“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

But I note with some amusement that science absorbs such heresies by weaving them into and developing them out of current establishment thinking—concepts, say, like the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Put very simplistically, this “quantum approach” allows for the theme that each of us inhabits but one of innumerable probable or parallel worlds. Even the theory of evolution is invoked, for those other worlds are said to evolve in parallel with the one we inhabit. Yet there is no answer within quantum mechanics as to how or why one’s personal identity chooses to follow a certain probable pathway, and consciousness per se is not considered. (Some physicists, however, have implied that subatomic particles—photons—communicate with each other as they take their separate but “sympathetic” paths.) Pardon my irony here, but Seth has always dealt with the ramifications of consciousness and maintained also that we do not inhabit just one probable world, but constantly move among them by choice—and by the microsecond, if one chooses.

In our ceaseless search for answers to an unending list of personal questions, we discussed the notion that in her own way Jane has described a circle from her childhood: Her parents, Marie and Delmer, were married in Saratoga Springs, a well-known resort town in upper New York State, in 1928. They were divorced in 1931, when Jane was two years old. (Jane didn’t see her father again—he came from a broken home himself—until she was 21.) By the time Jane was three years old, her mother was having serious problems with rheumatoid arthritis. Indeed, the daughter has only one conscious memory of seeing her mother on her feet. All we have are a few photographs Del took of Marie not long after their marriage. They show a beautiful woman wearing a bathing suit, standing on a beach in Florida.

My own belief, which I’ve held for some 15 years, is that in Jane’s case at least the young girl’s psychological conditioning was far more important—far more damaging, in those terms—than any physical tendency to inherit. I think that Marie’s domineering rage at the world (chosen by her, never forget) deeply penetrated Jane’s developing psyche, and—again in those terms—caused her to set up repressive, protective inner barriers that could be activated and transformed into physical signs at any time, under certain circumstances. Out of many possibilities, the daughter’s conditioning was psychically chosen and accepted, and through that focus she meant to interact with the mother’s behavior. This, to me, is an example of the way a course of probable activity can be agreed upon by all involved.

This isn’t all, however, for experiments have now shown that the brain/mind connection can influence immunity, through stressful conditioning either enhancing its effects or subduing them. Until a very few years ago it was medical dogma that the immune system was entirely independent of any “outside” influence. But recently certain brain chemicals were discovered paired off with cellular chemical “receptors” in the immune system, and researchers expect to find many more of these associations. In physical terms, then, I think it quite possible that in Jane’s case long-term stress, beginning in her early childhood, consistently overstimulated her immune system. Over and over Marie told Jane that she was no good, that the daughter’s birth had caused the mother’s illness. Well before she was 10 years old Jane had developed persistent symptoms of colitis, an inflammation of the large intestine/bowel that is often associated with emotional stress. By her early teens she had an overactive thyroid gland. Marie—and others—told her that she would burn herself out and die before she was 20 years old. Her vision was poor; she required very strong glasses (which she seldom wore). Finally in her mid-30s there came the beginning of rheumatoid arthritis: Jane’s immune system greatly increased its attack upon her body.

A moment ago, I referred to the way all involved with my wife could agree upon a course of probable activity. There are as many possibilities—and probabilities—as one can think of. I can hardly begin to list them all here. In Framework 2, for example, Marie, pregnant with Jane, could have decided with her daughter-to-be upon certain sequences of action to be pursued during their lives. Or in Framework 2 the two of them could have cooperated upon such a decision before Marie’s birth, even. If reincarnation is to be considered, their disturbed relationship this time might reflect past connections of a different yet analogous nature, and may also have important effects upon any future ones. Additionally, Jane could have chosen the present relationship to eventually help her temper her reception of and reaction to the Seth material, making her extra-cautious; this, even though she’d seen to it ahead of time that she would be born with that certain combination of fortitude and innocence necessary for her to press on with her chosen abilities. She could have made a pact ahead of time to “borrow” certain strong mystical qualities from her maternal grandfather, who was part French Canadian and part Canadian Indian (specific tribe unknown by us), and with whom she strongly identified as a child. And Jane’s resolve, her will that, according to Seth, “is amazingly strong” (in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, see the 713th session for October 21, 1974), may buttress the understanding and determination of one or more of her counterparts in this life; she may meet (or have met) such an individual; another may live across an ocean, say, with no meeting ever to take place in physical terms.

In all of this I’ve barely hinted at the complicated relationships involving other family members from the past, present, and future. The mathematical combinations possible are vast. And what’s my role in all of this, for heaven’s sake (to make a pun)? Or that of members of my own family? What part do I play, and have yet to play, in Jane’s redemption—as well as my own—and on what level or levels? When did the two of us make our own pacts in Framework 2 (or other frameworks), and how will they work out in Framework 1? But it’s even possible that all together Marie, Jane, her grandfather, and I set up the original situation before the physical births of any of us—and in some probable reality (if not in this one) we did do just that! Words become terribly inadequate tools to express what I feel and am trying to write here, for I want to record at once every combination of relationships I can conceive of….