“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

All of your manufactured objects also originated in the realm of dreams, first obviously being conceived of mentally, and in the same way man produced his first tools. He was born with (long pause) all of those abilities—abilities by which he is now characterized—and with other abilities that in your terms still wait for development. Not that he has not used them so far, but that he has not focused upon them in what you consider the main lines of civilized continuity. Hints of those abilities are always present in the dream state, and in the arts, in the religions, and even in the sciences. They appear in politics and business, but as the largely unmanifest intuitive background, which is largely ignored. We will return to these later in the book.

They were responsible for the birth of agriculture, as well as industry, the rise and fall of nations, the “glory” that was Rome, and Rome’s destruction. (Pause.) Your present technological advances can almost be dated from the [invention of] the printing press, to Edison’s inventions, which were flashes of intuition, dream-inspired. But if what I am telling you is true, then it is obvious that when I say that your physical world originated in the world of dreams, I must mean something far different from the usual definition of dream reality. Again, I could choose another term, but I want to emphasize each person’s intimate contact with that other reality that does occur in what you think of as the state of dreaming (all very intently).

(10:31 P.M. Seth’s last remark, which I took to be rather humorous, reflected one of the reasons for Jane’s upset before the session: the conflict she feels between having just book sessions versus obtaining Seth material on at least a few of the other subjects we always have in mind. Currently these include topics like Jonestown, Iran, Frameworks 1 and 2—and one I initiated earlier this year about human reproduction, called “the community of sperm.” In a couple of essays I discussed, and asked questions about, the roles played by the 200 million to 500 million sperm that don’t make contact with the female egg at the time of conception. I also wanted to know about the deep biological communication that must go on among all of the sperm in a man’s body at any given time, and why one of the “fittest” sperm in a particular ejaculate evidently doesn’t always fertilize the egg. Seth has given some answers in a couple of sessions, and we want more. Originally I’d planned to present excerpts here from our joint material—but I see now that I have no space in which to do so.

Jane’s delivery had turned out to be excellent this evening, her manner steady and with fewer pauses than she’d used in Monday night’s session. Although she didn’t reach the peaks of soaring eloquence she’d touched upon in that last session, elements of that state were present tonight.)

1. Seth’s earliest material on EE (electromagnetic energy) units came through in September and October of 1967; in the Appendix of The Seth Material, see the excerpts Jane presented from sessions 504 through 506. Then in Chapter 20 of Seth Speaks, see Session 581 for April 14, 1971.