text:
Transcribed by Paula Reinke
Edited by Paul Helfrich
Recorded in Toronto, Canada on August 03, 2003
Session starts at 8:25 PM.
KRIS: We wish you a pleasant evening.
PAUL: Hello, Kris. It's a pleasure to meet you.
KRIS: We trust that you are comfortable, and there is gunpowder in your gun. (Paul and Mark laugh) You were previously speaking of social and cultural patterns[?], a phenomenon that is quite important for the evolution of your species in terms of value fulfillment. Without those periodic deconstruction and new construction of ideas, ideals, and philosophical goals, your species would peter out rather quickly having no other heights to reach. Thus occasionally you have individuals who put forth ideas, new or reworked insights into the social and cultural fabric of your civilizations. Some fall by the wayside, while others seem to take root, sometimes like weeds, and thus change the fabric of your understanding as a species.
You thus create new mythologies, often without adequate insight into the long-term impacts upon your collective state of being. And at the same time, there is still an unconscious agreement to go the distance, because you will be able to challenge assumptions – cultural, social, scientific, medical, and other belief structures – and then reach beyond your own limitations when you find yourselves struggling for ideals.
And you also recognize that your collective breath is being choked out of your collective bodies by the new ideals you have accepted that are no longer sufficient and far too restricting. And you are now in that stage of recognizing collectively that many of the myths that you have created whether in terms of religions, sciences, philosophies; together they no longer nourish the self, but instead feel more like a slow dose of strychnine. Do you follow?
PAUL: Yes, absolutely.
KRIS: Thus there are pockets of individuals here and there trying to instill, to inject, to infuse [the] consciousness of mankind with new ideals. Unfortunately, many of these challenging new ideas are nothing more than a rehash and chewed-over philosophical perspectives that are nothing new, but simply labeled.
Jane/Ruburt and Seth made a concerted effort, and those kinds of explorations of consciousness are what is needed – not a digression, but a willingness to continue exploring in that particular path that was started. Thus we are hoping that you will find sufficient clarity in what we have suggested and said to continue your interests.
PAUL: Great! Yes, that was very helpful as an opening set of ideas for me. It leads into an area that I'm exploring and an interest of mine. And I was wondering, I think I'm going to start upon an idea that maybe I'll just call the spectrum of human consciousness, really the spectrum of all consciousness, and human beings as part of it. And Seth talked about the psyche as three nested processes. He called the waking state that I'm experiencing now the outer ego. He talks about a subconscious portion of the conscious mind, and he also talks about an inner ego. And of course we know they are not separated – just like a rainbow and the colors aren't really separated – but he gives three distinctions as a point of further exploration of the Self 1.
I'll also throw in Elias, who is another channeled source by Mary Ennis. He defines the psyche as objective and subjective awareness – with the objective being the waking state and physical senses, and subjective being the inner senses and sleep states 2. And I just wanted, Kris, to throw out in a very general way this roadmap that I'm exploring with others – whether it's a new idea or it's a rehashed idea, I will expect you to be honest with me, I'm sure you will! (Laughing) But Seth talks about blueprints for reality and the concept of root assumptions in terms of Framework 1 and Framework 2. Seth doesn't talk that much about Frameworks 3 or Frameworks 4. He introduced those concepts and really developed Framework 1 and Framework 2 further.
So my first question, then, after that preamble is just to get your point of view on the blueprints. It seems that the blueprints for this Framework 1 that we're experiencing right now have this characteristic or a quality where we experience consciousness this way. And so I just wanted to get your perception of these levels of consciousness – of outer ego, subconscious, inner ego – as far as the blueprints.
KRIS: Do keep in mind, for example, Darwin, Charles Darwin, was not the only individual who proposed a new perspective. Some were not as rigid in their views. Some were even friends and contemporaries – other individuals working alongside or in similar societies in England. But Charles Darwin offered a particularly rigid view that still smacked of the same rigidity found within the previous paradigm, that an almost absolutist perception of the nature of mankind and reality and, thus, evolution that the church, the orthodoxy, also imposed upon society 3. Do you follow?
PAUL: Yes.
KRIS: Thus it was far more readily acceptable simply because the new priestly class simply had to don the doctor's robe as opposed to the high priest putting on the priestly robe. Do you follow?
PAUL: Absolutely. Mmhm.
KRIS: You have a similar set of opportunities presented with Sigmund Freud. There were other students of psychology and psychiatry or, basically put, the psyche, near his own time period [that were] contemporaries, even acquaintances. But they also offered a model, a blueprint, for the human psyche that was not as…
MARK: We're getting radio here. Are you there?
PAUL: Oh, I'm here.
MARK: We're picking up music.
PAUL: I don't hear anything on my end.
KRIS: The models that were offered by Freud's contemporaries were not as appealing because to some degree Freud offered a closeness to the philosophies of the orthodox and literalist doctrines of the Church, the Vatican. In spite of all of their objections and protestations, they themselves found a sister philosophy, one that still condemned mankind as being flawed and quite possibly, impossibly evil at heart. Do you understand?
PAUL: Absolutely, yes.
KRIS: So in spite of the Church's battles with this new psychiatry, they still found a resonance that enabled them to actually promote it through their vehement battles against it. For they existed simultaneously, side by side, in each discipline – Darwin and the Church, Freud and the Church – on both fronts they were seen somehow or other complementary. They still reflected the ideas that man was nothing but a beast and more at heart that could still be saved in the long run by the edict of the Church of the religions. Thus you had the two newly established blueprints or models for a new kind of psychic understanding of the human being that still could not go the distance.
We believe there were several others that, also within the fields of psychiatry and psychology, fought Freud but did not win in their pursuit, because they portrayed man not as a flawed and damned creature, but as one with redeemable qualities, even that the heart of man was good. Thus it still did not fit in with the overall accepted view of the human being.4
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: However, there's still a deep collective unconscious thrust for new models that will take mankind to that next stage. And we believe that is the blueprint of the model offered by Seth, as a voice, a single voice for the psyche. And the time is of great importance that it is not mere channeled material, but instead a deep and valuable manifesto of the human spirit.
PAUL: So if I could just comment on that.
KRIS: Indeed.
PAUL: We can look at Freud's work, and we can look at Darwin's work in a very general way from this now and this perspective, and see more of its limitations in that they were privy to expertise on the physical and even mental aspects of the human being. But the mental part stopped short of anything spiritual or soul and that was still in the purview of the Church.
And from a historical perspective of just say the last four hundred years where science came into prominence, that Freud and Darwin are two good examples – there's many, many others we could bring into the story, because Seth talks about them, too, showing how the rationality of science began to look at the models and make their own maps. And of course, they didn't realize how limited they were.
And with Freud, I believe, it's clearer to many psychologists today – we've had the transpersonal psychology movement since the 1960s, and Jane/Ruburt and Seth in their own way were parallel and part of that; there's an emerging school of Integral Psychology which goes even further into the subconscious, or what Seth calls the inner ego, and that's what the transpersonal psychologists are attempting for the last forty years to bring back to the table.
And so I just wanted to comment in that area that in the present now, or the last thirty, forty years, because, of course, Freud – I don't have the exact dates – but I believe he lived into the 1930s, Darwin around the late nineteenth century.5 So there are many other individuals whose ideas and work are less well known, but they're out there. And they reflect on this new model that you're talking about, and certainly, the information that Seth has presented, in terms of just the structure of the psyche, opens that up.
So people have been doing that, I guess is what I'm saying. And there's data, there's actually scientific data in the mental realm, in the psychological realm. And there are even attempts to reintegrate what we can just call the soul level or the inner ego level also, to bring that domain back to the table, not in terms of the old Darwinian or Freudian models, but in an expanded way.
KRIS: That expanse needs to work along the lines that each individual has his or her own private psychological model from which they weave together their mythology. And this is, then, a gray area because the tendency is always to pigeonhole the individual into an already existing model. Whether that model actually recognizes and respects the individual is sometimes very often never considered, that the individual should fit the statistical models.
And herein is the ever-evolving flaw that causes the collective individual to still seek new ways, to find the most challenging, the most artistic, and creative methods through which to express his or her own psychology, that is, through the art of his or her life. And this is where most psychological models have failed, is that the life of the individual is his or her mythology, his or his psychology, his or her philosophy.
PAUL: So as an example there, just to help me understand, for example, the uniqueness of each person's model, shall we say, or worldview, the dream imagery, and dream symbols are not absolute. For example, the dreaming of a snake is not necessarily a phallic symbol in every individual's personal mythology.
KRIS: Regrettably, though some may wish it to be that way, it is not the case.
PAUL: Right, so we're starting to look that – at least on the horizon on the leading edge anyway, a more relativistic approach to these models and not as absolutes, and yet trying to get as detailed as we can while simultaneously recognizing that they can never be completed, and break down at some point.
KRIS: And that is the sheer beauty and difficulty co-existing in the same moment…
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: … because the individual and his or her private mythological, psychological selves are ever in a state of becoming. Thus the model that needs to be used is one that makes allowances for the multiple selves that you all are, and these multiple selves have to incorporate your probable developments that includes notions of reincarnational selves, thus present/future selves, parallel selves, other-dimensional selves. Because in totality you are multidimensional creatures, you are eternal and immortal consciousness. And that model still does not exist in your collective sciences of the humanities.
PAUL: Well, there's those of us here who are beginning to work on it. (Laughs) So, there are some of us out here, and I'm sure you're aware of this.
KRIS: Indeed. You are laying the foundation. Since it is a rather large structure that you are building to accommodate from this, it takes time.
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: But that is one thing that humanity has much of.
PAUL: Yes. And I was just saying to my partner, Joanne, that for the first time in my life I can see, in a general way, the next twenty years of my life for the first time based on the amount of work that needs to be done. And bit by bit, day by day, the journey of a thousand miles continues one step at a time. And that's rather exciting for me. So I just had to add that, I think it's very cool, there's a lot of work to be done here, but day by day we're working on this in our own ways, too.
KRIS: Indeed. And it needs to be done in just that manner. Considering that in this plane, Darwin and Freud were accepted as the founding fathers of the new model, you also should take into consideration the possibility that in other planes they were not chosen. Others and their models were chosen and explored. And these may radically affect your understanding of the individual's mythological and psychological manifestations on this plane as well. Because you are indeed in an open-ended system, one where in truth, there are no absolutes but a variety of, we will simply call them quantum semi-absolutes. And you still have free flow of the echoes of all of those models in unlimited dimensions and planes where other blueprints have been chosen. And there, therefore, has to be some leeway where these appear in your system, because they do. But they are either shunned, shut out, ignored because it apparently does not fit in the model you now operate with.
Not you, yourself, but your societies.
PAUL: Right, collectively. And that's why this integral approach that I've been studying – and there's many people who are increasingly interested in what's just loosely called an integral approach – is to revisit some of those models that fell by the wayside during the last two hundred years, the last hundred years, see with new eyes from this now, and would actually reanimate those.6 And you're suggesting that some of those actually grew into prominence in terms of parallel, probable Framework 1′s that parallel ours, correct?
KRIS: Indeed.
MARK: That's something very comforting to me, to know that we didn't make all these wrong choices! (Laughs) The right choices were also made.
PAUL: Right! And even with the so-called wrong choices, in parallel, that we can reanimate that when our consciousness raises to the collective point that enough people start to create a movement, a new movement, a new fad, whatever you want to call it, a new paradigm.
MARK: A new construction.
PAUL: And put that out there into play, and see how that works, and see if it helps solve problems. That's why Darwin and Freud were successful, in some manner of speaking, that I don't pretend to fully understand. But they did solve problems at the time, and they were helpful. But then as Kris has said, as Seth, Elias and many others, other critics of those theories, that they created even more problems. They solved some, but then they created even more, and that's why new theories come about to solve some of those problems. And I'm talking in collective terms in a systemic fashion now.
KRIS: Consider for a moment the letter you received from Robert Butts where he mentions the possibility, perhaps, of looking in on humanity in one hundred years. Do you remember?
PAUL: Yes.7
KRIS: Now consider that in one hundred years from now, in your terms, there have been new psychologies developed – let us arbitrarily call them the philosophies of consciousness and the psychologies of consciousness – where individual therapists do not examine the person's apparent quirks, apparent aberrations and abnormalities, but instead considers an exploration of the person or the patient's consciousness, and effects therapeutic works, but from within the terms of that individual's consciousness, able to travel, in so many words, travel the distances necessary to bridge various personality traits and aspects of the focus personalities as they exist in various times and spaces.
A true quantum therapist, per se, one who delves into the private psyche of the individual in the individual's own terms, and explores it to effect a balance which will be far more effective than effecting a cure. The balance presupposes that the individual is not sick or demented, but that there needs to be a better understanding of the individual's own conflicting belief structures, and the personalities those belief structures are experimenting with.8 Do you understand?
PAUL: Yes. What you call a quantum therapist sounds very much like what Seth calls a true mental physician in terms of his dream-art science information.9
KRIS: Indeed.
PAUL: And I guess I just want to mention for the record, too, Jane Roberts's own work that she called Aspect Psychology, and that it matches Seth's three-part psyche. She called the outer ego a focus personality. She called the subconscious a nuclear self, and the inner ego a source self.10 So I just wanted to put that into play too that Jane's aspect model actually is a viable model that leads into this next….
MARK: Hold on. One second.
PAUL: Tape change.
MARK: Yup. Five to nine. Okay, go ahead.
PAUL: I'm just really enjoying this, Kris and Mark, I just have to say that, this is really wonderful.
So I was just bringing up Jane's Aspect Psychology, because I think that's a greatly undervalued model in this now, and it's something that I'm exploring and trying to bring back to the table, I guess, for transpersonal and even integral psychologies. And while I'm on that topic of Integral Psychology, I do want to mention that in terms of the perennial traditions in the Hindu, Sufi, Buddhist, Taoist – who did I leave out – the Judaic, the Christian mystical traditions, there are general roadmaps of the psyche that are fairly accurate.11 Would you agree with that, Kris?
KRIS: Indeed.
PAUL: In a general way, these roadmaps have mapped a similar spectrum of consciousness, and so trying to bring those perennial maps back to the table, but to also animate them with some of the benefits of modern techniques, methodologies, and best practices is the idea of the integral approach. And I think that's what we're playing with on one hand, just in terms of the theories and the models. The other part of this, of course, is the methodologies to be employed, and I don't pretend to understand them now, and I know they are evolving in our minds right now, and require further experimentation, and so on and so forth. So I just wanted to add that.
KRIS: For your own experimentation, you might periodically like to delve into a daydream state that leads you to confer with a future therapist, one that may theoretically exist one hundred years from now, as we have attempted to describe. And, from your perspective try to grasp the psychological perspective he or she may have in their time-space continuum, and how that might be integrated into your own thought patterns.
PAUL: Mmhm. That's a great idea. In fact, maybe that's some of what I do when I'm trying to write and theorize. (Laughs) I don't know where some of these ideas come from sometimes, and when I read them later I'm rather amazed sometimes!
KRIS: The basic idea of integral therapies, with integrational psychologies, can evolve to another, or to the next step, in your understanding of the collective and individual psyche that has to continue to take into consideration all of the individual's aspects. Whereas in the early fields of psychiatry, and psychotherapy, and so on and so forth, there was some attempt, but usually with the idea that if one becomes aware of some of the so-called negative or less desirable aspects, then one can control and sufficiently efface them from the psyche, or at least from awareness of the focus personality. And then that has created far more problems. Thus a large suicide rate among psychiatrists, for instance, because their life-long endeavors and investments would provide such a small effective cure.
MARK: The premise has always been that the individual is flawed. They're trying to fix something that's supposedly flawed that isn't flawed in the first place.
KRIS: Especially when the therapist sees himself or herself as unconditionally flawed; [it] is difficult to see that the patient is not flawed.
PAUL: So this raises an interesting point, Kris and Mark, that – let's just use our quantum therapist as a model, as a future model, to aspire to – to get to that point it would make sense, then, that these dream-art scientists, these quantum scientists, quantum dream therapists, would also engage some type of, for lack of a better term, personal practice that attempts to unlock and come face to face with the inner ego. Is that in the ballpark?
KRIS: That kind of a therapist would need, then, to be aware of his or her own inner self or inner ego in a close and working relationship, one that is indeed aligned and united in purpose. Thus such an individual needs in the classic term to be enlightened. And there is where the original foundations for these therapists will be found in droves that you may call the mystics, the shamans, for they were always inclined toward such goals, an integration of the individual in his or her reality to bring balance and fulfillment. However, when that mysticism is mixed in with religion, sometimes the soup is spoiled.
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: But overall the seeds have always been there, and one does not need to be religious to be a mystic.
PAUL: Right. Another part of this matrix, is that the human being, the blueprints, the root assumptions, the design for this reality in Framework 2 contains certain potentialities – some are manifested, some are not. And one of those things, at least from my perspective and my focus, we could just say is a rationality, a type of rationality that emerges. And we could loosely call it preconventional, conventional and postconventional. And our mental sciences are pretty much in agreement that all humans across all cultures in this now go through those basic general stages of development in terms of rationality.12And so as we get closer to a postconventional rationality, that is where the religious belief systems are left behind, and seen to be inadequate, and not complete enough.
But I'm not suggesting, then, that this postconventional rationality is at the same requirement for our future dream-art scientist or quantum therapist. I'm just trying to identify a continuum, one stream through the spectrum of consciousness that is something for us to be aware of, and to learn, to identify and recognize in ourselves, and help to train, as far as training methodologies evolve in the future, towards this end. Is that in the ballpark?
KRIS: Consider, for example, that the human being, the individual, takes birth, and goes through the stages of the infant, the youth, the adolescent, the adult, and the maturing individual until his or her passing. You have, then, the process of manifesting through the physical body varying stages of the psychological self, since you do manifest in physical terms what you undergo in psychic and psychological terms in a variety of manners.
It is not merely that the physical body ages on its own like a breaking down machine. It is a psychic and psychological process. Eventually, the individual recognizes that his or her body can no longer accommodate the drives and the energies that it needs. So it sheds that form and goes through a process of acquiring another, so to speak.
When that process is viewed at the collective level, it becomes somewhat easier to see that the aging of the populations is indeed not a physical process at all, but a collective psychic manifestation of maturation that may take hundreds, even thousands, of years in human terms. So you do have a process and it is cyclical. New entities enter, new personalities are given the freedom to explore the transformations of energies in their turn, thus there is always an influx of new births. There will always be such an influx, as well as individuals who leave their physical bodies.
But it is a continuous process, and it also reflects the collective need to keep evolving in psychic and psychological terms, and the process has occurred many, many times in a variety of forms on your planet, which is far older than you could possibly suspect. And that is why it will always stay because it is a point of reference for a unique slice of transformative powers that the individuality possesses. And you will always have integrational psychologies and perspectives that will evolve in one way or another.
A long time ago, for example, the priestly class, the goddess worship centers, and so on, provided both types of psychologies. Then it evolved where the matriarchal processes gave way to the patriarchal processes. Now you are at a stage where it is no longer sufficient, but neither is a complete matriarchal system. What you need is an integration of both in terms of psychic energy imprints.
Gradually this will go on its own, and the process continues time and again, so you always find yourselves at varying stages. The upcoming generation will continue in your footsteps, and the already established new generation, basically coming out of the womb, will further your processes. And as you leave this reality you have a choice to reintegrate within it, but with yourself bringing in ideas that you have explored out of realms, in other realms, as everyone does. And every single idea that is opined, that is looked at, discussed, has the potential to take root in this or other realities.
It appears, therefore, a very complex subject, and in order to make more sense of your integrational psychologies, the very nature of the personality needs to be explained and understood. And, you need a more complete picture of the individual. That is where Seth comes in, that is where others from within this branch of the family, so to speak, come in. That is where individuals like you come in, where you take up some of the seeds. You sow them. You work them. You nourish them, and you come out with yet more expanded perceptions, so you are always in a state of flux.
This present generation, you call Generation X, has already realized that the values it grew up with do not sustain them, no longer provide them with the necessary experiences, so they are leaving in droves. Whether it be with new diseases or new wars, they will find a way to leave. But they will not do so until some of the reasons for their dissatisfactions are also explored, to give the incoming generation an idea of what not to pursue as well as what to pursue.13 Does that make sense to you?
PAUL: Oh yeah. And I just want to comment, I know you've covered a lot of ground there, and my way to try and explain this is that in terms of all the different entities, or essences, or souls that constantly replenish this Framework 1, there's a nonlinear area that's simultaneously nested which has linear components to it. So this linear vs. nonlinear – not vs. – but linear and simultaneously nonlinear duality is a very important area to explore, because we're traditionally and conventionally living in linear terms still – our languages, our mental processes very much appear linear – and even though they're not, inherently they are nonlinear.
And so I just wanted to add that into the conversation too, that further understanding in terms of Integral Conscious Creation, or Integral Psychology. Those two main areas are where I see, not only theoretically, but methodologically putting theory into practice. There is a lot of work to be done in the next two decades.
KRIS: Indeed. And one of the reasons is that the source of your being is nonlinear, nonsequential. But you insist collectively in ordering it along the lines of the linear and sequential. And that creates challenges – and tensions – which allows the individual to find his or her truth. And as long as there is an understanding that the process, as such, is always in a state of flux, where it flourishes at its best. Then, you will keep developing new models, better models, models that incorporate and integrate more and more of what the individual is at all levels. And when you begin to understand as a science – not as a crackpot philosophy – but as a science, that first and foremost there is consciousness out of which grows form – not the other way around – you have a better chance of success.
If you look at all of the old unrecognized spiritual bodies, native and aboriginal psychologies, spiritualities, almost clear across your planet you'll find there is always an element where consciousness is considered before form, where consciousness is also considered to be the source of form. This is also expressed in biblical mythologies: out of nothing came the world, the light, and so on and so forth – the word being the thought. Thus, overlaying these more ancient sciences with your more modern sciences creates tension, which is what you need in many ways. For though we ourselves will poke fun and rib some of your sciences, and scientific discoveries, and conjectures, we also understand that your species is where it needs to be right now. It could not be any other place. Does that make sense to you?
PAUL: Oh, it's quite beautiful. Yes, it makes complete sense. And, Mark, just to interrupt the flow here, I know Serge had said he wanted to take a break?
MARK: Okay. It's probably a good time, sure.
KRIS: Thus we will also allow you to have a break and we will return. How many minutes do you want?
MARK: Paul?
PAUL: Oh, it doesn't matter for me, I'm good to go. So whatever you guys need on your end.
MARK: I'd say, let's say, fifteen minutes.
PAUL: Fifteen minutes? I'll call you back in fifteen minutes.
MARK: Do you want us to phone you?
PAUL: No. It's the least I can contribute to this. (Laughs)
MARK: Okay. (Laughs)
KRIS: Do fire up those neurons and we will return.
PAUL: …to bridge linear and nonlinear. That's what this integral theory is dealing with also. And it's just in its infancy. So it has to be developed and refined further in dozens and dozens of different ways.
MARK: We're back.
KRIS: We hope that you have enjoyed your small break, and you have fired up an other area of neurons.
PAUL: (Laughs) I have.
KRIS: It is the one difficulty that blinds almost all of the quantum researchers is that in itself quantums are quantum.
MARK: Mmhm.
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: That is something they will have to deal with. And when they are at that point they will start recognizing that the smallest unit possible, therefore, is even smaller than a quantum (quanta), even in terms of theorizing, that is, consciousness. And consciousness is influenced by thought, both your set of conscious thoughts as well as all the other so-called unconscious thought processes that you entertain, even though that's a quantum label.
So you find, eventually, that things run in a loop because there are still attempts made to categorize, to label, and to pigeonhole the nonsequential, nonlinear into linear, sequential terms; trying to take the ocean and make it fit into a thimble. In theory, it is possible but in physical terms [it is] an impossibility. Thus, you always have a quandary at that level.
Earlier on we suggested that a much truer understanding of any psychology and therapy has to take into consideration the makeup of the personality, considering its open-ended energy-transforming potentials. A group of, we would call them electromagnetic impulses, stemming from the deepest roots of desires from the source self, organizing themselves according to a unique time-space coordinate, organizing energy into patterns, thus making use of those divine qualities – because your species is accustomed to such a term – those divine qualities of energy-transforming processes. That is what the human personality is made of, literally made up of transformers of energy, and that is as simple of terms as we can express for it.
PAUL: Some of the other concepts that Seth uses in this area are his consciousness units and his electromagnetic energy units. He also has a concept, cordellas, which are these inner alphabets that he talked about. All of those are what Seth named in his model to explain these transformational or translating or actions of translation from source self to focus personality.14
KRIS: And it is not an easy feat to accomplish. (Paul laughs) Consider, for instance, an orchestration of a specific musical composition. Each note carefully thought out and put on the paper upon the musical scale, so that each instrument plays a specific note for it produces a specific sound. And together, all the various instruments playing the notes dedicated or relegated for them produces not a cacophony of sound, but a symphony of sound. And that symphony only makes sense because of the pauses, the empty sounds in-between each note. Do you understand?
PAUL: Absolutely.
KRIS: And what the ego, focus personality portion of the self, does, then, is to make sense of specific sound variables, in this analogy, or make sense of specific values to generate form and reality. However, if you go back to the orchestra, and the symphony, and imagine instead that each instrument plays a note above and below the one that has been put on paper, you get an entirely different orchestration and piece of music. And still others play above and below those, and above and below those, and above and below those yet. And then you have another orchestra pit that preoccupies itself with producing the empty or silent notes in-between each instrumentation. You'd get then a very, extremely complex composition. Do you follow?
PAUL: Oh, yes.
KRIS: Now your ego and focus personality are charged in a unique way that enables all of this somehow or other to make sense. So though the ego is much maligned, it truly carries a powerful function, for without it you as a focus personality would be highly unfocused, or you would be literally played across the map of the musical scale. So the ego has a very unique and powerful function. And the entire self, the whole self, actually relishes in the playing and enhancing [of] each note imagined and unimagined on this entire composition in ways you might not ever be able to fathom. Thus you have, as a result, unlimited universes and dimensions to accommodate the needs of the Self, and the Self [is] in capital letters here. Do you still follow?
PAUL: Yes, it's quite beautiful.
KRIS: Oh, if only we could sing! (Laughter) We thus just here gave a hint of what this future quantum therapist would have to understand and deal with when he encounters but one focus personality of a multidimensional being. That is why such potential therapists would also be considered mystics, because the whole self is indeed, in the deepest sense of your word, a truly mystical thing, and truly a gracious and love-filled creation. We hope that we haven't gone too far astray.
PAUL: Oh no! I'm just trying to think of a follow-up question.
KRIS: We have used it. (Laughter)
PAUL: There's so many different directions here. Okay, here's a line of questioning, since you brought up the quantum therapist again, and that's something that's in probable futures here in the next century. Given that a probable future focus personality will be more mystically inclined, more mystically aware and realized than most of our focus personalities are today, I'm wondering if there will be… there's two basic paths in terms of methodology. One is, there are plenty of existing practices in the perennial traditions, the Dzogchen Buddhists, Vedanta Hinduism, and so on and so forth, where there are techniques to practice opening to the inner self. And I'm wondering from your point of view in terms of future probabilities – well, the other probability is that no one has to do anything, and somehow in terms of becoming and evolution in linear terms, value fulfillment, in the next century that these quantum therapists will spontaneously manifest.
So the question I'm wrestling with is: it would seem, then, that there still needs to be training and some type of methodology – and there's not one or ten, there's dozens and dozens of different ways that have now become available to us across the planet. And so I'm just trying to get your view on the methodologies, that they are there and people are going to be practicing these things. The quantum therapist requires some serious training, in other words.
KRIS: In those words, yes. However, [in] Framework 2, which we call Level 2 Reality, Framework 3, Level 3, and Level 4 Reality – these are already in development. You could say, for the sake of an analogy, that your reality is like that contained within those glass snowflake balls. Now there is someone who has designed them, there is someone who builds them so they have the correct number of snowflakes, the correct amount of water and pressure and so on and so forth.
And in that analogy, then, there are unconscious – collective unconscious – preparations developing in Framework 2, 3 and 4, which are still, for the sake of discussion, a reference; other levels of reality where the mind of the individual is not as fettered or held back by linear terminologies and barriers, but are more freely able to utilize it in that potentials to explore very complex issues in a rather short amount of time – or no time at all – and simultaneously examine a variety of probable offshoots of all of these newly conceived ramifications. So it is like the toy maker's shop, work going on behind the scenes that make the toys that will then appear in the supermarket shelves. Do you follow?
PAUL: Yes.
KRIS: So that is the true industry of the world, what goes on behind the scenes in the so-called unconscious and Level 2, 3, and 4 of reality, where the limitations imposed by the physical sense apparatus is not so intense, and the personality is much freer to explore concepts and energy transformative processes.
PAUL: So there is a type of – we'll call it "evolution" in quotations, or value fulfillment – there's a type of becoming in parallel, nested in Level 2, 3, and 4.
KRIS: Indeed, where potential blueprints are being developed.
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: That process has to be there. Without such a process, your species would still be picking fleas off each other's backs, so to speak.
PAUL: (Laughing) Right! So you answered my question. In one sense, from the outer ego's Level 1/Framework 1 point of view, we don't really have to do anything except to be what we are, and doing what we're doing naturally. And in Levels 2, 3, and 4 there is concurrent creation and exploration in a much freer, nonlinear, yet nested and related sense.
KRIS: Indeed.
PAUL: Yet somehow that's going to translate into manifestations of Level 1.
KRIS: Because even impulses, and desires, and the fires of life and passion also exist, but on a much different scale in Level 2, 3, and 4. And because they are desires, they eventually find their way, being filtered into Level 1 – the physical reality level – as best as it can be interpreted. So you have a GREAT Shakespearian play developed at those higher levels, so to speak, whilst in kindergarten they do their best to do a Romeo and Juliet that may involve guinea pigs, plastic trees, and someone called Wheedle. Do you understand?
PAUL: (Laughs) As best as I am able in this now.
KRIS: Indeed.
PAUL: But another question, Kris, is helping me as I try to map your ideas to my own – this inner ego or source self, which levels are primary to it? Would that be Levels 3 and 4?
KRIS: Though it might be convenient to say that it only exists in a very remote space continuum, far away from the lowly mortal, carnal, sinful selves, it is not the case. It exists at all of the levels. You only recognize the conscious, rational, intellectual/ego aspect of your personalities, because of the way your physical senses have been trained to interpret consciousness and energy. And it must be explained in those terms right now, but you can at least see or imagine that this inner self, the inner ego, is ever-present, whether it is in your physical reality or not. And it cannot be anywhere else.
Physical reality is simply a unique version of the complete reality. Your senses keep you from seeing what is there. Your senses give you an interpretation only of this much larger picture, and you believe them. They are cheaters and liars, and you believe them. But it is possible to train your physical senses to also show you, at least as much as they are able, what truly is there. But we will leave that for another time.
PAUL: (Laughs) Just to comment on that, then, that even though that concept has been introduced to us in the last forty years of Framework 1, 2, 3, and 4, it's not linear in that sense. It's not like a ladder stepping from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. They're nested aspects. They're nested together. There's really no separation except depending on one's focus of attention, and where one's sensory center is focused and habituated.
KRIS: Consider the old analogy of the flashlight or the spotlight.15 You are only aware of the area immediately lit up by the spotlight, and you immediately forget everything else which is around it, thinking there is nothing else there. But if you were to enlarge the beam of the spotlight to shine all around, then you will see that your reality is indeed filled with quantum universes. And that size, and weight, and height, and depth, and width are only relevant to your senses and the ego relationship to the senses. But other than that, their life abounds in all categories in all levels in all possible perceptions.
PAUL: Mmhm. Now Mark had mentioned to me during the break about quantum temporality as an area that you have talked about. And I'm just wondering, it seems obvious, but right now in our physics time is considered a single dimension, and it's fixed and absolute. And all the theories that are wrapped around that belief system, but there's not a single time dimension is there?
KRIS: If there were truly such an absolute dimension as the time that you think you experience, you would be psychologically so atrophied that you would not manifest physically, because it would not give you much impetus. It would severely limit creativity. It would be flat and you would flat-line very quickly! (Mark laughs)
PAUL: Right, so it's like time and no-time. I mean, we have, as far as theories go, there's time dimensions, but there's also no-time dimensions.
KRIS: Indeed. So you are juxtaposed between all of this in reality. You think there is time so you act accordingly to your convictions. But if you recognize other convictions then you would act accordingly. You always act according to your convictions or beliefs. So if time were experienced differently, many of your sciences would also be different. Many of your experiences and relationships would be different.
Your perception of time and space is based upon both the sensory interpretations of sequential events that itself is based upon the neurological processes in your brain at this time; pardon the pun. (Laughter) Your neurons fire in specific sequences at this stage of your evolution. Had you allowed your brains to develop slightly differently and larger, your experience of time would be different.
MARK: It wouldn't be aesthetically pleasing. I mean, with big heads. (Laughter)
KRIS: You would not care about that. Someone with your present head size would be un-aesthetically pleasing.
PAUL: Right, it's like that Twilight Zone episode.16
MARK: Something else, Kris, that I think would be very relevant to this conversation is something you mentioned just very recently that freaked Joseph and I, is your comment on how if you can't imagine the past, you can't possibly imagine the future.17
KRIS: Would you support how that might fit in with his present question?
MARK: Paul?
PAUL: Very good. Well, I was just asking about time not being a singular dimension and, of course, in one of Jane's fictional books, the first Oversoul Seven book, there's a wonderful climactic moment in that book where Seven and Cyprus's teacher come to this realization that there are nine foundational time dimensions, which are basically a matrix of past, present, and future times three, so you get nine variations of that.18
So from what I've heard Kris say tonight, and just this example of a future quantum therapist, and the mystical nature of that awareness, and needing to be aware of the multidimensional aspects to treat someone who has problems or whatever, these nine time dimensions have something to do with this. So, what in five minutes, Kris, (laughing) what would you have to say about that?
KRIS: Our statement of last Monday implies that your present understandings of your past are very limiting, are very restricting, and far too orthodox. Any adequately minded time-scientist would feel himself or herself to be very stifled in your present views of time. Your present understandings give you one slice of history as if there could possibly be none other. And again that is your collective misfortune.
When you begin to acquiesce to the idea that you may have had an entirely different history, and that that historical past is far longer, far more intriguing, and far more adventure-filled than the version you are giving that you grew out of slime (laughter), then, indeed, it simultaneously opens up the possibilities that your futures are as grandiose, and have as large a vista as your newly discovered pasts. Does that make sense so far?
PAUL: Oh yes! Absolutely.
KRIS: And, indeed, the line of primary time dimensions are themselves each multiplied so many more times because of their open-ended interactions, much like the families of consciousness,19 much like what we have called the Nine Sisters.20 Thus, the potential to discover new pasts, even old new pasts, and new ancient histories, can spark the imagination in ways you have never considered, where you can rediscover and reinvent ancient sciences quite different than the ones you have been taught can be the only ones that can be developed.
MARK: Just like this new quantum therapist may be taking information from Mayans, Incan natives, and millions of years older. They may have had these wisdoms and technologies in other civilizations.
PAUL: You're talking about a quantum archeologist or quantum biologist, that sort of thing.21
KRIS: They are indeed the archeologists of the soul.
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: These therapists or therapist archeologists may only develop in Level 2 and 3 of reality, but they will soon find some counterpart at the physically manifested level. And you may still have pockets of borderline or grass root psychologies that can bring much help in ways that are not recognized by the orthodoxy, but that has often been the case in your reality. They still represent, perhaps, even more a valid outlet than the standardized methodologies that often rely more on their own self-sufficiency and survival than the need to actually be of assistance to the individual. It runs much like government agencies. (Mark laughs)
PAUL: There's economics and politics involved in any institutionalized value system.
KRIS: Indeed.
MARK: That's in any… history, archeology, science, all of it, strives to find the absolute in everything, and yet there is no absolute in anything. It wants the absolute truth, the absolute past, the absolute this, that, and the other thing, the absolute equation, there's no such thing. There's always a flux, there's always different probabilities.
KRIS: Do you have more to add?
PAUL: I have one more question for you. Is there some way, for us in Level 1 working on these things, to – I don't know if the right word is accelerate – but that's what I'm looking at. I know it's not a race and the journey of a thousand miles continues one step at a time, so there's a slow but steady pacing involved. But on the other hand, as part of that, there must be some ways to accelerate – at least for the individual – opening awareness to these Level 2, 3, and 4 activities. And being able, then, to draw them, attract them, translate them, and transform them into the nervous system.
KRIS: Because the question has been formulated it automatically presupposes that there is an answer. Otherwise you would not have asked the question. (Laughter) And the answer, indeed, is yes!
PAUL: Right.
KRIS: It is a relatively simple process, much to the discomfort of many. You may, for instance, use autosuggestion – self-hypnosis. A gentle request, either before you fall asleep or throughout the day, suggesting that when your focus self is directed towards dream realities, a portion of you may indeed find its way into Level 2 and 3, where it can cross the limitations of time and space easily, and communicate with one of these future archeologists and therapists of consciousness. And, ask that individual in his or her time-space experience to share insight and some knowledge in terms that you might understand, and that this knowledge will be transferred to your conscious self, either as a dream that you will recall, or as inspirations that will come to you when you are daydreaming, doodling, or putting your daily concerns at rest. (Melodically) In one form or another, they will come to you.
PAUL: So the suggestion… this is all beautiful, and I followed it perfectly.
KRIS: We tried to carefully enunciate it in a manner that would be productive.
PAUL: (Chuckling) And you succeeded tremendously. The only other question I have, then, is about – you know, I've done this before – is about the memory; it's about remembering this. Do you have any tips besides simply suggesting that I will remember this or get the inspiration? Is there something that I can willfully intend as part of this process to help with the memory of greater detail?
KRIS: That can be specifically incorporated into the suggestion itself.
PAUL: Okay.
KRIS: You may also during the day spend perhaps five to ten minutes, no more, in an altered state, where you specifically enter the "hall of memories" in a portion of your consciousness that you dedicate to the memory of those experiences, and in visual terms that are almost tactile, see and sense yourself delving through the shelves, whether they are books, images, graphics, sculptures, any way possible that will trigger memory of the knowledge and information you require.
PAUL: Great! That's very, very helpful. Thank you very much.
KRIS: We are happy that you have enjoyed this discussion as much as we have. And we are certain we also speak for Philip in that context.
MARK: Yes, definitely.
PAUL: And I just want to express my deep, deep appreciation for you, Kris, sharing, taking the time, so to speak, pun intended, with us, and with me in particular. I deeply appreciate it.
KRIS: Indeed, then we send you many blessings, including that you find yourself as blessed as we, and with that we salute your efforts! (Mark laughs)
PAUL: Thank you.
(No departure time noted.)
1 For a detailed exploration of Seth's view of the psyche, see Who is the "You" in You Create Your Own Reality?
2 For more information on Elias' view of the psyche, see Digests: the dream mission:
3 Charles Darwin (1809-1882) didn't formulate his theory of evolution in a vacuum. In fact, it was very much in the air, so to speak, during his lifetime. Alfred Wallace (1823-1913), a British naturalist, developed similar ideas to Darwin's regarding the action of natural selection and biological inheritance. They published their groundbreaking ideas jointly in 1858, just a year before Darwin's famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
Some scholars date the idea of evolution back to the ancient Greeks.
"The theory of evolution in biology was already an old, even a discredited one. Darwin, in later editions of The Origin, listed over thirty predecessors and was still accused of lack of generosity. Greek thinkers had held the view that life had developed gradually out of a primeval slime. Diderot, Buffon and Maupertuis in the eighteenth century had held evolutionary views, as had Darwin's own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin…." (Charles Darwin, John Burrow, Editor, The Origin of the Species, Penguin Books, London, England, 1985, p. 27.)
Darwin and others credited French zoologist and paleontologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) with foreshadowing their theories of biological evolution. Also, keep in mind that during this era, literal interpretations of the Bible as Absolute Universal Truth dominated institutional and popular culture in the West. For example, a majority of people believed the Earth to be only 6,000 years old and literally created in six days according to scripture. Therefore, to suggest that the species were mutable or changeable without direct divine intervention, which implied that there was some kind of "directionality" to the development of species was a big step forward.
However, Darwin's ideas have been distorted over the years. For example, he was dealing primarily with biology, zoology, and paleontology. Yet, the terms "evolution" and "survival of the fittest" have come to represent his theory in popular culture.
"Neither of the two terms with which Darwin's name is chiefly associated, 'evolution' and 'survival of the fittest', occurs in early editions of The Origin, where his key ideas are expressed by the words 'mutability' and 'natural selection.' (Ibid, p.27)
Therefore, Darwin's ideas continue to be misunderstood within popular culture. Luckily, they have been understood and refined in a variety of fields including contemporary systems theory, dynamics systems theory, and evolutionary systems theory. According to Ken Wilber:
"The new sciences dealing with these 'self-winding' or 'self-organizing' systems are known collectively as the sciences of complexity-including General Systems Theory (Bertalanffy, Weiss), cybernetic (Wiener), nonequilibrium thermodynamics (Prigogine), cellular automata theory (von Neumann), catastrophe theory (Thom), autopoietic system theory (Maturana and Varela), dynamic systems theory (Shaw, Abraham), and chaos theories, among others." (Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Shambhala, Boston, MA, 1995, p. 22.)
All of this points to the fact that Darwin's enduring contribution was to help elevate a scientific worldview over the earlier mythic, religious worldview. But Kris also points out the limits of that scientific worldview as popularly associated with Darwin. It is clearly in the birth pangs of being surpassed by a postmodern worldview, one that includes a viable theory of consciousness that explores linear and nonlinear aspects of the creation process within a variety of nested "levels" that reach from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit.
4 Notice that Kris offers a critique on the limits of the modern Freudian scientific worldview, particularly with its emphasis on humans as flawed beings that is eerily similar to the sinful-self notions embraced by institutionalized religion. This is very similar to the critiques found in the Seth material and The Worldview of William James: The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher (1978) by Jane Roberts.
That book, in particular, shows how strongly the work of Darwin and Freud colored the popular, mass belief systems about the psyche in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus, the officially accepted version of the psyche in the West was seen as flawed, driven by animal impulses to wantonly fuck, kill, and pursue pleasure at the expense of others, all the while being divorced from any connection to soul and spirit.
However, there were indeed other roads not taken during the nineteenth century where the work of people like James Mark Baldwin, Frederick Meyers, and William James painted a more optimistic picture of the human body, mind, and soul. According to integral philosopher Ken Wilber:
"… there was a period, roughly during the time of [Gustav] Fechner (1801-1887) to William James (1842-1910) to James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934), when the newly emerging science of psychology was still on speaking terms with the ancient wisdom of the ages-with the perennial philosophy with the Great Nest of Being, with the Idealist systems, and with the simple facts of consciousness as almost every person knows them: consciousness is real, the inward observing self is real, the soul is real, however much we might debate the details; and thus these truly great founding psychologists-when their real stories are told-have much to teach us about an integral view, a view that attempts to include the truths of body, mind, soul, and spirit, and not reduce them to material displays, digital bits, empirical processes, or objective systems (as important as all of those most certainly are). These pioneering modern psychologists managed to be both fully scientific and fully spiritual, and they found not the slightest contradiction or difficulty in that generous embrace." (Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology Therapy, Shambhala, Boston, MA, 2000, p. xi.)
5 Sigmund Freud lived from 1856-1939; Charles Darwin from 1809-1882.
6 Wilber's integral approach uses a critical theory, or methodology, along with an integral matrix.
Wilber's Critical Theory: A Summary
First, identify orienting generalizations – the partial truths in symbolic form called metaphors – in a given field or body of work. For the moment, simply assume they are indeed true.
Second, arrange these metaphoric truths into chains or networks of interlocking conclusions. Pose the following question to all of the orienting generalizations: What coherent system would in fact incorporate the greatest number of these truths?
Third, once we've identified the overall scheme that incorporates the greatest number of orienting generalizations, use that scheme to criticize the partiality of narrower approaches, even though we've included the basic truths from those approaches. Criticize not their truths, but their partial nature.
The overall scheme of Wilber's integral matrix includes our selves (I), our world (It/Its), how we can all get along (We), levels and lines of development, waking/dreaming/dreamless/altered states, and types (like gender, enneagram, Meyers-Briggs, etc.). Wilber calls it AQAL (pronounced ah-qwal) for short, or all quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types.
The idea, then, is that we need to factor in all the above when investigating any phenomenon. Obviously, this hints at an expanded scientific paradigm that includes a viable theory of consciousness, but doesn't reduce any one thing, process, or event into only objective or subjective perspectives.
For more details on what I call Integral Conscious Creation, see Towards an Integral Conscious Creation:
7 I periodically have written and visited with Rob Butts and Laurel Davies over the years, like so many interested in their work. The following is an excerpt of a letter, dated July 12, 2003, that Rob sent me in response to my letter describing what I call Integral Conscious Creation (which includes the work of Seth/Jane, Elias, Kris, and Wilber.)
"I trust you're quite right when you – and Serge and many others – discuss the spread of awareness to [Jane's] work in our reality, and how also the creativity of many others – Elias for example – is also so valuable in helping all of us grow. I'll love to look back in 100 years, say, and see how humanity is doing. And that bit of awareness will be but the tiniest beginning. Your work will also be offering its very creative insights. I congratulate you and those you work with."
8 Kris' comments here indicate a discernable trend that shows how mass belief systems are evolving from narrower to wider worldviews in a very general way. For example, in the mythic, religious era the definition of good and evil was used to describe values that conformed to the consensus reality as "good." Anything that didn't conform was considered "evil" and the work of the devil or demonic forces. Generally speaking, these religious beliefs in good vs evil have dominated human history over the last 6,000 years. According to some estimates almost 40% of the world's population, including many in the Western democracies, still hold them today. Contemporary examples include the complex dynamics of radical, conservative, and liberal Islamic, Jewish, and Christian belief systems during the 9-1-1 bombings in the United States, and its subsequent invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
However, the West also experienced a Renaissance or Enlightenment beginning in the late 15th century that saw the rise of scientific method, materialism, and empiricism. The Industrial and Information Ages were direct outcomes of this scientific worldview. It continues to evolve, but has clearly surpassed the earlier religious worldview in terms of the truths it discovered. For example, the Earth is not the center of the universe. It was not created in six days some six thousand years ago, and on and on. Therefore, the scientific worldview, being a wider worldview, no longer sees good and evil in terms of metaphysical entities battling for human souls, but has evolved into its own version of health and pathology.
Owing to the advances in medical science, both in body and mind, we now look at normal/healthy and abnormal/pathological behaviors. For example, the American Psychiatric Association has a long list of pathologies and potential treatments for them. Causes that were previously traced to demons and angels morphed into beliefs about chemical imbalances in the body and brain. Pharmaceutical treatments have become prevalent. The West now features "Prozac nations" where antidepressants, muscle relaxants, and various neuro-inhibitors and neuro-enhancers are prescribed en masse.
Now, this is not to say they don't help. They do, but there are cases where the drugs alone aren't enough to cure someone suffering from any of a variety of conditions. However, in the 1960s, folks like Abraham Maslow and Roberto Assagioli began to study healthy people and derive metrics to promote health, instead of curing disease and pathology. These pioneering psychologists also realized that spiritual well-being, however broadly defined, was something that promoted health and fulfillment. So it became clear to these transpersonal psychologists that spirituality was fragmented or repressed from conventional scientific worldviews.
Along with these pioneers, Kris offers something here that shows what I believe to evidence the next wider, emerging worldview in its birth pangs. If we include the viable drugs, and other treatments, but expand to explore "conflicting belief structures within aspects of the larger personality" we begin to open the door to a new kind of science that includes a viable theory of consciousness. Enter Jane Roberts's Aspect Psychology formulated in the 1970s and Ken Wilber's Integral Psychology formulated in the 1990s. They are good examples of this emerging new worldview, because they expand normal and abnormal to include the idea of balance and out of balance, harmony and dissonance of the body, mind, and soul. This also implies a widening of awareness, and utilization of the inner senses in waking, dream, and altered states to effect a new kind of diagnosis and related therapies. The Kris Chronicles, Seth Material, and information offered by Elias also contribute to this emerging new worldview, along with many other sources.
9 Seth presented the concept of dream-art science The "Unknown" Reality, Vol. 1 (1977, 1996). He offered three exemplars of scientists in various fields that would incorporate a wider, more highly evolved awareness using the inner senses and a viable theory of consciousness: the true mental physicist, the complete physician, and the dream-art scientist.
For more information, see The Dream-Art Science Sessions (700-704), Abridged
10 Jane's Aspects books:
Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology (1975)
Psychic Politics (An Aspect Psychology Book) (1976)
The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (An Aspect Psychology Book) (1981)
11 I had the following diagram in mind from Ken Wilber's A Theory of Everything. It compares multiple maps of All-That-Is from various premodern traditions in terms of Levels of Reality (All-That-Is) and Levels of Selfhood (essence).
(A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality, Shambhala, Boston, MA, 2000, p. 68.)
12 Interestingly, Elias also validated this general range of preconventional, conventional, postconventional, and wider stages of development. That is, he confirmed that people do develop through stages, begin at stage one and always proceed from there. And this will still occur after what he calls the shift in consciousness. So these stages seem to be innate aspects of the root assumptions or blueprints for our universe. However, they are not absolutes and static, but dynamic and adaptive to overall life conditions and consciousness. For more info see:
13 This is also very similar to what Elias calls the trauma of the shift in consciousness. In other words, as the new worldviews emerge along with a wider awareness, there will still be those who are arrested or even closed to further development. The result is tremendous stress, disaffected young and old, and conflict between existing worldviews that seek hegemony instead of co-existence. (Wait! I just described the last 6,000 years of human history.) For more information, see Digests: trauma of the shift in consciousness:
14 EEs or electromagnetic energy units were introduced in 1969, and CUs or consciousness units were introduced in 1974. For more information, see:
Coincidentally, Elias calls CUs links of consciousness (LCs). For more on LCs, see:
While Wilber's holon theory is beyond the scope of this session, here's a link to explore it in relation to Seth's CUs and EEs:
Finally, Seth also included material on mental enzymes, mental genes, and cordellas. These metaphors outline how the inner ego/self consciously creates all physical constructions. In other words, these are very important metaphors that outline the mechanics of conscious creation. They define causality as including consciousness, not solely in material terms. They also reach beyond present quantum theory, since that deals with only the dimensional veil or border between Frameworks 1 and 2. That is, quantum theory still omits the rest of the spectrum of consciousness and attempts to reduce everything into material terms, throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Mental enzymes – enzymes are complex proteins produced by living cells to catalyze specific biochemical reactions. Mental enzymes are a type of inner counterpart used by the inner ego to initiate various "actions of translation" that result in a variety of physical constructions in Framework 1. They are discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material (1997). There is more in Books 2, 3, and 4.
Mental genes – genes are a specific sequence of nucleotides in DNA or RNA that is the functional unit of inheritance controlling the transmission and expression of one or more traits. So mental genes are an inner "structure" native to the inner ego that creates physical constructions in Framework 1. They are discussed in detail in The Early Sessions: Book 1 of the Seth Material (1997). There is more in Books 2, 3, and 4.
Cordellas – the inner "alphabets" or blueprints for "translating" source energy from its potential Framework 2 state into physical Framework 1 constructions. These "languages of translation" also serve as the basis for human perception. For example, they form the basis for the Sumari trance language, the creation and maintenance of the human body, and all constructs made of physical matter. In other words, all quantum constructs are based upon them. They are discussed in Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology (1975, 1997). There is more in The Nature of the Psyche (1979, 1995).
15 Seth used the analogy of a flashlight to show how narrow our physical senses focus their attention. The following is from an ESP class.
In a recent class session, Seth said: "If you would momentarily put aside the selves you take for granted, you could experience your own multidimensional reality. These are not just fine words that mean nothing. I do not harp to you about theory simply because I want to spout theory, but because I want you to put these ideas into practice."
"Precisely what steps do you want us to follow?" one of the students asked.
"First, you must try to understand the nature of reality. To some small extent I have begun to explain this in the Seth Material. The five hundred and some-odd sessions we have barely represent an outline, but they are enough to start with. The ideas, in themselves, will make you think. I have told you that there are Inner Senses as well as physical ones. These will enable you to perceive reality as it exists independently of the physical world. You must learn to recognize, develop, and use these Inner Senses. The methods are given in the material. But you cannot utilize the material until you understand it."
"The material itself is – if you'll forgive the term – cleverly executed; so that as you grapple to understand it, you are already beginning to use abilities beyond those that you take for granted."
"You must, first of all, cease identifying yourself completely with your ego, and realize that you can perceive more than your ego perceives. You must demand more of yourself than you ever have before. The material is not for those who would deceive themselves with pretty, packaged, ribboned truths that are parceled out and cut apart so that you can digest them. That sort of material serves a need, but our material demands that you intellectually and intuitively expand."
One student had a guest with her, Mary, who wrinkled up her forehead when Seth finished speaking. "But if we 'momentarily put aside' the ego," she said to me, "won't we be unconscious?"
I didn't have a chance to answer. Seth answered for me – his way. "You are an identity," he said. "Pretend that you hold a flashlight, and the flashlight is consciousness. You can turn this light in many directions, but instead you are in the habit of directing it along one certain path, and you have forgotten that there are other paths."
"All you have to do is swing the flashlight in other directions. When you shift it, the path upon which you have been focusing will momentarily appear dark, but other realities and images will become available to you, and there is nothing to prevent you from swinging the flashlight back to the earlier position." (The Seth Material, 1970, p.274.)
16 I had in mind the episode called "The Eye of the Beholder." It featured an "ugly" woman "whose hideously abnormal face has made her an outcast all her life." She had corrective surgery but it failed! As the bandages are removed the audience sees an attractive woman by contemporary standards, but she screams in horror and the doctors and nurses all recoil at the image in the mirror. Then, for the first time, we see that the doctors and nurses are what we'd consider horribly ugly, looking more like a cross between a pig and human.
17 Mark refers to material covered in the previous Monday night session, July 28, 2003.
18 According to Jane Roberts, there are nine potential versions of the moment point within any physically focused perspective:
PAST/past PAST/present PAST/future
PRESENT/past PRESENT/present PRESENT/future
FUTURE/past FUTURE/present FUTURE/future
This is sometimes referred to as simultaneous time, and is discussed in detail in The Nature of Personal Reality (1974, 1994).
One way to understand this seemingly contradictory concept is to imagine each of the nine aspects of linear time as "dimensions." Each dimension has its own integrity and some sort of "boundary." The boundaries are formed both physically by our five senses and non-physically by our inner senses. These boundaries break down and are easier to "cross" when we consciously employ our inner senses. The above matrix was first presented in The Education of Oversoul Seven (1973, 1995).
19 Seth introduced the "families of consciousness" in sessions 732-740 in The "Unknown" Reality, Vol. 2 (1979, 1996). The idea of "families" is symbolic for something beneath physical appearances, a nonphysical source attribute that reflects the innate intention of individualized consciousness, as The One (All-That-Is) becomes the many.
Since we can "slice the pie" of human intention any way we want, the concept of the nine "families" is just an orienting generalization that outlines intentionality within a collective that now exceeds six billion people. For example, as a prism breaks white light into component colors, so too does the "families" metaphor break the collective into a spectrum of innate intention designed to promote maximum value fulfillment. When we look at the "rainbow of intention" from a distance, systemically, there is an appearance of nine distinct colors. Yet when viewed up close, it is impossible to clearly discern where one color stops and another begins; they blur into each other. Thus, the "families" work the same way. They are not discrete, separate, or fixed qualities. Instead, they are nested, merged qualities that dynamically change in space-time, even though their source is "outside" of space-time.
As such, it is possible to have subdivisions of the nine primary intents given by Seth that allow for countless variations, permutations, and hybrids. For example, the healing intent can subdivide to specialize in interpersonal relationships, specific areas of human anatomy, or surgery, etc. Or the healing intent can combine with the teaching intent to specialize in teaching the art of healing, or surgery, etc. A simple mathematical way to imagine these permutations is to multiply 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (called nine factorial). The result yields 362,880 possibilities. That's a lot more than just nine. But since that example deals with discrete numbers, and intention isn't really quantifiable, the possibilities beyond the primary nine are literally infinite.
Within our integral matrix, then, the "families" form a typology. In other words, since we hold a "family" intent as we develop over the course of a lifetime, there are in utero, infantile, juvenile, adolescent, adult, and senior variations. Since intention is qualitative and not quantitative, it may alter during the course of a lifetime depending on the complex dynamics of overall life conditions and choices.
Also, notice that Seth offers a worldcentric view of intention that doesn't privilege any race, creed, or ideology, and applies equally to all focus personalities. It thus includes other species in addition to Homo-sapiens, for example, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, and possibly others. Elias, for example, claimed that whales, dolphins, and porpoises recently evolved into focuses of essence. So these "families" of intention would apply to them, too.
Finally, the specific words Seth used to point out the primary nine intents are secondary, so take them with a grain of salt. Regardless of the words we use, the underlying conscious intentions they describe are easily discernable.
The nine basic intents:
Sumafi (Su-ma'-fi)
SETH: deals primarily with teaching, passing on their knowledge or that of others.
ROB: to transmit ''originality" through teaching.
Milumet (Mil'-u-met)
SETH: composed of mystics, most of their energy is directed in an inward fashion, deeply involved in nature, in that sense more highly attuned psychically than most.
ROB: to mystically nourish mankind's psyche.
Gramada (Gra-ma'-da)
SETH: specializes in organization, founders of large businesses, statesmen, politicians, vital, active, creatively aggressive.
ROB: to found social systems.
SETH: primarily reformers, activists, revolutionaries, with excellent precognitive abilities in terms of probabilities, one purpose in mind: to change the status quo in whatever the area of primary interest.
ROB: to reform the status quo.
Ilda (Il'-da)
SETH: they deal primarily in the great play of exchange and interchange of ideas, products, social and political concepts. They are travelers, carrying with them ideas of one country to another, mixing cultures, religions, attitudes, political structures. Seth has great affection for these folks!
ROB: to spread and exchange ideas.
Sumari (Sum-mar'-i)
SETH: innovators, naturally playful, humorous, relatively unfettered. They are impatient however. They will be found in the arts and in the less conventional sciences.
ROB: to provide the cultural, spiritual, and artistic heritage for the species.
Tumold (Tu-mold')
SETH: primarily devoted to healing, though they don't have to literally be practicing medicine, found as psychics, social workers, psychologists, priests/shamans, florists, politicians, royalty in past history.
ROB: to heal, regardless of individual occupation.
Zuli (Zu'-li)
SETH: involved mainly with the fulfillment of bodily activity, athletes, dedicated to perfecting the beautiful, elegant, and performance capacities of the body, often appear at the beginnings of civilizations where direct physical bodily manipulation within the environment was of supreme importance.
ROB: to serve as physical athletic models.
Borledim (Bor-le'-dim)
SETH: deals primarily with parenthood, often have large families, focus on nurturing healthy children with brilliant minds, healthy bodies, and strong clear emotions. Their ideas often spring to prominence before large social changes, and help initiate them. Closest to Sumari.
ROB: to provide an Earth stock for the species through parenthood.
20 The Nine Sisters are a typology presented by Kris that incorporates nine basic aspects of the human psyche, some of which we still don't use fully yet, to develop our deepest potentials.
21 Interestingly, there are two characters in Jane Roberts's "fictional" Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time (1984, 1995), named Monarch and Leona, who are dream archeologists. They live in the future, and through mastery of projection forms and working with group dreamscapes, ensure that something called The Codicils make their way into the twentieth century.
Serge Joseph Grandbois channels Kris, a compassionate and intelligent non-physical entity, or Energy Personality Gestalt (as Kris describes themselves). Serge is one of the clearest vessels for non-physical communication in the world today. He has given voice to Kris for nearly 35 years, helping people from all walks of life.