Seth Material Quotes

I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.

For enjoyment is a weapon. The man who is capable of joy is capable, to a large extent, of changing his world. Joy is not a weak spineless idiot either. Its backbone is stronger than bitterness.

The God concept, of course, originated from mankind’s innate knowledge that consciousness precedes physical construction.

Live every day to its fullest, and do not be a slave to your hopes for the future. If you do not learn to enjoy today you will not enjoy the future no matter what it may bring.

The ego is definitely an advancement, but it can be compared to the bark of the tree in many ways. The bark of the tree is flexible, extremely vibrant, and grows with the growth beneath. It is a tree’s contact with the outer world, the tree’s interpreter, and to some degree the tree’s companion. So should man’s ego be. When man’s ego turns instead into a shell, when instead of interpreting outside conditions it reacts too violently against them, then it hardens, becomes an imprisoning form that begins to snuff out important data, and to keep enlarging information from the inner self. The purpose of the ego is protective. It is also a device to enable the inner self to inhabit the physical plane. It is in other words a camouflage. It is the

I have told you that you create your dreams, in actuality, not in theory alone. You create an actuality, a dream universe, as real as the physical universe. It simply cannot be directly perceived within the physical universe.

Time does not cause change in matter, appearances to the contrary. I am going to skip a giant step, and say that man himself and all conscious beings produce matter subconsciously.

Without a sense of joy and inner accomplishment and development of potential, the personality will not only fail to flourish, but the inner self will refuse to maintain the physical structure adequately. This is extremely important. Superficial measures will not fool the inner self.

When you are overly concerned with physical matters, and even vital physical matters, you pull yourself in. And more ridiculous, you pull up your roots. A tree would never pull up its roots. I am not speaking now of pulling up your roots in terms of moving from one location to another. I am speaking of something akin to cutting off your roots from any nourishment

Two men for example, of precisely the same physical age, of precisely the same physical condition, will be in completely different states of mind, of competence, of effectiveness and of strength, as a direct result of their inner beliefs as to their relative freedom within the framework of the physical system in which they exist. The man who does not realize his basic independence from the physical system will not have the same freedom within it.

The problem is not in the exterior circumstances but in your own mental attitude toward them, and in the habitual patterns of thought that you have subjectively accepted.

It is only the ego that steps from moment to moment, as a man who walks from puddle to puddle. It is only the ego who drowns in time.

Without constant clairvoyance on the part of every man and woman, existence on your plane would involve such inner, psychological insecurity that it would be completely unbearable. Individuals are always warned of disasters, so that the organism can prepare itself ahead of time. The day of death is known.

The basis and firm groundwork of the material, and its primary contribution, lies in the concept that consciousness itself indeed creates matter, that consciousness is not imprisoned by matter but forms it, and that consciousness is not limited or bound by time or space; time and space in your terms being necessary distortions, or adopted conditions, forming a strata for physical existence.

A simple example can be seen in the transformation of an idea into a painting, that is the transformation of the energy, the psychological energy of an idea into physical materialization. The idea itself, once you have conceived of it, represents an additional energy component that you build up, formulate and manipulate on the psychological level, and then transform; but the idea itself contains energy.

You must again realize that we speak of the self as being so divided only for simplicity’s sake. While the self is whole, it is however compartmentalized for efficiency’s sake, but beneath consciousness the doors are open. Again, the conscious self is most necessary. However it cannot be stressed too strongly that consciousness is merely a state of focus, and not a self. Consciousness is the direction in which the self looks at any given time.

This is your commitment. This is the time for it. If you are to be an entity, as you have chosen to be, then this is your opportunity, and this is your last reincarnation upon this earth. You need power, strength, determination, and joyous spontaneity in your working hours. You also need to influence personally those people in the outside world with whom you come in daily contact, and to extend yourself in using your full abilities of understanding and creativeness in your outside contacts. You need also to expand in the direction in which you are going, in terms of these sessions and psychological time.

The physical organism itself then, even as you know it, exists and moves and reacts and influences, and is influenced by, many fields or planes of actuality; and its existence as you know it in your universe is determined by and dependent upon its existence within other fields, of which man is still intellectually ignorant.

It is imperative that we move away from the concept of a self as an indivisible, rigid and limited reality.

You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore it behooves you to examine them carefully. If you do not like your world, then examine your own expectations. Every thought in one way or another is constructed by you in physical terms. Your world is formed in faithful replica of your own thoughts.

--Gardens, not buildings-- Great projects start out feeling like buildings. There are architects, materials, staff, rigid timelines, permits, engineers, a structure. It works or it doesn't. Build something that doesn't fall down. On time. But in fact, great projects, like great careers and relationships that last, are gardens. They are tended, they shift, they grow. They endure over time, gaining a personality and reflecting their environment. When something dies or fades away, we prune, replant and grow again. Perfection and polish aren't nearly as important as good light, good drainage and a passionate gardener. By all means, build. But don't finish. Don't walk away. Here we grow.

There are so many distractions, I think. Commerce, materialism, entertainment, the endless chase of perfection—aren’t these also ways to avoid the restlessness rattling in our bones? Aren’t these just another way to numb? Aren’t these another sleight of hand? We become entranced people, zombies longing for the stuff of earth without thought of the truest perfect—the unity of home.

When the outer ego is narrow, and poorly represents these subdominant personalities then they rise up in arms, and when conditions are favorable attempt to express themselves through a momentary weakness on the part of the dominant ego. But without even doing this they may momentarily take over or express themselves through a single function, such as speech or motion, while the outer ego is blissfully unaware.

Man will not learn the basic nature of reality by studying the physical universe alone, nor will he learn it by studying the personality as it operates within the physical universe alone. The nature of reality can only be approached by an investigation of reality as it is directly experienced in all levels of awareness: reality as it appears under dream conditions, under other conditions of dissociation, and as it appears in the waking condition.

Your camouflage and your world is created by conscious focusing and unconscious concentration. Only by turning your head away for a moment can you see what is beneath the seemingly solid pattern. By plunging into our ocean of value climate you can dive beneath your camouflage system and look up to see it, relatively foundationless, floating above you, moved, formed and directed by the shifting illusions caused by the wind of will, and the force of subconscious concentration and demand.

(In the 44th session, Seth began a list of qualities and attributes which are included in the spacious present. To date there are eleven of these: Value climate of psychological reality; energy transformation; spontaneity; durability; creation; consciousness; capacity for infinite mobility; law of infinite changeability and transmutation; cooperation; arrival and departure, meaning physical birth and death; and quality depth, the perspective in which an idea can expand, replacing our time and space.)

The unsatisfying but honest answer is that I don’t know for sure, but probably not. The beast machine theory proposes that consciousness in humans and other animals arose in evolution, emerges in each of us during development, and operates from moment to moment in ways intimately connected with our status as living systems. All of our experiences and perceptions stem from our nature as self-sustaining living machines that care about their own persistence. My intuition – and again it’s only an intuition – is that the materiality of life will turn out to be important for all manifestations of consciousness. One reason for this is that the imperative for regulation and self-maintenance in living systems isn’t restricted to just one level, such as the integrity of the whole body. Self-maintenance for living systems goes all the way down, even down to the level of individual cells. Every cell in your body – in any body – is continually regenerating the conditions necessary for its own integrity over time. The same cannot be said for any current or near-future computer, and would not be true even for a silicon beast machine of the sort I just described.

Intellectual truth alone will not make you free, though it is certainly a necessary preliminary. If this were the case your walls would fall away, since intellectually you understand their rather dubious nature. Since feeling is so often the cohesive with which mind builds, it is feeling itself which must be changed if you would find freedom from your particular plane of existence at your particular time. That is, to some extent a change in feeling will allow you to see variants. Since feeling is a cohesive, to change it completely would hardly be of any advantage since your world of present existence would fall apart.

This sense of continuity in individual environment is a result of the individual’s characteristic way of constructing basic psychological structures into physical structures. The basic psychological structures available have definite solidity, depth, mass, et cetera, in the psychological perspective, and they may be formed into numberless gestalt patterns, which are then constructed physically. The variations of construction are endless. There is nothing to force an individual for example to form psychological gestalts of hate and fear from the basic structure of consciousness survival. To do so represents an inability to perceive clearly the nature of the basic structure, and such an inability often carries over into habit so that other basic structures are also misinterpreted. A setting—right in one small area of psychological perspective can, therefore, result in a beneficial turnabout in the manipulation of other basic structures, even though they seem unrelated.

There were three great comedians in my formative years—Bill Cosby, Bill Murray, and Richard Pryor—and they wrecked comedy for a generation. How? By never saying anything funny. You can quote a Steve Martin joke, or a Rodney Dangerfield line, but Pryor, Cosby, and Murray? The things they said were funny only when they said them. In Cosby’s case, it didn’t even need to be sentences: “The thing of the thing puts the milk in the toast, and ha, ha, ha!” It was gibberish and America loved it. The problem was that they inspired a generation of comedians who tried coasting on personality—they were all attitude and no jokes. It was also a time when comedy stars didn’t seem to care. Bill Murray made some lousy movies; Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy made even more; and any script that was too lame for these guys, Chevy Chase made. These were smart people—they had to know how bad these films were, but they just grabbed a paycheck and did them. Most of these comic actors started as writers—they could have written their own scripts, but they rarely bothered. Then, at the end of a decade of lazy comedy and half-baked material, The Simpsons came along. We cared about jokes, and we worked endless hours to cram as many into a show as possible. I’m not sure we can take all the credit, but TV and movies started trying harder. Jokes were back. Shows like 30 Rock and Arrested Development demanded that you pay attention. These days, comedy stars like Seth Rogen, Amy Schumer, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, and Jonah Hill actually write the comedies they star in.

HARRIS: But if substrate independence is the case, and you could have the appropriately organized system made of other material, or even simulated—it can just be on the hard drive of some supercomputer—then you could imagine, even if you needed some life course of experience in order to tune up all the relevant variables, there could be some version of doing just that, across millions of simulated experiments and simulated worlds, and you would wind up with conscious minds in those contexts. Are you skeptical of that possibility? SETH: Yes, I’m skeptical of that, because I think there’s a lot of clear air between saying the physical state of a system is what matters, and that simulation is sufficient. First, it’s not clear to me what “substrate independence” really means. It seems to turn on an overzealous application of the hardware/software distinction—that the mind and consciousness is just a matter of getting the functional relations right and it doesn’t matter what hardware or wetware you run it on. But it’s unclear whether I can really partition how a biological system like the brain works according to these categories. Where does the wetware stop and the mindware start, given that the dynamics of the brain are continually reshaping the structure and the structure is continually reshaping the dynamics? It becomes a bit difficult to define what the substrate really is. Of course, if you’re willing to say, “Well, we’re not just capturing input-output relations, we’re going to make an exact physical duplicate,” then that’s fine. That’s just a statement about materialism. But I don’t find it intuitive to go from making an exact physical replicate, all the way up to simulations, and therefore simulations of lots of possible life histories, and so on. It’s really not clear to me that simulation will ever be sufficient to instantiate phenomenal properties.

On a subtler level, the structure of framework inheres an intimate and complex segregation, a 'conjugated oppression'. Philippe Bourgois coins this term in his analysis of a Central American banana plantation to show that ethnicity and class work together to produce an oppression experientially and materially different from that produced by either alone.

The basic idea is that the senses are developed, not to permit awareness of an already existing material world, but to create it. …

If you want to know what you think of yourself, then ask yourself what you think of others, and you will find your answer.

There is within you a force that knew how to grow you from a fetus to a grown adult. This force is part of the innate knowledge within all consciousness, and it is a part of the God within you. The responsibility for your life and your world is indeed yours. It has not been forced upon you by some outside agency. You form your own dreams, and you form your own physical reality. The world is what you are. It is the physical materialization of the inner selves which have formed it.

MIT physicist Seth Lloyd supports the idea of other worldly portals in his book Programming the Universe. Quantum mechanics has proven that an electron is not only allowed to be in two places at once—it is required to be. Certain particles not only spin in two directions at the same time, but have to do so.21 At really high speeds, atoms require more information to describe their movements, and therefore they have more entropy.22 However, an observer affects the outcome of whatever he or she is observing. As explained in the book The Orb Project, the effect of the observer on the quantum field causes reality to reorganize according to the observation. This means that a newly observed reality descends through the frequency levels below the quantum, becoming dense in material reality.23 The nonobserved information becomes “lost” if it doesn’t qualify as “real” or desirable to the observer. It is not eliminated; instead, the not-selected potential slips into a pocket of “elsewhere.” Conceivably, we can get it back. As Lloyd explains, we can access lost data by “flipping a qubit,” a code phrase that means we can apply a magnetic field to force energy to shift from one state to another.24 We have established that the subtle layer is atop the physical and that the etheric layer of subtle energies is magnetic in nature. Could it be that the information we cannot find—perhaps, the data that could make a sick person well—is lingering a plane above us? We’ve one more law to face: the third law of thermodynamics. Experiments with absolute zero provide a new perspective on it, one that coaxes an understanding of subtle energy. Absolute zero is the point at which particles have minimum energy, called zero-point energy. Researchers including Dr. Hal Puthoff have identified this zero-point energy with zero-point field, a mesh of light that encompasses all of reality. (This field is further explained in Part III.) This field of light is a vacuum state, but it is not empty; rather, it is a sea of electromagnetic energy, and possibly, virtual particles—ideas that can become real. Conceivably, energy should stand completely still at absolute zero, which would mean that information would become permanently imprisoned. Research on zero-point energy, however, reveals that nearing zero-point, atomic motion stops, but energy continues. This means that “lost information” is not really lost. Even when frozen, it continues to “vibrate” in the background. The pertinent questions are these: How do we “read” this background information? How do we apply it? These queries are similar to those we might ask about “hidden” information. How do we access suppressed but desirable data? The answers lie in learning about subtle structures, for these dwell at the interfaces between the concrete and the higher planes. Operate within the subtle structures, and you can shift a negative reality to a positive one, without losing energy in the process.

You are what you are, and you will be more. Do not be afraid of change, for you are change, and you change as you sit before me. All action is change, for otherwise there would be a static universe, and then indeed death would be the end.

For all actions merge one into the other, and none are truly independent; and all units merge one into the other, and all boundaries shift, and are arbitrarily chosen. Boundaries are the results of the limitations of perception, for a unit seems to end where perception of it ceases.

consider merely that all types of awareness are trance states... consciousness is the direction in which the self looks.

usual. She walked to the couch and sat down, her eyes closed once again. She spoke rather slowly. The following is my reconstruction of the brief and somewhat enigmatic session.) There is no necessity for taking notes. There is something here that you

Now, if you find yourself with a headache, say immediately, ‘That is in the past. Now in this new moment, this new present, I am already beginning to feel better.’ Then immediately turn your attention away from the physical condition. Concentrate upon something pleasant, or begin another task.

Because if star travel is so easy that it can be achieved in three days—or less, depending how long it took them to detect Blackbird’s appearance—then the galaxy is full, and species must compete over limited space and resources. The material conditions dictate it. We must assume that subjugation or extermination are the normal result of first contact.

The body itself singlemindedly seeks health." —TPS3 Deleted Session October 13, 1975

Yes, I’m skeptical of that, because I think there’s a lot of clear air between saying the physical state of a system is what matters, and that simulation is sufficient. First, it’s not clear to me what “substrate independence” really means. It seems to turn on an overzealous application of the hardware/software distinction—that the mind and consciousness is just a matter of getting the functional relations right and it doesn’t matter what hardware or wetware you run it on. But it’s unclear whether I can really partition how a biological system like the brain works according to these categories. Where does the wetware stop and the mindware start, given that the dynamics of the brain are continually reshaping the structure and the structure is continually reshaping the dynamics? It becomes a bit difficult to define what the substrate really is. Of course, if you’re willing to say, “Well, we’re not just capturing input-output relations, we’re going to make an exact physical duplicate,” then that’s fine. That’s just a statement about materialism. But I don’t find it intuitive to go from making an exact physical replicate, all the way up to simulations, and therefore simulations of lots of possible life histories, and so on. It’s really not clear to me that simulation will ever be sufficient to instantiate phenomenal properties.

The problem, though, was that Thomas had never before been taught by the teacher named failure. As the broken Thomas spent hours by the mural and hours more lying in bed that night trying to fuse his shattered psyche with misguided hope and dubious possibility, he had no understanding of how to do so. In other words, he had all the raw materials but lacked the proper tools. As is often the case in such situations, his new identity was chaotic and distorted, a little more Picasso than da Vinci, or some may argue, his transformation left him a little more Mr. Hyde than Dr. Jekyll.

The intensity of a feeling or thought or mental image is, therefore, the important element in determining its subsequent physical materialization.

We can see all material, all creation, as an expression of God’s grace to us and an invitation to participate more fully in his Divine Love. Rooted in this sobriety, we don’t have to be afraid of the Stuff of Earth, because we know the whizz-bang of the Stuff of Earth becomes nothing more than a sorry substitute for divine afección. What’s more, on occasion, the objects that once were our poison might become the means of our healing.10

From it is woven all material of your world and mine. If you consider the wires again, then you could view them as solidified emotion, woven together, however with a strong cohesive and stiffening power of the intellect. With feeling alone, although it is the basis, you would have an inconsistent, very precarious framework. Reason is the form that disciplines and upholds these frameworks.

By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.

I understood, too, what was upsetting my supposed benefactors. This wasn't about my work or my Instagram feed, or whatever uncomfortable email or phone call. Ryan and Seth had received this morning from whichever of their corporate partners was currently on edge. This was about the extent to which I would seem to be playing my role. Just as I had come to understand that in the world of Pict it wasn't enough simply to go to work and go home - that there was, in addition, and expectation of some deeper, human contribution - so too, in the context of this programme, this opportunity, it would never be enough simply to point to the material gains I had made. They needed me to be not only successful, but happy, evolved, gratefully aglow. It was my job to make them feel good about themselves and to help them package up that satisfaction for the consumption of others. In my mind, I saw their vision: me, on a podium or stage, perhaps giving a TED talk, gushing about the life in the change in my life they'd occasioned. (p.165)

No one–and I mean no one!–ever sat me down, nudged me, or gave me the elbow or the wink that getting old would be like this. Why is that?! If I had known, I would have been at least a bit prepared for the cyclone event that would befall me. No elderly person I’ve known ever looked hysterical, ran around panting like a dog, or screamed like a banshee while ripping off their clothes and diving into the sea! So, why no muffled screams from the cheap seats? Why no letter have I received, sealed with an emblem in blood and no return address, simply marked: “Warning—dated material enclosed—Run!” Come on now, elderly people look so cute and sweet. I see them on the bus, at church, on laxative commercials, but always smiling. Have they been warned that if you scream your bloody guts off—you will be banished to Century Park Village, sans any golf cart or Ibuprofen? What I have witnessed my body do in the past 10 years would scare a newborn back into the womb. And trust me, if ‘Seth spoke’, he’d definitely have a few things to say about this shit show! And where the hell is “Bridget Jones’s Diary: Menopocalypse!” Knee-Deep in a Hot Flash!?

In reality you project your own energy out to form the physical world. Therefore, to change your world, it is yourself you must change. You must change what you project.

I now know we do have the freedom to change ourselves and our environment, and that in a very basic manner, we ourselves form the environment to which we then react. I believe that we form our own reality now, and after death.

While many of your expectations are formed in childhood, no switch is really stuck in one position, and it is your prerogative to channel your emotional energy into whatever pattern for action you desire. It is extremely important, if difficult, to probe and to discover exactly what your present expectations are. Not your desires but your expectations, for you will only construct physically that environment which you believe capable of construction. It has been said that oftentimes men’s expectations are too high for their abilities, but indeed expectations form abilities; and if expectations were higher, so would abilities flourish.

It is not a case of coldly going after money, but rather a case of naturally expecting that ability will bring its natural physical constructions, in terms of physical satisfaction.