Framework 1 and 2

From page 80 of Seth's "The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events": "Ruburt and Joseph have recently purchased a color television set, so now their television world is no longer in black and white. I have used television as an analogy at various times, and I would like to do so again, to show the ways in which physical events are formed, and to try to describe the many methods used by individuals in choosing those particular events that will be personally encountered. "Not only does television actually serve as a mass means of communal meditation, but it also presents you with highly detailed, manufactured dreams, in which each viewer shares to some extent. We will use some distinctions here, and so I am going to introduce the terms "Framework 1" and "Framework 2," to make my discussion clear. "We will call the world as you physically experience it, Framework 1. In Framework 1, you watch television programs, for example. You have your choice of many channels. You have favorite programs. You follow certain scenes or actors. You watch all of these dramas, hardly understanding how it is that they appear on your screen to begin with. You are certain, however, that if you do buy a television set it will perform in an adequate fashion, whether or not you are familiar with electronics. Period. "You switch from channel to channel with predictable results. The programming for Channel 9, for example, does not suddenly intrude on Channel 6. Even the actors themselves, taking part in such sagas, have but the remotest idea of events that are involved in order that their own images will appear on your television screen. Their jobs are to act, taking it for granted that the technicians are following through. "Now somewhere there is a program director, who must take care of the entire programming. Shows must be done on time, actors assigned their roles. Our hypothetical director will know which actors are free, which actors prefer character roles, which ones are heroes or heroines, and which smiling Don Juan always gets the girl — and in general who plays the good guys and the bad guys. "There is no need in my outlining in detail the multitudinous events that must occur so that you can watch your favorite program. You flip the switch and there it is, while all of that background work is unknown to you. You take it for granted. Your job is simply to choose the programs of your choice on any evening. Many others are watching the same programs, of course, yet each person will react quite individually. "Now for a moment let us imagine that physical events occur in the same fashion — that you choose those which flash upon the screen of your experience. You are quite familiar with the events of your own life, for you are of course your own main hero or heroine, villain or victim, or whatever. As you do not know what happens in the television studio before you observe a program, however, so you do not know what happens in the creative framework of reality before you experience physical events. We will call that vast "unconscious" mental and universal studio Framework 2."

Mass Events 6

More from "The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events: p74 "One of man's strongest attributes is religious feeling. It is the part of psychology most often overlooked. There is a natural religious knowledge with which you are born. Ruburt's book The Afterdeath Journal ofan American Philosopher: The World View of William James explains that feeling very well. It is a biological spirituality translated into verbal terms. It says: "Life is a gift (and not a curse). I am a unique, worthy creature in the natural world, which everywhere surrounds me, gives me sustenance, and reminds me of the greater source from which I myself and the world both emerge. My body is delightfully suited to its environment, and comes to me, again, from that unknown source which shows itself through all of the events of the physical world." "That feeling gives the organism the optimism, the joy, and the ever-abundant energy to grow. It encourages curiosity and creativity, and places the individual in a spiritual world and a natural one at once. "Organized religions are always attempts to redefine that kind of feeling in cultural terms. They seldom succeed because they become too narrow in their concepts, too dogmatic, and the cultural structures finally overweigh the finer substance within them. "The more tolerant a religion is, the closer it comes to expressing those inner truths. The individual, however, has a private biological and spiritual integrity that is a part of man's heritage, and is indeed any creature's right. Man cannot mistrust his own nature and at the same time trust the nature of God, for God is his word for the source of his being — and if his being is tainted, then so must be his God." p76 "Again, you cannot separate your systems of values and your most intimate philosophical judgments from the other areas of your private or mass experience. "In this country, your tax dollars go for many medical experiments and preventative-medicine drives — because you do not trust the good intent of your own bodies. In the same way, your government funds [also] go into military defenses to prevent war, because if you do not trust your own body's good intent toward you, you can hardly trust any good intent on the part of your fellowmen. "In fact, then, preventative medicine and outlandish expenditures for preventative defense are quite similar. In each case there is the anticipation of disaster — in one case from the familiar body, which can be attacked by deadly diseases at any time, and is seemingly at least without defenses; and in the other case from the danger without: exaggerated, ever-threatening, and ever to be contended with. "(Intently:) Disease must be combatted, fought against, assaulted, wiped out. In many ways the body becomes almost like an alien battleground, for many people trust it so little that it becomes highly suspect. Man then seems pitted against nature. Some people think of themselves as patients, as others, for example, might think of themselves as students. Such people are those who are apt to take preventative measures against whatever disease is in fashion or in season, and hence take the brunt of medicine's unfortunate aspects, when there is no cause."