Seth on Other Consciousness (plants, trees, rocks!)

[Deb]

From 'The Early Sessions', Book 1, Session 18, Jan. 22, 1964.

Ever since I read Seth's words about how everything has some level of consciousness, and that souls can take sort of sabbaticals from incarnations and spend some time as a tree or whatever, I've looked at everything around me a little differently. This lengthy quote fleshes out the concept:

As to Jane's feeling about the tree having certain consciousness, of course, this is the case. What you have here is much latent energy and vitality and capacity, with much of it withheld or suspended momentarily.

The tree is, of course, dissociated in one manner. In some ways, its living forces and consciousness are kept to a minimum. It is in a state of drowsiness, on the one hand. And, on the other hand, it focuses the usable portion of its energy into being a tree. The state of consciousness involved here is dull as compared to the highly differentiated human ability in many ways.

However, in some other manners, the experiences of the tree are extremely deep, dealing with the inner senses which are and properly also properties of treedom. There is something here difficult for me to explain clearly. The inner senses of the tree have strong affinity with the properties of earth itself. They feel their growing. They listen to their growing as you listen to your own heartbeat. They experience this oneness with their own growth. And, they also experience pain. The pain, however, while definite, unpleasant, and sometimes agonizing is not of an emotional nature in the same way that you might experience pain.

In some ways, it is even a deeper thing. The analogy may not be a perfect one, far from it. But, it is as if your breath were to be suddenly cut off. In a manner, this somewhat approximates pain for a tree.

The tree makes adjustments as you make adjustments. The tree listens to its growth up from the earth and listens also to the murmur of the growth of its roots beneath. It adjusts each root ending according to what impediments might lie in its way. Without the so-called mind of man, it, nevertheless, retains this inner consciousness of all its parts above and below the ground and adjusts them constantly.

The tree is also innerly aware of its environment to an astonishing degree. It maintains contact awareness and the ability to manipulate itself in two completely different worlds, so to speak, one in which it meets little resistance growing upward and one composed of much heavier elements into which it must grow downward. Man needs artificial methods, for example, to operate effectively on land or in water. But, the so-called unconscious tree manages very nicely in two worlds, as diverse certainly as land and water, and makes himself a part of each. I am speaking now of a tree as a "he" for reasons that I will go into in a further discussion.

And, as far as motion is concerned, the tree moves upward and downward. It is quite unfair to say that it can not transport itself, since it does so to an amazing degree, the roots and limbs moving in all directions. The inner senses of all plant life are well attuned, alert, and very important. All these fragments have consciousness to a rather high degree, considering that man holds them in such ill repute.

If you will remember what you know of the trance state, you are, for example, in a light trance, able to maintain awareness of yourself, your environment, and your place in it. You simply behave somewhat differently, not bestirring yourself in any direction unless the suggestion to do so be given you.

The awareness of plant life lies along these lines. In a deep trance there is oblivion afterward. That is, the subject, though fully aware of what is going on while in deep trance, can remember nothing of it afterward. The awareness of plant life is also like the awareness of a subject in deep trance. Except for the suggestion and stimulus received by regular natural forces on your plane, the plant life does not bestir itself in other directions. But, like the subject in trance, our plant is aware. Its other abilities lie unused for the time and latent. But, they are present.

The awareness is focused along certain lines. The energy is likewise focused. Much of the ability, again, is suspended as for a subject in a trance. But, consciousness is present. Your hybrid plants merely demonstrate this susceptibility to new suggestion which your plant, like your susceptible trance subject, will gladly follow. I will have more to say along this road of thought but am detoured for just a moment as to which fork to follow.

(Break at 21:43. Jane felt that Seth wanted to go on but had so many points of departure to choose from that he couldn't decide which to pursue first. "I can feel him buzzing around," she said just before she resumed dictating at 21:50.)

As you have probably supposed by now, there is consciousness in everything. Visible or invisible to you, each fragment of the universe has a consciousness of its own. Pain and pleasure, the strongest aspects of all consciousness, are experienced strongly by every fragment, according to its degree. Differentiation is, of course, various. And, it is in the degree of differentiation that consciousness is different.

In some fragments, such as much plant life and vegetative life, there is strong use of certain inner senses. Your rocks, Joseph, I will call vegetative. Rocks are far from lifeless. Other types of life, including your own, rely on the recognized outer senses. The ideal, of course, is a consciousness that is adept at using both the inner and outer senses fully.

Your tree lives through its inner senses, experiencing many sensations and reacting to many stimuli of which you are unaware. Minute earth tremors, even the motion of small ants about its lower trunk, are recognized and experienced by tree consciousness. Such invisibilities as humidity, radioactivity, and all electrical earthly values are felt as quite real things by your tree and recognized as being separate from the tree itself.

A tree knows a human being, also. Not only, for example, by the weight of a boy upon its branches but by the vibrations in the air as adults pass, which hit the tree's trunk at varying distances, and even by such things as voices. You must remember my earlier remarks about mental enzymes and my remark that color can sometimes be heard and sight be seen.

In drawing up his list of so-called natural laws, I have said that man decided that what appeared to be cause and effect to him was, therefore, a natural law of the universe. Not only do these so-called laws, which are not laws, vary according to where you are in the universe, they also vary according to what you are in the universe. Therefore, your tree recognizes a human being, though it does not see the human being, in your terms. To a tree the laws are simply different. And, if a tree wrote its laws of the universe, then you would know how different they are.

The tree does not even build up an image of man, which is why this is difficult to explain. I have no intention of going deeper into this matter than you can follow at this time. Nevertheless, the tree builds up a composite sensation which represents, say, an individual man. And the same tree will recognize the same man who passes it by each day.

Beside the recognized outer senses and the inner senses, of which you are just now beginning to gain knowledge, there are other inner and even outer senses, which you are not quite ready to understand.

They deal with finer distinctions than you know now, being somewhat of the nature of your body's ability to sense another person's aggression. As your body senses temperature changes, so it also senses the psychic charge not only of other human beings but, also, believe it or not, of animals. And, to a lesser extent, it senses the psychic charge of plants and vegetative matter. Your tree builds up a composite of sensations of this sort, sensing not the physical dimensions of a material object, whatever it is, but the vital psychic formation within and about it.

Size, however, is sensed by a tree, perhaps because of its inherent concern with height. The table around which Ruburt (Jane Roberts) now walks senses Ruburt even as Ruburt senses the table. At a later date, I intend to go quite intensively into the means by which other fragments sense each other and man. The abilities of the tree are latent in man as, dear Joseph (Rob), are the abilities latent in the tree.

[Sena]

Ever since I read Seth's words about how everything has some level of consciousness, and that souls can take sort of sabbaticals from incarnations and spend some time as a tree or whatever, I've looked at everything around me a little differently.

The technical philosophical term for everything having some degree of consciousness is "panpsychism". This is gradually becoming somewhat respectable in academic circles.
With regard to the consciousness of a tree, I have a little story. We had a mango tree in our garden which gave a lot of fruit at one time but as it grew older it became less fruitful. I was quite fond of this tree because it gave shade in the right area. Then its branches began to touch the overhead electric wires. We asked a tree-cutter to cut a few branches. As he did this a branch struck him in the eye. I took him to hospital where he had to have stitches on his eyelid. A month later we though the best thing would be cut the tree down. A second tree-cutter came. This time the axe slipped in his hand and struck his knee. He had to be hospitalized. Then we got a man with an electric saw who did the job successfully.

[Deb]

The technical philosophical term for everything having some degree of consciousness is "panpsychism". This is gradually becoming somewhat respectable in academic circles.

That's interesting, do you know what the source of that is for them? I'd not considered it until Seth mentioned, early on, that everything has consciousness in some form. It certainly changed the way I 'interact' with everything around me. I even talk to plants now. I'm becoming one of those eccentrics, I think.

Great story about the tree, at this point I'm surprised you pursued the task after accident #2. It seems the tree had other plans...

[Deb]

OK, another question comes to mind.
If everything has consciousness, then what about the dilemma of eating meat? If vegetables have as much consciousness as animals, then why is eating vegetables better than eating animals?

Will we at some point become more efficient about absorbing nutrients from soil, water and sun?

And if they are also conscious... what then?

[Sena]

That's interesting, do you know what the source of that is for them?

Deb, this is from Wikipedia:
"Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers like Thales, Parmenides, Plato, Averroes, Spinoza, Leibniz and William James."
I think you have read Jane's book on William James. I have not read the entire book, but I can't recall anything there specifically on panpsychism.
This is a part of the Wikipedia article in audio:

[Sena]

If vegetables have as much consciousness as animals, then why is eating vegetables better than eating animals?

A good argument against vegetarianism!
Life on Earth means to eat and be eaten. If I am buried after death bacteria and other creatures will have a feast.

[Deb]

Thanks for the panpsychism video. I haven't read all of the James book, have not read anything like that so far but will now keep that in mind.

Life on Earth means to eat and be eaten.

Great point. Anything alive on this planet, as far as I know, needs to 'eat' and it consumes energy from or left behind by other living things. Plants absorb nutrients from the soil. Where do the nutrients come from? Other life forms (plants, insects, manure, whatever) that are decomposing in the soil. Insects and animals absorb nutrients from the plants and from other animals (we being one of them in the cycle—'worm food' at the very least. That alone should knock us off that pedestal of being at the TOP of the food chain).

Lately I have been reading The Unknown Reality Two, and this below was in the morning's read. Coincidence? It's a GREAT session and well explains how everything is related and how consciousness units all physical matter ("[Rubert] is also connected with any ant in the backyard in the same way. Yet I retain my identity, the ant retains its identity, and Rubert retains his."). Underscoring is as in the book.

"No single blade of grass dies but that it affects the entire mountain. The energy within the grass sinks into the earth, and in your terms is again reborn. Trees, rocks, and grass constantly exchange places as energy changes form..."

"Physically speaking, and generally, your body is composed of grasses and ants and rocks and beasts and birds, for in one way or another all biological matter is related. In certain terms, through your experience, birds and rocks speak alphabets — and certain portions of your own being fly or creep as birds or insects, forming the great gestalt of physical experience. It is fashionable to say: "You are what you eat" semicolon; that, for example, "You must not eat meat because you are killing the animals, and this is wrong." But in deeper terms, physically and biologically, the animals are born from the body of the earth, which is composed of the corpses of men and women as much as it is of other matter. The animals consume you, then, as often as you consume them, and they are as much a part of your humanity as you are a part of their so called animal nature."

"The constant interchange that exists biologically means that the same physical stuff that composes a man or a woman may be dispersed, and later form a toad, a starfish, a dog or a flower. It may be distributed into numberless different forms. That arithmetic of consciousness is not annihilated. It is multiplied..."

"...Through such strands of consciousness all of your world is related."

—UR2, Session 725, December 11, 1974

[Sena]

No single blade of grass dies but that it affects the entire mountain. The energy within the grass sinks into the earth, and in your terms is again reborn. Trees, rocks, and grass constantly exchange places as energy changes form..."

Deb, thanks for coming up with this very relevant quote. I think our mango tree had to die. Now we have a fish tank in its place.