“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] I still want to know what role the sinful self—to use the appellation Seth gave us—plays in all of this, for I’m more convinced than ever that it is still the dominant force behind all of it. [...]

[...] I reminded Jane that I was interested in sinful-self material above all else. [...]

(Long pause at 8:43.) Deplorable as world conditions seem, for example, as man’s desperate need for self-understanding is made known to himself, so in that world also there is a time of sensed change: new values that “will take this time.” [...]

It is embarked upon different processes now as it searches for the best conditions for self-healing procedures. [...] The Sinful Self material is “timed” in its own fashion so that although there is a good deal of material already written, its effects are periodic—that is, they are clued to spring into even greater insight which may not be apparent at any one given time. [...]

[...] Allow yourself at times to imagine, at least, an important portion of your own creative self as innocent, sweet (gesture), and natural as that young Butts boy relative (Steve). That is, think of that childish self as eagerly exploring the world, for that is certainly a part of man’s heritage. [...]

[...] I want Ruburt to see, however, that healing is taking place, that he can trust his own mind and body, and that all portions of the self are being dealt with, whether or not such is obvious at any given time. [...]

[...] 3 on that date)—thus prefacing the long quotations from her “sinful self.” So as counterpoint to her writings on the sinful self, I’ll be presenting two excerpts to hint at what Seth does mean by his magical approach.

[...] Then when Seth and Jane both came through with material on her sinful self (see Essay No. [...] Jane didn’t return to work on Dreams until July 1981, when the two blocks of sinful-self material had run their courses. [...]

[...] She may also contribute an introduction to the book, showing how Seth’s and her own sinful-self information are related to the magical approach.

[...] (See Session 721 in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality.) However, neither of us have had such an outright encounter with a future self—that we know of. I’d say that under hypnosis the urge to fantasize the future lives must be a tempting one; but what’s the explanation for achieving little more than a formless future state while “under,” no matter how hard one tries? The failure to get there, to turn time around, could be taken as a sign of resistance on the part of the present self. (Or even a past self or selves, but that’s too complicated a subject to go into here.)

In actuality, the combination of a philosophical stress upon discipline, physical and mental, with the belief in the sinful self, often brings about the most unfortunate human dilemmas. [...]

[...] Again and again, I thought of resistance, of the sinful self putting up roadblocks, no matter what the consequences. [...]

[...] Not a word from Seth about why she’s been so miserable for the past five days, or why her decubiti are worse, or my suggestion that she go back into the hospital, or the role the sinful self plays in all of this. [...]

[...] There is no condition that love cannot provide—and I mean here love of self and so forth, as well as love of another person. [...]

[...] The overconscientious self must be shown that the spontaneous self is the God self. If this is done it will add its strength to the purposes of the spontaneous self. Otherwise it will fight the spontaneous self, even to the death. [...]

[...] It (The “sinful self” May 10, 1982) is basically an overgrown and almost cancerous super-conscience that applied brakes in the past to some extent, and now has largely taken over.

It then set itself up against the spontaneous self, and determined to keep it within bounds. [...] When the overconscientious self learns that the spontaneous self is not unworthy, then success is permissible.

It is a relatively new idea to the overconscientious self, that the spontaneous self is good and a part of the god self. [...]

[...] Behind the importance of the letter as a triggering agent, however, there is, as he knows, much material still dealing with the so-called sinful-self material that I will be giving you shortly. [...]

(Such ideas refer back, of course, to the sinful-self ideas—material we still need. [...]

[...] Otherwise, I said, the whole process becomes self-defeating not only for the conscious portions of the personality, but for the very body itself. [...]

[...] Somewhere along the line you have to decide upon a cutoff point—that is, all portions of the personality have to do that together, or the conscious self is dragged along unwilling to cooperate....” [...]

(I asked Jane if she thought the sessions served as a balance to those sinful-self, very restrictive ideas — that when she gave up on the sessions that other self was free to exert its power and beliefs. [...]

[...] Instead, Jane has been working steadily on her “Manifesto from the Sinful Self” that she began just a week ago. [...]

[...] I also typed up a few pages of material (on the Sinful Self.) Still, no Frank Longwell. [...]

“Hello,” I said when he came to the phone, and his voice was dull and flat, full of self pity; he was sure I wouldn’t see him. [...]

[...] I finally realized that she didn’t really want to do such shows anymore, no matter whether the Sinful Self was involved or not. [...]

[...] At the same time those same worldly concerns led him to wonder about the validity of his own “messages”—and how responsible he was to the world for them—so the symptoms also served to give him a greater sense of caution, to temper creativity, for all the reasons stated in the Sinful-Self material. [...]

[...] They recognize that enjoyment and self-satisfaction are important gateways to the development of their abilities. [...]

[...] The child becomes self-directed as it learns to follow those pursuits that particularly increase its own individual sense of enjoyment and satisfaction. [...]

When you look for “what is wrong,” you are feeding self-disapproval. [...] Ruburt recognized self-disapproval today (after her nap). [...] The self-disapproval causes the condition, however, and not the other way around. [...]

[...] I have been rereading the latest sessions on self-disapproval, and these seem to have made the difference. Jane has also been working on her feelings of self approval and disapproval, and credits her efforts with her improvements.)

Self-disapproval in that context became a virtue, for indeed survival depended, it seemed, upon constant self and tribal evaluation. [...]

(Long pause at 9:41.) Your religions have been largely patterned from such self-disapproving bases. [...] The loss of a real, sensed, appreciated identification with nature has been largely responsible, however, for man’s attitude that self-disapproval is somehow a virtue.

Jane, then, wrote those two poems 16 days before she dictated the last session for Seth’s The Nature of the Psyche on April 4, 1977; one month before she began dictating Mass Events on April 18, 1977; two years and two months before she began God of Jane on May 6, 1979; two years and six months before she began dictating the Preface for Dreams on September 25, 1979; two years and eight months before she came up with the idea for If We Live Again on November 15, 1979; three years and five months before she began dictating Seth’s material on the magical approach to reality in Dreams on August 6, 1980; four years before she began dictating Seth’s sinful-self material in that book on March 11, 1981; four years and three months before she began coming through with her own sinful-self information on June 17, 1981; and four years and five months before, on August 26, 1981, she wrote the poem in Note 6 for Session 936 of Dreams: “Something in me / ebbs and tides, / as if I let myself / for a while / be washed away / out to sea / while leaving / some spidery shell / upon the shore /….”

[...] The lines drawn between the self and what is nonself, between an organism and its environment, are highly arbitrary on your part. [...]

(I meant to note: Some of today’s Seth material reminds me of Jane’s “sinful-self” material. [...]

These rather self-deceptive feelings are not hidden deeply in the subconscious mind, as you might suppose. [...]

An adult under the same circumstances might become injured to avoid a dreaded event at the office — but the adult may well feel ashamed of such a reaction, and so hide it from himself or herself in order to save feelings of self-esteem. [...]

All of this, of course, applies to Ruburt’s situation — for once, indeed, he willed himself into immobility, willing to sacrifice certain kinds of motion in order to safely use other kinds of psychological motion, because he was afraid of his spontaneous nature, or his spontaneous self.

[...] I told her that Seth had said nothing at all about what I regard as the central conflict: the one between her sinful self, so-called, and her spontaneous self. [...]

“Now instead i am impatient with sinful self syndrome, want to ally myself with magical self;”

Jane’s main puzzlement, however, is that even with Seth’s and her own sinful-self material her physical symptoms persist to such a degree, in spite of an occasional lessening. [...]

[...] In keeping with that idea, two nights later Seth recommended that we begin studying the sessions on the magical approach to life and on the sinful self. [...]

(2. What does Jane’ sinful self think of the proceedings these days—of Jane’s new resolve and decisions toward healing? [...]

(“Is it the sinful self that’s doing this?” I asked. [...] The self-destructive behavior was much more advanced now, though, and I could only hope and trust that my dear wife’s feelings of panic were an attempt on her personality’s part to at least discharge some of the dangerous emotional charge that must have accumulated over the years, while being repressed. [...] It all seemed to be so self-defeating that I had trouble visualizing what other portions of the personality might be getting out of it. [...]

As it naturally occurs to him, Ruburt should read over material he has of the Sinful Self, and it will with its own rhythm lead toward further therapeutic adjustments. [...]

[...] There is a rhythm to such programs, however, and it is natural for the self to rouse at certain times, begin such activity, then apparently (underlined) discard them.

Left alone, the self knows how to utilize such rhythms. [...]

[...] Perhaps we’ll discover that they play as strong a role in Jane’s dilemma presently, as my wife’s Sinful-Self material. [...]

[...] Tonight, I told her, Seth said nothing at all about what I regard as the central point of conflict—the conflict between her Sinful Self, so-called, and the spontaneous self. [...]

(Very long pause at 10:21.) The statements I have made regarding the innate nature of the spontaneous self can be of the greatest service if they are accepted. [...]