The "Reading Guide" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Reading Guide
This session supplements the relationship between the "Gramada" Sue Watkins received and the nine families of consciousness, and explains that there is no need to quibble over names. It then describes how the Paladin family excels at nurturing the next generation with balanced body and mind, and how the Ilda family engages in the exchange of concepts, products, and political ideas. The latter half records Jane and Rob's house-hunting experience: they were drawn to houses where work and home were combined, owned by Sumari or artistic workers; Jane dreamed of "wait a few more days" but did not heed it, and their low offer was rejected; Rob sorts out in his notes the inner connections among the families of consciousness, the dream, and the house-buying event.
Key Points of This Chapter
- The "Golenav" that Sue Watkins received is related to one of the nine families of consciousness, and within a family of consciousness there are further branches; the names need not be taken too literally.
- The Paladi family centers on parenting and family, excelling at nurturing physically and mentally balanced, healthy offspring, and serving as a stable reservoir for the human gene pool.
- The Ilda family consists of exchangers and disseminators of concepts, products, and social and political ideas, commonly found among travelers, merchants, missionaries, diplomats, salespeople, and the like.
- Jane and Rob were drawn to houses such as the one on Foster Road because these houses were mostly owned by Sumari or artistic workers, showing the characteristic of combining work and home in one place.
- Jane dreamed of "waiting a few more days and seeing" but did not follow it, and in her haste made a low offer that was rejected; Rob in his notes sorts out the inner connections among the families of consciousness, the dream, and the house-buying event.
Main Text
Sue's Note: The Gramada
This session began at 9:26 p.m. on Monday, February 17, 1975. The two regular sessions from the previous Monday and Wednesday had both been skipped, so the ritual really could rest, and they could have more time to look for a house. But on Tuesday, February 21, Jane held an ESP class, and the notes from these ESP class sessions correspond with the notes at the end of Session 732. In that session, Jane had given the list of Seth's families of consciousness, but at the end of that session, she was wondering: when she had begun the Sumari breakthrough several years earlier, that Sue Watkins had once psychically tuned in to the name of a second family of consciousness. Seth had not given the name of this family in Session 732, and Jane thought that the name of that family was very similar to what Seth later called the Gramada.
Sue Watkins now lived very far from them, and they had not seen her since Session 729. However, Sue did attend the ESP class on Tuesday night, and during the break she handed a note to Rob, which went roughly like this:
When I attended one of the early sessions on Sumari in 1971 to 1972, I received the name of a family of consciousness, and Seth, well, he said it was the Gram, the Gramada. He is not in last month's list of the nine families of consciousness.
There were about forty-some people in the class, and Jane's ESP class students were growing more and more numerous. When Seth came through, Sue only had time to ask one question: whether the Gramada was related to any of the families of consciousness that Seth had named in Session 732. Seth's answer was:
Indeed it is, it is related to one already given.
It happened that Seth came through Jane just as he arrived in the ESP class, and then Sue happened to ask such a question, because they were actually very concerned about these nine families of consciousness. But Sue had only once adjusted her frequency and obtained the name of another family of consciousness, one not among these nine families of consciousness, so she specifically asked Seth what was going on. Seth said that indeed, this family of consciousness was related to one of the nine families of consciousness.
After class, Rob promised Sue that not only would they look for that Gramada in their files, but that with Seth's help, Jane and Rob would eventually obtain more information about that family, and Rob would put it in the notes of this book. Actually, there is a specific introduction to this part in Appendix 27, but it is not important here.
Where does the unimportance lie? It lies in this: Seth only presented nine very prominent families of consciousness, but within each family of consciousness there are still many different branches and smaller branches. For example, among Asians there are further divisions into Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Mongolians, and the various ethnic groups and peoples of Southeast Asia, and among Chinese there are further divisions into southerners, northerners, and all sorts of ethnic groups, and so on. But actually we do not need to make things so complicated, because in this process, we only need to have a general idea that such families of consciousness exist, and that our counterparts basically belong to the same family of consciousness. Knowing a rough outline is enough. Seth also repeatedly emphasized that we do not need to be overly particular about this matter of the families of consciousness.
Seth's meaning is to tell you this: apart from the differences of race, skin color, ethnicity, or nationality among people in our physical world, at the level of the soul, what is more important is actually the differences among the families of consciousness. That is to say, do not take the differences of race, ethnicity, or nationality too seriously. He said that above these there are even higher differences of the families of consciousness, that is, differences at the spiritual level.
Just as with our divisions of human races, there are both large and small divisions, and none of them are definitive; they are all divided this way. For example, we divide people into yellow-skinned, black-skinned, white-skinned, and brown-skinned, and that is the most basic division of the four skin colors. If you want to divide by race, there are many different ways of dividing, and each country's way of dividing is also different. For example, in the United States, all Asian Americans are called Asian, all Black people are called African American, and all people from Spain or South America are collectively called Latino. These are all very rough ways of dividing. So how to divide, and the names and categories, are not that important; do not be too attached to the names.
The Paladini: Parents of the Earth
Then Seth continued from the previous session. The next family of consciousness is called the Paladini, and the Paladini mainly deal with parenthood -- that is, the occupation of being parents. These people are natural, earth-oriented parents, the very standard parents on this planet. Why say this? Because they have the ability to produce -- from a certain point of view -- children who possess certain outstanding qualities, children with intelligent minds, healthy bodies, and strong, clear emotions. The most distinctive characteristic of the Paladini family is that they bring forth children who are excellent in every respect for humanity.
For example, although many people work in specific fields, their occupations differ, developing the intellect, the emotions, or the body, they develop in a balanced way in all three aspects of body, mind, and spirit -- they are the standard model students. These parents and their children produce and maintain a well-balanced next generation, and can bring forth a next generation that is perfectly balanced. Their children are outstanding, developing in a balanced way in body, mind, and spirit. We often say all-round development in morality, intellect, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor; the children they raise all have these characteristics. They will not sacrifice one aspect for the sake of developing another; they will not sacrifice the material level for the sake of developing the spiritual. They develop in a coordinated and balanced way. These personalities possess a deep resilience in both body and mind, and are used as a very powerful asset of the earth -- they are the wealth of our earth.
Needless to say, members of one family of consciousness often marry people from another family of consciousness, and of course the same thing happens here. When people from other families of consciousness marry people from the Paladini family of consciousness, they embed new stability into their offspring -- allowing their offspring to develop in a more balanced and comprehensive way, developing in a balanced way in body, mind, and spirit, in morality, intellect, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor. Because this particular family is regarded as a stock of humanity, providing physical and mental strength. You can imagine it as a perfect gene pool of humanity, the standard genes of excellent human beings. When other humans marry them, the children they bring forth are very perfect.
You know that genetic inheritance is divided into dominant inheritance and recessive inheritance. The advantage of the Paladini is that they can completely suppress the genetic defects of the other party, so that they no longer become dominant -- all those defects are not allowed to manifest; only the advantages of the Paladini and the advantages of the other party can manifest. So this child is full of advantages, very balanced. From this angle, you can understand it as a very important existence that allows human genes to continue and be calibrated. Without the Paladini, the genetic development of humanity might lose its accuracy and go off course, mutating to the point where no one knows what it would become.
We humans have developed so stably up to today, no matter what changes have occurred -- various plagues, disasters, environmental changes, wars, and so on, including the one thousand years1 of the Middle Ages in Europe, such a dark and hopeless time, a full one thousand years -- yet from the current perspective, it seems to have had no impact on human development. Humans remain positive and optimistic, still maintaining the excellence and perfection they had when God first created humanity. It is precisely because of the existence of a race of consciousness like the Paladini that they have injected very strong stability into the human gene pool, always pulling back what has gone off course onto the right track, calibrating the human genes again and again. This is their ability.
Specifically speaking, these people often have many children, and usually their next generation does very well in whatever field of life they choose -- whether in art, science and technology, research, or education, their children are excellent honor students in every field. Biologically speaking, they possess certain characteristics that render negative codes in the genes ineffective, so they are usually very healthy people. No matter what genetic defects the other party has, once combined with them, under their powerful genes, the child is very outstanding. And marrying someone from this group of consciousness can automatically bring an end to so-called weaknesses inherited over generations -- some people actually carry weaknesses, but once they marry these people, the weaknesses are completely erased and automatically repaired. That is why humanity has been able to continue.
These people are the kind who believe in the natural goodness of sex, the body, and the family unit. No matter how these attributes are understood in the material society to which they belong, they consider them all to be good things. For example, some conservative societies are very repelled by sex, but even in such conservative societies, in their hearts they consider sex to be beautiful; some countries cannot accept the body, considering much of the body to be dirty and not to be exposed, especially Islamic countries, but in these countries, if a person is of the Paladini family of consciousness, they consider the body to be beautiful. Although they will respect local customs and habits, they will not accept the indoctrination of these religions that the body has dirty or bad things.
Generally speaking, however, they possess a charming spontaneity, and all of their creative abilities are used in family reunions, groups, and the making of children. What does the making of children mean? It means that in actively preparing for pregnancy, conception, childbirth, and including the subsequent education of children, they exert boundless imagination and creativity, and their energy is mainly placed in this area.
These are not rigid parents; do not think that -- as if they were very rigid, as if they blindly conformed to custom. They are not. They are not the kind of people who allow conservatism and respect the cultural customs of the society in which they live. They are very excellent, perfect parents. No matter what their living environment is like, no matter what their society is like, they always educate their children like the most perfect parents, giving their children that very positive education, neither spoiling them nor being overly strict. They are the kind of people who treat family life as a delicate, living creative art -- they live family life as art, treat children as works of art, and treat the home as a product of art. Every day they create their life, create their children, and create their family relationships just like creating art. Such people, if you think about how they put all their energy into this area, how could their family relationships not be good.
They regard children as artistic masterpieces made of flesh and blood, and they would never go too far in overprotection, in caring for and devouring their offspring. Many parents go too far with their children. They do not. They are neither the kind who are fearful and anxious and protect their children in every way, nor the kind who spoil them. What they do is always exactly appropriate. They will happily send their children out into the world, knowing that those masterpieces must then also complete themselves, and that they once helped with the foundational work. They provide their children with a very good foundation -- the family environment, the parents' education, excellent genes; they have laid such a foundation for their children.
He said the Paladini are a kind of capital, so far forever guaranteeing the survival of your species, even through great storms and waves. Without the Paladini, humanity might not have survived to the present. In the course of numerous great storms and waves, humanity has always been able to maintain the state it has today; the superior quality of the Paladini's genetic inheritance is indelible.
You see, among these nine families of consciousness, each has its own distinctive characteristics, and they are more or less evenly distributed on the earth, basically evenly distributed in various places on the earth, which can maintain the balanced development of the entire earth and of all races. And they exist in all countries.
They are most like the Sumari; they are often the parents of the Sumari -- if a child is Sumari, their parents are often Paladini, but not necessarily; one can only say the probability is higher. They share the same love of art and the same general mentality. The Sumari and the Paladini are the same in their attitude toward art, except that the Paladini place art in the family -- they regard family life as a work of art, children as works of art, and family relationships as works of art. But the Sumari are not like that; the artistic creativity of the Sumari is utterly unrestrained.
The Paladini usually seek fairly stable social conditions -- simply put, they may appear in developed countries like those in Europe and America, or Northern Europe, where society is relatively stable and will not undergo great changes, providing a very good living environment for the growth of their children, and there they bear and raise their children. Just as the Sumari seek the same conditions to produce their art, the Sumari also know what kind of environment suits their artistic creation.
However, they demand a certain degree of freedom for their children. Although they are not political activists, just like the Sumari, their concepts often leap into prominence before great social changes arrive, and help initiate those changes. The Paladini, like the Sumari, are not interested in politics, but these two families of consciousness often bring about social change, or rather, before social change occurs, they have already appeared on the earth in large numbers, making preparations for social change. They often do not change things for political purposes, but because their creativity is too strong, this creativity causes social change to happen naturally.
One big difference from the Sumari is that the Sumari mainly deal with creativity and art, and often place family life in a secondary position -- just like Jane and Rob. The Sumari place family life in a secondary position; Rob and Jane are the same. They can eat very simple junk food all year round, like hamburgers and pizza, and basically do not cook. What they call cooking is heating something up or making a sandwich; that counts as cooking for them. So they place life and family life in a secondary position, and they do not want children, and so on.
The Paladini, however, think of the next generation as living works of art, and manage and create the family as a living work of art; everything else is subordinate to that ideal. Think about what kind of state such a person is in. Whether man or woman, if you marry such a woman, or marry such a man, family life will certainly be very happy, because they put all their energy into the management and creation of family life, and their creativity is all used on this, so life is lived just like art.
The Sumari often provide humanity with a cultural, spiritual, or artistic inheritance; while the Paladini family provides a well-balanced stock of the earth -- an inheritance on the personal level, a material inheritance. This is good genes, good education, balance of body and mind, all-round development of body, mind, and spirit. This is what they provide to the earth. It is very interesting; they place their creativity in this making of people and cultivating of people.
These people are kind, humorous, and cherishing. This cherishing is very important. So in ordinary life you can feel that these people are very easy to get along with; they treat life as art, so of course it is very good. But many artists, including the Sumari, have one biggest problem: these people think their spiritual knowledge can be used in art, and they have no problem with that, but they overlook one point -- actually their spiritual abilities can also be used in life, but they do not use them, and they do not deign to use them in life. This is their problem. So the lives of many artists are not that beautiful, not that artistic, but their works are often very good; they often make a mess of their lives. This is the difference. But the Paladini are not like that; the Paladini live life as art.
They have strong artistic creativity, and are full of a lively compassion -- very lively toward all things, animals, and plants, but they are not the kind who are sorrowful over the suffering of the world, who cry when they see flowers bloom. They are not like that. It is a lively compassion, knowing their relationship with all things and nature. But they are all too intelligent to indulge in that perverted compassion that panders to the weaknesses of other individuals. What is the perverted compassion toward human weaknesses? It is being overly indulgent toward one's children; that is a kind of perverted compassion. He did not say it so harshly directly; he said they do not have that perverted compassion in the process of reproducing -- in the process of bringing forth offspring, that perverted compassion above and beyond the individual. This is very obvious among Chinese parents: on the one hand they desperately push their children to study, while on the other hand their indulgence of their children is also very obvious. This is very torn and very distorted, and the children are also very overwhelmed. So as a good Paladini, they very much understand how to teach by word and example, and how to raise their children with a combination of leniency and strictness.
A painter expects his painting to turn out well -- or if you will allow me a little joke, I will say it this way too: at least he should expect that. Why make a joke? Because he was speaking to Rob, and Rob is a painter. The straightforward meaning of what he wanted to say is this: whether a painter paints well or poorly, no matter the level of skill, he at least expects before painting that he can paint well. So these Paladini, no matter how their children turn out, they hope their children will be outstanding -- well-balanced, healthy, and loving of spirituality. And therefore the child will be so; precisely because they perceive it this way, their children will also be so. Just as an artist creates his painting, these Paladini create their children just as they create their paintings.
In almost any profession you will find good members of the Paladini family, but their primary concern will be with the concrete family unit. The children of this Paladini family are outstanding in every profession, but their emphasis is still on their family. They can do very well in every profession, but their first priority is family, and their second priority is work. But they are too intelligent and too capable; their creativity and ability are no less than the Sumari's, equally outstanding, except that they place their focus on their children. And the problem with the Sumari is that people of the Sumari family do not like children, and do not even like family; they have no great interest in children or family.
These parents do not sacrifice themselves for the sake of their children; this is very important. Many parents, once they have children, sacrifice themselves, and their sense of self-worth ceases to exist. These people do not. These parents are very outstanding and would not do such foolish things. They understand too well the pressure placed on the next generation -- if you live yourself out of existence and place all the pressure on the next generation, the next generation cannot bear the burden, having to carry the hopes of two generations. And they should not carry the hopes of their parents; they should live as themselves, not as the image in their parents' eyes. Paladini parents understand this point too well.
Quite the opposite: these parents retain their own clear sense of identity. They retain their own unique, clear sense of identity -- not just the identity of being the parents of an outstanding child; they have their own sense of identity, not so-and-so's father, so-and-so's mother, not the parents of some Harvard girl. Their sense of individuality is preserved very well; their clear sense of identity, sense of individuality, and their personal characteristics are all preserved very well, to serve as a clear example to their children of a loving, independent adult. To be a person, one should have one's own independent personality and independent sense of identity; one cannot lose one's sense of identity just because one has become a parent. Although they are the most outstanding parents on this earth, their sense of individuality and identity is very strong, and they do very well in every profession. Although they place their focus on the family, it does not mean their own careers are not done well.
This can be said to be a model of the earth -- he called them the parents of the earth, the model of the earth; they are the model among all parents, the stabilizer of humanity, or one might say the capital of humanity. So the existence of these people is very important to the development of our humanity.
The Ilda: Exchangers of Concepts
He began to speak of the next family of consciousness -- the Ilda. The Ilda are composed of exchangers. They are mainly engaged in the great game of the exchange and communication of concepts, products, social and political ideas. What do they exchange? They exchange concepts, products, social and political ideas. They are travelers, carrying their ideas from one country to another, mixing cultures, religious mentalities, and political structures. They are explorers, merchants, soldiers, missionaries, and sailors, and are often members of reform movements. People like Marco Polo are among them; there are many, many such people, and I will not list them all.
In real life, the more common ones are these travelers, and also missionaries, merchants, and soldiers. For example, during the Crusades, apart from their military, religious, and social-civilizational significance, they played an important role in communication -- they carried out deep and extensive exchanges between much of the culture and concepts of the Western Roman Empire and the culture of the vast Middle Eastern regions dominated by Islam at that time.
For generations they have been the disseminators and messengers of concepts. Historically speaking, they were also pirates and slaves -- pirates roamed everywhere, and slaves were bought and sold from place to place, constantly being sold in different countries, and they also played such a role in dissemination.
They are often mainly involved in social change; they are often present in social reform. How could that be, you say? Think about it: did not many social changes begin with slaves -- whether it began with Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, or with various revolutions from the bottom, many began with slaves. It is very interesting; do not look down on them; they are often the main force of reform. Although the ones stirring things up may not be them, they are often the main force of reform. As mentioned earlier, they are members of reform movements.
In your era, they may be diplomats, just as they were in the past. Their characteristics are often those of adventurous people -- you see, explorers all have such personalities. They rarely stay in one place for long, running around everywhere. But if their profession deals with products coming from other places, then they may stay for a long time -- but the purpose of their staying is to handle the local sales of goods that continuously come from their original country or other countries. In this process of selling foreign products, they also play a disseminating role. In this case they may stay for a long time, but generally speaking they move around, living in one place for a few years, then another place for a few years.
Individually, they may appear to be very different from one another by nature, seeming so different. And generally speaking, you will not find them as teachers in universities, though you may find them as archaeologists doing fieldwork. Their personalities vary; they have all kinds of personalities, but the least common thing is that they would not be teachers in universities -- that is too dull for them, not interesting; that is something the Sumari family of consciousness is willing to do. But you can often see them among field archaeologists -- archaeologists are divided into several types, one of the earliest being field archaeology, that is, archaeology on site, and there are also archaeologists who do theoretical research and documentary archaeology.
Many salespeople belong to this category. Salespeople go from street to street and from place to place; in your terms, they may be people who make the four seas their home. You know that salespeople travel the most, running all over the world. If you often go abroad, you will know -- these past two years there may be fewer, but in previous years, no matter what country, no matter what place, you could see people from Huawei, people from SMIC, China Railway Construction, China Construction Group. They are all like this. As salespeople they run all over the world, working very hard, often on business trips, with their itineraries already set. In the old days of paper tickets, they would often receive a thick stack of tickets from their supervisors, with their itineraries for the next several months already determined, where they would go on what date; they were always on the road, people who make the four seas their home.
And they are often very wealthy. They have money, because they run all over the world; without money it would not be allowed, and sales itself has very high returns, so their financial income is very good, and frequent travel is possible. On the other hand, however, within a certain framework, a merchant in a small country who travels through nearby provinces may also belong to this family.
These are a group of lively, versatile, imaginative, and usually very likable people. They are interested in the appearance of things, social customs, the marketplace, currently popular religions, and political ideas, spreading them from one place to another. Both literally and figuratively, they are carriers of seeds—bringing the local customs, politics, culture, economy, and all sorts of things from one country to another. Some of them may not have gone abroad, but within their own country they cross provinces, wandering from province to province, and it is the same thing. Because some countries are quite large, one province is equivalent to someone else's entire country. Especially in China in the past, this kind of domestic cross-province trade, selling goods from one place to another.
They can be swindlers, "swindlers" in quotation marks. They peddle products that are supposed to have miraculous value—selling those fake, counterfeit products that claim to have miracles, when in fact there are none at all. Selling all sorts of mystical things, like energy balls, energy bracelets, miracle medicines, ancestral secret formulas, strength pills, and so on—they are very likely swindlers. And with their city-slicker arrogance, they dazzle the residents of small towns—because they have traveled far and wide, seen much of the world, journeyed through many countries, and when they arrive in a small place and tell people about the strange and wondrous tales from all over the world, they utterly dazzle and enchant the small-town residents who have never traveled far from home. And even at such times, they also carry with them the atmosphere of other concepts—these swindlers, in the process of cheating people, also bring in other information. Even when they cheat, they still serve a disseminating function. They often embed ideas already familiar to people in other places into closed-off regions—they generally go to closed-off regions to cheat, because the clever city people are no longer fooled by them, but they take the things city people have already grown tired of and continue to cheat people in the countryside, continue to cheat in closed-off places, which actually also serves a certain disseminating function.
The members of that family of consciousness often provide new options. They can be scientists, or the most traditional missionaries in strange lands. In your present era, they are sometimes Indians, Africans, or Arabs, bringing civilization to your America—they bring the civilizations of other countries to America. America is a nation of immigrants, where cultures from all over the world are like a melting pot, and they enrich the great streams of communication. In such a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural environment, this diversity greatly enriches the vitality of the whole society—diversity is something the American government has always emphasized.
They may be emotional rather than intellectual—very strong emotionally, if you understand those terms—but they are restless, usually constantly on the move. They can also be entertainers, traveling around doing gigs, performing everywhere, touring all over the world—any of them could be one of these.
In the past, some Ilda people were once great socialites. Don't get the wrong idea about the word "socialite"—as soon as you say socialite, people think of a woman of loose morals. That's not it. Another word for socialite is "celebrity socialite"—nowadays many people have changed the term; they no longer call themselves socialites, they all want to be called celebrity socialites, and there are all kinds of celebrity socialite training classes, people flocking together to be celebrity socialites, splitting the bill to be celebrity socialites. A socialite is a celebrity socialite—another word for it. They were famous women who moved among the nobles and the wealthy in European high society in the past. In that period, they often held all sorts of salon events, and these gatherings were spread by these women. Although they themselves had not gone abroad or traveled to many places, the people they knew were those who went everywhere, who traveled and toured in countries all over the world, so through their interactions with these people, their own knowledge was also very extensive and their experience very rich. And they were a relay station, knowing a great many people—how many people can an ordinary woman know? They could know most of the people in the whole of high society. So when they held salons and gatherings, all these people, through them, spread the information out over an even wider range. Because of the existence of such salons, information was disseminated even more widely. This is the main reason why celebrity socialites were often these Ilda people.
Even if they could not really travel far—rarely, because it was not very convenient—they were nevertheless the core of communication—that was part of court life, or they associated with diplomats who really did travel everywhere. They themselves were hubs, relay stations for information, and very likely they did have dealings with these diplomats. Some of them may indeed have been the girlfriends, wives, or mistresses of these diplomats, or in some ambiguous relationship with them, so they themselves could obtain a great deal of information—secondhand information, but all from the most intimate first-hand sources. And they were also people with wide social connections, so they spread this information out.
So many of the socialites who dominated the salons of Europe belonged to this category—let us still use the nicer term "celebrity socialite." A so-called true celebrity socialite does not mean having money, does not mean going to five-star hotels, coming and going among the rich and powerful, and so on—modern people have made the socialite or celebrity socialite far too superficial. A so-called true celebrity socialite, apart from interpersonal relationships, must have very broad knowledge; you must be able to converse with everyone. Whether he is a diplomat, a general, even a member of the royal family, or a very low-level merchant, an arms smuggler, a businessman in all sorts of trades, or a scholar, an artist, a poet—you must be able to communicate with all of them. This is the most basic requirement for a celebrity socialite. If you cannot even do this, and just have a bit of money or married a rich man and want to become a celebrity socialite, then you are far, far off. Your basic instinct—this quality itself is insufficient. You say, "I will study hard, I will learn"—that is useless. Here you can understand that it is a matter of the family of consciousness—your soul or your consciousness is unwilling to do these things, and is not interested in them at all. So this celebrity socialite herself has very great interests and hobbies, is full of curiosity about all novel knowledge, and is also willing to communicate and share with others.
Then the Crusades involved this family. The Crusades brought about extensive cultural exchange between East and West, carrying out broad and long-term exchanges in the Middle East and in the Europe of that time—that is, the Western Roman Empire of that time. Apart from religious exchange, they had very extensive exchanges in politics, culture, economy, commerce, and trade, in all fields. I will not go into the Crusades here; there is a very deep, deep historical and environmental background to it, very interesting. The exchange of trade and commerce and political ideas during that time was far more important than its religious aspect—do not regard the Crusades merely as a conflict between two religions. He said it was not just that; it was not such a simple process.
In the Catholic Church of the past, certain members of this family became founders of new religious orders. For example, those with a unique eye for commerce and wealth, the worldly Jesuits, and some of the more sophisticated popes—he added a humorous tone. Catholicism has many variants and branches; they themselves have divided into many schools, and these schools all carry their own characteristics. There was one called the Premonstratensians—these were people within the church who had a very strong commercial mind, and some very worldly popes who had an extremely strong desire for wealth; they formed such a religious group. Spreading religion was one aspect, doing business and making money was another; neither was neglected. So many missionaries were sometimes also businessmen; do not assume they only preached. When these Western missionaries first entered China to preach, apart from many who only preached, of course there were many who preached and did business at the same time.
These people may be appreciators of art, but usually for its commercial value—they sometimes appreciate art, but the purpose of appreciating art is not because they like it, or because they see something in the art itself; they treat art as a tool for making money, collecting or selling these art collections. This is a characteristic of these people.
You can often find them in government departments nowadays; these Ilda are relatively numerous in government departments. You can also see them in fields involving travel and finance. They often like to conspire—this is their characteristic—they like to secretly discuss and conspire about things. In short, they are mixers of customs—simply put, they carry out a fusion and mixing of cultural customs.
The Matter of the House
Seth said that in Note 2 there is more information about the families of consciousness. He said that so far Jane and Rob have not found a house that intuitively felt right to them—he shifted the topic, wanting to mention the matter of the house.
Although they had become very interested after seeing the house on Foster Road on February 3, they had also looked at many other houses since then. Last Thursday afternoon Jane was busy writing the lessons for her writing class—she had a writing class; besides the ESP class, she taught a writing class, teaching others how to write—so Rob went alone to look at houses, and did not feel any great curiosity; he did not find any house that looked good or interested him. He went again to look at that broken-down house—the one on the hill in West Elmira—and once again he felt it was not suitable for them, and Jane also felt that house was not quite suitable for them.
The next day, Jane had an auditory psychic experience regarding the scene on Foster Road. Saturday morning, they made a formal offer—for their own reasons, they made a low offer, but it was quickly rejected. But this did not completely discourage Rob or Seth.
Jane had actually been asking her inner self about this Foster house all along. Seth said, if you ask your inner self, in dreams someone will give you the answer. Jane used the same method; she asked her inner self: should this house be bought or not? As a result, when she dreamed, the dream was very plain and indifferent, but another plot element in the dream was very important—suddenly in the dream a voice appeared, a very loud voice in the dream, saying:
Wait a few more days and see.
This was a voice in the dream. But Jane was the kind of person who often did not heed such things, who did not listen to these things, even though she herself was a very psychic person. You see, it was Friday—last Thursday afternoon, and then the next day was Friday—so on Friday she had a dream, and in the dream her inner self gave her an instruction, saying wait a few more days and see. But she did not listen; Saturday morning she went out early and made a low offer.
Making a low offer means: in America, when buying a house, the buyer has to make an offer; the buyer makes an offer through an agent, and the seller takes all the offers together and decides whom to sell to. Generally speaking, they sell to the one with the highest offer, but if the offers are not too far apart, or not much higher, they often also consider the person's credit, the transaction process, whether it is troublesome or not, or add personal preference, and ultimately choose one. The process of making an offer is called making an offer, and the process of acceptance is that once the seller confirms an offer and accepts it, no one else has a chance, unless the transaction ultimately does not close and the house returns to the market.
Why did she make a low offer? Because she actually did not particularly like this house either; she just wanted to make that low offer. Generally, when people who are buying a house are between wanting to buy and not wanting to buy, they often use this method to test the waters—actually this action is meaningless, but they often want to try it, to give themselves an explanation: I made an offer, I did not fail to make an offer, but I know my offer was very low; if the other party happens to have a sudden impulse and sells it to me, then I got a bargain, and I am not at a loss; if they do not sell, then not selling is fine, I did not really want to buy anyway. Most people have this kind of thinking. Jane had this kind of mentality, because she had been looking for a long time, and the pressure of this Foster house was released. He will specifically discuss this later in Note 3, so we will not say more.
However, this afternoon, they drove to Sayre, Pennsylvania—the place where they had previously seen Mr. Mark's house—and saw that the house of Mr. Mark that they had wanted to buy last year was still for sale. It had been almost a year, more than half a year, and it still had not sold. They thought this Sayre episode had already ended last year—in the first half of The "Unknown" Reality, there were specifically two sessions about him going to look at houses, and Seth, in connection with his house-hunting, specifically discussed the influence of Rob's mother on Rob's world after her death, and why he had this series of house-hunting events.
But today the echoes of those earlier events were so pronounced—when he looked back at those things and saw that this house had still not sold, he had a different kind of feeling, as if that matter had not completely ended, and that influence was still there—that is, today they could still buy that house, if the two of them were willing or not. So much so that Rob considered it in a most practical way: they were a projection entering the present from the past—from last year to now.
This kind of thing is very rare in America. Do you think it is normal for a house to remain unsold for a year? No. Houses in America sell very fast; the average time for a house to close is about 50 days2, on average, including all parts of the United States. And in places like California, New York, the Bay Area, the average time for a house to close—generally speaking, if the asking price is fairly normal and reasonable, it usually sells within two weeks; a hot one sells within a week, very fast. If a house has not sold for several months, that is very rare. So this house, for him, felt very strange, as if that past matter had not ended—from his perspective last year, from the point in time when that matter happened last year, this house projected into the future, projected into this year when he looked again and the house still had not sold, still waiting there for them.
And at this point Seth came back again. Seth said, you can use this in the notes, or you can choose not to use it in the notes—because without these, the notes can also continue smoothly, or it can also be inserted here.
He has all kinds of Sumari, and the Sumari are also all different, just as within each family of consciousness there are also great variations.
No family is uniform; he only pointed out the most prominent characteristics of this family, but that does not mean every person in this family must conform to these characteristics.
However, even within the probabilities connected with your system, your house-hunting can serve as an excellent example of Sumari being attracted to other Sumari.
In your house-hunting process, Sumari attracting Sumari is a very typical example. Because for this Foster house, the current owner is a Sumari, and the previous owner was also a Sumari. Why is it that the previous owner and the current owner of this one house are both Sumari, and the Jane and Rob who now want to buy it are also Sumari? Sumari attract Sumari. This same relationship can also be seen in the interrelations of other families. It can also be seen today—a house sold by a person of one family of consciousness will often be bought by another person of the same family of consciousness.
Seth said:
You have already noticed the similarity between the two houses that have so far attracted your attention.
Why do these two houses have their commonality and similarity? The first house—the one in Sayre, which was already mentioned back in The "Unknown" Reality—you thought it must have been sold, and today you discovered it had not really been sold. When you were discussing these matters, a rather important point escaped your attention: the owner of this Sayre house—Mr. Mark—is a dealer in antiques and jewelry, very passionate about his work, and absorbed in it, considering it his art.
That house has a garden and tall trees on one side, and on the other side a rather secluded yard. To a certain degree, that man's family became secondary to him. The kitchen and dining room are quite small; his office is downstairs, and he often works from home—his art came first.
Seth said to Rob and Jane: the two of you looked at houses for a long time, but you only looked at the house itself; you overlooked a very important point—the reason you liked Mr. Mark's house is that he himself is an antique dealer, someone who deals in antiques and gemstones, and is very knowledgeable about jewelry. This dealer usually treats his home as a place for artistic creation, so he treats his home as a workplace. Therefore his kitchen and dining room are both very small; to him they are not important. He needs a studio for artistic creation, so his home is more like a studio—work first, life second. So the secluded environment and so on in his home were all for the convenience of his work.
And the second house—the one on Foster Road that they have been looking at these past two days—was owned for many years by the owner who gave it its other personality, and that owner was also a Sumari. The large living room is so spacious that it can accommodate a grand piano. The man of the house treated the piano as his art—he now sells pianos, so it is perfectly normal to put a grand piano in the living room of his own house, and that living room was merely there to set off the piano. Again, he has a small kitchen, a garden, and some private places.
Because the people who lived in these two houses arranged their houses around their work, those two houses attracted Rob and Jane. This is the information they received and responded to. They did not respond to the attitudes of the other people who lived in those families and had to endure those conditions—because to you, these conditions are natural.
Other people did not like either of these two houses—why has Mr. Mark's house not sold for almost a year? Because his kitchen and dining room are too small, the living room is too large, and the proportions are not right. And the Foster house has the same characteristics. Why do Rob and Jane like them? Because the two of them are people who work from home; office and home are not separated, and in their process, work is actually more important. So in such a state, they like this type of house, and this type of house is not liked by other people whose lives are centered on family.
Of course, neither house exhibited your own particular personalized way of life, but each was close enough to interest you, and either one could quite easily be made suitable for your purposes. These two houses still do not completely match the work characteristics of the two of you—one was a piano seller, the other was in the antiques and art business; although both had remodeled the home with work as the priority, these houses were still not a complete match for Rob and Jane, but with a little modification, they could be made completely suitable for their purposes. So this is what attracted them.
These two seemingly unrelated houses, once Seth pointed this out, the two of them understood what it was that attracted them. The two of them were looking for a house that was work-centered and also accommodated work—one is a writer, the other a painter, and he is also preparing the Seth material; of course they put this first. And they do not care about things like eating, so they do not care at all about a small kitchen or a small dining room.
Also because the people who stamped those houses with their greatest characteristics shared some of your inclinations to such a degree, you were attracted. In the second house, their ideas about privacy were presented to you in an extreme manner—there the windows could not even be opened. You like privacy, and in the second house this privacy reached an extreme expression; the windows could not even be opened, so that is even more absolutely private. In the first house, Mr. Mark's house, the stairs to the second floor were deliberately designed to be very steep, and were never changed—he could leave them unchanged, because no guest would be invited to tour the private family bedrooms. Half of the second floor was family bedrooms, so he did not want people to go up; he only wanted to settle things on the first floor, and those stairs were meant to make people hesitate, not welcoming others to go up and look.
Now let us look at your real estate agents. As mentioned earlier, the agent couple who first showed you houses in Sayre had clear artistic inclinations—that was the couple named Johnson. These two were very interesting; one was also a painter, the other also a writer, except the two of them were reversed: the woman was the painter, the man was the writer, roughly that idea. Both of them had artistic inclinations. The woman especially liked that house; the female agent—they were a married couple, after all—thought you would also like it. Because she herself was a painter, she liked that house, and she thought Rob would also like it. She identified with your ideas about art and work. She seemed to see herself as a probable variation, happily settled in such an environment—the female agent seemed to imagine herself working in that house, and she felt very comfortable, and she thought Rob and Jane would also like it.
And the second agent, this lady named Debbie, also for the same reason unerringly led them to the house on Foster Road—she painted as a hobby. You see, this agent loves to paint. Have you not noticed that the agents Rob and Jane found all have artistic inclinations? Very interesting. But you did not realize that you picked out agents with artistic connections, yet you were drawn to them, and they were drawn to you; you recognized this characteristic in each other. You see, your agents are all like you, all of the artistic type; you attracted each other, and that is how such a situation came about.
The Inner Connections
When you make any important decision, you automatically call upon all portions of your psyche. This sentence is very important—when making an important decision, you automatically call upon all portions of your psyche, that is, all parts of your spirituality are automatically called upon. Then you bring about probabilities; this aroused spirituality brings about probabilities. To a certain degree, the decision organizes those patterns—to a certain degree, your important decision organizes the patterns that follow, and all the variations of probability will be brought about.
This should be quite obvious; you should be able to see it: when you decide to move, you unite yourself with others who have made the same decision—a person who moves away will leave behind a house or an apartment for someone else to move into. You do not know these inner connections, but they are indeed at work. When you want to move, other people who want to move, who want to move away, form an inner connection with you, and they will vacate a house for you. Then unconsciously—of course you do not know it—these movers are united with one another. Here there are sympathetic probabilities, which are set up.
So you know that whether it is buying and selling houses, or major life decisions and events, none of them happen without a cause; internally they all have a certain inner relatedness—in other words, they have all discussed it with one another. Someone moves to vacate a house for you, and only then can you move in, can you buy the house.
Another pair of musicians who were also interested in the Foster house were attracted to it for the same reasons as you. When they went to see this Foster house, their agent Debbie would tell them: another couple is also looking at this house; that couple is a pair of musicians, actually music teachers at a school, and they also set their sights on the same house, and they also made an offer. What is even more interesting is that they originally lived in Sayre, but because the man worked as a music teacher at a school in Elmira, he had to drive back and forth between Sayre and Elmira every day, so they decided to move their home to Elmira, so they would not have to drive back and forth every day. And their house in Sayre would be put up for sale. And for Rob and Jane, where they lived did not really matter much, because they had no jobs; wherever they were, they worked from home, so it did not matter where they lived, and therefore the house in Sayre was also within the range of consideration.
So this is what it means when it says some people move away and some people move in. Using such an example of artists in the process of moving, where such a situation appeared, he made an explanation—explaining the inner reasons.
Now generally speaking, you find the typical ranch-style house uncomfortable — this should be fairly obvious. They mainly provide a particular kind of family life, clearly separating work from the trend of living, and work is definitely done outside the house. A large number of houses in America are of this ranch style, especially the ranch style that was very popular in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. This ranch-style house is centered on living and family, without much consideration for work. These houses are all designed for family life, so Jane and Rob obviously did not like such houses. They liked houses where the work area and the living area were merged together, somewhat like the nature of today's studios. They liked that kind of lifestyle.
Since both of you are people who work at home, generally speaking those houses do not suit you, which is quite normal. Work, you see, was not incorporated into daily family life, but was clearly separated from it, and that was something you found quite unacceptable, inconceivable. You two did not like such houses. Although you are not farmers, you actually preferred farms — because there work and family life are together. Farmers are all like that, and farms are still like that now. The farm family lives right on the farm, a house is built on the farm, you step outside and you are at work, and right next to it there may even be chickens being raised. Therefore both houses exist in your actual present, so these two houses both appear within the range of options in your present lives, as possible choices, because you have not ruled them out.
Many years ago, in 1964, they were also interested in another house in the city of Elmira. Once again, it was also owned by an artist. A coincidence? Not very likely. Why were all the houses you liked owned by artists? No matter which house you liked, when you asked about the original owner, he was always an artist. Is this coincidence not a little too coincidental? Seth said, I suggested at that time that you buy it — that house was good for both of you, but you were afraid of it. And your feelings had a great deal to do with the contract being rejected by the Veterans Administration.
It was in 1964, when they had just begun to come into contact with the Seth material. At that time they had their eyes on a house in Elmira. Why were they able to buy a house at that time? Because at that time Rob was a veteran and had served in the military. America has very good welfare benefits for veterans, one of which is the ability to get a loan with zero down payment and zero interest3, and this benefit still exists today — veterans have their own dedicated loan process, which we call a VA loan. This loan is different from others: a special veterans' fund provides the loan, there is no interest, and no down payment is required. So at that time they were able to buy a house through this method.
The House in 1964
Seth said that the house owned by artists, the house not favored by worldly standards, precisely represented unfettered, completely free creativity. And the houses they liked were all owned by artists, which did not seem like a coincidence. Seth had once advised them to buy that house, but in 1964 they were unable to, because the Veterans Association (VA loan) rejected their loan application.
In the United States, veterans can enjoy zero-down-payment, zero-interest loan benefits, but the lending institution has requirements for the house; it cannot be too run-down. The house they had their eye on was a bit dilapidated, with many artists living around it and children running wild everywhere, so it did not look that good, and in the end the loan was not approved.
Seth said that that house represented for the two of them an unfettered, distance-free creativity. Although the house looked dirty and crowded, there was a great deal of playfulness there, which could temper the tremendous shared seriousness they sometimes had—the artists' children running around everywhere, uncontrolled, brought exactly that playfulness, unlike the two of them now, who tended to get very serious at the drop of a hat.
Seth did not like seriousness. Have you ever felt that Rob and Jane were actually very serious? Their class time each week was absolutely fixed, every Monday and every Wednesday night at nine o'clock, and every Tuesday was the ESP class. During the transmission process they basically rarely joked, rarely chatted, and even when Seth sometimes joked with them, they did not play along. Seth was actually very humorous and often joked with them, but they treated it as a great human undertaking. That had its good side, but also its bad side—being too serious makes a person very tense. Much of the transmission of spiritual material does not require that kind of tension; what it requires is relaxation.
Seth said, you did not choose the possibility of buying that house, just as you also did not choose to follow my advice all along—Seth did not forget to grumble a bit here. Did Seth know they would not listen to him? Of course he knew. Was Seth angry? Not exactly; he just found it very amusing: here I have been standing at a higher vantage point giving you suggestions all along, and you have ignored almost most of them.
The Veterans Association rejected that contract, but Seth said that it represented the inner disciplinarian. The Veterans Association still belonged to the military, and its rejection represented the rejection of discipline. The root cause was that you rejected it inwardly, and you did not want to share your road with the world; that was the root.
This sentence was a pun. The work the two of them were engaged in, they did not want more people to know about. Later they also did not like sharing the driveway with their neighbors in the city of Sayre. In America this kind of thing is common: even though the driveway is yours, the residents inside have the right to use it, otherwise their car cannot get in. Seth used the word "road" as a pun: you do not like sharing your road with the world, and you also did not want to share the driveway with others when buying the house.
At 11:43, Rob told Jane: most of the Seth material has a certain quality—once you hear it, the matter becomes so obvious that we instead seem rather dull. The moment Seth points it out, it is as if the matter is so obvious: why did we like houses whose owners were artists, why were the real estate agents all involved in art, and yet we never thought of it before. But once Seth pointed it out, it became clear. Including why they liked those two houses—because both had structures with a studio-like quality. Why could they not think of it before it was pointed out? That was what frustrated the two of them.
Did Seth Actually Advise Them to Buy It
Rob later made a clarification. Before the break, Seth had said he had once advised them to buy that 1964 house -- but this was a distortion on Jane's part. Jane did not convey his true meaning when transmitting the material. Even in a trance state, Jane's memory could be mistaken, or she might have touched upon another probable reality.
Seth had indeed said: if we really bought that house, we would enjoy benefits. But Seth did not directly advise them to buy it. Rob is a serious person. He went back through the records at the time, and in Session 65 of the early sessions, on June 28, 1964, Seth discussed the whole matter, using sentences like this:
I will never make any decisions for you. The house you looked at today will prove to be an excellent choice.
Actually, Seth had already made it quite obvious. I will never make decisions for you -- this house, for you two, will definitely not be wrong, and it will be proven so later. The words were that clear. How much clearer could they be? To insist that Seth say, "You two go buy this house" -- how could that be possible! From any angle, Seth should not say such a thing, nor would he say such a thing. The advice Seth gave them was often very gentle, standing from the position of suggestion, rather than being overbearing or coercive. Looking at this sentence normally, it is already very clear. But the matter passed. Having an impression of it is enough.
Seth's Advice on Finding a House
At 11:55, Seth continued.
When you moved to this neighborhood, you chose the current apartment particularly because it is a very specialized place where work and home are combined. The dentist next door lives and works in the same house — at that time dentists would work from home — quite interesting, a front-shop-back-factory setup. The other dentist around the corner, and the chiropractor next to him, are the same way. Office and home in the same location — that is what attracted them.
For that reason, certain so-called urban locations suit you well. Since you like this home-and-office-together arrangement, this kind of studio is very suitable for you, and you can go look for it in the city. Elmira is not a metropolis, so there is not much to be found, but in some areas, old houses on large plots of land sit among other houses now used as offices — between residential and commercial zones, some houses have this work-oriented quality suited for freelancers.
Seth had been advising them all along: the suburbs are clearly not suitable for you; you are not suited for the suburbs, unless you find a house that is separated from other houses yet still within the same general area. In America, the farther out into the suburbs, the better the houses actually are — many good houses are in the suburbs, very quiet, comfortable surroundings, nice greenery, but entirely oriented toward living. Some houses in America have no one within several kilometers; you have to drive more than ten minutes before you find any sign of people. Seth said they also would not like that kind of purely isolated house. You like being in the suburbs, but you also want to be able to look out for one another, to see neighbors when you step outside, while at the same time keeping things clearly separate. You liked the two houses in Sayre and Foster because the land separated them from the neighbors and gave clearly defined boundaries — this is very important to both of you.
As with that kind of inner connection mentioned before: when you are making a major decision, all parts of your psyche are mobilized, which means all possibilities may be called up. Your intentions flow outward, and others can receive them; everyone involved knows what kind of house you like and that you want to buy a house.
For example, merely probing into the possibilities evoked by all those people interested in either of those two houses would take an entire book.
Even the current owner of the Foster house — the woman — is herself involved in work related to real estate; she does interior decorating. She is quite proud of the carpet in that house; it is there for others to see, representing what she considers suitable for that house, and it is also connected to her own work. But Ruburt felt the carpet there was not right — the carpet has a homey feel to it, with no sense of an office.
Dreaming of "Wait a Few More Days"
Seth said that the inner voice said "wait a few more days" because Ruburt unconsciously knew that the homeowner had already received a higher offer that most likely would not go through, and that the woman owner would be more willing to lower the price afterward. Although that higher offer would not end up closing, if two offers were on the table at the same time right then, one high and one low, the low one would definitely just be passed over. So her inner self was reminding her: if you want to buy this house, wait a few more days before making an offer, and don't do anything right now.
As it turned out, Jane didn't listen at all. Early the next morning, she went and made a very low offer -- wasn't that just asking for trouble? Of course they rejected her. But what's interesting is this: once the other party rejected her, she actually felt more at ease.
Rob asked Seth whether he wanted to say anything about Jane's auditory experience. Seth said:
Of course I can't answer that question quickly. However, I can mention briefly that Ruburt's own information was correct, but it did indeed come from the library information. Whenever you want, I can go into more detail.
One more point: both of these houses also had built-in bookshelves -- the kind that cover an entire wall, already finished. This is a physical version of Ruburt's psychic library. Hadn't Ruburt been building a psychic library in his mind all along? Both of these houses had these large physical bookshelves, which for Ruburt were a version of his psychic library in the three-dimensional world.
Seth said, if you want that explanation now, I can give it to you, otherwise we'll talk about it later. Rob said: after thinking it over, I'm afraid we'll have to wait and talk about it later. I just realized how tired I am. By this time it was already past midnight; they had been going at it from a little after nine until past twelve. Seth said: all right, I sincerely wish you good luck in finding a house.
Rob's Note: The Nine Families of Consciousness
What follows are some notes Rob made. There are notes added two weeks later, in Session 738 and Appendix 27, containing supplementary material about the name of the family of consciousness that Sue mentioned -- why it differs from the nine families of consciousness. Also included is Glen Naifeh's special significance to Sue.
When Seth first gave the names of the families of consciousness in Session 731 at 11:14, Rob listed them. Here Teacher Xiyu made a very detailed chart, arranging the nine families in a nine-square grid layout, and also listed a spiraling ascending order -- he did not follow the order Seth gave, but arranged them according to a process of spiral development. From the perspective of spiritual development, the nine families of consciousness themselves have no hierarchy of high or low, noble or base; they simply represent different levels and different expressions of consciousness.
Rob made a brief summary of the nine families of consciousness:
Gramada establishes social systems; they are good at organizing. Sumafi transmits original, unadulterated human knowledge through teaching. Tumold is healing -- regardless of what the individual's behavior is, regardless of what work he does, he is healing, whether fixing cars or fixing people. Vold reforms the status quo; they are reformers, with precognitive and foreseeing abilities. Milumet mystically nourishes the human psyche; they are often hermits and recluses. Zuli serves as a model of the body or of movement, a model of the physical body. Borledim, through acting as parents, provides the earth with an inventory of humanity -- you can understand this as humanity's excellent gene pool. Ilda is the disseminator, spreading and exchanging concepts. Sumari is the one asked about most -- covered in Sessions 723, 732, 734, and 736 -- providing humanity with cultural, psychic, and artistic inheritance.
Rob said that Seth's material on the families of consciousness raised many questions for them: how do the members of each family operate through the mechanisms of reincarnation, or through probabilities, and through counterparts?
And Jane herself, ever since Session 732 about a month earlier, had been thinking about the whole subject of psychic interrelationships. She recently wrote:
We take Seth's material on counterparts and the families of consciousness as excellent interpretations, as thematic frameworks that help us perceive and organize those aspects of our greater reality that conventional academia has overlooked. Seth's explanations represent facets of reality that usually escape our attention.
Jane's meaning is this: Seth's nine families of consciousness look at the spiritual divisions of humanity from a higher vantage point -- transcending race, nation, culture, and ethnicity -- and this is something ordinarily not noticed. If one pays a little attention, one can indeed discover that human beings with such traits exist. It seems so obvious once seen. And every person living at any given time participates in one or more psychic groups -- a person can belong to one family of consciousness, or can belong to different families of consciousness at the same time. Jane's view on this is indeed the case; don't be too rigid about it. In real life, many people often carry the traits of several families of consciousness at once, and this is perfectly normal.
Rob's Note: The Dream and the Offer
Note 3. When Jane was taking a nap last Friday afternoon, she asked her inner self to let her know what she should do about buying the Foster house. As a result, she fell asleep and drifted into a rather ordinary dream. Suddenly a male voice, a very intrusive kind of voice, loudly pierced through the curtain of the dream, and said loudly within the dream: "Wait a few days!"
Then Jane woke up. The voice was so loud. She knew it was not Seth's voice, but she recognized that he was the one giving her the answer. Even more certain than the dream—because the dream was so vague that she could hardly remember what it was about, but she remembered this sentence.
But even after getting the answer, she was too excited to follow it. Jane said: I simply could not contain my excitement; I had to try making an offer. I just felt I wanted to do something, and I could not wait. The result was that on Saturday she made an offer on the Foster house for us, at their low price.
She did this mainly to release the psychic energy we had accumulated toward it. If she still felt like it later, she could make a higher offer. Her logic was: we had looked at this house for so long, and no one had made an offer before. Now, when I wanted to buy it, someone else suddenly made an offer. I was not willing to accept that, so I had to make an offer first to get into position. If the other side gave me a counteroffer, I could still raise my price, and the initiative would be entirely in my hands. I would also roughly know what price the other side had offered, and I would know whether to raise my price or not.
Jane was actually playing a normal, worldly little game. This is a very normal strategy in buying a house, and there is nothing wrong with it. But you see, she would not listen to the guidance her spirit had given her. She insisted on using her human intellect to do this, and she got a hard slap in the face for it: because she made a low offer, and by then the other side already had a high offer. The owner did not follow the normal routine—the normal routine is that no matter how low your offer is, when there are only two buyers, I should at least give you a counteroffer and see how you respond. But this owner was quite distinctive and simply rejected it outright, without even a counteroffer. Rejection meant: your price is so low that I will not even counter it; I will just flatly turn it down.
That was very awkward. At that point, if you raise your price and submit a new offer, you become very passive. This is the most passive situation in buying and selling a house. Of course, both sides take some risk—for the seller, if that high offer does not go through, he loses a potential buyer. Unless the housing market is extremely hot. Right now in the Los Angeles area, for houses in good locations with low asking prices, it is common for forty-some people to make offers at the same time4, and the competition is very fierce. But with only two buyers making offers, this kind of no-counteroffer situation is also rather unusual.
But that is how it happened. The inner self told her not to make an offer, told her to wait, and she simply would not listen.
Theoretically speaking, after the other side rejected her, her connection with this house was basically gone. At that point, if you come back and shamelessly make a high offer, you are in a very passive position. The other side feels insulted: I am clearly selling a house worth 200,000, and you offered me 160,000; you do not recognize the value of my house at all. Many American sellers are very strong-willed.
Speaking of this, I can mention a digression about cultural differences between East and West. Among Chinese buyers, bargaining is like haggling with a vendor at a vegetable market—you have to keep cutting until you cannot cut any further. For example, if a house is selling for one million, he offers 800,000, and the other side ignores him. Suppose he offers 900,000, and the other side thinks it is worth discussing and counters with 960,000. Then the buyer says he will offer 920,000. If the other side has no other offers, they may patiently counter with 955,000. The buyer sees that the other side is not giving much, and still wants to press a little more, so he offers 935,000, then 940,000... Generally, after this back-and-forth happens more than three times, the other side loses confidence. They think you are a very difficult buyer, that you do not take this matter seriously, that you are treating it like buying vegetables. Sometimes they will not sell to you anymore. When you finally say, "I agree to 960,000, will you sell or not," the other side will not sell to you—because they feel you do not respect them, that you have a shameless mentality, always probing the other side's bottom line.
Chinese people feel that if I do not probe the other side's bottom line in a negotiation, I am losing out. I want to squeeze out these ten or twenty thousand dollars, these seventy or eighty thousand yuan, so I do not lose out. This also often appears in international trade negotiations, and in negotiations between countries. This is a cultural difference between East and West, and it is not a matter of who is right or wrong. But you need to understand the other side, and both sides need to understand and respect each other. If you absolutely must close this deal, then you have to respect the other side; if it does not matter whether the deal closes or not, then you can completely disregard the other side's feelings. In Western society, a widely accepted, conventional concept has formed: both sides bargain with each other in a sincere and serious manner.
This owner was actually already angry. Although from the perspective of the inner self, the person who made the high offer would ultimately not close the deal, and it was also inappropriate for him to reject Jane so rashly. You and Jane really liked the Foster house, and did not like the house on the hillside. But look at how it all turned out in the end—everyone already knows the result: they ultimately bought the house on the hill. Actually, at the very beginning, Rob said he went to look at the hillside house again and still felt it was not suitable, and Jane also said it was not suitable, so that hillside house was never their first choice. Seth did not like that house either—the house had a bad orientation, and it was too suburban.
But it happened by such a strange twist of fate. Actually, if Jane had just waited a few more days, until that high offer had fallen through, and then made a low offer, the other side would at least have sat down and talked seriously with her. But that is how it was. When you make an important decision, all kinds of possibilities will emerge, and that was also one possibility. In the end, Jane could not hold her nerve, did not listen to the inner self's direction, and once again produced this kind of result.
Rob said:
Our strategy succeeded in releasing our energy, and I guess we are no longer connected to that Foster house.
Rob's intuition was correct. Anyone who has lived in America for a while and has some experience with this process understands—at that point there was really no hope anymore. Offer, counteroffer, offer, counteroffer—like playing Go or checkers, you cannot use your rights without limit. At every step you have to consider the other side's tolerance and the point at which they will accept. If the offer is too low, the other side will often simply ignore you, and afterward they will not sell to you either—you may say you will make a higher offer later, but they still will not sell.
Some of our Chinese buyers say when making an offer, "Just try 800,000 and see—what if they agree?" There is no "what if." As an agent, you have to understand this market rule: you cannot make offers recklessly. If you really want this house, making an offer like that means the other side will simply ignore you. If the other side's agent is not very professional, they might call and curse you out—but generally speaking, the other side will not even bother to curse. They think you are completely out of line, and there is nothing to say to you. At that point, if the buyer says, "If 800,000 does not work, we can add a little more," it is already meaningless. Even if you raise it to 1.2 million, they will not sell to you. They feel that you are not on the same wavelength, they look down on you, they feel you are insulting them, and they simply will not sell this house to you. They are just that strong-willed.
So Rob understood that we basically could no longer buy this house. But he gave himself some comfort: since we had already achieved our goal, which was to release the energy, we had no interest in knowing whether anyone else had made a higher offer on that house. He did not want to ask around either—the other side had rejected it outright, and it would be very difficult for the transaction to proceed any further.
Rob's Note: The Threefold Personality
Over the weekend, they tested the three layers or three parts of Jane's self involved in Jane's auditory experience. This simple dream involved Jane's true threefold personality:
There was a dreaming self, which provided a stable framework -- that very ordinary dream. Then there was the intrusive self in the library -- the voice did not come from Seth, but from the library. It was that Ruburt in Jane's psychic library, speaking to Jane through the dream. Then there was her conscious self -- the self that woke up, which both felt the sentence heard by the dreaming self and knew that the one speaking that sentence to her was the Ruburt self in the psychic library. The receiver of the information, and the part that organized it all, was that part of her psyche.
Rob's Note: The Stans
Note four touches again on several side branches involved in the house affair. These side branches include the real estate agents Jane and Rob kept dealing with in Sayre and Elmira -- for instance, the Johnsons and Debbie, who did not know each other -- as well as the rich field of related possibilities involving a number of other people.
When Debbie took Jane and Rob to see the Foster house on February 5, Debbie told them that another couple (Rob calls them the Stans) also lived in Sayre, had also seen this Foster house, and were planning to make an offer, while at the same time trying to sell their own house in Sayre. Rob and Jane did not pay much attention to this, merely filing it away in their minds as connected to what had developed from their house-hunting the year before -- even now, they still did not understand how the complex connections between the event of April 1974, when they looked at Mr. Mark's house, and this present matter would continue to develop and grow.
For example, when Jane and Rob rediscovered Mr. Mark's house in Sayre on March 17, they were surprised that it was still for sale. They immediately visited Johnson -- the real estate agent who had shown them that house the year before. Then they ran into another surprise: the Johnsons were also handling the sale of the Stans' house in Sayre.
Did you follow the storyline here? They went to see the Foster house, and the real estate agent Debbie told them that another couple had also seen the house -- a pair of music teachers. This couple of music teachers had a house in Sayre, and they wanted to sell the Sayre house and move to Elmira. The very house the two of them had their eyes on happened to be the same house Rob and Jane had their eyes on. Then they went back to Sayre and happened to see that the house they had wanted to buy the year before but hadn't was still unsold, so they immediately contacted the real estate agent Johnson. Johnson not only told them that this house had not sold, but also told them that he was carrying another listing -- and the sellers of that house were the couple called the Stans, the very pair of music teachers who also wanted to buy a house in Elmira.
That is the connection. You can see how complex the complexity in the middle is. These things seem coincidental, seem accidental, yet the inner connections are so intriguing.
What Rob wants to emphasize here is that the Stans were music teachers, and they had once been attracted to a house in Elmira that had been owned for many years by a man -- a man who was a businessman, yet had a strong connection to music, especially the piano. Incidentally, Mr. Stan taught in Elmira, so Mrs. Stan decided to move here to reduce his back-and-forth between Sayre and Elmira.
Seth said that Jane and Rob would be interested in the Stans' home in Sayre, but that was not in fact the case. Today, after Johnson told them that the Stans' Sayre house was also for sale, they drove past it and took a look -- the fact is, it had nothing that sparked their interest. Rob says Seth suggested we go look at the Stans' house in Sayre, but when I looked at it I simply was not interested; there was no point of interest at all.
Rob adds that the reason Jane and he made a low offer on the Foster house had nothing whatsoever to do with the price the Stans and others had offered on that house. It was not that the two of them had made a higher offer and we thought it unreasonable, so we made a low one. There was no connection.
Notes five and six need not be discussed further; they both say that at the beginning of the next session (Session 738) there will be a relevant introduction.
At the conscious level, there is truly too little patience for listening to one's own inner counsel. From this sentence you can see that Rob still held a certain grievance toward Jane. Because the two of them had not actually taken to the house on the hill; their first choice was the Foster house. But because of Jane's hastiness and her failure to heed inner counsel, she insisted on rushing out a low offer, and that led to all of this.
Behind all of this, there are endless inner connections and possibilities. Have you never thought about it? If, when Debbie took Jane and Rob to see the house, she had not told them that there was another couple called the Stans also looking at this house and possibly making an offer, then they might have made a normal offer, and would not have been so hasty and made a low one. It was precisely because they learned of this, learned that the other party had made a high offer, that they then insisted on making another offer -- he also knew that two people were competing for one house, but he did not want to offer such a high price, and the final result is what we see today.
Actually, you may not have noticed that in buying a house, Rob really listened to Jane. On the surface it looked as though he was looking at houses and making decisions, but he placed great weight on Jane's decisions. For instance, he really liked that house in Sayre, but after Jane saw it she had little interest, so he did not buy it. And Rob actually liked this Foster house very much, and Jane liked it too -- neither of them liked the house on the hill. In the end, because of this, they missed out on it, and finally bought the house on the hill.
The Content of This Session
This session is quite long, but it is not particularly difficult. It is as if it rambles on a bit: the first part describes the characteristics of two other families of consciousness, and the latter part discusses the various possibilities and inner connections involved in their buying a house. Through their descriptions, and most importantly through their story, we can reflect on the things that happen in our own lives -- do the events in our lives also have similar inner connections that we have overlooked? If you can discover some clues in the midst of it, that is also a gain that the Seth material can bring you.
注释与核实
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Source: German Historical Museum, "Middle Ages" (https://www.dhm.de/en/exhibitions/permanent-exhibition/middle-ages/) ↩
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Source: Jeanne Sager, "How Do I Change the Real Estate Closing Date on a House?" 2022 (https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/how-do-i-change-the-closing-date-on-a-house-2/) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, it was "zero down payment, zero interest loan"; upon verification, it should be "a U.S. VA-guaranteed home purchase loan can have zero down payment when conditions are met, but it is not zero interest; the lender charges interest, and the borrower may also need to pay the VA funding fee and closing costs." (Source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, "Purchase Loan," https://www.va.gov/housing-assistance/home-loans/loan-types/purchase-loan/) ↩
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Source: Los Angeles Business Journal, "Leaders of Influence: Residential Real Estate Brokers," 2024 (https://labusinessjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/LOI-RREB_opt.pdf) ↩