“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(To resume: Sue Mullin, now Sue Watkins, one of Jane’s ESP class members, left three questions last night for Seth to answer when possible. Here is question one: “When I project my consciousness out of my body, is my astral body pregnant because I am now pregnant physically? Does the astral body carry the astral counterpart of the fetus, or does the astral fetus remain in the physical body within the physical fetus?”)

(I now asked Seth: “Can you say a little bit about Sue’s first question, about the astral body of the fetus?” Jane had read Sue’s questions some time earlier, but she didn’t know I was going to ask any of the questions this evening.)

It helps form the new individual, and then it must withdraw. The new self unit must be free and not hampered by the demands that could otherwise be put upon it. The new individual has a deeply buried memory of its past lives, but the personal consciousness of the last reincarnated self must not be superimposed upon this new identity. The new personality, in its small astral body, does visit with other portions of the entire identity. It is even given lessons of a kind, but it is very much its own self.

The fetus does have its own astral form. Now, this astral form belongs to the individual, the personality as it will be in this life. It is not the astral form that existed in a “previous” reincarnation. There are many complicated issues here and I will try to put them simply.

Then I realized that I was in an excellent state for experimentation, fully alert and awake, and still in my body which was asleep. This time I decided to try and get up astrally, just walk around the room and observe the various stages of activity. [...] The second time I succeeded, getting used to the fine distinction between moving the astral body up while leaving the physical one alone. [...]

I was still walking very slowly, with my astral eyes slitted to cut down the focus of distractions. [...] I felt it hard and round, perfectly normal in my astral hand. [...] What had I done wrong now? I opened my astral eyes fully and stared down at my hand. [...] Disappointed with myself, I returned to my body, determined to plan out a new course of action.

Between the first episode and the second, I was fully alert, awake in my astral body, but still connected with the physical one. In this state I experienced what I can only call ecstasy, involving the entire body. While the feeling was not localized, it certainly felt strongly sexual in nature, and when I left my body, there was a moment when this continued very intensely.

I found myself then in my astral body above my physical one, but in reversed position. My astral hand with its strange sensations and pulsing light was to the south, over my physical feet. [...] Finally I just wished myself into my body, experienced some difficulty, a brief instant of unconsciousness, and fell back in.

[...] Here is question 1: When I project while I am pregnant, is my astral body pregnant; i.e., does the astral body carry the astral counterpart of the fetus, or does the astral fetus remain in my physical body, within the physical fetus? Does astral projection remove any necessary energy sustenance from the fetus?

He will help you in your out of body episodes. [...] You have also been sending thought forms out—and this is different, than an astral image.

(“Can you say a little bit about Sue’s first question, about the astral body of the fetus?” Jane didn’t know I was going to ask this question.)

[...] The new personality, in its small astral body, does visit with other portions of the entire identity. [...]

[...] At various times I have spoken concerning the reality of what you refer to as the astral body. [...] The astral body is of this nature. [...]

Suggestion, well used, with training and knowledge, will therefore allow you to alter the very cells of your body. [...] For the astral body is not some distant and alien other self, but it is even now that portion of yourself that you know but cannot see, that you feel but cannot touch.

[...] Yet within your system it must collect experience within the physical system, hence the physical body. [...] Therefore this experience, collected within the physical field, is held in codified form by this inner self or astral identity. [...]

When the physical self sleeps the astral image may indeed wander. It always returns to the physical body during physical life. [...]

(Shortly before session time Jane told me she had the thought that dreams and astral travel, or the astral body, were somehow connected. [...]

[...] The same applies to the connection between the astral body and the physical body.

[...] What is called the astral body is also composed of some of the same components.

[...] The astral body also has a form. [...]

[...] He must also remind himself however to assist you, and to contact your astral self. If he finds himself astrally awake and sees only your physical body, then you are either on an unconscious astral trip already, or your astral body has not left your physical one. [...]

If he only sees your physical body then he should address you, announce his own out-of-body state and invite you to join him. If you are still in your body and if conditions are good, you will then leave your body and join him. [...] When astral contact is made, some manipulations may be necessary in order to maintain them, but there is nothing to worry about if you go your separate ways.

[...] There is no reason, again, why you can’t achieve out-of-body proficiency, and when you do, you will be able to experiment with thought creations, trying out, forming, using or discarding, thought paintings. In an out-of-body state you can reach rather easily those environments which thoughts become a sort of plastic pseudo material, almost instantaneously.

I would like you to seriously embark upon the hobby of out-of-body travel. [...]

[...] First however imagine your consciousness out of your body in its astral form. Next, feeling that you are in the astral form, tell yourself that from that image you will be able to see the image of the person that you were in your immediately past life.

After you have managed to feel yourself above your body in your astral form, you again tell yourself to see the image of the same past self. [...] When you have succeeded, then still feeling yourself in the astral form, tell yourself that you will next see the image of the life before last: the image of the person you were, then repeat the other steps.

Then, will yourself to return to your own astral image, then to your physical body. [...]

[...] Now when you feel that you have this new image of your past self before you, then imagine that your consciousness is moving from your astral form into this past self. [...]

[...] My astral eyes were functioning. [...] Although my body lay sleeping beside Jane in the bedroom “behind” me, I wasn’t concerned about it. [...] But that I was out of my body, and in this very pleasant weightless state, did slowly make itself known to me. I had no memory of actually leaving my body and moving into the bathroom.

[...] My astral body was in the same approximate position, perhaps six inches above. [...]

(Without success, I made several quite conscious and deliberate attempts to “get going,” and travel away from my body. [...] Then I had an idea: I would use the sound of my snoring as an impetus to send myself soaring off into other dimensions, leaving my body far behind me on the bed.

[...] The strange thing is, I enjoyed both the feeling of lying just above my physical body, and my ability to use the latter to produce sound. This implies a dual consciousness here, since I was aware of both bodies.

I have until this point said very little about the so-called astral body. [...]

(Many sessions ago Seth stated he did not like the term, astral body, but said nothing else about it. [...]

You can perhaps now see where this so-called astral body has its origin and purpose. [...]

I wanted to add here that evidences for those other fields of actuality can be found even within the body itself; that is, within the physical body. [...]

[...] These capsules have also been called astral bodies. [...]

[...] The sensation can also arise just before an out-of-body experience. [...]

[...] The new body is of course not a new body at all, but simply a body not physical in your terms, one that you use in astral projections, one that gives the vitality and strength to the physical body that you know.

[...] She was out-of- body often, she said, and on at least one occasion was aware of my own astral presence with her. Jane recalled at least three episodes of astral travel. [...]

[...] When you leave the physical body, the other body is quite as real to you, and seems as physical, although it has many more freedoms. You can do things with it that you cannot do with the physical body, for example.

[...] Returning to the body she would become confused with the body’s behavior. [...]

[...] Then I came down and there was this big body there. [...] It was naked; like a transparent body because I could see the veins and nerves in it....”

[...] “I followed the body... [...]

[...] I rushed down my own spinal cord, into my body. [...]

[...] “And now these little men’ve got little things like trowels, and they’re taking scoops of white stuff out of my body and throwing it away. [...]

The dream body is the one with which you are most familiar. It has been called the astral body. [...] As a rule, however, you do not go through walls with this body. This is the body you use for ordinary dreams. [...]

You will be able to look back and see your physical body upon the bed on some occasions, and in other cases you will not be able to do this. In the first body form, for example, you can look back and see the physical body. [...] In the third form, you will no longer be aware of the physical body, and you will not see it.

So at least twice a week I lay down to experiment, my body on the couch or bed, the alarm clock set, my house in order, while I try to “get out” to see what I could find. I seem to have a curious talent for this, and rarely do I fail to leave my body when I’ve really made up my mind to go. [...] Then I avoid out-of-body experiments. [...] And I’m afraid to leave my body in the wintertime. [...]

For all practical purposes, of course, you will usually find yourself in some sort of body form in your out-of-body experiences. These are a necessary camouflage, for you cannot yet think of identity without some kind of body, so you project in such a form. [...]

This does not mean that we do not sometimes leave our bodies and travel in our dream or astral bodies to other physical locations. [...] Some of my students, for example, have frequent out-of-body experiences from both the waking and the dream states, and on several such occasions we seem to have met in my living room.

“Look,” I said, “I’m in my astral body. My physical body is home in bed.”

Then, in my astral body I went flying through the hall, which had a high-domed ceiling. [...]

[...] “Look, I’m really in an out-of-body state. This is an astral projection!” They’d never believe me. [...]

[...] (I think I was in my astral body though.) I knew that I was dreaming, thought to myself that it was very difficult to read such material in the dream state but that I would try in any case. [...]

[...] This discussion does not concern the so-called astral form, which is something entirely different. The physical body is the materialization of the astral form.

[...] The fantastic energy of your psyche not only created your physical body, but maintains it. [...] It is nevertheless in a constant state of pulsation, and because of the nature of energy and its construction, the body is actually blinking off and on.

(11:05.) It does not desert the body for any length of time, however, and it is not this that is projected in cases like the seaside analogy used earlier. You are presently focused not only in your physical body, but within a particular frequency of events that you interpret as time. [...]

Your main sense of identity is involved with your physical body, so that it is, for example, extremely difficult for you to imagine yourself without it, or outside it, or in any way disconnected from it. [...]

In the same way in the midst of life, you dwell with so-called ghosts and apparitions, and for that matter you yourselves appear as apparitions to others, particularly when you send strong thought-forms of yourself from the sleep state, or even when unconsciously you travel out of your physical body.

[...] You only recognize the physical materializations, but as mentioned earlier in this book, you send pseudoforms of yourself out from yourself of which you are not aware; and this is completely aside from the existence of astral travel or projection, which is a much more complicated affair.

You appear in astral form in realities that are comparatively more advanced than your own. [...]

(Below, Seth discusses a projection experience of Jane’s on Friday, May 9, that involved her perception of my astral presence in the apartment although I was at work at Artistic Card Company that day.)

[...] If Ruburt knows he is projecting he should try to remember you, and to rouse you astrally. [...]

[...] (Pause.) In such instances you are withdrawing your perceptive abilities from the physical body. [...]

Now there are, in quotes, “objective” realities that exist, within astral reality itself.

The dream body is the one with which you are most familiar. It has been called the astral body. It strikes you as being physical, though you can do things with it that you cannot do with your physical body. [...] As a rule you do not go through walls with this body. This is the body that you use for ordinary dreams. [...]

These body forms however are necessary camouflages, for you cannot yet think of identity without some kind of physical body. Therefore you project yourself in a body form. [...]

At physical death, after the last reincarnation, then the normal body form is the dream body, and excursions are made from this point, you see. It is possible to suddenly switch from the third form to the dream body, but at a considerable jolt to the consciousness, as a rule. [...]

However there is a chemical energy used in all such out-of-body experiences. The chemical reaction results in an electromagnetic connection between the consciousness and the physical body, and without it there would be no return to the physical body, in your terms. [...]

Now I do not like the term astral bodies, simply because of the sometimes weird connotations connected with the phrase. There is a kind of idea, or mental body, a counterpart in many ways, but not always, to the physical body, which is the structure the self takes in what you may call for now fourth dimension.

[...] Since it is a heavy-bodied pigment, it was built up in spots on the object as much as 1/32 of an inch thick. [...]

[...] There is no reason for Ruburt to be surprised at Mr. Fox’s thesis on dreams and out-of-body experiences.

(Astral Projection, by Oliver Fox.)