Seth explains the news

[Deb]

Here's some of the best Seth, especially considering what we've been put through these past 5 months. Seth presents some calm and balance to all the bad news we see in the media every day. This was written in 1977, I guess some things never change...

...the overall picture is largely the same: you cannot trust yourself, your body, the natural world. You are everywhere presented with the evidence. The headlines speak of problems between nations, mass and private crime, illness. The misuse of animals, man's stupidity and cruelty, so it seems that the species is nearly insane.

Let us look at the invisible organization behind such material, however. I do not want to shock you, but there are quite as many cases of honest heroism as there are crimes committed. There are patterns of highly constructive change that never show, as far as your media is concerned. There are as many people recovering from diseases, even by themselves, as those who succumb.

There are compensating, creative earth patterns occurring in terms of energy, but these do not show.

If you do not understand this, then you will take your newspapers and other news unthinkingly, thinking that a fairly adequate picture of world events is being portrayed—a picture that only deepens the negative feelings that are behind the invisible organization of such data. In such a way you miss any significant evidence to the contrary.

Privately, then, you will to some extent or another have to take up defenses against that reality. As long as you think that your physical information about the world, through newspapers and so forth, presents a fairly adequate, objective view of events, then all of the evidence to the contrary will literally be invisible, for you will continue to organize your view of the world in the old way. You will think, for example, when a story about misuse of political power is concerned "That's only one story. How many more politicians do the same thing?"

For the newspapers also act in a suggestive fashion, further programming your expectations. In a way you organize your physical experience as you do your inner life, through association, through emotional association. I am not simple speaking of sensationalism in newspapers or on TV. When you read the news or hear it, however, because of cultural beliefs you are programmed to behave in a certain fashion, in a fashion that validates, seemingly, the concepts of Freud and Darwin, and the most unfortunate aspects of Christian pessimism.

This is not done with any ill intent. Individuals collect the news and write it. To many people, some kind of organization, even one that is wobbly, is far better than facing the task of setting up an entirely new view of reality. The inner structure of most of your organizations and institutions are based on those old precepts. Individual lives have been constructed along those frameworks.

(With gentle irony:) You made a remark earlier this evening to the effect that the individual could do nothing in the face of such organized behavior— a remark that by now I'm sure you regret voicing. (I laughed.) Those ideas to begin with began with individuals. The people who make and report the news are individuals. The people who read or view the news are individuals. To some extent through the books you are helping people alter their psychic organizations, to look at the world in a different fashion, and therefore to view a different world—a world in which their experiences are different than they would have been otherwise.

(10:14.) Many people are already beginning to alter their picture of the world, but they are afraid of trusting their own intuitions. Consider the lengthy letter from the young English gentleman. In a large measure, the world in which he now lives is a highly more enjoyable and productive one than it was before.

His experiences are entirely different than they would have been. In terms of probability, he took a new probable road, which means that his individual impact upon the world, and everyone he meets, will also be different and more creative than it would have been before.

Unless Ruburt does, no one will remark about this young man. No one will trace the beneficial change in his life, and their effects upon others.

People generally have been taught to play down their own heroism, and to concentrate upon man's weaknesses, and so your newspapers contain categorized fact upon fact, emphasizing man's errors and stupidities. It has become virtuous to keep track of these, as if concentrating upon errors will do anything but compound them.

I am, again, not telling you to be blind to physical events, but to realize that the news media, and your organizations, are not giving you an "objective" view of the world, but a view compounded and composed by Freudian and Darwinian beliefs."

TPS4, December 3, 1977

© L. Davies Butts 

[Sena]

People generally have been taught to play down their own heroism, and to concentrate upon man's weaknesses

Deb, thanks for this quote, which is very relevant to the news media antics of the past few months.

[jbseth]

Hi Deb,

Thanks for sharing this information from Seth about how the news media is not giving us an objective "view" of the world. Yes, I agree, with you, it still applies today.

However, I'd also like to point out that Seth's words also apply to you and this forum.

To some extent through (this forum and through) the (Seth) books "you" are helping people alter their psychic organizations, to look at the world in a different fashion, and therefore to view a different world—a world in which their experiences are different than they would have been otherwise.

And so by hosting this forum and sharing this very message, you too are also helping out Deb. 

Thank you.   

-jbseth

[Deb]

Wow, jbseth, thank you, so nice of you to say that!

When I first read the long quote, with Seth talking about "Many people are already beginning to alter their picture of the world," it reminded me of all of us Seth readers who are willing to look at the OLC with a critical eye. Seth was so good at interrupting the trance we're in to show us a different view of reality. Question everything and "look at the world in a different fashion, and therefore to view a different world." As we alter our view from less negative to more positive, we change our individual view of reality, and therefore the greater good.

[LarryH]

This topic is why John Krasinski's Some Good News is so welcome these days. I have heard that this show will eventually become a regular network show, though with a different host. I hope it's true. I think also that there has been some slight improvement in network news since Seth addressed the topic. If you watch the national nightly news on any of the three major TV networks, they all end their show with some kind of inspiring feel-good story. In fact, much of what I have seen on Some Good News was first aired on those shows. I cannot say the same for cable news channels. I avoid those for the most part. I know people who are obsessed with watching those shows, and they tend toward paranoia.

[LarryH]

Is it wrong to ignore the news altogether and instead focus on creative action and love here in primary reality? Primary reality being what is actually going now. Is it wrong to turn off the stream of information coming from the media, and instead just live one's life without it? What would happen if one did turn it off and refocused on creative action and love in the spacious present?

Thank you for your thoughtful post, and welcome to the forum. I would only suggest that it is not wrong to be informed about what is going on in the secondary reality. What we do with that information and how we allow it to affect us is what is important. For instance, I have an obligation as a voter to fill out my ballot from an informed position. I have an obligation to be aware of social issues that generally do not impact my life, but my words, behavior, or votes may impact others in a negative way if I am not educated about these issues. There is nothing wrong with being exposed to the news regarding world or local events. It is important to use discretion in evaluating the information and to recognize that much of it does not effect our individual lives, and some of it is exaggeration or false. We cannot all live as hermits, and I don't want to. I prefer to be able to interact with others as one who is informed about the political and social dynamics, both pleasant and unpleasant. Before we can add value to the world, we have to acknowledge what is so in the larger world that we have all participated in creating. If we don't like what we see, we can focus on what we want instead.