Seth and Eugene (Gene) Bernard

[Sena]

Eugene (Gene) Bernard was a psychologist who attended a number of Seth sessions in 1966. A search of the internet reveals that Gene died in 1994:
https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/names/919-bernard-eugene-e-1930-1994
Gene has been referred to previously on this forum by jbseth, but there has been up to now no thread specifically dealing with the Gene/Seth interaction. The Early Sessions Book 7 has 96 references to "Gene", and the sessions are summarized in the Seth Material.
Gene had a background knowledge of Eastern religions, and this is reflected in his conversations with Seth. I was particularly interested in a passage in which Gene refers to earthly existence as a "a lovely colossal joke". Seth's response was, "it is no joke. It is a means for the Whole to know Itself."

"This session ran fourteen typewritten pages, and is so of one piece that it's difficult to give excerpts, without including a good bit of background information. Here are portions of the last half of the session. Earlier, Seth and Gene had been discussing reality, and Gene had commented that existence was "kind of a lovely colossal joke." Seth answered that "it is no joke. It is a means for the Whole to know Itself." Now Seth said: "The 'joke' is highly relevant. If you realized thoroughly that your physical world was an illusion, you would not be experiencing sense data." "Can't I experience an illusion that I create for myself?" "You can experience the illusion, but when you experience the illusion as an illusion, you no longer experience it. You are running ahead of yourself." "But there's nowhere to go," Gene said. "You do not know it. You think it. You will not be where you are." "Is there anywhere else to be?" "No and yes," said Seth. "Is there anywhere else to be that is not illusion?" "I say this to you: Yes." "How would I know the difference? Is there any way to distinguish between reality and illusion other than by a creation of my own mind?" "You do not know it now. When that point is reached, you will be able, if you prefer, to experience any 'reality ... illusion' at your will, but the self who experiences these 'reality ... illusions' will know itself as reality. There is no place for it to go, because it is the only reality, and will create its own environment."" (from "The Seth Material" by Jane Roberts)

Kindle edition: https://amzn.eu/8Oh5on6

The thread which previously referred to Gene is here:
https://speakingofseth.com/index.php/topic,2020.msg16113.html#msg16113

[Deb]

Sorry for not responding more quickly. I remember seeing this post, planned to search the Seth Research Project files to see if there was more about Dr. Bernard beyond the books, and then got distracted.

I'll update if I find anything worth adding.

[Deb]

I've long had a curiosity of what professional psychologists had to say about the Jane/Seth connection. I imagine, of all the channel/mediums, Jane had more psychologists and psychiatrists exposed to the phenomenon which they considered Jane from the sole perspective of her mental state. Sorry for the long post, but I found all of this exciting. MOST of all exciting is the letter from Dr. Bernard to Tam Mossman, in which he wrote his opinion of Jane and Seth.

While I consider Jane to be incredibly intelligent, the truth is she never did graduate from college. She was well read, but not educated in the vast number of topics Seth spoke about. She admitted in the Village Voice interview that in school (college?) she had to take science three times to pass! I'm not saying higher education is the only thing that makes a person better than someone else. What I mean is that Jane's knowledge, intellect and communication style were more sophisticated when she was speaking as Seth compared to the way she spoke as herself.

Dr. Bernard on the other hand was very well educated: "my Ph.D. is in experimental psychology from the University of Leeds, England, and my undergraduate work was at the University of California, Berkeley. I taught at Cambridge University after finishing my degree, worked for General Electric in New York as a research psychologist, taught at North Carolina State University for six years, in the Psychology Department, and am now doing full time research..."

I'm putting the book quotations (expanding your quote, Sena, really great info on the extent of how focused we are in our current reality and WHY) and Dr. Bernard's (unpublished) letter in spoilers to limit visibility to us members. Dr. Bernard died in 1994. I'll attach an old photo of him just for grins. It could even be from the time he met with Jane... he was born in 1930.

A riveting exchange between Seth and a psychologist about reality:

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[Sena]

The best summary description I can give you of the evening is that it was simply for me a delightful conversation with a personality (or intelligence, or what have you) whose wit, intellect and reservoir of knowledge far exceeded my own. He (?) was clever and charming, with a very distinct conversational style in no manner like that of Jane. Moreover, I had little difficulty determining that Seth had very much the better command of the topics which I had purposefully chosen to press him on, and on which I therefore felt reasonably confident. In any sense in which a psychologist of the western scientific tradition would understand the phrase, I do not believe that Jane Butts and Seth are the same person, or the same personality, or different personalities in the same person, or different facets of the same personality, etc., etc.

Deb, thanks for this previously un-published letter.

[Tob]

Session 161:

"(Jane now pointed at Bill, her eyes still closed, then made a passing reference to a discussion we had had at break. She smiled and spoke quietly.) It is you , not I, who have been speaking of secondary personalities, and I will not here waste your time and mine in a discussion of why I am not one. (...)

We have here this evening a secondary personality that attempts to rule the complete life of the personality of whom we have been speaking, and its name is ulcer. For where lies the difference? The personality literally lives its life about the existence of the ulcer. It is hardly worth it, for the personality must be led to see that it itself has created the ulcer, both psychologically and physically, in most actual terms, and that it itself can indeed cast it out. The personality can survive well without the ulcer. If this sounds like a foolish statement it is not, for in many such cases the ulcer is so concentrated upon, and so much energy is used in its maintenance, and it is used as such a scapegoat, that the personality is loath to be rid of it . (...)

It is however excess baggage, and can be cast aside, and will be. It is not a part of you like your arm. It is not a part of you like your legs. You can navigate without it, and indeed you shall. It is not (Jane's voice became even louder) part of the image that the inner self gave you. It did not come to you in your chromosomes for duplication. It has been added for the purposes of the ego, and it can be discarded. It did not come to you as an organ like your heart, and your existence is not dependent upon it. The purpose that it served it no longer serves, and it must now be discarded. (...)

When the ego becomes so rigid, it immediately begins an insidious attempt to block off stimuli, to limit the reaches of perception, to enclose itself in what it considers a safe world. It begins to reject stimuli, because stimuli must be reacted to, and it rejects action because action must be reacted to. Therefore it chooses areas of rejection. The areas it chooses to reject are determined by characteristics that are unique to the particular ego. It begins to travel down safe paths, and out of fear it continually enlarges the scope of limitations. In the particular personality's case, perception becomes also limited, and rejections occur. In this as in many such cases foods are rejected. In many such cases the ego itself chooses to perceive only within those areas where it feels safe, and it rejects more and more any involvement that it can avoid. And now the ego has the self created ulcer to blame, and it rejects many foods, for foods are symbolistic of involvement. (...)

When I said earlier that the ulcer was not a part of you, like a leg or an arm, I meant this literally. Because you believe this literally, literally you have allowed the ulcer to become a part of your self-image, in the same manner that an arm or a leg is a part of a self-image. And it is this connection that we must, and we will, cut. When you see that the ulcer does not belong to you in these terms, then indeed you will have no purpose in using your energies to maintain it. It is not part of your heritage. It is not part of the whole self; and now, we will see the purpose of the ego in all this is to protect what it considers the self, for the ego considers it self as the only self.
 
But in its overzealous behavior we find that it is instead threatening the self. Secondary personalities are caused by repressed emotions on a psychological basis that attempts to maintain an ascendancy. Your ulcer is indeed the same sort of growth , but on a physical and not on a psychological level. I am going to suggest, first of all, that the material which we have mentioned be read, and then for a beginning that psychological time experiments be taken."

[Tob]

Session 161:

"(Jane now pointed at Bill, her eyes still closed, then made a passing reference to a discussion we had had at break. She smiled and spoke quietly.) It is you , not I, who have been speaking of secondary personalities, and I will not here waste your time and mine in a discussion of why I am not one. (...)

We have here this evening a secondary personality that attempts to rule the complete life of the personality of whom we have been speaking, and its name is ulcer. For where lies the difference? The personality literally lives its life about the existence of the ulcer. It is hardly worth it, for the personality must be led to see that it itself has created the ulcer, both psychologically and physically, in most actual terms, and that it itself can indeed cast it out. The personality can survive well without the ulcer. If this sounds like a foolish statement it is not, for in many such cases the ulcer is so concentrated upon, and so much energy is used in its maintenance, and it is used as such a scapegoat, that the personality is loath to be rid of it . (...)

It is however excess baggage, and can be cast aside, and will be. It is not a part of you like your arm. It is not a part of you like your legs. You can navigate without it, and indeed you shall. It is not (Jane's voice became even louder) part of the image that the inner self gave you. It did not come to you in your chromosomes for duplication. It has been added for the purposes of the ego, and it can be discarded. It did not come to you as an organ like your heart, and your existence is not dependent upon it. The purpose that it served it no longer serves, and it must now be discarded. (...)

When the ego becomes so rigid, it immediately begins an insidious attempt to block off stimuli, to limit the reaches of perception, to enclose itself in what it considers a safe world. It begins to reject stimuli, because stimuli must be reacted to, and it rejects action because action must be reacted to. Therefore it chooses areas of rejection. The areas it chooses to reject are determined by characteristics that are unique to the particular ego. It begins to travel down safe paths, and out of fear it continually enlarges the scope of limitations. In the particular personality's case, perception becomes also limited, and rejections occur. In this as in many such cases foods are rejected. In many such cases the ego itself chooses to perceive only within those areas where it feels safe, and it rejects more and more any involvement that it can avoid. And now the ego has the self created ulcer to blame, and it rejects many foods, for foods are symbolistic of involvement. (...)

When I said earlier that the ulcer was not a part of you, like a leg or an arm, I meant this literally. Because you believe this literally, literally you have allowed the ulcer to become a part of your self-image, in the same manner that an arm or a leg is a part of a self-image. And it is this connection that we must, and we will, cut. When you see that the ulcer does not belong to you in these terms, then indeed you will have no purpose in using your energies to maintain it. It is not part of your heritage. It is not part of the whole self; and now, we will see the purpose of the ego in all this is to protect what it considers the self, for the ego considers it self as the only self.
 
But in its overzealous behavior we find that it is instead threatening the self. Secondary personalities are caused by repressed emotions on a psychological basis that attempts to maintain an ascendancy. Your ulcer is indeed the same sort of growth , but on a physical and not on a psychological level. I am going to suggest, first of all, that the material which we have mentioned be read, and then for a beginning that psychological time experiments be taken."

Session 162:

"I have discussed in some detail the electrical makeup of the physical body, and of the atoms and molecules, and cells and organs, that compose it. I have also discussed the electrical components that make up each thought. These thoughts, then, are automatically translated into physical matter by certain areas of the subconscious. If certain long-standing distorted concepts are held, therefore, then they must be faced and struck out. For otherwise there is an automatic flow of this energy into a false disruptive pattern. The inner self does indeed have an overall conception of the goals and strengths of the personality. It is then this inner self that must be searched for the answers. I mentioned earlier in another session that the very attempt to seek for an answer to the basic problem will indeed automatically release some of that energy for a constructive purpose.
 
You will begin to starve the ulcer of its energy. The manner in which the subconscious translates energy into construction of physical matter, again, has been covered in our sessions previously. However it is imperative that the idea be understood thoroughly, for here we have no vague and nebulous theory indeed, but a most practical and definite explanation of the manner in which you yourselves construct not only your own physical image, but indeed your own physical environment. (Among others, see the 60th-73rd sessions in Volume 2.) And that which you have constructed, you then respond to through the outer senses, and you react to what you have subconsciously created. It is important that these matters be understood when you are concerned with how to change or alter a physical condition, for the change will come from within or it will not come."

[inavalan]

...
spoiler From The Seth Material Chapter 9
...

That is a great session, including its first part, not included in the spoiler.

Seth: "... If you realized thoroughly that your physical world was an illusion, you would not be experiencing sense data."

Gene: "Can't I experience an illusion that I create for myself?"

S: "You can experience the illusion, but when you experience the illusion as an illusion, you no longer experience it. You are running ahead of yourself."

...

G: "How would I know the difference? Is there any way to distinguish between reality and illusion other than by a creation of my own mind?"

S: "You do not know it now. When that point is reached, you will be able, if you prefer, to experience any 'Reality-Illusion' at your will, but the self who experiences these 'reality-illusions' will know itself as reality. There is no place for it to go, because it is the only reality, and will create its own environment."

...

S: "You must still be able to experience any one of these illusions, knowing they are illusory, with full knowledge of their nature, and still know that the basic reality is yourself. There is no place to go because you are the place—and all places—in those terms. But the 'joke' is relevant. The most important thing I have said this evening is that the joke is relevant. You must be free enough to explore the nature and experience of each living thing within your own system, knowing that it is yourself, and then leave your system. These must be direct experiences."

...

S: "I am using terms of continuity now simply for explanation. First there must be a period, and then it has passed, when you are completely immersed in a given system as if no other existed; value fulfillment AS A RULE being achieved in this manner. This does not mean that you are not dwelling in other systems simultaneously. The illusion must be probed to its depth."

...

S: "You are creating your own limitations. (Too fast to follow word for word, Seth admits he is part of the game and was, in a sense, created by Gene. He says that Gene is dealing in artificial terms, not real ones.) "You and I are a part of the same reality."

...

S: "Yes. You are not granting the diversity that exists."

...

S: "The experience is in every way real."