The following material was recently made available through an individual who was close to Jane Roberts and Robert Butts as they ventured to produce their huge volume of Seth teachings and books. I've collated the various re-typed sessions (by that individual) into this post - assured of its authenticity through signed documents of Robert Butts' surviving wife Laurel. The sessions were posted in a Seth focused Facebook Group.
While this material was channeled in 1975, one can only speculate as to why we have a 40 year delay in this very important information surfacing. The individual who's made it available believes that much more was to come but Jane Roberts "blocked" it due to its controversial nature. He also speculates that it did not make into other books as Jane and Rob needed to distance themselves from threats and actions that might have come from religious fanatics. In any event - it could have proven to be a distraction from all the other great work produced by this prodigious couple who are no longer with us.
In Oracle of the Phoenix there are other published references to Christ and the events of his time. I also reference and quote from a book that was handed to me in the dream state called the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ. My sense is that this missing material will help fill in many gaps of information related to the mythical creation of Christianity (and other religious manifestations) as one makes a serious effort to wade through the various sources I've presented. With that here is the material with some minor edits of typos and taking out the individuals running commentary he has in the original Facebook posts (the commentary between Jane aka Rupert and Robert remains). I keep his introduction below:
I have just opened Rob Transcript volume #18. When I obtained it from Laurel Davies-Butts a couple years ago, she impressed on me that this was a "unique" volume in that it contained a number of never before published Seth sessions that took place in the spring and summer of 1975. Unique, Her words.
In the handful of unpublished sessions I see some contained Seth's detained insights into the Christ Entity because Seth was alive at the time in the Holy Lands as a merchant and he gives eye-witness accounts of the times and of Jesus, etc., from memory.
This material is quite refreshing and nothing quite like it is reflected in the printed Seth books. I can only assume that some of it would have been incorporated in Seth's Christ Book, had Jane lived.
...I'll share a brief excerpt...Session 743, May 5, 1975, 9:45 PM, Monday.
Seth: Dictation: It seems to me that Christianity did rather well (making a wry face) All-in-all without modern methods of communication, and there were no news commentators around at Christ's birth. In fact, Christianity prospered as it did AND CHRIST BECAME THE HISTORIC FIGURE THAT HE DID (louder) precisely because there was no one with a TV camera to record actual events, and because each man's mind could then form its own conception of a man about whom little was actually known.
The legend, the drama, grew because of the built-in psychic energy and power; for in a way the man called Christ husbanded his energy and used it well. He did not try to convince the upper echelons of government of his mission, nor seek out the powerful men of his time. He spoke and worked with the people.
He aroused within them the great yearning ability inherent in the race for inner fulfillment, but he spoke in terms of his time. It was a small movement. The organization began afterward. There are many contradictions in Christ's words as reported, in the various gospels, and in trying to pin down the contradictions the organizations could not see the unity behind them - for it never got that far. Once a dogma was established, anything that did not agree was shunted aside or destroyed. I said that Christ's material and his life as it is known actually presented a rich foundation in terms of probabilities, far more than is understood. Christ's actual doctrine gave leeway for many interpretations, all however united by an overall love for the GREAT DIVERSITY possible in the species. It was a loving presentation, meant to be translated to many peoples and races - translated into different cultures. You could believe in reincarnation or not and still be a Christian, once. Christ indeed spoke on many levels. On one he spoke as a Jew to Jews. He used the prophecies creatively. He used their structure and sense of continuity. He went beyond that, however, extending the concept of God from the Jewish parochial outward to other nations and cultures.
One line of probability was generally - that is, civilization followed, in your reality, the Christianity you know. In its way however it was philosophically parochial also, for it excluded non Christians as the Jews excluded Gentiles.
The historical Christ is a compilation of several men who actually lived. His story is a composite of their lives, then, and works, of several people. Now I can tell you a few things you would not have earlier understood, for these men were COUNTERPARTS in the same general time era.
Rob transcript volume #18...Unpublished Seth Session 743 continues from last night...
(Pause at 10:21.)
Seth: Give us a moment...John understood this - the Baptist. Saul, or Paul, did not. While they were both portions of the Christ entity, their ROLES were different. The Christ counterparts were the physical materializations, then, of an inner "Christ Personality" that STRADDLED their physical existences. Again, your IDEAS of person-hood are so limited that this is most difficult to explain - but one man could not contain the vitality and multidimensional being of the Christ Entity, any more than one person contains your own reality.
(Intently) Christ was more aware by far than others of his identity as "himself," and of a super-identity that was also his own.
There was an "Egyptian" Christ.
(Long pause at 10:29.) There are records in some of the pyramids, couched in terms of an Egyptian culture.
(Long pause at 10:30.) I am searching for words that will be simple, to explain concepts that have been vastly distorted.
(Very long pause at 10:31.) The Christ legend was the truest representative statement that could be given to explain an inner reality that defied all ideas of person-hood, told in terms of the time. The main drama straddled all of the so-called physical facts. The great INNER organization found physical means to express itself. It is only because the organizations insisted upon literal interpretations that finally the organization fell apart - at least from its point of greatest power.
(Pause at 10:37.) In certain terms Christ could not be killed because he was never born, and that totality of spirit could never be expressed through one physical person-hood as you understand it - and therefore could not be destroyed by death - Christ's whole point. Christ is then a psychic identity, so to speak, whose physical reality encompassed several lives.
Christ was a great psychic recognition of identity. That recognition came to several men.
(one minute pause at 10:41.) The Jews could not have accepted the idea of a goddess. I have discussed at various times the nature of the emerging ego, and its relationship to religion.
(Long pause.) There were many aspects of Christ's doctrine however that emphasized "feminine" characteristics that were the opposite of the male's more warlike attitudes. "Turn your cheek," Etc.
Christ's own words emphasized the basic identity of the soul regardless of its physical, sexual identity, but many such allusions were destroyed, and with the Jews he used them carefully.
Take a break.
(10:49, Jane: "What the hell are we into now?" Jane demanded as soon as she was out of a very good trance.)
("What brought all that on?" I asked, practically at the same time.)
("But I don't know. I read the last chapter of that book Tom Mossman sent you, about the Teacher of Righteousness and Christ, but that's all. I didn't expect anything like this. I suppose one part of me must be curious or I wouldn't get the stuff, "Jane mused," but another part thinks, "Who needs it? I thought we were going to get material about...")
The book in question here is The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed, by Rev. Dr. Charles F. Potter. A Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, copyright 1958-1962.)
("Shit," Jane said, laughing. "I was already to say, Let's quit and have something to eat, but I can feel more stuff right there.")
("What's the matter - does this material make you nervous?)
("I don't know. I guess I'm not sure that I want to add anything to the subject, whether pro or con..." "Jane sat silently now, eyes closed. Finally: "I guess I don't think I'm up to it. I feel this whole block of material there, but maybe I can't get it through.")
((We decided to see what developed, so I got Jane a pack of smokes and a glass of watered-down wine. Resume at 11:01.)
( 11:01) Ruburt has some of this in Psychic Politics. Decisions had been made to go ahead in a certain way, psychically and biologically. Earlier, man had been neurologically flexible, utilizing various levels of focus and awareness. This was interpreted in terms of many Gods, many realities, At this point however a one-line level of consciousness was chosen, one that would bring about a certain kind of world organization.
Man would organize the contents of the world, and to do so he had to choose a particular kind of focus, one that left out many aspects of reality so that the rest could be concentrated upon. The species then decided upon a ONE-GOD, ONE-SEX ORIENTATION, and above all a ONE-SPECIES organization.
Rapport with the animals was forgotten. The one God was a MALE, and the species' sexual orientation set.
Recognition of the many natural facets of consciousness allows for great tolerance, flexibility, and brings forth a natural understanding of any individual's oneness with nature. When the species chose a one-line of consciousness, it concentrated and channeled all of its abilities in one particular direction - toward control of nature and the environment. It "LOST" in so doing much of an innate sense of proportion.
( 11:11) When man saw himself as a part of nature, he learned from it. He did not need an APPLIED conceptualized code of normality any more than an animal does. There had been codes of morality before Christianity, as various attempts were made to organize this new kind of consciousness, to make it work.
The FEMALE GODDESSES, representing the areas of the intuitive self, were highly disruptive, however in that regard, and the MALE GOD had to triumph before such a code could be effectively established. When it WAS, religion had to offer moral codes that would provide some kind of rigid moral framework to take the place of nature's innate morality.
The "natural consciousness" of man or animal on the planet feels its identity firmly couched within a SAFE framework, that gathers strength from the rest of nature, and in which all of nature's parts work together in a creative COOPERATIVE endeavor.
The one-line kind of consciousness took itself out of that framework. FEAR was the result. No: fear was A result - one which the species paid gladly, for the one-line consciousness was itself a creative venture. Henceforth however fear was the BASIS for morality or moral acts, a religious alternate to natural instinctive behavior.
Christ, however, tempered that tendency to some degree. The tendency toward one-line consciousness had been accelerating, and the choice made; but Christ's version brought an effective end to Jehovah's Eye-For-An-Eye morality, and inserted a more compassionate view.
(pause at 11:25) ....
From Rob's transcript # 18, here's the fourth and last segment of unpublished session 743...there was a pause at 11:25 PM.
Seth: The focus and energy however of the one-line consciousness was a considerable venture, allowing the race to focus its energies, and familiarizing it with its own power and strength. It would be faced with the results of that energy, and faced also with the fact of its own potentials - even the possibility of SELF-DESTRUCTION - as it became acquainted with the astounding recognition of its power.
By a different route it is becoming aware of its intimate connection with the earth. In the meantime it has learned lessons peculiar to its own characteristics. The race will be in a position to consciously join in the communion of nature in an entirely different fashion now, that would not have been possible with a different choice.
Alternate methods of perception are now being at least somewhat encouraged by people who are beginning to understand both their responsibility and their power. Therefore religious concepts are changing. Inner organizations are again forming, and alternate patterns, once thrust aside, are coming into their own.
The structure of the United Nations is a case in point, though it is thus far a weak and spindly development. Still, it could not exist in a purely Christian world under, say, the Catholic Church's jurisdiction.
The Christ spirit STILL PERVADES because it was never basically dependent upon a personal organization, and it finally grew BEYOND its personifications. (Long pause) Other cultures have had other Gods, and it is quite as valid to see Christ as a version of those Gods. In your terms the Gods all represent quite legitimate realities, but you attempt to confine them in literal terms of person-hood. Only when you abandon those limiting concepts of your own reality, and step out of that small circle of identity, can you begin to understand what your ideas of God represent, or hope to find the true intimacy and reality of ALL THAT IS within your experience.
End of Session.
("Well - excellent.")
Seth: That is all. A fond good evening.
("Okay. The same to you.")
Seth-again: Ruburt is on to some ideas that will physically help him. That is all.
("Man, I'm telling you - "Jane said in surprise. "There's another bunch of stuff over there (( to her left)) but I'm just not up to it...")
(Jane said that living up here on Pinnacle Road made sessions much easier; there were very few distractions because of noise, visitors, etc. The material "came out much easier," she said. She added an interesting thought: The new easiness made her wonder if she had "relied on those distractions" at our Water Street apartments to "bring you back.")
As promised, from Rob's transcript volume # 18, here the next Session, unpublished Session 744...beginning with segment number one.
May 7, 1975, 9:37 PM, Wednesday
("How old will you be tomorrow?" I asked Jane as we sat for the session.)
( "46," she said, and made a face. "I don't mind being 46. It's being 46 and STUPID that really bugs me.")
( "Don't think you're alone in that," I answered. "We all have that problem, at any age. You don't think you're unique in that respect, do you?" )
( Then later: "Oh, Christ - we're going to get more on Christ," Jane laughed. "I don't like the first line already..." She didn't say what that first line was. Then she laughed again. "And now I've got the second line from Seth, and I don't like that one any better. I should have quit while i was ahead....")
Seth, Dictation:
Good Evening.
(Good Evening, Seth.)
In certain terms Christ was an invention, but then ALL of the "Gods" as they have been known WERE inventions, creative interpretations that were projected outward, catching first this man or that woman with the brilliance of Divine fire.
In certain terms then the religions are myths, but to say that is to speak but half of the truth, and the least important part. For the myths stand for a reality that defies literal "factual" translation. Because of this religions will always basically imply contradictions, but so far none has been strong enough to accept those contradictions, or to look into their basic cause.
The Christ Spirit is quite valid. It's validity is seven-fold more amazing precisely because it does not really rest upon the historical reality of one man, but shaped the great pageantry of Christ, affected and directed events, brought about a particular kind of works order, led artists to the points of their finest power - with all this development based upon a fabulous myth. Myths indeed then must be very powerful, and carry within them their own dimension of actuality and thrust.
Christianity has long stated that Christ's importance lay precisely in the FACT that he was born a physical being, and it has stressed his historical existence in whatever way it could. It seemed that if Christ were not one particular man, then the entire framework would fall away. He was, after all, human and divine at the same time. The early strength of Christianity lay precisely in its historical nebulousness - a loose but powerful framework that reflected the explosive need of the mass psyche. That need, like a giant spotlight, searched and shone its light in all directions, and touched many. Some turned away, and were frightened of such a sense of destiny. They hid. Others felt the power of the light as it touched their contemporaries and shouted, "That is the man."
( 9:54.) Gods-to-be vied for birth until finally various events coalesced. A manufactured history of Christ exists, made up of distorted memories, actual experiences, and creative drama. Many tales were written long after any of the source-Christs lived. The miracle is the "fact" that such a seemingly un-factual group of events altered the face of this planet, and directed its energies for centuries.
The idea of one Christ gave a focus point for identification, an image that could be referred to. The process of this image forming was a natural one as men and women dealt with innuendo, legend and some renditions of personal experience, until altogether you had an ever-changing religious drama, a framework into which man could throw his aspirations. The Christ Spirit was larger than any so-called physical fact - but unless this is understood then the validity of that spirit seems dependent upon the historical reality of one man, part human, part divine, named Christ.
When you are in that framework then the Christ messages must also be interpreted literally, as they were at the time. Man often wants to use religion as another tool to solve his problems. The messages are interpreted in the most practical way possible by minds that have a very limited knowledge of the nature of practicality.
Christ's message then was picked up, used, altered to fit a thousand different purposes, and yet it survived and still led whole groups of people through the ages. People pour revelationary information into the current bowl of known facts, and when those so-called facts are proved outdated later then they are in a turmoil.
(Pause at 10:09) ...
Man's state of consciousness at the time, historically given as Christ's birth, was such that the ego was strongly emerging; it felt its strength but was also afraid of its own daring, and identified strongly with the morality of the body. It needed a new creative forward-thrusting impetus that would enable it to realize its existence after death, and to reinforce that intuitive knowledge. As in (psychic?) politics, the Jewish prophets had foreseen such a state, and there was a built-in psychic framework ready. The male God was still used, however, for the race had chosen to identify the ego with the male characteristics, and the female with the intuitive ones.
The Christ myth arose triumphantly from the shoulders, figuratively speaking, of several lives. The air was ripe. There were a large number of splintered religious sects, and self-proclaimed messiahs everywhere. But the self-proclaimed messiahs stood for an inner messiah, and for man's need to rise above the conditions of time and consciousness. The people ask what truth is, and when they do so they question from a certain limited viewpoint, and deal with a limited order of events. It is as if someone asks you, "I want to know if a violet is a truth." You answer, "yes," and the individual (louder) then goes shouting to all his fellows, "Ha - all roses are lies because violets are truth."
In certain terms the spirit of ALL THAT IS shown down upon the people, illuminating them in a time of need, and spoke out through the lives, words and deeds of several men - and mankind creatively merged these messages and spirit into a myth that contained however the great energy and power of its source.
In your time you may smile indulgently at the Gods of Olympus, and see clearly that they were mythical characters. There are natural Gods, come and gone, whose names do not even remain, buried fantasies YOU might say, precious folklore lost. Yet those Gods were no more real or no more false, or no more facts or no less facts, and no more powerful or less powerful than your own. They also reigned, and molded civilizations. Men and women prayed to them at dusk and dawn, and their prayers were answered, as yours are when you believe that they will be. All of these Gods are the result of earthly interpretations of deeper truths, interpreted according to man's beliefs at the time, changing their faces and names and forms, but always reflecting man's relationship with the source of his own being. For that being, while physical, springs from sources that cannot be completely expressed in physical terms, so the Gods have had earthly faces, and the legends have always been larger than the lives upon which they were based.
The Buddha and the Christ Spirit have the same source, then, interpreted through different cultures and different times. To some extent each man and woman alive is involved in God making, and it is one of your natural characteristics, and a mark of your species.
( 10:31. ) Men do not make Gods just because they are frightened. They do not make Gods just because they are looking for answers. They make Gods because they instinctively feel the strength and energy of their own greater being, and because they are intuitively aware of other dimensions in which they also have their existence. Men make Gods to explore the nature of their inner reality, and this is as natural a part of the species as it is for man to explore his physical planet. He builds cities in the world, increasing commerce and communication, storing his art treasures, and he builds Gods in the image environment of his psyche in the same way. In your terms his evolutionary progress follows the progress of the Gods. Those Gods tantalizingly lead him forward like the carrot before the donkey, and they represent the great unknown potential that is inherent in the species. They represent the source reality from which the "fact" of man's individual life springs, and therefore they are larger than any fact. So when that reality is forged into the ever-changing world of fact, there will always be contradictions, until you realize that the contradictions themselves are invaluable clues.
(Seth) Take your break.
(10:39). Jane's trance had been excellent, her manner and the material inspired. Yet she'd told me before the session that she didn't care if we had a session or not. Resume in the same manner at 11:00.)
Now: If you look at the religious and cultural "underground" at any given time of great change, you will find two opposing factions. One, an extremist, almost hysterical version of the old or established religious concepts, and on the other side a countering force of ideas that have been building, often for a century, appearing here and there but without capturing the imagination of the masses.
Often these will appear colored by the "old" established religious culture, or couched in its terms while carrying many ideas and beliefs that are definitely unacceptable to mainline thought. There will also be tumultuous areas in between, where the new and the old ideas meet with explosive variations. New Gods rise from the ashes of the old ones. So in your time Christian Fundamentalists militantly bear the swords of many extreme doctrines not accepted any more by the general Christian community. They arouse old fears and superstitions. On the other hand the religious concepts that point toward your future also exist in the same underground of the culture, yet often couched in conventional Christian terms. So Edgar Cayce interpreted his revelations so as to make them fit in with his conventional Christian beliefs.
Those who are learning to alter the focus of their consciousness interpret their information also often in the same manner, so you have again the good spirits of the angels of light, or whatever; for to THRIVE the altered religious concepts must have some cultural coloration.
The populace in your country is experimenting more and more with altered perception, yet these states are still considered somewhat suspect, and will be interpreted by the individual usually through his own belief system. A fundamentalist, frightened of evil and convinced of its power, will encounter a demon. A spiritualist will ask for a protective Christ Circle, perhaps, or otherwise seek protection from the "evil spirits."
There will be Tibetan Masters, as there have been, or Indian Guides - or whatever format serves as a framework. Earlier, God or the Virgin or one of the saints might speak, but throughout the ages the great development of the psyche found its voice by whatever names. Thus far, in your terms, there always had to be good spirits and bad spirits, or a Christ and Antichrist, a God and a Devil, because man's consciousness has not yet been able to rise above such seeming realities. In the past the mechanisms, the myths and the pageantry served in one way or another to express the deeper realities for which they stand. Now man's consciousness is ready for another quantum leap, in which it must begin to throw away those disguises, for they serve NOW to hide rather than to reveal.
(11:21.) Man thought that by making his Gods "real," he proved their validity. For a while the process meant something. For truly the Gods ARE living. ( Long pause.) The native man knew that the Gods lived, thrived in each rock, stone, animal and person. As the species developed man became less democratic. His Gods were super examples of the species, and finally represented only half of that species. Then Christ was seen as born into a specific time, imprisoned in a few earthly years, even though he was supposed to have ascended after death, this still presented a watered-down version, since he could not be encountered in the SAME WAY again.
( Long pause.) He served nevertheless as a beacon to consciousness as it traveled a certain road, but once more and in a different fashion, that road now branches out, for the species is beginning to use its consciousness more freely again, and after having experiences it did not have before.
In the old frame of reference there had to be one God or none. There could not be many, for the idea of many Gods smacked not only of Paganism, but of primitive superstition. If the ideas of one God were correct, then the concept of many Gods had to be wrong. The person who said, "There is no God." was an Atheist from both standpoints. The greater reality comfortably holds all three beliefs, without contradiction, for there is no God if you are thinking of simply a crowned king of your species. There are many Gods if you realize that each of you is a portion of ALL THAT IS.
There is one God above all, if you think of ALL THAT IS as it exists, being more than its infinite manifestations. Its manifestations however include rocks and trees, animals, atoms and molecules - and they are not inferior versions of what you are. They are simply other versions of ALL THAT IS.
( 11:35. ) Now Ruburt, in stripping away myth helps put each individual WHO READS THIS MATERIAL in touch with the greater, more sacred reality from which those myths sprang. The true nature of Mysticism can never be made literal, and the Christ Spirit can only show more clearly when it is not confined to a fact system to which it does not belong.
Then the Christ Story can be clearly related to you, as an example of a sublime fantasy based on a truth that is a source of all life.
Seth: Take a break...
( 11:40. ) This turned out to be the end of the session, I was too tired to continue. There was more available from Seth, Jane told me. She described what was to come next - about class, money, books, TV, sessions, material, etc., we decided to wait until Monday next to get it all. I asked her to write a summary of the data tomorrow morning, though, so she'd have something to refer to in the meantime.)
Here's the second segment of unpublished Seth Session 748, from Rob's transcript # 18.
Seth: Dictation: Jerusalem, geographically and culturally, was a place of merchants. They were used to traveling back and forth, and the Jews were far FREER in that respect than is recognized. Their dissatisfaction's were economic - not exclusively, of course, but largely. The Romans cared not a whit that the Jews kept their temple, but the temple was milking the Jewish people to such an extent that they did not have money enough to pay the Roman taxes.
The Jewish priests were milking their own far greater than the Romans were milking the Jews, and some of the Jewish merchants were caught between the two. The story of Christ and the money-changers is correct in essence. The historical Christ was not involved, however, but a Jew turned Essene who roused himself in rage against the financial practices of the priests.
I (Seth) was a Roman citizen, more or less free to travel where I wanted, and as a merchant I dealt often with the Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere, in the outer arbors of the main temple, and other temples.
( " Arbors was the word she (( Jane )) wanted here, Jane told me after the session. She received it very clearly during delivery, she said, Neither of us were sure what it means in connection with a temple; I associated with "arches." I thought I remembered reading that trading went on in the outskirts of the temple - perhaps under arbors or shelters of some kind...)
The priests' usury practices were atrocious. They would even try to press money upon me, offering to loan me amounts though I was not a Jew, to add to my capital - at rates of interest that I was too crafty to accept.
( Amused: I thought that Jane, as Seth, even looked crafty as she relayed the data. )
There were Jews who were Roman citizens, of course, some quite honorable men, and others who worked the ends against the middle. There were several groups who wanted a Jewish king to set up a quite practical earthly kingdom - one that would challenge the authority of Rome. And that group was not nearly as tolerant toward other religions as the Romans were. They wanted the prophecies fulfilled - not in their spiritual and psychic aspects, but in the most immediate, practical way possible. They only needed a good figurehead.
Some of the Jews, the Roman citizens, had a good deal of freedom, and as merchants possessed your equivalent of good bank accounts. They were rich men. Soldiers gathering booty could sell them without questions being asked. They came on the heels of any military conquest, for that matter, only too ready to deal with a freshly conquered territory, when the frightened rich would then take part in transactions they would not otherwise. Such people were all for Rome's expansions because of the greater flow of goods. When the Empire felt hampered in new expansions greater effort was made on the part of Rome to consolidate what gains it had. Its attention became directed to any region where there was wealth. It needed more money because of the great population under its sway, simply to maintain its great bureaucracy.
The Jewish people at Jerusalem held a great supply of wealth. The Romans even winked at corruption, understanding their own so well, so they fully expected some kind of cooperation from the corrupt Jewish priests, thinking that the priests would know well "What side their bread was buttered on." The priest's, however, suspected Rome's reasons. Actually Jerusalem was a maelstrom, intensified by religious purpose and economics as well as the pride of "race."
In the meantime, for all practical purposes the Roman Gods had died, that is, they were mere conventions, followed perhaps by the ignorant, given lip service by the state. There was a vacuum that would be filled. The Jews would be the fathers of a new civilization, though hardly the one they intended to form. If the Roman Gods were inactive, the Jews had Messiahs galore - new offshoots of old religious factions were springing up each day. The air was filled with the aura of miracles.
( Pause at 10:44. )
Seth: Dictation: Now I went where people congregated. Whenever there were groups together, I was there, so I was used to these Jewish gatherings. They had an excitement and an aura that the Roman games themselves did not possess. I heard of many Christs, many Messiahs. I met many self-proclaimed Messiahs, and I HEARD of the man you historically call Christ. I never met him. He was another rumor as far as I was concerned.
The exploits of the historical Christ were composed of the activities of several men, wound into myth and fantasy - woven into a tale so SPECTACULAR, however, that it changed the course of civilization. Christianity IS SO IMPORTANT PRECISELY BECAUSE it is not based upon that realm of activity that you call fact.
Christianity gained its VITALITY because its roots SUPERSEDED the world of fact, and formed the legend of a man called Christ, who within himself contained the most divine attributes that man could imagine, and gave birth in an historic context to an understandable picture of man's greater reality. Men believed what they wanted to believe, and so from the lives of several men they formed a legend - each believing the legend to be true. One of the men was a CHARLATAN. Yet HE WAS a miracle-worker, for he inflamed men's imaginations and in his deception proved the validity of a vision in which he himself did not believe.
Now the story of Paul comes down to you, and the story of his miraculous conversion - yet there were numberless unknown others as "legitimately" struck by God - awakened into truth, who followed other Gods, other pathways that were not accepted in your historic line of continuity. None of this contradicts the existence of the Christ Spirit - which ALWAYS EXISTED despite, or separate from, the individual or individuals involved.
There were miracle-workers all over Jerusalem. Rome was dead already, and no FIRE was burning. That fire became Christianity, but it burned Messiahs in its wake. Early Christianity was filled with fire, and only its oriental connections gave it touches of mercy. The texts were REWRITTEN time and time again. In some ways Paul destroyed more than he saved. It took centuries for the theories to jell.
From: The Personal Sessions, Book 4, Deleted Session for January 9, 1978.
Rob: (Lately Jane has been going over her old notes. She told me that she’d often written that her vision was much improved when her symptoms were better: “The colors are great today,” etc. Now she thought the correlations were obvious, especially since her seeing and reading ability today were much better when she felt better otherwise too. She thought Seth would discuss such relationships this evening.)
Seth: Now: the message of the Christ entity was, in religious terms “You are all children of God—the ‘sinner’ as well as the saint.” Indeed, according to the original Christ thesis, while a man could sin, no man was identified as a sinner. He was not identified with his failures or limitations, but instead with his potential.
The Christ entity knew the vitality, power, and strength of myths. That vitality allows for different readings, of course, and through man’s changing development he reads his myths differently, yet they serve as containers for intuitional knowledge.
Christ’s thesis was inserted into a Jewish tradition dealing deeply with guilt, and the new thesis was meant to temper that tradition, and to spread beyond it. Instead, while carrying the belief in man’s potential, Christianity smothered the thesis beneath a slag heap of old guilt. Guilt can be used to manipulate people, of course, and it is a fine tool in the hands of government, religion, science, or any large organization that wants to retain its power.
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.
(Just as I was about to ask....)
The message was “Do not condemn yourself or others,” for Christ well knew that self-righteous condemnation of the self or of one’s neighbors served to darken the door through which man might view his own potential and its greater source.
The Christian concept of heaven with its riches, God and his bounty, the source of nature itself—all of this in our terms was a symbolic structure describing in storybook terms the attributes and characteristics of Framework 2.
In our terms, All That Is exists in Framework 2 as elsewhere, but Framework 2 represents the source of your known physical reality. From it flow all of the known facts of your world. Christ hoped to show that you survived death psychically and spiritually—that you “returned” to the father in heaven. Literal minds, looking for evidential proof, would insist that the physical body itself must rise, ascending, hence the related stories, the misinterpretation of data. “Ask, and you shall receive.” Christ well knew that that statement was indeed true, but men who condemned themselves, who considered themselves sinners, would not know what to ask for, except punishment to relieve their guilt. Hence he stressed time and time again that each person was a child of God.
He also stressed the importance of a childlike belief, knowing that the adult mind was apt to question “How, and when, and in what manner can my request be granted?”
The words “Let thy will be done,” represented excellent psychological understanding, for according to Christ’s teachings as originally given, God the father represented the source or parent of the self, who was by nature free from the self’s ignorance or lack of understanding at any given time, and who would know better than the known self those experiences that would fulfill the self’s hopes, dreams, and potentials.
“Let thy will be done” meant “Let me follow those greater dictates of my inner nature.” Even without all of the distortions, that formula worked for centuries in large measure. The God, the source, was put outside of nature, however, finally becoming at last too remote, and the story itself became frayed at the edges as man tried to tie intuitive truths to objective fact.
*(10:06.) *Give us a moment.... To be a child of God was to trust in your own worth. You could admit failings, transgressions of one kind or another without identifying yourself, say, with failure. The child of God would automatically find salvation, and everyone was a child of God. When Christ said “Believe in me, and you will be saved,” he meant “Believe in your relationship to God, in that you are his son, as I am, and you will surely be saved.” Again, he spoke in religious terms, for those were the terms of the times. This knowledge, however, of the innate goodness of the self literally gives the individual the inner support necessary for the exercise of man’s fullest potentials.
In civil and governmental terms, such a policy could not be tolerated—nor has man yet learned how to deal with that basic principal. It is almost automatic, for example, to label a man a murderer, and identify him with his crime. The society never came to terms with the vast complications inherent with Christ’s teachings, and so it abandoned them. Man’s great exuberant spontaneity has never been allowed its full sweep as a result.
You both chafed against the belief of your times, that man was a natural aggressor, tainted from birth, that he was damned by his very nature, condemned by his early childhood background, by original sin, or by his genes. At the same time you were also tainted by those beliefs, and seemed to see evidence for them whenever you looked into your selves, or outward to the world of your fellows. Each person carried the brunt of that self-condemnation. Ruburt is hardly outstanding in having physical difficulties, and overall your lives and the work speak for more of the potential of personality than of personality’s lacks. You set for yourselves a goal of shoving aside all of the beliefs and distortions for yourselves and for others.
*(10:28.) *Give us a moment.... Spontaneity knows its own order, and freely comes into order. Years ago, before the psychic experience, he was not for example psychically spontaneous to any great degree. He used his writing to hold back and yet contain his innate psychic knowledge. He disapproved of his own dancing, sometimes even of his sexual yearnings. Now those disapprovals simply piled up, with resulting physical difficulties. He would through the years begin to approve of spontaneity in one more area—spontaneity in class, for example—or with Sumari poetry, or in finally approving his own psychic writings. The disapproval was still present, however; yet now and then through the years would come a period of release, of sudden ease and sudden physical improvement—each time when he suspended self-disapproval, and when for your reasons you began to suspend your own.
Rob: (“This is off the subject, but your material about Christ reminded me of a letter we received from a young woman not long ago. She wanted to know what really happened to Christ, if he wasn’t crucified.”)
Seth: *(Eyes closed:) *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.
Rob:(10:53 PM. See Chapter 21 of Seth Speaks for more on the Christ entity. According to history, Christ was crucified, and the other two members of Seth’s Christ entity, John the Baptist and St. Paul, were beheaded. Seth hasn’t mentioned India before in connection with any of the three, so that information would be new. It would be interesting to get more data on the whole Christ question. As I told Jane after the session, Seth’s Christ material tonight reminded me of the idea of the Christ book, which Seth mentioned in Personal Reality.)
