“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] The book on the Seth material is not yet an actuality, but the Seth material is, and it is upon the Seth material that the book will be based. [...] This is all that is needed.

[...] Dr. George Instream is an upstanding and upright man, and a very cautious one. He is so cautious that he allowed Dr. J.B. Rhine to make advances in the field of parapsychology that he could have produced himself, had he been more daring. [...]

[...] No academic psychologist, including Dr. Instream, will give you a statement to the effect that I am a survival personality. Dr. Instream will give a statement I believe, as to Robert and Jane’s character, the quality of the Seth material itself, and the fact that no fraud of any kind is involved.

As a rule body temperature, after certain preliminary stages, is lowered during Ruburt’s trance state. [...] All communications depend upon inner electromagnetic manipulations in any case, even for example mental images, and body temperature is also related here.

Reading these private sessions, one can legitimately ask: “Well, if Jane Roberts was so smart and Seth was so great with all of that personal stuff, why did she come down with the symptoms to begin with? Why couldn’t he cure her, or at least help her?” My answer right here is that those questions were and still are answered to the best of the abilities of Jane, Seth, and myself in these private sessions, even while I keep in mind Frank Watts’s references to Jane’s “Timidity has roots of rage.” [...] These sessions will detail in many ways and times why my beloved wife, even with all of her creative dedication to her chosen path, ended up with what finally came to be her intractable physical impairments. Part of the answer, as I’ve already noted, is that because of her strong fears from early childhood on, Jane did not allow Seth to tell us all he could have. Not that she was consciously aware of why she refused, and not that the elimination of that barrier alone would have magically wiped away the challenges the two of us were creating. But again and again I felt, I knew, that reincarnational factors were involved, concerning not only Jane, Seth, and me, but a number of other “past” personalities and influences from any of the three of us, and in various camouflage time frames. And what about that influence from the “future,” since Seth maintained that all is now? [...] After all, here she was, speaking in trance for a personality who told us he’d last lived on Earth in Denmark 300 years ago—even if there is no such thing as time!

And guess what: I finally understood as Jane’s symptoms began to slowly grow that her choices were her right, and stopped my innuendos that it was perfectly all right for her to be open to outside help—so why wasn’t she? [...] I don’t recall that worthy ever suggesting to my wife outright that she seek medical help, let alone insisting that she do so. Was this because Jane wouldn’t allow him to say that, even if he wanted to? As noted, at times I’d felt that that was the case. It’s easy to proclaim that we human beings live short of our potentials in those terms—for if such potentials didn’t exist, how could we sense or aspire to them? But I’m hardly being original when I insist that each life is so intensely real that it seems most difficult to truly believe that we can have it any other way—let alone have more than one! [...] Seth did offer insights, excellent ones of certain very creative depths that we more than welcomed, while all the time being quite aware, I think, that the beautiful young woman through whom he spoke—who let him speak—had her own agenda at the same time. And even though we agreed with Seth’s reincarnational material involving the three of us, and our families, still it was also intensely personal for my wife in this life that she go her own way.

In reviewing them, I’m very pleased to discover that these sessions are as fresh, as creative and perceptive, as they ever were. [...] How much do we consciously know, or think we know, about that ultimately mysterious quality within which we construct our universe, our planet, the most minute portion of each one of us, mental or physical, during each moment of our lives? That ineluctable universe within which we swim so beautifully day and night, one that, according to Seth, we also create—and all at once, no less! As Seth told us in Session 20, on January 23, 1964: “Time and space, dear friends, are both camouflage patterns, therefore the fact that the inner senses can conquer time and space is not, after all, so surprising. To the mind with its subconscious, and to the inner senses, there is no time or space....” If only we could really grasp consciously those innate qualities that we value so highly, yet take for granted! I think that my writing this introduction, then, is basically timeless behavior. [...]

Seth, very briefly and with his underlining in Session 54 on May 18, 1964: “I could not tell you in the beginning in so many words that Ruburt (Jane) is myself, because you would have leaped to the conclusion that I was Ruburt’s subconscious mind, and this is not so. [...] Ruburt is not myself now, in his present life; he is nevertheless an extension and materialization of the Seth that I was at one time. Nothing remains unchanging, personalities and entities least of all...I realize this is somewhat difficult, but...Ruburt is now the result of the Seth that I once was, for I have changed since then.”

[...] The human is not innately limited... the waking state, as I have said often, is as much a trance state as any other state. [...] All that is required is that we switch the attention... consider merely that all types of awareness are trance states... consciousness is the direction in which the self looks.

[The other director] is too much concerned with his own personal image. He does not want to be involved with anything that may fail... this is a personal concern of his. His ego is such that it makes him, in a strange manner, often prevent the sort of effects that he seeks. [...] He will always be that way.

[...] We need have no worries concerning the personality with whom I work, since there is by now some sort of a rapport that will work for us. [...] It goes without saying that all of this cannot happen overnight, but we shall begin.

I am very happy that I have been allowed to speak directly to you. There is in our material, if you will forgive my lack of humility, some hints and some specific remarks that will show the direction in which we can operate. I will be more than happy to work for our common goal when I am dealing with a personality who is not stupid, who is open-minded.

[...] Then today I opened a package that contained a book of trance material similar to Seth’s. I guess I’m supposed to say thanks and that it’s great, to the publisher and the medium. Actually, I think those two people removed their material — which talks about All That Is — too far from its human source, its everyday contact with human personality, and thus produced just another psychic book. [...]

(It came to me that what bothers me about the kind of book I opened today is their limited viewpoint. [...] There’s no questioning mind at work, no new ideas or theories — merely the familiar rehash about All That Is, love, reincarnation, and so forth. [...]

[...] (Long pause.) His food is doing him more and more good. [...] At the same time there is often that unevenness, as all portions of the body start up again, so to speak. [...]

Give us a moment … It’s your version of worrying that desired effects may not be brought into the present — that is, will not come into your close vision. When you feel that way, close your eyes, if only for a moment, reassure yourself that you can trust your vision — mental and physical — and that indeed your goals will be brought into clear focus.

It is reasonable, logical and even necessary at this time that you do not parade yourselves, giving sessions as one would put on a vaudeville act. Nevertheless when an honest request is made either to attend a session or to hold a session, and when you know that the person making such a request is sincere, and if other conditions are appropriate, then by all means it would behoove you to meet with the request.

I suggest that they follow the lines of expansion rather than contraction, in that the personality projects itself outward toward All That Is, hence drawing upon the energy of the universe, and extending the reaches of the self.

A steady program, such as I have outlined, because of its conditioning routine, will allow the personality a progressive and safe entry into psychic experience that is firm, and will also strengthen the ego in its relation to environment. This is not to suggest that the ego is weak in this case, for it is not. But its ability to relate to others on the physical plane needs strengthening, particularly since the personality is vitally concerned with psychic investigation.

[...] It is performed however in solitary and divorced, as it must be, from an intimate contact with people. It is only natural that you carry this over into our sessions, preferring that they be held without such contact. This is not only understandable but in many instances profitable, in that it allows for a diversity of subject matter.

[...] [Tom:] “My interpretation of what he said is that (1) good health is a natural part of ourselves, and so we should naturally desire it, and (2) good health in itself is not the objective at all. It is what you can do when you are in a state of good health. [...] We project ourselves ahead mentally to vocational status we are interested in, and by doing that, accomplish it. It is not the status itself that is the end. It is what we are able to do through it, that we should really be aiming at. [...]

[...] You are working toward this ideal, and the ideal is—and you will achieve it—to use all your abilities, all of your capabilities... [...] And you will add to the creativity of All That Is ... and I said that you would add to it. This is for you, for the anticipated argument that you will think of. [...]

If I could sing that beautifully, I would sing for you through our classes. [...] I simply wanted you to know that I was here and I did have a specific message that I wanted to deliver to our friend (WL) on this side. [...] I wish you all well. [...] Some evening I will keep you until two o’clock in the morning just so you can say that I have done it. [...] of that I am sure. [...]

[...] When you understand that completely and fully, you will no longer be within physical reality. But that is of little notice. [...] In any reality, you create the image that you see. And the reality that follows this one will seem as physical to you as this... [...] But you will have freedoms within it that you do not have now.... [...]

[...] [Theodore:] “My interpretation of what he said is that (1) good health is a natural part of ourselves, and so we should naturally desire it, and (2) good health in itself is not the objective at all. It is what you can do when you are in a state of good health. [...] We project ourselves ahead mentally to vocational status we are interested in, and by doing that, accomplish it. It is not the status itself that is the end. It is what we are able to do through it, that we should really be aiming at.”

[...] You are working toward this ideal, and the ideal is—and you will achieve it—to use all your abilities, all of your capabilities—and in doing this, you will help others automatically. [...] And you will add to the creativity of All That Is and I said that you would add to it. This is for you, for the anticipated argument that you will think of (to Florence). [...]

If I could sing that beautifully, I would sing for you through our classes. [...] I simply wanted you to know that I was here and I did have a specific message that I wanted to deliver to our friend (Brad) on this side. [...] I wish you all well. [...] Some evening I will keep you until two o’clock in the morning just so you can say that I have done it. But you would not bless me the following morning—of that I am sure. [...]

[...] When you understand that completely and fully, you will no longer be within physical reality. But that is of little notice. [...] In any reality, you create the image that you see. And the reality that follows this one will seem as physical to you as this—and as real. But you will have freedoms within it that you do not have now—not unless at 8 o’clock in the morning you leap from the rooftops and fly through the windows to your death. [...]

The enemy is obvious. [...] Wars are basically examples of mass suicide — embarked upon, however, with all of the battle’s paraphernalia, carried out through mass suggestion, and through the nation’s greatest resources, by men who are convinced that the universe is unsafe, that the self cannot be trusted, and that strangers are always hostile. You take it for granted that the species is aggressively combative. [...]

[...] There was no physical virus that spread through the multitude. [...] Those people succumbed to an epidemic of beliefs, to an environment [that was] closed mentally and physically. The villains consisted of the following ideas: that the world is unsafe, and growing deadly; that the species itself is tainted by a deadly intent; that the individual has no power over his or her reality; that society or social conditions exist as things in themselves, and that their purposes run directly counter to the fulfillment of the individual; and lastly, that the end justifies the means, and that the action of any kind of god is powerless in the world.

(Pause.) You have occasional epidemics that flare up, with victims left dead. Partially, these are also victims of beliefs, for you believe that the natural body is the natural prey of viruses and diseases over which you have no personal control, except as it is medically provided. In the medical profession, the overall suggestion that operates is one that emphasizes and exaggerates the body’s vulnerability, and plays down its natural healing abilities. People die when they are ready to die, for reasons that are their own. No person dies without a reason.² You are not taught that, however, so people do not recognize their own reasons for dying, and they are not taught to recognize their own reasons for living — because you are told that life itself is an accident in a cosmic game of chance.

Man is of good intent. When you see evil everywhere in man’s intent — in your own actions and those of others — then you set yourself up against your own existence, and that of your kind. You focus upon the gulf between your ideals and your experience, until the gulf is all that is real. [...]

[...] The flow of breath is obviously important, regulating the rhythm and the spacing of the words. The breath’s integrity arises directly from the proper give-and-take between cells, the functioning of the tissues; and all that is the expression of molecular competence. That competence is obviously responsible for language, but beyond that it is intimately connected with the patterns of languages themselves, the construction of syntax, and even with the figures of speech used.

[...] Direct cognition is dependent upon a lover’s kind of identification, where what is known is known. At that stage no words or even images were needed. The wind outside and the breath were felt to be one and the same, so that the wind was the earth breathing out the breath that rose from the mouths of the living, spreading out through the earth’s body. [...] A man’s consciousness, traveling with the wind, became part of all places. [...]

(11:19.) This provides you with a certain kind of communication, but it also allows a molecular expression that is natural at that level, and then used by you for your own purposes. I am not saying that molecules speak. I am saying that they are expressed through your speech, however — and that your speech represents an amplification of their existence. Through your words their reality is amplified, in the same way that man’s emotions once found amplification through the physical elements.

To some extent punctuation is sound that you do not hear, a pause that implies the presence of withheld sound. To some extent, then, language is as dependent upon the unspoken as the spoken, and the rhythm of silence as well as of sound. In that context, however, silence involves merely a pause of sound in which sound is implied but withheld. Inner sound deals primarily with that kind of relationship. Language is meaningful only because of the rhythm of the silence upon which it rides.

Because I say that you create your physical universe in the same manner and as automatically and as unself-consciously as you create with your breath a pattern of steam upon a glass pane, this does not mean that you create all that is. It merely means that you create your own physical environment. [...]

There are many times that our paths have crossed, and that is why I wanted you here, and why you happened onto the art gallery where Ruburt is employed. Not that free will is not involved, because it certainly is involved. Only that old friends have a way of meeting. [...]

Humanity’s so-called supreme blossom is the human ego, and this is at times a poisoning blossom indeed. As I have said before, there is nothing wrong with the ego. The point however remains that man became so fascinated with the conscious ego that he ignored the part of himself that made the ego possible, and ignored the part of himself that gives to the ego the very powers of which he is so consciously proud.

I am not saying that you should not believe the evidence of your senses; I am waiting for you to say that. We know that our so-called tables are not solid. [...] The table is a conglomeration of quickly-moving atoms and molecules but you see it as a table, and you see it as solid. Your senses, and again this is to bring John-Philip up to date, your senses are perceptors of a camouflage physical world which is created by the inner self through the use of mental enzymes in a pattern set by the mental genes.

That is, in his feeling of unity with All That Is, he excluded other human beings, and on your plane it is necessary for the personality to relate to its fellows. Only after such relationships are established is isolation of that nature beneficial. [...]

“I was going back to bed when my last lines suddenly reminded me that I still feel the way I did when I was a young girl; that some part of the dawn does come for me; personally; and that to some extent time didn’t exist before I was born. My birth brought a certain element into the world that wasn’t there before. [...] This happens when anyone is born, but most people don’t feel it — or don’t seem to … Together all of us on earth form time and contribute to its design and to history. This happens whenever one of us is born or dies. I guess I’ve always felt that way.

(I reminded Jane that since she belonged to no religion now [having left the Roman Catholic Church when she was 19 years old], her mystical nature would choose other avenues of expression than religious ones; as in these sessions, for instance. Perhaps, I suggested, it would turn out that one of her main endeavors would be to enlarge the boundaries of “ordinary” mystical experience itself, to show it operating outside of accepted religious frameworks. I added that within those religious boundaries, mystics across the centuries and throughout the world have given voice to the same ideas in almost the same words, and that as an “independent” mystic Jane was in a position to approach the situation from a freer; more individual standpoint: She would be able to add fresh insights to what is certainly one of the species’ all-pervasive, unifying states. [...]

Ruburt is literally a great receiver of energy. [...] He is himself. [...] He is a great mystic. Naturally, that is, a great mystic. That is reflected through his poetry as well as our specific work. So that expression would come through poetry also with its “psychedelic” experience, regardless of specific sessions….

(Pause at 9:23.) All of this is not as esoteric as it might seem. Almost every individual has had bizarre experiences with consciousness, and knows intuitively that their greater experience is not limited to physical reality. Most dreams are like animated postcards brought back from a journey that you have returned from and largely forgotten. Your consciousness is already oriented again to physical reality; the dream, an attempt to translate the deeper experience into recognizable forms. The images within the dream are also highly coded, and are signals for underlying events that are basically not decipherable.

[...] You simply are not aware of what your consciousness is doing. [...] Yet intuitively each individual knows that a part of his experience escapes from him all the time. When you suddenly cannot remember a name that you should know, you have in essence the same kind of feeling of which you are always subconsciously aware.

The purpose of the Speakers is to help you correlate and understand this multidimensional existence, and to bring as much as possible of it to your conscious attention. Only by learning to feel, or sense, or intuitively perceive the depths of your own experience can you glimpse the nature of All That Is. [...]

The Speakers help you in the formation of dreams which are indeed multidimensional artistic productions of a kind — dreams existing in more than one reality, with effects that dissect various stages of consciousness that are real, in your terms, to both the living and the dead and in which both the living and the dead may participate. It is for this reason that inspirations and revelations are so often a part of the dream condition.

[...] The day was mild and sunny and breezy, and I’d opened all of the windows for her. [...] I hadn’t asked her to do a song for this last essay; she told me afterward that she hadn’t realized I was that close to finishing it. (The whole series has taken much longer than I expected it to, though.) I only know that Jane began to sing in very melodious tones that flowed through the house. [...] “Oh, your singing is so clear and sweet!” her visiting nurse had exclaimed the other day, when my wife had begun to sing while the nurse was changing the dressings on her decubiti. And that present clarity of voice, almost free of tremor, showed how much Jane has improved since returning home. How different her singing is now from that very mournful Sumari song she’d recorded last February, a few days before going into the hospital. [...]

[...] When she read it to me I knew at once that it would go here, for a few words she certainly sang of the basic theme of these essays—of the sublime, immortal consciounesses of the earth and All That Is, of that loving redemption that consciousness always makes possible somehow, somewhere, in the eternal private world of each of us, and that each of us always seeks:

While you were
sleeping,
all the cupboards
of the earth
were filled.
Mother Earth
sought out each
need.

While you were
weeping,
your tears fell
as sweet rain
drops on small
parched hills
that rise in worlds
you cannot see,
though you are known
there.

While you were
sleeping,
Mother Earth
filled all the
cupboards of your
flesh
to overflowing.
Not one atom went
uncomforted
in worlds that
are yours,
but beyond your
knowing.

(9:30.) On the one hand, quite simply and in a way that you cannot presently understand, evil does not exist. [...] Now it has been said often that there is a god, so there must be a devil — or if there is good, there must be evil. This is like saying that because an apple has a top, it must have a bottom — but without any understanding of the fact that both are a portion of the apple. [...]

You must understand that each mental act is a reality for which you are responsible. That is what you are in this particular system of reality for. 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.

(9:40.) The hallucination is created, therefore, out of fear and of restriction. The devil idea is merely the mass projection of certain fears — mass in that it is produced by many people, but also limited in that there have always been those who rejected this principle.

(10:28.) The methods, the secret methods behind all of the religions, were meant to lead man into a realm of understanding that existed apart from the symbols and the stories, into inner realizations that would take him both within and without the physical world that he knew. There are many manuscripts still not discovered, from old monasteries particularly in Spain, that tell of underground groups within religious orders who kept these secrets alive when other monks were copying old Latin manuscripts.

These men innately understood their part in this drama, and also their position within All That Is. They were all highly clairvoyant and telepathic, given to visions and hearing of voices.

The name given was correct, though it is itself a translation. He died with a small group of men in a cave that he held as a point of refuge in the middle of a battle, killed by members of another sect. The murderers took with them certain manuscripts that they found there; but others they did not find, and these have not as yet come to light.

[...] All probabilities point in its direction, however, for the inner impetus is already forming the events.

Unless you have other questions, that is the end of the chapter.

(10:45.) Now: despite all that is going on, Ruburt’s condition is persistently improving. Issues have arisen that earlier would have represented blockages, or set him back. [...] As you know, I do not make predictions, yet he has reached a point with his beliefs, and an efficiency with some methods of implementing them, that I foresee a dramatic change for the better.

The situation made, you examine your own beliefs also, and to realize that you are generally in a state of excellent, practical health. You can appreciate that fact more than you do. [...] Despite beliefs you have that are less than advantageous, you have been in good practical health. The beliefs that you still need to change can put you in excellent, glowing health, but the body is not unresponsive, but highly responsive to your beliefs and attitudes.

You decided to take the focus point in a determination to rid yourself of the underlying causes once and for all. I realize only too well that what I say can often appear very simplistic. [...] They require a perfection that life itself never delivers. To whatever extent you place demands upon life, or others—to that extent you will cut down on your options and experience difficulties. [...]

Events that each of you might have “misinterpreted” in the past were handled quite differently. [...] You did not consider him in that light in the same way that you did before. He also saw you in a more realistic light, so that your needs could be viewed more clearly.

Ruburt is doing very well, removing the suggestions that have resulted in the symptoms, and finally beginning to trust the body, as the spring lamb trusted its body and its being. That trust is all that is required.

It is possible that such a healing can automatically give the family as a whole a new set of beliefs. [...] As probabilities go, however, the child’s experience is enough to show it that such illness can indeed vanish overnight. Now that knowledge is a part of that child’s experience, and the cure will be the great event of his life, in that it will always be in the back of his mind as he grows. [...]

Your friend then turned to other religions that still stressed the same beliefs, though in a more exotic form. To him sexual love must stand in direct opposition to spiritual love, so that his relationships with women put him in an impossible situation—and desire itself ultimately becomes a condition from which one must escape. (Dryly:) In the terms of earthly beliefs, there is but one escape from desire.

(Yesterday I finished typing up the 841st session, so now I’m all caught up on the sessions that had piled up while Jane and I worked checking the page proofs for Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, Psyche, and similar matters. [...]

(I have the simple, profound faith that anything I desire in this life can come to me from Framework 2. There are no impediments in Framework 2. Framework 2 can creatively produce everything I desire to have in Framework 1—my excellent health, painting, and writing, my excellent relationship with Jane, Jane’s own spontaneous and glowing physical flexibility and creativity, the greater and greater sales of all of her books. I knew that all of these positive goals are worked out in Framework 2, regardless of their seeming complexity, and that they can then show themselves in Framework 1. I have the simple, profound faith that everything I desire in life can come to me from the miraculous workings of Framework 2. I do not need to be concerned with details of any kind, knowing that Framework 2 possesses the infinite creative capacity to handle and produce everything I can possibly ask of it. My simple, profound faith in the creative goodness of Framework 2 is all that is necessary.)

It is important to realize that the entire body structure is involved. [...] This is being done with relative ease. [...] The reinforcement of these ideas is all that is necessary; the trust that he is on his way to complete flexibility—that is, normal flexibility. [...]

(Pause.) It will be beneficial for you to plan to move when Aspects is finished. Now he is free to work joyfully on Aspects, without the old “poisoned drive”—that is, he will be working because he wants to, and not because he feels his existence is dependent upon it.

[...] He need not try to ignore that, but should remember that this is a response of muscles being newly released. This is highly important.

[...] Now he is free to concentrate on Aspects, and with a joyful goal also in physical terms at the end. That new concentration will take his attention away from the healing process, so that it can continue unimpeded. [...]

Through exploring inner reality you are indeed in contact with All That Is. [...] You are both correct in assuming that you maintain your relative isolation. Specifically you should not now join a community of the sort that is being planned.

The self, the whole self, the entity, that is your true self, does indeed exist now. [...] It is true that in one sense you have never left this self. It is also true that in another sense you have indeed. [...]

[...] (Long pause.) For those who may seem like gods to you, killing is no crime, for there is no such thing as even the illusion of death. On one level then it is true that death, like life as you know it, is an illusion. [...]

You may of course realize its nature, and this is a step forward. The teacher who gives you the book is reading another book, and acting another part. There are some shortcomings in Zen philosophies that we shall discuss at another time. The system is basically a good one but the flaw, one in particular, is a tragic one. [...]