“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Some individuals in their first astral form see their physical bodies as dead images of themselves and become frightened.

When consciousness leaves the body, it identifies itself with one of these portions, and travels in its form. [...]

[...] There is nothing so strange at this, since in physical life there is the definite difference between the body form of the child, the young adult, and the old man. [...]

[...] The sense apparatus, supposedly the exclusive right of the physical body, will be much more acute, and yet it will not be determined by any physical mechanisms. [...]

(Peculiarly, I had no feeling of being detached from my physical body—that is, I didn’t feel I was bodiless, hovering above it: I had taken the bed up with me, you see. [...] I wanted to try turning over astrally, and I wanted to try reaching up toward the ceiling astrally, to see if I could touch it. [...]

[...] The out-of-body state, in greater terms, is a far more natural state than in the body. You adopt and make a body. You do this now without knowing that you do so, but a body can be made from the camouflage of any system, constructed easily when you know how to do it.

[...] For I still felt my body against the bed—I lay face up, covered by a blanket—as though my body was pasted to the bed. [...]

Out-of-body encounters were used as a matter of course. [...]

[...] Now this was not an astral plane, but a lower one.

[...] Ruburt leapt back to his body to safety and normal consciousness. [...]

[...] But this fact is Ruburt’s safeguard in his astral travels—as long as he remembers it.

This will always protect him in any out of body endeavors, or any other unearthly realities. [...]

(Jane and Tam have been discussing her second book for P/Hall; the subject possibly to be on dreams, Seth, and astral projection.

[...] Tell him that he is as stubborn out of his body as he is when he is in it. [...]

[...] Even physically you are more than you know, for the chemicals that are your body, and the atoms and molecules and the breath that leaves your lungs... [...]

[...] You think this kind of affair strange, because you do not realize that you yourselves exist independently of your physical bodies... [...]

[...] She said that she had felt sensations of “freezing cold” at her forehead and a few other parts of her body. [...]

(Ray Van Over described in some detail certain experiments he was organizing in which astral travel would be predominant. [...]

Many people write requesting that I outline the proper methods for achieving astral projection, for example, or psychic advancement, or spiritual understanding. [...]

[...] In the face of such beliefs the ideal of psychic development, or astral travel, or spiritual knowledge, or even of sane living, seems so remote as to be impossible. [...]

[...] “I might as well have been without a body, I was so far out. [...]

These capsules can be seen by you under certain circumstances and have been called astral bodies … a term which does not meet with my pleasure….

[...] Instantly I see him seated in writing room and behind him stands a transparent whitish woman’s image, my astral self. [...] or the actions express it....together in a fashion I can’t describe of both of their astral forms entwined, fly off into space. [...]

[...] Nor had paying the taxes this morning, although it could take the body a while to respond to any change in status or thinking, and I’d seen this happen before.

(“The pendulum also says I think my body is capable of healing itself, wants to heal itself, and that I want it to heal itself. [...]

His body is definitely improving, but you must both examine your beliefs again about the conventional matters I have spoken about this evening, for they affect your behavior. [...]

[...] I discover that I can do a peculiar thing to my brain by somehow tightening the muscles on my scalp and then doing something intense with a sound I can ‘hear.’ The sound holds, and I can feel my astral body shudder inside my physical one. [...] I get out of my body this way, float above the couch and go back in. I try the same technique, tightening the scalp muscles and feel my astral body stir. This time I get out of my physical body and stand staring at it. [...] I know quite clearly that I am out of my body, experimenting and in no difficulty. So I turn, leave my body behind on the couch and walk out the door and down to the dock outside our house.

[...] Both also involve projections or out-of-body states, a matter that will be discussed in the next section of this book. [...]

[...] I’m in my physical body now, yet somehow the physical world around me is incomplete with enormous pieces missing. [...]

[...] He has no conscious knowledge of wanting to be a doctor as a child, but in painting he always emphasized body structure and form.

(Rachel had been discussing a story on astral projection which told of a man seeing a black shape trying to sever the silver cord so he could not return to his body.)

[...] He frightened himself into returning to his body for he had been away from it too long. [...] He was like a truant so he caused the hallucination so that he would return to his body. [...] He knew it was time to return to the body, and he decided to stay out of it despite the nature of inclination to return, and so he made a nightmare for himself to frighten himself home like the errant boy that he was. [...]

[...] You can, indeed, be involved in some group out-of-body endeavors. [...] It does no good to tell yourselves that you will leave your body fifty times before you sleep, if in the back of your skull you are thinking, I am terrified. [...]

Now bodies are not at such a high premium. [...]

[...] Mankind did at one time have what you may call a heavier body than at present. (Long pause, over one minute.) This particular body type has not vanished entirely by any means. The mental body, sometimes called the astral body, is the next one that you will inhabit. [...]

Training and disciplined experimentation in the manipulation of this body will be of great benefit, for you will be facing some of the conditions that you will have to face when the physical body is discarded. [...]

[...] Such thermal pictures are found in what is called the old brain, and to these, the body responds with changes of temperature that sparks various chemical reactions.

(Much later, November 1968—Crosson without my knowledge writes to an editor at Doubleday telling them about my book, Dreams, Astral Projection & ESP and suggests they take a look. [...]

(Long pause, eyes closed, leaning back.) Ruburt cannot understand all of the processes that are involved, but the body knows what is to be done, and is working with its own rhythms. [...] Certain portions of the body were released this evening. By all means let Ruburt continue to express his feelings to you about the situation, however, and reassure him of his body’s competence. [...]

Ruburt’s body is now addressing itself to those areas that deal primarily with motion and locomotion, and in righting the body’s balance. [...]

[...] Dreams, Astral Projection and ESP, I believe was to be the title. [...]

(Eyes open.) I am aware of Ruburt to some extent in the same way that he is aware of his astral form when he is traveling within it, though my awareness is much stronger, and my control is more deliberate. [...]

[...] He has already learned a lesson, in that that same concentration can be applied to change the condition of this own psyche and physical body.

[...] The out-of-body experiences will be a portion of your subjective training. [...]

[...] The wife in astral form was also here. [...]

[...] In their astral forms they adopted their normal dress, hence the varying costumes. [...]

[...] Every living thing has what you would term an astral form or vehicle. [...]

[...] The inner state causes chemical changes in the physical body. [...]

(“That’s the astral body,” Seth said. [...]

[...] At the same time, I had the feeling that the face, now somehow animal-like in the shadows, hung forward of the body, that it had somehow detached itself from the shoulders. [...]

[...] of the body. [...]

As you all know, and this is not new, your pitiful body changes with each thought that you have and with each emotion. [...] There is no other place where you can lay the blame and it is up to you, to each of you individually, to watch the nature of your thoughts for with your thoughts you created the body that you have, the individual realities that you know. [...]

As I have told you often, your body reacts to your thoughts. [...]

[...] Even your astral knuckles may hurt. [...]

[...] In such a way, one part of the body knows what is happening in every other part, and the body as a whole knows its precise position on the surface of the planet. [...]

[...] The body itself knows the source of water, for example, and food. [...]

[...] Your verbal language — for your biological communication is quite aware of probable future events, and the body constantly maintains itself amid a maze of probabilities.

1. For Seth on the fetus — its astral and reincarnational attributes, its energy, its growth, its perceptions from inside the womb — see the quotations from sessions 503–4 in the Appendix for The Seth Material. Those sessions were held in September 1969.

[...] (Long pause, eyes closed.) If you meet him in your own astral body you will have more freedom of expression and communication, for you can speak normally, if you follow me. [...]