physical matter

Clue Archive for physical matter

1. What exactly did Seth claim about this concept? How many times, in which books, and does the wording change over time?

The formation of matter: The material clearly attributes to Seth the claim that matter is continuously constructed at the subconscious level by every individual within the material system—including both human and non-human—whereby individuals also create and maintain their own physical body image, though they are ordinarily unaware of this process.[esp-power §13] Session 14 states the same claim as: all living beings construct matter at the subconscious level.[esp-power §14]

Matter and apparitions: Session 13 records that Seth explained ghostly apparitions and changes in facial features as demonstrations of how matter is constructed; the Seth quotations cited in that session further state that he exists in an energy form and is able to alter the arrangement of his own structural components, thereby changing form.[esp-power §13]

Matter and personality: Session 14 proposes that the personality—including the subconscious and dream self—is already to a certain degree independent of matter, and on this basis explores the possibility of the personality's continued existence after physical death.[esp-power §14] That session further offers a conditional inference: if matter is indeed constructed by the subconscious, then physical death means the individual ceases to construct his or her own body image, and the personality may continue to exist, even reconstituting under certain conditions an apparition resembling the original body; these passages adopt hypothetical and probabilistic wording and cannot all be taken as direct assertions by Seth.[esp-power §14]

Frequency and books: Counting by distinct sessions (excluding internal repetitions within excerpts), there are 2 substantive statements conveying the claim that "matter is constructed by the subconscious," both in How to Develop Your ESP Power, at Sessions 13 and 14 respectively; this only fixes the location of the statements within the material and cannot determine how many times Seth actually said them.[esp-power §13, §14] The contents given in the other 4 books are all promotional blurbs, repeatedly introducing that "the physical world is continual self-creation, the product of a conscious, self-aware, and vitally alive universe," which cannot be counted as 4 independent Seth statements.[early-sessions-8 §421] [personal-sessions-7 §?] [personal-sessions-6 §?] [personal-sessions-4 §?]

Wording and chronology: "Each individual, human or otherwise" in Session 13 and "all living beings" in Session 14 constitute an observable wording difference, but the two sessions provide no dates that could be used for chronological comparison.[esp-power §13, §14] Three excerpts dated 1978-08-28, 1982-05-10, and 1984-01-02 repeat the same promotional blurb, and all lack session numbers, so these dates cannot be used to demonstrate that Seth's wording on matter changed over time.[personal-sessions-4 §?] [personal-sessions-6 §?] [personal-sessions-7 §?]

2. What mechanism did he give?

Seth proposed that matter is continuously constructed at the subconscious level by every individual within the material system—including both humans and other individuals—whereby individuals also create and maintain their own material image, usually without conscious awareness of this process.[esp-power §13]

The mechanism is that the subconscious materializes and projects ideas or inner vitality into material constructions; this capacity is inherent in atoms, molecules, and even smaller particles, and therefore pervades the entire body and other living beings.[early-sessions-2 §51] He stated that atoms and molecules possess universal consciousness and a certain limited self-consciousness, with the material storing information in a condensed "mental genetic code"; the projection capacity belongs to this universal consciousness and operates without requiring the ego's awareness or understanding.[early-sessions-2 §51]

Regarding tissue formation, atoms and molecules retain their individual distinctiveness while combining into a unified whole, i.e., a "gestalt"; cells are therefore psychological gestalts that acquire material form through the inherent constructive capacity of each component part.[early-sessions-2 §51]

Regarding the transmission of instructions for bodily construction, the personality determines its main characteristics of its own accord before entering the material layer; the entity transmits inner data into the mental genetic system, which is then conveyed through the universal consciousness of molecules to the chromosome system, which translates the data into the material code that cells follow.[early-sessions-2 §51] The mental genetic code maintains the purpose and data of construction, while chromosomes carry the translated inner instructions in condensed material form.[early-sessions-2 §51]

Concerning the apparitions he described, constructions entering the material layer must be composed of atoms and molecules, but their motion and speed may differ from those of ordinary material constructions; he stated that he changes form by altering the arrangement of his basic energy components, focusing his power, and directly manipulating the structure or the entire self from within, thereby rearranging molecular patterns.[esp-power §13] In perceiving such a construction, he stated that the inner senses first receive the data, then convert it into information that the outer senses can perceive.[esp-power §13]

3. Are there observable inferences or explicit predictions (including time, quantity, or conditions)?

The material addresses none.

4. Where did he say the science of his time was wrong, and in what direction should it look?

The errors of contemporary science lay mainly in: the second law of thermodynamics in physics treated the universe as a closed system and predicted eventual energy exhaustion, while Seth insisted that no closed systems exist and that energy is always exchanged between systems [unknown-reality-2 §744]; science thought of matter in terms of particles or waves yet ignored consciousness and its overall formation and manifestation, which constitute its knowledge barrier [unknown-reality-1 §702]; Darwinian evolutionary theory assumed that life arose by chance, while Seth said that consciousness always creates form, not the reverse [unknown-reality-2 §744]; and science attempted to create life from dead matter in test tubes while completely disregarding the role of consciousness in the process [unknown-reality-2 §744].

The correct direction lies in: acknowledging that matter is composed of conscious entities—namely electromagnetic energy units (EE units) and units of consciousness (CUs)—so that all matter is therefore alive [unknown-reality-2 §744]; research should proceed from biology through microbiology into physics, ultimately approaching EE units and CUs, and exploring "design" as the link between "living" and "nonliving" systems [unknown-reality-2 §744]; physicists discuss energy while Seth discusses consciousness, which constitutes the fundamental contrast between the two approaches to exploring reality [unknown-reality-2 §744]; only by perceiving the inner consciousness behind any "visible" or "invisible" manifestation can one break through the limits of one's own knowledge [unknown-reality-1 §702].

5. What experiments or exercises did he suggest? What did Jane and Rob actually do and observe?

In early sessions, Seth mentioned that experiences perceived in dreams (such as smells) are recorded and registered by the body just like actual sensory experiences, and can even be recalled under hypnosis; such dream experiences hold equal status with real sensory experiences in memory for the physical body [early-sessions-6 §240]. Jane (Ruburt), in her psychological time experiments, called this deep tingling or excited state "ecstasy," a state that may appear in the limbs or parts of the body, or throughout the entire body [early-sessions-6 §240].

During sessions, Rob experienced a "pleasant languor" accompanied by acute vision and a "familiar old exuberant thrill" (rich tingling or thrilling) that spread from his feet to his legs, hips, and the back of his head, persisting through the rest period; Seth explained in Session 24 that such sensations sometimes represent Rob's attempts to perceive Seth and at other times his attempts to perceive data beyond the ordinary sensory channels [early-sessions-6 §240]. During one session, Jane subjectively felt her facial features change (jaw elongating to a pointed shape, head seeming to sink toward her shoulders), and at the same time Bill Macdonnel saw an "apparition" appear at the apartment door and made a sketch of it; Seth said the apparition was him, and that Bill could see it while Jane and Rob could not, because the two of them were "too critical" of what they saw [early-sessions-6 §240]. In the same session, Jane held an envelope to her forehead for a remote impression experiment, offering Rob specific descriptions of items (package, glass, text, numbers, etc.) that the other party had provided [early-sessions-6 §240].

Seth instructed that dreams must be recorded in chronological order, and that dream locations should be recorded and carefully examined; Jane accordingly classified dream locations into: familiar everyday places, exotic places never traveled to, places appearing in their past form, places no longer physically existing, completely unfamiliar places, vaguely indistinct places, and recurring unfamiliar places [dreams-projections §3]. In analyzing her 800 dreams, Jane found that only 70 occurred at her hometown, and most concerned the present rather than the past; dream locations were roughly evenly distributed between completely unfamiliar places and vaguely hard-to-recall places, with only 7 dreams set abroad; she further found that most precognitive dreams occurred in locations unfamiliar at the time [dreams-projections §3]. Over four consecutive nights, Jane recorded 21 dreams, including four exciting episodes of fleeing from danger, overcoming danger through wit, or confronting it head-on, and including a dream of radioactive rain (a dream later shown to be precognitive) [dreams-projections §3]. Jane recorded a dream of her friend Sue Watkins: in the dream, Sue entered a parallel world in which Jane and Rob had stopped using the Seth material, and discussed with them the nature of physical reality [dreams-projections §3].

Rob once had a spontaneous out-of-body projection: on a winter night, he had just lain down on the living-room sofa, and the next moment he was awake at his worktable in his studio, with the lights on, until he realized he should have been in the living room and immediately snapped back into his body [dreams-projections §3]. In another experiment, Rob, after lying down, floated above his physical body while staying awake; he tried to use the sound of his own snoring as propulsion to detach from his body, until he was interrupted by Jane waking him; the entire episode lasted less than five minutes [dreams-projections §3]. In Session 583, Seth commented on Rob's experience: Rob chose to experiment in a familiar and comfortable environment, at a slow and relaxed pace, and knew in advance that Jane's voice would come to wake him as a safety assurance; he also noted that the sense of time during out-of-body experience can be very different from physical perception [dreams-projections §3]. Jane's own out-of-body experiments, by contrast, often deliberately attempted to leave the body slowly so that she could observe the entire process, since she usually left the body too quickly to see how she did so [dreams-projections §3].

6. Supplements or contradictions from other concepts in the corpus related to this concept?

Matter and energy/psychological energy:

• Matter is essentially energy transformed into forms with certain specific properties, forms that can be perceived by the senses and manipulated under specific conditions [early-sessions-2 §60].
• Matter is the medium through which psychological energy is manipulated and transformed into "building blocks," with conscious energy behind it [early-sessions-2 §60].
• Matter is caused by pulsations of energy that adopt a formal pattern pre-formed by the energy's inner consciousness [early-sessions-2 §63].
• Matter is created directly from energy at the subconscious level, a spontaneous and instantaneous creation [early-sessions-2 §60].

The continuous creation and non-continuity of matter:

• Matter is continuously created, but no particular physical object is itself continuous [early-sessions-2 §60].
• A particular physical object (such as a tree, rock, or chair) is not physically the same yesterday, nor will it be the same tomorrow [early-sessions-2 §60].
• The growth and decay you perceive are not changes as you conceive them; matter itself does not age or deteriorate [early-sessions-2 §60].
• Any material object is continuously "re-created," according to a seemingly fixed and rather permanent form [early-sessions-2 §60].
• The actual matter composing an object has long since completely disappeared many times, and the pattern is completely filled in by new matter [early-sessions-2 §60].
• No particular physical particle can exist for any length of time; it exists, disappears, and is immediately replaced by another [early-sessions-2 §60].
• The two actual properties of matter are spontaneity and instantaneousness; the third actual property is the "pattern assumption" [early-sessions-2 §60].

Matter and perception/individual creation:

• Matter appears permanent only because of the limitations of sensory perception; for the same object, different observers actually create and see their own different physical objects [early-sessions-2 §68].
• Every physical object must exist within a definite perspective and spatial continuum, and each person creates his or her own spatial continuum [early-sessions-2 §68].
• There is an infinitesimal point of overlap among the perspectives of different observers, but the actual objects each creates are different [early-sessions-2 §68].
• The "growth" of matter is not the expansion of a specific physical thing, but the process of expression when individualized psychological energy enters a specific domain [early-sessions-2 §60].

Matter and consciousness:

• Non-material combinations of chemical components do not produce consciousness; it is consciousness that gives matter meaning [early-sessions-2 §60].
• The "encapsulated understanding" of atoms and molecules forms specific objects under individual direction; this is cooperation rather than coercion [early-sessions-2 §68].
• The differences between fetus, infant, and adult are the process of energy entering the physical domain and constructing matter with ever-increasing skill [early-sessions-2 §60].

Matter and anti-matter/intervals:

• There is an "interval" between the pulsation of energy entering the physical field and its replacement, namely the so-called "anti-matter" or "negative matter" [early-sessions-2 §63].
• Within your own time system, you do not physically exist for a longer time than you physically do not exist [early-sessions-2 §63].
• Your senses are too slow to perceive this interval, but future instruments may discover it [early-sessions-2 §63].
• The anti-matter universe and the positive-matter universe exist simultaneously; it is composed of the "before-image" and "after-image" of your universe [early-sessions-2 §63].

7. Questions not yet asked

1. Predictive processing theory holds that the brain actively constructs the perceptual world. Can this be compared at the neural-mechanism level with Seth's claim that "the individual constructs matter subconsciously"? An fMRI experiment could be designed to contrast subjects' brain activation patterns when imagining objects with those during actual perception, testing whether subjective construction influences objective judgment.
2. Seth claims that different observers each create their own different physical objects. Can this be tested with multi-sensory integration experiments? For example, having two subjects simultaneously touch the same object and describe it separately, measuring the consistency of their tactile-visual correspondence; significant differences would support a subjective-construction component.
3. The non-continuity of matter (particles vanishing and being replaced instantaneously) could potentially be tested using quantum erasure experiments or fluorescence correlation spectroscopy in quantum physics. Could a double-slit delayed-choice experiment be designed to statistically analyze the temporal correlation of particle arrival patterns, looking for measurable discontinuous gaps?
4. Seth says atoms and molecules possess universal consciousness. Can this be mapped onto the microtubule quantum coherence hypothesis in quantum biology? Relevant literature could be searched, and quantum interference experiments designed to test whether consciousness-like measurement phenomena exist in molecular assemblies, comparing against classical predictions.
5. Dream sensory experiences are recorded by the body. Can this be verified through sleep research? An experiment could be designed: presenting a specific odor stimulus during REM sleep while recording physiological responses, then testing memory of or conditioned responses to the odor upon waking, comparing whether the effects equal those of waking-state stimulation.

Appendix: Claim list (for Stage C)

id	Claim	Type	Source
physical-matter-1	Matter is continuously constructed at the subconscious level by every individual within the material system, whereby the individual creates and maintains his or her own body image, ordinarily without awareness.	Ontological assertion	esp-power §13
physical-matter-2	All living beings construct matter at the subconscious level.	Ontological assertion	esp-power §14
physical-matter-3	Atoms and molecules possess universal consciousness and a certain limited self-consciousness, and contain a condensed "mental genetic code."	Ontological assertion	early-sessions-2 §51
physical-matter-4	Matter is the medium through which psychological energy is manipulated and transformed into "building blocks," with conscious energy behind it.	Mechanism description	early-sessions-2 §60
physical-matter-5	Matter is caused by pulsations of energy that adopt a formal pattern pre-formed by the energy's inner consciousness.	Mechanism description	early-sessions-2 §63
physical-matter-6	No particular physical object is itself continuous; matter is continuously created, and physical particles exist, disappear, and are immediately replaced by another.	Ontological assertion	early-sessions-2 §60
physical-matter-7	Matter appears permanent only because of sensory limitations; different observers actually create and see their own different physical objects.	Ontological assertion	early-sessions-2 §68
physical-matter-8	No closed systems exist; energy is always exchanged between systems.	Ontological assertion	unknown-reality-2 §744
physical-matter-9	Matter is composed of conscious entities—namely electromagnetic energy units (EE units) and units of consciousness (CUs)—so all matter is alive.	Ontological assertion	unknown-reality-2 §744
physical-matter-10	Experiences perceived in dreams are recorded and registered by the body, holding equal status with real sensory experiences in memory.	Ontological assertion	early-sessions-6 §240
physical-matter-11	Seth can change form by altering the arrangement of his basic energy components, focusing his power, and directly manipulating the structure from within.	Mechanism description	esp-power §13
physical-matter-12	The personality determines its main characteristics of its own accord before entering the material layer; the entity transmits inner data into the mental genetic system, which is conveyed through the universal consciousness of molecules to the chromosome system.	Mechanism description	early-sessions-2 §51