Rita Warren: All right, good evening to the gentlemen upstairs.
F: Good evening to the ladies downstairs. [chuckles]
R: I had mentioned in an earlier session, on the 11th, that I wanted to return to the issue of disasters when there’s been loss of life on the earth, and ask, to the extent that you’re able to alter things in the 3D world, what meaning do these kinds of events have?
F: Hmm. [pause] That’s a hard question to answer, phrased that way. It’s rather like asking us what meaning does a day have. Because what you all see as all the same kind of things, putting the title of disaster or atrocity or war around them, to us are infinitely different. We’ll give you an example to show you the difficulty, and then ask you to rephrase it.
R: Okay.
F: [pause] If you have that disaster at Bhopal, where people died because of corporate indifference, and you have a disaster in New York where people died because of an act of war and, let’s see, if you have a disaster resulting, seemingly anyway, from nobody’s fault – the bridge over St. Luis Rey, if you remember that old example — if you only look at the fact that there is widespread, seemingly indiscriminate death, then you might say those three incidents are three of a kind. And we would say they’re nothing like.
R: Can I add to that list the meteors crashing into the earth and causing major death among the dinosaurs.
F: [laughs]
R: That would be another disaster for the dinosaurs.
F: Relatively few of the dinosaurs asked questions about it afterwards. [they laugh] Well – All right, well, see, that’s an interesting example of what you would lump together. To you, those four things have something in common, but we don’t see it as inherent. It would be as though you grouped the people of a city who were all wearing sneakers. You know? I mean, yes, they would have that in common, but it wouldn’t necessarily be a meaningful “in common.” If you could ask that question in a more pointed way, — and we can’t tell you how, because it’s your question that will elicit the answer, but —
R: Well let me try a different emphasis in the question. I’ve heard you saying that you have some role in deciding things that happen here. And those are things that happen that seem to include either loss of human life, loss of other kinds of life on the planet–
F: Mm-hmm.
R: And why would you want to do something like that? What could be accomplished?
F: Okay. First, let’s point out that we don’t so much “decide” as we “plan.” We absolutely respect the free will of the individuals involved, who are planning it with us, but if they decided at the last moment or earlier not to do it, we have to run around and implement Plan B, C, or D. But we don’t decide it, we plan it. You see that distinction?
R: Mm-hmm.
F: Having said that, suppose you want to build a new building on a lot that already has an old building. You destroy the old building first. You understand the analogy. If you have an old wooden building on a lot that you intend to build a skyscraper on, the destruction has to come first. [pause]
You all tend to think that death or even injury is necessarily a bad thing. Which perplexes us. Although we understand it intellectually, we can’t really empathize with that attitude, because – it’s so funny. It would be like regarding every sunset as a tragedy because it was the end of the day. Because you’re all going to die, you’re all going to get injured in one way or another, probably, on the way. And when you die, so what? Then you come back, either here or somewhere else.
So we really can’t share your views of the finality of it or even of the importance of it. A sudden death or an accidental death so-called, or a violent or lingering or – there are many ways to die – each of them can be molded in such a way as to help the soul’s that experiencing it. As we said, the people who died on the same day, on the 11th of September, they were volunteers in the first place, and in the second place, thousands of other people died that day who weren’t noticed. So, we know it sounds cold to you, but it’s not a big deal to us.
Now, the orchestrating of an event that can have long term hopefully positive effects on society (which, as we have said, only interests us in that it helps to mold people closer to their potential) – that’s worth an awful lot of transient human suffering. Because the alternative is not a lack of suffering, the alternative is suffering of an entirely different kind. [pause]
R: Yes, you’ve mentioned that point before. I was thinking not so much about the tragedy and the loss of human life as the impact that that loss has. And as I hear you now, you’re saying that can be a very positive impact, in that it has some altering effect on those who are still inhabiting this earth.
F: Yes. Let’s stretch through the old memories here. He’s got all kind of historical analogies. The attack on Pearl Harbor led, by way of a war, to a generation of men who were given college educations who never could have had college educations without the GI Bill of Rights. That generation of men, mostly men, in turn had a vastly expanded life in terms of their earning potential and their intellectual horizons, and they added to the intellectual capital of a whole generation of Americans, which affected the whole world. Okay? Now, that isn’t an excuse for Pearl Harbor. It isn’t the underlying reason for Pearl Harbor. But it is one of the effects of Pearl Harbor. And so we think it’s very misleading to look at those who were killed in the attack as if that were the full story, when in fact the story is darker – in that you have all of the 50 million people who were killed in that war – but it’s also lighter in all of the things that followed the war because the war cleared stuff away. Okay? It’s a matter of how wide you spread your net when you do your accounting.
R: Well, you said that was not the reason for the event, as though the reasons for the event are somewhat different than the long-term effect.
F: Well,– Well [pause] We’re saying that an event has initial consequences and then the secondary consequences and tertiary and quaternary – you know. It goes on and on. You can’t say that the event was caused for the sake of the tertiary consequences. But you can say that those consequences came because of the event. Again, it’s a question of how carefully you do your accounting when you are attempting to see.
Well, all right, look at it this way. Again, you all see things, necessarily, in time-slices. Because you see them in time-slices, you can’t possibly see them the way we do. So that what you call the tragedies of World War I and tragedies of World War II, and everything in between, not to mention the Cold War afterwards, we would look at as the seismic interruption of a world culture that had kind of reached a dead end, which resulted in the freeing of many countries that had been colonies – which in turn had good and bad effects. The level of civilization often dropped. But it’s still better for people to work out their own destiny than to be held as children. [pause] It’s not that simple, but we’re giving you a simple example. Trying to.
R: I’m still asking – these are consequences you’re talking about, but implied in the way you’re saying it is that there was a reason for it.
F: That’s right.
R: I’m saying that those reasons are something that you’re dealing with presumably at your level.
F: Well, we would say probably an easy way to talk about it is as a demolition job.
R: Okay.
F: That’s perhaps tactless given the fact that the two buildings collapsed, but when a society encrusts itself with certain institutions or corruptions or even virtues, it can be impossible to pull them down, no matter how necessary it may be to do it, without some violent or in any case catastrophic discontinuity.
[Humble transcriber’s note: I, Frank, have been sick quite a bit these past couple of weeks, heavy coughing, wheezing, all the fun that accompanies asthma. But this session, as previously, as long as I was talking to the guys, my breathing was easy even though I was lying on my back – which is an impossible position for an asthmatic to be comfortable in! The reason I mention this here will become apparent.]
R: Well what about the dinosaurs?
F: What about the dinosaurs? The dinosaurs were cleared off the face of the earth.
R: Yes. That was with intent, I guess you’re saying. I can’t imagine what the intent was.
F: Well, you remember Robert Monroe’s very productive analogy about Someone in his garden Somewhere. Remember, the garden of loosh? [Transcriber’s note: This may be found in Monroe’s second book, Far Journeys.]
R: Mm, okay.
F: He began by sowing a crop, remember? And the first crop and the second crop and the third crop. He destroyed them successively as he discovered disadvantages and could think of new ways that might be more efficacious. He either destroyed the whole crop or reduced it in importance. This is an analogy, this is a fable, but in many ways it’s exactly on the mark. What good would it do to have the world continue with dinosaurs in a Devonian world that could not go where it has gone in the meantime?
R: But one might want to ask, why were the dinosaurs here in the first place?
F: Well, supposing the dinosaurs were here as a necessary intermediary step. Or, supposing that dinosaurs were a dead end that could have gone someplace else, and didn’t. Or, supposing the dinosaurs were a whimsical play, just to see how big we can make a bird that doesn’t fly. It’s not relevant, really. Teleological thought can be extended too far. Something Frank tends to do in fact. You don’t always need to know why a leaf falls on one side of a fence rather than the other. [pause] We don’t object to the question, we’re just saying – That’s our answer to the question. We can bring the dinosaurs back if you want, but where are you going to put them?
R: Okay. One could assume that you were talking about planting seeds of animal life that evolved eventually into dinosaurs, and perhaps that was somebody playing a game. I kind of like that explanation best.
F: Well, just as long as it’s clear that we don’t believe in meaningless evolution because we know that it’s silly. It’s one of the silliest things you’ve come up with. Nothing happens without purpose, and to think that it does is to overestimate your own intelligence and to underestimate the intelligence of the universe. Evolution is the effect, it’s not a –
You know, there’s a tendency among your scientists to use that word as though it were a deus ex machina. You know, to actually – not quite consciously – make it into an actor, a person rather like Someone. And that’s not what happens. What happens is, we play, and but inherent in the nature of true creation is always the inherent uncertainty of the result. Otherwise you’re not creating anything, you’re just following a design. So when you truly innovate, you produce unpredictable results. That’s why you innovate. Now, you know which way you want them to move, but that doesn’t mean that’s going to do it.
R: Is this always a situation of co-creation, where the thing that you’re creating also has a creative force in itself?
F: Well, a lot depends on your definition. We could agree with that, but let’s look at it as, say, a tree. A tree’s role in the co-creation is to follow its own nature. To become the best tree it can be, shall we say. To pursue the nutrients, to produce the leaves and the chlorophyll and all that. So to that degree – and actually to a larger degree than most of you right now understand—that tree, yes, it is an active co-creator. Although it would be truer, probably, to say trees, as a one-thing. Before beings get differentiated up to your level, the whole thing is more – it’s really halfway between us and you in a way, you know? Supposing you had 10,000 maple trees; that’s more like one generic maple tree than 10,000 individuals. Now, it’s not quite, but you see the point. I hope.
R: Mm-hmm.
F: Did we tangle this up entirely, or should we make it worse?
R: [laughs] No. No, I think that’s been a useful discussion.
F: We’re glad you can’t sue us, every time a train goes off the track.
R: [chuckles] All right, I wanted to ask again about something the last session. I’m going to quote you here: you’re “interested in changing society to provide a matrix in which individuals will change in certain ways.” What do you feel are the main ways in which the human being could change in order to be improved?
F: We wouldn’t say improved, exactly, but let’s say developed. Let’s say that you’re ready for your next growth spurt? You two are actually working on this right now in your own way, and that is, first will come the firmer rooting in our side while you’re still in your side. This will give you a firmer rooting on your side – Well, wait. [pause]
At the moment, people on the earth’s surface are mostly having to believe that there is a purpose, that there is connection, and that there’s meaning. And they do or don’t believe, to greater or less extent, depending on the circumstances. We’re trying to move you; and you’re moving, in the direction of more firmly rooting yourself where you are by rooting yourself more firmly with us. By increasing your access, you see.
Now when you do that, you destroy the fear of death, you destroy the fear of accident – in fact, in general you could say you destroy fear, because once you realize that you are creating what’s around you in a real sense, not in a theoretical sense, then you don’t have to worry about being hit by flying bullets.
Once fear is eliminated, curiosity enters, which is again another thing that Bob Monroe said very clearly. He saw that, mainly because he had to overcome a lot of his own fears. As a pioneer, it’s important for you all to realize that pioneers are not fearless. They’re intelligent enough to be afraid, and stubborn enough to do it anyway. And also playful enough, and curious enough.
Well the easiest way to start this is as a civilization, as a society, because most people want to fit in and they can more easily do it by fitting in than by going against the crowd. So those of you who go against the crowd actually serve the purpose of changing the crowd so that then all those who fit in then will do it, at which point you’re uncomfortable, and you go off and do something else! [they laugh] But that’s fine. That’s meeting your purpose. Once you in general have been more firmly grounded in the way things really are – once it’s no longer a wild –eyed theory propounded by Seth or propounded by the perennial philosophers, you know — and is seen and interpreted variously by religious figures, who are then thought to be either soft-hearted or soft-headed, by the people who think of themselves as realists – once you’ve changed that basis, and the fear is gone, and the connection is increased, and the curiosity and the access and the ability to satisfy the curiosity is increased, then you then you go on. This is enough for now. This is not going to happen in two days.
So you see, we do have very clearly a sense of where to go next. And you can see, you’re going to be an entirely different species. You’re going to be the same species and you’re going to be entirely different, just as you are entirely the same species and entirely different from what you were in the 1500s, or the 1000s. Or in Asia as opposed to Central Africa, or Greenland.
R: Now I want to insert something here, and ask you why it is that Frank is now doing so well with his breathing, and as his experience continues, he’s lying down, which is ordinarily difficult for him. And he seems to be totally relaxed and comfortable, which hasn’t been the case for quite a while. But in these sessions this happens. Can you explain that to us in a way that will help him generally?
F: Well apparently we can’t! We explained this five years ago, and he understands it, but he’s missed the practical key. He must have told you – we seem to remember him telling you – about his sessions with us for Ed Carter. And at that point a very closely similar thing happened. In those days it wasn’t asthma but he was having a very wracking couch, and he asked his friend to ask us why, because indeed as soon as the session was over, he would be back with his wracking cough.
And he got the answer immediately, but then they got it on record, and they got it correctly. And that is that your health is a ratio between your mental states and your physical states. If you want or need to change your health instantly, you can do it by changing our mental state. It’s hard to hold that, though, because your mental states change all the time. They move. They fluctuate. That’s what consciousness is.
He knows all that. The difficulty is, [pause] well, perhaps we should come clean a little bit. [pause] Given his biases, which are very very very strongly in favor of mental and spiritual powers rather than physical powers, it would not be in his best interests for us to encourage him to do that, given that what he would probably do would be to ignore the physical even more.
So that when he burns himself, or when he cuts himself, as he has remarked perhaps to you, he can cure that right away. And we certainly don’t have any objection to that; that’s fine, and this is something you’ll all be able to do. But you see, that does not in turn tempt him to burn his finger again. [chuckles]
But when one has a chronic illness, to be able to suppress the symptoms of the chronic illness would not be good. It would actually make things worse, requiring more illness in order to make the point. In order to get attention, you see. So perhaps we should say that we’re sabotaging it a little bit, in his best interest. Were we not to, do you think there’s any chance he would have gone to the acupuncturist?
R: It was very difficult, clearly, to get him to do anything that seemed sensible to some of us.
F: Well, he’s fighting quite a different war than you are, and he’s fighting it after he’s already won it, but he’s a little hard-headed. He probably never told you this story, so we’ll tell you this story.
When he was a boy, when he was – he was probably 12, 13, 14, it was a good while ago – he read a story of Theodore Roosevelt being a sickly boy with asthma, building himself up because his father gave him a gym set when he really wanted a book! [laughs] But his father gave him a gym set to build up his body, you see, because his father was afraid that the boy would grow up sickly. Now, from that story Frank proceeded to promptly get all the wrong messages; he turned it around entirely to his own bias, without even realizing it. He realized it later.
Now, fancy this. The young Roosevelt was sickly, he was bookish. What he wanted was to continue to be bookish; his father intervened and had him build up his body. All right? Which in turn cured Roosevelt of his asthma. So the lesson Frank learned was, “this can be controlled by your mind without medicines.”
R: Without the gym set.
F: Without the gym set! Absolutely! See? That came to you right away. That didn’t come to him for ten years or more. And he still doesn’t do it. So what we’re saying is–
This is a real long story, do you want more of it?
R: Of course.
F: He came into the world with the certainty that mind is the important thing and everything else should follow it. We’re not talking about intellectual demonstrations, but mental powers. Spiritual abilities, so to speak. And therefore reliance upon physical means to maintain his health, which didn’t do that good a job anyway, cut against his intent to –
You see, he came into this life in touch with the man who had brought someone back from the dead. Who knew all this. But he had no sense that he was being influenced by that. He was a boy. Literally, he was a boy. I mean, he was a boy mentally, not just physically. At the same time he was a boy who was sharing a mental space with something that knew absolutely that everything that he was being told in the 1950s was wrong.
So, there was this civil war within him about healing, and about maintaining his own body. And there’s much more. He tended to blame the body for its problems. It’s only in the last couple of years that he’s actually realized what he’s been doing.
None of this is a dead end. All of this is instructive to him and will be instructive to others. We seriously doubt that he would even say it was too bad, you know.
Anyway, that’s the background of what’s been going on. That’s why it was so difficult for him to go to any modality at all. And fortunately, acupuncture is — [laughs] If acupuncture were more widely accepted in the United States, he’d have had to find something else. [they laugh] It was only marginally disreputable enough.
R: All right, that all computes. However, he’s here still trying to play some role in the physical life, which seems to be clearly interfered with with these symptoms.
F: Well now, you see? Your question goes right back to your first question about catastrophes. And it’s absolutely mistaken. It starts from the assumption that if nothing bad happened – bad in quotes – everything would be fine. But it’s not true. All this struggle that he’s had with the mental aspect of this, the spiritual aspect of it, the physical aspect of it, — none of that has been wasted.
R: All right, so it hasn’t been wasted, and if continued it still won’t be wasted?
F: Well, if he were to continue without making any progress it might be wasted, but that’s not going to happen. His difficulty is not getting stuck, it’s to try to jump too far forward.
R: Okay. So trying to figure out how he can spend more of his time in the state he’s in now, is not necessarily a good plan.
F: That’s right, because, you don’t know but that that struggle will all of a sudden turn on the light bulb and he will make a great stride from it. Or, that in people hearing this transcript, someone there will make a great stride from it. It’s not something anyone can know about anyone else’s life. It’s a very common mistake you make, not only you, or only a few of you; all of you. You look at the other person’s life and because you see the things that are hidden from them – because they’re too close to them – you think, “ah if they would only do this.” But of course there’s a reason why they’re not doing this, whether or not they know what the reason is. One of our mantras is, “people don’t do things without reason.”
R: Okay, well I’m taking all that literally, and I assume the listeners, the readers of this material will also.
F: We hope that neither you nor they will consider yourselves rebuked. We’re just trying to give you a course correction.
R: No. no, we’re trying to understand this, and this makes great sense as you say it.
F: Think of Jane Roberts, dying! In great pain, over a long period of time, at the same time that Seth, coming through her own vocal cords, is saying, “you could get up whenever you wanted to. You could still get up now.” She was in a fix that is inexplicable to any of you, you know. She obviously believed in Seth. She obviously was a person of great refinement and great sincerity and great intellect and great will. So why wouldn’t it work? But you don’t know, because you can’t know, what was going on from the inside, what the larger purpose is, what will happen to her three lifetimes later because of this, what will happen to the people who read it – you see? There’s all kinds of ramifications.
[pause] All is well. If we could just reassure you of one thing, it would be that all is well, even when things are going badly.
R: All right. Back to our Plan A.
F: [laughs] Well, you’re doing better than we are, we’re on plan C12. [they laugh]
[continued next post]