“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In the historical time of Christ, I was a man called Millenius, in Rome. In that life my main occupation was that of a merchant, but I was a highly curious gentleman, and my travels gave me access to many different groups of people.

My house was in the busiest, northwestern part of the city, just beyond what you would call the heart of town. Among my wares I sold bells for donkeys. This may not sound like a very grand product, and yet families on the farms outside of Rome found these highly useful. Each had a special sound, and a family could tell by the sound of the bell their own donkey from innumerable similar ones.

(10:08.) Donkeys were also used in many businesses within Rome itself as carriers of burden, particularly in the lower occupations. The number of bells, their particular pitch, even the colors, all had meaning. In the tumult of the city the particular bells could be recognized, therefore, by the poor and by the slaves who waited to buy products — often wilted foods from the laden carts.

(10:11.) While I was not literate, I was shrewd and lively of mind. Special bells, I discovered, were used by various sects of Jews, both within Rome and without. While I was a Roman and a citizen, my citizenship meant little except for providing me with minimal safety as I went about my daily way, and in my business I encountered as many Jews as Romans. I was not too far above them socially. (This was Seth’s first bit of humor in the chapter.)

—when you were in Rome, and did not know Sue. [...] You were seeped in such lore, having been born in Greece rather than in Rome. [...]

[...] She has great respect for your painting, and for Ruburt’s abilities, and you knew her when she was a soldier in Rome. [...]

(“In Rome?”)

They were responsible for the birth of agriculture, as well as industry, the rise and fall of nations, the “glory” that was Rome, and Rome’s destruction. [...]

[...] I can say that I traveled in Rome at about the time of Christ. To me there is no contradiction between that statement and the statement that the reality of that Rome is even now being affected by present, current concepts and beliefs. [...]

[...] The reincarnation dream (see the end of the session), however, had to do with Nebene, who resented any tribute paid to Rome, and was enraged by the crooked practices of all the tax collectors. He did not ascribe to Rome’s religion, or really agree with its government, and he felt that taxes simply represented money given to rogues and thieves to enrich the pockets of the wealthy. [...]

[...] Christ was crucified near Jerusalem at the order of Pontius Pilate; Herod had John beheaded; and Paul was beheaded near Rome during the reign of Nero.

[...] Perhaps this affair was engendered by a book I’ve just started to read; it contains descriptions of the long siege that Imperial Rome, whose military forces had occupied Palestine for 60 years, began against a rebellious Jerusalem in the year 66. [...]

[...] And not only that — as a man called Nebene I’d spent part of my life in Rome itself. [...]

[...] They had been plundered at times by wandering Roman soldiers of Rome’s empire. [...]

[...] Ruburt’s very early poetry offended Father Boyle, who objected to its themes, and who burned his books on the fall of Rome, so he had more than a hypothetical feeling about such issues. [...]

Now: Ancient Rome exists, and so does Egypt and Atlantis. [...]

The public man, the man of letters, et cetera in other centuries, and the public man say of Rome, or of the Middle Ages, or of the 19th Century, involved personal interactions with the public, but in very limited, controlled situations. [...]

[...] For a while I was not in Rome, but held my religious call elsewhere. [...]

(Nabene is the name for a personality of mine that presumably lived as a male in the first century AD in Rome, Italy. [...]

[...] He feared Rome and hated it. [...]

Now, ancient Rome exists and so does Egypt and Atlantis. [...]

[...] You were blunt men, yet highly emotional, living for some time near Constantinople, but ranging far, even to Afghanistan, and on several occasions meeting bands from Rome.

(I studied this session to better grasp my Nebene characteristics then [and now] by painting his image, and then drawing him again, but now I’m appalled by my behavior in first-century Rome. [...]

[...] In Seth’s terms, through the complicated interactions and communications involving all forms of life, man’s deep dissatisfactions would have periodically helped trigger the resurgence of scourges like the plagues: In 3rd-century Rome, for instance, several thousand people were said to have died each day; estimates are that over a 20-year period in the 14th century, three-quarters of the population of Europe and Asia perished; there was the great plague of London in 1665, and so forth.

[...] Jane said she felt the reference to an entrance concerned the recent decision by the Ecumenical Council in Rome, to the effect that Protestants could now be allowed to enter the altar enclosure to be married. [...]

Some allusions to Rome, about 30 AD. [...]