To believe that consciousness is created by matter, which is the predominant belief today, is akin to saying that a TV set is the primal cause of the images it displays. This is what we believe about the brain. If an alien made an appearance on our planet and saw a TV program he might believe that the set was producing the image. If he cut a wire he might lose a few channels, thereby confirming his belief. If he breaks the screen he would be further supported by his supposition. We know
that the TV is merely a conduit for the images produced elsewhere, but when it comes to the brain we switch gears and go to thinking similar to that of the alien. In Jane Roberts/Seth’s 1981 book,
The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Seth used a beautiful Television analogy regarding the nature of consciousness and the events we experience in this physical
reality. I wish to share it with you here. As Ed McMahon might say, “Heeeeere’s Sethy.”
“I have used television as an analogy at various times, and I would like to do so again, to show the ways in which physical events are formed, and to try to describe the many methods used by individuals in choosing those particular events that will be personally encountered.
“Not only does television serve as a mass means of communal meditation, but it also presents you with highly detailed, manufactured dreams, in which each viewer shares to some extent. We will use some distinctions here, and so I am going to introduce the terms “Framework 1” and “Framework 2,” to make my discussion clear.
(Elias= Regional Area 1 and Regional Area 2)
“We will call the world as you physically experience it, Framework 1. In Framework 1, you watch television programs, for example. You have your choice of many channels. You have favorite programs. You follow certain scenes or actors. You watch all of these dramas, hardly understanding how it is that they appear on your screen to begin with. You are certain, however, that if you do buy a television set it will perform in an adequate fashion, whether or not you are familiar with electronics.
“You switch from channel to channel with predictable results. The programming for channel 9, for example, does not suddenly intrude on Channel 6. Even the actors themselves, taking part in such sagas, have but the remotest idea of events that are involved in order that their own images will appear on your television screen. Their jobs are to act, taking it for granted that the technicians are following through.
“Now somewhere there is a program director, who must take care of the entire programming. Shows must be done on time; actors assigned their roles. Our hypothetical director will know which actors are free, which actors prefer character roles, which ones are heroes or heroines, and which smiling Don Juan always gets the girl – and in general who plays the
good guys and the bad guys,.
“There is no need in my outlining in detail the multitudinous events that must occur so that you can watch your favorite program. You flip the switch and there it is, while all of that background work is unknown to you. You take it for granted. Your job is simply to choose the programs of your choice on any evening. Many others are watching the same programs, of course, yet each person will react quite individually.
“Now for a moment let us imagine that physical events occur in the same fashion – that you choose which (ones) flash upon the screen of your experience. You are quite familiar with the events of your own life, for you are, of course, your own main hero or heroine, villain or victim, or whatever. As you do not know what happens in the television studio before you observe a program, however, so you do not know what happens in the creative framework of reality before you experience physical events. We will call that vast “unconscious” mental and universal studio Framework 2.
“…..You can turn off a program that offends you. You can choose to buy or not buy a product whose virtues are being praised. Television presents you with a
mirror to your society. It reflects and re-reflects through millions of homes the giant dreams and fears, the hopes and terrors of events in the most private individual.
“Television interacts with your lives, but it does not cause your lives. It does not cause the events that it depicts. With your great belief in technology, it often seems to many people that television creates violence, for example, or that it causes a love of over-materialism, or that it causes “loose morals.” Television reflects. In a manner of speaking it does not even distort, though it may reflect distortions. The writers and actors of television dramas are attuned to the “mass mind.” They are not leaders or followers. They are creative reflectors, acutely aware of the overall, generalized emotional and psychic patterns of the age.
“They also make choices as to which plays they will take part in. Each has his or her own favorite kind of role, even if the role be that of a maverick. To the actors, of course, their roles become strong parts of their personal experiences, while those who observe the plays take part largely as observers.
“You are aware through your newspapers and magazines of the dramas, news broadcasts, or other programs that are presently being offered. In the same way you are aware, generally speaking, of the “programs” being physically presented in your own nation and throughout the world. You decide which of these adventures you want to take part in – and those you will experience in normal life, or in Framework 1.
“The inner mechanisms that happen prior to your experience will take place in the vast mental studio of Framework 2. Here, all the details will be arranged, the seemingly chance encounters, for example, the unexplained coincidences that might have to occur before a physical event takes place.
“On a conscious level, and with your conscious reserves alone, you could not keep your body alive an hour. You would not know how to do it, for your life flows through you automatically and spontaneously. You take the details for granted – the breathing, the inner mechanisms of nourishment and elimination, the circulation, and the maintenance of your psychological continuity. All of that is taken care of for
you in what I have termed Framework 2.
“In that regard, certainly, everything works to your advantage. Indeed, often the more concerned you become with your body the less smoothly it functions. In the spontaneity of your body’s operation there is obviously a fine sense of order. When you turn on a television set the picture seems to come out of nowhere onto the screen – yet that picture is the result of order precisely focused.
“Actors visit casting agencies so that they know what plays need their services. In your dreams you visit “casting agencies.” You are aware of the various plays being considered for physical production. In the dream state, then, often you familiarize yourself with dramas that are of a
probable nature. If enough interest is shown, if enough actors apply, if enough resources are accumulated, the play will go on. When you are in other than your normally conscious state, you visit that creative inner
agency in which all physical productions must have their beginning. You meet with others, who for their own reasons are interested in the same kind of drama. Following our analogy, the technicians, the actors, the writers all assemble – only in this case the result will be a live event rather than a televised one. There are disaster films being planned, educational programs, religious drams. All of these will be encountered in full-blown physical reality.
“Such events occur as a result of individual beliefs, desires, and
intents. There is no such thing as a chance encounter. No death occurs by
chance, nor any birth. In the creative atmosphere of Framework 2, intents are known. In a manner of speaking, no act is private. Your communication systems bring to your living room notices of events that occur throughout the world. Yet that larger inner system of communications is far more powerful in scope, and each mental act is imprinted in the multidimensional screen of Framework 2. That screen is available to all, and in other levels of consciousness, particularly in the sleep and dreaming stages, the events of that inner reality are as ever-present and easily accessible as physical events are when you are awake.
“It is as if Framework 2 contains an infinite information service, that instantly puts you in contact with whatever knowledge you require, that sets up circuits between you and others, that computes probabilities with blinding speed. Not with the impersonality of a computer, however, but with a loving intent that has your best purposes in mind – yours and also those of each other individual.
“You cannot gain what you want at someone else’s detriment, then. You cannot use Framework 2 to force an event upon another person. Certain prerequisites must be met, you see, before a desired end can become physically experienced.”
Bill Marshall
Check out my lastest book, The Forgotten Self,
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