From Psychic Politics by Jane Roberts (pp. 358-9)

“Seth is right: I live in a safe universe. Each of us does. That statement is senseless at the official level of consciousness; the sheerest kind of Pollyanna. Surrounded by wars, poverty, cruelty, and prophecies of the end of the world, how can the idea of safety fit in?

“Yet – when the psyche goes within itself and finds its own true tone, discovers its private touchstone, the aura of safety spreads about it, forming special places as the psyche imprints its own private mark upon the environment; transforming it by altering the focus of consciousness and changing levels of perception, and hence coming into a world where the old laws and beliefs no longer apply.

“Then and only then, going out into the world means going out into a safe universe with the way cleared and vision open, where none of the old defenses are needed and in which old fears no longer apply. As Seth humorously put it in one of our sessions, ‘I said it was a safe universe. I never said it was a perfect one.’ So this doesn’t mean the end of challenges, but the release of energy and ability, the full use of our equipment to achieve our goals, whatever they are.

“So when we go out into the world again, it is the same world – the streets and shops are there as always – but it is also a completely different world, filled out and enriched by enlightened perception, no longer prejudiced by limited beliefs. It becomes a world in which we are competent; no longer victims but creators, learning to develop an art of living hardly suspected before.

“The stages between that condition and the one we have now will vary considerably, but again Seth is correct He says that a time comes to each of us when we can no longer equivocate, when we can straddle the fence no longer. Then we truly rouse, take the leap, and replace old beliefs with the codicils or their equivalent. The codicils are my versions of the new assumptions that can lead us to such a state; sifted through my psyche and experience. Yet they will be discovered to some extent by each person in his or her way, new assumptions of consciousness-but ancient knowledge native to each of us, ready to be used in a new way.”

From – ESP Class July 12, 1975

Jane and Rob had invited to their home a few of the people who had been regular members of Jane’s ESP class. Jane had received a copy of her new book, Adventures in Consciousness. This book was passed around and discussed, as was Seth’s book, The Nature of Personal Reality. The discussion went to the subject of beliefs. George B. made a comment about being “smothered by love.” Seth used this as a launching pad to enter the conversation with the following delivery:

“Now, you believe that love is smothering because you believe that you do not live in a safe universe. And each of you, to some degree or another, here, believe that the universe is not safe, and therefore you must set up your defenses against it.

“Now, the one-line, official consciousness, with which you are familiar, says, ‘The world is not safe. I cannot trust it, nor can I trust the conditions of experience, or the conditions of my own existence – nor can I trust myself. I can look at a squirrel and rejoice, but I cannot look at myself and rejoice, for, lo, I am filled with iniquity, and I am, to some extent, evil, and I must hide myself. I am not only evil, as myself, but I come from a tainted and flawed race, and my father and my mother were tainted before me, and I send these tragic flaws on before me into the future. And therefore, I must need protect myself, and I must set up my defenses in whatever way I can, to protect myself in a universe that I cannot trust, and to protect myself from a self that is evil and flawed.’

“And as long as you hold to those beliefs, then in whatever way you must need set up defenses, it may be that love is smothering. Other beliefs, instead, will follow. You have an entire civilization and world set up about those beliefs I have just given you: that the universe is not safe, that you must defend yourselves from enemies that come from without, and worst of all, from enemies that are within. And so indeed, do you feel uneasy and set up your barriers and run as fast as you can, in whatever way given you, from those enemies that are the result of a one-line official kind of consciousness. As long as you believe that you dwell in a universe that is a threat, you must defend yourself against it. As long as you believe that the self is flawed, and that your race is damned and evil, you must also defend yourself against yourself, and how can you trust the voice of the psyche?

“And when I say to you, ‘Be spontaneous,’ how dare you take that step, when to be spontaneous would obviously give rise to all the lust, and all the passion, and all the murder, and all the hatred – to you, quite obviously inherent in the human heart.

And so you say, ‘I will try to be spontaneous, but how can I? I believe I am good, but how can I be good when I come from a race that is evil?’ You try to say, ‘The universe is safe,’ and then you watch the news on television, or you read your newspaper, and you say, ‘What lie is this? How can the universe be safe when I read about wholesale murder, and war, and trickery, and greed? How can I be myself, for if I am myself, will I not unleash unto the world only more of the horror that I see about me. For surely human nature cannot change, and human nature is evil. Look already what evil it has worked upon the planet in which I have my existence. Then tell me, Seth, ‘Be spontaneous!’ What do you ask of me, and how can I therefore in this context stand upon the authority of my own psyche and say, I insist that I am good?

“The official line of consciousness forms a world about it, and you perceive and experience that world. And it will always show you the results of the beliefs that are inherent in the official line of consciousness. While you devote yourself to that official line of consciousness, the world will always appear the same: evil, disastrous, bound only for damnation, whether through nuclear destruction or the greater judgment of a fundamental god.

“Now [Jane] was indeed correct. For The Nature of Personal Reality is a good book! It is a helpful book, and it is a far trickier book than you realize! It will lead you, automatically, if you use it well, out of the official line of consciousness. You will begin to question, not only your own private beliefs for your own purposes, but the nature of beliefs. It will lead you to look for other strands of consciousness.

“Now [Jane] is working with what he calls the codicils – material that he is getting from the library. And those codicils, if you will forgive the term, are truths! They are truths that are quite apparent at another stage of consciousness.

“The one-line stage of consciousness was necessary for reasons that [Jane] has clearly given in his own new book. But that stage contained within it, its own impetus. It set up challenges that could not be solved at that stage of consciousness and that would automatically lead you into other strands of awareness. Only then can those contradictions make sense. Only then can you say, individually, and listen now, ‘I live in a safe universe.’

“You need not say, ‘The universe is safe,’ for at your present level, that will only enrage you! You say, instead, ‘I live in a safe universe,’ and so you shall. And those defenses that you set up against threats will crumble, for they will not be needed.

“Now when you are born as a child, you are born in trust. When you become born again, in a Sumari birth, then you wed innocence and knowledge. You know that you are innocent. You know that you know that your universe is safe.

“Now in his book, [Jane] has come upon these codicils, and they are practical, and they are realities. But at the official level of consciousness, they sound impossible. They contradict everything that it seems you know at this level of existence. So you must… and you are learning, here and there, to alter the stages of your consciousness, where those codicils make sense.

“Each of you tell yourselves that you live in a safe universe. Do not say, ‘The universe is safe.’ It will only confuse you at this stage. But you are safe, and you are innocent, and you can become aware of that innocence.

“… Now, when people read The Nature of Personal Reality they will begin to examine their beliefs and they will think that they are doing so to get rid of one problem, or to gain an advantage. But they will soon find themselves involved in challenging the entire belief system that they know. And when they do, they will automatically begin to alter the focus of their consciousness. They will automatically then begin to alter the nature of their world. Then, my dear friend (to Rob) we will have another book ready for them. The ‘Unknown’ Reality will confuse them further! It will disorient them completely! And then we will come out with another book that will help them find their footing in the world that they know – but a new footing that is not the same as the one they knew before. We will help them out of the confusion that we have caused, in other words!

“Now I have always been a teacher. And because I am a teacher, I have many methods, and I am not confined to your one-line official consciousness. So I have my own beneficial, playful tricks! And The Nature of Personal Reality was one of those! It will help many people. And they will get whatever it is that they think that they want. And a lot more that they did not count on!

“But I return the floor to each of you, and to the great exuberant selves that are your own.”