Inner Realities and Outer Psychic Manifestation
“Ideas of good and evil, gods and devils, salvation and damnation, are merely symbols of deeper religious values; cosmic values if you will, that cannot be translated into physical terms.
These ideas become the driving themes of these religious dramas of which I have spoken. The actors may “return,” time and time again, in different roles. In any given historic religious drama, therefore, the actors may have already appeared on the historic scene in your past, the prophet of today being the traitor of the past drama.
These psychic entities are real, however. It is quite true to say that their reality consists not only of the core of their own identity, but also is reinforced by those projected thoughts and feelings of the earthly audience for whom the drama is enacted.
Psychic or psychological identification is of great import here and is indeed at the heart of all such dramas. In one sense, you can say that man identifies with the gods he has himself created. Man does not understand the magnificent quality of his own inventiveness and creative power, however. Then, say that gods and men create each other, and you come even closer to the truth; but only if you are very careful in your definitions — for how, exactly, do gods and men differ?
The attributes of the gods are those inherent within man himself, magnified, brought into powerful activity. Men believe that the gods live forever. Men live forever, but having forgotten this, they remember only to endow their gods with this characteristic. Obviously, then, beyond these earthly historic religious dramas, the seemingly recurring tales of gods and men, there are spiritual realities.
Behind the actors in the dramas, there are more powerful entities who are quite beyond role-playing. The plays themselves, then, the religions that sweep across the ages — these are merely shadows, though helpful ones. Behind the frame of good and evil is a far deeper spiritual value. All religions, therefore, while trying to catch “truth” must to some large degree fear its ever eluding them.
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For example, the main character in a religious historical drama may or may not consciously be aware of the ways in which such information is given to him. And yet it may seem to him that he does know, for the nature of a dogma’s origin will be explained in terms that this main character can understand. The historical Jesus knew who he was, but he also knew that he was one of three personalities composing one entity. To a large extent he shared in the memory of the other two.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 21: Session 586, July 24, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“The exterior religious dramas are of course imperfect representations of the ever-unfolding interior spiritual realities. The various personages, the gods and prophets within religious history — these absorb the mass inner projections thrown out by those inhabiting a given time span.
Such religious dramas focus, direct, and, hopefully, clarify aspects of inner reality that need to be physically represented. These do not only appear within your own system. Many are also projected into other systems of reality. Religion per se, however, is always the external facade of inner reality. The primary spiritual existence alone gives meaning to the physical one. In the most real terms, religion should include all of the pursuits of man in his search for the nature of meaning and truth. Spirituality cannot be some isolated, specialized activity or characteristic.
Exterior religious dramas are important and valuable only to the extent that they faithfully reflect the nature of inner, private spiritual existence. To the extent that a man feels that his religion expresses such inner experience, he will feel it valid. Most religions per se, however, set up as permissible certain groups of experiences while denying others. They limit themselves by applying the principles of the sacredness of life only to your own species, and often to highly limited groups within it.
At no time will any given church be able to express the inner experience of all individuals. At no time will any church find itself in a position in which it can effectively curtail the inner experience of its members — it will only seem to do so. The forbidden experiences will simply be unconsciously expressed, gather strength and vitality, and rise up to form a counter projection which will then form another, newer exterior religious drama.
The dramas themselves do express certain inner realities, and they serve as surface reminders to those who do not trust direct experience with the inner self. They will take the symbols as reality. When they discover that this is not so, they feel betrayed. Christ spoke in terms of the father and son because in your terms, at that time, this was the method used — the story he told to explain the relationship between the inner self and the physically-alive individual. No new religion really startles anyone, for the drama has already been played subjectively.
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In these continuous exterior religious dramas, the Hebrews played a strange role. Their idea of one god was not new to them. Many ancient religions held the belief of one god above all others. This god above all others was a far more lenient god, however, than the one the Hebrews followed. Many tribes believed, quite rightly, in the inner spirit that pervades each living thing. And they often referred to, say, the god in the tree, or the spirit in the flower. But they also accepted the reality of an overall spirit, of which these lesser spirits were but a part. All worked together harmoniously.
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I am speaking here in more or less historic terms for you. You must realize that the process has nothing to do with time as you know it, however. This particular kind of adventure in consciousness has occurred before, and in your terms will again.
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To be effectively organized, however, inner and outer experience had to appear as separate, disconnected events. Historically the characteristics of God changed as man’s ego changed. These characteristics of the ego, however, were supported by strong inner changes.
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So the concept of God began to change as the ego recognized its reliance upon inner reality, but the drama had to be worked out within the current framework. Mohammedanism was basically so violent precisely because Christianity was basically so gentle. Not that Christianity was not mixed with violence, or that Mohammedanism was devoid of love. But as the psyche went through its developments and battled with itself, denying some feelings and characteristics and stressing others, so the historic religious exterior dramas represented and followed these inner aspirations, struggles, and searches.
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Behind all faces there is one face, yet this does not mean that each man’s face is not his own. The further religious drama of which I have spoken, in your terms still to come, represents another stage in both the internal and external dramas in which the emergent ego becomes aware of much of its heritage. While maintaining its own status, it will be able to have much greater commerce with other portions of the self, and also to offer to the inner self opportunities of awareness that the inner self on its own could not procure.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 21: Session 587, July 28, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“As Ruburt said after reading the body of the book, the interior drama is the “real” one. Christ became the Crucified, Judas became the betrayer, though Christ was not crucified and Judas did not betray him. The reality, therefore, was in the myth. The reality was the myth. In such cases the interior events will always predominate, regardless of the physical facts, which are only symbols for those events.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Appendix: Session 594, September 13, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
The Christ Figure(s)
“The Christ image is often used because it so perfectly represents the combination of the grandiose self, as per the all-knowing son of God, and the martyred victim who is crucified precisely because of his lofty position.
The Christ figure represents the exaggerated, idealized version of the inner self that the individual feels incapable of living up to. He feels he is being crucified by his own abilities. He may—or of course she may—on other occasions receive messages from the devil, or demons, which on their part represent the person’s feelings about the physical self that seems to be so evil and contradictory in contrast to the idealistic image. Again, there is great variety of behavior here.”
—Dreams, "Evolution", and Value Fulfillment: Volume Two; Chapter 9: Session 921, October 8, 1980 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“When the race is in deepest stress and faced with great problems, it will call forth someone like Christ. It will seek out and indeed from itself produce the very personalities necessary to give it strength. The myth will grow to a reality, and the reality is far stronger than any purely physical event could be.”
—The Early Sessions: Book 9 of The Seth Material; Session 491 July 2, 1969 © 2014 Laurel Davies-Butts
“There were three men whose lives became confused in history and merged, and whose composite history became known as the life of Christ. … Each was highly gifted psychically, knew of his role, and accepted it willingly. The three men were a part of one entity, gaining physical existence in one time. They were not born on the same date, however. There are reasons why the entity did not return as one person. For one thing, the full consciousness of an entity would be too strong for one physical vehicle. For another, the entity wanted a more diversified environment than could otherwise be provided.
The entity was born once as John the Baptist, and then he was born in two other forms. One of these contained the personality that most stories of Christ refer to. … I will tell you about the other personality at a later time. There was constant communication between these three portions of one entity, though they were born and buried at different dates.
The race called up these personalities from its own psychic bank, from the pool of individualized consciousness that was available to it.”
—The Seth Material; Chapter Eighteen © 2011 Laurel Davies-Butts
“Christ, as you understand him historically to be, spoke in parables and symbols. Men often took him literally, but his message was that the spirit of God was within each person—in terms of the symbolism, each person being a child of the father who dwelled in heaven. But heaven meant an inner reality for Christ, not an exterior one.”
—The Personal Sessions: Book 5 of The Deleted Seth Material; Deleted Session September 27, 1978 © 2016 Laurel Davies-Butts
“In any given historical period, one religious drama may finally emerge as the exterior representation, but there will also be many minor dramas, “projections,” that do not entirely take. These represent, of course, probable events. Any of them could supersede the actual exterior drama. In the time of Christ there were many such performances, as many personalities felt the force of inner reality and reacted to it.
There were probable Christs, in other words, living in your terms at that time. For several reasons that I will not go into here, these projections did not mirror inner events faithfully enough. There were, however, a score of men in the same general area, physically, who responded to the inner psychic climate and felt upon themselves the attraction and responsibility of the religious hero.
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Some carried on following the same pattern taken by Christ, performed psychic feats and healings, had groups of followers, and yet were not capable of holding that powerful focus of psychic attention that was so necessary.
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John the Baptist, Christ, and Paul were all connected in the dream state, and John was well aware of Christ’s existence before Christ was born.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 21: Session 588, August 2, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“Christ dealt with myths, once again—potent ones that stood for inner realities. Christ clothed those realities in colorful stories geared to people’s understanding. I am using the name here, Christ, as one person for the sake of discussion, for that entity touched many lives, each leaping into a kind of super-reality as it joyfully played its part in the religious drama.”
—The Personal Sessions: Book 4 of The Deleted Seth Material; Deleted Session January 9, 1978 © 2016 Laurel Davies-Butts
Christ As A Symbol Of Man's Emerging Consciousness
True religion is not repressive, as life itself is not. When Christ
spoke he did so in the context of his times, using the symbolism and vocabulary
that made sense to a particular people in a particular period of history, in your
terms.
(It’s estimated that Jesus Christ was born between 8 and 5 B.C., and died
in A.D. 29 or 30.)
He began with their beliefs, and using their references tried to lead them
into freer realms of understanding.
With every translation the Bible has changed its meaning, being interpreted
in the language of the times. Christ spoke in terms of good and bad spirits
because these represented the people’s beliefs. (See the 647th session in
Chapter Twelve for related material.) In their terms he showed them that “bad”
spirits could be vanquished; but these were, then, symbols accepted as realities
by the people — sometimes for quite “normal” diseases and human conditions.
The very term, “Love your neighbor
as yourself (Matthew 19:19, Mark 12:31), was an ironic statement, for in that
society no man loved his neighbor, but distrusted him heartily. Much of Christ’s
humor has been lost, therefore.
In the Sermon on the Mount, the phrase (to the effect that) “. . . the meek
shall inherit the earth“ (Matthew 5:5), has been grossly misinterpreted.
Christ meant, ’You form your own reality. Those who think thoughts of
peace will find themselves safe from war and dissension. They will be
untouched by it. They will escape, and indeed inherit the earth.”
Thoughts of peace, particularly in the middle of chaos, take great energy.
People who can ignore the physical evidence of wars and purposely think
thoughts of peace will triumph — but in your terminology the word “meek” has
come to mean spineless, inadequate, lacking
energy. In Christ’s time, the phrase about the meek inheriting the earth
implied the energetic use of affirmation, of love and peace.
As I mentioned in Seth Speaks, the Christ entity was too great to be
contained in any one man, or for that matter in any one time, so the man
you think of as Christ was not crucified (See chapters Twenty-one and
Twenty-two of Seth Speaks.)
Nor was the idea of self-sacrifice then involved. The myth became
more “real” than the physical event, which of course is the case in many
so-called important historical events. But even the myth was distorted.
God did not sacrifice his dearly beloved son by allowing that son to be
physical. The Christ entity desired to be born in space and time, to straddle
creaturehood in order to serve as a leader, and to translate certain
truths in physical terms.
Each of you survive death. The man who was crucified knew this
beyond all doubt, and he sacrificed nothing.
(“In Seth Speaks you said that Judas arranged for a substitute to be crucified
in place of Christ himself— ”)
The “substitute” was a personality seemingly deluded, but in his
delusion he knew that each person is resurrected. He took it upon himself
to become the symbol of this knowledge.
The man called Christ was not crucified. In the overall drama however
it made little difference what was fact, in your terms, and what was
not — for the greater reality transcends facts and creates them. You have
free will. You could interpret the drama as you wished. It was given to
you. Its great creative power still exists and you use it in your own way,
even changing your own symbolism as your beliefs change. But the main
idea is the affirmation that the physical being, the self that you know, is
not annihilated with death. This comes through even in the distortions.
The whole concept of God the Father, as given by Christ, was indeed a
“new testament.” The male image of God was used because of the sex
orientation of the times, but beyond this the Christ personality said, “. . .
the kingdom of God is within (among) you” (Luke 17:21).
In a certain way the Christ personality was a manifestation of the
evolution of consciousness, leading the race beyond the violent concepts of the
times, and altering behavior that had prevailed to that time.
In terms of time — evolution as you think of it — emerging consciousness
had come to the point where it delighted so in distinctions and differences, that
even in small geographical areas multitudinous groups, cults and nationalities
were assembled, each proudly asserting its own individuality and worth over
the others. In the beginning in those terms, man’s emerging consciousness
needed the freedom to
disperse itself, to become different, to originate bases for various characteristics,
and assert individuations. By Christ’s time, however, some
principle of unity was necessary by which this diversification would also
experience a sense of unity and feel its oneness.
Christ was the symbol of man’s emerging consciousness, holding
within himself the knowledge of man’s potential. His message was meant
to be carried beyond the times, but this interpretation is often not made.
Christ uses parables that were applicable then (as described in all four
of the Gospels). He used priests as symbols of authority (Matthew 21:23-27).
He turned water into wine (John 2:1-11), yet many who consider themselves
quite holy ignore Christ at the wedding feast and think any alcoholic
beverage degrading.
He “consorted” with prostitutes (Luke 7:33-50) and the poor, and his
disciples were hardly men that would be called the city fathers. Yet,
many who consider themselves religious people hold on to respectability
most of all. Christ used the vernacular of the times and in his own way
spoke out against dogmatic ideas, as well as temples that pretended to be
repositories of holy knowledge but were instead concerned with money
and prestige. (Mark 11:15-18). Yet many who consider themselves
followers of Christ now turn against the outcasts that he himself considered
brothers and sisters.
He affirmed the reality of the individual over any organization while
still realizing that some system was necessary. His whole message was
that the exterior world is the manifestation of the interior one, that the
“kingdom of God” is made flesh.
There are indeed lost gospels, written by men in other countries in
that time, relating to Christ’s unknown life, to episodes not given in the
Bible. These formed a quite separate framework of knowledge that
could be accepted by people who had different beliefs than the Jews at
that time. The messages were given in other terms, but again they
reflected the affirmation of the self and its continued existence after
physical death. Love was always stressed.
One of the Gospels is counterfeit — that is, it was written
after the others, and the events twisted to make it appear that some of
them happened in a completely different context than they did. Regardless,
Christ’s message was one of affirmation.
It was not Mark’s or John’s. There are particular reasons why I do not want
to specify now.
At the time, Christ united man’s consciousness in ways that
reached out into history. The Christ consciousness was not isolated. I am
speaking in your terms now. The same consciousness gave birth to all of your
religions, therefore; the various frameworks through which the peoples of
different times could express themselves and grow. In all cases the religions
began with the beliefs prevailing, spoke through the dictums of the times, and
then expanded. Now this represents the spiritual side of man’s evolution. The
idea-frameworks of psychic and mental life were far more important than the
physical aspects as the species grew and changed.
Excerpt from Session 674, July 2, 1973
The Nature of Personal Reality © 2011 Laurel Davies-Butts
– 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
– Chapter 21: Affirmation, Love, Acceptance and Denial
The Crucificion
“There were several men who together performed the exploits reported in the Christ story—exploits occurring only roughly in the 33-year period given (for Christ’s life).
A man was crucified, but he was not one who made up the Christ entity. You understand from stories that have come to you the elaborations and half-truths that people can be convinced are true. None of the men who made up that entity were crucified. They each died—one I believe in India. People do not understand that their dreams become reality, and that the greater dramas of history and myth often bear little resemblance to the actual occurrences, but are greater than the physical events.”
—The Personal Sessions: Book 4 of The Deleted Seth Material; Deleted Session January 9, 1978 © 2016 Laurel Davies-Butts
“To the intelligent, even the symbolism of the Crucifixion is abhorrent. Does this mean, however, that such a crucifixion did not occur? It may not have occurred, in one place and in one time, and to one called Christ; but because man has created the myth, he created the Crucifixion out of his own need; and this Crucifixion, which historically did not occur, as the myth says it occurred, nevertheless has as much reality, and more, than it would have had, had it occurred in so-called hard fact.”
—The Early Sessions: Book 2 of The Seth Material; Session 81 August 26, 1964 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“The Crucifixion was one of the gigantic realities that transformed and enriched both the universe of dreams and the universe of matter, and it originated in the universe of dreams.”
—The Early Sessions: Book 3 of The Seth Material; Session 115 December 16, 1964 © 2013 Laurel Davies-Butts
“Now. There was no historic Virgin Birth, and no historic Crucifixion. This does not mean that these do not represent symbolic realities.”
—The Early Sessions: Book 5 of The Seth Material; Session 213 December 1, 1965 © 2013 Laurel Davies-Butts
“The Crucifixion and attendant drama made sense within your reality at the time.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 17: Session 568, February 22, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“Christ did not take part in it. There was a conspiracy in which Judas played a role, an attempt to make a martyr out of Christ. The man chosen was drugged — hence the necessity of helping him carry the cross (see Luke 23) — and he was told that he was the Christ.
The plea, “Peter, why hast thou forsaken me?” came from the man who believed he was Christ — the drugged version. Judas pointed out that man. He knew of the conspiracy, and feared that the real Christ would be captured. Therefore he handed over to the authorities a man known to be a self-styled messiah — to save, not destroy, the life of the historical Christ.”
He believed that he was. He was one of those deluded, but he also himself believed that he, not the historical Christ, was to fulfill the prophecies.
Mary came because she was full of sorrow for the man who believed he was her son. Out of compassion she was present. The group responsible wanted it to appear that one particular portion of the Jews had crucified Christ, and never dreamed that the whole Jewish people would be “blamed.”
This is difficult to explain, and even for me to unravel…. The tomb was empty because this same group carted the body away. Mary Magdalene did see Christ, however, immediately after (see Matthew 28). Christ was a great psychic. He caused the wounds to appear then upon his own body, and appeared both physically and in out-of-body states to his followers. He tried, however, to explain what had happened, and his position, but those who were not in on the conspiracy would not understand, and misread his statements.
Peter three times denied the Lord (Matthew 26), saying he did not know him, because he recognized that that person was not Christ.
The plea, “Peter, why hast thou forsaken me?” came from the man who believed he was Christ — the drugged version. Judas pointed out that man. He knew of the conspiracy, and feared that the real Christ would be captured. Therefore he handed over to the authorities a man known to be a self-styled messiah — to save, not destroy, the life of the historical Christ.
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Symbolically, however, the crucifixion idea itself embodied deep dilemmas and meanings of the human psyche, and so the Crucifixion per se became a far greater reality than the actual physical events that occurred at the time.
Only the deluded are in danger of, or capable of, such self-sacrifice, you see, or find it necessary. Only those still bound up in ideas of crime and punishment would be attracted to that kind of religious drama, and find within it deep echoes of their own subjective feelings.
Christ knew however, clairvoyantly, that these events in one way or another would occur, and the probable dramas that could result. The man involved could not be swerved from his subjective decision. He would be sacrificed to make the old Jewish prophecies come true, and he could not be dissuaded.
In the Last Supper when Christ said, “This is my body, and this is my blood,” He meant to show that the spirit was within all matter, interconnected, and yet apart — that his own spirit was independent of his body, and also in his own way to hint that he should no longer be identified with his body. For he knew the dead body would not be his own.
This was all misunderstood. Christ then changed his mode of behavior, appearing quite often in out-of-body states to his followers. (See John 20, 21; Matthew 28; Luke 24.) Before, he had not done this to that degree. He tried to tell them however that he was not dead, and they chose to take him symbolically.
His physical presence was no longer necessary, and was even an embarrassment under the circumstances. He simply willed himself out of it.
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Now: He knew that without the wounds, they would not believe he was himself, because they were so convinced that he died with those wounds. (See John 20.) They were to be a method of identification, to be dispensed with when he explained the true circumstances.
He ate to prove he was still alive, for example (John 21, Luke 24, etc.), but they took this simply to mean that the spirit could partake of food. They wanted to believe that he had been crucified and arisen.
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(A note: Beneath a larger agreement, there are many differences in the details of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For instance, in John 19 it is said that Christ carried his own cross; in Luke 23, Simon from Cyrene is named as carrying Christ’s cross for him. Many complicated questions and reasons have been advanced in dealing with various aspects of the Gospels: their possible foundation in oral tradition and older common literary or documentary sources; whether any of them embodies an eyewitness account of the life of Christ [it has been very recently claimed that Mark’s was written only a few years after Christ’s death, for example], whether the Gospels should simply be regarded as expressing a single tradition, the fact and atmosphere of Christ, regardless of anything else, etc.
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 22: Session 591, August 11, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“Christ became the Crucified, Judas became the betrayer, though Christ was not crucified and Judas did not betray him. The reality, therefore, was in the myth. The reality was the myth. In such cases the interior events will always predominate, regardless of the physical facts, which are only symbols for those events.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Appendix: Session 594, September 13, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“Now, you are familiar with morality plays so in our story we take the term deceit and we give it a name and we make a person out of deceit and we call it, for example, Judas.”
—The Early Class Sessions: Book 2 Sessions 1/6/70 to 12/29/70; ESP Class Session, December 22, 1970 © 2008 Laurel Davies-Butts
“The events as they were recorded, however, did not occur in history. The crucifixion of Christ was a psychic, but not a physical event. Ideas of almost unimaginable magnitude were played out.
Judas, for example, was not a man in your terms. He was — like all the other disciples — a blessed, created “fragment personality,” formed by the Christ personality. He represented the self-betrayer. He dramatized a portion of each individual’s personality that focuses upon physical reality in a grasping manner, and denies the inner self out of greed.
Each of the twelve represented qualities of personality that belong to one individual, and Christ as you know him represented the inner self. The twelve, therefore, plus Christ as you know him (the one figure composed of the three) represented an individual earthly personality — the inner self — and twelve main characteristics connected with the egotistical self. As Christ was surrounded by the disciples, so the inner self is surrounded by these physically oriented characteristics, each drawn outward toward daily reality on the one hand, and yet orbiting the inner self.
The disciples, therefore, were given physical reality by the inner self, as all of your earthly characteristics come out of your inner nature. This was a living parable, made flesh among you — a cosmic play worked out for your behalf, couched in terms that you could understand.
The lessons were made plain, as all the ideas behind them were personified. If you will forgive the term, this was like a local morality play, put on in your corner of the universe. This does not mean it was less real than you previously supposed. In fact, the implications of what is said here should clearly hint at the more powerful aspects of godhood.
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The three Christ personalities were born upon your planet, and indeed became flesh among you. None of these was crucified. The twelve disciples were materializations from the energies of these three personalities — their combined energies. They were then fully endowed with individuality, however, but their main task was to clearly manifest within themselves certain abilities inherent within all men.
The same kinds of dramas in different ways have been given, and while the drama is always different, it is always the same. This does not mean that a Christ has appeared within each system of reality. It means that the idea of God has manifested within each system in a way that is comprehensible to the inhabitants.
This drama continues to exist. It does not belong, for example, to your past. Only you have placed it there. This does not mean that it always reoccurs. The drama, then, was far from meaningless, and the spirit of Christ, in your terms, is legitimate. It is the probable God-drama that you choose to perceive. There were others that were perceived, but not by you, and there are other such dramas existing now.
Other religions were based upon different dramas, in which ideas were acted out in a way that was comprehensible to various cultures. Unfortunately, the differences between the dramas often led to misunderstandings, and these were used as excuses for wars. These dramas are also privately worked out in the dream state. The God-personified figures first were introduced to man in the dream state, and the way then prepared.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 14: Session 560, November 23, 1970 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
The Future Christ
“The third personality, mentioned many times by me, has not in your terms yet appeared, although his existence has been prophesied as the “Second Coming” (Matthew 24). Now these prophecies were given in terms of the current culture at that time, and therefore, while the stage has been set, the distortions are deplorable, for this Christ will not come at the end of your world as the prophecies have been maintaining.
He will not come to reward the righteous and send evildoers to eternal doom. He will, however, begin a new religious drama. A certain historical continuity will be maintained. As happened once before, however, he will not be generally known for who he is. There will be no glorious proclamation to which the whole world will bow. He will return to straighten out Christianity, which will be in a shambles at the time of his arrival, and to set up a new system of thought when the world is sorely in need of one.
By that time, all religions will be in severe crisis. He will undermine religious organizations — not unite them. His message will be that of the individual in relation to All That Is. He will clearly state methods by which each individual can attain a state of intimate contact with his own entity; the entity to some extent being man’s mediator with All That Is.
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The third personality of Christ will indeed be known as a great psychic, for it is he who will teach humanity to use those inner senses that alone make true spirituality possible. Slayers and victims will change roles as reincarnational memories rise to the surface of consciousness. Through the development of these abilities, the sacredness of all life will be intimately recognized and appreciated.
Now there will be several born before that time who in various ways will rearouse man’s expectations. One such man has already been born in India, in a small province near Calcutta, but his ministry will seem to remain comparatively local for his lifetime.
Another will be born in Africa, a black man whose main work will be done in Indonesia. The expectations were set long ago in your terms, and will be fed by new prophets until the third personality of Christ does indeed emerge.
He will lead man behind the symbolism upon which religion has relied for so many centuries. He will emphasize individual spiritual experience, the expansiveness of soul, and teach man to recognize the multitudinous aspects of his own reality.
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The third historical personage, already born in your terms, and a portion of the entire Christ personality, took upon himself the role of a zealot.
This person had superior energy and power and great organizing abilities, but it was the errors that he made unwittingly that perpetuated some dangerous distortions. The records of that historical period are scattered and contradictory.
The man, historically now, was Paul or Saul. It was given to him to set up a framework. But it was to be a framework of ideas, not of regulations; of men, not of groups. Here he fell down, and he will return as the third personality, just mentioned, in your future.
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Now Saul went to great lengths to set himself as a separate identity. His characteristics, for example, were seemingly quite different from those of the historical Christ. He was “converted” in an intense personal experience — a fact that was meant to impress upon him the personal and not organizational aspects. Yet some exploits of his in his earlier life have been attributed to Christ — not as a young man, but earlier.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
Now he did not create them on his own, and thrust them upon historical reality. He created them in so far as he found himself forced to admit certain facts: In that world at that time, earthly power was needed to hold Christian ideas apart from numberless other theories and religions, to maintain them in the middle of warring factions. It was his job to form a physical framework; and even then he was afraid that the framework would strangle the ideas, but he saw no other way.
(“Why the two names, Paul and Saul?”)
He was called both. When the third personality reemerges historically, however, he will not be called the old Paul, but will carry within him the characteristics of all the three personalities.
[... 7 paragraphs ...]
His was the portion that was to deal with physical reality and manipulation, and so these qualities were strong in him. To some extent they overruled him. When the historical Christ “died,” Paul was to implement the spiritual ideas in physical terms, to carry on. In so doing, however, he grew the seeds of an organization that would smother the ideas. He lingered after Christ, [just] as John the Baptist came before. Together the three spanned some time period, you see.
John and the historical Christ each performed their roles and were satisfied that they had done so. Paul alone was left at the end unsatisfied, and so it is about his personality that the future Christ will form.
[... 5 paragraphs ...]
(Our discussion at break concerned several other points I thought readers might be interested in: One was the zealot designation Seth applied to Paul. At first I’d thought he was going to say there was a connection between Paul, or Saul, and the Zealots, one of the religious sects the Jewish people had been divided into in Judaea in the first century A.D. The Holy Land was occupied by the Romans then, and Paul was a Jew and a Roman citizen. I’d been reading about these sects recently in a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and had been somewhat puzzled by my interest in both the scrolls and the sects; but after hearing Seth tonight I assumed he wasn’t going to say much about these subjects.
(Another question concerned a name and country for the appearance of the third Christ in the next century. Also, could or would Seth give any data on the religious figure already born in India, and the black man to be born in Africa?
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
2. The country — with a name and dates — which would see the appearance of the third Christ in the next century, would not be given to us now, but might be in later years. Seth, she said, had deliberately refrained from being more specific. This was to prevent any overreactions to every personage born in a particular country, who might seem to fit descriptions and dates given. This would be very unfair and misleading.
(3. For the same reason Seth wouldn’t say more at this time concerning the Indian religious figure, and the to-be-born African who would work in Indonesia.)
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
[...] The “new religion” following the Second Coming will not be Christian in your terms, although the third personality of Christ will initiate it.
This personality will refer to the historical Christ, will recognize his relationship with that personality; but within him the three personality groupings will form a new psychic entity, a different psychological gestalt. As this metamorphosis takes place, it will initiate a metamorphosis on a human level also, as man’s inner abilities are accepted and developed.
The results will be a different kind of existence. Many of your problems now result from spiritual ignorance. No man will look down upon an individual from another race when he himself recognizes that his own existence includes such membership also.
No sex will be considered better than the other, or any role in society, when each individual is aware of his own or her own experience at many levels of society and in many roles. An open-ended consciousness will feel its connections with all other living beings. The continuity of consciousness will become apparent. As a result of all this the social and governmental structures will change, for they are based upon your current beliefs.
Human personality will reap benefits that now would seem unbelievable. An open-ended consciousness will imply far greater freedom. From birth, children will be taught that basic identity is not dependent upon the body, and that time as you know it is an illusion. The child will be aware of many of its past existences, and will be able to identify with the old man or woman that in your terms it will become.
Many of the lessons “that come with age” will then be available to the young, but the old will not lose the spiritual elasticity of their youth. This itself is important. But for some time, future incarnations will still be hidden for practical reasons.
As these changes come about, new areas will be activated in the brain to physically take care of them. Physically then, brain mappings will be possible in which past-life memories are evoked. All of these alterations are spiritual changes in which the meaning of religion will escape organizational bounds, become a living part of individual existence, and where psychic frameworks rather than physical ones form the foundations for civilization.
Man’s experience will be so extended that to you the species will seem to have changed into another. This does not mean there will not be problems. It does mean that man will have far greater resources at his command. It also presupposes a richer and far more diverse social framework. Men and women will find themselves relating to their brethren, not only as the people that they are, but as the people that they were.
Family relationships will show perhaps the greatest changes. There will be room for emotional interactions within the family that are now impossible. The conscious mind will be more aware of unconscious material.
I am including this information in this chapter on religion because it is important that you realize that spiritual ignorance is at the basis of so many of your problems, and that indeed your only limitations are spiritual ones.
The metamorphosis mentioned earlier on the part of the third personality, will have such strength and power that it will call out from mankind these same qualities from within itself. The qualities have always been present. They will finally break through the veils of physical perception, extending that perception in new ways.
Now, mankind lacks such a focus. The third personality will represent that focus. There will be, incidentally, no crucifixion in that drama. That personality will indeed be multidimensional, aware of all its incarnations. It will not be oriented in terms of one sex, one color, or one race.
For the first time, therefore, it will break through the earthly concepts of personality, liberating personality. It will have the ability to show these diverse effects as it chooses. There will be many who will be afraid to accept the nature of their own reality, or to be shown the dimensions of true identity.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
Events are not predestined. The framework for this emergence has already been set, however, within your system of probabilities. The emergence of this third personality will directly affect the original historical drama of Christ as it is now known. There is and must be interactions between them.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 21: Session 586, July 24, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“(In the 586th session, earlier in this chapter, Seth stated that by the year 2075 the third Christ — Paul or Saul — would have enacted the Second Coming, exerting of course a profound effect upon religion and world history. Jane thought a period of less than a century was much too short a time to encompass so many dramatic changes. She wanted me to ask Seth if she had distorted this data while delivering it.
Now in answer to Ruburt’s question: The birth will occur at the time given; by the time given (the year 2075). The other changes will occur generally over the period of a century, but the results will show far before that time.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 21: Session 588, August 2, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
“By 2075, all of this will be already accomplished.”
—Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; Part Two: Chapter 21: Session 586, July 24, 1971 © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
References
When channeller Jane Roberts died at age 55, her husband Robert Butts who took all the notes met Laurel and 14 years later they got married. Laurel Davies-Butts has worked to help publish more of the Seth Material and that is why she now has copyright of all the published books. Jane and Robert Butts never had children as they were told they both knew at some level that they were done reincarnating on planet Earth and thus did not wish to have any karmic ties.
The Seth Material, (1970, 2011) | Online copy (42 pages only) Link
Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul (1972, 2012) | Online .pdf Link & Internet Archive Link
Dreams, “Evolution,” And Value Fulfillment, Vol. II (1986, 1997, 2012) | Online copy
Link
The Early Sessions: Book 2 of The Seth Material (1964, 2012) | Online copy Link
The Early Sessions: Book 3 of The Seth Material (1964, 2013) | Link
The Early Sessions: Book 5 of The Seth Material (1965, 2013) | Online copy Link
The Early Sessions: Book 9 of The Seth Material (1969, 2014) | Online copy Link
The Early Class Sessions: Book 2 Sessions 1/6/70 to 12/29/70 (1970, 2008)
The Personal Sessions: Book 4 of The Deleted Seth Material (1978, 2016)
The Personal Sessions: Book 5 of The Deleted Seth Material (1978, 2016)
The Nature of Personal Reality: Specific, Practical Techniques for Solving Everyday Problems and Enriching the Life You Know (1974, 2011)
Comment: The easiest way to find quotes is by using the Seth Material search engine here. However, I was able to find missing paragraphs because I have copies of the most well known early Seth books.
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