I admit to not having read any of the Seth Material prior to preparing for this blog article. Furthermore, I can safely state that the Simple Explanation is NOT derivative in any sense from New Age materials of any sort. My own flavor of the Christian meme bundle forbids dabbling in the New Age. The Simple Explanation is solely derived from original source ancient manuscripts such as the Bible and the Tao te Ching, up-to-the-minute scientific discoveries, and whatever academic studies a bachelor’s in science, two master’s degrees, and a doctorate in philosophy have exposed me to.
So, here’s what
a fresh reading of the Seth Material shows me. From Wikipedia:
The Seth Material says that all individuals create their
own circumstances and experiences within the shared earthly environment,
similar to the doctrine of responsibility assumption. This concept is expressed in the phrase "you create
your own reality",[20] which may have originated with the
Seth readings. The inner self, or inner ego, is responsible for the
construction and maintenance of the individual's physical body and immediate
physical environment, and the unfolding of events is determined by the expectations,
attitudes and beliefs of the outer ego, that portion of the self that human
beings know as themselves.[18] "If you want to change your
world, you must first change your thoughts, expectations, and beliefs."[27] Or, more succinctly: "You get
what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule"[28] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Material
The Seth Material
claims that there is no objective reality that is not a projection of the
individual’s mind. The tree you see is literally projected from your mind’s
eye; it is not the tree being received into your eye’s sensors but the other
way around. You don't "hear" the thunder; your audio nerves make the thunder:
Nerve impulses travel outward from the body, along invisible
pathways, in much the same manner that they travel within the body. These
pathways are carriers of telepathic thoughts, impulses, and desires containing
all the codified data necessary for translating any thought or image into
physical actuality, altering seemingly objective events.
This telepathy operates constantly at an
"automatic" or subconscious level, providing communication to back up
sensory data. Telepathy is the glue that holds the physical universe in
position, so that you can agree on the existence and properties of objects. In
one respect, your body and all physical objects go flying out in all directions
from the inner core of the whole self. The physical environment is, therefore,
as much a part of you as your own body. What seems to be a
perception, an objective concrete event independent from you, is instead the
materialization of your own emotions, energy and mental environment. (http://sethquotes.paradisenow.net/seth_excerpts_part_iii.html)
The natural outgrowth of this philosphy is the doctrine of Responsibility Assumption. This sense of responsibility goes far beyond the usual meaning of personal responsibility. In this Seth doctrine:
You must watch the pictures that you paint with your
imagination... ...your environment and the conditions of your life at any given
time are the direct result of your own inner expectations. You form physical
materializations of these realities within your own mind.
If you imagine dire circumstances, ill health, or desperate
loneliness, these will be automatically materialized, for these thoughts
themselves bring about the conditions that will give them reality in physical
terms. If you would have good health, then you must imagine this as vividly as
in fear you imagine the opposite.
You create your own difficulties. This is true for each
individual. The inner psychological state is projected outward, gaining
physical reality - and this regardless of the nature of the psychological
state....The rules apply to everyone. You can use them for your own benefit and
change your own conditions once you realize what they are. http://sethquotes.paradisenow.net/seth_excerpts_part_iii.html
This doctrine forms
the foundation for the popular New Age book, A Course in Miracles. But I usually
see people interpret Responsibility Assumption in a way not intended by Seth.
For, according to the Seth Material, you not only create the positive and
negative opportunities in your life, there really is no life beyond your
imagination. The Seth Material likens reality to one’s dreams. We all accept that the objects and people in our dreams are constructions and projections of our mind, playing out in the theatre of sleep. Seth said reality is exactly the
same—nothing but a projection of our senses onto a nothingness, giving us the
illusion of material existance.
In contrast, the
Simple Explanation theory posits a universal medium of consciousness as the
ether within which our physical manifestation floats. In my theory, there is aphysical reality we all share, arising directly from the universal mind, which I call the Universal Unit of Consciousness. So in that sense, matter is a
projection of mind, but the BIG MIND we all share, thus we can also share a
consensual reality. It seems to me that if one took Seth precisely, people would be totally
isolated in their private material universes, with others being projections of
themselves rather than stand-alone entities. Sounds lonely.
The Simple
Explanation says that each Unit of Consciousness is an emergent property of the
newly formed matter or aggregation of matter. Each UC is a fractal chip off the
Universal UC’s block, with all possible consciousness inherent thereto. Each UC
carries the formula of the universe, but it only manifests the piece of the
formula important to this particular life of which it is a part. So
theoretically a sub-atomic particle does indeed carry the DNA for Jill Smith in
New York, but it only manifests the quark pattern of spin up or spin down. The
formula’s manifestation is not mindful—i.e. even humans with all their capacity
for human thought do not control autonomic processes of their organism. The organs do their jobs without any oversight from my Egoic thought. The
quark just naturally manifests the appropriate action needed to spin up or spin
down. It doesn’t think about it, so a brain is irrelevant to the equation.
Here’s how the Seth
Material puts it:
The inner self has a virtually infinite reservoir from which
to draw knowledge and experience. All kinds of choices are available, and the
diversity of physical matter is a reflection of this deep source and variety.
(http://sethquotes.paradisenow.net/seth_excerpts_part_iii.html)
(http://sethquotes.paradisenow.net/seth_excerpts_part_iii.html)
On that, we agree.
But where Seth uses the vessel of human consciousness as the Creator, the Simple Explanation spreads
that infinite reservoir of knowledge out to the entirety of Creation. Creation
could, indeed, be called a projection of consciousness, but the Simple Explanation attributes
the act of Creating to Everything created, not just to human minds. And each
created thing is creator of only its personal domain, not Everything Else. I am
in charge of making decisions related to my own human life only; each other entity is
in charge of making decisions related to its own life, whether it’s a quark, a
photon, a molecule, a cell, or a dog. It’s a complex web of interrelated material
projections at every possible level of aggregation. Entities are occasionally given the opportunity to prove they carry more information than their original manifestation needed, such as when a stem cell is prodded into becoming a different sort of cell, or an annihilated particle becomes other things.
Consciousness is not a by-product of the brain. Consciousness is the ground state of being. Maybe this short youtube video will help your understanding.
Thought is something
else entirely. Ruminative thinking is a by-product of the Ego. And the Ego is a
by-product of the physical aggregation of the matter that makes up anything. A
rock does not have much of an Ego, because its aggregation of minerals doesn’t
need to do much thinking. Life is not defined by thought. If it were, then
micro-cephalic humans or people in comas wouldn’t qualify as alive.
So, when people call
objects “living,” they are generally referring to the attributes of
carbon-based life forms. And all of those life forms exhibit what could be
called thought, albeit tiny, highly-constrained thoughts in the simplest
single-celled entities. The more complex the carbon-based aggregate is, the
greater its need for independent decision-making, and the greater its capacity
for “thought.” Still though, the thoughts are not really necessary for
survival. The bacteria doesn’t have to think, “boy, i’m really hungry!” It only
has to acquire nutrition at the earliest opportunity, and it can do that with
blindfolds on.
When you think about
it, our human lives proceed largely on autopilot. You have the autonomic
functions of our organism going on outside of thinking (breathing, food
acquisition, waste elimination, etc.); you also have most of life’s daily cultural
routines going on without much thought. Do you
consciously savor each bite of your food or how to cut with a knife? Do you have to decide to brush
your teeth or how to take a bath? Do you pay attention to each action of your
driving? ...hands on the wheel at 10 and 2, now turn 42 degrees left, now
straighten the wheel, now step on the gas pedal slowly, increasing pressure.... No. You just drive and maybe chat with your
passenger or listen to the radio, and expect that simple consciousness and the body will take care of the details until thought is needed.
The Simple
Explanation of the Seth Material is that these represent a particular meme
bundle “channeled” from the transpersonal field. The author, Jane Roberts, believed
the Seth entity existed independently of her personal mind. The Simple
Exlanation is that Seth could represent a discorporate Ego attached to this
particular collection of memes, “living” on the non-material plane. The meme
bundle exists separately from Seth, but the Seth personality is all about that
bundle.
Having said that, it
is my personal belief that just because an entity exists in a different plane
doesn’t make everything they say correct. They could be less deluded than I am,
or they could be more deluded. Discorporation does not necessarily equal truth
or wisdom. It depends on the entity involved,
just as it does here on the material plane. Yes, the enlightened few
may be less deluded after or between lives. But some Egos cling to their meme
bundles, right or wrong, even after death. Personally, I think Seth got a lot of things right, but it also misses the mark on the subject of consensual reality. This is why "magic" is so hard to make happen--there are other variables out there in this reality we all share above and beyond my personal will and wanting. I am not, after all, The Creator of the entire Universe. I'm just a co-creator, along with everybody and everything else. That is why we all have to pull together to help the entire ecology of which we are a part. We can't just sit and wish.