“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The part of you who dreams is the ‘I’ as much as the part of you who operates in any other manner. The part of you who dreams is the part of you who breathes. This part of you is certainly as legitimate and necessary to you as a whole unit is, as the part who plays bridge or Scrabble. It would seem ludicrous to suppose that such a vital matter as breathing would be left to a subordinate, almost completely divorced, poor-relative sort of a lesser personality.

If man does not know who breathes within him, and if man does not know who dreams within him, it is not because there is one self who acts in the physical universe and another who dreams and breathes. It is because he has buried the part of himself which breathes and dreams. If these functions seem so automatic as to be performed by someone completely divorced from himself, it is because he has done the divorcing.

While I sleep and lie stretched out,
Eyelids closed and pupils dark,
Who walks wide-eyed downstairs
Through the door in the cold night air,
And travels where I have never been?
Who leaves clear memories in my head
Of people I have never met?
Who takes these trips while I
Never lift one inch from bed?
Who dreams?

In your quiet unguarded moments, you still say, ‘Who breathes? Who dreams? Who moves?’ How much easier it would be to admit freely and wholeheartedly the simple fact that you are not consciously aware of vital parts of yourself and that you are more than you think you are.

[...] You need not say who you are, when you know who you are; and if you say who you are, you do not know who you are. Beware who speaks in those terms. [...] If you know who you are, you do not need these words.

[...] He (referring to Baba) is not who he says he is; nevertheless he speaks the truth. He is a part of who he says he is, as indeed I am. [...]

He who knows who and what he is need not say so.

[...] It ill-behooves me to speak.) Nevertheless he who is and knows that he is, is. [...] Those who are really heard have no need for words. [...]

It is this portion who seems to stand outside and view the subjective self. It is the I who is aware and alert within the dream state and who watches the dreaming self. [...]

You are practically aware in everyday life now of a self who watches the self. [...] For later you will be aware of a self who watches this self, and I want you to note the difference.

You have by now become acquainted with a self you did not know before our sessions, a self who keeps watch upon both the ego and the subconscious. [...]

I speak to those who believe in a god, and those who do not, to those who believe that science will find all answers as to the nature of reality, and to those who do not. [...]

[...] You would be much better off in reading this book if you asked yourself who you are, rather than asked who I am, for you cannot understand what I am unless you understand the nature of personality and the characteristics of consciousness.

[...] She has been both a man and a woman, and the entire identity who has lived these separate lives can be designated by the name of Ruburt.

[...] I write this book with the cooperation of Ruburt, who speaks the words for me. [...]

Those who believe in the ultimate meaning of their lives can withstand such pressures, and often such dilemmas, and others like them, are resolved in an adequate-enough fashion. Disappointments, conflicts, and feelings of powerlessness can begin to make unfortunate inroads in the personalities of those who believe that life itself has little meaning. Such people begin to imagine impediments in their paths as surely as anyone would who imagined that physical barriers were suddenly put up between them and a table they wanted to reach at the end of the room.

[...] People who feel powerless, and who find no cause for living, can come together then and “die for a cause” that did not give them the will or reason to live. [...]

(10:05.) The inner mechanics of emotions and beliefs are complicated, but these are individuals who feel that physical life has failed them. [...] Such systems lead to the formation of cults, and the potential members seek out a leader who will serve their purposes as surely as they seem to serve his — through an inner mechanics of which each member is at least somewhat aware.

There are people who want children and mates, and have those excellent qualities that would serve them well as parents. [...]

Our work is affecting the lives of millions—of millions (repeated in answer to my surprised look at Seth), through direct readership, and through the influence of those readers upon others, who may not, for example, even read the books, or who may read rarely in any case.

Fanatics certainly serve a purpose, and actually they help maintain overall equilibrium of society by serving as examples to others, who often have some of the same beliefs but are of a less explosive nature.

[...] The fanatic is usually also a person whose vitality is blocked in important ways—yet he manages often to summon great energy, so that even in his denunciations he shows many people who are more timid the demonstration of personal exuberance and energy, however misdirected.

[...] A young man who had hitchhiked from Oregon stood in the darkness. [...]

(9:35.) Because of the energy he is given by others, he will have a certain consciousness of his own, but such a mock devil has no power or reality to those who do not believe in his existence, and who do not give him energy through their belief. He is, in other words, a superlative hallucination As mentioned earlier, those who believe in a hell and assign themselves to it through their belief can indeed experience one, but certainly in nothing like eternal terms. [...]

There were tribes who never learned to write in Africa and Australia who also knew these secrets, and men called “Speakers” who memorized them and spread them upward, even throughout northern portions of Europe, before the time of Christ.

[...] As long as you believe in a devil, for example, you will create one that is real enough for you, and for the others who continue to create him.

Now those who have such beliefs actually lack a necessary deep trust in the nature of consciousness, of the soul, and of All That Is. [...]

(11:03.) Your true feeling toward relatives who are also dead will be known to you and to them. [...] You do not pretend to love a parent who did little to earn your respect or love. Telepathy operates without distortion in this after-death period, so you must deal with the true relationships that exist between yourself and all relatives and friends who await you.

[...] Most of all the question means: When I am dead, will I still be who I am now, and will I remember those who are dear to me now?

[...] Those who are living in your system of reality perform these activities in an “out-of-body” experience while the physical body sleeps. They are familiar with the projection of consciousness, with the sensations involved, and they help orient those who will not be returning to the physical body.

Those of you who had faith in life after death will find it much easier to accustom yourself to the new conditions. Those of you who do not have such faith may gain it in a different way, by following through in the exercises I will give you later in this book; for these will enable you to extend your perceptions to these other layers of reality if you are persistent, expectant, and determined.

Those who need verbal messages most, and I am closing my eyes so no one will be offended, those of you who need verbal messages most, are those who have the greatest doubts about their own inner reality and experiences, (to Bette) but beyond that you distrust anyone who seems to have had a better education in this life than your own, and it is discrimination. [...]

A dandy was a gentleman with high and fine and fancy white fluffed collars in the latest fashion, who wore girdles and bound in his waist, who was flirtatious and usually quite artificial in behavior, who dealt above all things in ritualized verbal activities, who got where he could get anyway he could. [...]

[...] You were simply afraid of expressing the feelings in any capacity, and projected them, therefore, upon a person who subconsciously you felt would not be able to reciprocate. You very nicely projected them upon a person who was bonded as you were by all kinds of taboos, specifically against any such behavior, where they would be least reciprocated in physical terms, when any such action would automatically involve all kinds of guilt and retaliation, the most difficult position of which you could conceive. [...] You did not, you see, project them upon a person who could immediately answer them in kind, with no strings attached; but a relationship could be easy, open, and immediate. [...]

[...] The boxes are not prisons anymore than the cousin of Richelieu is hidden to the housewife who is now so proudly the housewife and so contemptuous, for Richelieu’s cousin who was also contemptuous particularly of housewives. [...]

[...] You do not think in terms of those who need love and affection and who are more lonely than yourself, lacking children, and who are looking for not only affection but the simple courtesy that another individual can show by recognizing their existence. [...]

[...] There are people who agonize for companionship and who have not known what love is. [...] It will find its own way and draw others who need it. [...]

[...] Now though it seems to you perhaps at this point tragic, the facts are that the real tragedy would have occurred had the cat lived, in your terms, and had you curled up in it, in your house on the corner, and turned your love inward to the animal rather than outward, for there are people who need it. [...]

I did not say that you need to remarry, I said there were others who needed your love. [...]

[...] Simply put, it concerns the fact that our world society is now run by these brilliant men who think that way. I wondered aloud why other brilliant men weren’t around who questioned people like Hebb and Jastrow, who told them their ideas were severely limited and distorted, who made a case for the kind of thinking Jane and I believed in. [...] Did those who could have made a dent in such mechanistic thinking simply drop out of such fields when they realized what the score was? [...]

[...] You are trying to restructure the daily experience of the people who live in it. [...]

Ruburt once received a few interesting pages from a world view, in which the author spoke, in archaic terms, of being a person who was a “life-taster,” sent by God to taste the quality of man’s experience, so that God might know what new ingredients might be added.

[...] It would make no difference who or what you were. [...]

[...] There are many people, many personalities, who have strong abilities. They can tell you, to some extent, much that you do not know, but unless they really know who and what they are individually, they can lead you astray. [...]

[...] The great trip, the great fascination, the cosmic energy and power and strength resides within the eyes of a frog, within the body of a suburbanite who mows his lawn. [...] Therefore, listen to your own inner voice and follow your way, but do not trust those who tell you that good vibrations are here with A and B and C and bad vibrations are with E, F, G and H, for the energy that forms All That Is is within each. [...]

[...] Someone who has not been here for some time. [...] Be dazzled by your own consciousness and your own energy and beware of those who set themselves out to dazzle you, simply to dazzle you. [...]

[...] Now, I see upon a chair, a woman who is not there. [...]

(Pause.) Today’s mail shows of course the better side of your readership, letters from people in many walks of life who are not fanatics, but who are normal individuals who recognize quality and who are seeking it. [...]

[...] You will compare your own life and work often in a critical fashion to artists who were obsessed with one art from the beginning of their lives, or who pursued what is really a kind of straight and undeviating course—a brave courageous one, perhaps, and highly focused, but one that must be in certain respects (underlined) limited in scope and complexity, not crossing any barriers except those that seem to occur strictly within painting’s realm itself (all intently. [...]

[...] I do admire that intense focus, that wholehearted commitment, and history offers plenty of examples—famous, too, if you will —of gifted individuals who lived their lives that way and made great contributions....

[...] He tries to view his own work through some idealized image of a psyche who is as gifted as he is as a writer, and also highly gifted in meeting the public, putting on performances, acting as a healer, as a prophet, and as an expert therapist all at once, and in so doing his own characteristics and natural abilities and inclinations become lost along the way. [...]

[...] Looking backward in time, Plato heard the story of Atlantis from his maternal uncle, Critias the Younger, who was told about it by his father, Critias the Elder, who heard about it through the works of the Athenian statesman and lawgiver, Solon, who had lived two centuries earlier [c. 640–559 B.C.]; and Solon got the story of Atlantis from Egyptian priests, who got it from ———? [...]

In your terms, your histories were not written by the people who worked the earth. They were created by the priests and the elite, who made up their own histories to suit their purposes — to hold down the masses, for reasons that I will someday discuss, for they are important. Those histories never spoke of the vast, massive emotions and needs of the human beings involved, who listened, because their hearts and survival depended upon their doing so, to the voices that speak within the earth that your instruments even now cannot perceive. Those histories did not tell of the human beings who had to know what insects would crawl or fly from one end of a continent to another, so that they could be captured and roasted and eaten. They did not speak of the human beings who had to know what migrations of animals would roam through their land — and when and where, and at what phase of the moon — lest they starve….

[...] The experience of the guru⁵ who sits in opulence, bejeweled and begowned, has nothing to do with the peasant who works in the field and whose belly is empty. [...]

The question of Seth’s originality intrigues many who write. Even as I worked on this note Jane received a most enthusiastic letter of approval from a young woman who had just read Seth Speaks and Volume 1. To paraphrase a few lines: “Why isn’t the whole world reverberating with these fantastic ideas? [...]

(With a smile:) “Your particular conscious and subconscious viewpoints are fluent enough so that they do not hamper the basic material, or cover it with the rock of dogmatism so that it becomes impossible to find … Actually, what I needed were personalities who were not fanatics along any line — including scientific fanatics who would object as forcibly to the reincarnational data as religious fanatics would object to some of the other material.

(Pause at 10:24.) Many of the courtesans who ruled the salons of Europe belonged in the (Ilda) category, then. [...] Some members of this family served as initiators of new orders in the (Catholic) church in the past — the worldly Jesuits, for example, and some of the more sophisticated popes⁵ (amused), who had a fine eye out for commerce and wealth. [...]

The second house (on Foster Avenue in Elmira) was owned for years by the people who gave it its character. [...] The man who owned the house thought of pianos as his art (he was in the business of selling them), and the living room was simply meant to set a piano off.

[...] Both homes appealed to you, however, because the people who lived in them organized their houses about their work. [...] You did not react to the attitudes of others in those families who “had to put up with those conditions,” because to you they are natural.

[...] But when you decide to move you are putting yourself in league with others who also make the same decision. Someone who moves will leave a house or an apartment vacant for someone else to move into. [...]

There are many personalities, however, who understand your difficulties and who sympathize with them and who help you when you call upon them and such is the healer upon whom you have called. [...]

[...] But when you cannot do this for yourself, and when your own misconceptions hold you back from using your own abilities, then there are others who can reawaken your own energies and direct them to your advantage; who can meet you and speak with you when you are in more auspicious states than the one you usually call conscious— When you are at your most creative and alert, in other words, when you are asleep. [...]

(To Nadine.) It often occurs that those who have strong healing abilities focus upon illness and sickness and are obsessed with it in the same way that many ministers, given to thoughts of good and God, are obsessed with the idea of the devil and evil. [...] If you will forgive me, it is somewhat like a woman with very earthly desires, but strong abilities in that line, who rigorously refuses to use them and dwells instead on thoughts of their evil, holding them back simply because she realizes they are so strong. [...]

And in this children’s tale there were also, behind those who originated you, others who also watched carefully and gently and with great love. [...]

[...] We’ve learned this is the case through various people who have written to Jane—they had written the publisher. [...]

[...] He did not want it (in quotes) “flooding the market,” used by people who would follow the techniques and then write for help.

There is a compassion, a jovial yet understanding one, that I can feel for such activities that is more difficult for you to experience, but in many cases the drama—the gods or devils who seem (underlined) to speak through the board, the sense of importance felt by the participators, the heightened emotional activity—all of these provide often, rich elements of experience otherwise lacking from a mundane daily existence.

[...] They are, such people, far better off than those who have no frameworks in which to see and experience their own greater experience in whatever terms. [...]

[...] Therefore, I want you to take particular notice of people in your dreams who are strangers to you. [...] Helping people who have died, in your terms, speaking to others who are quite alive, in the dream state, learning to understand and manipulate subjective realities. [...]

(To Ron L.) Now in another reality sometime you are really going to be put to the task of explaining to personalities who have no idea of the nature of physical existence, that physical existence does indeed exist. [...] Those of you who are not members of the class, forgive us but that is an in joke. [...]

I welcome those who are new this evening, but I have some remarks for our regular students having to do with your dreams. [...]

[...] Now, however, you should also become aware of other personalities who work with you when your normally conscious ego is quieted. [...]

[...] (Pause.) Your beliefs have directed who should go to war and who should not, who should live and who should die, who should be educated and who should not, who should be isolated from society and who should not—all matters directly touching upon the survival of certain families throughout history, and therefore affecting the species as a whole.

[...] In man’s case, at least, the selection of who should live or die was often anything but natural. [...]