“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Four months ago I wrote in Note 1 for Session 885 that through a series of misunderstandings the people at Ankh-Hermes, a publishing company in Holland, had violated their contract with Prentice-Hall by issuing a condensed translation of Seth Speaks. Our editor at Prentice-Hall, Tam Mossman, insisted that Ankh-Hermes publish another, full-length edition of Jane’s book in the Dutch language. Now Tam has just forwarded to us correspondence showing that Ankh-Hermes will do this—the new publishing date for Seth Spreekt is still uncertain, however.

Tonight, Seth suggested that “portions of this session can be appended to the book,” meaning Dreams, but I found it easier to offer most of his generalized material verbatim while eliminating his information on one of my dreams.)

After discussing another dream of mine, Seth said good night at 10:11 P.M. “I felt so relaxed before the session I was like a dishrag,” Jane said with a laugh. I told her the session was excellent, and that I’ll be adding relevant parts of it to my dream notebook.)

1. Shades of the great ages given for those patriarchs in the Bible! That was my first thought when Seth told us that in ancient times certain people had “lived for several centuries.” My second thought was to cut his statement out of this record entirely, so that Jane and I wouldn’t have to contend with it at all. Jane wasn’t upset by Seth’s remark, and I could appreciate the humorous aspects of my own initial reactions—yet in all of the years he’s been giving us material, Seth has never before made a reference to what seems like impossible longevities.

I checked several Bibles, a Biblical almanac, and a Biblical dictionary. But one has only to read Chapter 5 of Genesis to learn what great ages are given to Adam and nine of his descendants up to Noah, or the time of the Flood. Did Adam really live for 930 years, or Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, for 912? (Why isn’t Eve’s age given in the Bible?) Enoch, the fifth elder listed after Seth, lived for a mere 365 years, but sired Methuselah, who at 969 years is the oldest individual recorded in the Bible. Methuselah was the father of Lamech (777 years), who was the father of Noah (950 years).

Both of us thought that the long-lived individuals postulated by Seth had existed outside of the Biblical framework, however, and in truth far earlier historically. “Seth saying that makes perfect sense to me. It doesn’t bother me,” Jane said when I asked her what she thought of Seth’s material. “You weren’t encouraged to read the Bible even in Catholic grade school,” she added. “We just didn’t deal with it that much to worry about it. I never even read it through….”

My questions about those ancient great ages led Seth to volunteer some more information in a couple of private sessions.

Seth first discussed the Speakers, and their oral traditions, in Session 558 for November 5, 1970. See the Appendix of Seth Speaks.