“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Late last week Tam Mossman called Jane to tell her that he’s begun work on her contract for the publication of If We Live Again. I wrote Tam this morning, asking questions about what long-range plans Prentice-Hall may have for the 15 books Jane and I have sold to the company. [That total includes Mass Events, God of Jane, and the poetry book, all of which are yet to be issued.] In the private session for September 22—one of his series on the magical approach to life—Seth had told us that our work is “protected.” I’ve been curious about that statement ever since, and mentioned it to Jane today in connection with my letter to Tam.

(9:30.) Helper represents the part that possesses such knowledge. In practical terms, it is very important to understand that such knowledge and protection do exist, that all of your problems need not be solved through conscious reasoning alone—and, indeed, few problems can be solved exclusively (underlined) in that fashion.

(9:40.) That k-n-o-w-e-r (spelled) is instantly aware of all your needs, and is the portion of the universe that is personally disposed in your direction, because its energies form your own person. That protection always couches your existence. It means that you live “in a state of grace.”³ You can be unaware of that state. You can deny it or refuse it, but you are within it regardless. It forms the very fabric of your individual beings. Value fulfillment means that each individual, each entity, of whatever nature, spontaneously, automatically seeks those conditions that are suited to its own fulfillment, and to the fulfillment of others.

When you realize this, then you can accept seeming setbacks, or seeming contradictions, with a calm detached air, realizing that such factors appear as they do only in the light of your present intellectual knowledge—a knowledge that must be limited to current events—and that in the larger picture known to you at other levels, such seeming contradictions, or seemingly unfortunate situations, or whatever, will be seen to be to your advantage. You do not have all the facts, you see, at that intellectual level, so if you base all of your judgments—all of your judgments—at that level alone, then you can be quite shortsighted.

(9:50. I was surprised that Seth suggested a break—a rarity in the sessions these days. Then Jane said that she had called for the break because she was out of cigarettes. She was giving the session while sitting in her wheeled office chair. At that time of night she wasn’t about to use her typing table as a support while she “walked” from the living room, where we were having the session, around the room divider and out into the kitchen to get her smokes; instead she remained in her chair and maneuvered herself along with her feet. I told her the session is excellent. “I see it led to something after all,” she called out.

All of our discourses were related to tonight’s material, if only intuitively. Jane got herself back into position across the coffee table from me while I described what I’d learned lately about Cro-Magnon man, who had lived in Europe some 35,000 years ago. The Cro-Magnon are of the same species, Homo sapiens, as modern man. They displayed an exquisite artistry in their toolmaking, painting, and religion—indeed, in their whole culutre. Next we talked about early man in Palestine, before 3000 B.C.

Memory was so perfected that men at one time were indeed living histories, and carried within their minds their genealogies and backgrounds and the knowledge of their peoples, which were then passed on to their children. It is true that reading and writing have certain advantages over such procedures, but it is also true that knowledge possessed in that old fashion became a part of a man, and a society, in a much more personal, meaningful manner. It was, of course, a different kind of knowing. At its best it did not lead to rote renditions of remembered material, but to dramatic renderings of it through music, poetry, dancing. In other words, its rendition was accompanied by creative physical expression. It is true that, practically speaking, a man’s mind, or a woman’s, could not hold all of the information available now in your world—but much of that information does not deal with basic knowledge about the universe or man’s place within it. It is a kind of secondary information—interesting, but not life-giving.

You will end up with, if all goes well, a kind of “new” illuminated consciousness, an intellect who realizes that the source of its own light is not itself, but comes from the spontaneous power that provides the fuel for its thoughts.

I told her the material is fascinating in its implications. It’s an excellent point, I said, that in her ability to tap into a seemingly endless amount of Seth material, she strikes a parallel with early man and his capacity to carry all personal, cultural, and historical information within himself. As early man functioned on his own, without writing or any of the other modern conveniences of communication that we have, so does Jane function through Seth. I speculated about what reincarnational connections might exist involving Jane and ancient men and women. Seth has never discussed the subject, nor have we asked him to. His potential for oral history appears to be unlimited.