“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

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.