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 his lectures. 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 begins with the origin and meaning of religion, explaining that religion is the outward projection of inner reality, and that external religious dramas reflect inner spiritual values through symbols such as good and evil, God and the devil. Using the three personalities of the Christ entity (John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul) as an example, Seth explains the enactment and distortion of religious dramas, and predicts that a third Christ will appear before the year 2075, bringing about the overthrow of religious organizations and a spiritual transformation of humanity. The text also compares the differences in projection among the Hebrew God, primitive religions, and Islam.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Religion is the outward projection of inner reality. External religious dramas reflect the inner spiritual life, but they are not a perfect reflection of it.
- Good and evil, gods and demons, salvation and damnation are symbols of deeper religious values, not reality itself.
- The Christ entity is composed of three personalities: John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul. Paul did not fulfill his mission of establishing the framework of ideas, and he will return as the third Christ.
- Around the year 2075, humanity will undergo a spiritual transformation. The inner senses will be accepted, and religious organizations will be overturned.
- The Hebrew god represents the violent image of humanity's ego projected outward. Primitive religions were closer to inner spirituality than the religions that came later.
Main Text
From Chapter 20 to Chapter 21
At the beginning of this session, Jane and Rob actually reviewed the questions listed in Chapter 20, along with the remaining ones. Then Jane said she really wished Seth would hurry up and talk about religion and reincarnation; she wanted to get through it quickly and just be done with it.
Why would she say that? Because Jane was very sensitive about this topic, especially religion. When she was young, very young, she attended a Catholic school. In that Catholic school, Jane's nature was very rebellious, not one to submit to authority. So you see, this is why Seth gave her a lot of advice that she would not follow through on: it was because she had an innate spirit of challenging and rebelling against authority. In that very strictly disciplined Catholic school, she was constantly clashing with the teachers, even the principal. Around fifth grade or so -- I can't remember exactly, whether it was fourth or sixth grade, but around fifth grade -- one day she came home and told her mother, I'm not going to that school anymore, and she asked to transfer. Of course, what followed was a whole series of family matters, which I won't go into further.
Actually, she was very averse to the Catholic Church itself, because it wasn't something she chose to enter; her parents sent her there. But while she was there, she spontaneously developed a very strong, genuine religious inclination. Rob said her genuine religious inclination was one that was overly extreme and radical. He understood very well, and Jane understood very well, the marks left by that early environment, even though she left the church at the age of nineteen. So Jane said it would be best to get the religion and reincarnation material over with early, because she didn't want to discuss these issues, didn't really want to get tangled up in them.
Then she was very surprised that Seth began Chapter 21 that evening. She soon realized that Seth had not simply left the unanswered questions from Chapter 20 behind. He only said that in the answers to come, he would deal with the questions he had not covered in Chapter 20.
The Whole Self and Inner Knowledge
Let us look at the main text as Seth gave it. Seth says that, as he has said before, the questions of religion and reincarnation will be answered at the appropriate time. He says that in the course of this text, he will also deal with several other questions of yours -- that is, the questions among those fifty-two in Chapter Twenty that were not fully asked. He says we are to begin the next chapter, and so the next chapter begins, and its title is "The Meaning of Religion."
Session 585
He said:
Within the whole self, there is always inner awareness.
The whole self, that is, within our entire, holistic self-consciousness, within this complete self, there is always inner awareness.
Many people have been struggling with the relationship between "whole self," "entity," "soul," "higher self," and "inner self." I remember in the first chapter of this book, I drew a diagram and gave everyone a simple explanation and introduction. In this material, some of these terms are used interchangeably. But fundamentally, what I want you to understand is this -- we have reached Chapter 21, and this book has twenty-two chapters in total, so it is basically almost over -- throughout this whole process, you need to understand one thing: do not get tangled up in the meaning of the words themselves. In other words, do not say, "Give me a definition: what does the whole self include, what does the entity include, what does the soul define, what exactly are their connotations and extensions, define them for me, and then what are the differences and distinctions between them." I think you can think about and understand this inwardly, but there is no need to get overly hung up on it. Sometimes we take them out to distinguish them, and sometimes we do not get hung up on it.
What I mean by getting hung up is that, essentially, they are all one, there is no distinction at all, they are all mixed together. But for the convenience of understanding and explanation, we separate them. So you need to be able to understand what he means here, for example, what the term "whole self" represents here -- just understand its meaning. There is no need to go between different chapters and say, here he said "whole self," there he said "higher self," there he said "inner self," there he said "soul," there he said "entity" -- so what exactly are they? It makes me very confused.
I think there is actually this: Seth is talking about different things, and in the context at the time, in the surrounding text, he is indicating different meanings. If you can understand it, then understand it; if you cannot understand it, then set it aside for now and come back to it later. As for what exactly it represents, I have my own understanding, and you have your own understanding. There is no need to insist that they must be consistent, or that there must be an authority to explain it to you. Because even with the same question, if you called Seth down and said, "Seth, explain to me what the essential difference between these two terms is," Seth could not explain it clearly either. Because this itself is something that cannot be explained clearly. He is already trying his best to explain it as clearly as possible, but its essence is something that cannot be explained clearly. I do not know if I am making myself understood -- that is, between your inner self and your conscious mind and subconscious, where exactly is the boundary? At what stage does something start being the inner self's, and what part is still the outer self's? There is none.
All right, let us stop here on this question for now. He said:
Within the whole self there is always this inner perception... each person understands within his heart the meaning of all existence.
Always there -- be sure to remember this. Within each person's heart -- it must be within the heart -- within the heart, each person understands the meaning of all existence, including the meaning of all realities, outer and inner. Here he even put "whole self" in quotation marks.
The knowledge of multidimensional existence.
Multidimensional existence -- that is, each person is a multidimensional existence, and this is each person's actual reality. Our whole self's knowledge of its own multidimensional existence is not only behind conscious activity -- that is, at the subconscious or unconscious level -- but each person also knows inwardly that his conscious life depends upon a larger, more definite dimension.
That is, there is within you an even larger multidimensional existence, and your inner self knows this, and you know it too. It is just a matter of in what way you know it. This larger dimension cannot be made concrete within a three-dimensional system. This sentence is very important. To make concrete means to make substantial or material. So many people say, "Give me some proof, let me see your multidimensional existence." There is no way to let you see it, no way to prove it to you, no way to give you proof. Because it is multidimensional, and in three dimensions there is no way to materialize it or make it concrete.
But the knowledge of this larger dimension:
Gushes up from the deepest recesses of existence, overflows and streams outward, projecting outward, changing everything it touches.
Although you cannot see or touch the reality of this larger dimension, it is your inner essence. This knowledge from the deepest inner existence, this knowledge of the larger dimension, or the existence of this larger dimension itself, constantly overflows and streams outward from the depths of your heart, constantly projects outward, and then changes everything it touches. Everything touched by whom? By that inner existence within you -- everything that inner existence touches, it changes. What kind of change?
This overflowing knowledge, with an extraordinary brilliance and intensity, impregnates certain elements of the physical world. In your terms, those things touched by it are transformed into something more than they were originally.
It refers to this knowledge that streams out, this knowledge that overflows. Those things touched by it are transformed into something more than they were originally.
This inner knowledge attempts to find a place for itself within the physical landscape.
This inner knowledge always attempts, within the physical landscape -- that is, the three-dimensional world -- to find a place for itself, to translate itself into concrete form.
Each person, then, has this inner knowledge within himself, and in some way seeks to prove it in this world.
This is a very normal phenomenon, and a very normal thing. That is, this knowledge within each person's heart, this knowledge of the essence of multidimensional existence, always flows outward, always projects outward. The things it comes into contact with, the things that have been colored by your multidimensional knowledge, the things of this physical world themselves take on a deeper meaning and broader significance than the physical world alone. So he used the two phrases "extraordinary brilliance and intensity." Because the things of this three-dimensional world then possess a more far-reaching significance, because you have the existence of a multidimensional reality within your inner heart, and when you use this multidimensional inner reality to perceive the things of the three-dimensional physical world, you can perceive the deeper, more far-reaching essential meaning within them.
And we ourselves always want to find a place for this knowledge in the three-dimensional world, in the physical world, always want to prove it. Because in the three-dimensional world it is itself invisible, cannot be seen. But we humans have this inclination, and this knowledge itself is also like this -- it always wants you to see it, always wants you to prove it. People also always want to prove it.
So when other people want to prove this matter, their original intention is not to challenge you or deny you. You see, many people ask me questions in group chats, in QQ groups, or leave comments with questions on YouTube. Many times after I answer them, they say thank you. Actually I know the answer, I just wanted to confirm it. Many people have this state, and it is normal. Because they do not dare to confirm this matter by themselves; they always want to find some external evidence to prove what they think in their hearts. Because what is in the heart is not an external, solid, real thing like a table, a chair, a computer, a phone. People living in this three-dimensional world always want to prove its existence, prove the authenticity of their inner knowledge. This is very normal and understandable.
Jane's Transcendent Experience
He said, and there was a pause at this point:
Incidentally, the above paragraph is an excellent little description of the results that flowed from Jane's own psychic initiation in September 1963. Her transcendent experience led to her manuscript "The Physical Universe as Idea Construction," which in turn led to these sessions. See the Preface of this book.
We did not cover the Preface of this book. How did these sessions come about in the early days? In September 1963, Jane was suddenly sitting at her desk one day -- she had intended to write poetry; she was a poet -- and her hand and pen simply would not obey her. She wrote out an essay in a free-flowing manner, and she herself did not know what she was writing. After her conscious awareness returned, she looked back at what she had written, and it had a title and content. The title was "The Physical Universe as Idea Construction"1. And then below that, she had written an entire essay in a free-flowing manner, setting forth the concept that ideas create reality. At the time she did not know where this concept came from, because she had not yet come into contact with Seth. Seth began in December 1963; she made contact with him at the end of that year. In September she had already written this essay. Actually, by that time Seth was already making contact with her, and later she knew, as Seth told her, that this essay was something Seth had her write, but she did not know how this content had come into her mind.
So what he is saying in the passage above is actually meant to tell the reader that Jane's inner being at that time was a multidimensional existence. Because Jane's being was multidimensional, she was able to receive certain knowledge and certain information from that multidimensional level. And how could such multidimensional knowledge and information become manifest and gain a sense of existence in the three-dimensional world? Jane wrote it out in the three-dimensional world, turning it into an essay, and in that way she confirmed its existence.
It seems as though Seth said this passage in order to annotate what Jane had said, but actually that is not the case. He said this passage for the sake of a larger matter he wanted to address later; he was not trying to prove anything on Jane's behalf.
The Inner Drama and the Ego's Dilemma
He says:
The outer world is a reflection of the inner world.
This is a very core point. Although it is by no means a perfect reflection. Here you must remember, we know that the outer world is a reflection of the inner world, but this reflection is not as perfect or precise as you might think. He tells you, it is by no means a perfect reflection. Here you should not force the issue.
He says:
Inner knowledge can be compared to a book about one's native land, carried by a traveler into a strange country.
That is, the multidimensional world. Every person is born with a desire, hoping that they themselves can personally verify these truths. This is an instinct. Every person is born with this desire, they want to prove these truths. Although they see that these truths are very different from the environment they live in—this is what makes it difficult. Because they originally wanted to prove these truths, to personally verify these truths, in Buddhist terms to actually realize them, to attain these theories through direct experience. But these theories are utterly different from your actual living environment. It is not just a great difference, it is even reversed, completely turned upside down.
Buddhism at its very root holds that this world itself is empty, that everything is nonexistent. Seth holds that this world—the physical world—is a projection of your inner self. It exists, but it is a projection of your inner being, and it is not the kind of real existence you think it is. So this enormous difference between the outer world environment and the inner world environment will cause you to encounter many problems when you try to personally verify these truths. In your heart you know it is this way, but when you actually go to confirm it, you find it is not. So this is a problem everyone will encounter.
He says:
Each individual is engaged in an inner drama... a psychic drama.
In a certain respect, this drama itself is a psychological phenomenon. It is constantly being performed within. You can understand it as a psychological phenomenon.
Each physically oriented self feels thrust alone into a strange environment, knowing neither its origin nor its destination, nor even the reason for its own existence.
Within our inner world, a kind of psychological drama is constantly being performed. Why use the word "drama" to describe it? You may not understand, but it will be explained later. So let us assume that in your actual experience, this psychological drama may be a kind of psychological phenomenon. What kind of psychological phenomenon? It is the feeling of being thrust alone into a completely strange environment, and once in this environment you do not know where you came from, where you are going, or what you are doing here—you do not know the reason for your own existence. These are the three questions of philosophy, right? We often joke that during the pandemic, every neighborhood gate guard is a philosopher, always asking you three questions: Where did you come from, where are you going, and what do you want to do. This is a question everyone asks themselves. Although it is a joke, these are the three questions philosophers cannot avoid. So this is a normal phenomenon. Every person's inner world is performing this every day. You may not think about it this way, but at certain stages of your life, at certain points in time, you have definitely pondered this question.
He says:
This is the ego's dilemma.
This psychological phenomenon is a dilemma. Especially in its early state, in the early state of this physical existence, it seeks answers outward—this "it" refers to the ego. The ego that represents the physical body, the ego that represents the outward-oriented materialized self, in its early period it seeks answers outward, because this is its nature. The ego itself is by nature outward-seeking for answers, this is its nature, and it cannot be changed. Because its eyes, ears, and nose all obtain information from outside. Your eyes absolutely cannot see the things inside your body; your ears are on your head, and logically you should be able to hear the sounds inside your body more clearly, but you cannot hear them, you can only hear sounds from outside. You cannot hear the sound of your own blood flowing, you cannot hear your heartbeat, your pulse, your breathing, and even when you are asleep and snoring so loudly, you cannot hear it—you automatically block it out. So your outer senses seek answers outward, and this is normal. You were designed this way. So this is its nature.
Manipulating within physical reality.
That is, within the three-dimensional world, manipulating within physical reality.
Yet it also senses a deep and abiding connection with other portions of itself that are not under its dominion, a connection it does not understand.
This sentence is rather long. Let us make this part clear. This "it" refers to the ego, that is, the outer conscious mind. When this ego is manipulating and seeking answers in the physical world, it also senses—this "it" is still the ego—that the ego has a deep and abiding connection with other portions of itself that are not under the ego's dominion, a connection it does not understand. As it explores outward, it discovers that there are too many things outside its range of control, such as its subconscious, its thoughts, which are completely beyond its control. And those things beyond its control, the things it cannot control at all, have with its other portions—its physical parts, the parts it cannot control—a kind of indescribable, enduring, and profound connection. This is something it does not understand.
It is also aware that:
This inner self possesses the knowledge upon which it is itself established.
This "it" is still the ego. This ego discovers that the inner self—the self beyond the ego—possesses the knowledge upon which it is itself established. That is, the ego discovers that within it there is a knowledge from which it was produced, upon which it is established. It discovers that the knowledge possessed by the inner self is the very foundation of its own existence. This ego is quite bewildered. It discovers that its root is within.
In terms of our three-dimensional world, as this ego grows up, it seeks outward to verify the existence of this inner knowledge.
The inner self supports this ego with its own support.
The inner self has always been helping this ego, supporting it, assisting it.
It translates its truths into physically oriented data that the ego can handle.
This "it" refers to the inner self again. When this book is translated later on, sometimes people cannot understand it, because they cannot figure out which "it" refers to what. Here the "it" refers to the inner self. The earlier "its" all referred to the outer self, to the ego, but at this point this "it" is the inner self. It turns the inner self's truths into the kind of data that the outer self can handle—first of all, it must be able to handle physically oriented data.
Then it projects these outward into the realm of physical reality.
This "it" is still the inner self. It takes these—these being the physically oriented data that the ego can understand, which the inner self has already translated into knowledge the outer self can understand—and then projects these into the realm of physical reality.
The ego, seeing these truths so materialized, finds it easier to accept them.
The ego, seeing these truths materialized in this way, projected into the three-dimensional world, manifested in the physical world, finds it easier to accept them. What are "them"? They are these materialized, concretized truths. If it were not this way, it would be very difficult for it to accept them. It could not accept them, could not understand them.
Great Individuals, Prophets, and the Projection of the Inner Self
So, you often encounter certain events:
Therefore you often come across events in which man is touched by great enlightenment. In some historical eras, isolated from the mass of humanity and endowed with tremendous power, compared with others they appear brilliant beyond the natural. Prophets, geniuses, and emperors, for example, manifest in proportions greater than human.
What does this passage mean? When certain special events occur, in certain special periods, when certain special events take place, people are enlightened and touched by these significant events. All of humanity, or an entire ethnic group, is inspired and moved by such events, and they undergo change. So "isolated from the mass of humanity and endowed with tremendous power" is like isolating a group of people in a particular historical period, and the specific events that occur during that isolated historical period produce great enlightenment and impact on the psyche of these people. Then, compared with other historical periods, this period appears so brilliant, beyond the natural. At such times, those prophets, geniuses, and wise emperors emerge in ways greater than in other periods of human history.
In such glorious periods of human history, we can always find them when we look back. Ancient China also knew this. Around 2500 BC, Chinese civilization had a very brilliant period, when Laozi, Confucius, and the Hundred Schools of Thought contended2, and after that period culture developed enormously. Later there was a period that was perhaps rather plain, with nothing much happening. Then another period came, such as the High Tang, and there was another great development. For example, in the Ming dynasty, during the time of Wang Yangming, the School of the Mind opened yet another new historical period. That is, in different periods, different great figures emerge. Here he only wants to lead into what follows—that the emergence of religion is also such a process. This passage is merely laying the groundwork for what comes next.
He says:
Actually these individuals were chosen by others to outwardly display the inner truths intuitively known by all. There are many levels of importance here. In one respect, such individuals received their supernatural abilities and powers from their companions, then contained them and displayed them in the physical world for all to see.
Such individuals refer to the prophets, geniuses, and emperors. The existence of such great individuals—let us simply call them great figures. The existence of such great figures: they received their supernatural abilities and powers from their companions—their companions being likewise human—from their human companions, then contained them and displayed them in the physical world for all to see.
These are the great individuals, these are the prophets, these are the emperors. They possess superpowers, they possess miraculous abilities. The essence of their existence is that they accepted the suggestions given to them by other human beings.
They are playing the role of the blessed inner self. Without the outer garment of the flesh, that inner self cannot actually operate within physical reality. Nevertheless, this energy is a highly effective projection from the inner self.
What this passage says is that these so-called great individuals are all a projection in the physical world of the inner self within each person's inner world. We need such a great individual, such a physical image, to stand in for that inner self you cannot see, to manifest it outwardly. In other words, the abilities possessed by those so-called great individuals are abilities that every person's inner self has. But because you cannot see this inner self, and yet you want to confirm it—do you see the passage he said earlier? Because every person inwardly wants to confirm the existence of this inner self and the existence of the inner self's knowledge, so they inevitably want to display it in the outer world. At such times, they select certain great individuals to serve as an image representative of the inner self of their own inner world, and then project the energy of their own inner self onto that person, and that person then has this ability. He is chosen from among us, so in fact he is suggesting to himself that he has this ability, but he does not perceive it that way.
Now you can understand what he means by this passage.
Then the person so touched by it... in a certain sense actually becomes the figure he appears to be.
Here the "it" refers to the inner self. This is precisely where the Seth material is difficult—many people do not know who this "it" is. Looking at the context, it refers to the inner self. The person so touched by the inner self—that is, those prophets, those great individuals touched by the projection of the inner self—in a certain sense actually becomes the figure he appears to be. Every one of us wants to become such a person. In certain historical periods, there are always specific great individuals and specific leaders, and every one of us inwardly wants to become such a person. To a greater or lesser degree, you all harbor such a secret expectation. So this is what he means here.
He appears in the outer religious drama as an immortal hero.
Here the "he" refers to those prophets, those great individuals, appearing in the outer religious drama—that is, in the three-dimensional world, in the outer religious drama—as an immortal hero.
Just as the inner self is an immortal hero in the inner religious drama.
That is, that outer figure is like a god, immortal, able to live forever, able to be reborn. He has miracles, divine powers, all kinds of abilities, and even after death he can be resurrected. This is somewhat like our inner self. In our inner psychological drama, that inner self of yours is like an immortal hero.
This is very subtle. He is actually discussing the essence of religion—how religion came to be, the value of religion's existence, and what the essence of religion is. This chapter is called "The Meaning of Religion," and there is more elaboration later. Let us continue.
Because religion was the very first thing to develop when human civilization first began—before other civilizations developed, the first civilization to develop was religion. So nowadays when archaeologists examine an ancient civilization, to determine whether that ancient civilization existed, they look at whether it engaged in sacrificial activities, religious activities. If religious activities can be found, that proves the civilization existed, that it had civilization, that it was not a group of ape-men. With ape-men you cannot prove whether they had civilization, but once religious rituals appear, that proves civilization existed. Therefore the meaning of religion is extremely important.
Before any science or technology developed, thousands of years ago, even tens of thousands of years ago, religion already existed. Now he is telling you why religion exists, why the phenomenon of religion came into being. Because religion is an outward projection of the inner self within you. We know that we have all studied this now—each person's inner self, our soul, is undying, and our inner self will not die either. But we know that our physical body will die. So we project out a god, a deity, who does not die. At this point, what we are actually doing is projecting outward the things within our hearts.
But all of this—everything he is saying—none of it happens in a state where you are unaware, unconscious, or subconscious. It is not done consciously. Seth is merely turning this around for you and explaining its principle clearly, so that you understand—oh, so that is how it works. Before it was explained, what people were essentially doing was all unconscious.
The Rise and Fall of Religions and Projection
Let us continue reading:
This mysterious projection is a continuous process.
The mysterious inner self keeps projecting outward, turning itself into an external religion, and this is a continuous activity.
When a great religious force begins to weaken, and its actual effects become fewer and fewer, the drama of that period accelerates once again, and therefore humanity's highest aspirations are projected once more onto the stage of human history. The dramas themselves will differ, but you must remember that they are first established within, built within, established within.
When a great religion, when its actual power begins to weaken, people will project a new religion, and history keeps repeating itself. So from the most ancient religions to the present, not many remain. The religions we have now all began developing within the last one or two thousand years, especially Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. These three major religions all emerged around two thousand years ago. Buddhism may be the earliest, around twenty-five hundred years ago; Islam is the youngest; Christianity is in the middle, around two thousand years ago3. So all of these developed within roughly the last two thousand years. But in the long river of human history spanning tens of thousands of years, the religions before that have gradually faded away, because their effects became smaller and smaller.
What he wants to tell you is that when a religion declines, that inner drama accelerates, and a new religion is projected outward. But no matter what, it is always established within first.
These dramas will be formed so as to have an effect upon the world situation at any given time.
You project outward, and a new religion begins to form.
Therefore they are expressed in symbols and events that can most impress the masses.
Because it needs to have an effect on this world, it must use symbols and events that can impress the people, that they can understand, or that matter most to them.
Do you understand? For example, this Christ, this Jesus, he had to have his mother, an unmarried virgin, give birth to him from the body of a pure young girl. In the culture and context of that time, this was a miracle. But now this is too common. With the spread of IVF, I have seen too many examples of this, so I will not go into specifics. In America, IVF and surrogacy are both legal, and many people come to America precisely for surrogacy. I know a person, a young woman in her thirties who is unmarried, who came to America wanting to have a mixed-race IVF baby, and then find a surrogate mother to give birth to it. That is even more miraculous, she does not even give birth herself, yet the child is still hers. In ancient times, that would have been unimaginably miraculous.
But at that time, if a person became pregnant and gave birth without being married, that meant this was a heaven-chosen child, a child of God, carrying the child of God. That is what people believed then. If you have read The Thiaoouba Prophecy4, setting aside the question of its authenticity and just treating it as a story, you would know that Mary was actually put into a dormant state, taken aboard an alien spacecraft, and given an embryo transplant. That is very simple, and easy to understand with modern science. But in that era, remember, two thousand years ago, people could not understand how this child came to be, how this life was produced.
So what I mean is, it had to use the symbols or the most incomprehensible miracles that left the deepest impression on the people of that time, to demonstrate this event.
He says:
The inner self can do this very cleverly, because it knows precisely what will most impress the ego, and which personality can best serve as the embodiment of information at any given time. When such a person appears in history, then he is intuitively recognized, because the way has already been prepared, and in many instances prophecies announcing such a coming have already been given to man.
In other words, what he wants to say is that your inner self can very cleverly project this inner drama into an external religious drama. The cleverness of its projection lies in the fact that it knows very well what impresses this outer ego, what can touch it, what can have that shocking effect, what can bring about fundamental change. It also knows what kind of personality can serve as the embodiment of the information of that particular period.
To put it more bluntly, it is something that everyone knows in their heart, something that everyone thinks about in their heart, just waiting for someone to say it out loud. So when Jesus appeared, everyone believed it was him.
Just as he said in earlier chapters, before this many Speakers had already paved the way. Before Jesus appeared, there were the earliest Judaism, the Hebrew religion, and so on. You can see how the Hebrew people came to be. If you are interested in such things, because there is no way to explain it, the Hebrews have their own history, their own introduction, their own account. They say they are the chosen people, the nation chosen by God. We will not get into that. Then let us look at The Thiaoouba Prophecy4, from another angle. In it, regarding how the Hebrews came to be, how the Jews came to be, how God came into being, those stories about God, and so on, it has another version of the account. You can look at that, and it will give you more understanding and perception.
All right, let us return to this. Seth does not mention aliens, nor does he mention these things. He considers this question from the perspective of the human inner self. He is saying that your inner self naturally produces such a result, and knows what kind of personality appearing at this moment can represent the inner reflection of most people. When this personality appears, everyone recognizes him, that is him, he is our guiding light, he is our leader. That is what this passage means.
He says:
Such chosen individuals do not just happen to appear among you.
He does not just happen to appear. Remember this, he does not happen to appear among you.
They willingly take upon themselves the playing of this role.
Remember this, they are not randomly chosen. They willingly take upon themselves the playing of this role.
I have interwoven many viewpoints from The Thiaoouba Prophecy4 here as supporting evidence. The viewpoint of The Thiaoouba Prophecy4 is that these people are actually beings from certain planets. When they are about to reincarnate, they are consulted, asked whether they are willing to go to Earth, a place that is relatively civilized but still undeveloped, to play the role of a religious leader. So its meaning is that, according to The Thiaoouba Prophecy4, they are chosen. Here he also tells you that they are willing, they willingly take it on. It is not that someone is randomly picked from the crowd. This person must have self-initiative and the capacity for self-awareness. He has self-awareness, and he willingly does this.
When they are born, these so-called great men, these leaders, after they are born, they have more or less awareness of their destiny. And certain triggering experiences may sometimes awaken their full memory.
Remember this, they have more or less awareness of their own destiny. So when you get to this point, you can understand why, when many religious leaders are born, strange things happen around them.
Triggering Experiences and Awakening
For example, when Shakyamuni was born, as soon as he came out he pointed one hand to the sky and one hand to the earth, and he said, "In heaven above and on earth below, I alone am honored"5 -- these eight words. At the time he said it in Sanskrit, we don't know what language he used, but anyway he said these eight words. This obviously doesn't match reality, does it? A newborn baby just out of his mother's womb being able to speak, and moreover saying something like he is the greatest in heaven and on earth -- generally speaking, this doesn't quite match reality. It's the same principle as Jesus being born from an unmarried virgin -- it carries a certain miraculous characteristic.
Jesus tells him here that certain people, at the time of birth, do know -- they know to a greater or lesser degree. Some people know more, some know less. But after he said this, he forgot it. Shakyamuni was very extraordinary as a child, but after he grew up he was just an ordinary prince. Later, because of some special triggers -- when he was touring his kingdom, he discovered that the common people were living too harshly, their days were simply too bitter, and he was moved with compassion, with sympathy, and he wanted to help these people. Only then did he go seeking truth. He thought that people should not live in such suffering. Why, when they are all human, why are they suffering so much? And he could feel their suffering as his own.
Actually, at this time his inner senses had already opened, though he himself may not have been aware of it. He had empathy -- he could know other people's pain as if it were pain in his own body, a feeling that reached into his heart, not the kind of sympathy felt from the outside looking in. So he would think: we are all human, I live in a palace enjoying such a happy life, so why are others suffering so much? How can I relieve their suffering? Because if I don't relieve their suffering, I suffer too, because their suffering is all transmitted to me -- I can perceive the suffering of all of them. So that's why he went to solve this problem, to solve the matter of why people are born to suffer.
So this kind of thing triggered Shakyamuni and awakened his memory. Only then did he know that he had to do this thing -- he had to liberate all sentient beings. Not just humanity -- all sentient beings, all living things. At this point his memory was awakened, and only then did he begin six years of practice. Someone reminded me earlier that he left home at 29 -- not exactly ran away from home, but went off to practice -- and then at 35 he attained realization, attained the fruit of realization.
Likewise, Jesus also spent a long time among the common people, healing people, treating people, helping people -- helping people while treating them. Many people passed through his hands: the lame could walk, the blind could see, the deaf could hear, and so on -- just like a divine healer. That's why Jesus had such great fame, such a great following, so many disciples around him. It's the same -- the principle is all the same.
Including Jesus, including Shakyamuni when he first attained enlightenment -- people didn't accept him either. But the few disciples around him -- at the very beginning he had five disciples around him, they had gone out to practice together. The so-called "practicing together" was actually because Shakyamuni's father was worried that a prince going out to practice should have a few attendants with him, so he sent several attendants to follow him all along. These five people kept following him and practicing together with him. So however he practiced, they practiced too. In their practice, they also visited all the various schools and methods of ancient India at that time, trying all kinds of cultivation methods. He kept practicing, trying every method -- just like what's often said in our ancient novels, "visiting famous teachers everywhere." He went to visit all kinds of teachers. Whenever he heard who was the most accomplished at the time, he would become that person's student and learn their teachings. After learning, he was very intelligent -- as soon as he learned something, he could realize a great deal. After finishing his study, he would find that this school, once learned, could not solve his problem -- it didn't reach the ultimate. So then he would switch and study the next one, and he kept studying like this.
In the end, he was exhausted in body and mind. He had never found the solution, and he was in great pain. Then finally, he walked out of a forest where he had been practicing. During that period he had been living an ascetic life, eating only one grain of rice a day. Then he came out and walked to a riverbank. By the river there was a shepherdess, a young girl who herded sheep in ancient India. She saw this practitioner with disheveled hair and dirty face, who for years or months may not have eaten or drunk properly, his body extremely weak -- you can imagine what a person eating one grain of rice a day would look like, how weak he would be. After he came out, the girl asked him, "How did you get like this?" He said, "I am practicing." The girl said, "You're practicing" -- I'm just giving the general meaning, I can't remember the exact original words -- "so what are you practicing for?" He said, "I want to save all living beings under heaven, to let all sentient beings be saved and liberated." Then the girl said something to him that I think was the sentence that woke him up. The girl said, "Look at yourself right now. You can't even save yourself, and you still want to save others? Can you first take good care of yourself, and only then talk about saving all sentient beings?" Then the girl cooked him a bowl of porridge with goat's milk.
For practitioners at that time, this had already broken the precepts -- you couldn't eat these things, especially animal products like goat's milk, which were even more forbidden. But when he heard the girl's words, perhaps at that very moment it woke him up, and he felt she was right. So he drank that bowl of porridge cooked with goat's milk -- fragrant and delicious, very nutritious. After eating, he went to the river nearby -- because I have been to that place, I have been to that river, and I have also been to the place where he attained enlightenment. The river is not a very big one. After eating and drinking his fill, he went to the river and took a bath. Think how dirty he was, after years of not washing. He took a comfortable bath and washed himself completely clean.
Having eaten and drunk his fill, he saw a big tree by the riverbank -- that was the bodhi tree. He said, "Then I'll sit under the tree and meditate," because as a practitioner, meditation was his daily work, his daily life. So he began to meditate under the bodhi tree. This time, as soon as he entered samadhi, he entered the state of enlightenment. Whether it was the girl who awakened him, or whether his own time had come, we don't know what happened in between. Anyway, he entered samadhi, and he suddenly understood many truths. Within seven days he attained realization6, and he opened all kinds of supernatural powers -- the divine eye, the ability to read others' minds, all kinds of supernatural powers he opened there.
After he opened his supernatural powers, those in the heavens -- from here on it's legend -- those heavenly demons came to disturb him, sending many beautiful women conjured from the sky to come down and seduce him, or to disturb him with music and such things. And then at this time, even more heavenly gods -- the so-called heavenly gods -- came and said, "You cannot disturb him," and they protected him. At that time they were called dharma protectors. They saw that he was about to attain realization. In the end he was not disturbed. But this was not his own doing -- it was the heavenly gods helping him. The heavenly gods drove away all those who were disturbing him.
Then after seven days he attained enlightenment. After attaining enlightenment, he wandered around under that tree for another forty-nine days7 -- he spent seven days attaining realization, and then spent forty-nine days7 enjoying the happiness that came after attaining it, that sense of bliss. That feeling of roaming freely beyond the three-dimensional world, traversing time and space, coming and going freely through the three thousand great thousand worlds -- he went to inspect various places, various times and spaces, various universes, various great thousand worlds, to travel, to learn, to explore. He spent forty-nine days7 in human-world time. How many days it was in his time, we don't know. That kind of happiness was simply indescribable.
After he finished enjoying the pleasure of realization, he sat cross-legged and was about to enter nirvana, about to leave. He truly had no attachment left to the human world. Having reached that state, he said, "What is all this? What is there to be attached to?" At the moment he was about to leave, the heavenly gods appeared again -- we don't know what these heavenly gods meant, perhaps they were his higher self, or perhaps All That Is, we don't know who it was. Then the heavenly gods came out and said, "You cannot leave. When you left home back then, you made a vow. You said you wanted to solve the suffering of all sentient beings, and that's why you left home." And they told him this. He said, "Right, it seems so. At that time it was because I made a vow and left home that I have today." In other words, the results you have achieved today came from that one thought, that one intention you had back then. So since you said it, you have to keep your word. He said, "Alright then, I'll go back and continue spreading the teaching, so that more people can attain what I have attained."
So this process is normal. You must remember: Shakyamuni was not a god, nor was he some Buddha above worldly concerns -- none of that. He was just an ordinary person. It's just that he was enlightened. He was an enlightened person who had attained the Way, and he was just an ordinary person. And all his behavior patterns were those of an ordinary person.
At this point he came back, going to find the five disciples who had followed him from the very beginning. His state was only one step away from theirs -- we'll say only one step away, though actually it might have been very far, but it wasn't far. He said, "I'll enlighten them first." That's what he thought, so he went back to find them. He returned to the forest to look for those people.
But those people, after he left, also knew what he was doing -- they probably knew something, had heard where he went, and also knew that he had drunk goat's milk and so on. Then the five of them were sitting together talking, saying, "Let's ignore him. When we see this person in the future, don't pay attention to him. He has already broken the precepts. This person no longer has the qualifications to practice." They were gathered around talking about this, but they weren't far from him, because the king still had requirements -- he said they had to watch over him and serve him. But they didn't want to talk to him anymore, didn't want to be with him anymore. Why? Because they had also been practicing for six years. In those six years of practice, they had gained something, had some insights. Although they hadn't reached that final state yet, they had understood many truths. They looked down on someone who practiced halfway and then stopped practicing.
But at this moment, Shakyamuni came back to find them. They saw him coming from far away, and the five of them agreed: don't pay attention to him, don't talk to him, pretend not to see him. No matter what he says, don't respond to him. He doesn't have the qualifications to talk to us anymore. But as Shakyamuni walked closer and closer, approaching them, the five of them began to feel something was off -- they could feel the temperament and aura that Shakyamuni carried after realization, the energy radiating from him, which was already different from a normal person. Because he had truly attained realization, the radiance and brilliance of humanity he brought, the energy field emanating from that inner multidimensional self-confidence -- they were practitioners too, they could feel it. They felt something was different: this person seemed to have truly attained realization.
Then Shakyamuni came, sat down, and said to them, "I have realized these things. I have awakened." At this point they accepted his viewpoint. Then he taught them, and after a period of time, these five people also became enlightened. Then they began spreading their dharma in all directions.
But in the process of spreading it, countless people came to challenge, to provoke, to question, saying, "You say you've attained realization -- prove it to us." At this time the Buddha hated using supernatural powers the most. He never used supernatural powers -- his supernatural powers were already immensely vast, needless to say, but he never used them. Because he was afraid that if he used supernatural powers, people would attach themselves to those powers and would not pursue the truth and essence of things, and would become superstitious about such powers.
Just like a while ago, many people asked about chuma xian, spirit-jumping shamans, these animal spirits -- what's going on with them, what's going on with their abilities? These are all the most peripheral things. You go and beg an animal spirit for help, when you yourself already possess it -- your ability is far higher than theirs, but you don't know it, and you still go worship those weasels, snakes, hedgehogs and such, treating them as your gods and making offerings to them. Isn't that regression? But people are just willing to attach themselves to such supernatural powers. As long as it can solve their problems, help them solve problems in their real life, they think it's a good thing.
So at that time the Buddha did not use supernatural powers. But in the few times he taught the dharma, he used supernatural powers a few times, because there were a few times when he was debating with local religions, and the debate simply couldn't go on -- it almost reached the point of extreme stubborn argument, where it was impossible to prove anything, and the other side would also use all kinds of methods. A few times he used his supernatural powers, but very rarely -- only a very few times. For details, you can read The Biography of Shakyamuni or some Buddhist texts. He himself was very opposed to supernatural powers. Including Seth, including God -- they are all opposed to supernatural powers. They all tell you not to pursue these supernatural powers.
So when I bring this up, what do I want to tell you? It's that these so-called religious leaders, at a certain point in time, through a trigger, come to understand what their mission in coming here was. When they don't understand, someone will remind them. Just like after Shakyamuni attained enlightenment, he still didn't understand -- by that time he already knew his past lives, he knew all his future lives. Logically, he should have understood that he came to this life to spread the dharma, but he still didn't understand, and he still wanted to leave. At that moment the heavenly gods appeared and said, "You cannot leave." So at that point in time, someone still had to remind him. What I'm telling you here is that this process is very interesting.
The Protagonist in the Religious Drama
He said:
They knew very well that he was acting as the human representative of All That Is.
You must remember this sentence: they knew very well that they were acting as the human representatives of All That Is. You must understand that this was their role among humanity. So when Jesus said he was the son of God, and when Shakyamuni Buddha said that in all of heaven and earth he alone was the honored one, he was the representative of All That Is.
Since each person... each of you also acts, to a greater or lesser degree, in that same role.
Each of us is a part of All That Is, and each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is also acting as this representative of All That Is among humanity. Some more, some less, depending on how much you have awakened. If you are fully awakened, then you are the representative of All That Is among humanity; if you have only awakened a part, then you represent a part.
But in such a religious drama, the protagonist was far more conscious of his inner knowledge.
He calls this thing a religious drama. You see, from Jesus's birth to the things he did, wasn't it like a movie, like a play? And Shakyamuni Buddha too, wasn't it also like a television drama? These people, these great figures, from birth to the end, can all be written into very, very legendary stories, just like a television drama. So here the term "religious drama" is used to indicate this.
In every religious drama, the protagonist was far more conscious of his inner knowledge. Most of us do not know about our inner knowledge; we do not know that we have knowledge within. But they were far more conscious of their awareness of this inner knowledge.
He was far more able to use his inner awareness and this ability, and he was joyfully acquainted with his relationship to all life.
Be sure to remember that it was "joyfully" acquainted with his relationship to all other living beings. Here, does "all life" refer to all living beings? All living beings are all life, right? So whether it was the Buddha or others, what they cared about was all living beings, not just humanity, but all living beings. He joyfully knew, very happily knew, his relationship with all living beings. What relationship? He was All That Is, and all living beings were created by him. That was the relationship.
So here he has explained the general framework of how religion comes into being. Basically, the general pattern by which all religions come into being is this same pattern. Different religions were, in their respective periods, in specific regions, in specific historical periods, under specific circumstances, performing such a religious drama, and that religion was formed.
All right, this session ends here. It was a relatively short session. So our interpretation of the first part of today's content also ends here. We will begin the next session's content, and we will introduce it to everyone next time.
Session 586: Religious Symbols and Inner Values
This session was held on July 24, after a break of more than two months since May 12. The reason was Jane's absolute need for rest -- Jane's body was no longer in particularly good shape, and they needed to rest, deal with difficulties and problems that had been put aside for a long time, do some things with other people, take a vacation, and also rent several more rooms across the hallway from their apartment.
By this time they already had some financial income. Because after the publication of The Seth Material, including the fact that before the book was published they had already signed a publishing contract with the publisher, and the publisher would advance them some royalties, their financial situation had already improved considerably. So across from their apartment, across the hallway, they rented several more rooms -- because their room was very small and cramped.
During this period, Jane had ESP class, and Seth also attended a few classes in the ESP class, but apart from that there were no more sessions.
Jane preferred that Seth start from where he had left off in this chapter -- the part we introduced a couple of days ago. Seth was actually not afraid of interruptions, because for him, this kind of continuity in human time and space did not have much effect on him. Jane felt that Seth could certainly do it, as long as the session started. She also hoped to see Seth finish his book, because this book was one Seth himself wanted to complete.
This session was held in their old bedroom. The layout of their apartment was that you entered into the living room first, and in the middle of the living room there was a large bathroom -- one door of the bathroom faced the living room, and another door faced the bedroom, which was at the very back of the apartment. So the session began in the old bedroom, but by this time the bedroom had been cleaned out, the bed and so on had been moved away, and it had become an attached part of his studio.
He said "welcome back" -- after a break of more than two months, they had finally returned. We will resume our chapter on religion.
The concepts of good and evil, gods and devils, salvation and damnation, are symbols of deeper religious values.
This statement is very important. Behind religion itself there are deeper religious values. What is the value of religion? It is a projection of your inner self, an outward display of the drama within you. In the world of your inner self lies your religious value. Religion is essentially an attempt to express your inner self in an outward form -- that is what religion is. So the value of religion is a symbol of the outer form of the inner self. In the three-dimensional world we have developed good and evil, for example the struggle between God and the devil, Satan, and so on -- these gods and devils and such are all outward symbols of inner religious values. Remember this firmly: they are outward symbols of inner values, not the true inner values themselves.
You can call them cosmic values if you prefer.
You can rename these inner religious values as cosmic values if you like. Those cannot be translated into the language of the physical human world; these cosmic values cannot be translated using the things of our three-dimensional world. So he uses this kind of symbolic thing to express them.
This passage actually alludes to and confirms what we discussed earlier -- I forget which chapter, I think Chapter 14 -- about how this world came to be. We quoted part of Conversations with God8. In Conversations with God8 it says the same thing: this inner cosmic value is essentially only good, with no evil, but why does evil exist? It is so that you can experience or recognize what good is, and therefore evil was developed.
So the devil and God, gods and devils, are two sides of one thing, and good and evil are also two sides of one thing -- the same principle. You can see them as the left and right sides of a coin; that is the idea. So this passage is telling you that the deep meaning of the inner value of religion cannot be displayed using the things of the three-dimensional world, so when it develops into our three-dimensional world, in order to display it, it can only use symbolic signs or symbolic meanings. That is why in the three-dimensional world there came to be good and evil, gods and devils, salvation and damnation.
This is the opening of this session, setting the theme for the session.
These concepts became the highly vital themes of the religions we have spoken of.
What concepts? Good and evil, gods and devils, struggle and salvation -- the themes of the entire religious story are these.
The actors may return again and again, playing different roles.
Since this is the theme of the religious drama, a highly vital theme, the theme does not change, but the actors may change. Therefore, in a given historical religious drama, those actors may have already appeared in your past historical scenes -- today's prophet was the traitor in the past play.
He says something very interesting: the theme of this drama is what he said before, good and evil, gods and devils -- that is the theme. The theme does not change, but the actors in the drama keep changing -- for example, the person who played the prophet in the previous drama might play the traitor in the next one, or the traitor of the past becomes the prophet today. So do not concern yourself with the roles in the play; just concern yourself with what the theme of the play is.
These psychic beings are real, and their reality includes not only the core of their own identity, but is also reinforced by the thoughts and emotions projected upon them by the worldly audience for whom the drama is performed.
In the process of performing these religious dramas, for whom are they performed? They are performed for the worldly audience. And in the process of watching this drama, the common people project their own thoughts and emotions -- for example, when they see Christ nailed to the cross, those feelings and things come out, and their thoughts also come out.
In the process of our study of Buddhism, we later wrote many treatises about the understanding of Buddhism, including the influence of Buddhism on real life. On the land of China, the religion of Buddhism has had many, many influences on people's daily lives. One of the most widespread influences, which many people do not know about, is extremely far-reaching. Let me give a simple example: take the language we now speak, which we call vernacular Chinese. We know that before this there was classical Chinese. At that time the Chinese language was divided into two categories: everything written was in classical Chinese. Before the Qing dynasty everything was in classical Chinese; there was no vernacular. Vernacular novels were extremely rare -- things like Dream of the Red Chamber9 from the Qing dynasty belong to vernacular novels, and they were very, very few. Before that everything was in classical Chinese -- novels, plays, essays, knowledge, all expressed in classical Chinese. But in everyday speech people spoke the same way we do, this easily understood vernacular.
Do you know where this vernacular that people speak came from? It came thanks to Buddhism. Because at that time Buddhism needed to spread and transmit, and if everything was explained in classical Chinese -- although the Buddhist scriptures were written in classical Chinese, when you wanted to explain the scriptures, you could not use classical Chinese to explain classical Chinese. You could not take classical Chinese phrases like "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" and explain them again in classical Chinese; the common people would not understand. How do you explain the vast knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures to people in ancient China, where seventy or eighty percent, maybe eighty or ninety percent of society was illiterate, people who had never gone to school, never attended a private academy, could not read?
So at that time, in order to spread among the common people, Buddhism used the language of the common people, or rather, they formed a set of standards out of this colloquial way of speaking, and only then did the later modern Chinese language come into being. It was on this foundation that this spoken language was greatly developed and enriched. It may have existed before, but it had not developed much, limited to the fields and villages. If we speak of Buddhism's greatest contribution, it was the development of the everyday language of the Chinese people. That is why in the language of Chinese people today there are many words that come from Buddhist vocabulary -- words like "one instant" and so on -- there are far too many such words. If you carefully trace the origins of many of the words you use in Chinese, they come from many concepts in Buddhism. I will not expand on this, because today we are not discussing the origins of language and Chinese.
I am only saying that what he means is that this kind of Buddhism or other religions -- the influence of Christianity on Western society and the influence of Buddhism on Chinese people -- is profound. In other words, in the process of performing this religious drama, the feelings and thoughts that the audience invests in watching the drama will influence and also change the drama. So it includes a larger core: not only the reflection of our inner projection, but also the reinforcement of it by the audience's thoughts.
Let me give a simple, vivid example: on a stage there is a group of people performing a play -- performing the nativity of Jesus, performing the passion of Jesus. In the process of performing this play, the actors and the audience below, in the interaction between audience and actors, deepen the inner meaning of the play itself, or rather, enrich the play itself. That is the idea.
So it becomes expanded. What does expanded mean? Because originally this play is an outward projection, a manifestation of the inner self -- we project some things of the inner self onto those deities, projecting the abilities of the inner self, the ability to be immortal, this perception, the ability to open the heavenly eye, to foresee the future -- all these abilities are projected onto a deity, or onto a God. This is the essence of the most primitive religious drama. But because the religious drama, when performed, interacts with the audience, it expands the very body of the religious drama itself -- it no longer merely represents your inner projection; it is itself also being enriched and expanded.
Psychic and psychological identification is extremely important here, and is indeed the core of all these dramas.
The identification of the actors and the audience with this drama, psychologically and psychically, is extremely important, and it is the core of this drama. In other words, whether you believe in this religion, and to what degree you believe in it psychologically, is the core of whether this religion can be performed well. So psychic and psychological identification -- what we call believing in this religion, and to what degree -- is what this means.
In one way you can say that man identifies with the gods he has deliberately created.
From one angle, this identification is the identification of man with the gods he himself has created. This deity is a projection of his inner self, something he himself created, so he identifies with it -- everyone identifies with the things within their own heart, and you will also identify with what your inner self projects outward.
Man does not understand, however, the excellent quality of his own inventive and creative power. Then if you say that gods and man create each other, you come even closer to the truth.
Man does not understand that this thing was created by himself. This interactive relationship between the deity and yourself is that gods and man create each other. If you think this way, you come closer to the truth. In other words, what is the relationship between you and God, between religion and people, between religion and its followers? It is a relationship of mutual creation -- you created God, and God created you; between you there is a relationship of mutual accomplishment. So if you understand religion this way, you can get closer to the essence of religion.
But only if you are very careful in your definitions of yourself.
Only when you are very careful in your definition of your own identity will this be so. Why? Because you will want to figure out what exactly the difference between God and man is. When you try to define yourself -- because you yourself are the one who projected outward such a god; you projected God outward, you created him. You chose Jesus to represent God on earth, to speak for him in the human world; you selected him, you approved of him, and you yourself approve of him. But you also think he is different from you: you must submit beneath him; you are an ordinary mortal, and he is a godlike existence. In between there is the fact that you dare not affirm yourself as God. So he says that only when you define yourself very carefully can you perceive that you and God mutually accomplish each other. But people generally do not dare to think this way; only when you are being very careful is it possible for such a thought to emerge: what exactly is the difference between man and God?
At this point Seth begins to tell you:
The attributes of the gods are those that are inherent in man himself, magnified and turned into powerful activities.
The attributes of the gods are those attributes that are inherent in man, but these attributes have been magnified and turned into powerful activities. People believe that gods are eternal and undying -- so-called gods are those who never die. Because man is also eternal and undying; we now know that the soul is eternal. You believe God does not die because you yourself do not die; this is your attribute, and you magnified it into an attribute of God. But most people forget this point and only remember this characteristic and assign it to their gods.
We do not know that we are eternal and undying in the three-dimensional world, but we vaguely feel that we should be undying -- or that certain people, after cultivation, can become undying. Perhaps I cannot achieve it, but maybe certain people can; perhaps the best among us humans can. That is how he thinks about this problem, so he assigns this characteristic to the gods. That is why emperors throughout the ages were obsessed with this, always seeking elixirs of immortality, refining pills -- including Qin Shi Huang, and later the Wanli Emperor of the Ming dynasty, and many, many others who did this sort of thing, always researching this, seeking physical immortality, physical eternal life.
Then obviously beyond these historical religious dramas, in which the stories of gods and men seem to be reenacted again and again, there is the existence of spiritual reality.
This religious drama has been reenacted again and again throughout history, seemingly reenacting the story of gods and men again and again. What does reenacting the story of gods and men mean? It means that some abilities of man were assigned to gods in such a story, and then man worshipped these gods, and the gods in turn were given the ability to create man -- we say God created humanity, but in fact we ourselves created these gods and then placed ourselves beneath their creation. These things have been playing out this story between man and God all along. But beyond this story, remember firmly: beyond these stories of man and God that you see, there is the existence of spiritual reality. What is called spiritual reality is the existence of a non-three-dimensional world or a multidimensional reality.
Behind the actors in the drama, there are still more powerful entities who have gone far beyond the matter of role-playing.
The actors in these religious dramas -- those who play Jesus, his disciples, the informer, the ones who burned him, all kinds of villains -- behind these actors there is an even more powerful entity -- a soul existence. That soul has already transcended the matter of merely playing this role, has already transcended the matter of merely performing such a religious drama in the human world. What he wants to convey is to tell people the truth of this world. So these religious dramas themselves, the various religions that have swept through the generations, are actually only shadows.
These religions that have swept through the generations are all shadows, although they are shadows that are helpful to people -- remember this firmly: they are shadows that are helpful to people! We cannot deny the significance of religion, because religion in its specific historical period, specific era, specific region, specific cultural context was very helpful and meaningful. But you must understand that it is only an outward display, something like a stage play; within it there is a deeper meaning, a greater entity.
Behind the framework of good and evil, there is a far deeper spiritual value.
Good and evil is a framework mentioned in all religions. For example, Buddhism also mentions it -- the law of cause and effect in Buddhism is the most basic view of good and evil: you should do good deeds, perform good acts, and not do bad things; if you do good you gain eternal life, that is, you go to the Western Pure Land, escape the cycle of reincarnation, no longer within the three realms, no longer within the five elements; if you do bad things you go to hell, the eighteen levels of hell, and you descend level by level. In the West it is the same -- the view of good and evil is the same: believe in me and gain eternal life; do not believe and go to hell. On the day of judgment, in the end merits and faults, good and evil, are judged, and those who should go to heaven go to heaven, those who should go to hell go to hell. This view of good and evil has always existed in religion, including Islam as well; all religions have a view of good and evil.
So this framework of good and evil -- behind the view of good and evil there is a far deeper spiritual value. The view of good and evil is actually only a surface appearance; this dualistic world exists precisely so that you can recognize the absoluteness of the one. In order for you to recognize the absoluteness of the one, a dualistic world must be created for you to perceive. So this far deeper spiritual value is that oneness, the oneness of all things as one body.
Therefore when all religions attempt to grasp the truth, there must be a considerable degree of fear that it will forever escape them.
When all religions attempt to grasp this truth, they are also very afraid that it will escape them -- why? Because they are using a dualistic approach to explain it. They know that the truth cannot be displayed in the three-dimensional world, nor can it be manifested, but facing the people of that era, they must use the method of good and evil to display it; without good and evil there is no way to display it. But once they use good and evil, they risk losing the people's true pursuit of the truth -- people will firmly remember that good and evil are the essence of this world.
For example, many people think that cause and effect, reincarnation, and so on -- these things must have cause and effect, must have retribution, and that is why people are willing to do good deeds; this is normal. But when you become fixated on good and evil and cause and effect, you get further and further from the truth of the matter. So this is what they fear; they fear this will happen, and then you understand the root of it.
So in some of my earlier videos I said first that in this world there is no cause and effect, no good and evil -- this was actually to break down this concept for everyone. But this concept is deeply rooted, passed down through religion for many years. What my view means is that in that period and that era, such a view had its meaning and its function, but you must understand that what it wanted to do through such a symbol -- the contrast between good and evil, the manifestation of good and evil -- was to let you understand what lies behind it.
Look at Buddhism: after it finishes talking about good and evil, it keeps repeatedly saying that in this world you really should do good deeds, have good thoughts, be compassionate, and so on; but at other levels it also says that this kind of cause and effect does not exist, and so on. But for the common people, it will again use the most ordinary language to tell you that you must do good deeds; if you do not do good deeds you will go to hell. That is how it is. So when religion attempts to grasp the truth, it also fears to a considerable degree that it will escape them.
Only when the inner self is at rest, in meditation and contemplation, can it occasionally glimpse a portion of those inner realities that cannot be specifically expressed.
When your inner self is at rest, or when you are in meditation and contemplation, entering that deeper level of consciousness beneath the subconscious of the inner self, only then can you occasionally glimpse a portion of those inner realities that cannot be concretely expressed in the three-dimensional world.
These values, intuitions, and insights are given to each person according to his degree of understanding.
After you glimpse these inner realities, after that one glance, when you know that beyond the three-dimensional world there is a greater reality, those values, intuitions, and insights -- that is, the knowledge of the inner self, the knowledge of the inner self that you are normally unaware of -- the value it contains is given to each person according to his degree of understanding. Everyone is different, because it depends on your degree of understanding.
Therefore, the stories about them will often differ.
Regarding inner perceptions, inner values, inner intuitions and insights, their stories are all different. When a thousand people explore the inner world, they will get a thousand different results, and they will tell you a thousand stories, a thousand different things. So among practitioners, in spiritual practice, there is a basic rule: do not discuss the specific experiences of spiritual practice. Many people like to ask -- beginners often ask, what does it feel like when you enter this state, what does that state feel like, what do you see after an out-of-body experience. But you should know that in spiritual practice there is generally an unwritten rule: this is not discussed.
Why not discuss it? Seth has said this many times, and others have said it too. Because telling you will mislead you; it varies from person to person, and everyone is completely different. If he tells you what he felt, it will influence you -- when you have an out-of-body experience, you will want to match that kind of experience.
Let me give an example so everyone understands. Suppose we are exploring an unknown world, and no one knows what this unknown world is like. Each person goes to explore this unknown world, and when some people come back from exploring, you will ask them: what did you find in this world you explored? Some people, perhaps out of curiosity or excitement or good intentions, will tell you: in that unknown world there is a certain kind of place ahead, there is a continent, and on the continent there are some civilizations, some villages, and so on. He tells you what you will encounter when you get there.
But when he says these things, is it not exactly like traveling with someone else's travel guide? You go to the scenic spots that others have pointed out and take photos there, go to the restaurants others have been to and eat there, go to the dessert shops others have visited and have a dessert, stand in the same spot and strike the same pose for a photo -- you are repeating someone else's life. But people nowadays love this; wherever they go they look for guides and itineraries. They forget that the true joy of travel lies in exploring the unknown in an unknown world -- everything that happens is this novel, surprising, wonderfully beautiful feeling. If you follow the itineraries and guides of those who came before you and walk the same path again, what meaning does it have for you? As the Chinese common folk say: if you eat the steamed bun someone else has already chewed, what sweetness can you get from it?
It is the same principle. In the state of spiritual practice, in the spiritual state, everyone's feelings are different, everyone's story is different. Do not always ask others what it was like for them; do other people's things have meaning for you? No meaning. He traveled, he went to eighty countries, traveled to eighty places -- what help is that to you? No real significance. Of course, they will summarize some experiences and lessons for you, and these experiences and lessons are helpful -- for example, before you travel you should prepare your money, prepare some things, some general common-sense concepts; these are helpful to some people. But a detailed description of a specific place -- the things he describes in a certain village or a certain small town in Greece -- what meaning does that have for you? No meaning. This is a reminder for everyone.
For example, the main character in a religious historical drama may be aware on a conscious level.
The main character of the religious drama is the religious leader -- Christ, or Muhammad, or Shakyamuni. The main character of this historical drama, on the conscious level -- remember, not on the subconscious level, not on the unconscious level, not in a meditative state, not in a hypnotic state, not in a sleeping state, but in a clear, fully conscious state -- he may be aware.
He may not understand how this information was given to him.
He may not understand how this inner information from the inner self was given to him.
But it may seem to him that he does know. For the source of a dogma, its meaning will be explained to him in terms that the main character can understand.
This inner knowledge is transmitted to the religious founder -- let us just call him the religious founder for simplicity; religious founder means the founding master, the founding patriarch of each religion. This founding master, on the conscious level, may understand or may not understand how this inner knowledge was given to him, but they all feel that they understand. Can you understand this? What Seth means is that essentially they may understand or may not understand, but they themselves believe that they understand.
Why? Because the origin of every religious precept, every commandment, every single thing -- that is, the way he attained realization, whether he understood it in a dream or somewhere else -- he could understand such a precept, such a piece of knowledge he was spreading, why he wanted to spread this knowledge, and what deeper meaning this knowledge represented behind it. When the Buddha transmitted the Dharma, the words he spoke and the knowledge he transmitted -- he knew the meaning behind this knowledge, and he also knew the meaning contained behind these precepts. For example, when he said do not kill living beings, he knew what the deeper meaning behind "do not kill" was; otherwise he would have had no way to explain and expound this principle. If he did not know why one should not kill, then what was he doing establishing this rule? So he knew what its root was.
The historical Jesus knew who he was, but he also knew that he was one of three personalities composing an entity.
This historical Jesus was the real Jesus. He knew who he was, but he also knew that he was a personality of a larger entity -- he was one of three personalities. To a large extent, he also shared the memories of the other two.
Then he answered the question they had been asking all along: who exactly was this third personality, the third personality of Jesus?
I have mentioned many times that this third personality, in your terms, has not yet appeared.
For us humans now, it has not yet appeared.
Although his existence was prophesied as the Second Coming of Christ.
This is in the Gospel of Matthew10, chapter twenty-four -- if you are familiar with Christianity, you know that what it says there is that Christ will certainly come again. But the Second Coming spoken of at that time was not the same as what he was saying. The Second Coming spoken of at that time meant that at the end of the world, at the time of the final judgment, on the day of the last judgment, when it would be decided who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, only then would Christ come again.
These prophecies were made in terms of the prevailing culture of that time.
Therefore, although these prophecies had already set the stage -- what stage? The stage for Christ's return -- the distortion they caused was quite lamentable. This Christ would not come at the end of your world as the prophecies had always said; he would not come only on the day of the end of the world as you say. At that time he could only say it that way.
He went on to say that he would not come to reward the righteous and cast the evildoers into hell.
He was not coming to do that, and even if he came, he would not do that.
However, he would begin a new religious drama that would maintain certain historical continuities, but as before, who he was would not be generally known.
When Jesus came, we did not know him either. He was a child from an ordinary family, and he would not be known by the whole world. There would be no glorious proclamation that the whole world would believe in -- he would not, as you imagine, come and immediately declare: I am the third coming of Christ, I am the third personality of Christ, I alone am supreme in heaven and on earth. No. It would be just like the last time he came.
At his coming, Christianity will be in shambles. He will return to reorganize Christianity and establish a new system of thought when the world urgently needs it.
By that time, all religions will be in severe crisis. He will overthrow religious organizations rather than unify them.
He is coming back to overthrow religion. When this third personality of Christ comes into this world, he is not going to merge all religions into one, unify them into a single religion; he is a person who comes to negate, overturn, and overthrow all existing religious systems -- after he appears, all religions will be overthrown. That is his mission.
Is he the most suitable one to do this? Yes, because he founded Christianity. If he overturns Christianity, who would dare say anything? I am just giving this example, speaking in worldly terms -- actually it is not like that, but is it not better and easier to understand this way? When those Christian believers see that their own Jesus has come out and overthrown their own religion, everyone would certainly -- and by that time Christianity will already have entered a very chaotic, shambolic state, having reached that period, so when he comes out and says "let us just disband," then everyone will disband, right? I am giving this example, but it is not actually like that. I am only giving an example; everyone, please do not take what I say as something that will happen in the future.
At this point, Buddhism also prophesied this outcome. The Buddha said that the world after his death would be divided into periods of five hundred years each: in the first five hundred years after his death, many people would be able to cultivate his Dharma; five hundred years after his death, very few people would be able to cultivate it; after that, the Dharma would become a kind of textbook, something on paper; then another five hundred years later it would become statues, a Buddha image; then after another five hundred years, in the final five hundred years, Buddhism says there is a five-hundred-year period of the Dharma-ending age -- in the final five hundred years of the Dharma-ending age, Buddhism will have reached its end. He said there would be many people using the name of Buddhism to corrupt Buddhism, and that period would be the Dharma-ending age.
Then he said that at that time Maitreya Buddha would appear again in the world, and Maitreya Buddha would return. He said Maitreya Buddha is one of my manifestations -- that is, another incarnation of the Buddha, another lifetime. I will come to transmit a new teaching to you again, that is, there will be new things for you, in order to save all sentient beings. So according to Buddhist teachings, we are now in the Dharma-ending age -- Buddhism divides the five hundred years after his death into five periods of five hundred years, which is twenty-five hundred years. Now we have already reached the final stage of the Dharma-ending age.
At this point you must remember: he is not coming to reorganize Christianity, not to establish a new Christianity; he is coming to overthrow all religions. You must remember this.
His message will be about the relationship between the individual and All That Is.
He is coming to transmit the Dharma. What will he transmit? The relationship between the individual and All That Is. And is not the individual and All That Is exactly what Seth has been talking about throughout this book? And at that time there will be a person who will explain this matter more clearly, so that everyone will know it.
Right now, people who study Seth are after all a very small minority. Today you are fortunate to be studying this material, or listening to it, which only shows that you have such a karmic connection, such an affinity. But in this world, people who truly realize the relationship between the individual and All That Is, or who study Seth-related materials, are extremely few. Later you will understand. At that time it will become a universal mass consciousness; everyone will know the relationship between the individual and All That Is -- what we are learning today will be like an elementary school textbook by then: in the first year of elementary school, this is what they will learn. So by that time it will become common knowledge.
He will clearly state methods by which each person can achieve a state of intimate contact with his own entity.
And this method is very simple; many people will learn it as soon as they are taught, and will be able to use it.
The entity, to some extent, is the intermediary between the individual and All That Is.
You must remember "to some extent" -- what Seth means by "to some extent" is that he is using an analogy, using an expedient way of speaking to tell you. You must not actually take this as literally true; he is helping you understand. That is, the entity, the soul, is like the intermediary between the person and All That Is. Because the soul is a part of All That Is; All That Is divides itself into countless fragments, and this soul in turn projects human beings in the three-dimensional world. So you can regard the soul as the intermediary between you and All That Is.
By 2075, all of this will have been accomplished.
This is his prophecy. Seth rarely prophesies things; basically he does not predict events, but here, regarding the general direction of humanity's future development, he made a very precise prophecy -- he even gave the exact year. By 2075, all of this will have been accomplished, meaning this kind of change, the recognition of the relationship between the individual and All That Is. Not beginning, but fully accomplished. That is to say, from now until 2075 there are still fifty-five years, and in these fifty-five years humanity will undergo an earth-shaking transformation. So people living in the current era are very fortunate.
There are also many other religions, various aliens, and various other teachings saying that now is an Age of Aquarius, that humanity is entering a new age of knowledge, and so on, including the Buddhist teaching of the Dharma-ending age -- all of these point to this outcome. For us it is already very close; within fifty years, within fifty-five years, all of this will have been accomplished.
If you are interested, you can look up KFK206011. I introduced this person some time ago, and specifically did a piece called "Are Prophecies Real?" discussing KFK206011. Regardless of whether it is true or false, its way of prophesying about the year 2060 is very close to the intermediate state of the completed condition Seth described for 2075. KFK206011 said that by that time religions will certainly have disappeared, but nations will still exist; however, humanity will have awakened, and people will have discovered that material life is not important, and that inner spiritual life is what matters most. The content is very long; if you are interested, you can go back and look at it.
He said it was after the Third World War in 204812 -- I think it was the world war that began in 2048 -- after which humanity was basically devastated. The population is now over seven billion13, and after the Third World War ended, only 4.2 billion people14 remained. Then after that world war, supplies were extremely scarce, because the whole world was no longer very suitable for survival, with nuclear radiation everywhere. At that time humanity began to truly awaken and enter a new era -- starting from 2050, entering a new era, and then began an enormous spiritual elevation. Because people had already seen the result of material development reaching its limit; 2048 signified that material development had reached its limit, and the result of material development reaching its limit was the destruction of humanity. Under such circumstances, everyone had already realized that if we continue to pursue the development of material civilization, the inevitable result would be the destruction of all humanity and the entire planet. So at that time, after people discovered that this path led nowhere, they began to turn inward. I am making a digression here; if you are interested, you can go take a look.
You may make a note here: the prophet Nostradamus regarded the dissolution of the Roman Catholic Church as the end of the world.
This prophet regarded the dissolution of the Catholic Church -- the current Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See, that is, the one in the Vatican now -- he regarded its dissolution as the end of the world. Because he could not imagine civilization existing without it. Therefore, when reading many of his later prophecies, you should keep this in mind.
I have not read his prophecies; if you are interested, you can search online. What he means in these prophecies is that when the prophecies speak of what will happen after the world is destroyed, or of the end of the world, his meaning is that whenever the prophecies mention "the end of the world," you should read it as "the dissolution of the Roman Catholic Church."
So he is actually hinting at a point here, though he does not state it explicitly. What is the point he is hinting at? Because the Bible says that when Christ comes again it will be the end of the world, so we assume the end of the world means the end of the earth. But what he is telling you is that the end of the world may simply be the day the Church dissolves -- when the Church dissolves, when the Catholic Church dissolves, Christ will come, Christ will return.
The third personality of Christ will indeed be known as a great psychic.
It will certainly be a person who can channel, appearing in the role of a psychic. Because it is this one who will teach humanity to use their inner senses -- only the inner senses make true spirituality possible.
There are several key points here. Notice that when he refers to this third personality, he always uses the impersonal "it"; he does not use the divine "He" with the radical for deity -- because in the Bible, when referring to God and the divine, "He" is used -- and he also does not use the human "he"; he uses an impersonal "it" that is neither human nor divine to refer to it. Why he uses this, I do not know what Seth was thinking; I cannot guess what he was thinking. I just feel that he may have wanted to hint: it is only one of three personalities, one of the three personalities of an entity, meaning it comes with a certain historical mission. This is not a mistake; remember that Seth does not make mistakes here. The English "ta" is different from the Chinese "ta" -- in Chinese, if you are speaking orally, you cannot distinguish between "he" and "it," but in English, "he" and "it" are completely different words. So this is a point; everyone can think about why he uses this "it," and you can carry this question with you as you think about it. Perhaps you will be able to solve this mystery. He has used this "it" many times earlier.
The emphasis of this sentence is not there; the emphasis is that he will teach people how to use their inner senses, and only through the inner senses can true spirituality become possible. When we use our inner senses as easily as we use our eyes, nose, and ears, only then can you truly make spirituality possible -- not only having such abilities in dreams, in meditative states, or after out-of-body experiences. When you can use your inner senses as conveniently as you use your eyes, this spirituality can become something that is the consensus of all humanity, rather than a special ability of certain special people; it is an ability of all humanity.
When reincarnational memories rise to the surface of consciousness, murderer and victim will change roles.
When your inner senses are opened, will you not then have reincarnational memories? Your reincarnational memories will rise to the surface of consciousness, and you will be able to be aware of them. We do not know now what our past lives were; at that time your past lives will be crystal clear: how many past lives you have had, who you were in each past life, who you knew in each past life, which people from past lives are together with people in this life. When your past-life memories all rise into conscious memory, murderer and victim will change roles -- in this life you may be a murderer, and that person may be the one who was killed; in a previous life, he may have been the murderer, and you were the one who was killed. So through developing these abilities -- the abilities of the inner senses -- people will gain a firsthand recognition and appreciation of the sacredness of all life.
Remember, it is all life, not just human life. The sacredness of the life of all living beings. So at that time, not killing will truly become possible. And at that time, not killing will not be because of following certain dogmas or precepts, or to achieve some goal, or out of fear of punishment, or to accumulate merit and virtue -- no. It will be that feeling of oneness with all things that makes it impossible for you to kill.
There are several born before that time who will in various ways reawaken people's expectations.
People born before 2075. There is one such person who has already been born in a small province in India near Calcutta -- in 1971, he had already been born in that small province next to Calcutta. Calcutta is a coastal city on the easternmost coast of India.
Throughout his life, however, his preaching activity seemed to remain relatively local.
Throughout his life, his preaching remained local to that small province of Calcutta; he was not a world religion.
Another will be born in Africa, not yet born. He is a black man, and his main work will be done in Indonesia.
That is, in 1971, when he said this, this person had not yet been born. He was born in Africa, but completed his preaching work in Indonesia.
In your terms, the expectation has already been set.
What expectation? The expectation that people want to awaken inwardly, the expectation that they want to use their own inner senses, the expectation that they want to make close contact, intimate contact, with their own souls -- this expectation has already been set.
And will be strengthened by this new prophet.
These several people he mentioned -- one is a black man preaching in Indonesia, one is preaching locally in India -- these people will all strengthen this expectation.
Until the third personality of Christ actually appears, it will lead people to seek the true meaning behind the symbols upon which religion has depended for so many centuries.
Again he uses this "it," so this is definitely not a mistake; he has not used it just once, he has been using this word all along. This personality will lead people behind the symbols upon which religion has depended -- those of good and evil, cause and effect, war and conquest and redemption -- it will reveal the truth behind these symbolic things.
He explained earlier that these are all religious symbols, and behind them there is a deeper meaning, which is what our inner self projects, which is the truth of a multidimensional world. But because it cannot be concretely expressed in the three-dimensional world, many symbols are used, but the symbols themselves are distortions of the truth. So this time, let us just go directly to see the truth, and stop using symbols -- because humanity has progressed to the point where it no longer needs symbols to understand. Perhaps two thousand years ago it was needed, perhaps twenty-five hundred years ago it was needed, perhaps that era needed it, but now it is no longer needed.
It will emphasize individual spiritual experience, teaching people to recognize the multidimensional aspects of their own reality.
It emphasizes individual spiritual experience -- individual, remember, individual, the expansiveness of the soul. It teaches people to discover that their own reality itself is a multidimensional, multi-faceted reality.
I will continue, because in the middle of these exercises, Rob had stopped attending the sessions for over two months, so when recording he could not keep up -- even his shorthand could not keep up. During the break, Jane read some portions of The Seth Material again, because she found that what it said was different from what Seth was saying, so she wanted to clarify.
Why was her memory so good? Because the Second Coming of Christ is an absolutely enormous matter for Westerners, so they were extremely serious about this matter, and she would never forget it. So she remembered that in Session 491 on July 2, 1969, Seth had stated something different from what he was saying here15. She thought there was a contradiction between what he said about the third Christ and the material given tonight, and therefore there was a problem. That passage was excerpted into this section -- in Session 491, in the chapter on "The Conception of God," Seth said this in July 1969:
There were three men whose lives in history became confused and were merged together, and their combined histories were taken as the life of Christ. Each of them was highly gifted psychically, knew their respective roles, and willingly accepted them.
Paul: The Third Personality of Christ
These three people were part of one entity, and they obtained human bodies in the same era -- note, in the same era, that is, in the era when Jesus was alive, they already had human bodies. So does this contradict what he said earlier? They were not born on the same day. Why did this entity not return as one person? Why did it use three people, and return in the same era?
He says there are reasons for this. The first reason is: the entire consciousness of one entity is too intense for one physical vehicle. The Jesus entity -- or the Christ entity -- its energy is too intense. If it were placed in one human body as a physical vehicle, it would be too intense, so it had to be divided into three people to accomplish this.
Second, this entity needed a more diverse environment that could not be obtained otherwise. He will explain why later. So we know that there is a contradiction here with what he said earlier. This is contradictory, so Jane pointed it out directly.
He says this entity was once John the Baptist -- if you know the Bible, John the Baptist was the one who baptized Jesus. Then it was born again in two other identities, one of which was the personality that covered most of the stories about Christ, namely Jesus. Then he tells you about the other one. But the three parts of this entity were often in communication with each other, although they lived and died at different times -- their births were not simultaneous, nor were their deaths -- but they were within one era.
Humanity summoned these personalities from its own psychic storehouse, from the available, usable, combined storehouse of individualized consciousness.
Humanity summoned them forth. Let us not emphasize this for now; we will look at it later.
He says he also began to wonder: we had always thought that the three personalities that made up the Christ entity had already lived and died, but now when Seth talks about this third personality returning in the next century, how should that be explained? We were not upset, but we did feel uneasy. He actually wanted to ask, but he was too embarrassed to ask, because he truly felt uneasy -- this was not a small question, it was a very big question, so he was clearly uneasy.
He says now let us begin. Seth was about to explain to him the questions that Rob and Jane had discussed during the break above.
The third figure in history, then, was the third personality of the Christ personality, and in your terms it has already been born, and was part of the entire Christ personality.
Here he says again that he has already been born, but earlier he said he had not yet been born. Are you all starting to feel confused, not knowing what he means?
He took upon himself the role of a zealot, a man of extraordinary energy and power and great organizational ability.
But his unintentional errors caused certain dangerous distortions to be perpetuated.
Later he will explain what "perpetuated" means -- who this person is, and why he caused these perpetuated distortions. He will explain in a moment.
The records of that historical period are scattered and contradictory.
So historically speaking, who was this person? This person was Paul, or Saul -- just different pronunciations. We generally call him Paul. If you have studied the Bible, you know that Paul's role and significance in Christianity was enormous. His responsibility was to establish a framework -- but it should have been a framework of ideas, not a framework of laws, not an organizational framework. Here he fell, and in the future he will return as the third personality just mentioned.
Let us not expand on this part for now, because he will introduce all of it later. What was Paul doing at the time? Paul's responsibility was to establish a framework. It should have been a framework of ideas, not a framework of laws, but in reality he established a framework of laws; he did not establish a framework of ideas. If you know Christian history, you know that it was he who single-handedly founded Christianity after Jesus died. He was the true, actual creator of Christianity -- Jesus was merely a preacher who was crucified. After he was crucified, he resurrected three days later, showed himself once, and then this person disappeared and never came back. But later Paul took up this matter.
Paul was previously anti-Christian. He killed many Christians16 and was extremely opposed to Christianity. A few years later, he became a very devout believer in Christianity, and he established many, many organizational structures. His abilities were very strong. He established the true organization of Christianity -- the church, the Bible, and so on, all began with him.
His purpose was to establish a framework of ideas, but he did not do that; instead he established a framework of laws. What he was supposed to establish was a personal framework -- that is, a personal framework in which you are in close contact with your inner self, your entity, your soul -- but he did not. He established an organizational framework -- he established the Christian church. He says "here he fell," because the thing he was supposed to do, he did the opposite; he made it too worldly.
He will mention later why he did this. And in the future, before 2075, he will return again, as the third personality. At that time he will truly represent his true personality. Because in Paul's lifetime, he did not truly carry out the mission of his identity, so Seth does not consider that he played the role the third personality should have played. So at this point Seth says, in this respect, there is no fourth personality; it is the third personality.
Why does he say "in this respect"? It means this mission belongs to Paul -- Paul is the third personality of Christ. The first personality was John, the one who baptized Jesus; the second was Jesus; the third was Paul. Christ is the name of an entity. Paul, as the third personality of Christ, should have established a framework of ideas, or a psychic framework, not a framework of rules and regulations like the Old and New Testaments -- it should have been a spiritual framework, a framework between each person and their own inner self, their own soul, rather than establishing a system like a church. This was what his third personality should have realized and embodied; his mission lay here. But he did not do it well; he fell -- he used the word "fell." So he must get back up and continue to complete his mission.
So Seth says, according to this way of speaking, he is continuing to complete the mission that the third personality did not complete; he is still the third personality. Can you understand this? That is, when he reincarnates and returns, he is still the third personality; he should continue. So he says there is no fourth personality -- according to this way of speaking, there is no fourth personality, even though this is his fourth time returning.
Then he says, I understand.
Saul or Paul, then, tried hard to establish himself as a separate entity.
That is, two entities: one was contemporary with Christ, and he lived for several decades after Christ's death. He was in such an entity, and then he divided himself into a person who would be born two thousand years later, before 2075. By that time he had already established a new spiritual system -- he had overturned religion entirely and established a new spiritual system.
His characteristics seem to be quite different from the historical Christ.
The first two of Christ -- John and Jesus -- had already happened. The third was to come to complete this mission, so his nature and characteristics are quite different from Christ. Be sure to remember: quite different.
He was converted in an intense personal experience, and this was meant to make him emphasize the personal angle rather than the organizational angle.
That is, not in the manner of a church, but in the manner of each individual, each person communicating with their own inner self, with their own soul.
But in his early life, some accomplishments were attributed to Christ.
What does "early" mean? It refers to the period when Paul was contemporary with Christ. At that time, he attributed this part of the accomplishments to Christ -- it was he who spread and expanded Christianity, and he gave this credit, this accomplishment, to Christ. So when he comes again, his essential characteristics will be completely different from that Christ, because he already gave that part to Christ.
All personalities have free will, and work out their own challenges.
Be sure to remember: all personalities have free will -- do not ask the same question again: are we puppets on strings? Are we fated? He has repeatedly emphasized that all personalities have free will. Saul was no exception; he was also a personality. Do not deify him. It is just that each personality has a different mission -- you have your mission, he has his.
However, as we understand events now, this organizational distortion was necessary within the historical framework, and therefore, on another level, Saul's tendencies were understood.
What tendencies? That is, he wanted the non-organizational -- he did not want organization; he wanted the personal. What he truly wanted to convey was that kind of personal development, personal liberation. He did not want to solve things for the collective; he did not want to form an organization or establish a church. So in this respect, Saul's tendencies were already understood at that time, and they also had their uses.
What does "tendencies" mean? At that time he was very independent -- he first opposed Christianity, then converted to Christianity. He was a person with a very strong individuality, not blindly following, not going with the crowd, not following the herd. And he himself was also a very remarkable person: he was a Jew, but he founded Christianity during the period of the Roman church -- Christianity was a thing of the Roman Empire. Jews themselves did not believe in Christianity; Jews considered Christianity a heresy, a cult, something deserving death. Yet he himself was a Jew, and he founded Christianity, so he had very distinctive characteristics of his own.
But it is for this reason that he will appear again, this time to destroy those distortions.
Those distorted things, those erroneous things, must be destroyed by him again -- what he built with his own hands, he must destroy with his own hands. In other words, whoever distorted this matter must go and correct it.
He did not himself create these distortions and then push them out into historical reality.
He says it was not that he himself wanted to create these distortions and then push them into history to be realized. At this point Jane paused and raised one hand to her eyes, which was a very interesting gesture of hers.
He created them according to certain facts that he found himself forced to admit:
What facts? He explains later.
In that world of that time, if the concepts of Christianity were to be distinguished from the countless other doctrines and religions, if it was to be maintained among mutually hostile factions, then secular power was necessary.
Do you understand this now? In that era -- at that time Judaism was divided into many factions, and there were many, many other sects. So under the circumstances of that time, if Christianity was to be passed down, it had to have secular power; to maintain it, this was necessary. So he did not deliberately want to create this distortion; he had no choice -- if he had not established the church, had not established this powerful system of church-state unity, Christianity could not have been passed down. Later Christianity became the state religion of Rome, and it became a union of church and state. For a very, very long period, Christianity was the state religion of the West. The pope's status was extremely high; no one could challenge the power of religion -- including kings. When the various kings of Europe were crowned, the pope had to perform the coronation; the church had to perform the coronation.
So his work was to form a tangible structure. He should have built an intangible structure, but in order to maintain the transmission of Christianity in this world, he could only build a tangible structure. And even at that time, he was very afraid that this structure would strangle the concept -- that is, the truth he wanted to convey, that people should contact their own inner self and entity -- he was afraid this would be strangled -- but he had no alternative; under the circumstances of that time, he had no way. This could only be the choice of the era.
Essentially, Christianity later underwent many distortions and alterations; you only need to look at history to know this. For example, you can look at The Da Vinci Code17 by Dan Brown, and look at the things in that book, and you will understand these things.
People called him by both names.
Why were there two names? Why were there two names, Paul and Saul? He says people called him by both names.
But when the third personality appears in history, he will not be called old Paul, yet he will carry within him the characteristics of all three personalities.
He was previously called Paul or Saul, but when this third personality appears, no one will call him old Paul. But this third personality will definitely carry the characteristics of all three personalities. Jane paused again at this point.
Then he said, may I ask a very stupid question? He said sure. This very stupid question was not recorded, because it was spoken too quickly -- Rob asked a very stupid question, a short exchange, but because it was spoken too quickly it was not recorded.
I would like to know whether and when the three personalities of the Christ entity met in physical terms.
What he actually wanted to ask was whether John, Jesus, and Paul, these three people, met each other while they were alive. There should have been excellent psychic interaction among them, but he wanted to know more -- whether they met as physical bodies.
Jane, as Seth, listened politely and let him finish his questions. Seth said one thing:
It is easy to see that you know nothing about the Bible.
That is for sure. Our current readers, unless they are Christians who have studied for a long time and researched for a long time, basically do not know the Bible very well. So it is normal for him to ask this question -- John and Jesus definitely met, because he baptized him, but did John and Paul ever meet? Did Jesus and Paul ever meet? Many Christian viewpoints hold that Paul never saw Jesus; he was not present at the crucifixion. Did John ever meet Paul? Probably not either. But none of this is certain.
So Seth says you really know nothing about the Bible. Yes, because Rob did not believe in religion at all. His understanding of Christianity was only slightly more than ours -- he lived in that society, but his knowledge was not much different from ours, so it was normal that he did not understand.
Because to those familiar with the Bible, this would be quite obvious.
Paul tried to deny the fact that he knew who he was.
Much of what follows is related to Christian history. Until his conversion, until after his conversion experience:
In allegorical terms, he represented the part of himself that warred against himself, working against his own knowledge, and being extremely focused on worldly life.
In allegorical terms: he first opposed Christianity and later converted to Christianity, showing the part of himself that warred against himself -- he worked against his own inner knowledge, and was extremely focused on worldly life, so he founded the church, founded the organization.
He seemed to go from one extreme to another, and this inner intensity was always present.
This inner fire, and the recognition of the facts that he had tried to hide for so long -- he knew this matter; he knew it inwardly, because he knew who he was, but he hid it. So he had this inner intensity, going from one extreme to another -- first opposing, then accepting.
The part that he represented was the part that dealt with physical reality, and manipulated it.
Because these traits were very strong within him, and to some extent dominated him. That is, he was a very material person, so he created that kind of thing.
After the historical Christ died -- that is, after Christ truly disappeared from view -- Paul put his spiritual concepts into concrete practice. In the book Thiaoouba Prophecy18, it says Jesus was taken away by extraterrestrials -- he had completed his historical mission, he was no longer needed, so they took him away. He later went to many places: he went to China, he went to India, and later he went to Japan. In the end Jesus died in Japan; he even pointed out the name of that Japanese city, where he died, and there is a tomb. This is all one side of the story from Thiaoouba; we will not explore it. As for where Christ actually died, opinions differ, but everyone knows there was no body in his coffin.
He had to continue -- Jesus was already dead, and he had to carry on Jesus's legacy. But in doing so:
He planted the seeds of an organization that would suffocate those concepts.
This organization was the church, and the church would suffocate those concepts. He says this very clearly. So many of us feel that many of the rules and regulations in Christian churches feel suffocating, with nothing spiritual about them, very dogmatic.
He lingered after Christ, just as John the Baptist came before Christ.
It seemed like a coincidental arrangement, but in fact it was all arranged. John came before Christ, which is why he could baptize Jesus.
You see, the three of them together stretched over a period of time.
The three of them together unfolded a complete historical period -- John was born before Jesus was born, and after Jesus died Paul lived on to spread Christianity.
John and the historical Christ each played their roles and were satisfied with what they had done.
Be sure to remember this: they were satisfied with the roles they played; they played them very well.
Paul alone was not satisfied in the end, and therefore the future Christ will form around his personality.
Christ has three personalities: John, Jesus, and Paul. John and Christ played their roles extremely well and were very satisfied, so they will never come again. But the third personality, Paul, did not complete his mission well and was very dissatisfied -- although Christianity seems to have spread grandly for two thousand years, fundamentally it distorted all of its original meanings, so he was dissatisfied. So when he comes again, the personality of this entity will unfold centered around Paul -- it will not display the personality traits of Jesus, nor the traits of John, but only the traits of Paul. Because it is Paul who wants to return to correct his own mistakes, so this Paul is the main body of the personality coming for the third time.
The entity of which these personalities are a part, which you may call the Christ entity, was aware of these problems, while the worldly personalities were not aware of them.
That is, the soul knew, but John, Jesus, and Paul, the three of them, did not know. Jesus finished his play when he was supposed to finish it, and he felt he had played very well -- people should develop inwardly, but instead people developed outwardly, yet he did not feel it. He did not perceive it, but the soul knew.
Although in states of trance and transcendent ecstasy, they learned many things.
Although the personalities of John and Jesus, in the process of trance and ecstasy, also knew many things.
Paul also represented the warlike nature of humanity, which had to be taken into consideration along with the development of humanity at that time. When the next Christ personality appears, those warlike traits in human nature as you know them will have entirely changed their nature and will be discarded. Therefore Paul's presence was quite appropriate.
Paul himself was murderous and warlike -- he killed many Christians. He was extremely intolerant of evil; whatever he did not approve of, he would exterminate completely, and whatever he did approve of, he would devote his life to promoting. He represented the warlike nature of humanity, and this warlike nature had to be considered together with the development of humanity at that time -- humanity in that era was indeed warlike. Including the later Crusades, the entire church's expansion, and the so-called extermination campaigns against Islam, all stemmed from this reason. Humanity was extremely warlike in that period.
But when the next Christ appears, this warlike character will be gone; it will be discarded. Therefore Paul's presence was quite appropriate, because he would cause the warlike nature of all humanity to disappear. So this statement also foreshadows -- assuming KFK206011 is correct -- that after the end of the Third World War in 2048, Paul's appearance would cause humanity to completely abandon its warlike nature.
In the next century, the inner nature of man, with these developments, will release itself from many of the fetters of the past.
He was speaking in the 1970s; now it is 2020, which is already the next century. Humanity, with these developments, will release its inner nature from its fetters.
A new era will truly begin. Not a heaven on earth, but a more sound and just world, in which man is more aware of his relationship with the earth, and of his freedom within the framework of time.
Be sure to understand: freedom within the framework of time. By then humanity will have realized the nature of time and space, and will also know what can be done in the present moment -- in quotation marks -- in this present moment. In other words, he understands that when he arrives in this material world, the so-called freedom within the framework of time, in plain language, means: he understands that when he arrives in this human world, what kind of freedom he should exercise, what kind of world he should create. He understands the essence of this matter.
So this is his prediction of the development of our current century.
Then he says, now you may rest for a while within time.
Discussion During the Break
The following is a conversation between Jane and Rob themselves. Jane came out of the trance state quite easily, and then she felt relieved about this third Christ personality that Seth had already named -- although she did not say she was worried about this material, she wanted to receive it more than usual.
During the break, they also discussed a few questions. The first was the word "zealot" that Seth used in reference to Paul. He meant -- because Paul, or Saul -- had a connection with the Zealots, a branch of the Jewish religion in Judea in the first century A.D.19 At that time the Holy Land was occupied by the Romans, and Paul was a Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. He said that recently he had discussed these sects in a book about the Dead Sea Scrolls20, but he himself felt puzzled by his interest in the scrolls and in this sect. But after hearing what Seth said tonight, he assumed he would not say too much about these subjects.
Another question was about the country and the name of the third Christ who would be born in the next century. At the same time, could Seth, or would Seth, provide any information about the religious figure who had already been born in India, or the black man in Africa who was yet to be born. During the break and as they continued talking, Jane said she already knew those answers, and she would tell Rob.
This was the information Seth obtained through Jane during the break. What Seth meant by applying "zealot" to Paul was a description of his temperament -- that is, that this Paul was a zealous person, a zealot; it was a description of his temperament, not that he was involved with the Zealot branch of Judaism.
As for the country, name, and date of the third Christ who would be seen in the next century -- he said he would not give them to us, but he might give them later. He never gave them later; Seth never gave this information either.
Seth had deliberately restrained himself from being more specific.
Seth deliberately reminded himself not to be too specific. This was to prevent the public from overreacting to people born in certain specific countries who seemed to match the descriptions and dates he had given -- that would be extremely unfair and misleading. If he said which country this person would appear in, and roughly what time period, then everyone would start guessing whether this person or that person was the one, and that would lead people astray. For the same reason, Seth would not say too much about the other two people either, the one in India or the one in Indonesia.
The Future of Christianity and the Transformation of Humanity
Then he continued, saying that the answer Ruburt gave just now was correct -- what Jane said during the break just now was all correct.
I want to clarify certain points, and with the Second Coming of Christ, this new religion will not be what you call Christianity.
Be sure to remember, it is not Christianity. Although it was founded by Christ's third personality, it is not Christianity.
This personality will refer to the historical Christ, will recognize its own relationship with that person, but within him these three persons will combine to form a new psychic entity, a different psychological gestalt.
These three persons will recombine to form a new psychic entity -- that is to say, this soul is also expanding.
As these transformations occur, on the human level also a transformation will be initiated.
When Christ's three personalities recombine and a psychic transformation occurs -- when a new psychic entity comes into being -- on the human level, humanity also begins to undergo a new transformation. What kind of transformation?
The inner abilities will be accepted and developed.
Before this, people did not acknowledge inner abilities. People only looked outward, only acknowledged this material world -- things that cannot be seen, things that cannot be touched, were not acknowledged. He says that at that time, people will acknowledge inner abilities.
The result will be a different kind of existence.
Many of your present problems are the result of spiritual ignorance.
When he realizes that his own existence also includes people of another race, then in terms of this membership status, no one will look down on people from another race. That is, when people have this kind of spiritual awareness, you will know that your own race -- for example, our Han ethnicity, the Chinese nation -- actually already contains elements of other ethnicities; we are simply unaware of it. So we should not look down on others, should not have that kind of regionalized viewpoint -- looking down on this, looking down on that, that kind of racial theory, racial discrimination -- none of these are necessary. Because within me there is you, and within you there is another.
If you have done genetic testing you will know -- I do not know whether they do this domestically, because in America there is a particularly famous website called 23andMe; 23andMe tests your genetic sequence21. It seems to be 99 dollars; you give it to them, they send you a box, and then you put your saliva into the small plastic test tube they collect it in and send it back. About one or two weeks later they will give you a result, and this result is on a mobile app or a website. Then it will analyze all your genes, and based on the genetic analysis, it will tell you what diseases you might potentially develop in the future, what the probability of getting them is, and so on.
Then in this analysis, you will discover a particularly interesting phenomenon: when each person tests themselves, they will find that the composition of their ethnicity is very strange. For example, if you are Han Chinese, you are not a one hundred percent pure Chinese person -- you have some percentage of Korean ethnicity, some percentage Mongolian ethnicity, some percentage Turkish, all kinds of things. That is, you think you are a pure Han Chinese, but in fact your ethnicity is mixed with many other ethnicities. This kind of genetic mixing between ethnic groups began tens of thousands of years ago, thousands of years ago, over ten thousand years ago, or even earlier -- if you have read the Thiaoouba material22, you will know.
So in this situation, there is no need for discrimination. But when he says this passage, we should take it as a hint -- why does he specifically emphasize this issue of race? Is he foreshadowing that the next conflict among humanity will erupt precisely because of issues of religion or race? We do not know; we can only speculate.
When each individual is aware of his own experience in many levels and many roles of society, no one sex will be considered better than the other.
There is no difference between the sexes either, and no role is superior or inferior.
An unrestricted consciousness will feel its connection with all other sentient beings.
"Sentient beings" -- the translator who rendered this term must be someone who has studied Buddhism. That is, your consciousness is connected with all sentient beings under heaven.
The continuity of consciousness will become apparent.
Your continuous consciousness becomes apparent.
As a necessary result of these developments, the social and governmental structures will change, for they are built upon your present beliefs.
The social and governmental structures will undergo profound changes. Actually, not much is said about this change, but you can look at the second volume of Conversations with God23, which mentions what an idealized government and an idealized society would look like. In that kind of idealized government, it is almost identical to the social system and social structure of the civilization on the highly advanced extraterrestrial planet described in the Thiaoouba prophecy24. I do not know what connection there is between these two, but perhaps someone read a certain book or something; I do not know. These two different books -- one was published in Australia, one was published in America -- I estimate the two authors had never met, and whether they were from the same era does not seem to be the case either -- roughly not too far apart, one published in 1989, one in 1992 or 1991. That is, these two people -- I do not know whether they ever communicated -- but their descriptions of an extraterrestrial highly advanced civilization's social form and state condition -- and the description in Conversations with God8 of the future ideal human society, the highly civilized human life -- these two descriptions are astonishingly consistent in essence. Those who are interested can look at these two parts, that is, what human society should look like when humanity is in a state of high civilization.
The human personality will reap benefits that now would seem impossible.
An unrestricted consciousness will imply far greater freedom.
You must understand this.
From birth, children will be taught that man's basic identity does not depend upon the body.
Not from the time they start school -- from birth, children will be told: you do not depend only on this physical body; your identity is not this physical body.
And that time as you know it is an illusion.
They will begin teaching you this in your childhood, in your infancy.
The child will perceive its many past lives, past existences.
And will also be able to identify with the old man or old woman it will become.
He will also have an awareness of his future.
The young people of that time could then gain many of the so-called lessons that come with age, while the old would not lose the spiritual elasticity of their youth.
Young people from childhood will gain much life experience -- the lessons that only old people have -- while the old will not lose their spiritual elasticity, and will still maintain very vigorous experience. This point itself is very important.
But for practical reasons, future reincarnations will be hidden for a time.
Be sure to remember this: everyone knows their own past lives, but you do not know what your next reincarnation will be. It is for the social reasons of that time that you do not know where you will go in your next life. But it is not that you will never know -- it will only be hidden for a period of time -- perhaps several decades, perhaps a hundred years. When human civilization develops to the next stage, perhaps you will even know where you will go in the future.
When these changes occur, new areas within the human brain will be activated in order to physically handle them.
The so-called "new areas" are those areas whose functions we previously did not know. There are many areas in the human brain that humanity still does not know what they do -- the areas that have not been activated will begin to be activated, processing the information brought to you by those inner senses mentioned above.
Then it will be possible to map the brain physically.
Remember, it is physically -- on the physical level -- that the brain will be mapped. There is a brain map saying this area is responsible for this, that area is responsible for that, but it is only physical. On the level of consciousness, it has not yet been achieved at that time.
In the meantime, memories of past events will be awakened.
All these changes are spiritual changes; be sure to remember this.
And the meaning of religion will escape organizational bounds and become a living part of individual existence.
The meaning of religion itself will escape the so-called organizational constraints of the current churches, Buddhism, Islam, and so on; it will be completely individualized, becoming a living part of each person's life -- there will be no more religious organizations.
There, the psychic architecture, not the physical architecture, will form the basis of civilization.
Be sure to highlight this: in that state, the structure of the human psyche, not the material structure, will form the basis of human civilization.
Human experience will be so extended that to you the human race will seem to have become another species.
Because your experiences from past lives will all be remembered, experience will be so extended -- extended to what degree? Our human race will seem to have become another kind of humanity -- like becoming another race; the change is so great, the capacity for expansion so strong. So we can say that this kind of change in humanity is like the birth of a new humanity.
This does not mean there will be no problems, but it does mean that man will have far greater and more extensive resources at his command.
There will still be problems encountered by people of that era; it is not that there will be no problems at all, like a paradise on earth. But the problems encountered at that time will be far grander and far more extensive.
And it presupposes a far richer and far more diverse social structure.
Be sure to understand that in that period it also presupposes a very rich and highly varied social structure. Unlike now, our current social structure is relatively uniform -- no matter where you go, except for the least developed primitive tribes, in civilized societies the social structure is basically of one type, similar. So when you travel to countries around the world, there is not much difference. In the past there was -- for example, one or two hundred years ago, when you traveled from one country to another, the cultural and social structural differences would give you a great shock. For example, if you traveled from Western society to China -- when the Qing dynasty still existed -- the difference in social structure was enormous. But our current social structure is basically uniform. At that time, the social structure will become even richer and more varied.
Men and women alike will find that all are brothers and sisters, and they will treat one another not only in terms of their present-life relationships, but also including their past-life relationships.
Everyone knows their own past lives, so their relationships are not only those of this life, but also include those of past lives.
Family relationships may undergo major changes.
When you know your past lives, the relationship between past lives and this life -- then your family relationships will also undergo great changes.
Within the family, emotional interactions will be allowed that are now impossible.
The father-son relationship in this life may have been a husband-wife relationship in a previous life, so this will be very subtle in between -- I still cannot imagine what that kind of relationship would be like. He says this is the kind of emotional interaction that present humanity cannot understand and that is currently impossible.
The conscious mind will become more aware of unconscious material.
That is, the conscious part of you will become more aware of unconscious material -- in the levels of consciousness he discussed earlier, at the unconscious level we currently find it very difficult to be aware; at that time it will be easier to be aware.
I have included this material in this chapter on religion because you must realize that the root of many of your problems is precisely spiritual ignorance, and your only limitations are indeed spiritual limitations.
Here he says it very precisely: the root of many of our problems, traced back to their essence, is spiritual ignorance. All your limitations -- I cannot do this, I cannot do that -- are spiritual limitations, not material limitations imposed on you.
I mentioned earlier that the transformation of the third personality will have such force and power that this power itself will call forth from within humanity itself these same qualities.
The three personalities come together and undergo a new change, becoming a new entity -- and after the transformation of these three personalities, there will be tremendous power. How great is this power? It will call forth from within humanity itself the same kind of power -- that is, the knowledge within you, called forth from within each person's heart.
These qualities have always been present.
Those qualities that each person inherently possesses have always been there.
They will eventually break through the veils of physical perception, expanding that perception in new ways.
These qualities will eventually break through our physical perception -- that is, the external physical perception of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body. This limits our expression and perception of inner knowledge; he says it will completely break through this veil, expanding that new perception in brand-new ways -- that is, the inner senses.
Now humanity lacks such a focal point, and the third personality will represent that focal point.
What "focal point" means is that humanity's own inner abilities and inner senses have always existed; from the birth of humanity, this ability has been there, but humanity has never brought it into play. To expand this ability, you need a focal point -- you need someone to tell you: you can do it; everyone has it; this kind of confirmation will awaken you. He says the third personality is equivalent to that focal point. Just as Jesus being nailed to the cross was a focal point for humanity in that era, this third personality is also a focal point in our era.
Incidentally, there was no crucifixion in that drama.
He affirms it: there was no crucifixion.
That personality will be truly multidimensional.
Be sure to remember this. The third personality of Christ will be truly multidimensional -- existing in multiple times and spaces. Unlike us now, who are still primarily physical, and unlike that Jesus, who was also primarily physical -- although he had a certain divinity within him, he was still just a mortal incarnated into flesh. But this third personality will not be like that; it will truly be multidimensional; when it manifests, it will exist in multiple times and spaces simultaneously.
It will understand all of its own reincarnations, and it will not limit itself to one sex, one skin color, or one race.
It will not limit itself; it will have no distinction of sex, no distinction of skin color, no distinction of race. Unlike the last time with Jesus, when he defined himself as a white male of the Roman religion, a particular race. But this new one has no race, no sex, no distinction of skin color -- it is itself multidimensional, so it has everything.
Therefore, as never before, it will break through the worldly concepts of personality.
It is itself both male and female; it is itself white, yellow, black, and brown -- all skin colors mixed together. You cannot tell what race it is; you cannot tell whether it is Chinese, European, American, or African -- you cannot tell; it is all mixed together. So this is one of its characteristics: it breaks through those worldly concepts of the human world and returns to the essence of personality.
It will have the ability to manifest these different effects at will.
What effects? Different skin colors, different manifestations, manifested at will.
There will be many who will be afraid to accept the nature of their own reality.
It foreshadows that there will be many people afraid to accept the nature of their own reality -- what reality? The multidimensional reality. For each person, your current skin color is not important; the essence of your personality is what matters. You yourself are a multidimensional personality; you yourself have reincarnated many times. The ethnicity you curse every day may be your previous life -- or perhaps your next life. Many people curse this country every day, curse that country, curse this ethnicity, curse that ethnicity, with all kinds of discrimination and regionalism -- but you curse back and forth, and perhaps your previous life was exactly that, or perhaps your next life will be. So many people are afraid of this.
Shown the true extent of their own identity.
That is, the true identity of you as a person has a great deal of space, many changes; it is a multiple personality -- just as discussed earlier, the way Seth sees us humans, you are layered upon layered; you are many lifetimes of yourself stacked together. This is the extent of your identity; you have a great deal of space. You are not just the you of this present moment; you are the you mixed together from several cycles of reincarnation.
For several reasons mentioned by Ruburt, I will not provide further details concerning the name that the third personality will use, or the place of its birth.
Too many might be tempted to jump into that image before the time is ripe.
The word "jump" is used very vividly -- eagerly proclaiming "I am that one, I am that one." When the transformation and metamorphosis of humanity has not yet been completed, rushing to jump into that image will actually backfire.
All things are not predetermined.
Be sure to remember: all things are not predetermined; they are not preordained.
However, the framework for this manifestation has already been established within your system of probabilities.
This manifestation -- that is, the manifestation of Christ's third personality in the human world. The framework for this manifestation has already been established within our system of probabilities -- that is, it has already been established within our Framework 2.
The manifestation of this third personality will directly affect the original historical drama of Christ as it is now known, and there will necessarily be mutual influence.
There will certainly be a connection and an influence between this manifestation and the historical drama of Christ, and there will necessarily be mutual influence.
The Ending
He said they could take a break or keep going—they chose to take a break. Then they were both especially tired, and hungry too—this session was very long. They wanted to discuss this matter: he asked Seth to give him some of the chapter titles for the earlier chapters. Seth said some titles had already been given, and once given there was no need to give them again. He said I will give the chapter titles, otherwise if they have not been given, then those declarative statements in the outline will be used as titles. If you want, you can add the titles yourself, so I do not need to say them again. He said I have inserted many chapters that were not mentioned originally, so from now on use those titles.
What he says here actually has little to do with the main content—it is about what titles each chapter of this book should use. They had discussed this before; before writing the book there was a rough outline, but in the process of writing, the book did not entirely follow that outline. Then Rob asked how the titles should be written. By this point the session was almost over, and there was no substantial content left.
Session 587
The Three Inner Gods Become Outer Gods
Let's look at the content of the book. He says:
The outer religious dramas are imperfect representations of the ever-unfolding inner spiritual realities.
That is to say, the outer historical dramas are an imperfect representation of each person's inner reality.
These various different personalities, such as the gods and prophets in religious history, absorbed the collective inner projections cast out by the people living in a certain period and a certain region. These popes, these prophets, absorbed those projections.
Such religious dramas focus upon and direct those aspects of inner reality that must be represented in physical terms.
Our inner reality is multidimensional, but multidimensional reality cannot be fully expressed in physical reality. Yet a portion of it can be represented and symbolized in physical terms. So religious dramas focus upon and direct these things -- this is what religion does: it takes what must be expressed through physical symbols from each person's inner reality, directs which ones are displayed, and hopes to clarify them and introduce what inner things they represent.
When he speaks of religious dramas, just understand it as outer religious forms, outer religious expressions. This inner-to-outer projection is not only projected into our physical world, but also projected into other times, spaces, or planes.
Religion itself, however, is always the external representation of inner reality.
You must remember this. The essence of religion is this: it reflects the inner things of people in a certain period and a certain region, projected outward as a form.
It is the primitive spiritual existence alone that gives meaning to physical existence.
Fundamentally speaking, it is this primitive spiritual existence that gives meaning to physical existence. The outer things we see, whether houses, mountains, or rivers, their meaning itself exists in the spiritual world. The existence of the spiritual world is itself the meaning of the existence of the physical world. In other words, behind every physical existence there is a spiritual existence that gives it meaning.
In the truest sense, religion should include all of man's quests as he searches for the nature of meaning and truth.
Religion is all about solving this problem: the pursuit of meaning and truth -- the meaning of human life, the meaning of existence, why we come into this world, what the truth of the world is, how the world came to be, and so on. Religion should include all of man's quests as he searches for the nature of meaning and truth.
Spiritual seeking cannot be some isolated, specialized activity or characteristic.
He is saying that your spiritual seeking is not merely some isolated, specialized activity or characteristic. It must involve some comprehensive, universal, or representative activities, not something separate and isolated.
The Importance and Value of External Religious Drama
Since external religion is only a projection of the inner world within the psyche, does that mean the external is not important? What he wants to say is that external religious drama still has importance.
It has its own importance and value, and it is dependent upon the degree to which it faithfully mirrors the nature of inner and private spiritual life.
That is to say, the importance and value of an external religion is reflected in this: whether it can faithfully mirror the nature of inner, private spiritual life. The higher the degree to which it mirrors this nature, the greater the value of that religion; if the degree to which it mirrors it is very low, and it has not seen through the whole of a person's inner private spiritual life, then its importance and value are much diminished.
Only when a person feels that his religion expresses this inner experience will he consider it adequate.
When a person believes in a religion and accepts that religion, he must have a kind of recognition, a sense of identification with the fact that this religion expresses certain inner feelings of his own, and that is why he feels this religion is correct, adequate, and convincing to him. This is the crux of the matter.
However, there is a very crucial problem:
Most religions as such have set up certain categories of experience as permissible, and denied others.
This is the limitation of religion. Any religion sets up the categories of experience it considers special as permissible and acceptable, while other experiences, which it considers unacceptable, must be denied. This is a limitation that basically all religions have. We often use a phrase: "factional favoritism and attacks on dissenters" -- "factional favoritism" means those who are the same band together, and those who are different they go out and attack.
Because of this, they limit themselves:
They have applied the sacredness of life principle only to their own species, and tried to apply it to very limited groups within it.
They acknowledge that life is sacred and inviolable -- every life, even flowers, grass, puppies, kittens, has its sacred inviolability -- but they limit it only to within their own group. So in other words, they are extremely cruel to people outside that group; they do not accept the principle that all beings possess the sacredness of life, they only accept that their own group has it. That is why, in the name of eradicating heresy, they directly kill, destroy, and burn people who are not of their sect. This is even more cruel than ordinary people.
Here a question arises: since you acknowledge that the lives of people within your sect are sacred, inviolable, and given by God, then why are other people's lives not given by another sacred thing? What right do you have to take away other people's lives? They do not think that way -- they believe that only their own lives are sacred, and other people's lives are not worth mentioning.
This passage is very important:
No church has ever been able to represent the inner experience of all individuals.
Remember, no church can represent, cannot express, the inner experience of all individuals. You only express a part of it.
No church has ever found that it could effectively eliminate the inner experience of other members.
And no church has ever found that it could effectively eliminate the inner experience of other members; it only appears on the surface to have done so.
What does this mean? No church can eliminate the inner experience of people it does not accept. Because if you do not believe in my religion, I will not acknowledge your inner experience, and I will even try to eliminate this inner thing of yours, until you agree with mine. Because your inner experience will project a new external world, a new religious drama, and that will certainly be different from my religion. I demand that you conform to me completely; if you do not conform, I will find ways to eliminate you. Of course, physical elimination is one kind of elimination, but he cannot eliminate all people. Those who are not of his religion -- he has never succeeded in assimilating them. He wanted to eliminate their inner experience, but he has never succeeded. On the surface it appears he has succeeded -- for example, he unified a country, a region -- but in fact he has not, because everyone's inner experience is different.
He also cannot eliminate the other experiences within the church, within the inner experience of its members, saying: you cannot have other experiences in your hearts, you can only follow what the church prescribes. Of course he wants to do this, and it appears he has succeeded -- within the church everything is unified and conforms completely -- but how can he know what each person is thinking inside? He simply cannot control everyone's inner experience.
The forbidden experience will only be expressed unconsciously, gathering strength and vitality as it rises.
That inner experience which you forbid will only be expressed unconsciously, and then it gathers strength and vitality, developing upward, forming an opposite projection. This must be remembered:
It will form an opposite projection, and so form another newer external religious drama.
The more it restricts what is inside people, the more what is inside people will resist and accumulate strength, and finally produce a new religion. The simplest example is that Christianity branched out from the most primitive Judaism25. You will find that new sects always arise from those things that the old sects forbade.
Symbols and Reality
He says:
These dramas themselves do express certain inner realities.
Remember, certain -- a part of them. And for those who do not believe in the inner self, who resist direct contact with the inner self -- who do not believe that everyone has an inner self within them -- for such people, religious dramas and religious rituals serve as surface reminders. Reminders of what? Reminders that you have something inner.
They will take these symbols to be reality.
Those who do not believe in an inner world will take the outer, material symbols as the inner reality, or as the true essence of things. In fact, it is not so; it is only a symbol. When they discover that these symbols cannot actually represent reality, they feel betrayed.
He says:
Christ used the terminology of Father and Son -- in our terms, at that time, this was the method used -- to explain the relationship between the inner self and the individual acting in the flesh.
At the time when Christ lived, this was the method used. He told this story, saying that Christ was the child of God, the child God sent into the world, and that he and God had a father-son relationship -- this story actually explained that the inner self is like the father, and the individual living in the flesh is the ego we are ordinarily aware of, that ego. The relationship between the inner self and the ego is like the relationship between father and son; the ego is born from the inner self. He used this father-son relationship between the Heavenly Father and Christ to hint at the relationship between the inner self and the outer ego.
Because I cannot communicate directly with God, only through God's child can he communicate with us. Just as our inner self can never express itself in the material world, it can only express itself through the outer ego. Through language, words, images, visions, symbols, all kinds of means, he expresses himself in the three-dimensional world. Without these things, he cannot express himself in the three-dimensional world. Just as God is a multidimensional being, and All That Is, being multidimensional, cannot express itself in the three-dimensional world, so it uses something like the manner of Christ -- a physical, material form steps forward as a symbol, a sign, to represent the inner world of each of us.
Buddha and Christ
He said:
No new religion would really frighten anyone.
There won't be any newly emerging religion that could scare people. Why? Because the reason such a religion comes into being is that this drama has already been subjectively enacted in the hearts of the local people. What has already been enacted inwardly will not contain any element of shock, will not make people feel abrupt or terrifying. So the emergence of many religions is entirely natural. Many people don't understand how such natural religions come into being. Now you can understand, right? Because it has already been enacted many times within each person's heart.
He said:
What I have said applies equally to Buddha and Christ.
Both Buddha and Christ accepted the inner projections of the people, and tried to concretely represent these projections. They were equivalent to a collective projection within each person's heart. At the beginning of this session, this issue was already discussed: these prophets and religious founders were actually the collective inner projections of the people in a particular historical period. They existed as symbols. Whether Jesus or Buddha, they caught the inner projections that people cast outward, placed them upon themselves, tried to concretely represent these inner projections, and played their roles well, fulfilled their historical missions.
However:
They were more than the sum of those projections.
This must be remembered. They were not the sum of everyone's inner projections; they were far more than that. They could represent them, but that does not mean they were the sum of them. They had to transcend them.
The Projection of Islam
He finally mentions Islam, which he rarely does. He says:
Islam, by contrast, fell far short.
Short of what? Islam's founder did not fully represent the projections of those people's inner selves, did not play that role well, did not faithfully reflect the entirety of those people's projections in that particular period, but only selected a part.
In this case, the projection was primarily violent, and they were nearly baptized into communion with God through violence and bloodshed. By contrast, love and affection became secondary.
Here we have no intention whatsoever of denigrating or belittling Islam -- using the term "Islam" is more appropriate. Seth is simply stating a fact: the initial projection of Islam was more focused on violence and bloodshed, so the result we see today is just that. Love and affection became very secondary.
Now, if you have been to Islamic countries, you can understand this. Because I have been to these countries, including Afghanistan, an extreme Islamic country, which I visited twice26. Once you have been there, you know that they revere martial force, and in many respects they greatly revere martial force, as I have mentioned before. On the front of their cars, for example, where you might mount a Mercedes emblem or a Rolls-Royce hood ornament, they often mount a sword. Different sects vary; some are more extreme, some much more moderate. It is also divided into the two major branches of Shia and Sunni27, with many smaller sects in between, and I am not entirely clear on the specifics. But overall, they revere martial force more.
When Christianity and Islam first began to develop, in their early stages -- Islam came later, roughly one thousand five hundred to one thousand three hundred years ago28 -- the regions where it arose were already largely dominated by Buddhism or other local religions. So how did it conquer and make others believe in its religion at that time? It did not simply rely on persuasion or missionary work, but resorted more to force and slaughter. It had many methods: when it arrived in a place to promote the faith, if you accepted it, fine; if you did not accept it and fiercely opposed it, it basically made an example of one to warn a hundred, making others afraid. Then it also used material incentives -- if you believed in Islam, you could pay less tax; if you did not believe in this religion, you paid heavy taxes.
Under such circumstances, many people, for economic reasons, said: then I will believe in this religion. But they were only nominal believers, not true believers. Yet when they went to worship, time after time, it influenced their children, and after a few generations, the later generations became true believers. Perhaps after two or three generations they became true believers. Although the first generation pretended to believe for money and out of fear of being killed by force and intimidation, their children and descendants, generation after generation, became true believers.
Here I emphasize once again that there is no intention of comparing religions. He has already said it: religion is an outward projection of people's inner selves in a particular period and a particular region, and such projections lead to such religious forms, which is natural. It is just that today, when we come to this topic again, we make a comprehensive comparison and understanding of it.
The Strange Role of the Hebrews
Within these continuing outer religious dramas -- dramas that are continuous because the inner drama within man is continuous --
the Hebrews played a peculiar role.
The Judaism of the Hebrews played a very strange role.
Their concept of one god was not new to them.
The Hebrews believed in one god, and Christianity, which later branched off from Judaism, is also monotheistic -- believing that there is only one unique god in this world, one God above and below, and that all others are false, devils, Satan, false gods, heretical paths. So monotheism was not new to them.
And many ancient religions believed in one god above all others, but this god above all others was far more gentle than the god the Hebrews followed.
Other ancient religions also believed in a unified god above all things, but beneath this god there were still other gods -- he was a pantheist, with all sorts of lesser gods: trees had tree gods, flowers had flower gods. We had these in ancient times too: the peony had its peony flower god, the tree peony had its tree peony flower god, and in ancient legends many mountains had mountain gods, and the earth shrine had its earth god29, all sorts. But above them all there was a great god, like the Jade Emperor, who was that unified god.
But that highest god was very gentle. When you look at the Jade Emperor, he rarely actually mobilized the heavenly troops and generals to violently suppress anyone. We know he did suppress the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong30, but in the end he did not completely wipe him out. He just captured the Monkey King and used the Buddha to educate him -- gave him ideological work, pressed him under the Five Elements Mountain, but did not kill him, giving him a chance to learn and reform, letting him follow Tang Sanzang again to fetch the scriptures, and in the end he also obtained the opportunity to become a Buddha. So the Jade Emperor himself was not so tyrannical toward mortal affairs; he would not come down at the drop of a hat to punish humanity, and basically paid no attention to human affairs. The ancient gods of China, the ancient gods of other religions, that highest god, were all very gentle, and would not get involved in such matters.
Making Fun of the Gods
We often hear something quite funny, which is that some people have humanized the Jade Emperor. Everyone treats it as a joke: look at the movie Journey to the West, there must be some ambiguous relationship between the Jade Emperor and Chang'e. Why do people say that? Because Marshal Tianpeng, Zhu Bajie, who was Marshal Tianpeng at the time, flirted with Chang'e. But when we watch the TV series or read the book, he did not really flirt with her much -- he only said, "Oh, Sister Chang'e, you are so beautiful, I really like you." If this also counts as flirting, and you can define it as flirting if you want, then at most he should have been scolded and that would be the end of it. But look at how severe the Jade Emperor's punishment of Marshal Tianpeng was: he demoted a dignified Marshal Tianpeng, who commanded the heavenly troops and generals, down to the mortal world to become a pig. So you can see how severe this punishment was.
There is another issue: Chang'e and the Jade Emperor basically had zero communication with each other, but that kind of look in their eyes, that kind of thing, gave people a strange feeling. This was another friend talking about it, as a topic of conversation for everyone. A topic of conversation means something we can joke about. We make fun of the Jade Emperor just like an ordinary mortal, and that is acceptable. We just laugh, and we do not feel that we have offended anyone, nor do we feel that we will be punished by heaven or struck by lightning. That is to say, the Jade Emperor is also human, and when he sees a beautiful woman he cannot walk straight either -- that is roughly the kind of joke.
But if you put this kind of joke into other religions, it does not work. If you tell this kind of joke to a Jew, or to a person of another such religion, then you are finished. No matter how good friends you two are, even if you are blood brothers, there is no future for the two of you. The only reason he does not kill you is because he is considering the law; in his heart, he wants to kill you.
You must never make this kind of joke with these people. A typical example of this: you know there is a cartoon magazine in France that drew some cartoons about Islam and about Muhammad31, just as a joke, and as a result they were hunted down by the entire Muslim world. A fatwa was issued, and their highest religious leader said: wherever this French cartoon magazine, including this cartoonist, goes in the world, any Muslim may kill him first -- and by doing so he will have rendered a service to the Muslim world. Just because he drew some cartoons. So from this matter you can understand why he said that in those other religions, the highest god has to be much more gentle.
Primitive Religion and Inner Spirituality
He said:
Many tribes believe -- and believe quite correctly -- in the inner spirituality that fills every living being.
Many tribes are primitive religions, and even in today's tribes there are many primitive religions. You must remember this: what these tribes believe is actually quite correct, while what the so-called major religions believe is in some cases incorrect. What these tribes' primitive religions believe in is this: the inner spirituality of every living being. They often speak of, for example, the deity within a tree, the spirit within a flower. In primitive religions and tribes this is often present. Look at the story of Avatar32, which also represents the primitive civilization and primitive religious beliefs of primitive tribes on other planets -- they also believe that trees have tree spirits, nature has nature spirits, and we are one with nature.
But:
They also accept the reality of a spirit that encompasses the whole.
They acknowledge both the existence of that inner spirituality within every living being, and the existence of a spirit above them that encompasses the whole.
These lesser spirits are but parts of him.
These lesser spirits -- the spirits within every living being -- are only parts of this whole spirit, and all of them work together in harmony. This is a basic value and a basic structural system of primitive religion. Many of our values today are also like this.
But when you look at some other religions, this is not the case. What he emphasizes here is the Hebrew religion of Judaism. So you can see that when Seth says these things, he basically offends all religions. If he were a normal person, he would not do this kind of thing. If you want to spread your knowledge, and you offend all religions, is there any benefit in that? No, no religion would accept you. But he cannot help it; in order to tell the truth about things, he has no choice but to speak these honest words. You also know that those Jewish people certainly do not like Seth -- they dislike him intensely.
The Hebrews' Tutelary God
The Hebrews conceived of a tutelary god -- an angry, just, and cruel god. Thus many sects denied the concept that living beings other than humans also possess spirituality.
Many sects, not all of them -- many sects of Judaism, denied that living beings other than humans also have inner spirituality. They held that only humans have spirit, and that others do not.
The earlier beliefs were a far better representation of inner reality.
The earliest Jewish beliefs, the Hebrews' beliefs, were much better than this. But in that early Hebrew belief, people observed nature, let nature speak, and let it reveal its own natural secrets. That was in the early period. But later it was no longer so.
The Hebrew god represented a very different kind of inner projection.
Very different.
Man became more and more aware of the ego, of the feeling of self, and of a sense of power over nature.
We humans now have this feeling, the feeling that "man will conquer nature" -- that I am above nature, that humanity has enough power to transcend nature.
So why has the Western world dominated these past few hundred years, developing science and technology in this way that is cut off from nature, with man above nature? Actually, a large part of the reason is that in the Western world, Jewish people hold a great deal of discursive power, in the top financial institutions, including some industrial sectors. Because Jewish people are very intelligent, good at business, and also very skilled at handling many things in a low-key manner. In short, they have a presence in every trade and every field in Western society. They have enormous influence over the entire development of politics, society, and culture, and that influence is extremely low-key, unlike how we in China in recent years have been so high-profile in promoting our own ethnic identity or populist trends. What Jewish people do is very low-key, very subtle, but very effective, basically controlling all the ideology and main themes of Western society.
So why does he bring up Hebrew Judaism? He actually wants to hint that if you want to understand Western civilization, you must understand the inner thing behind it -- that many things are secretly controlled by Jewish people.
In the Hebrew religion, they hold that the human ego is very powerful, that it transcends and stands above nature. Look at Western science today, and the East also accepts Western science -- you find that their viewpoint is this: nature does not matter, humans can control nature, conquer nature, challenge nature, and human ability is above nature -- that is the idea of man conquering nature. But in ancient Chinese culture, in thousands of years of culture, including the various Eastern countries, including Indian culture, there has never been this concept, never a concept of humans and nature being opposed. Eastern culture holds that humans and nature are always one: humans are part of nature, and nature is also part of humans, an interdependent relationship, with no one needing to conquer or stand above the other.
Many of the later miracles were expressed in such a way that nature was forced to act in a manner different from its usual one. God became man's ally against nature.
At this point in Judaism, this god became a helper, an ally, helping humans to resist nature and oppose nature. God helped humans deal with nature, including dealing with natural disasters, floods, and all kinds of calamities.
Here he is talking about the difference between this Hebrew religion, this Judaism, and other religions. You will find that this value system still influences us today -- although it was thousands of years ago, Judaism is very old, much older than Christianity. It now has a history of more than three thousand years33, and to this day it still uses this value system to command the values of the entire world and the entire planet. Represented by the Western world, and now the Eastern world has also accepted its values. That is why we know why today's society is the way it is -- the root is right here.
The early Hebrew god became a symbol of man's unleashed ego.
Our ego, if no one manages it, has no sense of awe, and does not know where it came from. Actually, the ego comes from the inner self; it is born from the inner self, but it does not acknowledge the inner self, and thinks it is very powerful. The West today is centered on ego-based values.
The god's behavior was exactly like that of an enraged child.
Including the behavior of the God we describe now, it is also like that of an enraged child. Why do we often joke that the Bible, or Christ, is like a fairy tale book or a children's book? Because the god in it is extremely immature, extremely childish, like a child: in his eyes the world is black and white, good and bad, good and evil in opposition, with no middle ground. Either you go to heaven, or you go to hell. And he is vindictive: if you provoke me, I will destroy you; if you dare challenge me, I will tear you to pieces and never let you be reborn. Very angry, enraged at the slightest provocation.
If you have had contact with people from these churches, you should understand what I am trying to say. Basically there is no way to discuss anything -- with a devout Christian, it is impossible to calmly discuss any question about religion and faith. Unless you completely believe him, otherwise the topic cannot develop. Such a god is not even as good as a child, and does not even have the thinking of a normal adult. How could he be a god? How could he possibly be a god? But that is what they believe.
He says:
If a child possessed those powers -- that infinite cosmic power -- then this god's behavior patterns would be almost exactly the same as that child's.
He would use lightning, thunderbolts, thunder, fire, and floods against his enemies, destroying them. To this day, the god that Western society believes in is still like this: those who do not believe in him are directly destroyed. What is the difference between sending you to hell and destroying you? Destruction would be better; going to hell is worse. But in reality, they do destroy them.
Like Islam, for example -- although they have different values, there is no need to kill everyone else. Although there is historical origin between them -- regarding the ownership of the holy city and so on -- during those one or two hundred years, the Crusades marched east countless times34, time and again destroying entire Islamic cities. If you have read that history, you know it was extremely brutal: entire villages, entire towns, entire cities were all killed, all the men killed. We will not expand on this -- extremely brutal, not just ordinarily brutal. So to this day, the conflict and hatred between Islam and the West -- whether Catholic or Protestant -- is so deep that it is not simply a matter of doctrine; there is a blood feud of generations between them, a blood feud of thousands of years. If this history were told from the other side, it would be the same: when Islam killed Christians, they were also merciless, slaughtering cities batch after batch. Both sides -- if they got the chance to destroy the other, they were merciless, directly slaughtering the city, killing everyone, killing the men, keeping the women to reproduce, making the women accept their church, making the children accept the new religion -- that kind of assimilation.
From Inner God to Outer God
Therefore, the emotional and psychological difficulties and challenges brought about by the emerging ego, along with the sense of separation from nature, were further intensified. Nature became a tool to be used against others.
We took nature's thunder, lightning, floods, and fire, and turned them into tools for destroying other people. These were originally normal phenomena of nature, but he treated them as the power of the gods, using such power to destroy his enemies.
Not long before the appearance of the Hebrew god, these tendencies were already quite evident.
That is, before this tyrannical Hebrew god appeared, humanity already had such tendencies. In many ancient, already forgotten tribal religions, there were also instances of appealing to the gods to turn nature against one's enemies. This also existed in China -- whether you look at the Classic of Mountains and Seas35 or Investiture of the Gods36, you often see heaven, humans, and gods directly mixed together in battle.
But before the appearance of this Hebrew god, and even before that -- that is, before the time when some people began seeking nature's help to deal with their own enemies -- before all this:
Human beings felt themselves to be part of nature, rather than separate from it.
We were not in opposition to nature. Nature was recognized as an extension of oneself, and at the same time one felt oneself to be an extension of nature. The natural world is the result of a common projection of our inner collective beliefs, a result of the outward projection of our human inner world. So he felt that nature was an extension of himself -- you are all things -- and at the same time he felt that he was an extension of nature, mutually reflecting one another, you within me and I within you.
That being the case, a person could not use himself as a weapon to attack himself. If you feel that you and nature are one, that you are nature and nature is you, then how could you use the forces of nature to attack another person? He is also human, and nature is also him. Impossible.
So in that early period, people spoke with the spirits of horses, trees, and spiders, conversing heart to heart, knowing the inner reality behind them -- knowing the inner spiritual existence behind those horses, trees, and spiders. The essence of this communication was known and understood.
At that time, people did not fear death the way you do now.
Because everyone understood that consciousness exists in cycles, returning again and again.
On the one hand, humanity longed to step outside of themselves -- not to forever wander within their own inner world; they also wanted to go outward, to try new challenges, to move out of one mode of consciousness and into another.
He wanted to study the processes of his own consciousness. To move from one mode of consciousness into another, from an inward-turning mode of consciousness into an outward-turning mode of consciousness.
On the other hand, this consciousness moved away from the spontaneity that had given him tranquility and security.
When he moved outward, the outward-moving consciousness had already distanced itself from his original, earliest consciousness, distanced itself from the inner spontaneity that had brought him tranquility and security, distanced itself from the part of him that was his inner self. But on the other hand, this also provided him with a new kind of creativity.
At this juncture, when human beings wanted to explore outward, to leave the inner psychic framework and begin seeking outward:
The inner god became the outer god.
From inner to outer.
Pretending the Inner Unity Does Not Exist
People tried to form a new field, wanting to achieve a different kind of focus and observation.
His focus before had always been inward, concerned with observing the inner world; now he turned outward, his consciousness took a turn and went outside himself.
In order to do this, he focused less and less upon inner reality.
In order to turn outward and place his focus on the outside, he focused less and less upon inner reality. And so a process began:
Inner reality was only taken as the appearance of the material world he projected outward.
He no longer went to study or explore inner reality -- the exploration of inner reality basically came to a stop, and he began to turn toward the exploration of outer reality, toward the exploration of the material world. So we often feel that in ancient times, our communication with the inner self was very rich; when we look at ancient documents and old texts, the study and understanding of the inner world found there is far deeper than what we have today. But today we are all seeking outwardly.
Before, man and all other creatures understood their inner unity, effortlessly creating the environment and then perceiving it.
Before this, man and all things understood their inner unity. In order to begin this new adventure -- the outward adventure -- it was necessary:
To pretend that this inner unity did not exist.
You must remember: when you begin wanting to explore outwardly, you must pretend that this inner unity does not exist. If it existed, you would not be able to go out and explore. Otherwise, this new consciousness would always want to go back -- if you acknowledged that the inner unity exists, then your new consciousness would always run back to its home, seeking safety and comfort. Because the inner unity is the root. But in that case, it would not be able to explore outwardly; it could not go out. So all the bridges had to be cut -- what bridges? The bridges that lead back, the bridges of inward exploration.
At the same time, of course, it was only a game.
This matter of cutting the bridges is just a game -- it is telling yourself that the road is already broken. Why? Because inner reality is always there; it is not that once you cut the road, it can no longer go back. It is always there. And your outer ego itself emerges from inner reality; its root is right there.
This new consciousness had to deliberately refuse to look at it.
It just refused to look at it, and looked outward instead. Only in this way could it begin to maintain an independent focus -- an outward-looking focus, so that this focus of consciousness could become relatively independent and fixed.
He says:
I am speaking here in somewhat historical terms.
I am explaining this to you according to the human sequence of time.
But you must realize that this process has nothing to do with time as you know it.
He says you must understand that this process has nothing at all to do with the time you know; it is only spoken of in terms of the temporal development of human history.
This particular adventure in consciousness -- the outward adventure -- has happened before, and in your terms, will happen again.
What he means is that if time is simultaneous, then it is always happening. Also, in terms of human history, this kind of thing has happened before, and it will happen again in the future.
God Becomes a Projected Concept
Perception of the external universe then changed. To the perceiver, it seemed foreign, and something separate from himself.
When you explore outward, and the focus of consciousness turns outward, you will discover something particularly interesting: you find that this universe, this natural world, is very foreign. You do not recognize it, you do not know where it came from, or what relationship it has with you. So you feel that it is it, and you are you; the universe is the universe, the natural world is the natural world, with no sense of unity.
God therefore became a projected concept, unrelated to the individual, and divorced from nature as well.
God also had no relationship with each person anymore. God was just God, independent of human existence, independent of individual existence, and divorced from nature as well. It was not like this before—previously this God was a projection of the inner self, the inner ego. Each god represented the inner self within each person, and was a materialized, embodied image of the inner self. But at this stage, God no longer had anything to do with the individual, and became an abstracted existence, no longer the projection of each person's inner self.
It became the reflection of man's emerging ego—with all its splendor, savage power, and attempts at domination.
God became the reflection of the ego. The ego itself carries this kind of splendor—similar to pride and glory—savage power, and attempts at domination, the need to rule the world and rule all things.
A Highly Creative Exploration
Even though this is obviously not right, this exploration is nevertheless highly creative.
You must remember this: although it is not good, this exploration is nevertheless highly creative.
It represents a kind of "evolution" of consciousness.
"Evolution" is in quotation marks. It is not true evolution; in fact it is a regression, but he put it in quotation marks -- from a certain angle, it looks as though it were evolution. Why?
Because it enriched man's subjective experience.
Its progressive aspect is this: it enriched man's subjective experience, the ego's experience.
And indeed added to the dimensions of reality itself.
It truly added to and expanded our physical reality, adding a great deal of subjective experience to it. The increase of subjective experience increased the breadth, width, and depth of consciousness itself -- consciousness was in fact also expanded. Because when it created this world and went outward to experience it, it also gained a great deal of experience, except that this experience was merely subjective experience.
But in order to be effectively organized, inner and outer experience must appear as separate, disconnected events.
In order to organize outer experience, to turn it into something that can be applied, passed on, and enriched, we must say that outer experience and inner experience are two different things, and separate them.
From the perspective of historical development:
The characteristics of the gods change as the characteristics of man's ego change.
When some of the ego's characteristics and attributes change, the attributes of the gods also change.
These characteristics of the ego are maintained by strong inner changes.
But do not forget: these so-called characteristics of the ego are all maintained by strong inner changes. The inner is still the foundation, but you only see the outer things.
This inner characteristic, in its initial outward thrust to form the ego, can be compared to the birth of countless stars.
How should this be put? It is a matter that originates within the subjective dimension and inner reality, producing immeasurable consequences. What does "originating from the subjective" mean? Because those stars -- you cannot take them into your hands to study them. Of course, recently we have some astronomical telescopes that can see some relatively nearby galaxies, but for distant galaxies we still cannot obtain detailed data. In ancient times it was even more impossible; people could only observe with the naked eye. Yet these stars both truly came into being and remained constant -- you can see them, but you cannot touch them; they seem both real and unreal. Then this inner thing is pushed outward, and it becomes a kind of visible star. This is like the process by which the inner self displays itself outward and thrusts outward to form the ego.
The Plight of the Ego
He says:
The ego arises out of the inner self, and therefore it must always boast of its independence while at the same time it must maintain its inner certainty of its source.
In other words, each of our egos is born from the inner self, but in order to emphasize its independence, it says, "No, I generated myself; I was not generated by the inner self." Yet at the same time, it has to maintain its certainty of its inner source -- it vaguely senses that there is still a greater source within. This is a very contradictory process. People today feel this state very strongly: we especially believe in the independence of the ego, yet we also vaguely sense that there is still a greater source within.
He says:
We will have a wonderful chapter.
Seth grows more and more excited as he speaks, and at this point he is especially excited.
The ego is afraid of its position, for it fears that it will fall back into the inner self from which it came.
He also fears that the ego will be swallowed up by the inner self. He comes from the inner self, and he is afraid of falling back into it.
But his emergence gives the inner self a new kind of feedback.
The inner self has not only gained another angle from which to view itself -- previously it could only view itself from within, but now it can view itself from without -- but through this new angle, the inner self can glimpse possibilities of development that it had not known before.
What does it mean by unknown, nonexistent possibilities? For example: your inner world has only projected some towering trees, some forests, but your ego is especially strong and can design tools, turning these trees into furniture, into houses, into implements -- and this is a possibility the inner self had not thought of before, and it was realized for it by the ego. So from the inner self's point of view, it has gained an additional angle from which to regard this world and to experience this world.
From Judaism to Christianity
In human terms, by the time of Christ, that is, two thousand years ago:
The ego was already quite secure in its position.
The ego was very certain and assured of its own position; the ego was very strong.
The projected picture of God, therefore, could begin to change.
So after saying all this, what he actually wants to tell you is this: from the earliest God of Judaism to the God of Christianity at this time, the reason the picture of God began to change is that what is inside human beings was changing.
The inner self is a constantly growing situation.
You must remember this: it is not something dead.
Each individual's inner part, therefore, projected this knowledge outward -- this need, the psychological and spiritual need of humanity, demanded major changes both inwardly and outwardly.
The psychological and spiritual need of humanity, projecting inner knowledge outward, is a fundamental need.
The buried qualities of compassion and understanding could now come to the surface. They were not only private but collective courage, adding a new impetus and bringing a natural new direction.
The qualities of compassion and understanding that had originally been buried deep within the heart and had not yet manifested began to emerge. This was not a matter of a single individual; it was a collective, group-wide courage. Such a group event would bring a new primal impetus, and this new impetus would naturally bring a new direction.
It began to summon together all the parts of itself that it knew.
This impetus -- it is collective, not private -- wanted to summon up all the strength of the parts it could call upon, to gather them all together.
As the ego recognized its dependence upon inner reality, therefore, man's conception of God began to change.
Previously he felt there was no dependence; now he discovered there was dependence, and so his conception of God began to change.
But the drama had to be worked out within the present framework.
Although man discovered that the outer ego still needed the inner self, still needed its dependence upon inner reality, the framework had already been built -- the framework of seeking outwardly -- so this drama still had to be resolved within that kind of framework.
Christians, Islam, and the Development of the Psyche
He said:
The doctrines of Islam are basically so violent precisely because the doctrines of Christianity are basically so gentle.
The two are relative to each other. But relatively speaking — actually, only relative to Islam, Christianity is not all that gentle either. The gentlest doctrine is Buddhism's.
It is not that the Christian doctrine is without its mixture of violence, or that the Islamic doctrine is entirely lacking in love.
He is not saying that Christianity has no violence, or that Islam has no love within it — that is not what he means.
But that as the psyche struggled with itself in its development, it denied certain feelings and characteristics and emphasized others. The historical religious exterior dramas, therefore, represented the inner desires, struggles, and quests of those who followed them.
In this process of the psyche's development, it is struggling with itself. Everything said before that is describing the inner changes of humanity in the course of historical development: the relationship between humans and nature, humans and God, humans and themselves. This process can be seen as the human psyche, when struggling with itself, denying certain characteristics and emphasizing others. So outwardly, it represents the external manifestation of the results of following those inner desires, struggles, and pursuits — Islam manifesting more violently, Christianity manifesting relatively more gently.
He said:
The material now being given must be considered in connection with the following fact — that beneath these developments there is a force whose eternal aspect and creative nature are undeniable and immediate.
All of this material has a premise, and it must be considered together with this fact: no matter how things change, beneath all these developments there is a force, and this force has been creating all along. It has an eternal attribute, an eternal characteristic.
In other words, All That Is represents the reality from which all of us have emerged.
By its nature:
It is a consciousness and reality that transcends all dimensions of action, and yet it is a part of each one of them.
It encompasses all action, consciousness, reality — all dimensions, all possibilities — and yet it is a part of each one of them. This is what I often say: it is both within you and outside you, it is both the whole and a part, it is both the totality and the individual.
Regarding Buddhism, the description of All That Is is also very direct: a world without leakage, with nothing left out, everything contained within it. Then it uses a phrase, the feeling of "so large that nothing is outside it, so small that nothing is inside it"37 — there is nothing it does not include. Even down to an atom, to a string, to an EE unit, to a unit of consciousness, within the smallest unit; up to the largest cosmic bodies, black holes, and such — all of these are included within it. And it is both all of this everything, and it is each one within it.
There is one face behind all faces.
That is, there is one reality behind all realities.
But this does not mean that each person's face is not his own.
This is a very crucial line. Behind our reality there is a greater reality, but that does not mean the present reality is not real, or not one's own. In other words, each of us has our own soul, each soul is a part of All That Is, and All That Is is the ultimate one. But we cannot say that our present existence is meaningless, or that our present individualization, characteristics, and independence are erased. We can extend this to: there is one consciousness behind all consciousnesses, there is one reality behind all realities. But that does not mean each consciousness is not its own, not independent. Your consciousness is also independent; it does not mean there is no higher consciousness or greater entity behind you, but it also does not deny the independence of your present consciousness.
The Next Religious Drama
He says, moving on to a further religious drama -- the next step, one that has not yet happened for you:
Another period, representing both aspects of the inner and outer drama, in which the emerged ego became much more aware of his heritage.
In the next religious drama, the outer ego will become much more aware of his heritage -- that is, those things he himself does not know, his past lives, the inner self, those things.
While maintaining his own position, he will be able to have much greater interaction with the other portions of his own being.
And he also provides the inner self with an opportunity for awareness that the inner self could not attain on its own.
Here the two "he" before and after represent two completely different things: the first "he" refers to the ego -- the ego will be able to have much greater interaction with the other portions of himself; the latter refers to the inner self -- the inner self's opportunity for awareness, which the inner self could not attain on its own, and which requires the outer self in order to perceive.
The god's journey, therefore, represents man's own journey of projecting consciousness outward.
The developmental history of the gods represents the developmental history of man's outward projection of consciousness.
All That Is is in each of these explorations. His consciousness is the consciousness of All That Is, his reality the reality of All That Is, within each person, and within the gods that man has created as well.
All That Is is within the consciousness of each of us, and also within the gods that each of us has created.
Finally, when he uses that word "god," he uses lowercase, and gods should always be lowercase; only All That Is is capitalized.
He wants to emphasize the relationship between gods and All That Is: gods are something we ourselves created. All That Is is the source of this world.
The nature gods attained a psychic reality. I am not saying, therefore, that they are not real.
The lowercase, nature gods attained a psychic reality -- it is indeed a kind of psychic reality. I am not saying that because they are psychic projections, because they are an image in our minds, they are therefore not something that actually exists. He is not saying they are not real.
I am, however, defining the nature of reality to some extent.
He is simply trying to explain the essence of this matter: how the gods came to be, how God came to be.
Be Careful Which Gods You Choose
He said something that deserves particular attention:
Within certain limits, the following statement is true.
He insists on emphasizing "within certain limits" -- it is not universally applicable.
Be careful which gods you choose, because you reinforce each other.
Here the first "you" refers to us humans, and the second "you" refers to the relationship between humans and gods -- this god that you project outward from within is not unreal; on the contrary, he will reinforce and be reinforced by the external person.
Such an alliance between god and man establishes certain fields of gravity.
This alliance between man and god establishes gravitational fields that we cannot see.
A person who is devoted to a particular god is necessarily, for the most part, devoted to his own projection. For you, some projections are creative and some are destructive, and the latter are seldom recognized as such.
If a person is particularly devoted to a certain god, then he must also be particularly devoted to his own projections. Part of our inner projections outward are creative, and part are destructive, but we seldom recognize the destructive aspect of our own projections.
The open concept of All That Is, however, greatly frees you from your own projections and allows you a more effective contact with the spirituality behind the reality you know.
Because this open concept of All That Is -- whether creative or destructive, it is all permitted -- within this open concept, it lifts you out of the things you project and greatly frees you, so that you do not only come into contact with the external projected objects, but rather allows you to have a deeper contact with the spirituality behind reality.
Ancient Stories and Distorted Accounts
In this chapter, I also want to mention a few other pertinent points. Passed down through the generations are ancient stories saying that various gods and demons guard the doorways to other planes of reality and other stages of consciousness. The spirit world is neatly arranged, labeled with numbers and classified.
He says these are ancient stories. We have these stories in China too: various gods and demons guarding the doorways to their own different planes of reality and stages of consciousness. There is always a gatekeeper, either a god or a demon. And then this spirit world -- the inner world -- is neatly arranged, labeled with numbers and classified. In ancient times we even divided it up like government offices, all kinds of government offices -- the underworld was a bureaucratic institution, everything arranged.
Before entering, one must pass tests.
When entering each stage of consciousness or plane of reality, you have to pass tests.
And one must perform specific rituals.
You have to do certain rituals.
Actually, these are all extremely distorted accounts.
All of these, all of them, are distorted.
Any attempt to express inner reality in such a rigorous, precise manner is doomed to failure, is highly misleading, and, in your terms, can sometimes be quite dangerous.
You must underline this sentence. It means that if you want to use the above approach to mark out inner reality very clearly, explicitly, rigorously, hierarchically, and precisely -- any such attempt is doomed to failure, and is highly misleading, and can sometimes be quite dangerous.
For you do indeed create your own reality, and you live within it according to your own inner beliefs. Therefore, be careful about the beliefs you accept.
Your inner reality and outer reality are entirely personal, entirely individualized, created by you yourself. And you live within them according to your own beliefs. So you must be careful about accepting those viewpoints -- the viewpoints other people give you, about what the spiritual world is like, what is in it and so on. The more detailed and explicit they are, the more you should be careful.
Speaking of this, what I want to tell everyone is this: if you see anyone telling you what this or that is like -- especially all kinds of alien control theories, this theory or that theory, this kind of theory or that kind of theory -- if what he tells you is a fixed set of things, then you tell him: this is absolutely wrong, and absolutely misleading. Why? Because all of this is created by you yourself. How would someone else know what your inner world is like? You have not even created it yet, or you are still in the process of creating it -- how could he know? He is taking advantage of that.
Good and Evil
He says once more:
There is no devil and no demons, except those created by your own beliefs.
He has said this several times already: those things do not exist. If someone tells you that in spiritual exploration you will encounter many demons, that you must pass through some kind of ordeal or test before you can enter, they are deceiving you.
As mentioned earlier, the effects of good and evil are basically illusions.
All actions, no matter what nature they appear to have, are part of a greater good.
You must remember this. Why do we say there is no good and evil in this world? Many people do not understand what I mean by this. All actions in the human world, no matter how terrible you think a person is -- for example, many people ask, why did Hitler go to heaven? They cannot understand it. Hitler, such an eternal sinner, such an evil man -- Seth's meaning is this: these things you do not understand, these things you cannot accept, behind all these actions, they are all part of a greater good. Perhaps under your current historical or real-world conditions, it manifests as evil, but behind it there is actually a greater good, only you do not know it.
At this point, some contrarian will jump out and say: well then, according to what you are saying, we should just go out and do evil, do whatever we want, right? He is afraid you will have this misunderstanding, so he continues:
I am not saying that a good end justifies what you think of as an evil action.
He himself does not have good and evil. But you cannot, just because he said this, think that for the sake of a loftier goal, a greater good, we may then do evil. In history, many dictators, fascists, people who committed countless evils, all had a lofty ideal -- do not think they had no ideals. Their ideals were extremely lofty, far loftier than yours, you just do not know it. Seth says: do not interpret me in reverse. I am only saying that all human actions you do not understand are, behind them, part of a greater good.
Then he adds another sentence, because he knows people have many vague areas on this question:
While you still accept the effects of good and evil, you had better choose the good.
When in your heart you still cannot remove the standard of good and evil, right and wrong, then just follow the good. It is that simple. If in your heart there is no good and evil, then you will not be caught in this struggle; if in your heart you still have the discriminating mind of good and evil, the dualistic view, then just follow the good.
On the question of good and evil, I think at this stage it has come to a close. Of course, in later books, in other books, he will break it apart and knead it fine, explaining this question again from higher levels and more angles -- because this is a point that limits human development and thinking.
He says:
I am explaining this as simply as possible, but there is a deep complexity behind my words.
You must remember this sentence. He says I am using the simplest possible language to make this principle clear, but behind my words there is a deep complexity. You cannot understand my words merely on the literal level -- you cannot say "Seth said this, look at Seth Speaks, chapter such and such, session such and such, this paragraph" -- you cannot use the words to distort his meaning. He is afraid you will distort it, so he emphasizes: what you need to understand is that deep complexity, not seize upon problems in the language.
Only within your own system of reality do opposites have meaning. Their existence is part of your root assumptions.
The existence of opposites like good and evil, big and small, high and low, is a root assumption of our three-dimensional world system. Just like our space and time, it is a fundamental principle, a foundational principle. On this point, when we discussed Conversations with God38 in one chapter, we explained why our world must be dualistic -- that chapter already made it very clear, so I will not repeat it here today. And in this section, Seth is actually giving a concise and fundamental summary of that same thing.
But they represent a deep unity that you do not understand.
Your ideas of good and evil are largely the result of the kind of consciousness you are presently using. You do not perceive the whole, only the "parts."
The reason we have concepts of good and evil is mainly because of our present consciousness. Our perceptive ability is insufficient; we can only perceive a part, not the whole.
The conscious mind focuses with a quick, narrow but intense light, perceiving only certain stimuli from one particular field of reality.
Our conscious mind focuses in this way: it concentrates on a single point, and within one particular field of reality, it can only perceive certain stimuli -- not even all of them.
Therefore it groups these stimuli together, connecting all similar things.
The conscious mind groups these stimuli together, taking all similar things -- gathering all the evil related to evil into one category, so these things are all evil, and those things are all good.
And anything it does not accept as part of reality, it cannot perceive.
It can only perceive that tiny little point on which its conscious focus is fixed.
Thus the effects of opposites are the result of a lack of perception.
The dualistic effects of good and evil, good and bad, that we see are caused by our insufficient perceptive ability. It is like the blind men touching the elephant -- the world you see is not the whole. It is because our minds are too small, our vision too narrow, that we can only see a part.
Since you must operate within the world as you perceive it, opposites will appear to exist.
Because we humans can only operate within the world we perceive; we will not operate in a world we do not perceive. Because of the limitations of your perception, this opposition becomes a condition for the existence of your three-dimensional world.
This sentence is explained very clearly in Conversations with God38: our world must exist in opposition. If there were no opposition, that would be called an absolute world. What we can perceive now is a relative world; we cannot return to an absolute world, because we must go through this relative world in order to experience the existence of that absolute world. If you still do not understand this passage, go back and look at my discussion of Conversations with God38 in that chapter -- the part about how the world was born and why it is oppositional -- and you will understand. In this section, Seth is completely refining and distilling the content of that chapter of Conversations with God38; it is just that that chapter is easy to understand, while what Seth says in this chapter is not so easy to understand.
But these factors are isolated for certain reasons. You are being taught, and you are teaching yourselves, to handle energy, to become conscious co-creators with All That Is. And one of the processes of the developmental and learning stages includes treating all opposites as reality.
To put it simply, this is one of the necessary processes of our current development and learning of consciousness: we must go through this opposition in order to truly recognize that unity, that oneness, and to recognize the existence of the absoluteness of this world. Without dualistic opposition, you cannot recognize it.
For you, the concepts of good and evil help you recognize the sacredness of existence and the responsibility of consciousness.
This sentence is very abstract. If you do not understand it, go back to Conversations with God38 to understand it.
For the developing ego, the concept of opposites is also a necessary guideline.
For an ego that is not yet fully developed, that is still developing, the concept of opposites is a necessary guideline.
The inner self knows very well the existence of unity.
The inner you knows very clearly about this world without dualistic opposition. Only our outer self cannot recognize it, and must still rely on this world of opposites in order to develop and learn.
He says the dictation is over, and this chapter is almost over too, but not quite yet.
Session 588: Religious Dramas and the Possible Christ
Before this session, Jane and Rob both wrote down the questions they wanted to ask.
Earlier in this chapter, in Session 586, Seth said that in the year 2075 AD, a third Christ, namely Saul or Paul, would enact the religious drama of the Second Coming, which would naturally have a more far-reaching impact on religion and the world. Jane felt that in less than a century's time -- when he said this it was already August 1971, so from August 1971 to 2075 there were only about a hundred and some years -- within this hundred years, such enormous changes could not possibly take place. So many dramatic transformations would be too rushed, too brief. Jane wanted Rob to ask Seth whether he had distorted the material in his transmission, whether he had misspoken, whether the time was wrong. Because in Jane's view, within a hundred years humanity could not possibly undergo such great changes; this was what worried her. She said this personality -- for example, when would this personality be born, in order to have the time to bring about such enormous changes? Change certainly requires time, and there were less than a hundred years in between, so in what year would he be born, and how much time would he have to teach his message, in order to bring about that kind of massive transformation in human society? She said they assumed there was a possibility of distortion; they assumed Seth had misspoken here.
Rob's question, on the other hand, was about the relationship among the three personalities of the Christ entity -- that is, the relationship among John, John the Baptist, Christ, and Paul. What kind of psychic interaction had occurred among the three of them? Had the three of them had inner communication and exchange on a psychic level, and did it occur in an intense or special way? As they lived day by day -- while they were living ordinary lives in the world -- were their dreams and other psychic experiences, apart from the recorded examples -- because the Bible has many records about the three of them -- often extraordinary, or did visions occur?
Sorting Out the Historical Background
Seth then gave a rough overview of this historical period, to give those unfamiliar with the Bible a general idea.
John the Baptist was born between 8 BC and 4 BC39 -- or 4 AD; I do not know whether he omitted the word "before," because BC and AD are not the same time. He died in 26 to 27 AD40. Normally speaking, he should belong to BC. If he was born in AD, then he only lived to be 22 or 23. But in fact he said John was already 30 at that time, so this John should have been born in 8 BC.
Jesus was born between 8 BC and 5 BC41; this is an approximate date, and the date is uncertain, because these are all based on historical research, and there are various claims. He died in 29 to 30 AD42.
This Paul of Tarsus, or Saul, was born in 5 to 10 AD43; he was later than the others, he was born later. He died in 67 to 68 AD44; he may have lived relatively longer. This is a list of the birth and death dates of the three of them, to help us understand.
Then, John's mother Elizabeth was the cousin of Christ's mother Mary45; they had this kind of relationship -- that is, John and Jesus, their mothers were cousins.
In 26 to 27 AD, John baptized Christ when Christ began his ministry46, performing the baptismal rite. He was about thirty at the time. If he was about thirty at that time, he should have been born in 8 BC or 4 BC, so the "4 years" mentioned earlier should refer to 4 BC.
At that time John was very actively engaged in his own preaching work. When Jesus was not yet preaching, or when he was beginning to preach, John was also preaching. He often called himself the forerunner of one more noble and stronger -- John often said in his preaching that he was the forerunner of one more noble and stronger. So at this time his preaching was equivalent to paving the way for Jesus.
Shortly after he baptized Christ, he was imprisoned by Herod Antipas in the fortress of Machaerus near the Dead Sea47.
Whether Christ and Paul ever met, whether the two of them ever saw each other, is uncertain. Paul converted a few years after Christ's death, and before that he had been a fanatical persecutor of Christianity. John and Paul also do not seem to have ever met.
According to historical records, the first three personalities of the Christ entity all died violent deaths, all of them died violently. Pontius Pilate ordered Christ to be crucified near Jerusalem48; Herod ordered John to be beheaded49; and Paul was beheaded near Rome under Nero50. So all three of these people met violent deaths; none of them died a natural death.
The Teacher of Righteousness
Readers of The Seth Material, readers who had read that book, had asked Seth to elaborate on the material about the third Christ given in Chapter 18, "The God Concept." Some people wanted to know about the three -- wanted to know whether one of the three might have been the Teacher of Righteousness.
What was the Teacher of Righteousness? The Teacher of Righteousness was the leader of the Zealot sect in Judea in the first century AD51. At the time of Christianity's birth, there were four well-known Jewish sects flourishing there52, and the Zealots were one of them.
The other questions concerned the various names of Christ himself. Jane and I kept these questions, and now we looked them over before the session. When the session began, Jane's pace was much slower than usual.
Then Seth began to speak:
In any given historical period, a religious drama may finally emerge as the outward representative, but there are also many secondary dramatic projections that are not fully adopted.
What he meant was, in the same specific historical period, one religious drama finally becomes an outward representative, but in the same period there are many other less important dramas also being projected, also being performed, but they may not have been adopted.
He said:
Naturally, these represent probable events. Any one of them could have taken the place of the actual outward drama.
These that were not adopted are probable events; in another time and space they might have occurred. In a probable event, any one of them could have replaced the drama that actually occurred. In the time of Christ, there were many such performances -- in that era many religions were being performed simultaneously, except that in the end Christ's sect actually happened, and became a very large sect afterward, influencing humanity for two thousand years.
Because many people felt the force of inner reality and reacted to it.
Because many people felt the force of inner reality and reacted to it. When the religion of an era is about to emerge -- as was said earlier, religion arises from the outward projection of each person's inner world, and the force of this outward projection is very powerful -- many people felt it, and it projected outward into a religion that was not so well known, already forming other religions that later may not have been so famous.
In other words, from another angle, the possible Christ at that time -- if Christianity had not actually happened on this historical timeline -- then another religion would have replaced Christianity as the actual performance of a religious drama. And under that possibility, there would have been another Christ who, according to our terms, was alive at that time. Because it had to prepare for the existence of this possibility.
For several reasons that I do not wish to go into again, these projections did not faithfully enough reflect the inner events.
They were not able to faithfully enough reflect the inner events of everyone's inner religious drama.
Nevertheless, in the general area of Jesus' existence, in that era there were some twenty people who responded to the inner psychic climate and personally felt the attraction and responsibility of being religious heroes.
In that region in that era, there were about twenty-some people who responded to that intense inner force, and who personally could feel that inner power, that calling, that attraction and responsibility of wanting to call themselves forth as a religious hero.
Some of them were too infected and bound by the pain and fervor of that period to transcend it. The cultures used them; they could not use the cultures as launching pads for new concepts.
The era was too intense at that time, so they got caught in that intensity, caught in that pain, that fervor, that enthusiasm, and did not transcend it. The cultures of that time used them; they had no way to use the cultures as launching pads for new concepts -- that is, as starting points -- and instead lost themselves in the history of that period. They did not use those cultures as a foundation or cornerstone for their new concepts, but instead lost themselves in such a cultural era.
Some followed the same pattern that Christ used, continued to perform psychic feats, and also had groups of followers, but could not maintain the necessary, indispensable strong focus of psychic attention.
Some used the same pattern as Christ -- that is, healing people, preaching; that was how Christ began -- performing psychic feats, performing miracles, performing abilities that ordinary mortals do not have, such as suddenly healing a blind person so he could see. They also had groups of followers; they also used the same methods as Christ to heal people, or to preach, and they had their own followers, but they did not seize and hold the focus of the masses' inner psychic attention.
The so-called Lord of Righteousness -- that Teacher of Righteousness -- was such a person:
But his overly fanatical nature hindered him.
Rob had asked earlier whether one of the three personalities of Christ -- John, Jesus, and Paul -- might have once been the Teacher of Righteousness. Seth said he was not; he was only one of those twenty-some people. In that same era, there were many such people.
Rob made a note here. On this subject, in the books the leader of the Zealot sect is always called the Teacher of Righteousness -- as long as he was the leader of the Zealots, he was called the Teacher of Righteousness. This also includes interpretations of the scant records in the Dead Sea Scrolls53, which have caused controversy. But it seems that he was a person who was killed in Jerusalem around 66 AD, based on his own inference, or a nephew of his who survived and succeeded him.
Seth continued:
The death of this Teacher of Righteousness prevented the spontaneity necessary for any truly great religious release; he fell instead into the trap of provincialism.
His death -- he was killed, and one could say Christ was also killed, but his death did not truly promote the spontaneity necessary for religious release; he did not release it, and instead fell into the trap of provincialism, becoming a local matter.
If he had played that possible role well, he might have helped Paul. He was a probable personality of the Paul portion of the Christ entity, because he and Paul were in the same era; he died around 66 AD, and Paul also died between 66 and 68 AD. If this person had developed himself well, or if he had played his role well, he should have been another probable personality of Paul, but he did not play it well.
The Inner Connection
Seth said:
These people innately understood their roles in this drama, and their position within All That Is. They all had the abilities of clairvoyance and telepathy, could see visions and hear voices. They had contact in dreams.
These people, including those twenty-some people, innately understood their roles in this drama, and their position within All That Is. They all had clairvoyant and telepathic abilities; they could all see visions and hear voices; the several of them had contact in dreams.
Paul consciously remembered many of these dreams, until he felt the persecution of Christ.
It was because of a series of repeated dreams that Paul persecuted the Christians. He felt that Christ was a devil chasing him in his sleep. Because at that time Christ actually wanted Paul to spread his Christianity; they had contact internally in dreams. Christ said, I have completed my mission; you should complete your mission; you should preach Christianity. But Paul did not like Christianity at that time, and he himself was a Jew. So he especially hated it in his dreams -- you see, a dream that recurs every day, and in the dream someone tells you that you must preach Christianity; he would feel that this was a devil. He felt that Christianity was a devil, and only a devil could enter his dreams every night and force him to preach Christianity. So after he woke up, he kept persecuting Christians in his life; he hated Christianity very, very much.
Yet on an unconscious level, he understood the meaning of these dreams. And his conversion, of course, was simply a concrete event of pursuing inner experience.
On the unconscious level that he himself did not know, he understood the meaning of these dreams. Later he converted -- why? It was because on his inner, unconscious level he knew what he should do, and he also knew the true meaning of these dreams. Although on the conscious level he hated the devils in these dreams, this matter -- the matter of conversion -- can also be seen as a kind of recognition of, a kind of following of, inner experience.
John, Christ, and Paul were all connected in the dream state; they were all connected in dreams. Before Christ was even born, John had long been aware of Christ's existence, because of his special responsibility -- he was to baptize Christ.
This part is about Paul. Paul needed the strongest egocentric force, because Paul was going to found Christianity, so he had a very strong egocentric force; he was very ego-driven, very capable. For this reason:
He was far less consciously aware of his role, which naturally burst forth in this inner knowledge, in the actual conversion experience.
That is, many of these things were at the bottom of his unconscious; he himself had little awareness of them. But when he truly began to convert, to accept this inner knowledge, to identify with the mission of promoting Christianity, that was when he began to burst forth. This inner knowledge burst forth. What was the inner knowledge? It was that his inner unconscious knew what his mission was this time, and it burst forth completely.
About 2075
Seth said, this material is in answer to your question. Now to answer Ruburt's question -- Ruburt's question was whether, within such a short time of a hundred years, the third Christ personality could bring about such great and rapid changes in humanity.
The birth will occur at the time I have given.
That is, it will occur in 2075. That is, it will have occurred before 2075; the birth certainly occurred before that; this person must have been born before that time.
The other changes will occur roughly within a century's time, but the results will show themselves well before then.
Taken together, what he said was that Jane asked him exactly what day and what year this person would be born, but Seth continued to play hide-and-seek with her, not telling her a specific year, only saying that he was certainly born before 2075. But the other changes -- the inner changes in people after the birth -- he said would be completed within roughly a hundred years, but he did not say from what time to what time the hundred years would be. This was clearly not a hundred years after 2075; it should be within a hundred years after some point before 2075, and the change would occur. But it was certainly not the hundred years before 2075 either.
Because of the plasticity of what you call the future, that date cannot be considered as most definite.
Because we have complete initiative and plasticity regarding the future, 2075 cannot become a specific, unchangeable date. Next comes something like 2012 -- that is what this is about -- he said there is nothing definite.
Nevertheless, all probabilities point in its direction, because the inner impetus has already formed these events.
Although your future is uncertain and plastic, and the time of 2075 cannot be considered a definite time, he said that from my perspective, all probabilities -- that is, these probabilities in Framework 2, for example, twelve kinds of probabilities -- all probabilities may be pointing in the same direction, in a similar direction. When all probabilities point toward a common direction, then the probability of this event happening becomes very, very high, because all probabilities ultimately converge on one point. Because the inner impetus has already formed these events -- is forming these events -- the inner impetus has already begun, that is, the change in each person's heart.
So you should know that the change in your heart is not useless at all; it is very useful, because the change in your heart is contributing to the development of these events. Every human development, every human progress, is the progress of all humanity; you must understand this. And every human problem is the problem of all humanity.
The Death of the Teacher of Righteousness
Seth said, unless you have other questions, this chapter is finished. Actually he did not have much to say in this part, but he asked again how the Teacher of Righteousness died -- this was a question the letter-writer wanted to ask. So Rob was very conscientious; whatever questions the readers asked, he made sure to ask them.
Seth said:
The name I gave is correct, although it is itself a translation.
That long string of English names he gave earlier was correct; it was a translation.
In a battle, he took refuge in a cave, where his small group was killed by members of another faction. The killers took away certain manuscripts they found there, but they did not find others, and these have not yet been unearthed.
As of the 1970s they had not yet been unearthed. This final refuge was near Damascus. For a time the Lord of Righteousness tried to hide in that city, hiding in Damascus, but later he was discovered, and he fled to a much smaller neighboring town, to a cave in between. For a while that cave had been used as a fortress, and there they were beheaded.
He said the Zealots were also divided into two main groups, one of which split off from the other. In the future other documents will be found to confirm this matter, and will clarify several important things about that historical era. He was saying that in the future this matter might be confirmed.
Then he continued:
Paul participated in a Zealot group for a short period in his life.
For a very short period in his life, Paul also joined a Zealot group; this was unknown to people, and history did not record it.
There was also a period when Paul, as a member of the Zealots, lived a double life -- on the one hand he was a Zealot believer, and on the other hand he played the role of a Roman citizen, while also being an Israelite. It was very normal for an Israelite to believe in the Zealots, because the Zealots were a branch of Judaism, and at the same time he was a Roman citizen, so he lived a double life. However, he later turned violently against them, because afterward he kept promoting Christianity and founded Christianity, so he kept opposing the Zealots. Just as he later turned against the Romans and joined the Christians, he again opposed the Romans and joined the Christians.
Before his conversion, he knew he had a purpose, a mission, and with all the passion of his life he threw himself into whatever answer he thought he had found. So before his conversion, he did not truly understand what he wanted to do, but he knew he had a mission and a purpose. So he poured his passion, all the passion of his life, into any answer he found. He had a kind of impulse from deep within, knowing that he had something to do, but he did not know specifically what to do, so when he found something he would throw himself into it desperately, crazily, feeling that this was what heaven had sent him to do. Before his conversion, he had been crazily doing many things, all of them done in an extreme way, with tremendous effort, because he was inner -- he knew his purpose and mission, but he did not know the specifics.
By 9:40 the transmission was very slow, and after that there was nothing more; the rest was their own personal views about the Seth material.
Chapter Summary
This chapter ends completely here. Regarding "the meaning of religion," Seth has spoken very thoroughly: the origin of religion, the symbolic meaning of religion, the actual meaning of religion, the outward projection of our inner selves, and so on. Most importantly, he predicted that in 2075 humanity would undergo a major change.
Next we will introduce the final chapter of this book -- Chapter 22.
注释与核实
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Source: Wikipedia, "Jane Roberts" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roberts) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "In 2500 BC, Chinese civilization had a very brilliant period, during which Laozi, Confucius, and the Hundred Schools of Thought contended"; upon verification, it should be "Laozi, Confucius, and the Hundred Schools of Thought belong to the Eastern Zhou Spring and Autumn and Warring States period (c. 770–221 BC). Confucius lived from 551–479 BC, about two thousand years later than 2500 BC." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Laozi," https://www.britannica.com/biography/Laozi) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Islam," "Buddha" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islam) ↩
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Source: Michel Desmarquet, "Thiaoouba Prophecy" (sample chapters from Samuel Chong's English translation) (https://www.chinasona.org/Thiaoouba/publish-sample-chapters-3.html) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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According to Mike's original words, "As soon as he was born, he pointed one hand to heaven and one hand to earth, and said, 'In heaven above and earth below, I alone am honored'"; upon verification, it should be "Buddhist scriptures record that after Shakyamuni was born, he took seven steps, raised his hand, and proclaimed, 'In heaven above and below heaven, I alone am honored' (the Dirgha Agama has 'In heaven above and below heaven, I alone am honored'; the Sutra of Auspicious Response has 'In heaven above and below heaven, I alone am honored; the three realms are all suffering, what joy is there?'), not 'in heaven above and earth below.'" (Source: Ding Fubao, "Dictionary of Buddhist Studies: In Heaven Above and Below Heaven, I Alone Am Honored," https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E4%BD%9B%E5%AD%B8%E5%A4%A7%E8%BE%AD%E5%85%B8/%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8A%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B%E5%94%AF%E6%88%91%E7%8D%A8%E5%B0%8A) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "Shakyamuni" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E9%87%8A%E8%BF%A6%E7%89%9F%E5%B0%BC) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Buddhism" (Britannica Kids) (https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Buddhism/352887) ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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Source: Wikipedia, "Conversations with God" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E8%88%87%E7%A5%9E%E5%B0%8D%E8%A9%B1) ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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Source: Wikipedia, "Dream of the Red Chamber" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "Olivet Discourse" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E6%A9%84%E6%A6%84%E5%B1%B1%E8%AE%B2%E8%AE%BA) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "over seven billion people"; upon verification, it should be "the world population surpassed 8 billion on November 15, 2022, and is now over eight billion (about 8.3 billion in 2026), no longer over seven billion." (Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, "World population to reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022," https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-reach-8-billion-15-november-2022) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "Paul was previously anti-Christian, and he killed many Christians"; upon verification, it should be "Paul (Saul) did persecute Christians before his conversion—he approved of the stoning of Stephen and arrested and imprisoned believers, but there is no evidence that he killed many Christians; according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, his persecution likely involved traveling to various synagogues urging punishment of Jews who believed in Jesus, with punishments mostly taking the form of expulsion from the synagogue or light flogging." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "St. Paul the Apostle," https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Dan Brown" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dan-Brown) ↩
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Source: Michel Desmarquet, "Thiaoouba Prophecy" (sample chapters from Samuel Chong's English translation) (https://www.chinasona.org/Thiaoouba/publish-sample-chapters-3.html) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Zealot" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zealot) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Dead Sea Scrolls" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dead-Sea-Scrolls) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Michel Desmarquet, "Thiaoouba Prophecy" (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Thiaoouba-Prophecy/Michel-Desmarquet/9781591435631) ↩
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Source: Neale Donald Walsch, "Conversations with God – Book 2" (https://www.hodder.co.uk/titles/neale-donald-walsch/conversations-with-god-book-2/9780340765449/) ↩
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Source: Michel Desmarquet, "Thiaoouba Prophecy" (Inner Traditions book page) (https://www.innertraditions.com/thiaoouba-prophecy) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "Christianity branched out from the most primitive Judaism"; upon verification, it should be "Christianity did not branch out from the 'most primitive Judaism,' but rather emerged in the 1st century AD as a Jewish sect (movement) within the highly developed Judaism of the Second Temple period, and subsequently gradually parted ways with the rabbinic Judaism that was forming at the same time, becoming an independent religion." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "History of early Christianity," https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-early-Christianity) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Islam" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islam) ↩
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Source: China Writers Network, "How Many Folk Flower Deities Are There" (https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2023/0314/c442005-32643656.html) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "Sun Wukong" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%AD%99%E6%82%9F%E7%A9%BA) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Charlie Hebdo shooting" (https://www.britannica.com/event/Charlie-Hebdo-shooting) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Judaism" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judaism) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "the Crusaders' countless eastern expeditions"; upon verification, it should be "the Crusades were not countless; historians generally number the large-scale expeditions to the Holy Land between 1096 and 1291 as eight (or nine if Prince Edward's expedition of 1271–1272 is counted separately)." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Crusades," https://www.britannica.com/event/Crusades) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "Classic of Mountains and Seas" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_of_Mountains_and_Seas) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "Investiture of the Gods" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%B0%81%E7%A5%9E%E6%BC%94%E4%B9%89) ↩
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Source: Lü Buwei, "Master Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals: Careful Examinations: Honoring the Worthy" (https://ctext.org/lv-shi-chun-qiu/xia-xian) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "Conversations with God" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E8%88%87%E7%A5%9E%E5%B0%8D%E8%A9%B1) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "he died in AD 26 to 27"; upon verification, it should be "the death year of John the Baptist was not AD 26–27, but between AD 28 and 36 (the New Testament and Josephus's accounts are often dated to around AD 30), ordered executed by Herod Antipas." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "St. John the Baptist," https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-John-the-Baptist) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "Jesus was born between 8 BC and 5 BC"; upon verification, it should be "mainstream scholarship estimates that Jesus was born between 6 BC and 4 BC (necessarily before the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC), not between 8 and 5 BC." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Jesus," https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesus) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "he died in AD 29 to 30"; upon verification, it should be "scholars generally hold that Jesus was crucified in AD 30 or AD 33 (most favor April 7, AD 30), with a broad consensus range of AD 30 to 36; AD 29 is excluded because in that year the 14th of Nisan could not fall on a possible day of crucifixion." (Source: Wikipedia, "Crucifixion of Jesus," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion_of_Jesus) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "John's mother Elizabeth was a cousin of Christ's mother Mary"; upon verification, it should be "Luke 1:36 only says Elizabeth was a 'relative' (Greek συγγενίς, kinswoman/relative) of Mary; the Bible does not specify the exact degree of kinship, and 'cousin' is a later tradition and the wording of the King James Version." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "St. Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist)," https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-mother-of-John-the-Baptist) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Josephus, "Jewish Antiquities" 18.5.2 (https://www.livius.org/sources/content/josephus/jewish-antiquities/josephus-on-john-the-baptist/) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, "Pontius Pilate ordered Christ to be crucified near Jerusalem"; upon verification, it should be "the one who ordered Jesus's crucifixion was Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea (in office AD 26–36), and the execution site was outside the city of Jerusalem." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Pontius Pilate," https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pontius-Pilate) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Salome (stepdaughter of Herod Antipas)" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salome-stepdaughter-of-Herod-Antipas) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "St. Paul the Apostle" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "Zealots" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealots) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Dead Sea Scrolls" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dead-Sea-Scrolls) ↩