The "Reading Guide" and "Key Points" 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 introduces the preface to The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events: it explains that this book is the fifth book of the Seth material, the first to discuss social and group events, and outlines the four-part structure of the whole book; Jane's preface explains that the Seth books were dictated in a trance state and recorded by Rob, emphasizes trusting everyday impulses and that all impulses are creative, analyzes the difference between idealists and fanatics, and touches on the limitations of Freud's and Darwin's theories; finally it mentions Rob's role, the translator's preface and acknowledgments, and the point that the Seth material should not be deified.
Key Points of This Chapter
- This book is the fifth book in the Seth material, the first to discuss social and mass events, and the whole book is divided into four parts.
- Seth advocates trusting one's daily impulses; all impulses are creative and contribute to the individual and to civilization.
- Seth distinguishes between idealists and fanatics; human nature is essentially idealistic, but the two are only one step apart.
- Jane's preface explains that the Seth books were dictated in a trance state and recorded word for word by Rob, and that the transmission took place within the shared physical world.
- Seth transmits unconscious knowledge to the conscious mind; the Seth material is no more extraordinary than knowledge gained from nature, and it should not be deified.
Main Text
Preface: Starting from the Shock of an Era
Today we begin interpreting the fifth book of the Seth material -- The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. Starting from March 2020, I spent more than nine months interpreting four of Seth's books: from Seth Speaks to The Nature of Personal Reality, to The Magical Approach, and also The Nature of the Psyche. Along the way I interspersed many exercises, because I hope you all do not treat the Seth material as a kind of textbook or dead theory, dead teaching material. It is itself close to life, and it is meant to change our lives. If we learn a lot of spiritual knowledge, but it has no influence on and no help for our lives and the environment we are in, then this study has no real practical meaning. This is also my original intention in interpreting Seth's books.
In this fifth book, Seth mentions social, collective events for the first time. Before this, Seth had always been emphasizing, always been cultivating each person's cognition and understanding of the individual self. In other words, only after our cognition of ourselves reaches a very complete and deep understanding can we then go on to understand the people around us, society, groups, nations, and even the grand events of the shared destiny of all humanity. This is what the ancients called the three stages of cultivating oneself, regulating the family, and governing the state to bring peace to the world1. Seth also proceeds according to this overall direction.
This book is very important; it mentions for the first time the nature of the many realities related to society. Let us first take a general look at the layout of the whole book: at the front there is a preface, and then the whole book is divided into four parts. The first part discusses "The Natural World, Epidemics, and Natural Disasters," which is very relevant to the environment we are in right now -- today we have encountered the most serious epidemic disease never seen before in human history, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, and this part happens to have a corresponding connection with it.
The Framework of the Book
Part One is divided into two themes. Chapter One discusses "the natural body and its defenses," elaborated across five sessions; Chapter Two discusses "collective meditation, health plans for illness, epidemics of belief, and effective spiritual inoculation against despair." We are all getting vaccinated right now, and what Seth emphasizes is this kind of spiritual inoculation, which is more effective for you than the vaccine produced in a laboratory.
The core of Part Two is about Framework 1 and Framework 2. Framework 1 is what we call reality -- the material reality we have actualized; Framework 2, on the other hand, is a higher level of the reality of probabilities, the world of probabilities, which you could call a kind of matrix, a matrix of probabilities. Chapter Three is "myths and concrete reality -- the inner medium upon which society rests," elaborated across six sessions; Chapter Four is "the characteristics of Framework 2" -- what exactly Framework 2 is like, what characteristics it has, a creative analysis of the medium in which a physically oriented consciousness resides, and the source of events; Chapter Five is "the mechanics of experience" -- what exactly experience is, and what mechanisms it has.
The title of Part Three is "People Who Are Frightened of Themselves." The title of Chapter Six is "controlled environments, and positive and negative collective behavior -- religious and scientific cults, and individual paranoia," discussed across seven sessions; Chapter Seven discusses "good and evil and catastrophes -- Jonestown, Harrisburg, and when idealists become fanatics." This chapter incorporates some specific events from the late 1970s in the United States, and it is very important, focusing on the distinction between idealism and fanaticism.
Let me give a simple example: we know that Hitler considered himself an idealist. He always wanted to establish a higher stage of human society, and he believed that the Germanic people were the most superior people in the world, and that this most superior people should be used to rule the entire world, while those inferior peoples should either be made into laborers or gradually be made to disappear. But in the end, this idealism of his turned him into a fanatic, into a terrorist, and led to the Second World War. Between an idealist and a fanatic there is only one step, and the reason he spent such a long passage is ultimately to explain how that one step comes about.
Chapter Eight discusses "people molecules, power, and free will"; Chapter Nine discusses "ideals, the individual, religion, science, and the law." These are all very long, each requiring about four or five sessions to elaborate on one theme.
Part Four has only one chapter, titled "good, better, and best -- value fulfillment versus competition." We often say we want to become better, to become the best; what is discussed here is value fulfillment -- whether the value fulfillment of the individual or the value fulfillment of the soul -- and what its relationship is to the competition we face in society.
Jane's Spiritual Declaration
Let's begin with the preface of this book. The book was completed at the end of June 1979. Keep this time point in mind — when Seth finished this book, Jane wrote a long poem as its ending. Beyond its allegorical meaning, this poem is a declaration of spiritual independence, written in reflection of the concepts Seth presented in this book. It was something she wrote from deep feeling. The poem goes like this:
My life defines itself — and yours does too. So let those monastics, stay in their hells and heavens.
The monastics mentioned here refer to those people of traditional religious faith. In their world there is only hell and heaven; one foot and you either descend into hell or ascend into heaven. Every religion has this kind of characteristic. He says:
Let the scientists and those stars created without cause, be confined within their dying universe.
This statement is based on the Big Bang theory — the Big Bang theory holds that the universe will ultimately move toward death, the entire universe returning to an empty silence. When the expansion loses its energy, the universe dissolves into formless silence — a dying universe. And these stars, he believes, are all innocently created by scientists themselves; these stars do not actually exist.
Every line of this poem carries its own inner meaning. It asks each of us to have the courage to open the door of our dreams — this dream is a switch, an entrance leading to unknown reality. And then we go explore those non-mainstream domains: religion is a mainstream domain, science is also a mainstream domain, but these spiritual explorations are neither religion nor science, so they are called non-mainstream domains. The core here is the word "courage" — one must have the courage to explore, through the method of dreams. The dream here is a symbolic meaning, referring to the middle zone between physical reality and non-physical reality. He says, then let us begin from here, from opening the door of dreams.
The Main Text of the Preface
In the preface, Jane first says that the trance state is a highly personal phenomenon. She means that during channeling, after transmitting the Seth material, she enters a state that is almost half-conscious and half-unconscious, similar to being hypnotized. She calls it a trance state, not a hypnotic state, because it is different from ordinary hypnosis -- ordinary hypnosis always involves a hypnotist and a person being hypnotized, whereas the state Jane enters is closer to a trance.
She says this state represents a process in which consciousness shifts from everyday reality to an inner reality, from the outer world to the inner world. Yet no matter how private a trance state may be, it must occur within the physical world composed of our shared events. No matter how secret it is, how Seth-like in its existence, how lacking in physical or material nature, this transmission or channeling must take place in the physical world that we all share. She says:
I am touched by those events, and so are you.
We are touched by these events of the physical world, and you too will be touched by the physical world. Therefore, even when I sit in a trance state dictating Seth's books, after all I cannot wander too far from our shared reality; we still live in this physical world. She says:
When I speak for Seth, the chair I sit in is a product of modern manufacturing; the glass of wine on the coffee table in front of me, the cigarettes, and the mass-produced table itself all remind me -- at least for now, even if I am most adventurously journeying into other realities, I am still rooted in the world of concrete reality that we all share together.
Even when she enters a channeling state, entering another reality space, in such a place where the two sides meet -- a shared region that belongs both to our world and to the world of their reality -- while Seth speaks through her to deliver this material, her body or consciousness still remains within the physical world that everyone shares.
She says her husband Rob sat on the sofa across from her, and the words she spoke for Seth were recorded by him word for word, using a modern pen, writing these ghostly words -- she calls them ghost words, meaning Seth, this bodiless existence -- in an elegant notebook. The Seth sessions in her ESP class had always been tape-recorded. And that week, while she was recording a radio program, Seth came through as well. Thus technology and its implications were never far from all of this. These channeled things are not far removed from our lives in the physical world; they are right beside us.
For example, just as Seth was dictating The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, an accident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, and there was a nuclear leak2. If you know American history you will know this; if not, you can look it up. And had that event turned into a major disaster, the town of Chemung County where they lived would have been used to house refugees; they were not very far away.
Since the first Seth session began in the latter part of 1963, many dramatic national events had occurred. This book was written in 1979, so in the intervening 16 years, many national events had taken place in America, including the assassination of Kennedy3 and so on, but Seth rarely mentioned these things. Even when he did, it was only to answer their questions. Yet in this book, he discussed in depth how our private reality -- that is, our personal reality -- merges with group experience.
Each of us has a personal reality, just like me -- you have your reality, and I have my reality. Those of us who study spirituality and study Seth all know that each of us creates our own reality. So how do these realities form a shared group reality? How does that happen? This book focuses on exactly that. For this reason, it examines the public stage, and it talks a great deal about Three Mile Island and the Jonestown mass suicide4, both of which occurred during the period when Seth was dictating this book. Although both cases happened in modern times, they carry exemplary significance. As we speak of them now, these events are already more than 40 years old. Today we humans are facing the events of our own time, so how do we interpret the events we face today?
Before this, we rarely discussed questions of politics or social phenomena, because we first needed to sort out personal issues before tackling group issues. Starting with this book, it will gradually touch upon these social questions. She says:
As in the past, Rob's notes provide the necessary outer background for this book, and point out the framework of our normal lives.
Rob would often add many notes, describing the social background at the time the Seth material was being transmitted, which served as a very important reference framework, letting us know what was happening in the world at the time when Seth was delivering this material.
Seth so diligently appeared twice a week, Mondays and Wednesdays, and then he would say "throw away my glasses," which was the signal that she was entering the trance state. Apart from that, on such days, her own emotions, images, joys, and sorrows also wove the fabric of their worldly lives. Her own writing might be going well, or not so well; the day might be quiet, or disturbed by unexpected visitors, interspersed with the highs and lows of any normal household. She says her emotions, her thoughts, her ideas, or the trivial matters of her life -- the daily necessities of firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, and tea -- also occurred in her life, and also brought highs and lows to her life.
For example, while Seth was dictating this book, their other cat Billy died. At that time Seth was discussing the Three Mile Island accident, but because they felt so sad, he stopped the dictation and gave them some wonderful material about the consciousness of animals before and after death. Tragedy comes in many forms, and the events of our most ordinary domestic lives also gave Seth an opportunity to comment on life itself. In the course of discussing the main topic, Seth would also interweave comments on things that happened in their lives. Even the death of a cat, which brought enormous emotional impact to Jane and Rob, was well used by Seth as an opportunity to comment on life itself.
She says:
So even when my focus is elsewhere, my consciousness turns inward, and from that other viewpoint, a spotlight is cast upon our world, almost as if a character in our dreams suddenly woke up, stepped out of that dream, and actually dared to comment on our waking world.
In the process of transmitting the Seth material, although her focus is inward, she feels that this inner focus, this inner world, casts its own spotlight onto the outer world. For example, the nuclear leak, or even the death of a cat -- these are the most ordinary trivial matters of life, but she says these trivial matters are all illuminated by inner knowing, and there will be a different viewpoint and perspective. It is almost as if a person in a dream suddenly woke up, walked out of the dream, and stepped into the three-dimensional world of our ordinary waking state, and then proceeded to comment and offer guidance.
She says perhaps this is not a good analogy, because Seth is by no means a character in a dream. In fact, she has almost never dreamed of Seth. But he is indeed a living figure, whose stage of reality is different from our physical stage -- a figure who writes books through her, a personality who truly writes from his standpoint rather than hers.
Uncompromising Wisdom
She says that in this book, Seth, with an uncompromising wisdom -- remember the word "uncompromising" -- comments on our religions, our sciences, our fashionable cults, and also on our medical beliefs. When Seth talks about many issues, he is uncompromising; he would rather speak very directly, and some of his words even directly conflict with our mainstream values, even offending many, many people. It is as if he represents the depths of that wiser human psyche, which always knows more than we do; as if he not only speaks with her voice, but also represents the heartfelt voices of many, many people. As if he represents the truths that we have allowed ourselves to forget.
What truths have we forgotten? She goes on to say:
It is that our dreams come alive in the daytime, and that our feelings and beliefs become this reality that we experience.
A deeper way of putting it is that we are the events in which we participate. Also, to murder for the sake of an ideal is still murder. But it does not stop there. Seth reminds us of what we knew as children -- that we are of good intent, that human nature is originally good.
The truth he speaks of is "you create your own reality." This statement is one of the cornerstones of the Seth material, and anyone who has studied the Seth material should know this phrase. Can you create other people's reality? This book is going to explore this mass reality -- how other people's reality is created. The premise is that you must first create your own reality before you can extend the discussion to the question of other people's reality. This phrase has been said almost from the very beginning of the sessions, and it has been emphasized again and again in his books.
However, in this book, Seth goes a step further and asserts:
Our individual impulses provide the original impetus for developing our own abilities; and at the same time, even these abilities contribute to the best interests of humanity and the natural world.
Each person's most personal, most private kind of impulse is the original impetus for developing individual abilities. Every person wants to develop their own abilities, their own potential, wants to bring their abilities into fullest play; the only impetus you can draw upon is that most primal impulse of yours. And the individual abilities you develop by drawing upon this impulse contribute to the best interests, the optimal solutions, of all humanity and the natural world. Do not think that you are of no help to human society; is human society not made up of millions upon millions of people like you and me? Seven billion yous and mes make up human society.
What he says here is:
Our normal impulses are precisely those that we have been told are dangerous.
We often say "impulse is the devil," and to this day this remains an idea many people firmly believe. Why do we say this? Because he does not want to be impulsive; he is afraid of impulse. This is what our traditional society tells us -- that impulse is dangerous, chaotic, contradictory. But Seth asserts:
If we do not trust our impulses, then we cannot trust ourselves.
If you cannot even trust your own impulses, then you cannot trust yourself. Most of this book is about the purpose of our impulses, and the reasons why their reputation is so bad in the eyes of science and religion. What Seth really wants to say is this: our impulses are meant to help us as individuals, on an individual basis, create our reality, while at the same time enhancing our individual lives and our civilization. Your individual impulses are the original impetus for creating your reality, and at the same time they are of benefit to humanity, of help to all of human civilization -- what is it? It is your impulses.
But if we are of good intent, then why do we sometimes do things that are utterly heinous? Seth does not shy away from these questions at all, and analyzes the motivations of both paranoia and idealism. People are indeed idealistic; the essence of human nature is idealistic. Many, many readers of all ages wrote to them, asking what they could do, asking how they could develop their own potential while also helping to bring about a better world. Many readers, whether or not the terrible phenomena they saw in society concerned them personally, expressed deep concern and abhorrence. Many people are like this, extremely indignant about things in society.
In this book, Seth clearly shows us:
How each of us contributes to the affairs of the group.
Do not be deeply indignant, and do not be deeply concerned; each of us contributes to such events. And he outlines those problems concisely, so that we do not fall into disillusionment or paranoia. This is like the proverb: when an avalanche occurs, not a single snowflake is innocent. You cannot say that it was one particular snowflake falling that finally triggered the avalanche; every snowflake has a share. The mass events we face today -- whether it is the pandemic we are confronting, the major economic impact, or the challenges and shocks to social and political systems and democratic institutions -- we all have a share in these. But Seth outlines them for us, so that you do not fall into disillusionment and paranoia; many people in this state will fall into a state of paranoia and collapse.
Since we are all involved in world events, it is therefore very important that we understand how we participate in that kind of global action. We are connected to everything in the world; we need to know how we participate in it, in what manner we participate, and what kind of influence we produce. And to see:
How our negative beliefs about ourselves and humanity create situations that drift further and further from the ideal, and that run directly counter to the goals we proclaim?
Everyone speaks of peace, yet in our reality scenes of war, hunger, and poverty keep appearing. Human society has developed to where it is today, from industrial civilization to the post-industrial era, yet there are still many people in the world struggling against hunger, many places still experience frequent blackouts and power rationing, and there are still many of the most primitive places where people kill each other over certain beliefs.
Freud and Darwin
For this reason, Seth explained how the theories of Freud and Darwin have limited our imagination as well as our abilities5. Of course Jane and Rob also grew up under the ideas of Freud and Darwin, and so did we, so did we -- when we were in school we were still learning Darwin's theory, but the younger generation has already begun to change. In Western education today, Darwin's theory of evolution is no longer taught as the way species originated. But the vast majority of us are still influenced by Freud and Darwin. She says they too could not escape this narrow viewpoint, and those theories, together with religious beliefs about a flawed self, would all have an effect on them, and have already left their mark on every person's life.
The flawed self refers to the Christian concept that people are born with original sin. Through the Seth sessions, Seth gave Jane and Rob a brand-new and far broader philosophical framework, a framework they share with their readers. He published this book, which means he shared his framework with everyone. That framework is still continuing to emerge, it has not been fully presented yet, it is still far from complete, and the answers have not all come in yet. They were still learning how to ask the right questions so that all those answers could be brought out.
When Seth began this book, Jane was personally exploring the concept of the heroic impulse -- that inner drive that pushes us toward constructive action. The heroic impulse is that lofty, high-minded impulse with noble ideals and goals, such as building a community for all humanity, striving to realize communism, achieving economic development for humanity, social prosperity and strength, and so on -- these all belong to the heroic impulse. This is also very common in Hollywood movies, where someone saves the world or something like that.
However, in this book, Seth states:
What we must learn to trust is precisely our everyday, normal, ordinary impulses.
Seth is not telling you to have that kind of heroic impulse -- I want to change the world, change this or that -- no. He again asks us to trust our everyday impulses, those small convictions, small joys, small impulses in our ordinary lives, rather than the impulse to set some grand ambition for ourselves. She says even she was startled. She had originally thought what we should seek was the heroic impulse, but when she went looking for the heroic impulse, what she overlooked were precisely those ordinary, personal impulses. She finally began to understand that our normal impulses are heroic.
In a certain sense, this entire book is introducing us to our impulses -- the ones we follow and the ones we deny. The whole book is about how important our inner impulses are, and that we should trust them. Conversely, in this respect, Hollywood movies have actually done one thing right: they ultimately give everyone's small impulses a lofty, heroic image. Although what they want to promote is this heroic impulse, they have in fact subtly taught us a principle: this heroic impulse originates from the small impulses of every ordinary person, the personal, very individual, everyday impulses. Look at those Hollywood movies -- it is always someone who saves the world in order to save their daughter, to save their child, to save the person they love. Although we all know it is just a movie, and these happy endings are too childish, almost like fairy tales, lacking deep humanistic value, in essence it does in a certain way imply Seth's theory: we must trust and have faith in each person's impulses, even if it is only because you like someone, only because you cannot bear to part with the love for your child, that you devote yourself and save the world.
Let me interject: if you look carefully, why are Hollywood movies so popular? Although we all know the plots are simple, incredibly simple, and the endings are all the same, why are we still willing to watch them? Can you say the audience is all foolish? All stupid? You cannot say that. They contain a great deal that we overlook -- namely, they affirm for us the meaning of our inner impulses.
Jane says she herself also struggled with impulses. She only followed those impulses she believed would lead her where she wanted to go, and drastically cut down those she thought would interfere with her work. Like many other people, she thought following impulses was the most unreliable way to achieve any goal, except when she was writing, at which time the creative impulse became her most welcome thing. In our daily lives we all feel that impulses are unreliable, because they interfere with our work and our lives. For Jane, her favorite impulse was the creative impulse; when she was writing novels or poetry, that kind of impulse was welcome. Apart from that, she rejected all impulses in daily life, because she felt they would interfere with her work and slow down her writing progress. Every one of us is like this. What she did not understand was that all impulses are creative.
You should remember this sentence, it is extremely valuable: all impulses are creative. It was precisely because of this one-sidedness that for many years she had a most annoying, arthritis-like condition. In this preface she herself recognized this problem very clearly -- the reason her body later could not move, could hardly move, was that she herself had cut off the impulse to move. She confined herself to her desk, every morning at eight-thirty or nine she absolutely had to sit at her desk, and until a certain hour in the afternoon she had to write, with rigid rules she set for herself. She felt that if she did not write for one day, that day was wasted, she was idling away her time, and she could not forgive herself. Any impulse she had to move -- to go out for a walk, to travel, to go out and have fun -- all these impulses were strangled by her in the cradle. Over time, her body lost the ability to move, which was truly terrifying.
So many people ask, why did Jane study spirituality for so long, or why did she still get sick while Seth was transmitting the material? She herself said it very clearly, and in the early sessions and the private sessions this issue was discussed even more clearly. I have already talked about this many times, so I will not repeat it here.
She says:
In the past, when Seth told me to trust the spontaneous self, I said fine, and imagined some hypothetical inner self that was somewhat distant from my conscious intent. But when Seth repeated "trust your impulses" again and again in this book, the message finally got through to me, and the result is that I have already made considerable physical progress.
She had always imagined that trusting her own spontaneity meant trusting that hypothetical inner self that was somewhat distant from herself. She did not know that trusting the spontaneous self means trusting the present self, right here and now, not so remote, and not so mysterious. We always say we must listen to the voice of the higher self, we must listen to the voice of the inner self, we must hear some revelation-like voice in meditation telling us what to do. It is not that complicated. It is not that only those who have opened their celestial eye, those who can have out-of-body experiences, those who can converse with their higher self in meditation, can receive guidance from the higher self. There is no such need.
Like everyone else, she was waiting for that inner self to give her instructions. Trust it? Sure, no problem, but she was still waiting for that inner self to give her explicit guidance. Yet the other party gave her all the hints, all the explicit guidance, through one impulse after another, and she ignored them all. It was only later -- when Seth was giving her this book -- that she understood: so-called trusting the spontaneous self means trusting this impulsive self. It is not that there is some lofty higher self that speaks a sentence to you during meditation, not that someone gives you some flash of inspiration, but the little things in your daily life -- for example, wanting to eat a pizza, wanting to go somewhere to play, wanting to slack off a bit right now, wanting to lie down and sleep right now, and so on -- these smallest, most insignificant impulses. Do not think about those lofty things, it is just these.
She says these impulses, in a certain sense, are the language of your psyche, the language of your inner self, the language of your spirituality. Jane's reflection on herself is also a warning to all of us.
Aggressive Impulses
But what about aggressive, contradictory, or even murderous impulses? Since you say we should trust our impulses, what do we do about aggression? If I am treated unfairly, I want to attack him, hit him, stab him, kill him -- what then? Just as many people leave comments saying, you keep emphasizing that we should pursue our highest joy, but what if I go out and murder or commit arson? How can such murderous impulses be trusted? Seth answered these and many other questions, and in this book he gave a very detailed introduction.
It was not until we read his explanation that we could not help but wonder:
How could we have so misunderstood our own nature in the past, to the point that we did not trust the very information that would lead ourselves and all of humanity toward spiritual growth?
Only after Seth finished explaining these things can you truly understand why we have such a great misunderstanding, why we dare not trust our own impulses, and why impulses have such a bad reputation in human society. No one trusts them -- from your parents and your teachers to mainstream media, scientists, religious scholars, philosophers; everything mainstream denies impulses. Yet impulses are the only thing through which we can connect with spirituality. They are the primal driving force of every person's individual developmental potential. So why do we misunderstand them this way? Seth has an answer here, but let us not be impatient; when we reach that point, it will naturally be discussed.
So what role do we ourselves play in all of these matters? In Jane's eyes, this was an echo of the poet's original role:
To explore the reaches of the private individual psyche, to push against the usual psychological boundaries until they give way and open a new mysterious territory -- the psyche of people and of humanity itself, that is, spirituality -- and to perceive the magnificent beauty of inner reality. Then the poet uses words, rhythm, or song to translate that vision and pass it on to people.
Jane herself was a poet and a novelist. For her, what are impulses? They are the only way for us to enter inner reality and obtain the magnificent vistas of inner reality. Through that, the poet, painter, or artist can then transfer that magnificent beauty of inner reality back, translating it through words, rhythm, poetry, song, melody, painting, sculpture, and all kinds of artistic forms, turning it into one work of art after another. That is why it moves us and attracts us. Why do we humans love these artistic creations? Why can a work of art be sold for hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions? Although money is not the standard by which everything is measured, under the monetary symbols of human society, we can know that the true value of a work of art far exceeds the object itself.
She guessed that the earliest poets were probably half shaman and half prophet:
Speaking for nature, for the spirits of the living and the dead, voicing the vision of unity between heaven and humanity within their hearts.
She was guessing, but her guess was quite accurate. We know that in Mongolia, China, there is an epic poem called King Gesar6. This poem is orally transmitted, with no written record, and has been sung for over a thousand years. One day on the grasslands, suddenly a person, as if guided by unseen forces, began to sing the epic of King Gesar -- an epic-scale work far longer than the Homeric epics7.
Preface: Jane and Rob's Introduction
Why Seth Chose to Speak
The original title of the Seth book Seth Speaks is "Seth Speaks," and it was communicated first through speech rather than through automatic writing. The full title Seth gave to his first book was Seth: On the Eternal Validity of the Soul. Later we took the second half and translated it as Seth Speaks. The word "eternal" is not a very precise translation, but it is very eye-catching, because human beings are naturally interested in things that are eternal. If it had been translated as "the eternal validity of the soul," everyone would have thought it looked like an academic paper. Actually, Seth always wanted to turn it into a relatively scientific treatise.
Why did Seth insist on "Seth Speaks" rather than "Seth's Theory," "Seth's Viewpoint," "Seth's System," or "Seth's Framework"? Why did he insist on "Seth Speaks"? What he meant was that Seth had to convey his ideas through oral dictation, through spoken words, just like the ancient poets, the ancient shamans, and the ancient prophets, who had to speak and chant their words aloud rather than write them down.
In other words, just as the Buddha would not write down his own teachings but had to speak them, in question-and-answer exchanges with his disciples, in question-and-answer exchanges with the enlightened ones, Seth also actually wanted Rob and Jane to ask questions. In the early sessions, Rob and Jane asked him, "Can we human beings obtain truth?" Seth said yes. At that time he could only speak a few words at a time. Then they did not ask how to obtain truth, and Seth said: Ask. It is extremely simple. Ask. Just ask, and asking will bring out the truth. There is no other way besides asking.
This statement is very meaningful. What does it mean to ask? If you are not even curious about something, if you do not even want to ask questions, how can you obtain truth? If you do not ask, this knowledge cannot possibly enter your mind. You must first have a question. This is a viewpoint Confucius often brought up in his teaching. The two characters "qi" and "fa" were first proposed by Confucius8. When do you "qi," and when do you "fa"? "Qi" is when you half understand and half do not, when you seem to grasp a little of the principle but still do not understand it, and at that moment someone punctures that thin layer of window paper for you. That is called "qi." "Fa" is when you want to express this principle, when you understand it in your heart but cannot organize it into your own words, cannot theorize it or systematize it, but you understand it all in your heart, and at that moment the teacher gives you a little nudge, and you are able to turn it into a theory, or into a knowledge system of your own.
So asking and thinking are extremely crucial. If a person does not think and does not ask questions, it is impossible for him to obtain knowledge or wisdom. That is the premise. Seth insisted on using speech rather than automatic writing. Could he have used automatic writing? Yes. Because the first process through which Jane connected with Seth was automatic writing—Jane first wrote something like an essay, and in a trance state she wrote out an article in a rapid flow, but she did not know what the article meant. Later she looked at it and thought, how strange—that was the first time she made contact with Seth. But after that, Seth never used that method again. It was not that he could not use automatic writing; it was that he preferred to use speech, because language itself has power.
The Seth books were primarily spoken. The Seth books we read today were all spoken by him in this way, two evenings a week, for twenty-one years.
The Ancient Speakers
Perhaps what Seth says itself resonates with some ancient era of ours. Back then, it was precisely in such a way that we received most of the information closely related to us. Some of us, on behalf of all the others, fulfilled the journey into the collective unconscious. What he is talking about here is Jung's viewpoint -- the collective subconscious, or the collective unconscious9. A journey that one could say changed and expanded that person, and then we did our best to relay what we had seen.
In ancient times, this was how it was. He speculates that it was probably like this: a certain person had such an ability, entered into another reality space, and then relayed what he saw and heard. However, if that was the case, this kind of personality that stands between worlds -- that is, this personality could go to that world and could also come to this world -- could be astonishingly stable, very stable, which is why so much material could be transmitted. And if they were formed according to what we call individuality, personalness, then in their unique complexity they indeed surpassed us.
What does this mean? It means they were random -- not necessarily any particular person possessed this supernormal ability and could communicate with the people of that world. If this was the viewpoint, then in their unique complexity they surpassed us -- the proportion of people among them who had supernormal abilities was higher than among us modern people. For example, among the same one thousand people, in ancient times there might have been four or five who could channel, while among one thousand modern people there might not be a single one, and perhaps only one would emerge among ten thousand people. I am just making up an analogy off the top of my head -- their complexity was higher than ours, and their diversity was greater. Only with greater diversity would all sorts of different people emerge.
The greatest characteristic of us modern people is our sameness; assimilation is very severe, and we rarely have that kind of diversity of existence anymore. Our people are all about the same, our thoughts are about the same, our beliefs are about the same, our viewpoints are about the same, all about the same, without much difference. So our complexity is inferior to theirs; we are more uniform.
Seth Is Not a Secondary Personality of Jane's
Because if Seth were merely a psychological model filled up by our unconscious initial data, then he would indeed have outdone our usual notions of personality, and it would also imply that if we are to use our full potential, there is still a long way to go.
He is being ironic here. Suppose Seth does not exist, and is only some kind of data that Jane unconsciously obtained while in trance. People often say that this is an image of Jane's ego, or that another multiple personality of Jane's popped out, saying that Seth is one of Jane's multiple personalities. This viewpoint has been raised ever since the material first appeared, and Seth himself has refuted this viewpoint countless times. When speaking through Jane, he refuted it countless times: I am not Jane, and I am certainly not one of Jane's personalities, none of that. I am me, I am Seth, I am a personality from another dimension, another space.
He says that if you think Seth is merely a psychological model of Jane's, then Seth is far wiser than our psychological models, and not just by a little. He has outdone us all. He is being ironic -- if we assume that our individual potential alone could produce the kind of things Seth says, if Jane's latent personality possessed such wisdom and such a level of ability, then we humans would still have a long way to go before developing such potential in ourselves.
What he wants to say is that this is actually not another personality of us humans, nor is it some untapped potential of our own that has not yet been released. He tells us it is not. At the same time, he is also bearing witness for those who, over thousands of years, have transmitted poetry and transmitted knowledge -- no, do not ever think that this is something belonging to certain individuals.
Seth Is Our Template for the Future
So Jane did indeed believe there was more involved here. Jane believed that Seth was some kind of model of what we might become in the future -- a template. A template of what kind? There is a part within us that has never believed in all that nonsense about being flawed, and Seth is the spokesperson for that part.
Within us -- including you, including all of us -- at certain times a thought will often pop up: I myself am unique, I myself have very, very strong abilities. In other words, I myself am without flaws, I have never believed that I have flaws. Each of us has a small part deep inside that considers ourselves to be perfect, that does not consider ourselves to have flaws. But this thing, ever since we entered society, ever since we started school, has been constantly beaten down, constantly suppressed -- you are not allowed to have this thought. You are not allowed to consider yourself perfect, you are not allowed to consider yourself without flaws. Everyone has to find a bunch of shortcomings for themselves, as if only then can they get by in this society without appearing too unconventional.
And Seth is actually speaking out for that part within the body that has always been suppressed, always been beaten down, always been too afraid to stick its head out and speak. What kind of voice is he raising? You are flawless and perfect, you are God, you are the Creator, you are the creator of this world, you are the universe itself. Your existence is reasonable, your existence has meaning, and everything you do contributes to the whole of human civilization and to the entire universe. If he were to plant this concept into everyone's heart, then wouldn't each of us live out our lives in the manner of Seth? So he said, Seth is the spokesperson for that part, the one that answers to a certain need within us.
Jane and Seth's Psychological Alliance
As far as the relationship between Seth and me is concerned, this is Jane speaking. Because of our long collaboration, I think we must have formed a unique psychological alliance. A kind of psychological alliance. You could say that a part of me is Seth -- at least during the sessions, when he is speaking, Seth is necessarily a part of Jane. He has to speak through her, and both are in a kind of psychological attunement; Seth must use Jane's voice to speak. So he uses her life as a reference, and the content of her mind has indeed expanded enormously because of these sessions. Of course, her daily life is lived with the knowledge of that alliance, and now the normal routine includes becoming Seth twice a week, and this has been going on for years now -- "for years" meaning it has already been sixteen years.
For example, this preface represents her only conscious contribution to the entire book. She is saying that the preface she wrote was written consciously by herself, because at all other times she was speaking on behalf of Seth, in a trance state, an unconscious state. So she jokes that this preface is my only conscious contribution to the whole book; everything else is an unconscious contribution.
But as Seth often says, the unconscious portions of our personality are actually indeed conscious. What is called conscious or unconscious is just a matter of where your focus is placed. Wherever your focus is, there is consciousness; wherever your focus is not directed, it is unconscious to you, but that does not mean nothing is happening there. In the same way, I am also a focus of his consciousness. You could say that Seth represents the larger portion of the psyche from which our kind of consciousness emerges. In other words, from a certain angle, I am also a focus of Seth; Seth represents that larger part of the psyche from which our kind of consciousness emerges -- the place from which our own psyche emerges, it emerges from the reality in which Seth resides.
The Role of the Seth Material
The most important thing is to explore this range of human consciousness -- how much does consciousness change when it approaches other levels that actually exist. That is, our world is not only this physical world that we recognize; there are also many non-physical worlds. The simplest examples are our dreams, or when we enter a meditative state, or when we have an out-of-body experience, or after we die -- these are all worlds that truly exist. What he means is, when we enter those levels that actually exist, how much does your consciousness change?
But no matter how we want to define Seth's reality -- that is, how we define the reality that Seth inhabits, the reality from which our spirituality emerges, the place, the dimension, the world from which our spirituality originates -- up to now I am quite certain of one thing: he is transmitting to our conscious mind the deepest unconscious knowledge we have of ourselves, of the world, of the universe, and of the very source of entity itself.
In other words, Seth is taking the knowledge that exists at the unconscious level and, through his transmission via Jane and Rob's recording, passing it to our conscious mind, letting us know that beyond our consciousness, in the unconscious part of us, there are richer things, and there is our source. What he means is that the Seth material has played a very important role in this regard.
But Seth never claimed that he was omnipotent or omniscient. Everyone must absolutely remember this -- do not deify Seth. In his sessions, I remember in the early sessions and also in some private sessions, he emphasized several times: there is much that I do not know. He even said, if I knew everything, I would not be here today telling you these things. It is precisely because I know part of it and do not yet know another part that I have this interest and this willingness to pass these things on to you. I am not omniscient, and I am not omnipotent.
He himself once described that he had been to a certain level, I think around the twelfth level, and he said he did not know what was on the thirteenth level. This "level" of his is only a figurative analogy; everyone must absolutely not understand it as if there were actually a concept of levels -- that is all a misunderstanding. In The Nature of the Psyche he repeatedly mentioned that you must not have a concept of a ladder, a concept of hierarchy, saying that I have to climb from this level to that level like climbing stairs. Moreover, there is no distinction of high and low, noble and base between these levels, as if a higher level were somehow better than a lower one. There is none of that. You must not understand it as if being on the first level were somehow bad. He is merely stating such a fact, just as if he had been to thirteen countries but had not been to the fourteenth, so he simply does not know about it. It is like us -- some people have been to more places and have seen more, some people have seen less, but it is not that having been to more countries makes you much more advanced than others. There is no such thing.
There was even one time when Jane and Rob were chatting, and they mentioned some psychologist's opinions about them. In the early sessions they had sent some material to certain psychologists, certain so-called scientists and doctors, hoping to get their approval. You can imagine -- including sending it to the American Psychological Association or some other associations -- at the time these people almost scoffed at their views. They simply sent it back, saying this stuff had no research value. The two of them were chatting, meaning that they were extremely angry at these bureaucratic institutions like the American Psychological Association, and also very sarcastic, saying these associations were worth nothing, what could they possibly understand, to treat this truth in such a way.
They felt they were standing up for Seth, and they were in fact truly furious, because they had genuinely put in the effort. Do not forget, Jane was the one who spent more than a decade, day in and day out, recording and publishing this material. At that point Seth came through, Seth came through and gave the two of them a severe scolding. That was the harshest I can remember Seth ever speaking. Seth did not curse and rage the way we do, but if you read the Seth material a lot, you can tell from his words that you can read his emotions and his state. He was extremely angry.
His anger was this: the two of you must not think that just because I have spoken these things, you have somehow obtained some truth. You must not take what I say as some kind of truth and go around proclaiming it, going around talking about what it is and how it is. Even more, you must not look down on others because of it, and you must not, just because you seem to have grasped the Seth material and understood Seth's things, look down on those who have not come into contact with these things. This is absolutely unacceptable. He said, I also cannot represent truth, and what I say is not truth either. You must have this kind of understanding, otherwise you will only stop moving forward and will not gain anything.
So let me interject here -- what he said also touches on the point that you must absolutely not deify the Seth material. What Jane really wanted to emphasize here is the same point -- Seth merely took the knowledge from the unconscious realm and, through Jane, brought it to us who are conscious. He played that one role, and he did it extremely well, for more than twenty years.
Seth's Material and the Knowledge of Nature
Seth said that what he presents is no more remarkable than the knowledge you can obtain from nature itself. Seth said several times: go observe a flower, observe a small animal, observe your family pet, and you may learn even more than what is in the Seth material. Go observe nature, and what you learn there is even more than what you can learn from this book. He also said it is no more mysterious than when your inspiration arrives. Every one of us has moments when inspiration surges up. When that inspiration comes, if you do not understand what other dimensions are, if you do not understand what more of reality is, then when inspiration comes, when impulse comes, do not make it so mysterious, so full of secrecy, as if you must perform a ritual, must be able to go out of body, must be able to channel before anything can happen -- no. This ability belongs to everyone. It is right there in our ordinary daily lives. It is not that mysterious. It is just that we often forget to interpret those inspirations, those intuitions, and instead we become afraid of inspiration itself. That is a problem we should avoid.
Jane considered this phenomenon to be important in terms of evolution -- by evolution, she meant important in terms of human evolution, helpful in forming human consciousness. It is not that this material has not been distorted, or that it has not been ignored. But no matter what, it must be interpreted again and again, so that it can fit human experience within the framework of time.
What this means is that a phenomenon like Seth, which brings unconscious knowledge to the conscious level, is extremely important to the development and evolution of humanity, and extremely important to the formation of human consciousness. It is not that this material has not been distorted in the process of transmission, or that it has not been ignored by humans. But no matter how it has been distorted, no matter how it has been ignored, it appears again and again, over and over, in our human civilization and human society at intervals. It must match the experience of the cultural and humanistic background of the time, within the framework of historical development and time, match that humanistic environment, and appear again and again. Starting from several thousand years ago, it has appeared in an endless stream.
The Psychological Brick Wall Jane Ran Into
Jane said the complexity of the psyche is truly unparalleled. She gave an example to illustrate the concept she was discussing. Just as she was writing the first few paragraphs of this preface, some of the words and phrases themselves seemed to form a kind of rhythm, and a certain rhythm carried her along. Many people experience this: when you are writing a novel or writing something, suddenly it is as if your pen is guided by something divine, ideas flow like a spring, and you are carried along, unable to stop. She felt as though she was drawing upon energy and knowledge beyond her usual capacity.
Since dusk was approaching, she went to take a short nap. At that point, even more concepts came. She hastily jotted these concepts down in the bedroom. Subjectively, the speed was accelerating; she wrote faster and faster, because the concepts were coming especially fast and in great abundance, and they were continuously accelerating. She had a sense of acceleration, as if that knowledge, that spring-like flow of ideas, was gushing faster and faster.
Then she suddenly felt as if she had slammed into a psychological brick wall. In the midst of that spring-like flow of ideas, with a sudden crash, the accelerating stream of thought hit a wall and could not carry the concepts any further; it stopped. In that instant, she suddenly realized: Seth was outside the wall of her mind, on the other side. When she hit the wall, she suddenly understood that Seth was outside that wall within her mind, and at that moment she could not get through.
At that very moment, in the next instant, she fell asleep. She had originally intended to go to sleep; before sleeping she had hurriedly written down a great deal, and as she was writing she suddenly hit a wall, as if she were stuck there. Then she vaguely sensed that this was the limit of human cognition, and that Seth was beyond that limit, beyond that wall.
When she woke up half an hour later, she began preparing dinner. You see, Jane was physically inconvenienced, yet she was still making dinner. Rob and she ate while watching the television news, very relaxed, and after the news she returned to the study. You see, Jane was still very diligent, writing from morning to night, and after dinner she went back again.
As soon as she sat down, a rich vein of material opened up. Had she not just run into a wall? The thought had stopped right there, and then suddenly a rich vein of material opened up, so much that she could hardly write it down fast enough—so rapid, so rich in content, and it began exactly where her previous concepts had ended. It began from that place where her concepts had stopped, from that place of the psychological wall. That is to say, at this point, she had crossed over that wall.
She received many titles for Seth's next book—not this book, but the next one. Because by the time she was writing this preface, this book was already finished. Even while she was writing the preface for this book, she was able to receive the chapter titles and concepts for the next book. Behind each title, she could sense many layers of material. She could not only sense the title, but could even intuitively sense the content behind that title, yet she could not put it into words clearly—that was material Seth could access, but she could not. She could not distill it into language and consciousness, but she could vaguely sense that behind each title there was material, material that Seth could access, but which she could not yet access.
However, in the moments before that material surged forth, she felt a strange psychological boundary and a state of acceleration. She felt she could not get through; there was something like a brick wall, and also a state of acceleration. In this example, she at least pointed out a meeting point between Seth and her own thought—what Seth could access, she could not yet access, but she could sense that something was there. Their meeting point was this: Seth could understand that material himself and then transmit it through speech, or through Jane entering an unconscious state. That material is what we call unconscious material—the material behind the human unconscious. Seth can access it easily, while we humans cannot yet access it.
Then she described a very brief psychological rest—she slept, she cooked, a psychological platform in between, and it was from there that Seth's outline began to emerge. What is meant by a psychological rest? She slept, cooked, ate, watched television—all things that do not tax the mind. In fact, psychologically she was relaxed, mentally she was relaxed, which amounted to a platform of rest, and at that point the Seth material came through, and that meeting point emerged.
So this is also true in our daily lives: there should be a balance of tension and relaxation. Do not always work, work, work in a tense state. At appropriate times, relax, do some housework, cook, listen to music, take a walk, take a short trip, do things you enjoy—all of these are very helpful. After these brief periods of rest, relaxation, or physical activity, you will have a renewed feeling.
Foreknowledge of the Next Book
In the session after that one -- that is, the session after she wrote the preface, the session after she woke up from sleep -- Seth confirmed that the material corresponded to an outline of the new book he was planning. That is to say, when Seth was constructing his own outline, Jane was also able to receive the relevant information.
What she had been saying all along was that the complexity of the psyche is unparalleled -- what she wanted to say was that she and Seth, in certain areas and at certain points, had points of convergence in their thought and psyche. That is, when Seth was conceiving a next book, Jane could also obtain a portion of the material -- not all of it, and not in great detail, but she could get a general sense of it. In the next session, Seth confirmed this to Jane: I have just written down the outline for the next book. And what he said turned out to be exactly the same as what had come into Jane's mind that day after dinner, after watching TV, when she went to write.
And when Seth was close to finishing The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Jane picked up its title -- by "picked up," she meant that the material she received in a relaxed state was correct. Therefore, although when she wrote this preface two days later, Seth had not yet begun the new book, he would certainly begin dictating this new book at any time. The name of this new book was Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, the next book after this one. Seth would once again say "Now, dictation" -- this was a phrase said before every Seth session -- and Rob would write down a title in his new notebook.
Rob's Role
Of course, the Seth sessions and the Seth books are inevitably bound up with the relationship between Jane and Rob. And what Rob did went far beyond being a recorder or transcriber of the material. The remarkable mind he brought to it, with all its questioning and probing, always spurred Jane to give her best, helping her see herself and these sessions as clearly as possible.
Rob was not merely a recorder. His questioning during the process, his organizing, his analysis of the material, including his questions to Seth, were all extremely important. And Seth mentioned this several times as well, and it is indeed a fact: the transmission of the Seth material required all three of them, and not one of them could be dispensed with. Rob was not a dispensable recorder. Seth, Jane, and Rob were one unit, and none of the three could be missing. This is no joke.
So many people ask: why did Seth not continue transmitting material after Jane passed away? Why could it not be transmitted through Rob? If you have read the early sessions, you will know that they tried several times -- with Seth communicating directly with Rob, letting Rob do it directly. They tried several times. It was not that it was impossible, but the results were poor, extremely slow, and the material was greatly distorted. They could only obtain a rough, superficial version of it, and could not achieve the fluent, excellent connection that Jane had. It could not be done. This is also the reason why the three of them had to be together.
Had it not been for his encouragement and active participation, Jane doubts whether the Seth sessions would have existed in their present form. Rob truly played a major role here. Jane's feeling throughout this process was actually quite subtle. She did not feel that she absolutely had to give the Seth sessions. In the early period, she did not think the Seth material was all that important; she was always thinking about writing her own novels. But Rob, after all, had the perspective of an observer, and he vaguely sensed the importance of this material and its great significance for human development and its impact on humanity. So he steadfastly insisted that this material be written down and recorded, and he kept encouraging Jane to channel Seth, encouraging her to open up new content and deliver new books.
And in the later period, Jane also came to appreciate the benefits. She found that writing the Seth material did not interfere with her own novel writing; on the contrary, it brought her a great deal of inspiration, passion, and energy for her creative work. So she also persisted in doing it. Rob's role in all this was indispensable.
Therefore, although the Seth books entered the public world, the Seth sessions themselves were born out of their private lives. Yet those lives coexisted with the stage of mass events -- events that at times brushed gently past them, or on other occasions violently affected their daily lives. In this book, Seth describes how we are all connected, and how private experience is woven into the continuum of existence that includes world events. This is your world, and it is our world as well. It is hoped that this book will help all of us make this world a better place.
This is the preface written by Jane Roberts on September 22, 1979, in Elmira, New York10. Why do we discuss this preface? This preface actually explains a great deal. It explains the background and process by which this book came into being, and it also reflects the state of the connection between Jane and Seth during their communication.
Wang Jiqing's Translator's Preface
Next let's look at a preface written by the translator herself, Teacher Wang Jiqing. Her preface is very short. She says that after much coordination on many fronts, the Seth books have finally appeared with a brand-new look in Fangzhi's New Age series -- Fangzhi is probably a publishing house, and New Age is probably a book series. The Seth books have been republished, and this is exactly the good news that the not-too-numerous but devoted readers of the Seth material have been craning their necks waiting for.
The profound depth of the Seth books has created an enduring international reputation. Everyone who has read the Seth books cannot stop praising them. And in this country, more and more people who are deeply interested in life and the psyche have discovered this treasure trove. It covers so much ground and goes so deep that it seems as if the Seth material is an ultimate understanding of the truth of the universe and the truth of life that already exists in some dimension.
Here she is talking about how it "seems" to be that way -- but actually it is not. We should not treat it as some kind of truth of the universe or truth of life. Why do I say this? Because the truth of the universe and the truth of life exist only within your own heart, not outside. It is not in Seth, nor in the Buddha's sutras, nor in some master. It lies within the heart of every reader. She is only using this as an analogy here.
Seth once said that he is a teacher. Seth said that he is just a teacher. In every generation, every so often, there are always people who pass those truths along, always some speakers. What the founders of the ancient religions, the sages and prophets of old, realized through their enlightenment -- was it perhaps the same thing from the same source? Here Teacher Wang Jiqing is also uncertain whether what the founders of the various religions, the prophets and sages, the eminent monks and great masters realized was the same thing or not. It is just that after so many years, the hands of the clock have slipped -- the records have been scattered or wrongly interpreted, or influenced by various national conditions and folk customs, and with the addition of man-made moral codes, they have become sanctified, rigid dogmas, precepts, and rituals, and have lost their original spirit. She keeps using question marks throughout.
The Seth books are for those whose minds and intelligence are already prepared to put down the twisted, submissive old concepts and open up a new world. He points out all kinds of specious prejudices in society and culture, clears away the layers of fog before our eyes, and gives us a new pair of eyes -- to look at things with new eyes, to see through to the truth of things.
Because the content covers psychology, physics, medicine, consciousness, and so on, these are inherently very profound ideas. And language and writing are linear, so they truly cannot carry the multidimensional true appearance of truth. Therefore, when reading the Seth books, what he awakens is not only the rationality that relies on logical reasoning, but he touches the intuition deep within us, making us resonate with it, making us well up with an inexplicable sense of being moved and of understanding.
That is indeed the case. However, people who love to get to the bottom of everything may, upon first reading the Seth books, be overjoyed and swallow them whole -- that is indeed the case. Many people, when they first come into contact with the Seth books, say, oh, it has resolved decades of confusion for me, the kind of thing I searched high and low for but could not find -- Seth has explained it all clearly. They begin to be extremely overjoyed, swallowing it whole, or they think they have already grasped its essence and deeply received Seth's true transmission.
But Wang Jiqing advises that those with sincere intent must be patient, keep the books on their desk or by their bedside, restrain that inner ecstasy, and read them again and again, over and over, so that they gradually become your own flesh and blood, and ultimately become the bridge from yourself to the psyche of your greater self. What she means is, if you truly want to study this thing, you should read it repeatedly and often. Never just read it once and say, "Ah, I understand now, I get it" -- that is not enough.
In other words, the content of the Seth books is extremely profound. The profundity lies in the fact that every time you read them, you can discover something new. The depth of their inner meaning cannot be covered by the surface words. We should not deify them, but we also should not only look at their surface. We need to have a deep understanding. This is very hard to describe in words. Only when you read them again and again, time after time, and discover new things, will you understand what I just said.
The breadth and depth of the Seth material can be summed up in a couplet: The Way reaches through heaven and earth, beyond being and non-being; thought enters into the transformations of wind and cloud11. This couplet is very well written -- you can understand it however you like.
Acknowledgments
The completion of this book also owes much to Xu Tiansheng's praise of the auspicious valley. Xu Tiansheng gave great encouragement and support during the publishing process of this book. At that time, Xu Tiansheng was a young man, and when translating this book, he had not yet graduated from medical school. While he was in medical school, he was already translating this book together with Teacher Wang Jiqing. His encouragement was also a driving force that allowed Wang Jiqing to keep translating one book after another. Because if one person does this kind of work alone, it will inevitably become tedious, especially since the Seth material is so dense and difficult to understand. But with even one person, even just one like-minded person's support, one will have the motivation to keep going.
That we can read this book today is inseparable from these translators and those who put in effort during the translation; it is the crystallization of everyone's joint effort. Wang Jiqing said that during the actual translation process, he thought things through and deliberated together with me. Without his persistence, I am afraid I would not have had the perseverance to devote myself day after day, year after year, to translating the Seth books. This is not something a mere word of thanks can cover. She also thanked Chen Jianzhi, who voluntarily revised their original manuscript, adding much polish, and she thanked him as well.
Regarding the preface section of The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, that concludes our introduction for today.
注释与核实
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Source: The Great Learning in the Book of Rites (James Legge's annotated translation, collected in The Chinese Classics, Volume 1) (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Chinese_Classics/Volume_1/The_Great_Learning) ↩
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Source: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident" (https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Assassination of John F. Kennedy" (https://www.britannica.com/event/assassination-of-John-F-Kennedy) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Jonestown" (https://www.britannica.com/event/Jonestown) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network, "The Tibetan Heroic Epic — Gesar" (https://www.ihchina.cn/project_details/11247) ↩
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Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network · China Intangible Cultural Heritage Digital Museum, "The Tibetan Heroic Epic — Gesar" (https://www.ihchina.cn/project_details/11247) ↩
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Source: China Education Daily, "The 'Heuristic Method of Education' Is the 'Fundamental Law' of Education and Teaching" (https://theory.people.com.cn/n/2013/0322/c107503-20880572.html) ↩
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Source: American Psychological Association, "Collective Unconscious," 2018 (https://dictionary.apa.org/collective-unconscious%26quot%3B) ↩
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Source: Jane Roberts, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events (https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Jane%20Roberts%20-%20Seth%20-%20Individual%20and%20the%20Nature%20of%20Mass%20Events.pdf) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, it was "The Way penetrates beyond heaven, earth, being and nonbeing; thought enters into the midst of wind, clouds, change and transformation"; upon verification, it should be "The original line is from Cheng Hao's 'Autumn Day, Written Casually' in the Song dynasty: 'The Way penetrates beyond heaven, earth, and the realm of forms; thought enters into the midst of wind, clouds, and transformation,' not 'being and nonbeing' or 'change and transformation.'" (Source: Cheng Hao, "Autumn Day, Written Casually, Two Poems," https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%A7%8B%E6%97%A5%E5%81%B6%E6%88%90%E4%BA%8C%E9%A6%96) ↩