The Survival Personality

[Deb]

I saw parts of this except from Session 270 (TES6) on Facebook this morning. It explains the survival of the personality after physical death in more detail than what I've read before. What I found most interesting is this: Here in physical life, the outer ego is what we consider ourselves to be, and we consider the inner ego as subconscious. Once physical death occurs, there's a reversal of this "psychological balance." The outer ego sort of takes a place in the subconscious, and what was previously considered the subconscious becomes the "operating" consciousness, which offers a much richer environment. Words underlined in the book are represented here in all CAPS.

I told you from the beginning that the inner ego is aware of data that is received through the inner senses as well as data from the outer senses. It is the prime identity of the whole present personality. In many cases it is the I of your dreams. It is definitely the I of your creative activity. It is the I, you see, which survives physical existence, and the physical, physically-oriented ego is only a part of it.

If ONLY the physically-oriented ego survived, very little indeed would survive at all. The physically-oriented ego is hardly aware of your experiences in their entirety. The physically-oriented ego, if it alone survived, would contain only your conscious memories. Even now, in physical existence, you operate on a much deeper and more complicated level than this. Events and experiences which are forgotten, or which escaped the physically-oriented ego, still affect your activities in this life, and if they did not your physical existence would be brief indeed. (Jane pounded the tabletop for emphasis, eyes wide and dark.) Any survival that was based upon the survival of the physically-oriented ego alone would be as shallow as a paper cutout. These things escape you. You take it for granted that the physically-oriented ego represents your own psychological identity, you see, and this is an illusion. It contains a portion of your psychological FEELING of identity, but only that.

Feelings and sensations and memories that it knows nothing of have built up your psychological identity, and given you a sense of continuity. Of these this ego knows but little. Intimacy with your self and with your own identity, that is intimate knowledge of your own identity, resides in all portions of the self, and is not dependent upon a survival based upon the survival of the physically-oriented ego. This would represent a sham of a survival indeed.

There is a basic difference you see between a SURVIVAL personality, and the personality as you know it. The individual in physical life shows his surface face, so to speak, outward. Inner psychological realities are hidden beneath the physically-oriented ego simply because it cannot afford to DEAL WITH THEM. Its one main purpose is simply to allow the personality to operate effectively within its physical environment.

The SURVIVING personality has a different psychological balance. The outer ego no longer shows its outside face, so to speak, (again Jane struck the tabletop) but takes its place with the other aspects of the personality. You might say that it becomes the subconscious, although I am speaking now simply to get the idea across, and this is not PRECISELY the case.

It is true however to say that the MEMORIES of the physically-oriented ego take their place with memories that were ONCE subconscious. I am speaking now of the psychological makeup of the survival personality. The memories remain in physical existence. There is no real distinction between psychological reality and physical reality. The physically-oriented ego manufactures this distinction of necessity.

The survival personality does not need to do this. To him all realities are psychological realities, a thought as real as a chair—in fact, much more real. Therefore, communications between survival personalities and physically-oriented personalities are bound to suffer difficulties, and these difficulties are the result of the change of psychological frameworks.

—TES6 Session 270 June 22, 1966

[jbseth]

Hi Deb,

Yeah, these are some pretty interesting ideas. This session relates really well with two other Seth sessions, both from TES3.  These are Sessions 88 and 126.

In Session 88, Seth describes the make-up of our subconscious. In this session he describes the first 3 layers of our subconscious. Then just below these first 3 layers is a 4th layer that is, what he calls, an undifferentiated layer that deals with the period that occurred before this life and after the last life.

Then, below this undifferentiated layer, is "a layer composed of memories dealing successively with each previous existence, and separated by a layer between lives that is, again, undifferentiated."

These layers are our reincarnational lives.



Then in Session 126, Seth talks about the "electric reality". In this session he talks about what actually happens when we die. In this session, Seth tells us that when we die, our ego is changed from having an existence in physical reality, to having an existence in the electrical reality and then as part of this electrical reality, it becomes part of the inner self. In this session, Seth says:

This electrical pattern is the personality, with all the experiences of its earthly time. It then can join or partake of the inner self. In other words, though the ego was adopted originally by the inner self, and was a product of physical heredity and environment, it does not die; but its existence is changed from physical reality into electrical reality. It is still individual. No individuality is lost, but it becomes a part of the inner self, and its experiences are added to the total experience of the many personalities that have composed the inner self.



I'm often impressed by the fact that even though many of Seth's ideas were incredibly detailed and complex, he also always seemed to consistently connect them together with other complex ideas that he had previously discussed.



- jbseth