm in living — work when you want to work, rest when you want to rest, create when the feeling comes, rest when there is no feeling, go out and play when you want, relax when you want — this kind of natural sense of rhythm. Just follow yourself naturally, do not watch the clock, oh no, it is already nine-thirty so I have to work, it is seven in the evening so I have to eat, what time I have to play games. Do not be like that, do not be restricted by this kind of time, that is what he means.
Oh, I said, somewhat defensively — this is Rob about to push back — he said, actually I have always liked having sessions in the evening, working after dinner. See how Rob quickly states his position: I said, I am also someone who likes working at night. I am not like what you said, working during the day and then feeling some way at night; no, I work at night too, and I also like having sessions in the evening, working at night. He says this is somewhat defensive, meaning he wants to push back a little.
At this point Seth is completely merciless. See, the other person has pushed back, but no, he is completely merciless:
You have only touched the surface of what I mean by natural.
His so-called working at night, his so-called evening sessions — you have touched only the surface.
Although you undoubtedly do far better than most people.
See how Seth quickly offers a sweet date after the slap — first a slap, then a sweet date. You say you have pushed back, but what you call that only touches the surface of the freedom I am talking about. What Seth means is that you are still far from the freedom I speak of; you have only come into contact with the surface appearance of that freedom. Then he quickly encourages him again, saying, although you already do much better than most people — what do most people do? After dinner they watch TV, scroll through short videos to kill time, feeling that evening time is meant to be wasted, that at night one should rest, that after working all day one can only do boring things at night to pass the time. But they were having sessions at night, organizing materials, discussing questions. He used to rest a bit earlier in the past; you may remember that in The Nature of Personal Reality and Seth Speaks they often went until midnight, and going until twelve o'clock was a common occurrence.
So in this session he did not go easy on Rob either. He says he wishes them a good evening, and this session is about to end.
He says there is also a portion that is a reply to your comments about the nighttime hours — there is a portion that is a response to your comments about the nighttime hours.
At 10:25, Jane had no idea what he was going to say or whether there was anything else, and said that tonight she had indeed managed to have a session about her own challenges. That is, a session about her own matters. Actually, Seth had been talking about Jane earlier: as soon as your body gets a little better you start getting cocky, you do not want to exercise or move around, and then you always blame such activities for disrupting you. He says if you want to work, you can do it anytime and anywhere according to your own rhythm, and you can also avoid letting these things interrupt you, but you have to understand it yourself — if you enter a state of being a completely free natural person, and use time naturally, then you yourself will know when to rest and when to relax. It is precisely because you have not entered that state, and you do not know when to rest, that you should not blame Rob for using physical time, or clock time, at fixed points every day to make you stop and walk around a bit and exercise.
He had been talking about Jane earlier — do not forget the pain once the wound has healed; as soon as your body gets a little better, not like when the pain was unbearable and you did not even want to exercise or rest. In other words, if you enter a natural state, you have perception of your own body, and you will naturally know when to rest. But right now you have not entered that state, so you can only accept this state. And your current irritability comes from the fact that you do have a perception of your own natural time and creative time, so you object when someone interrupts you at the very moment you are being creative and tells you to get up and walk around — that is the source of your emotion. But what he means is that this problem must be solved from your own side.
Then he went on at great length, expanding further, and again talked about working at night, about the evening hours, and once more went over humanity's ancient past and the present-day perception of time. The greatest benefit of this for us is that through this session we can come to understand how we should make use of time and employ time.
He says but because it was simultaneous, because it was simultaneous, she felt very displeased — because the earlier part of the session was all about her, and only at the very end did it mention Rob; most of the earlier part was about Jane. So she was unhappy, and she was uncomfortable too — being criticized, how could she be comfortable?
But in fact, her delivery was still very fast and forceful.
After the session, he says, I reminded Jane that she had just had a wonderful session — something no one else but her could have done. See how he quickly flatters Jane, so that Jane will not get emotional; he says only you could do this. But she did not give herself much credit — but Jane did not see it that way. Why do I say this? Because after the session, while sitting on the sofa, she muttered to herself that she had not done anything today. Her exact words were: today I did nothing except sleep and lie around here and there.
Those were Jane's exact words. Yet she had indeed delivered this Seth session today, and as we know, this Seth session is a very good trigger point for all of humanity, giving us a very clear understanding of the human use of time. Whether from biology, genetics, or the developmental process of our ancient human past, there is a clear understanding: how we should use time. Although Seth was delivering such excellent material through Jane, Jane herself felt she had done nothing — except eat and lie around, she had done nothing.
Session 16: Jane's Positive Results
Then we look at Session 16, because Session 16 has only this one piece, so we will just finish it and be done.
Session 16 is Jane's Positive Results, a session held on Monday, October 6, 1980, at 9:14 p.m. The personal material below comes from the regularly scheduled Session 920. Seth often did this, whether or not we asked him to, giving Jane and me comments of varying length to close out a book. Whenever he was about to finish writing a book or end a regular session, he would suddenly add a passage like this.
Below is that passage, spoken at 10:38 p.m.:
Ruburt's body is responding continuously, the legs and arms lengthening, where before he was curled up, and becoming somewhat more powerful.
The sense of strength had also come.
Soon he should be able to feel the improvement in certain ways, to feel the increased agility of movement.
He would soon be able to feel that his movements were more agile and his sense of strength greater.
He is doing very well at concentrating upon good moods.
Because in the previous session he had mentioned that Jane should focus her emotions on those good moods and not dwell on the bad ones. And as a result she had good moods—because he focused on good moods, his mood improved, and as a result there were good moods.
I wish you both a pleasant evening.
And that session ended. He finally thanked Seth, and Seth nodded and closed Jane's eyes, and it was over.
So you will find that Session 16 could hardly be shorter—just half a page and it is done.
注释与核实
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According to Mike's original words, "clocks may have appeared only two or three hundred years ago"; upon verification, it should be "mechanical clocks appeared in Europe around the late 13th to 14th century, about seven hundred years ago (the oldest surviving clock at Salisbury Cathedral in England dates back to 1386), while timekeeping devices such as sundials and water clocks were used thousands of years earlier." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Clock," https://www.britannica.com/technology/clock) ↩