“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Yet, Jane and I were being creative with it all—the whole time—and moving several stages closer to understanding All That Is in the process. If we were often badly frightened, we also felt surges of grim elation (when we allowed them to surface) that we were survivors. We’d chosen the entire experience, which is still continuing, of course. [...] We agree—and that is where Jane and I diverge most sharply from the conventional establishment belief that events happen to people, instead of being created by them.

Moreover, the choice of presenting the material in essay form proved to have one virtue that was more valuable than all the others combined: It allowed us to delve into the events I describe, and “our deep-seated, sometimes wrenching feelings connected to them,” a little bit at a time. [...] Many of the events and feelings evoked such deep implications of trial and challenge for Jane and me that we were often left with strong feelings of unreality: This can’t be happening to us. [...] Why do I have to leave my dear wife alone in the hospital each night, so that I feel like crying for her when I go to bed by myself in the hill house? [...] Why are our lives ending like this, when we feel that simply getting through each day is an accomplishment?

Jane appreciates that the dates I’m always giving merely furnish a convenient framework for our material, but she’s hardly enamored of such precise methodology; she understands that it’s my way of doing things, realizes it’s very useful, and goes on from there. I use a similar system in presenting all of the published Seth material. It has the great attribute of allowing for quick reference timewise (if not always by subject matter) to any of the more than 1,500 regular, private or deleted, and “ESP class” sessions Jane has given over the past 19 years—until July 1982, that is, when I began work on these passages.

[...] In terms of length alone, it soon became obviously impossible to write all of the material for any piece on the date given. [...] This weaving things together to make them “fit” is only natural for one of my temperament, but I didn’t alter any of my original copy—that I’d have refused to do—and I kept intact those first spontaneous descriptions of the events attendant to Jane’s physical difficulties, as well as our deep-seated, sometimes wrenching feelings connected to them. [...] Instead, we want all of this preliminary material to show how we live daily—regardless of how well we may or may not do—with a generalized knowledge of, and belief in, the Seth material.

It’s plain that many arguments can be brought against all I’ve written in the last four paragraphs, I suppose, yet the material in them briefly approximates the ways Jane and I look at the Seth material these days in relation to other philosophies. Especially do I like the fact that Jane’s work, her contribution to our thought, comes out of her psyche unaided by laboratories, statistics, or tests. That is, our idea of real testing consists in watching to see how the Seth material can assist in practical, everyday living. Other kinds of tests, more “formal” ones that we carried out in 1965–66, are detailed in Chapter 8 of The Seth Material; it’s easy for us to forget now that those early tests were quite successful, and could be resumed at any time. When they were held I wondered (as I still do) why the human animal, of all the creatures on earth, felt it necessary to construct laboratories in which to “prove” what it really is, what its abilities — telepathic, metabolic, or whatever — really are. This subject alone is so vast that Jane and I could write about it indefinitely, so I can barely mention it here.

[...] I’m somewhat puzzled to note, however, that her very short working times for the Seth books seem to be either ignored or taken for granted by practically everyone — or, perhaps, those factors just aren’t understood in terms of ordinary linear time. [...] But given her abilities, I think her speed of production is a close physical approach to, or translation of, Seth’s idea that basically all exists at once — that really there is no time, and that the Seth books, for example, are “there” to be had in final form for just the tuning in. (In Section 3 of this volume, Note 2 for Session 692 contains information on another way by which we can move closer to Seth’s idea of simultaneity from our physical reality, but that method grows out of material not discussed here.)

I’m more inclined to agree with what Seth told us in the 590th session in Chapter 22 of Seth Speaks: “You are not fated to dissolve into All That Is. [...] All That Is is the creator of individuality, not the means of its destruction.” [...] Intense expansions of consciousness by contrast to your normal state may appear to be cosmic in nature, but they barely hint at those possibilities of consciousness that are available to you now, much less begin to approach a true cosmic awareness.”

I’m sure that that “energy personality essence,” as Seth calls himself, regarded with some amusement our gropings about how best to publish his work as the sessions began to pile up. I think that basically he was unconcerned with ideas of length or time; that Jane’s and my own willingness to continue delivering and recording the body of the material were the true arbiters of its length. In that sense, then, the creative processes involved with these two volumes were endless — at least until Jane and I called a halt to them for sheer physical reasons. (Those processes are still without end, of course, as is all creativity.)

[...] (Smile.) Such laws that might be proclaimed in so many words. They are attempts to explain in words the nature of the inner reality that forms All That Is. I must disentangle concepts, unravel them, in order to explain them, and much is necessarily lost in the process.

I am far more however than this portion of me that you contact, for it is only one portion of me that experienced that reality. (Pause.) It is highly important that the material not be distorted then, for most communications take place on far different levels than this, so closely connected with your own system that even the most undistorted material is highly distorted, because the communicators themselves are so closely involved with camouflages, and do not realize that they create the realities which they then describe.

You have already been told that connections exist between you and Seth as you have known him. Therefore it is apparent that connections exist between us also, and that this development is a natural one. The apex point in Ruburt’s personality is an extremely fortunate and unusual one, and the reason that such communications can take place.

Each simple law of the inner universe that I have given you is in actuality a small and inadequate statement in single-dimensional terms. Yet it is more than most are given, and the best approximation that can be made of the basic facts that are beneath any existence, the best statement that can be made under the circumstances under which we work.

Now in your dream you got the feeling of that kind of work, or action. It is the given power of the world, the given power of nature. It is the directed force of value fulfillment.² In other terms it is of course the energy of All That Is. The trouble is that the rational view of life has separated man from a sense of his own power source. When he has a problem, the rational approach to its solution seems the only answer, and often, of course, it is no answer at all.

It understands, for example, that clairvoyant material is a part of the personality’s overall characteristics, so it is not afraid of perceiving it — and it is able to separate such information confusion from present physical sense perception. Orderliness, then, is one of its main characteristics. When it is given only one world view, and only one group of assumptions, its orderly nature causes it to throw out all information that does not fit. It is almost forced to make an orderly picture, say like a jigsaw puzzle picture, while being denied half of the pieces.

[...] Ease is the key word. To the world of the intellect, a glass door must be considered solid, as it is in the world of physical senses. In other quite as factual terms, indeed in the larger framework of facts, the door of course is not solid at all, as no objects are. Obviously that is known to science.

(Pause.) It is also for that reason that they seem to fall outside of the realm of the s-a-n-e (spelled). [...] They do not appear very well under the auspices of the scientific method, because the scientific method is itself programmed to perceive only information that fits into its preconceived patterns. Such abilities appear to be unpredictable, discontinuous, only because you are so relatively unaware of what is actually quite constant psychological behavior. That is, such abilities operate so smoothly, so continuously, and with such ease (intently) that you become aware of them only under certain conditions. [...]

I would even advise a double reading of the above sentence for it is a keystone and a vital one. Rising to challenges is a basis for existence in every aspect of existence. It is the developer of all abilities and at the risk of being trite, it is the responsibility of even the most minute particle of consciousness to use its own abilities, and all of its abilities to the utmost. Upon the degree to which this is done rests the power and coherence of everything that is.

You as a physical being are also dependent upon many forces that you do not understand, so there is no contradiction in saying that the cells are individual and independent, and yet dependent upon stronger organization. There is no coercion put upon the cells, because each cell is what it is because of its innate ability and strength. Nor is there any coercion as far as a personality is concerned, which is a part of an entity. [...]

[...] But this is not all that is or exists. It is extremely possible that many in the personality-existence grouping have been involved within other completely different plane groupings in some inconceivable past.

[...] The framework is so woven that each particle is dependent upon every other. The strength of one adds strength to all. [...] The striving of one increases the potentiality of everything that is, and this places great responsibility upon every consciousness.

[...] That is, I said, “I could ask 5,000 questions, but I haven’t planned any for tonight.” [...] “But the publisher would want it organized according to subject matter, or presented in some orderly way,” I replied, whereupon she wrinkled her face at the work this might involve: “But you could do all that after we got the material....”

[...] It wants to ignore the creative aspects of the universe, however, which are everywhere apparent, and it first of all believes that it must divorce itself from any evidence of feeling. [...] The male god is a god of power. He is not a god of creativity.

[...] Through creativity the species senses All That Is. [...] It is a source of revelation and inspiration—but revelation and inspiration do not initially deal with power, but with knowing. [...]

He was creative, and is. Yet he felt that women were inferior, and that his very abilities made him vulnerable, that he would be ridiculed by others, that women were not taken seriously as profound thinkers, or innovators in philosophical matters.

[...] It is indeed foolish enough to take it for granted—at least part way (and with irony)—that everything—All That Is, the important things—will somehow work out all right. The foolish body, not realizing that such a philosophy is a food for idiots, replenishes itself for good activities, and in an animal fashion anticipates comfort and exuberance.

The material that came from “Unknown” today—you disagreed with the type of lettering, if I understand properly. Now, that is legitimate as an artistic judgment—but it is illegitimate as a moral judgment. There is nothing wrong or inferior about the people at Prentice, who made the “improper” artistic decision. It is not immoral or wrong not to have excellent artistic judgment. [...]

[...] I might add that I don’t think I for one believe any longer that worrying is the answer to very much, as Seth says Jane and I still believe, nor do I think that fear is going to act as a stimulus to positive action. [...] I told Jane today that this week I’d pay our taxes a few days ahead of time—another effort to get free....)

The pessimists insist that nothing will work out right in the everyday world, and that is where you live. [...] Poverty is certain, depressions, and old age with the worst of imagined terrors. Of course, his body does not realize that the pessimist’s views are the most intelligent, proper, sane and reasonable, and so it falls ill because the mind tells the body it has nothing to look forward to.

(9:25.) By that time, all religions will be in severe crisis. [...] His message will be that of the individual in relation to All That Is. He will clearly state methods by which each individual can attain a state of intimate contact with his own entity; the entity to some extent being man’s mediator with All That Is.

(9:05.) Psychic or psychological identification is of great import here and is indeed at the heart of all such dramas. In one sense, you can say that man identifies with the gods he has himself created. [...] Then, say that gods and men create each other, and you come even closer to the truth; but only if you are very careful in your definitions — for how, exactly, do gods and men differ?

Human personality will reap benefits that now would seem unbelievable. [...] From birth, children will be taught that basic identity is not dependent upon the body, and that time as you know it is an illusion. The child will be aware of many of its past existences, and will be able to identify with the old man or woman that in your terms it will become.

I am including this information in this chapter on religion because it is important that you realize that spiritual ignorance is at the basis of so many of your problems, and that indeed your only limitations are spiritual ones.

[...] Although one can say that her life is over in this reality, her lifework isn’t. Many have written that her books are new each time they read them — that they’re constantly finding new material in them. [...] What wonderful signs of survival all of these things are!

[...] Each one of us is part of the great mystery of All That Is, then, which we explore together, yet each in our own way.

Also, copies of all of the Seth sessions — regular, private, and for ESP class — are in the collection of our papers at Yale. Much other material is there also: I’ve spent several years assembling it. Practically all of this is open to the public, free of charge, with but a few restrictions as to how much can be copied for personal use. Sometimes my permission is required.

[...] The end of the Seth material — or is it? Now that my emotions have calmed down somewhat after proofreading The Way Toward Health, I can deal with that question at least a little bit.

[...] There is no such simple end to the life that you know, [such] as the story of heaven. There is the freedom to understand your own reality, to develop your abilities further, and to feel more deeply the nature of your own existence as a part of All That Is.

First of all you must understand, again, that now you do not realize your true identity. You identify instead with your present ego, so when you think in terms of life after death you really mean a future life of the ego that you know. At the end of the reincarnational cycle you understand quite thoroughly that you, the basic identity, the inner core of your being, is more than the sum of your reincarnational personalities.

The developments of consciousness that take place are natural attributes, natural stages. There is no coercion applied. All of the further developments are inherent in the personality that you know, even as the adult is inherent in the child.

Art is created, then, using time — for example — as a structure. [...] The beauties of various ages, the natural beauties, the paintings and buildings are all recreated as learning methods for these beginners. One of their main preoccupations is to create beauty that impinges itself in as many various dimensions of reality as possible.

[...] Now if there is any discipline that I would tell you to adapt, it would be the discipline of joy which is spontaneous and from which, initially, all creativity comes. [...] Detachment can be negative or positive according to the reasons that you adapt it. Joy, faithfully followed, can lead you to the inner vitality that dwells within yourself and, hence, to All That Is. [...]

(To Giovanni) Now I have a brief word that I would like to say to this one over here. Now first of all you are not afraid of psychic reality in any sense of the word. [...] There is nothing wrong with that. It is a stage of becoming. Accept it and do not think necessarily that you must be otherwise, for if you go along with the feelings that you honestly have at any given time, they will become the feelings. If, however, you try to hide them from yourself, then they become like knots that bind you. [...]

[...] The soul is not a thing that you have. The soul is not the consciousness that you know. The soul is far beyond the consciousness that you presently experience. It is only your own ideas of a limited self that make you think in terms of such a closed soul. There are no closed systems, and there is no end to the growth of the soul. [...]

I will bid you all a fond goodnight because our friend, Ruburt, is worried about the time. [...] I want you to stop identifying completely with the conscious self that you know, and I want you also to remember that I told you that though physically I may not speak to you individually in class, the messages are given, and I expect you to be expert enough to receive them. So if you feel left out it is only because you have not been aware enough. [...]

Ruburt (Jane) was highly creative, and so following the beliefs of his time, he believed that he must watch his creativity most carefully, for he was determined to use it. He decided early to have no children — but more, to fight any evidence of femininity that might taint his work, or jumble up his dedication to it. He loved you deeply and does, but he always felt he had to tread a slender line, so as to satisfy the various needs and beliefs that you both had to one extent or another, and those you felt society possessed. He was creative, and is. Yet he felt that women were inferior, and that his very abilities made him vulnerable, that he would be ridiculed by others, that women were not taken seriously as profound thinkers, or innovators in philosophical matters.

(Pause.) You must understand, I know, that the terms “male” and “female” here are being used as they are generally understood, and have nothing to do with the basic characteristics of either sex. [...] It wants to ignore the creative aspects of the universe, however, which are everywhere apparent, and it first of all believes that it must divorce itself from any evidence of feeling. [...] The male god is a god of power. He is not a god of creativity.

(Although this is a private session that Jane and I are filing separately from “regular” material, we’re also presenting it in Mass Events because of the many insights Seth offers into individual and mass events in general, and into our personal realities in particular. In fact, without those qualities of ours that Seth touches upon this evening, I doubt that the Seth books — indeed, even the sessions themselves — would exist. So in that sense this session contains more of those insights into the how and why of the Seth material that we’re always searching for. [...]

[...] Through creativity the species senses All That Is. [...] It is a source of revelation and inspiration — yet initially revelation and inspiration do not deal with power, but with knowing. [...]

In a fashion (underlined), it was a great creative and yet cosmic game that consciousness played with itself, and it did represent a new kind of awareness, but I want to emphasize that each version of All That Is is unique. Each has its purpose, though that purpose cannot be easily defined in your terms. Many people ask, for example: “What is the purpose of my life?” Meaning: “What am I meant to do?” but the purpose of your life, and each life, is in its being (intently). That being may include certain actions, but the acts themselves are only important in that they spring out of the essence of your life, which simply by being is bound to fulfill its purposes.

On the one hand, man did indeed feel that he had fallen from a high estate, because he remembered that earlier freedom of dream reality—a reality in which the other creatures were still to some degree (underlined) immersed.³ Man’s mind, incidentally, at that point had all the abilities that you now assign to it: the great capacity for contrast of imagination and intellect, the drive for objectivity and for subjectivity (softly), the full capacity for the development of language—a keen mind that was as brilliant in any caveman, say, as it is in any man on a modern street.

The sense of separation is, in those terms, initially almost shattering. Yet [man] is to be the portion of nature that views itself with perspective. He is to be the part of nature that will specialize, again, in the self-conscious use of concepts. (Louder:) He will grow the flower of the intellect—a flower that must have its deep roots buried securely within the earth, and yet a flower that will send new psychic seeds outward, not only for itself but for the rest of nature, of which it is a part.

[...] He becomes fully operational in his physical body, and while awake can only sense the dream body that had earlier been so real to him. He now encounters his experience from within a body that must be fed, clothed, protected from the elements—a body that is subject to gravity and to earth’s laws. [...] He sees himself suddenly, in a leap of comprehension, as existing for the first time not only apart from the environment, but apart from all of earth’s other creatures.

In our terms, All That Is exists in Framework 2 as elsewhere, but Framework 2 represents the source of your known physical reality. From it flow all of the known facts of your world. Christ hoped to show that you survived death psychically and spiritually—that you “returned” to the father in heaven. Literal minds, looking for evidential proof, would insist that the physical body itself must rise, ascending, hence the related stories, the misinterpretation of data. [...] Christ well knew that that statement was indeed true, but men who condemned themselves, who considered themselves sinners, would not know what to ask for, except punishment to relieve their guilt. Hence he stressed time and time again that each person was a child of God.

You both chafed against the belief of your times, that man was a natural aggressor, tainted from birth, that he was damned by his very nature, condemned by his early childhood background, by original sin, or by his genes. [...] Each person carried the brunt of that self-condemnation. Ruburt is hardly outstanding in having physical difficulties, and overall your lives and the work speak for more of the potential of personality than of personality’s lacks. You set for yourselves a goal of shoving aside all of the beliefs and distortions for yourselves and for others.

In this way, with the words spoken “Let thy will be done,” the self could free itself from its own misconceptions, and attract from Framework 2 benefits that it might otherwise not be knowledgeable enough to request. A portion of each person dwells in Framework 1 and Framework 2. Understand that Framework 2 is a psychic or spiritual or mental structure. In deepest terms, of course, it is not a place. It is, if you prefer, a spiritual landscape of far greater resources than the one you know. It brings forth the world of your experience in that world, and so it is your source also.

[...] The notes Ruburt wrote yesterday are extremely important, with their emphasis upon my old “the spontaneous self is the guardian,” and added to that “from which your very life springs.” [...] Tell Ruburt that if he continues in this manner, and if the two of you can manage to maintain your peace of mind long enough—over a two or three day period, for example, then you can expect rewards in all areas. [...]

“I am in this room, although there is no object within which you can place me. You are as disembodied as I. You have a vehicle to use, a body that you call your own, and that is all. I borrow Ruburt’s [Seth’s name for me; in addition, Seth always speaks of me as male] with his consent, but what I am is not dependent upon atoms and molecules and what you are is not dependent upon physical matter. [...]

[...] This is the meaning of existence and joy. The God that is, is within you, for you are a part of all that is.”

“According to what you have been taught, you are composed of physical matter and cannot escape it, and this is not so. [...] Though you cannot find me, know that I am here. [...] I can assure you that they will continue to live. I can assure you that death is another beginning, and that when you are dead, you are not silenced. For is this voice that you hear now, silence? Is this presence that you sense within this room, death?

[...] Seth addressed himself to the students for the first time, yet he touched upon several issues that appear often in the Seth Material: The personality is multidimensional. The individual is basically free of space and time. The fate of each of us is in our own hands. [...] We cannot blame God, society, or our parents for misfortunes, since before this physical life we chose the circumstances into which we would be born and the challenges that could best bring about our development. [...] Telepathically, we are all aware of the mass ideas from which we form our overall conception of physical reality.

I can perceive much that you do not for example, but I hardly perceive all, and what I do perceive is but a fraction of All That Is. [...] This is an important point. [...]

[...] The personality has experienced new realities since death, and is no longer precisely the person that was. The person that was exists as a sort of psychological unit, however. The person, the survival person that is, contains all that he was, and more.

[...] There are many other realities that are far divorced from your own however. Every thought, as I have told you, is an action and must seek to fulfill itself. It is a fragment, therefore. You are literally surrounded by other realities that you do not perceive consciously. Some of these are perceived by the inner self, but all are not.

(The equalization, Jane believes, refers to the book by Louis Pomerantz, that along with the object and the mimeographed list were mailed to her by Caroline Keck from Brooklyn, NY, in August 1964. All three of these items refer to the conservation of paintings. The title page of Louis Pomerantz’s book shows that it was published by A Chicago Chapter Artists Equity Publication, 332 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago 4, Illinois. Artists Equity Association is dealt with in the book’s forward also.

Basic reality is not a chaos. It is a raw material. All diversity implies a whole, and if you theorize a whole then you must also imply diversity. These personality structures are like you a portion of basic reality, or All That Is. [...]

There may be a strong feeling of oneness with All That Is. This is of course much to those who have been primarily ego oriented, and it represents a meaningful breakthrough that can indeed provide the opportunity and impetus for a far more fulfilling earthly existence.

[...] As stated, it is a mock postage stamp I drew on Friday, November 25, 1966, at work. It is a spoof on Don Wilbur—"Young Donny"—and I showed it to Don and his wife, Marilyn, when they visited us that evening. [...] I thought the drawing had been passed around that evening and that Jane had seen it, but she said tonight that she had not. [...]

[...] The only connection we see with the object here is that a number on it is repeated—1 cent is shown twice. [...] There is a string of symbols across the bottom of the object, but mainly of letters, rather than numbers.

“You must still be able to experience any one of these illusions, knowing they are illusory, with full knowledge of their nature, and still know that the basic reality is yourself. There is no place to go because you are the place—and all places—in those terms. But the ‘joke’ is relevant. The most important thing I have said this evening is that the joke is relevant. You must be free enough to explore the nature and experience of each living thing within your own system, knowing that it is yourself, and then leave your system. [...]

“Your world is formed in faithful replica of your own thoughts. … Certain telepathic conditions exist that we call root assumptions, of which each individual is subconsciously aware. Using these, you form a physical environment cohesive enough so that there is general agreement as to objects and their placement and dimension. It is all hallucinatory in one respect, and yet it is your reality, and you must manipulate within it. [...]

Seth admitted that he was the one who spoke to Phil. After our break he said, “The woman is grasping in a way that is disastrous to those with whom she comes in contact.” He added that the woman “would have used you as a buffer between herself and another male, and as a bargaining point, exaggerating your slightest interest. [...] Then he gave considerable background information, saying that the woman had a child and was involved with another man. [...] He also said that she was a Catholic, and that her problem concerned a legal paper.

All of this is interwound with the idea that personality is composed of action. Seth’s description of the three creative dilemmas upon which identity rests is thought-provoking and original. [...]

Lest I give an inaccurate picture of my wife, however, let me add that she combines instances of that seeming intransigence with a profound intuitive innocence before nature (and thus All That Is), and with a great literal acceptance of nature’s manifestations and of her own being and creations within that framework. Although she’s not entirely in agreement with me on this point, I think that essentially Jane is a mystic—not an easy thing to be in our extroverted, materialistic society, for it represents a way of life that’s little understood these days. [...] Mysticism is still overwhelmingly regarded as a profoundly religious expression, and one that’s hardly practical, but in my opinion neither of those situations applies to Jane. Her “mystical way” is reinforced by a strongly secretive characteristic that’s usually belied by her seemingly outgoing character and behavior. [...] I also had to learn that her literal cast of mind grows directly out of her mysticism, and that because it does, she can be quite impulsive. [...] Whatever reservations she shows—her conscious inhibition of impulses, for example—are learned devices that are literally protective in nature. [...]

Jane’s hearing is much improved after treatment with decongestants and a pair of minor operations in which tiny drainage tubes were inserted through her eardrums—the procedure is called surery—to relieve internal blockage. Jane’s thyroid gland, Dr. Mandali finally told her, has simply ceased functioning, so the doctor has begun a program of cautiously rejuvenating my wife’s endocrine system, and thus all of her bodily processes, with a synthetic thyroid hormone in pill form (a low 50 micrograms to start). Jane is to take these pills for the rest of her life. At least that’s the current prognosis. Her double vision is not as severe and is supposed to keep improving as the hormone takes effect. [...] The increased glandular activity is also expected to have some beneficial effects upon Jane’s arthritis, and possibly upon her anemia (a condition that often accompanies arthritis). I asked that she be tested for food allergies, since I’d read that reactions to various foods and additives can trigger arthritis, but Dr. Mandali said that “if Jane is allergic she (Jane) would know it”—a position I came to most thoroughly disagree with. But usually, I thought, the trouble with having something diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis is that not only do you have it when you go into the hospital, but when you leave it. Such is the state of the art of medicine in this case, unfortunately.

(7:20.) It is impossible in our time scheme to intellectually know our own potentials without trying them out, without testing them against the world’s edges. [...] In the development of each individual we act and reenact the startling events that brought our own universe into existence. The universe was not created in some dim past, but is newly recreated by our own thoughts, dreams, and desires—so that reality happens at all possible levels at once. And in that living endeavor we each play our part.

That evocative, prophetic line is from a Sumari song that Jane sang to herself a few days before she went into an Elmira, New York, hospital on February 26, 1982. Sumari is a “language” she can speak or sing while in trance, and which she can translate into English if and when she wants to. She recorded her brief song in a sad, low-pitched, quavering voice that was like none I’d heard her use before. Its indescribable depth of feeling was remarkably prescient in light of the events in our lives that preceded—and then followed—the hospital experience that affected us so much.

That is the meaning of spirituality; and as I have told you before, if I could I would do a merry dance about the room to show you that your vitality is not dependent upon a physical image. It is not dependent upon your youth, it is not dependent upon your body. [...] It is a sense of joy that makes all creativity probable.

(This remnant, saved by one of Jane’s students, is all that is left from one of the few class sessions that were either lost or not fully recorded. [...]

True spirituality is a thing of joy and of the earth, and has nothing to do with fake adult dignity. [...] It has to do with the dance of consciousness that is within you, and with the sense of spiritual adventure that is within your hearts.

[...] The vitality of the universe is creativity and joy and love, and that is spirituality. And that is what I shall tell the readers of my book.