“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Association or no, physically you will remember events in time, with present moments neatly following past ones. The psyche deals largely with associative processes, however, as it organizes events through association. Time as such has little meaning in that framework. Associations are tied together, so to speak, by emotional experience. In a large manner, the emotions defy time.

ASSOCIATION, THE EMOTIONS, AND A DIFFERENT FRAME OF REFERENCE

(With humorous emphasis:) Chapter Three: “Association, the Emotions, and a Different Frame of Reference.” That is the heading.

Associations are highly personal, bringing together in thought and in dreams highly individualistic constructs in which actual events and fantasized ones come together. In Framework 2 those freer associative patterns are everywhere potent. The associative processes of the world, with their literally infinite capacities for creative constructs, are there available. [...] The organization of Framework 2 is then highly associative.

If you try to get a feeling for the vast sweep apparent in your own private associative processes, you might perhaps gain a slight glimpse of the interworkings that occur when those associations mix and merge with the associations of other individuals. The potential for the creation of events is so staggering in number and yet out of those highly personal charged associations spring the specific concrete events of experience.

The connections among such associations cannot be followed from the standpoint of intellectual logic, for those associations are first of all emotional. [...] In deeper terms, however, an apple might be associated with a cellar, a kitchen, a still life, a death, a birth, or with a million other items or events, according to a given individual’s own chain of associations.

[...] Your associative processes and habits are perhaps the closest examples that can give clues of how significances operate. Even then, however, associations deal with the passage of time, and basically significances do not. You might think of your Aunt Sarah, for example, and in a few moments the associative process might bring you images of periods in the past when you visited your aunt, of her friends and neighbors, the articles in her house, and episodes connected with your relationship.

[...] If on the other hand any opposing associations existed anywhere along the line, the “chain” of association could be broken. [...] Because of the time element, it seems to you that the first episode caused the others, and that your first association concerning your aunt brought about the “following” events.

[...] But let us forget that term for a moment and consider association, with which you are already familiar, since your stream of consciousness operates in that fashion. [...]

Then when we are successful there is a divergence from his associations so that he says the correct word, even though the correct word, for him personally, would be the wrong word as far as his personal associations are concerned.

The trick is to allow Ruburt’s associations free reign to a certain point, and then expertly insert the correct data. [...] Ruburt’s associations may go for example from C, D, E, and F, but precisely where he would say G, we must insert X or Y, and do it so smoothly that he is quite unaware.

He consents for me, he consents to let me use his associations in such a manner. Nevertheless there is a small sense of alienation when the associations do not follow through, but are diverted to the desired end.

(9:20.) First of all, these other organizations do not deal primarily with time at all, but with the emotions and associative processes. When you understand how your own associations work, then you will be in a much better position to interpret your own dreams, for example, and finally to make an art of them.

The next time you find yourself in the middle of a like experience, with associations flowing freely, then become more aware of what you are doing. [...]

[...] That order will be determined by emotional associations — the same kind followed by the dreaming self.

(No session was held today, April 21, 1984, but we did do some free associating, so I’ll present a summary of that material here, and follow it with a session and more free association whenever they come through.

[...] Jane had read the free-association material for yesterday; she got through it okay, but had to struggle a bit. [...]

The following material is for Ruburt, and can be used as material for free association. [...]

There are of course peculiar sets of associations that have been collected in this existence only, but even among associations that seem to be from this existence there are those associations, usually key associations, from previous existences which merge with those of the present.

The topmost layer of the subconscious contains predominantly present associations, but in these are mixed and interwoven associations which have their origin elsewhere. These may be called self-unifying associations, since merely by their presence in the uppermost layers of the subconscious they provide a unifying sense of psychic continuity; of which however the ego is not aware.

What psychologists speak of as association is definitely an important psychological characteristic. What psychologists do not understand, however, is that in deep levels of subconscious activity associations may spring from the inner self’s latent knowledge and experience of past lives.

They also underestimate dream events, for many associations in your present are the result of events which have occurred in the dream state. [...] It continues to use its associative processes. Therefore any given personal association may originate from a dream event as well as from a past waking event.

For one thing, association is not clearly understood by any means. It cannot be clearly understood simply because at present psychologists believe that association works only in connection with past events.

[...] It is true that the mind works on associative principles. Therefore these associations are drawn not only from the past, but also from the future.

(Here is a summary of our free-association material for Monday afternoon, May 7, 1984:

(This is a summary of our free-association material for Tuesday, May 8, 1984 — Jane’s 55th birthday:

(May 9: Jane read the free-association material for the two previous days, and did quite well indeed. [...]

[...] This new wedding, we think, freshens the D’Andreano association. We think there is also another association involving this data—the fact that the two Dicks were involved—Dick in the backyard, and my own brother Dick in Rochester.

[...] An old unpleasant association. [...]

[...] The girl reminded you, through some association, with Emma Martin of that time.

(Here’s a summary of the free association material we discussed on Sunday afternoon, April 29:

(We tried more free association on the afternoon of April 30:

[...] She thought the loss of voice volume was due to free-association material. [...]

I will interrupt whenever I can be of benefit — and I will also provide sometimes short but pithy session material (with humor) that can be used sometimes as subject matter for free association. You can begin of course by free associating with any appropriate subject — his mother, his father, your relationship, your individual or joint sexual feelings, his ideas about his psychic material, his writing, or whatever — and I will also provide guidelines.

I suggest you start with a kind of free association on Ruburt’s part. [...]

[...] The free association approach Seth suggests will be something different for us to try. [...]

I cannot emphasize too strongly the breakup of associations that will result. [...] Otherwise you could have lingering, though far minor ones, while these habitual objects lost their associative powers, you see.

[...] I told you why he had them this evening, but then they become associated with certain objects and surroundings, which serve as an automatic perpetuation, you see, in varying degrees.

Simple alterations in the objects can therefore result in a quite real change of pattern, psychic pattern, to disrupt the association. [...]

[...] This is some of the free-association material we discussed on May 1.

[...] This was all part of our free-association material today, May 2. She vehemently expressed her feelings, with tears, that if she wanted privacy, being in the hospital wasn’t the way to get it. [...]

The free association is indeed then operating as it should, and that expression will clear the mental and emotional roads, so that Ruburt’s natural, innate high spirits can begin to show their faces again. [...]

The symptoms are released in blocks, as blocks of inner associations, negative associations, drop away and are cleared, you see. [...]

Symptoms, then, disappear in blocks and groups, for they represent inner groupings of negative associations. [...]

[...] triggered a set of associations for me, but they proved to have their complications. [...]

[...] [If the indexes listed everything in detail, they’d end up being almost as long as the sessions themselves.] The search was worth it, though; now I had the key phrase I’d associated with Seth’s remark in Session 708. [...]

The gas station association, while not particularly helpful for your purposes, was in some ways legitimate. [...] The gasoline station was Ruburt’s personal association derived from this, subconsciously.

[...] This was too broad an association for your purposes, but legitimate, and it should give you some idea of how these things work. For often quite legitimate associations such as these must be bypassed for more specific data. [...]

[...] Jane said she thought the association between these two episodes was legitimate.

On the other hand your intuitions follow a different kind of organization, as does your imagination — one involved with associations, an organization that unifies diverse elements and brings even known events together in a kind of unity that is often innocent of the limitations dictated by cause and effect. In those terms, then, Framework 2 deals with associations, so that within it the recognizable events of the physical world can be put together in an infinite number of ways, after which they appear in your private experience according to directions you have given them through those associations that you form mentally.

[...] As a result you deal with methods of division and categorization so completely that you lose sight of associative organizations, even though you use them constantly in your own most intimate thought processes.

[...] Earlier this evening I spoke of association as often operating outside of time sequences. [...]

[...] Ruburt’s feather is an aid because of its associative value. [...]

Association is not clearly understood, because psychologists, at present, believe that it works only in connection with past events. They also underestimate dream events, for many associations are the result of events that happen in the dream state … where the mind continues its associative processes.

Any given personal association may originate from a dream event, as well as from a past waking one. [...] There is room in it for a rather complete explanation of the mind’s associative processes. [...] Therefore, it draws its associations not only from your present and past but also from your future.

The ego, as a rule, is not aware of this broader time experience, but the subconscious often is; and associative processes of the mind can and do react to the future. [...] The associative processes work both forward and backward.