“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Jane had no images of the woman Seth had been discussing. She remembered how, in early sessions, Seth had talked about a minimum of three reincarnational existences for most entities — and how “scandalized” she’d been later when she began to realize that Seth had lived many lives. [...]

[...] I told Jane I hoped Seth would discuss a dream she’d had last night. [...] Seth did analyze the dream at the end of the session, so that material is deleted from the dictation on his book.

[...] But in your terms, Seth Two is far further divorced from my reality than I am from Ruburt’s. You can imagine Seth Two as a future portion of me if you prefer, and yet far more is involved.

We were in the middle of a Seth session and Seth was giving his impressions of the Gallaghers’ trip. As I sat in my favorite rocker speaking as Seth, suddenly I found myself in the back seat of a cab. [...]

[...] Later, Seth was to give us instructions. As a matter of fact, as I write this book, Rob and I are just starting a joint series of projection experiments that Seth initiated. These first instances greatly increased my confidence in Seth’s abilities and my own.

[...] On occasion Seth and I can take turns talking so that I can go in and out of trance in seconds. Sometimes it seems I merge with Seth, feeling his emotions and reactions completely, rather than my own. [...] Other times, though less seldom, I am in the foreground and Seth advises me as to what to say.

Originally, however, I felt a surge of uneasiness as soon as Seth mentioned that my friend, artist Peter Smith, is a counterpart of mine. When I checked the 724th session, I affirmed the reason for that reaction: Seth had stated therein that Peter and I were not counterparts, although “closely enough allied so that in certain terms you ‘share’ some of the same psychic memories….” Why the contradiction, I wondered, even if Seth had qualified it? Neither Jane nor I believed I’d mistakenly recorded Seth in either the 724th or the 732nd session; we planned to ask him soon for clarification.

[...] With one exception — that of Sue Watkins — all the names given by Seth, involving counterpart relationships, have been changed. Most of the people are members of Jane’s class; some have met certain of their counterparts, but not others; Jane, Sue, and I are the only ones who know everyone Seth named. [...] She couldn’t say whether Seth would indicate any more counterparts after break.

(I told her I’d been rather surprised when Seth had so baldly stated that there were only nine families of [human] consciousness upon our planet. [...] I also remarked upon my understanding that usually neither she nor Seth liked to categorize new information so definitely. [...] Strangely, neither of us had ever asked Seth to name any of the other families of consciousness, following Jane’s Sumari breakthrough some three years ago — but at the end of this session see the material about the family of consciousness Sue Watkins had tuned in to back then.

The answers to such questions that Jane, Seth, and I arrived at are in this book. [...] Seth did help her, many many times over the years. [...] Seth still helps my wife, I’m sure. [...] Because of certain dreams I believe that even portions of my own entity (Seth calls me Joseph) are joining in. Well, why not, since as Seth describes reality, everything exists at the same “time?” Tricky concepts and questions to wrestle with, I know, and sometimes contradictory. [...]

[...] Since her death many have written to both sympathize and to ask “Why?” She had Seth, didn’t she — for whom she spoke for some 21 years; she also produced six books with him along the way (plus a number of books on her “own”). Why hadn’t Seth gotten her out of her dilemma, turned the magic key in the proper psychic lock? [...] She could have lived for another 20 years, say, and contributed even more to our knowledge, both with Seth and by herself. [...]

During those 21 months in the hospital, Jane, Seth, and I said much about her physical/psychic condition, and I recorded it all in my homemade shorthand as best I could under often very stressful conditions. [...] She concluded it in September 1983, then over the next four months delivered a series of 71 mostly short, mostly personal Seth sessions. [...]

(Seth reassured Marian about the dream involving her dead mother, explaining how it was a case of Marian projecting her own subconscious fears, among other things. Marian’s concern over her approaching operation entered in here, and Seth used this concern to make his main points of the evening. [...] Seth explained that the ovarian tumor represented her subconscious attempt to grow something, since she has now almost gone through menopause and cannot grow children. Seth stressed that if Marian could learn to channel her energies outward, perhaps in helping underprivileged children, the subconscious need to be wanted would be satisfied and the tumor would shrink by itself.

(Should she not be able to master the use of suggestion and positive religious faith quickly enough, Seth reassured Marian that the operation would then take care of the tumor, and that Marian had no worries here. Seth also included suggestions for Marian regarding therapeutic dreams; at breaks Jane and I explained what we could, but left feeling there was much we didn’t have time to include. [...] According to Seth two of the Spaziani children are psychically older than their parents. [...] The last time she was a female she was childless; Seth stressed quite often that this subconscious memory had much to do with her strong desire for children in this life.)

(After we had talked for some time Jane told me that she felt Seth “buzzing around,” and that he could explain Marian’s dream to her should she be willing to listen. [...] Otherwise, Jane said, she would prefer to leave; she had no trouble keeping Seth from speaking, yet felt it would be better to change her surroundings should no session be held.

[...] Seth finished his part of the second volume over a year ago, and since then I’ve carefully gone over my original notes for it; I’ve rewritten almost all of them (often many times) in an effort to get them just right, in my view. Those who are interested in the more detailed mechanics of Seth-Jane’s production of “Unknown” Reality, especially where qualities of time are involved, should review my Introductory Notes. But personally, I think the most important part of those notes is Jane’s contribution to them, wherein she discusses her subjective relationship with Seth.

Among other information in Section 5, Seth gives considerable material designed to help the reader achieve psychic travel; related here is his session on dreams and dream photography. [...] Jane initiates information on “world views,” with examples: Seth defines that concept as “the view of reality” held in the immortal mind of each of us, the “living picture” that exists outside of time or space, and that can be perceived by others. Seth also offers major material on his theories involving “counterparts.” [...]

In Section 6, Seth develops much of the material in 5. Inevitably new information comes through, as he intends it to. [...] Seth names each family, describes it, and shows how its characteristics interlock with those of other families. [...]

(The session began ordinarily enough, but before long an interaction between Rich and Seth began to show. Seth’s pace also speeded up considerably, and I began to fall behind. But more than this, words cannot really record the very humorous exchange that developed between Rich and Seth. I saw Jane, as Seth, laugh herself far more than ever before in trance. Seth did most of the talking as usual; and more and more his attention became riveted upon Rich as the latter buzzed around, taking photo after photo, with flash. [...]

(Rich was half embarrassed and half serious; at the height of the exchange between the two, Seth’s addresses to Rich were so fast I couldn’t hope to record them. After pictures were over, Seth also returned several times to answer some of Rich’s questions. The session itself, between parries at Rich, Seth addressed to Rich and to Diane, answering questions they had asked before its beginning.

(During break both Rich and Diane asked questions that Seth undertook to answer to some extent. However the pace soon became too fast for my notes; because of this and the funny goings-on between Rich and Seth, I soon gave up note-taking. [...] But with Seth returning several times to speak to Rich and Diane, it was close to midnight before the affair was wound up.

As Seth I’ve produced five previous books: Seth Speaks; The Nature of Personal Reality; The “Unknown” Reality, Volumes I and II; The Nature of the Psyche; and The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, and Seth is halfway through a sixth book: Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment. [...] Seth doesn’t answer mail though, or do any typing, and so as a result of those trance hours Rob and I spend a good deal of our conscious energy dealing one way or another with the effects of that trance life.

1. Jane Roberts writes in The God of Jane: “Since late 1963, I’ve clocked approximately 4,000 hours of trancetime, during which the Seth sessions have been held twice weekly. [...] I’m not unconscious but conscious in a different way, at another level … This state of perception has nothing to do with classical pathological dissociation; and its products — Seth’s five books — display a highly-developed intellect at work and give evidence of a special kind of creativity. In those trance hours I ‘turn into someone else.’ At least I am not myself to myself; I become Seth, or a part of what Seth is. [...]

[...] Or Seth spoke gibberish? [...] “Nonsense,” I muttered, “it’s the heat!” Because I knew that Seth would speak about the magical “connection.” I managed another grin — and who should know more about “magic” than Seth? [...]

[...] But to discuss Seth or Seth’s ideas primarily from the true-or-false framework is the same thing as considering the Mona Lisa only from the validity of the physical properties of paint and canvas; very, very limiting. To “just” say that Seth’s ideas are true is to limit him and us.... [...]

I’ve rejected all that kind of hash projected onto Seth’s books by others or myself—the assumptions that Seth must prove himself as a problem solver— or the importance of functionalism over art. [...]

To do that, I have to drop those old feelings of responsibility as a primary focus (to get the ideas out quickly so they can help people, etc.) because those feelings strain the Seth-book framework particularly when I demand that in each book Seth answers all questions and so forth. [...]

3. Following Seth’s material in these paragraphs, then, there are of course a number of other Janes and Robs busily living out their lives in a cluster of associated probable realities — and all of those Janes and Robs are just as real to Seth as we are. [...] It’s a somewhat chastening one, I said to Jane, joking, since it means that from Seth’s viewpoint we could be just two more individuals.

[...] Perhaps Seth likes some of those other versions of ourselves more than he does us. ( I didn’t ask him if I was right, though.) It might even be that his favorite Jane inhabits one probable reality, his favorite Rob another. How does Seth tell all of us apart? [...] Moreover — what do all of those other Janes and Robs think of their Seths? [...]

(I read to Jane again the three questions I’d noted down for Seth during break in Monday’s session. As I suspected he might do, Seth began this evening’s session by dealing with the second one. [...]

As far as we know, this reconciliation of reincarnation and simultaneous time is original with Seth. [...] When Seth introduced this idea, this is one of the first questions Rob and I thought of. Seth’s attitude toward cause and effect will become clear enough in his later explanations of the true nature of “time,” but when Rob first asked the question, Seth answered:

“You will reincarnate whether or not you believe that you will,” Seth began, smiling. [...] This was Lydia’s first Seth session and she sat wiggling nervously in her chair as Seth gave names, dates, and particular episodes of this past life.

[...] And Seth said that—” She broke off, and read her notes. Then she said excitedly, “Seth said that a Miranda Charbeau from the French side of my family in that past life married into the Franklin Bacon family of Boston. [...]

(I repeat that when Seth discusses evolution his meaning differs considerably from the scientific one — which, with various modifications, is even accepted by a number of religious thinkers. As I show at the end of this appendix, Seth allows for a much greater range of simultaneous origins; in our reality these imply growth and development out of that “basic” group of species for the most part, with multidimensional purposes operating inside an enhanced time scheme that includes probabilities, reincarnation, counterparts,²² precognition, and other concepts, meanings, and beliefs. [...] Probabilities aside, when Seth talks about cells [or their components] recombining as parts of plant or animal forms, as he does in the 705th session, Jane and I don’t take that to mean the evolution, or alteration, of one species into another — but that a unity of consciousness pervades all elements in our environment, whether “alive” or “dead.” With the concept of probabilities in mind, however, much of the “thrust for development and change” that Seth also mentions as existing inside all organisms, could just as well take place in those other realities. Early in this appendix, I described how Seth continually built upon material that he’d given before, and that processes of correlation between old and new resulted. At this time, my ideas here represent a correlation between Seth’s material on evolution in the 705th session [which led to this appendix], and his later statements on origins, referred to above. [...] And behind all, Seth insists upon the condition that each of us chose to experience this camouflage reality within this historical context.

(This kind of material from Seth is deceptively simple, but upon reflection it can be seen to offer much. [...] Undoubtedly Seth has much more to say on the subject, and we hope to eventually obtain that information. Certainly individual and mass beliefs will be involved [along with the natural and unnatural guilt Seth discussed in the sessions making up Chapter 8 of Personal Reality]. I’d say that just understanding the complicated relationships between mass beliefs and illness alone, for example, will require much material from Seth and much time invested upon our parts.

(Over a year later Jane supplemented such remarks by Seth with some trance material of her “own”; see Appendix 6 in Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality. [...] As I noted at the beginning of this appendix, the Seth material is still incomplete, and new information requires constant correlation with what has come before. Jane’s own material — including whatever she comes up with in the future — ought to be integrated with Seth’s, also, and eventually we hope to find time to do this. [...] [I can add that just as Jane supplemented Seth’s material on early man, he in turn has added to hers in a kind of freewheeling exchange; his information is presented later in this appendix.]

(At 9:16 Jane said she was waiting to see what developed, that she was getting a hint of the pyramid feeling; which usually means that Seth’s entity will speak in place of Seth. See the 406th to 412th sessions for detailed material on the circumstances involving the personality we call Seth’s entity.

[...] Thinking Seth would speak as usual, I read to Jane another question that had come to mind as I typed up last session. [...] Nor did Seth speak. [...]

(The last time Seth’s entity spoke was in the 446th session for November 6, 1968. We had wondered at times why the entity hadn’t spoken more often; Seth has said little about his entity, and we did not ask that this personality speak tonight.

(Seth spoke to F. Fell, who then asked Seth a question concerning his daughter’s safety on an upcoming trip to Europe.)

[...] F. Fell asked for clarification concerning Seth’s remark about helping “our friend arrange his business matters.” I said I thought Seth referred to Jane here.

[...] F. Fell asked Jane if she would be willing to speak as Seth at, say, Town Hall, if he rented it. [...] She then resumed as Seth.)

In 1993, I saw the culmination of three ventures that I’d been involved in for varying periods of time: Lynda Dahl and Stan Ulkowski, of Seth Network International, published the first quarterly issue of the newly expanded Seth-oriented magazine, Reality Change. (RC, as everyone calls it, was founded by Maude Cardwell in June 1980; she began it as a two-page mimeographed newsletter.) Richard Roberts, of Vernal Equinox Press, published A Seth Reader, a volume consisting of excerpts from six of the Seth books. And Bob Terrio, of Bob Terrio Productions, marketed a video, The Seth Phenomena, in which I discuss Jane’s and my work.

[...] The day after Jane died I went back to work, finishing the last two Seth books to meet long-overdue publishing deadlines. Jane’s and my dear friend, Debbie Harris, began making copies of all of the Seth sessions, plus the transcripts of Jane’s ESP classes, for the “collection” of Jane’s and my work in the archives of Yale University Library. [...] Even though it’s simultaneous, according to Seth, I needed “time” for my long journey of recovery.

[...] She helped me proofread Seth, Dreams, and Projection of Consciousness for Stillpoint Publishing. Later, she helped me proofread the new editions of Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality that Amber-Allen/New World Library has published. [...] Laurel has been Seth’s “metaphysical apprentice,” as she recently put it, for fourteen years now. [...]

(“Then in the eyes of this Seth there are two little Seths looking out. [...] Now they climb out of the eyes; with their bodies they make a garland around the big Seth’s head; they sit on it back-to-back like a pair of bookends.” [...] “Wow — a whole bunch of these little Seths climb up on top of the giant head — but in perfect poses. [...] And Seth will explain it,” Jane abruptly said, evidently quite surprised. “The little images face in all directions around the head of the big Seth. [...]

[...] But in some way the Seth thing in this is in the background. Now he’s turning around, this miniature Seth. He’s walking away, out of the chute and into this great big Seth who’s like a statue.

1. See the picture section in Prentice-Hall’s editions of The Seth Material for a cropped, black-and-white reproduction of my oil portrait of Seth, “in the form in which he chose to appear to Rob,” as Jane wrote in Chapter 8 of that book. Seth first announced his presence by name in the 4th session for December 8, 1963; I painted him in 1966.

([Tam’s Notes:]The following represents a spontaneous session that occurred after Seth had been kind enough to come through three times for Eve and myself. [...] I could feel Seth’s vague presence in the room, which Eve apparently didn’t. Jane went into the kitchen to see about the chicken she was cooking and — as she later told us— felt Seth coming through and hurried to get back to her chair.

( This session was unusual; even though I have only seen Seth on a few occasions, I noticed that Jane kept her eyes open much more than usual. Seth’s voice was precise, but quick and conversational; also, we had the opportunity to exclaim in a brief conversation, which I of course found most gratifying.

[...] (Previously, Eve had wondered how Seth felt about her, so Seth turned to her.) You are a delightful young lady... [...]

(Once again Jane began speaking for Seth’s entity, as we have come to call the personality beyond Seth; her voice had the same higher and distant, clearly enunciating quality as before. There was no greeting to us as Seth usually gives. [...]

[...] With Seth, she always felt he was present, immediate, alive and strong. With the new source, Seth’s entity, Jane said she feels it is way up above her, talking; but once she gets the first word there’s no problem.

Seth is of course a part of the session whether or not he speaks, as you are accustomed. In one way Ruburt’s pyramid image is quite legitimate, for you and he are at the base, with Seth in the middle and myself at the top. [...]

[...] Two years before her death she asked to attend a regular Seth session. Seth was quite serious and not as jovial as usual, and at the time I thought that he was being rather hard on her. [...] I am also sure that readers who understand and follow Seth’s ideas on health will find their own greatly improved.

Seth sessions are held in full light in the Butts’ living room. Jane’s husband, Rob, using his own shorthand system, takes down Seth’s words verbatim. Above, as Jane goes into trance, she—as Seth—removes her glasses and has thrown them onto the couch. [...]

[...] So will you please ask Seth in our next session what he suggests?” In this one session Seth explained the difference between repression and the correct approach.

(The material in these recent excerpts rather prepared us for Seth’s introduction of counterparts, then, in Session 721. In ESP class the next evening [on November 26], Seth began contending with some of the questions that instantly arose as a result of his new material. [...] Speaking strongly and humorously, Seth immediately took over the discussion.

[...] In Chapter 1 of The Seth Material Jane described how we began these sessions [on December 2, 1963] through our use of the Ouija board. During the first three sessions the material came from a Frank Withers — who, it developed in the 4th session, was one of the “personality fragments” making up the Seth entity, or whole self. Just before Seth announced his presence to us in that same session, Frank Withers spelled out a remark through the board that meant little to Jane and me at the time: “One whole entity may need several manifestations, even at simultaneous so-called times.”

[...] Although reincarnation and its variations has been discussed by Seth almost from the very beginning of our sessions, the subject didn’t represent one of our own main concerns. [...] She still says comparatively little about reincarnation on her own, although Seth shows no such reservations.