Integral Conscious Creation

Integral Impressions on The Nature of Personal Reality by Jane Roberts: Part 1 of 5

(Preface, Chapters 1-4)

Foreword

Several attempts have been made over the years to review The Nature of Personal Reality chapter by chapter in our online forums, but due to the immensity of the challenge have never gotten past the initial chapters. Recently on NewWorldView, however, Tom Sherlock stepped up to the plate and is attempting this heroic endeavor once again by publishing a précis of each chapter in order over the next few months.

This inspired me to commit to a five-part series - a sort of Cliff Notes - on the core themes that Seth, Jane, and Rob explored through the benefit of an integral lens, which by definition includes a more comprehensive, balanced, and inclusive set of perspectives provided by Ken Wilber. You can expect these notes to be unlike any you've encountered to date in a Seth book, but they are secondary, so you can skip them if they don't interest you.

The basic idea, then, is to read one chapter at a time in order, and spend a week or so concentrating on the core ideas. This spreads your reading over a period of months to better understand many of the core concepts. So sit back, take your time, and enjoy this marvelous book!

When we reread an influential book, we do so with new eyes. In the process, we discover new layers of understanding because we have encountered many of the concepts in the real world, and they no longer remain abstractions or theories without the evidence of experience. In this sense, the Seth books are gifts that keep on giving - evergreens - because direct experience helps us penetrate more deeply into layers of meaning cleverly hardwired into the text. How many times have you reread a book and thought it got much better or clearer? It's a mirror of our own growth through time.

Jane Roberts was at the peak of her creative life during the writing of The Nature of Personal Reality. For instance, she wrote in the intro that she considered Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time and The Speakers poems as companions to NPR because they show how her creative and psychic abilities were developing in complementary ways. At this stage of her career, the Seth books had become the means to reach a much larger audience than was possible through private or group sessions, like ESP class.

Jane also began the first Oversoul Seven book during this amazing period. Further, she talked about how she could sense multiple channels or blocks of Seth material available as book dictation, or answers to Rob's questions, or answers to other questions, all at once. Jane also began what she called "the Sumari development," which included singing, pantomime, poetry, and even math. As if this wasn't enough, Jane also developed her Aspect Psychology model in Adventures in Consciousness to explain it all!

So The Nature of Personal Reality was a truly foundational work. It also coined the New Age mantra "you create your own reality" that is still in use today. Another important feature is how Jane and Rob wove their personal lives, mass events like the Elmira/Agnes flood, and the creative nature of the Seth phenomenon into the structure of this book. As such, it is multi-layered and sets up the next book, the magnum opus called The "Unknown" Reality (the only Seth book to include an organized set of transformational Practice Elements and extensive supporting research by Rob Butts).

However, if this is the first time you read The Nature of Personal Reality, you can skip most of Rob's notes and read only Seth's words the first time through. That will make the ideas easier to assimilate. Be sure to include them the second time through, as they add an important dimension.

[Note: integral comments are included in brackets below. You also can skip them and still get the core ideas presented by Seth.]

Summary

Main points to contemplate when reading the Preface and Chapters 1-4:

• Seth focused on ontology - the nature of Being, or Self - and outlined a broad map:
• All-That-Is: mentioned one time-a primary organizing gestalt. [Also called causal body-mind.]
• Inner Self: also called soul, psyche, source self: a mediating nonphysical "region" between All-That-Is and its physically manifested selves. [Also called subtle body-mind.]
• Conscious Mind: Seth used a giant camera metaphor with outer ego as director of lens and focus geared toward physical constructions. [Also called gross body-mind.]
• All the above structures work in concert; the distinctions are artificial and only useful insofar as to point out Aspects within our own awareness right now that may be useful in addressing to various challenges and limited definitions of Self. There are essentially no boundaries or separation to Self or All-That-Is. This is a core belief Seth promotes early on.

[Seth defined the conscious mind as something much wider than just the ego. So this hints at the un- or subconscious processes that early psychologists like Baldwin, Freud, Mesmer, William James, and F. W.H. Meyers began to map in the 19th century.]

[The expanded way Seth defined the conscious mind comes very close to what Jane would soon call the nuclear self in Aspects, distinct from the focus personality. It was her attempt to identify the psychological structure that helped to manage all probable selves within each focus personality (Seth's outer ego) and source self (Seth's inner self or inner ego).]

• With the above concept map presented, Seth recommends that we explore our conscious minds through introspection. "I am not telling you to examine your thoughts so frequently and with such vigor that you get in your own way, but you are not fully conscious unless you are aware of the contents of your conscious mind." p. 34.
• Seth introduced the concept of feeling-tone as a means to more deeply engage the conscious mind and inner self. He offered a simple practice (p. 20-21) in which to discern the simple feeling of being, our innate feeling-tone [or essence-tone to use Elias' equivalent].
• Regarding the exercises in the book overall, Seth said that "The methods that I will outline demand concentration and effort [my italics]. They will also challenge you, and bring into your life expansion and alterations of consciousness of a most rewarding nature." P. xix. In other words, this is not a quick-fix book, but requires serious concentration and effort. Further, it will lead to altered states that are quite beneficial, but mostly denied and repressed by modern worldviews.
• Seth focused initially on the role of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, expectations, emotions, feelings, and imagination in reality creation. All are psychological structures with concomitant physical structures (i.e., brain/body) that are co-causal. That is, they work together in some mysterious way to form, make, and create personal reality.

[An integral approach doesn't over-emphasize inner or outer structures, but a harmonious blend of both. So it's not all about any one factor, but how all of them work together.]

• Note thus far that the phrase YCYOR is not used, but "you make" or "you form" your own reality is the dominant linguistic expression.
• [Seth used the term "gestalt," or collective consciousness, to describe the consciousness of trees and rocks, cells and organs, and "the race of man." Though he doesn't go deeper, there are clear holonic relationships that outline how All-That-Is is nested within all reality creation. "Consider the spectacular framework of your body just from the physical standpoint. You perceive it as solid, as you perceive all other physical matter; yet the more matter is explored the more obvious it becomes that within it energy takes on specific shape (in the form of organs, cells, molecules, atoms, electrons [my italics]), each less physical than the last, each combining in mysterious gestalt to form matter." P. 20.]

[Note that Seth follows the exact order of Wilber's holonic model in the above example. Each is "less physical" than the previous and combine in a "mysterious gestalt" to form our bodies. This is what Wilber means by each wider or superholon "transcends yet includes" each narrower or subholon. For more on holons and holarchy, see: All-That-Is as Holarchy.]

• Seth also outlined the larger, mass gestalt framework within which personal reality occurs. He even outlined a brief history of the conscious mind, for example, showing how the modern conscious mind limited earlier, premodern emotional and psychic abilities, while making great leaps forward by emphasizing the rational-empirical-analytical aspects during the Industrial Revolution.
• Seth also pointed out how mainstream, modern beliefs in Freud's unsavory subconscious -the modern version of The Church's sinful self - have influenced and limited mass reality creation. In other words, they prevent self-examination and introspection of our conscious mind to unmask invisible core beliefs that limit our potentials, because we're taught to believe that only a "priesthood" of trained therapists and years of psychoanalysis can hope to unlock them. So just believing in the existence of Seth's ontology - that there is a conscious mind and inner self all nested within All-That-Is - becomes very important in learning to work more closely with The Self "who creates 100%" of our personal reality. In other words, it's not just limited to outer ego, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, etc., but includes the inner self and even deeper Aspects of All-That-Is, though we don't want to get ahead of Seth's story.
• Another linguistic pattern to notice is that Seth mentions "there is no other rule" three times throughout Chapter Three:



• "What exists physically exists first in thought and feeling. There is no other rule." P. xvii.


• "You make your own reality. There is no other rule. Knowing this is the secret of creativity." P. 14.


• "You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule." P. 45. (This quote was taped on the office wall of Rob Butts during my visits to the Hill House in December 1991 and April 1993.)



[In terms of discernment (adequate interpretation of meaning and linguistic context) this means that Seth used the phrase "there is no other rule" as a strong emphasis and NOT as an Absolute. Otherwise, it would be performative contradiction that ends up negating itself. Still, all three focus on the importance of subjective experience in reality creation, and seem to under-emphasize the role of physical counterparts, like the brain, body, genes, DNA, organs, cells, etc. In hindsight, I believe this emphasis on interiors and idealism (for instance, Jane's idea constructions) is a reaction against the modern emphasis on exteriors and scientific materialism in general. Therefore, from an integral perspective, we attempt to account for both as we interpret Seth's words and intended meanings.]

• Seth began to outline a taxonomy of beliefs that will be further developed:



• Core - foundational belief systems [vMemes] around which many other beliefs [memes] orbit.


• Limiting- beliefs [memes] that serve to inhibit growth and widening.


• Invisible - beliefs [memes] held as Absolute truths that are, in fact, relative and malleable. They are not buried or unconscious, instead they include unexamined assumptions about the nature of reality that may no longer serve our growth and fulfillment.


• Subsidiary/Corollary - offshoots of core beliefs [memes]. Once core belief systems are addressed, false or distorted subsidiary beliefs simply lose their energetic affect. They still exist as potentials, but are neutralized.


• Directional - beliefs [memes] that children receive from parents to ensure a sense of safety to develop their abilities and explore their world.


• Conflicting - subsidiary beliefs [memes] held in simultaneous opposition that manifest physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual symptoms. A physical example, the beliefs that it's important to write (I'm good at communicating with my wife) and it's important to not write (I'm not very good at communicating with a parent) will produce confusing signals to the hands, leading to tension, stress, and cramps when writing. However, once fully identified and addressed to, the opposition and symptoms can be neutralized.


• Joint - beliefs [memes] shared in relationships. Interpersonal beliefs of a similar nature.


• Body - beliefs [memes] about the body's function and whether those functions are healthy or unhealthy, socially acceptable or not, etc.


• Negative - beliefs [memes] that generate strong emotional and imaginative connections that produce unhealthy, even pathological symptoms.


• Active/Passive - the former are beliefs in use by the conscious mind, the latter lie latent as potentials to be activated by conscious mind. This also relates to negative and positive beliefs that are actively in use.


• Private - personal beliefs held by the individual. However, since they are available to others, so when we change beliefs we may get mixed messages intended to sabotage our new beliefs because they no longer align with previous groupthink. "These people will either drop out of your experience or you must drop them from yours." P. 77.


• [The Developmental Seth - though Seth, Jane, and Rob don't go into great detail, they show an understanding of how humans develop through stages, and how our beliefs, belief systems, and worldviews do as well. For example, in the Introduction Jane talked about "the Sumari development," and later in chapter three Seth talked about the different channels of material now available to Jane in waking state indicated a certain "stage of development" in her personal abilities.]

[In chapter four, Seth discussed the origins of beliefs as transmitted and reinforced by our parents. He points out "early stages of development" and the impact of "directional beliefs" that create a nurturing framework where children can explore and develop more easily. Thus, as children, we take our parents' beliefs as Absolute Reality until we mature enough to begin to discern for ourselves that they are beliefs about reality that are not Absolutes.]

[Further, we developed reasoning abilities (intellect) as a species that were meant to "evolve and grow as they are used." As our cognitive capacities develop, we become "more conscious" as well. So growth and development equal increased consciousness in physical terms.]

[The "mature conscious mind" is defined as one that accepts exterior (physical senses and intellect) and interior information (inner knowledge, deep intuition = hunches, inspiration, precognition, clairvoyance). Thus, to limit the function of the conscious mind to one or the other results in an imbalance.]

[However, Seth, Jane, and Rob didn't really get into how the basic stages unfold from egocentric (me) to groupcentric (us) to worldcentric (all of us) to Kosmocentric (All-That-Is). So this book is an introduction to foundational principles, because we can only cover so much in one book!]

In summary, Seth concentrated on ontology or the nature of being by pointing the psychological structures we use in reality creation. He made the nature of being explicit in his pointing out instructions. However, he did not focus on epistemology - how we know what is true and what constitutes evidence of the true. So this remains implicit to Seth's story-telling at this point.

On the other hand, Seth did cover the inner, mental (reason), and outer senses in previous sessions that were published in The Seth Material. So epistemology is covered elsewhere in the material. Keep in mind that The Nature of Personal Reality began with session 609, April 10, 1972, years after Seth made his first appearance.

[Extra Credit: For those interested in applying an integral approach:]

• [Seth provided an exercise in which we begin to list various beliefs. This is a good place to introduce Elias' ten foundational belief systems. From our integral lens, they can be understood as a typology that unfolds in stages of development. For example, if we take the values line from Spiral Dynamics, it deals with beliefs (memes), belief systems (vMemes), and worldviews (weltanschauung) in the individual and how they scale up into the collective through the four quadrants.]



[Within the values or beliefs line, then, we find ten types (or zones or bird cages, to use Elias' metaphor) of core belief systems. It is within these belief systems that we find individual beliefs. So the following is one way to organize the sum total of all our beliefs within ten main belief systems. Together, these ten belief systems form our worldviews:

• Relationships (interpersonal/intrapersonal = self/other)


• Duplicity (morality/ethics)


• Sexuality (sexuality/gender/orientation/preference)


• Truth (relative truths/Absolute Truth)


• Emotion (emotional/feeling)


• Perception (perceptual/attention)


• The senses (inner/mental/outer sensing)


• Religious/spirituality (exoteric/esoteric)


• Scientific/elements of physical reality (scientific/rational)


• Physical creation of the universe, including accidents and coincidences (creation mythos)]


• [As we begin to notice and identify beliefs, the above typology helps us organize and explore interrelationships between them. The rest of NPR will emphasize how belief systems are structured in ways that we can learn through sincere introspection to notice, identify, and address to those core beliefs that lie at the root of our main challenges, problems, and dis-eases.]