The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events

The other day while going through some of my books, I came upon The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events by Jane Roberts (Seth) and couldn’t help reading it again.

Beginning in late 1963 Jane started to receive messages from a male entity who identified himself as Seth. Jane would sit and go into a trance (altered-state of consciousness) and in would come Seth. Jane’s husband, Robert Butts, would sit and write down all that Seth said verbatim using a form of short-hand he had developed. Later they would type the sessions up and eventually a portion of it ended up published in books. There wasn’t much editing for Jane and Robert to do since Seth went chapter by chapter and section by section, and would even indicate punctuation and where he wanted emphasis. Basically Seth dictated it in finished form. As I understand it, there is a mountain of material that has still never been published.

I’ve read The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events several times, as I have many of the Seth books. I first became aware of Jane Roberts and the entity or personality that she channeled for over 21 years, Seth, in the early 80’s when I picked up her (their?) first book, Seth Speaks. Even back then in my mid 20’s, Seth Speaks wasn’t so much presenting revolutionary new information or ideas to me as it was organizing it; putting form to my thoughts and feelings. As my friend Frank DeMarco’s “Guys Upstairs” say, it resonated.

The following excerpts are from The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events.

If you want to change the world for the better, then you are an idealist. If you want to change the world for the better, but you believe it cannot be changed one whit, then you are a pessimist, and your idealism will only haunt you. If you want to change the world for the better, but you believe that it will grow worse, despite everyone’s efforts, then you are a truly despondent, perhaps misguided idealist. If you want to change the world for the better, and if you are determined to do so, no matter at what cost to yourself or others, no matter what the risk, and if you believe that those ends justify any means at your disposal, then you are a fanatic.

There is an enchanting suggestion, solemnly repeated many times, particularly after the turn of the [20th] century: ‘Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.’

This might sound like a bit of overly optimistic, though maybe delightful, nonsense. To a degree, however, that suggestion worked for millions of people. It was not a cure-all. It did not help those who believed in the basic untrustworthiness of their own natures. The suggestion was far from a bit of fluff, however, for it could serve – and it did – as a framework about which new beliefs could rally.

We often have in your society the opposite suggestion, however, given quite regularly: ‘Every day, in every way, I am growing worse and so is the world.’ You have [group] meditations for disaster, beliefs that invite private and mass tragedies. They are usually masked by the polite clothing of conventional acceptance. Many thousands may die in a particular battle or war, for example. The deaths are accepted almost as a matter of course. These are victims of war, without question. It seldom occurs to anyone that these are victims of beliefs (emphatically) – since the guns are quite real, and the bombs and the combat.

The enemy is obvious. His intentions are evil. Wars are basically examples of mass suicide – embarked upon, however, with all of the battle’s paraphernalia, carried out through mass suggestion, and through the nation’s greatest resources, by men who are convinced that the universe is unsafe, that the self cannot be trusted, and that strangers are always hostile. You take if for granted that the species is aggressively combative. You must out-think the enemy nation before you yourself are destroyed. These paranoiac tendencies are largely hidden beneath man’s nationalistic banners.

The end justifies the means. This is another belief, most damaging. Religious wars always have paranoiac tendencies, for the fanatic always fears conflicting beliefs, and systems that embrace them.

If you have not read any of the Seth books and would like to, these are a good starting place.

• Seth Speaks, the Eternal Validity of the Soul
  The Nature of Personal Reality
  The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events
  The Unknown Reality (Volumes 1 and 2)