[PDF]Jane Roberts Seth Nature Of Personal Reality

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V_>^ BOOK

THE

NATURE OF
PERSONAL
REALITY

SPECIFIC. PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES
FOR SOLVING EVERYDAY PROBLEMS
AND ENRICHING THE LIFE
YOU KNOW

( c /ane tno6erts--

NOTES BY ROBERT F. BUTTS




"Seth was one of my first metaphysical teachers. He remains a constant
source of knowledge and inspiration in my life."

— Marianne Williamson
author of A Return to Love

"The Seth books present an alternate map of reality with a new diagram
of the psyche . . . useful to all explorers of consciousness."

— Deepak Chopra, M.D.
author of Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

"I would like to see the Seth books as required reading for anyone on
their spiritual pathway. The amazing in-depth information in the Seth
books is as relevant today as it was in the early 70s when Jane Roberts
first channeled this material."

— Louise Hay author of You Can
Heal Your Life

"The Nature of Personal Reality had an important influence on my life
and work. Seth's teachings provided one of the initial inspirations for
writing Creative Visualization."

— Shakti Gawain
author of Creative Visualization


"As you read Seth's words, you will gain more than just new ideas.
Seth's energy comes through every page, energy that expands your
consciousness and changes your thoughts about the nature of reality."

— Sanaya Roman
author of Living with Joy


"I count Jane Roberts' brilliant book, The Nature of Personal Reality, as
a spiritual classic and one of the influential books in my life. As I closed
the last page, I looked up at a new world — boundless and
filled with possibility."


— Dan Millman

author of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior


"Quite simply one of the best books I've ever read!"

— Richard Bach
author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull


"The Seth Books were of great benefit to me on my spiritual journey and
helped me to see another way of looking at the world."

— Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D.
author of Love is Letting Go of Fear



BOOKS BY JANE ROBERTS


The Bundu. A short novel in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction (March, 1958) The Resellers (1963) How to Develop
Your ESP Power (1966) (Also published as The
Coming of Seth)

The Seth Material (1970)

Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul (1972)*

The Education of Oversoul Seven (1973)**

The Nature of Personal Reality. A Seth Book (1974)*

Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology
(1975) Dialogues of The Soul and Mortal Self in Time (1975)
Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology> Book (1976) The "Unknown "
Reality. A Seth Book in two volumes (1977-1979)** The World View of
Paul Cezanne: A Psychic Interpretation (1977) The Afterdeath Journal
of an American Philosopher: The World View
of William James (1978)

The Further Education of Oversoul Seven (1979)**

Emir's Education in the Proper Use of Magical Powers (1979)

The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression. A Seth Book (1979)**
The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. A Seth Book (1981) **
The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981)

If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love (1982)

Oversold Seven and the Museum of Time (1984)

Dreams, "Evolution, " and Value Fulfillment. A Seth Book in two
volumes (1986)**

Seth, Dreams, and Projection of Consciousness (1986)

The Magical Approach: Seth Speaks About the Art of Creative Living
(1995)

The Way Toward Health. A Seth Book (1997)

* New editions co-published by Amber-Alien / New World Library, 1994 and 1995.

** New editions published by Amber-Alien Publishing, 1995, 1996, and 1997.



THE

NATURE OF
PERSONAL
REALITY



© 1974 Jane Roberts ©

1994 Robert F. Butts

Co-published by Amber-Alien Publishing and New World Library

Editorial Office: Distribution Office:

Amber-Allen Publishing New World Library

P.O. Box 6657 14 Pamaron Way-

San Rafael, California 94903 Novato, California 94949

Cover Art: Robert F. Butts
Cover Design: Beth Hansen
Typography: Stephanie Eichleay

Printed by: Malloy Lithographing, Inc.

Ah rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, with¬
out written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
brief passages in a review; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from
the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Seth, (Spirit), 1929-1984

The nature of personal reality : specific, practical techniques for solving
everyday problems and enriching the life you know /[channeled] by Jane
Roberts : notes by Robert F. Butts, p. cm. -

"Through channeler Jane Roberts, Seth reveals a power we all possess"-
Cover.

Originally published: Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall,

1974. (A Seth book) ISBN
1-878424-06-8 (alk. paper)

1. Spirit writings. 2. Reality-Miscellanea. 3. Self-perception
-Miscellanea-I. Roberts, Jane, 1929-1984 II. Butts, Robert F. Ill. Title. IV.
Series: Seth (Spirit), 1929-1984. Seth book BF1301.S38 1994
133.9'3-dc20 94-10677

CIP

ISBN 1-878424-06-8
Printed in the U.S.A. on acid-free paper
First Printing: May, 1994 Distributed by
Publishers Group West


20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12



This book is dedicated
to

Robert Butts
"Joseph"

Without whose dedication
and work it could not
appear in its present form



CONTENTS


Introduction by Jane Roberts .ix

Preface by Seth: The Manufacture of Personal Reality .xv

PART ONE: Where You and the World Meet. 1

Chapter 1: The Living Picture of the World.2

Chapter 2: Reality and Personal Beliefs. 16

Chapter 3: Suggestion, Telepathy, and the Grouping of Beliefs.37

Chapter 4: Your Imagination and Your Beliefs, and

a Few Words About the Origin of Your Beliefs.56

Chapter 5: The Constant Creation of the Physical Body.81

Chapter 6: The Body of Your Beliefs, and the Power

Structures of Beliefs. 102

Chapter 7: The Living Flesh. 118

Chapter 8: Health, Good and Bad Thoughts, and the

Birth of "Demons". 129

Chapter 9: Natural Grace, the Framework of Creativity,
and the Health of Your Body and Mind.

The Birth of Conscience. 149


• vii •















PART TWO: Your Body as Your Own Unique Living

Sculpture. Your Life as Your Most Intimate

Work of Art, and the Nature of Creativity

as It Applies to Your Personal Experience .165

Chapter 10: The Nature of Spontaneous Illumination, and the
Nature of Enforced Illumination. The Soul in
Chemical Clothes. 166

Chapter 11: The Conscious Mind as the Carrier of Beliefs.

Your Beliefs in Relation to Health and Satisfaction ... 198

Chapter 12: Grace, Conscience, and Your Daily Experience.229

Chapter 13: Good and Evil, Personal and Mass Beliefs,
and Their Effect Upon Your Private and
Social Experience.248

Chapter 14: Which You? Which World? Your Daily Reality as

the Expression of Specific Probable Events.274

Chapter 15: Which You? Which World? Only You Can Answer.

How to Free Yourself From Limitations.287

Chapter 16: Natural Hypnosis: A Trance Is a Trance Is a Trance.307

Chapter 17: Natural Hypnosis, Healing, and the Transference of

Physical Symptoms Into Other Levels of Activity.325

Chapter 18: Inner Storms and Outer Storms. Creative "Destruction."

The Length of the Day and the Natural Reach of a
Biologically Based Consciousness.347

Chapter 19: The Concentration of Energy, Beliefs,

and the Present Point of Power.367

Chapter 20: The Dream Landscape, the Physical World,

Probabilities, and Your Daily Experience.387

Chapter 21: Affirmation, Love, Acceptance, and Denial.400

Chapter 22: Affirmation, the Practical Betterment of

Your Life, and the New Structuring of Beliefs.426

About the Author .439

Index .441

• viii •


















INTRODUCTION BY
JANE ROBERTS


I 'm proud to publish this book under my own name, though I don't
fully understand the mechanics of its production or the nature of the
personality I assume in delivering it. I had no conscious work to do on
the book at all. 1 simply went into trance twice a week, spoke in a
"mediumistic" capacity for Seth, or as Seth, and dictated the words to my
husband, Robert Butts, who wrote them down.

1 consider the book "mine" in that 1 don't believe it could have been
written without me and my particular abilities. On the other hand, I real¬
ize that far more is involved. I had to read the manuscript to find out
what was in it, for example; and to that extent the book doesn't seem
mine. But what does that mean?

My idea briefly is this: Our usual orientation is focused pretty exclu¬
sively in what we think of as the "real" world, but there are many real¬
ities. By shifting our consciousness, we can glimpse these alternate
realities, and all of them are the appearance that Reality takes under
certain conditions. 1 don't believe that we can necessarily describe one in
terms of another.

For years I've been confused, trying to define Seth in the usual true-
and-false world of facts. There he's accepted as an independent spirit —
a spirit guide by those with spiritualistic beliefs — or as some displaced
portion of my own personality by the scientific community. I


• IX •



couldn't accept either idea, at least not in undiluted form.

If I said, "Look, people, I don't think Seth is a spirit in the way you
mean," then this was interpreted as an acknowledgement that Seth was
only a portion of my personality. Some people thought that I was trying
to put Seth down, or deny them the aid of a super-being when at last
they thought they'd found one.

Actually, I think that the selves we know in normal life are only the
three-dimensional actualizations of other source-selves from which we
receive our energy and life. Their reality can't be contained in the frame¬
work of our creature-hood, though it is being constantly translated
through our present individuality.

The "spirit guide" designation may be a handy symbolic repre¬
sentation of this idea, and I'm not saying that spirit guides do not exist. I
am saying that the idea deserves greater examination, for the spirit guide
may represent something far different than we think. The idea can also
be limiting if it always places revelatory knowledge outside of us, and
tries to make literal some extraordinary phenomena that may be beyond
such interpretation.

While I was trying to define Seth that way and questioning whether
or not he was a spirit guide, I was closed off to some extent from his
greater reality, which exists in terms of vast imaginative and creative
power that is bigger than the world of facts and can't be contained in it.
Seth's personality is quite observable in our sessions, for example, but
the source of that personality isn't. For that matter, the origin of any
personality is mysterious and not apparent in the objective world. My
job is to enlarge the dimensions of that world and people's concepts of it.

Seth's books may be the product of another dimensional aspect of
my own consciousness not focused in this reality, plus something else
that is untranslatable in our terms, with Seth a great psychic creation
more real than any "fact." His existence may simply lie in a different
order of events than the one we're used to.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't apply what we learn to the ordinary
world. Certainly I'm trying to do that, and Seth wrote this book to help
people deal more effectively with their daily lives. I am insisting that we
must be very careful about making literal interpretations, lest we limit a
multidimensional phenomenon by tying it down to a



three-dimensional fact system.

Intuitively and emotionally we often understand more than we intel¬
lectually realize. Trying to define revelatory knowledge, or a Seth, in
terms of our limited ideas about human personality is like trying to
translate, say, a rose to the number 3, or trying to explain one in terns of
the other.

The funny thing is that a personality not focused in our reality can
help people live in that world more effectively and joyfully by showing
them that other realities also exist. In this book Seth is saying that you
can change your experience by altering your beliefs about yourself and
physical existence.

To me, the Seth Material is no longer a continuing manuscript of
fascinating theories to be carefully judged against reality. In a strange
way it has come alive. The concepts within it live. I experience them and
because of this my personal reality has expanded. I've begun to glimpse
the greater inner dimensions from which our usual lives emerge, and to
familiarize myself with other alternate methods of perception that can be
used not only to see other "worlds," but help us deal more effectively
with this one.

While Seth was producing this book, my own life was immeasurably
enriched in unforeseen ways. Frequent psychedelic-type experiences
paralleled Seth's dictated material, and my own creative and psychic abil¬
ities developed into some entirely new areas.

Just before Seth began The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book, for
instance, I found myself embarked on a new venture I call the Sumari
development. Sumari refers to a "family" of consciousnesses who share
certain overall characteristics. There is a language involved that isn't a
language in usual terms. I think that it operates as a psychological and
psychic framework that frees me from normal verbal reference, letting
me express and communicate inner feelings and data that lie just beneath
formalized word patterns.

The Sumari development constantly expanded as Seth produced this
book. Now various altered states of consciousness are involved. In one I
write Sumari poetry and in another I translate what I've written. At a
different level I sing Sumari songs, showing musical knowledge and
accomplishment far beyond my normal talents or background. The songs
can also be translated, but they communicate emotionally whether


• xi •



or not the words are understood. In yet another state of consciousness,
material is received that is supposed to represent remnants of ancient
Speaker manuscripts. (These are also translated later.) Seth defines the
Speakers as teachers, both physical and nonphysical, who constantly
interpret and communicate inner knowledge through the ages. My hus¬
band has also written Sumari, but I have to translate it for him.

As Seth continued dictating The Nature of Personal Reality, I wrote a
complete poetry manuscript, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time,
in which I worked out many of my own beliefs as per suggestions Seth
was giving in his book. This led to another group of poems, The Speak¬
ers. To me this all means that there is a rich vein of creativity and knowl¬
edge available to each according to his abilities, just beneath the surface
of usual consciousness. I believe that it is a part of our human heritage,
accessible to some extent to any person who explores the inner dimen¬
sions of the mind.

Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, The Speakers, and some
Sumari poetry are being combined into a book that will be published
soon by Prentice-Hall. I consider it a companion book to this one. It
shows what was happening in my personal reality while Seth was writ¬
ing his book on the subject, and reveals how the creative impetus
splashes out into all areas of the personality. Seth often refers to the
poems and to the experiences that initiated them. Many of those events
occurred as I tried to understand the relationship between his world and
mine, and the connection between inner and outer experience.

But beside this, as Seth was dictating this present book, I also found
myself suddenly writing a novel. The Education of Oversoul 7, which was
produced more or less automatically. Oversoul Seven, the main char¬
acter, achieved his own kind of reality. I'd say mentally, "Okay, Seven,
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