Human Personality - Action and Ego

From Seth Session 165:


"I would like to continue with our discussion concerning the nature of the human personality in its relationship to action, and in connection with the matter of illness and health in general.

... "It must be thoroughly understood that under no circumstances is the personality a static or motionless construction. It is, instead, a collection of spontaneous actions. Only when it is viewed in this perspective can you begin to understand how it forms its own health. All basic adjustments to the personality, in a basic manner, must come from within, through regroupings of characteristic actions about unifying principles.

"The personality itself exists in many dimensions, as you know, and it has its reality within many other fields than the physical field, and is indeed basically not nearly as allied with the physical field as you may imagine. These unifying principles of which I spoke are themselves main, dominating groups of actions, about which the main energies of the personality group themselves.

"These unifying principles themselves, however, constantly and imperceptibly change. Upon another occasion we will consider the ways in which these unifying principles may shift. In many cases it may appear as if exterior circumstances formed such inner shifts, changing the whole unifying structure of the personality, and shifting the personality into what would appear to be entirely uncharacteristic activities.

"In such a case, however, the shiftings still come from within. The active gestalt of the personality is indeed so complex, the actions that compose it are so intertwined, that only the deep, interior intuitions of the personality involved will ever come close to a complete understanding of the workings of the particular personality system.

"Such understanding simply cannot follow logical lines. The intellect may indeed grasp some of this understanding from the intuitions, but the intellect itself is aware of only minute portions of the whole personality. Again, this is not meant to minimize the value of the intellect. The fact remains that answers sought by a personality can only be found through a traveling within the actions that compose the self. Within our last session, I explained some of the basic psychological heritage that resides within the action makeup of the personality. There is no escaping this heritage, and it is so important that without it the personality system could not be built up.

"I spoke, for example, of the acquiescence of action at certain levels to any kind of stimuli, indiscriminately, whether painful or pleasurable. Without this basic acquiescence, actions would not have been given the freedom to break patterns down and evolve new ones of them. This is not necessarily a more primitive aspect. It is simply a basic characteristic of action at certain levels, and the human personality, with its complicated ego structure, is nevertheless composed of many actions that operate at this level.

"In a most basic manner, a denial of stimuli is a negative action, if any action could be called negative. I do not, of course, speak in human terms, where every stimuli for example should then be followed or sought out indiscriminately. This is not my meaning. I am talking of deeper biological levels, and indeed of levels that are buried within tissue itself.

"The very nature of the ego and of the personality is formed by the ability to choose between actions or stimuli; but life as it is not connected to a highly differentiated ego, rejoices in all stimuli, as sensation, whether it is pleasurable or painful, for these distinctions do not exist in your terms. In the beginning of our sessions I spoke in a general manner, for example, saying that trees and plant life had a consciousness, but not a developed ego system. The tree, therefore, is conscious of the pain connected with, say, the severing of a limb.

"(See the 18th session, in Volume 1.)

"It does not fear destruction however, as the ego does. It still fights for survival, of course; but the consciousness of plant life involves a consciousness of self as it operates within action. It sees or feels itself as a part of continuing action, and because of this inner atomic knowledge it does not fear destruction, basically, knowing that it will be changed into other kinds of action.

"Its identity is within action. To say that its identity and its continuity or sense of continuity is within action, is not too far off, although the word continuity in this instance would be misleading.

"It is only lately that your psychologists have even begun to understand the connection between biology and personality, and they understand it in only the most simple of terms.

"To begin with, not enough is understood about the biological structure, for the nature of the atoms and molecules that form the biological structure is still largely misunderstood, and very little has been done in this field.

"The personality exists in a diffused fashion within the physical system, and it therefore is most basically composed of those biological heritages, and those heritages that are a property of cellular structure, long preceding multicellular existence.

"We have to some extent explained the reality of the personality within the electrical system. We have to some extent explained its basic origin within inner reality. We have explained the fact that the potentialities of the personality and of the self are basically unlimited. But during its alliance within the physical system, it is diffused within the cellular structure, and interrelating actions between the biological system, the electrical system, and the personality structure actually form the reality of the human individual.

"(See the following sessions in Volume 3 for material on the electrical system: 122 to 128, 131, 135, among others, and 162, 164 in Volume 4).

"You cannot probe into the one system without affecting the others. It is basically meaningless to consider the personality as separate from the simultaneous actions of which it is composed. The personality, as you know, has also a reality within the dream universe. It should be obvious that in a most basic and practical manner the personality however is not involved with physical time to any degree. Only a part of the personality, the ego, is so involved. It is obvious of course that the personality system will react to stimuli that seem, to the ego, to be far divorced in time. That is, the personality may react to a stimuli in the present that occurred originally twenty years ago, to the ego's understanding of time.

"But past, present and future as such simply do not have meaning to the other aspects of the personality. The idea and reality of physical time parallels the development of the ego. Consciousness of self, alone, is unaware of your physical time. The physical time idea is a product of the ego's tendency to make finer distinctions in order that it can classify and categorize, and therefore identify and give permanence to its own sensations.

"In most circumstances the arrangement is an excellent working operation. However, when the ego carries its categorizing tendency too far, it may reject whole areas of significant action which has been experienced by the whole personality. It may choose to reject whole areas for various reasons, usually out of a mistaken fear that the actions involved threaten the permanence of itself.

"Such a rejection is definitely an impeding action. It is this rejection on the ego's part that is the basis for so-called neurosis in many cases. The fault is not that a particular action has been buried by the subconscious. The fault is that the ego has refused to accept the action from the subconscious, therefore impeding the natural flow of energy. Naturally, all actions are not recognized by the ego, nor is it necessary in any case.

"It is when significant actions, important to the whole personality, are so rejected that the difficulties arise. It is also true however that these refusals to assimilate action on the ego's part are also an integral part of the characteristics of the personality as a whole action. In each individual, certain categories of action may be habitually denied. As the characteristics of a personality may be somewhat deduced from those actions which the ego accepts, so also much may be learned about any given personality by a study of those actions which the ego habitually denies.

"As a rule, secondary personalities are given their energy as a direct result, so to speak, of a too-rigorous and rejecting ego. In many, though not all instances, such a secondary personality may represent simply the whole personality's quite healthy attempts at expression that have been too long denied. you get a regrouping of unifying principle actions, and a division of energies about two different ego systems.

"It should be obvious that in Ruburt's case no such habitual rejections by his ego have backed up in this manner. The secondary personality, however, is of course a reality in many circumstances. It can be considered as an impeding action in the same manner that an illness can be considered, but its overall value, or detrimental effects must be judged, again, as with an illness, on the overall service or disservice which it performs for the whole personality.

"Without such a secondary regrouping of actions for example, a much more serious open breakage, a deep personality cleavage, might in some cases result. In some cases the secondary personality is, again, an emergency measure that will eventually tide the whole personality over, allow for the expression of actions before their explosion completely disrupts the personality system; and then the secondary personality structure may be dispensed with for all practical purposes, to be recalled however upon another emergency.

"In such a case the secondary personality may represent the best of the available alternatives that can be practically taken by the personality to maintain itself. The impeding action, then, would have a survival value.

"In some cases of course the secondary personality would be a severely impeding one, stealing away the main energies. However, it must be understood that from the whole personality's viewpoint, a strong ego, that is a dependable one, and one that will also allow necessary expression, is a necessity. Therefore from the standpoint of the whole personality, the adoption of a new ego, so to speak, with a more practical grouping of unifying principles, could be the best solution of the previous ego, the previously dominant ego, (if it) had been an incapable one.

"In this case the so-called secondary personality would express the whole personality to better advantage, and actually reinforce its permanence and identity.

"The personality must be understood from all these viewpoints, and it must be understood as an action gestalt.

"The ego must be understood as having certain general necessary characteristics. Again, it must attempt to see itself as apart from action, even though basically the attempt to do so must fail. The attempt however allows the ego to act as a front man, so to speak, an organized and disciplined agent to deal with physical environment for the whole personality.

"A very delicate network of imbalances is here maintained. The ego must not be too rigid, or too much a disciplinarian, or it ceases to speak for the whole personality, and becomes a warden, imprisoning the main expressive urges of the deeper self. It must not on the other hand be composed of too disorganized a system of actions, for in this case it is not capable of maintaining a consistent sense of identify or purpose, and is not strong enough to act in a magnetic manner, that will attract or hold the basic energies of the personality.

"As far as Ruburt's personality structure is concerned, we are extremely fortunate. The ego is secure enough, and strong enough, as an organizing agent, for the basic personality energies, so that it can allow me to communicate without fear that the personality structure will be in any way disrupted.

"Indeed as you may have observed, the personality continues in a rather unruffled fashion, considering the circumstances. This is why valid communications can occur between us, and it is also the reason why such communications rarely occur, generally speaking. In the case of an insecure ego you have two immediate problems, and are involved instantly with difficulties:

"The basic personality would be fearful of such communications, knowing instinctively the weakness of the ego. The ego would be extremely insecure. On the other hand, the personality would almost welcome a strong organizing force, regardless of its source, and could tend to latch onto it as much as possible. A study of secondary personalities is most fascinating, since such a study would give you an excellent idea of the manner in which the ego in general is formed, for it is but a unity of energy under auspices of the strongest actions characteristic within the given personality system.

"These energies are naturally drawn from within the whole personality. What is not generally recognized is the fact that the ego itself constantly changes. It is only when the change is unusually vivid, and definitely perceivable, that you speak of secondary personalities. But the main characteristic drives of any given personality shift continually; for all its attempts in the opposite direction, the ego must change just to exist, and its very permanence is dependent upon its flexibility.

"The ego, then, is as much characterized by those types of action which it habitually denies, as by those types of actions which it habitually accepts. It is not the only organizing aspect of the personality, however. It is simply the organizing aspect of the personality in its dealings with the physical environment. The inner ego is another organizing feature of the personality in its dealings with inner environment."