Mike's commentary · The Magical Approach, Session 7

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

In this chapter, Seth explains that the human intellect, that is, intelligence, is not purely natural but a socially oriented cultural phenomenon, influenced by historical belief structures. The reasoning capacity can derive different conclusions from different premises and form consensus and cultural environments. Drawing on examples such as the geocentric theory, the institution of marriage, the controversy over the German edition's publication, and Jane's reactions to the weather, he elaborates on how beliefs give rise to experience, emphasizing that "what you focus on is what you get," and points out that the intellect should be well applied to present-moment choices. Finally, he gives Jane suggestions for her physical recovery.

Key Points of This Chapter

• The intellect is a socially oriented cultural phenomenon, influenced by the belief structures of the historical period in which one lives; it gathers consistent evidence and excludes inconsistent evidence.
• The reasoning ability is flexible and, depending on different premises and evidence, can lead to almost any conclusion; rigid systems will adjust and form social consensus and cultural environments.
• Beliefs trigger actions and draw out corresponding behaviors from others; whatever a person focuses on is what they get.
• The intellect is good at discerning and choosing the present moment, but not good at handling the future; one should focus on the experiences one wants, rather than forcing the intellect to do what it is not capable of doing.
• Jane changed her experience of hot weather by interrupting negative thoughts and replacing them with favorable images; the burning sensation in her body represents beneficial activity during recovery.

Main Text

Intellect as a Cultural Artifact, Creating One's Own Experience

This session began on Thursday, August 28, 1980¹, at 8:37 p.m. Let's first look at this title. The translation here is not easy to understand. Actually, what he calls "zhixing" is simply our intellect. If you translate "zhixing" as "intellect," it becomes easier to understand. Our intellect is like an artificial product with a human cultural background, and anything artificial carries a certain non-natural component. What stands in contrast to this "artifact" is that which is natural, that which is of nature. Although the intellect is a natural ability that every natural person inherently possesses, it nevertheless has a cultural attribute, an artificial attribute within it. The original English title is Intellect as a Culture Artifact -- like a cultural creation. There is a period in the middle, and the two phrases -- "Intellect as a cultural artifact" and "creating one's own experience" -- have no relation to each other; they are talking about two different things. The first sentence is saying: human intellect, that is, human understanding, human thinking and reasoning ability, has a very strong cultural attribute, has a cultural background, and it is not entirely natural. We need to understand this point.

Jane's Reaction to the Weather

First, he says that last night, Jane felt very uncomfortable because of the humid weather, so much so that she did not hold the scheduled session; there was no session on Wednesday night. Yesterday the temperature reached as high as ninety-four degrees Fahrenheit -- ninety-four degrees is already quite hot -- and at bedtime it was still seventy-five degrees. Seventy-five degrees is not hot, and the humidity was sixty-eight percent. He felt that the latter affected her the most. Jane said tonight's session would be short.

Rob's notes say that he often hesitated to bring it up, but a few days earlier he had already said it: he felt that Jane's reaction to the weather must have reasons beyond those related to the environmental conditions. That is to say, Jane's reaction to the weather was somewhat excessive. Although ninety-four degrees is relatively hot, sixty-eight percent humidity is not unbearable either. If you don't know what sixty-eight percent humidity means -- in the summers of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the humidity in weather forecasts is often ninety-five percent, ninety-eight percent; over ninety percent is normal weather for Guangzhou. So sixty-eight percent, while still more humid than northern climates, is not enough to make a person feel unbearable. And at night, seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit is roughly twenty-three or twenty-four degrees Celsius, which is quite cool and not that uncomfortable. But Jane felt very uncomfortable, so Rob felt -- though he was too polite to say it outright -- that she must have had some other reasons.

In the present situation, under these circumstances, life becomes difficult. Because this environment is not that harsh, but for Jane, she felt the environment was unbearable, even unbearable. So Rob was in a difficult position; if even such an environment was unbearable, he did not know what to do either. He was not saying that they had to live in an environment where the temperature and humidity were perfectly ideal.

Today was much cooler. As we sat waiting for the session to begin at 8:30, he was wearing cut-off jeans and actually felt a bit chilly. You see, Rob is an adult male, wearing jean shorts, and at 8:30 in the evening when the session was about to start, he even felt a little cold. Only then did Jane feel somewhat more comfortable. Her mobility continued to improve, and so did her entire body; she very successfully maintained steady progress, and both of them felt heartfelt joy about this. Tonight Seth commented on the weather, began the session very quietly, and paused many times during the session, including several long pauses.

Intellect as a Cultural Phenomenon

Seth began by saying:

Now, the intellect is far more socially oriented than is generally understood.

-- This refers to the intellect mentioned earlier, one of the natural attributes of human beings. It has more social orientation than you generally understand, more social attributes within it.

Again, some of this is difficult to explain.

He says some of it is indeed difficult to explain -- human intelligence, human intellect, has a certain social attribute within it, as far as our thinking and reasoning abilities are concerned.

But in a certain fashion, the intellect is a cultural phenomenon.

In a certain way, the intellect is first of all a basic natural attribute of a person, but it is also a cultural phenomenon -- interesting, isn't it? This is something Seth specifically wants to point out. Seth's perspective on things is different from that of ordinary people. Later he will explain why our intellect is a cultural phenomenon.

It is.

He emphasizes again, that's just how it is. Whether you recognize it or not, whether you are aware of it or not, our human intelligence, or reasoning ability, has a certain relationship with the culture in which each individual finds himself.

It is so amazingly resilient, in that it can orient itself along the lines of the belief structures of any given historical period, using all of its reasoning abilities to bring into focus such a picture of the world, collecting data that is consistent with each other, and excluding that which is not.

This passage is the core of this session, and it is also his opening passage. Our human intellect is a cultural phenomenon. Why do we say this? Because it is extremely resilient -- meaning that each person's intellect is different, and each person has his own cultural characteristics and social attributes within it. It is not the case that all human intellects are like robots with a certain IQ standard; it necessarily integrates with society. That is to say, when we use our brains to think, we are certainly influenced by the cultural environment and background in which we live, or by our society; there is a certain social attribute within this.

According to the belief structures of any given historical period -- that is, depending on what era you are in, whether ancient or modern, your thinking and your belief structures are completely different. The intellect orients itself along the direction of such beliefs, finding its own position within the social belief system, the belief structure of its time. That is to say, intellect is not something absolute; it is relative, having a certain relativity with respect to the social environment in which it finds itself. It uses its own thinking and reasoning abilities, in the manner permitted by the overall belief system of the society at that time, to bring the picture of that society -- in a way it can understand and accept -- into your world, into your brain, into your experience, into your life. Then, in this process, it collects data consistent with the belief system of the society at that time -- the reasoning of human intellect depends on the overall belief system of that society, of that world at that time -- and excludes that which is inconsistent. Therefore, the world that you reason out through your intellect necessarily conforms to the belief system of that world at that time.

Geocentrism and Heliocentrism

Let me give an example here, and then you will understand what he is saying; otherwise you won't be able to grasp what he is trying to convey. For instance, the simplest example is geocentrism and heliocentrism. Before heliocentrism, Copernicus persistently advocated heliocentrism -- that the sun is the center of the universe, and the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. But what Copernicus promoted was actually the treatise of his teacher², and his teacher believed that geocentrism was correct. But his teacher was very clever -- in the social environment of that time, he did not go around publicizing it; he simply wrote the book and had it published in the year of his death. After the book was published, he died, and after his death it did not have much impact on him.

But Copernicus felt that heliocentrism was very correct. However, at that time geocentrism had already become the understanding of the entire society, including the understanding of the entire Church. Because geocentrism -- setting aside theoretical matters for the moment -- first of all conformed to human cognition. To humans at that time, the sun really did revolve around the earth, and the moon also revolved around the earth, rising and setting, and the other planets did the same. So geocentrism was consistent with humanity's direct social cognition and physical cognition. Most crucially, it conformed to the most basic view of the Church at that time: the world was centered on God, the earth was the center of the universe, and human beings were the children of God, living at the center of the universe -- everything made perfect sense.

And the scientists and astronomers of that time, through the observations available then, using geocentrism as the theoretical model, had established a complete set of calculation formulas, and the calculations were already very precise. Although we all know today that geocentrism is absolutely wrong -- even an elementary school student knows it is wrong -- but for the people of that time, would you say their intellect was inferior to today's elementary school students? Measured by IQ tests, they were certainly far higher than elementary school students. Why did everyone at that time accept geocentrism? Because the formulas derived from geocentrism could predict solar eclipses and lunar eclipses, and they were very accurate; the positions and angles of the planets in the sky had a deviation of no more than two degrees. What is the concept of two degrees? It is about the width of your thumb held up at arm's length against the sky. In an era when science was not well developed, being able to make such precise calculations was already quite remarkable.

Whether geocentrism or heliocentrism -- we later learned that heliocentrism is also incorrect. The universe has no center. The solar system is merely a very small stellar system within the Milky Way, and there are countless such stellar systems, and countless such galaxies, and the universe has no center. But these views only came with modern science in recent times. In that period, no matter how human intellect developed or operated, it could not recognize the kind of cosmological view that modern scientific observation has revealed to us today. So is our current cosmological view correct? We can only say it conforms to the present. After a number of years -- ten or twenty years, after several decades, perhaps after another two hundred years -- our current cosmological view will likewise not withstand scrutiny, including the Big Bang theory and so on; it is all the same idea.

So Seth emphasizes at the very beginning: the intellect that you humans consider innate is strongly influenced by society; it is a cultural phenomenon. Before heliocentrism, people collected a great deal of evidence and scientific calculation formulas supporting geocentrism, believing geocentrism was correct; when heliocentrism arrived, they collected a great deal of evidence supporting heliocentrism; and with the current cosmological view, there is again a great deal of evidence corresponding to our present belief system.

Polygamy and Monogamy

The same is true culturally. Going back one hundred years from the present -- is one hundred years long in human history? Not at all; it is merely the blink of an eye. But going back one hundred years, to 1920, in China it was not monogamy³; it was a polygamous society. At that time, wealthy landlords, officials, and gentry taking concubines and keeping several mistresses was completely normal. Whether you watch the movie Latent or other films, it was all like that. The monogamy that human society developed is only a modern phenomenon. Before modern times, polygamy lasted for several thousand years in Chinese cultural history⁴.

So a woman at marriageable age, depending on what era she lived in, her intellect and logical reasoning ability had to conform to the cultural and social background of her time. Suppose you lived in ancient times and insisted on freedom of marriage and freedom of love, refusing to accept matchmaker arrangements and parental decisions, insisting on going out to find a partner yourself -- what would the result be? There are many such examples and stories in history. Such people did exist, but they were not the mainstream of society at that time, nor were they acceptable to the society of that time.

A woman living one hundred years ago versus one hundred years later -- as human beings, the evolution of the brain does not change within one hundred years; that change is negligible. Yet in the matter of marriage and love, there has been an earth-shattering transformation. A modern woman of today and a woman of one hundred years ago, looking at this world -- the picture the world presents to her -- are living in two completely different worlds.

I use these two different social phenomena -- geocentrism and heliocentrism on the scientific level, and polygamy and monogamy on the social and cultural level -- to tell you: you think that these things in our human brains seem natural and lawful, coming from nature itself, but Seth here points out with piercing clarity -- no, it is a cultural phenomenon, with strong social and cultural attributes within it.

The Resilience of Reasoning and the Formation of Consensus

Next, Seth begins to give his own examples:

Obviously, your mind is capable of using its reasoning abilities to arrive at the conclusion that there is one god behind the workings of the world, or many gods, or that god is only a fantasy, or that the world itself sprang from a source that has no rational explanation. That is, like statistics, the reasoning abilities can be used to derive almost any conclusion. Again, this is a result of considering only evidence that fits the premises of any given reasoning system.

He uses the background of the origin of the world as an example. How did the world come to be? Under different social backgrounds, using different reasoning, different results are obtained -- created by God, created by the Lord, or created by other gods, or the scientific explanation, springing from somewhere. Seth will also give you a scientific worldview, and scientists will also give you a scientific worldview, and the Big Bang theory will also give you a so-called worldview. But in different periods these are completely different, and all of these differences are reasoned out by the human brain. In this reasoning process, you simply refer to different evidence, different premises, different reference data, and you arrive at different conclusions. Those who say the world was created by God have a whole set of reasons and evidence -- the wonder of life, its indescribability, a series of miracles, and so on. Other theories each have their own systems and their own evidence.

The same reasoning ability, when given different reference information, will produce completely different reasoning results -- this is a kind of resilience. It is precisely because of this resilience that human beings, in their psychological, cultural, political, and religious activities, have such great variation overall, and that our rich and colorful human society and human civilization are formed.

If any reasoning system becomes too rigid -- not permitting such variation, not permitting resilience -- then adjustments will always be made to allow the intrusion of other information. When any system of information becomes too rigid, something new will come to change it. When geocentrism became very rigid, heliocentrism came to replace it; when heliocentrism became rigid, a cosmological view without a center came to replace it. Otherwise, our belief systems would never change.

Your species, that is, human beings as a species, share with other species a sense of kinship with their own kind.

Among us humans -- cats with cats, dogs with dogs, animals with animals -- there is a sense of kinship among members of the same species. When we see another person, we feel a sense of familiarity. This is a remarkable concept of mutual give-and-take.

So, generally speaking, you end up with a consensus as to an agreed-upon reality, a reality that everyone agrees upon, a social reality, a reasonable picture.

Just as I said earlier, if everyone felt that geocentrism was reliable, then everyone would consider geocentrism reliable, forming a consensus. If everyone felt that polygamy was reasonable, then everyone would consider it reasonable, and no one would think of overturning it.

Your systems have disapproved of many experiences, because your belief systems have so institutionalized behavior, and so narrowly defined what is normal.

The simplest example is the matter of homosexuality. In the past, homosexuality was not accepted by society, and in certain countries and religions, it was not only unaccepted but also punished, even put to death. But now in many countries and regions, homosexuality is completely legal; people can marry directly, hold weddings, and live like normal people, with no restrictions whatsoever. Now many schools in the United States have directly installed gender-neutral restrooms -- when you are not sure whether you are male or female, you can also use this restroom, so this is a third restroom. During the Obama era, there was even an attempt to make this measure mandatory⁵, requiring all restrooms to have three, not just two. Things that we previously considered abnormal have now become very normal; things that we consider normal today, when placed in a different historical period, would be utterly out of place.

We humans collectively have a worldview, a reality, but this is not fixed; in a given historical period we hold a relatively stable set of values and belief systems, and after a period of time it changes. This is like a cultural phenomenon, like the development of a progressive trend of an era.

The Intellect Sees the World Through Others' Minds

Seth emphasizes here:

The intellect is socially oriented. It is, of course, peculiarly suited to reacting to cultural information. It wants to see the world in the way that other minds see the world, and through that behavior, such actions form your cultural environment, the civilization of which you are so proud.

This sentence is very important; underline it -- "It wants to see the world in the way that other minds see the world." Why does our intellect have this characteristic? Why can it not use its own entirely new cognitive perspective to understand the world? Why does it pick up other people's values and belief systems? I won't analyze the deeper reasons today, but there are many: blind conformity, reverence for authority, laziness -- analyzing things yourself is so tiring, so whatever way others see things, I'll see them that way too. So we accept other people's values, other people's belief systems, and use other people's perspectives to view the world, applying them to ourselves. "Everyone else thinks this way" -- but are other people you? They are other people. Yet this is how we live.

This is why, under the polygamous system, women did not rebel -- because all the other women were like that. If you alone were special and came out to rebel, you might also feel that something was strange. You may not approve of certain individual things, but you are influenced by the entire society: everyone else is like this, so why shouldn't you be? Why do you have to be so individualistic? And if you are individualistic, you cannot find evidence or relevant information to support you; everyone tells you that you are wrong. Nor can you find a man who corresponds to you, one who also endorses monogamy. Of course, there were such cases in history -- the Butterfly Lovers, Cui Yingying and Zhang Sheng, and also The Peony Pavilion.

The Peony Pavilion is a very fine play written by Tang Xianzu⁶, a very typical love story. If you have time, and if you cannot watch or do not wish to watch Kunqu opera, you can find the text version to read. In that era, being able to write such a play about a love that spans time and space, across three lives and three worlds, was absolutely more complex, more engaging, and more beautiful than the screenplay of Ghost. I have never understood why The Peony Pavilion has never been adapted into a film -- if it were adapted into a film, it would absolutely be a Hollywood blockbuster. The key lies in the author Tang Xianzu's portrayal of the inner world of the female protagonist -- a young girl in the throes of first love, in "The Interrupted Dream" meeting her lover in a dream -- an old man's depiction of a young girl's psyche is simply lifelike and exquisitely detailed.

In ancient times, it was not that there were no two people who wanted to stay together for life, refusing to accept parental arrangements and matchmaker introductions; such cases existed in every period and dynasty. But on the whole, the vast majority of women in those eras accepted the ideas given by the larger environment -- because everyone else was like that.

Think about it the other way around: that is you now mocking them. There was also a period in China when women had to bind their feet -- breaking the toes directly and wrapping them with binding cloth. How utterly inhumane that was. Yet in that era, everyone accepted it. Interestingly, foot-binding did not involve anyone else; it was harm inflicted by women upon women, and generally it was one's own mother doing it to her own daughter. Think about it: she could bring herself to do that to her own daughter. Why? Because she had gone through it herself. Society believed that bound feet were beautiful, and that with bound feet, a woman's attributes as a woman of that era were complete; if she did not bind her feet, she could not even get married; no one would marry her. Things that you now find very strange, very contrary to human nature, were all vividly enacted in the history of that time.

So Seth here points out with piercing clarity: the IQ, reasoning ability, thinking ability, and intellect that humans are so smug about are strongly limited and influenced by the attributes of the society of their time. But do not think this is a problem -- once you recognize this, you understand: this is our cultural environment, a group of people viewing the world through a shared perspective.

What Is Culture

So what exactly is culture? There are many standards in the world. The word "culture" can be broken down -- "wen er hua zhi," "ren wen hua cheng," and so on. I forget who said it, but there is a very simple definition of culture that I find very practical: culture must have a specific group of people. Without people, culture does not exist; when the people are gone, the culture also dies out. So when we talk about culture, there must be a corresponding group of people, and the size of the group must be sufficiently large -- if it is very small, then it is a very niche culture, with little influence on human society or world civilization. Why is Chinese civilization or Chinese culture so influential? Because of its large population.

Second, there must be a certain geographical range. The people who hold this culture must reside within a region, and this region must be somewhat large. If the region is very small, then it has little influence on others, and it cannot be called a culture; it can only be called a custom.

Third, cultural transmission requires a certain amount of time; it must be long enough. If it passes in a few days, that is called a trend, a trend of the times or a popular fad, and it cannot be called a culture. Of course, you can also call it a clothing culture, a street culture, or some kind of culture, but to speak of a true culture -- Chinese culture -- that requires a certain accumulation of time. A group of people in a region, after a period of accumulation, holding a shared way of life and shared customs -- that is called culture. This is a relatively rough definition of culture. Many people feel that culture is invisible and intangible; you can analyze it this way.

It is precisely because such a group of people has a shared understanding of a way of life that a shared culture is formed. So Seth says, this is how your human cultural environment is formed, and this is how the different human civilizations that you humans take pride in are formed. Whether we speak of the four great ancient civilizations, or the post-modern European civilization, or the Renaissance, or industrialization, or the Chinese civilization that has stretched for thousands of years -- this is the reason our civilization was born. Without this mode of human intellect, without this way in which human intellect's reasoning and thinking abilities conform to the background of the times, our human civilization and social culture could not have formed. So we should not judge it by standards of good and bad, right and wrong -- this is the foundation of human civilization, the foundation upon which human civilization is produced.

The Natural Purpose and Intent of the Intellect

The intellect helps your species translate its own natural purpose and intent.

The intellect has its own natural purpose and intent. The intellect is first of all natural -- we know it is an instinctive attribute of the natural person. But it must help us transform the natural attributes within intellect, understanding, and reasoning ability into an appropriate cultural category, so that the abilities possessed by natural persons can be of help to the civilization of the present age, to the civilization of that time.

To put it simply, a natural person's intellectual ability, or reasoning ability, has its natural attributes within it -- something everyone is born with; this is called naturalness. This naturalness must, in the course of development, become a cultural category that conforms to the historical era of its time; it must become a cultural attribute. Only when it becomes a cultural attribute can the thinking and reasoning abilities possessed by natural persons be of help to the civilization of the era in which they live. Otherwise, they will be out of place. This does not mean that if you are advanced, you will be accepted by that era -- if you are too advanced or too backward, neither will be accepted by that era and civilization. Only when you conform -- when your brain's thinking ability conforms to the cultural category of the civilization of that time -- can you be of help, of benefit, to that civilization.

Here you must understand the difference in between. To change it forcibly from the outside has no real meaning and produces no very good results. For example, Tibet -- after liberation it was allowed to remain autonomous, and when it was changed from a serf society, a slave society -- the serf society of the Tibetan region, with the religious head of Tibetan esoteric Buddhism serving as the highest leader of the entire society in its political system structure -- when it was suddenly transformed into a socialist structure, the people of the entire Tibetan region did not change along with it, and even today they still worship the things of their own faith. This issue involves too many political topics, so it is not convenient to expand on it here. I am only citing this very typical example to illustrate: when a civilization crosses from one kind of civilization into another, it is not enough simply to change the external environment; every person within it must also shift into the cultural category of the new civilization. If they do not shift along with it, then the transformation is unsuccessful.

Those natural purposes and intents do change the world, and do indeed change the world. Intellectual expectations and intents automatically and spontaneously activate the appropriate bodily mechanisms to bring about the necessary environmental interactions, and through your intellect you express your intents and direct your experience of the world.

The continuous progress and development of today's world are all brought about by our human intellect. The progress of human society is inevitable -- this change automatically activates your bodily mechanisms, causing your body to generate the drive and the action to change and create. We are still like this today: going out to create and change, to make our own lives better and happier, to make the whole environment better -- all of this is stimulated by that most primal thing. Why does human society do these things? Who taught it to? No one -- it is naturally stimulated. In the process of changing, you interact with nature, and through your intellect, through your brain's capacity for thought, you direct your experience of the world, telling yourself how to face this world and how to respond to it.

The Backup System of the Intellect

Here, for the sake of our discussion, I am speaking of the intellect.

We are only talking about the intellect because we need to discuss this matter. But note:

It is everywhere protected.

Actually, the word "protected" in the original should be "buffered," but "protected" also works. Your intellect is protected everywhere; in other words, it has a backup system -- the original word is Backup. Your intellect has a backup system.

If the intellect believes that the world is a threat to existence, then, of course, that belief will alter its intents, and therefore alter the body's activities. The intellectual beliefs, then, operate as powerful suggestions, particularly when the intellect identifies with those beliefs, so that there is little distance between the intellect and the beliefs it considers true.

This passage is not translated well, and it looks somewhat incomprehensible -- this is one of Seth's most classic places where people cannot tell what he is saying. Whether it is a problem with the record made during Ruburt's transmission, or a problem with Seth's expression, both this passage and the following several passages are not easy to understand; and the translator did not truly understand what Seth wanted to say from the essence of the matter, but only translated literally, so it is not easy to understand.

Let me give my understanding. What he wants to say is this: our human intellect -- this capacity for logical thinking, this capacity of the brain to think -- has a backup system, two systems in operation, so it is protected at all times. The so-called protection is a buffer: when you first face this world and respond to it, the first thing you use is not your intellect, but your belief system. The belief system acts first. When you face something -- whether it is good or bad, how you should take action -- most of the time, your belief system rushes to the front. The belief system is accumulated from experience, and it naturally tells you what to do, whereas you do not sit down like a science student and work through deductions and calculations in the face of every environmental change. Most of the time you use belief to tell you: this is good, that is bad, you should do this, you should not do that. Whether you call it a fixed mindset or a thinking pattern, that is what it is.

This thing is a buffer, a mode of operation used before human intelligence is formally employed. This operation must have one premise: your intellect and your beliefs must be consistent. When the two are consistent in their views, you do not need the intellect; you use belief in place of the intellect, as a kind of buffer. What he says at the end is: when there is little distance between the reality you recognize and your beliefs, the intellect identifies with those beliefs, and there is no need to analyze it all over again.

This mechanism itself is a protection for the intellect, a kind of buffer. Seth says he is only saying these things in order to discuss the intellect -- actually, this is simply a mode of operation of your human brain, and he is just laying it out for you. So you see, Seth uses a very interesting way to tell you: behind your intellect there is still a backup system. It is not that you only have the intellect to use -- analyzing everything you encounter. No, there is no need to analyze. When there is little gap between your intellect and your cognitive beliefs, it trusts its own belief system. At this point experience becomes very important: how do you judge whether the scene you face today, the situation you face, is suitable for your belief system? Your experience will tell you -- this kind of environment, this kind of situation, should be handled this way; that is the whole process. You do not really take the raw data of the entire environment and re-derive it all over again to reach a conclusion; you directly call up things from the belief system to make a judgment. You will find that Seth's analysis of problems here is very thorough.

How Intellectual Beliefs Operate: From Meeting to the Translation Debacle

In the eager transmission there are pauses. So throughout the entire transmission process, he also pauses, thinking about how to explain it. He says:

I am trying my best to explain the very practical aspects of intellectual beliefs, and their power to draw experience to you.

That is to say, he is doing his utmost to explain how your beliefs -- the beliefs of your intellect -- operate in real life, how they draw experience to you, how they turn beliefs into reality. To put it simply, we could also call it a process of manifestation, or the process in life by which what you think comes true. This is exactly what is repeatedly emphasized in The Nature of Personal Reality: your beliefs are very important, you must adjust your beliefs, and your beliefs will bring about reality. What is that belief? It is the belief brought by your intellect.

He says that there was once a time:

Your individual beliefs about the kind of human companion you personally wanted set into motion incalculable actions, and finally resulted in your meeting. Yet, of course, all of this happened quite naturally.

Here he uses the union of Rob and Jane as an example. When you want to find a partner, your beliefs set into motion incalculable actions -- that is truly a massive amount of calculation, matching everywhere. Seth has given examples in other books: when you want to find a partner, countless detectors are emitted all around you, like little wireless drone scouts, probing everywhere. The range is extremely broad, not limited by your geographical location, which is why people often say "those destined to meet will meet across a thousand miles" -- that is what it means. It keeps searching until it finds the person you like, the person who matches you, and that person is likewise emitting such information. Before the two truly achieve a match, they may each have already communicated with many other people -- this communication does not mean actually going to a matchmaking event; it is not that kind of method, but a method that we humans cannot yet understand. After the match is made, it is like the old man under the moon tying a red thread, saying you two are a pair. Then how do these two manage to come together in real life? It will arrange chance encounters -- during business trips, during meetings, while attending some event, in all kinds of ways; it will always arrange for the two to meet, for the two to feel a spark, for the two to leave contact information, to communicate, to date, again and again.

What he is talking about is the matter of Rob and Jane, but in fact he is also talking about everyone's matter. Two people seem to come together naturally, but behind it the entire planet is helping you find a matching partner; it is not limited to the range where you are. You must believe that the power of your soul is very strong. If it encounters a suitable person, this person may not even live in the same country as you, or even on the same continent, and it will still find him out and make the two of you meet in a way that seems entirely natural. It is that miraculous.

And the process by which Rob and Jane met -- I have briefly mentioned it once before -- was extremely miraculous. At that time Rob was already a young painter, without much fame, without money, without anything; he was just an ordinary painter who had not yet become famous -- you know, before a painter becomes famous, life is actually quite austere, and he was painting advertising pictures for an advertising company. And Jane was already married at that time. But at a gathering of friends, she happened to meet Rob, and the two of them -- who knows how they took a liking to each other -- met. The second time they met, Jane directly said to Rob: "Take me away with you; I will go with you." Just like that, directly. Then she got a divorce and went off to live with Rob.

This kind of thing, every time we talk about it, seems so miraculous, but Seth says:

But to the two of you, it seemed that all of this happened naturally, with nothing miraculous about it. All of this is natural.

Think carefully: when you met your current partner, when you came together and stayed together, were there not many miraculous things behind it? It seems as if some kind of indescribable fate was at work. We often speak of fate, and that is what it means. Actually, no -- behind it, incalculable actions were required to bring about the final result.

Then he says:

Your beliefs caused you to respond to elements that were more likely to affirm them. Then they drew from Framework 2 the necessary ingredients and nourishment.

Framework 2 is all possibilities. Within all possibilities, it searches for all the necessary ingredients and draws them out. Then:

These beliefs elicited from other people behavior that was in keeping with those beliefs.

The word "elicited" is very interesting; the original uses "drew out." That is to say, how do beliefs create reality? From the actions of other people -- and there are many possibilities within other people's actions -- it specifically draws out the kind of behavior that matches the picture the belief wants to realize. It entices that person to act in such a way; it also entices this person to move closer to the final picture of reality that their beliefs want to achieve. How is the process of moving closer realized? It is through a corresponding method, a method that affirms one's own beliefs -- what is called like attracting like, similar things drawing together. This principle and algorithm already exceed the scope of what we humans can understand; our little brains cannot comprehend it. To put it simply, there is not enough memory. Your brain is like 16 gigabytes of RAM, and you want to compute something that requires 200 terabytes of RAM to process; the moment you try, it crashes, it cannot compute. That is the limitation of the human brain.

The German Edition Debacle: How Beliefs Elicit Results

He then gives an example. Let me first lay some groundwork, otherwise you will not understand what he is trying to say. The premise is this: the English edition of the Seth material was published in Germany, by a German publishing house, coordinated through the American publisher. But after the first edition of this book was published, that publishing house made extensive cuts, altering it beyond recognition -- perhaps due to problems of understanding, problems of translation, and various other reasons, they deleted everything they did not understand, could not accept, or could not comprehend. Rob and Jane were extremely angry; this had completely lost the original intent of the Seth material. And it was in another language, German. Through the publisher, they wrote letters to the German publisher separately, communicating and insisting that this would not do, that it must be republished. If you obtained the authorization to publish the German edition, you must follow our requirements. Anyway, they argued for a long time. This happened last year, that is, 1979, the year before the time Seth is now dictating. After several months of wrangling, it was finally resolved very well, and the book was republished, preserving Seth's content and core intact, without any cuts.

What Seth wants to talk about is this matter. He says:

For example, your own attitudes toward foreigners, toward publishers, toward the people who were bringing out your book, and toward human stupidity and lack of integrity.

These are the beliefs of Rob and Jane. From this you can see that they did not trust foreigners and had no great fondness for them; they were also somewhat suspicious of publishers, especially foreign publishers; and they also believed that human beings are essentially stupid and not very high in moral standards. This is a living, breathing portrait of the typical American from the 1970s to the 1980s -- with a kind of blind sense of superiority, feeling that other countries are no good, including Germany.

Then he says:

Caused you to join with the same beliefs on the part of the other party, and brought about the translation debacle.

What does this mean? Rob and Jane had these negative beliefs in their minds, and among the staff of the other publishing house, there were also some similar negative beliefs. Your beliefs attracted each other, reached a consensus, and the final result was this translation debacle. But:

You could elicit entirely different kinds of behavior from those same people.

The publishing house still had the same people; the first translation was a complete mess -- cut, incoherent, full of errors -- and the second translation was done well. The intelligence of these people could not have changed greatly within a few months. Why did they fail the first time and succeed the second time? Seth says it was because of your beliefs. The first time, your negative beliefs about them -- suspicion, distrust, thinking they were stupid -- caused those beliefs in them to be activated as well, elicited them. Later, in the process of communication, as both sides continually exchanged views and came to understand each other's perceptions, and after you gained more understanding, you had positive views, and the other side also elicited the positive results brought by positive beliefs. So in the end the book was smoothly republished.

That is to say, things of a kind gather together, and people divide into groups. When you harbor bad beliefs about others, the result will certainly be bad; when you harbor good beliefs about others, the result will certainly be good. Just like the same group of German translators, who later all came to believe, as you did, in human reliability rather than lack of integrity. Human beliefs have two sides; whichever side you activate, whichever side of behavior you elicit, that is the behavior it brings out. At that time, under those circumstances, each of you -- or rather, all of you -- responded on many levels, and so the book was published. If you feel that people are trustworthy and reliable, then it responds -- you trust them, and they trust you.

As soon as this book was published in Germany, it was very well received and helped many people. That is because in many respects, in terms of positive beliefs, you felt this book could help many people. When you had such a belief while publishing this book, then after it was published it really did help many people. It was better than other books. So he says:

You get what you concentrate upon, and your beliefs are largely responsible for the areas in which you concentrate.

You must underline this sentence, you must remember it. This is exactly what is repeatedly emphasized in The Nature of Personal Reality. If what you think about every day is all good things -- not good things made up out of fantasy, but good things you believe in, believing that other people are friendly and kind, believing that this world is gracious to you, believing that you are surrounded by love -- then the result you finally get will be exactly that. If you feel that this society is one where the strong prey on the weak, where everyone schemes against everyone else, where resources are limited, and where you must plunder, struggle, and fight to win your own interests, otherwise you will be preyed upon by the strong -- then the result you get will certainly be exactly such a scene.

Saying this sounds very idealistic. But think about it: Seth has always said, in his own words, "I am trying my best." He has already done his best, thinking of all kinds of ways to express it, to instill in you the principle behind this concept -- that the world and the universe operate in this way. If you believe it, then it is like this; if you say I do not believe it, I still firmly believe that this society is such and such -- then saying all this is useless, because it still proceeds according to your beliefs. Whatever your beliefs choose to affirm, that is what they bring.

The Story of Ding Shan: Believe It First, and See What Happens

I have told before how in our Los Angeles Seth study group, this Miss Ding Shan was a typical example. She had a conversation with Teacher Zha at the time. She had been studying Seth for perhaps a year or two without much progress; she always felt that what he said made a lot of sense, but it had not brought any substantial improvement to her life. Once she told Teacher Zha about her confusion: "I have studied the Seth books for a long time, and I have been in contact with these things for a long time, but there seems to be no substantial change."

Teacher Zha is a very wise person. Think about it: he had been teaching the Seth books for decades, nearly twenty years. He said to Ding Shan: "Just believe it first, and see what happens. You have nothing to lose."

In other words, if you believe in this system of Seth's, what do you lose? Does it make you pay membership fees, or make you join some organization? Does it make you make some sacrifice, or make you do anything? Everything it tells you is positive. You may be half-believing and half-doubting its content -- that is normal human behavior; it is impossible to accept a completely new theoretical system the moment it is handed to you. Some people have an innate acceptance and liking for Seth's theory from the very beginning, while others are half-believing and half-doubting. Teacher Zha said: rather than half-believing and half-doubting, you might as well believe it first and see what happens afterward.

That one sentence woke her up. When her thought turned, and she truly began to believe these things Seth said -- of course, many of the things Seth says are resisted more strongly by people with more traditional education, the higher their level of education, because it seems idealistic. But if you have studied Seth for a long time, you will know that Seth is actually not idealistic; he is quite a materialistic person -- well, let us not worry about whether he is idealistic or materialistic. After Ding Shan believed, her life underwent earth-shaking changes. We will not expand on this matter here today; many people in our group will also share examples in this regard.

So what he says in this passage -- you get what you concentrate upon, and your beliefs are largely responsible for the areas in which you concentrate. In other words, the fact that your life is so miserable right now is the result of the choices of your beliefs. Your beliefs choose to concentrate on this miserable outcome, so in the end that is the result. If your beliefs believe that life is just bitter and hard, and that people must struggle and strive to succeed, then your life will always be bitter and hard, because that is what you believe. If you do not accept this view, then nothing will change; if you do accept it, then you might as well try it.

The Natural Method: What the Intellect Should and Should Not Do

Seth continues:

There is no magical method, only a natural method that you have been using all along.

What is magical? The magical is the natural, and the natural is the magical. Every natural person has an innate natural method. What is the natural method? It is what Seth explained to you earlier: how we think about problems, how we use our intelligence. What we humans have is this intelligence, our intellect. The intellect itself is not at all wrong; it is just that the information we give it is not complete enough, and we force it to do things beyond its capacity.

Your intellect is actually very simple; in life it is there to make choices and distinctions: which things are good, which are bad, which I want, which I do not want. That is what it is good at. The intellect is very good at resting in the present, living in this present moment, and it will very easily, comfortably, and with a clear conscience handle the matters of this present moment. If you insist on making it handle plans for the next three years or five years, then it is not good at that; when it is not good at something, there is pressure; with pressure comes paranoia; and paranoia inevitably leads to a pessimistic result. Because it cannot clearly explain what will happen five years from now, and if it cannot explain it clearly, what does it do? It anticipates in advance all the worst possible outcomes. In order to prevent those worst outcomes from happening, it must begin preparing now.

But when all the worst outcomes are laid out before your eyes, and all those things that may or may not happen in the future are placed before your eyes, you can imagine that, according to the method Seth has told you, those bad things will very likely happen at least to some degree. Then when you discover in life that you are heading down the road toward those bad outcomes, you generate even greater fear, and you panic again: see, we are getting worse and worse. Then you force your intelligence to give you newer results again. That is how it is -- we have misused the domain in which our brain's intelligence should be used.

Your brain's intelligence is limited; it cannot handle such complex matters spanning past, present, and future; it can only handle this present moment. Just let it handle the present; it can only make choices, so let it make choices, let it make good choices: in the end, which is good for you, which is bad for you -- that is what it is good at. It itself knows what kind of life it wants. As for how to achieve that ideal, desired life -- how to reach it, how to complete it -- that is not something your brain's intelligence can solve; do not force it.

Then how is it realized? Seth has told you: this is the natural way. You just keep thinking about that thing, keep focusing your energy on that thing. When every day in your mind, in your dreams, in your imagination, in your visions, there is nothing but that beautiful picture of the future, then, just like the example he gave earlier about finding a partner, naturally the people and things around you will be guided in that direction; just like the example he gave earlier about publishing the book, it will naturally lead to a good result. And all of this happens naturally; you do not need to do much thinking or arranging in the middle -- you cannot arrange it.

Let me give the simplest, most realistic example. Apart from the dead material world, are not the people you deal with all living human beings? Does not every person have their own behavior patterns? How would you know what is going on in his brain, what he is going to do next? If you want to achieve a result and want to use your brain to devise a behavior pattern so that the other person will follow the behavior pattern you have devised to achieve the result you want, do you think that is possible? You both have the same kind of brain, and you do not even know what is in his brain, yet you still want to use your brain to design some means, some trap, and then set up a scheme so that the people around you will act according to the behavior pattern you have designed to achieve the result you want -- do you think your brain has that ability?

Then why, in the end, can these people's actions still achieve the result you want? As Seth says, the magical approach in this is not something you can understand. Why do they produce such behavior? In Seth's words, it is like "eliciting" -- your beliefs of this kind will draw out other people's behavior consistent with those beliefs. The principle, stated simply, is this simple: your beliefs of this kind will draw out other people's behavior consistent with those beliefs. As for exactly why, do not worry about it; that is how it operates. If you firmly believe this, your life will undergo earth-shaking changes. So this is called natural; this is an ability every natural person is born with; we were designed this way and operate this way in the first place; the entire universe operates this way.

There is no magical method, only a natural method that you have been using all along, which is to concentrate on the things you yourself want. You get what you concentrate upon -- this has already been said very plainly. What exactly you concentrate upon is the matter you should decide and the matter you should be responsible for; how it is realized is not the matter you should be responsible for. I may have been nagging and fussing for several months already, but the core idea is all here.

He says:

Although in certain instances you use it upon beliefs that you take as truths, in some specific instances you apply this natural method, this magical method, to beliefs that you consider true, but which are actually quite flawed assumptions.

What does this mean? You have taken these magical and natural things and applied them to a belief you regard as truth. You feel that this is simply how things should happen. But this assumption itself is flawed. It may be easier to understand the other way around: in your ordinary daily life, you are unconsciously using this natural magical approach, but you do not know it. You think the belief you are using in that area is truth, so it happens that way. Seth tells you that this assumption is flawed—not because that belief is truth, but because you focus on such a belief, or you accept such a belief, and then it necessarily happens according to that belief. And the result you see appears to be: because this is truth, it really happened. In fact, that is not so.

Jane's Small Example: Awareness and the Replacement of Images

He said, by the way, a small example, one that Ruburt recently realized, a beautiful example of a natural method. Ruburt used it very skillfully, and even though the result was not pleasing at first, it showed Ruburt's growing understanding.

For example, Ruburt heard the weather forecast. He was talking about yesterday: yesterday Ruburt heard the forecast for tomorrow—today—and he began to lament: tomorrow would again be a very uncomfortable ninety degrees Fahrenheit. At the beginning of this session, Rob also mentioned that Jane's complaints about the weather had been a bit excessive lately, that she had been too fearful of future weather. And she imagined she would certainly be miserable—she could not bear ninety degrees. Then she began to feel hotter. The moment she thought of it, she felt hotter. Tomorrow had not yet come, but today she already felt hotter. In an instant, she remembered all the previous uncomfortable days, and brought back the feeling of all those uncomfortable days. And in the next instant, she projected that feeling onto the coming weekend, and she felt trapped.

In the middle of this process, she tried to become aware of her own train of thought: how could I think this way? But she believed her body could not stand that heat—this was her belief—and this belief overcame her attempt to change her thinking. She had spoken about Seth for so many years, and she knew this belief was not good, but when she tried to change it, she could not. The belief that she would be unbearably hot and that the weekend would be hard to endure kept coming back for almost ten minutes, and Seth was right there watching.

However, she kept reminding herself. She also knew this was not right, but she really could not convince herself, so she used one point to convince herself: in any case, today she did not need to worry about tomorrow—even if tomorrow was hot, that was still tomorrow. Leave tomorrow alone for now; deal with today first. She used this method to convince herself. Then she told herself: that forecast might be wrong. And she began to intellectually pile up evidence, using her logical reasoning ability to pile up evidence, evidence that could more or less bring about a different, more powerful experience. She did this by recognizing the picture she had previously built up in the old way, and by gathering all the evidence that fit her purpose—she used the same process, only she hooked it up to a more powerful picture, and the process worked.

All you need in all of this is awareness.

Let me briefly describe what this passage means. When Jane was thinking about how she could not get through this hot weekend, she could not convince herself. She first used one point to interrupt her train of thought, to keep herself from sinking into fear of the hot weekend weather. How did she break it? She said, even if tomorrow is hot, let me first deal with today's matters, and leave tomorrow's matters alone for now. In this way, she first interrupted her train of thought, and first broke off that negative belief, that logical pattern of thinking. This is also a method we ordinarily learn: when you are stuck in a dead end and cannot get out, the first step is to interrupt it, using whatever idea or belief you can hold in your hand, right in front of you, to interrupt it. After she interrupted it, she began to replace it with another belief: what if the weather forecast was wrong? What if the meteorological bureau gave the wrong information? What if the TV station reported it wrong? So it might not necessarily be that hot. Then she began to use her logical reasoning ability to look for evidence: look, on some previous day, the forecast said it would rain and it did not, right? It said a heat wave was coming on some day and it did not come, right? So the forecast is wrong too often; it is very likely wrong this time. Then she suddenly became aware: when I think it might be wrong, I can find a pile of evidence proving the forecast might be wrong; but when I felt I would be unbearably hot, I also used the same method to find a pile of evidence proving this weekend would be very hot. I used the same reasoning process—finding a pile of evidence to prove my own theory. A person's logical reasoning ability is the same, but if the initial data you give it is different, the conclusions drawn from the same reasoning will be different. One conclusion is that the weekend will be unbearably hot; the other conclusion is that the weather forecast is wrong. If the forecast is wrong, then the weekend will not be that hot. So she imagined a picture of a weekend that was not so hot, and used a more favorable picture to replace the picture of herself dying from the heat. Once this new picture was substituted, the process took effect, and the weekend was not so hot. All you need in all of this is awareness.

Many of us who study spirituality, in the early stages, have a feeling that the small climate around us responds to our thoughts. The material from Simon that I shared two days ago is the same, and every day in our group people share these magical small changes in the weather. Dagong also often shares: he wanted rain and it rained, he wanted the rain to stop and it stopped, he wanted wind and the wind came. Sometimes he himself doubts whether he has some kind of precognitive ability, or whether the environment really changes according to his beliefs—he himself is also uncertain, because in his heart he still does not believe that nature would change according to his beliefs and serve his purposes. That is unimaginable to him. He is still not quite sure of this.

He said:

Your experience follows your focus, beliefs, or expectations.

Your experience is what you experience, and what you experience in life follows what? It follows what you focus on, your beliefs, and your expectations. He said:

The intellect is a great discriminator. It can use reasoning to bring about almost any possible experience within your framework.

Your intellect is very remarkable; it is a discriminator. Simply put, your intellect is used for judging and discriminating. Whatever result you want, you can bring about almost any possible experience within your framework. See, Seth does not speak in absolutes; he leaves room. He says "almost." Anything you want to experience, you can obtain.

Suggestions for Jane's Body and the Ending

He went on to say:

Ruburt's body is undoubtedly returning to normal motion. Lying down is very good, but extra walking about, moving from one place to another, is most beneficial. The burning sensation in his hips, which sometimes even feels as if it is on fire, and the burning in his legs and feet as well, all represent additional movement and beneficial activity.

This burning sensation represents your movement and beneficial activity. Do not think that burning sensation is bad; it is good. Sometimes at night, walking about may make him feel uncomfortable, but:

When the body is lying down resting, it is stimulating itself in a certain way.

When you walk at night, you may feel uncomfortable; walking before bed makes your body hurt here and there. But Seth says, do not worry about it. This discomfort is stimulating you, helping you heal and recover. So Seth suggests Jane not pay too much attention to these discomforts, and to walk when she needs to walk.

Then he said:

You may also have him write a poem every day, and paint a picture, an ink sketch. That is a good idea, and can relax both body and mind at the same time.

Because Jane's problem is that she is not relaxed enough. Her muscles, her leg muscles, her body's muscles are all curled up together—by the state described in The Way Toward Health, her whole body was curled up, all contracted, and she could not relax. So here he definitely suggests Jane use various ways to relax: write poems, paint pictures, and not spend every day writing articles, novels, and poetry. Change things up.

He said in passing:

I think the dog you drew is very good.

—Suddenly he turned to Rob and said the dog he drew was very good. Then Seth said:

I am not a painter, but like anyone else, I also know what kind of paintings I like. There is no contradiction in that.

He said, all right, this session ends here. The last thing I want to say is:

This change in Ruburt's body is as magical as any precognitive dream.

Finally, good night to you both.

This was a fairly short session, but Seth told Jane it was very good. Although short, it explained two core concepts: first, that human wisdom and intellect are influenced by social attributes, but you must make good use of them; second, that everyone experiences their own experience. Whatever experience you want to have, you focus on it, and you experience what you focus on.

Let me add Rob's words: Seth mentioned my painting, which is the one I am working on about his dream of August sixteenth. In the dream, he knelt by the kitchen storm door—a storm door is a glass door—and his hand passed through the glass door to touch Gus, the dog of the neighbors across the street. Both Seth and Jane had analyzed this excellent dream before, and in the previous session Seth specifically discussed this dream of the hand passing through the glass door. Today, in order to let Jane understand how far I had gotten, he made a charcoal drawing based on that dream to show Jane, depicting the scene in the dream where his hand passed through the glass door to touch the dog, and then added a little preliminary color in some parts. From the very beginning I wanted to paint this picture, but he did not have the courage to paint it in oils, so he began with charcoal, using charcoal for the preliminary sketch. He said, I want to try and see what I can do, and so far everything is going very smoothly.

注释与核实

1. Source: timeanddate.com, "Calendar for Year 1980 (United States)" (https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1980) ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. Source: Wikipedia, "Concubinage in China" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concubinage_in_China) ↩

4. According to Mike's original words, "polygamy has existed in Chinese cultural history for thousands of years"; upon verification, it should be "what ancient China long practiced was 'one wife plus multiple concubines' rather than polygamy—the law recognized only one principal wife, and taking concubines was legal but concubines could not stand equal to the wife. The Tang Code, 'Household and Marriage,' explicitly states: 'Whoever has a wife and takes another wife shall be sentenced to one year of penal servitude... and each shall be divorced.' This system lasted for thousands of years and was not abolished until the first half of the twentieth century." (Source: People's Court Daily, "Ritual and Law in Coordination: A Brief Discussion of the Invalid Marriage System in the Tang Dynasty," https://news.ecupl.edu.cn/2022/0804/c675a189973/page.htm) ↩

5. Source: U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights and U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, "Dear Colleague Letter on Transgender Students" (2016) (https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201605-title-ix-transgender.pdf) ↩

6. Source: Wikipedia, "The Peony Pavilion" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peony_Pavilion) ↩