“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“This applies—again, generally speaking—whether or not actual book dictation is involved. Difficulties arise, however, in book dictation on those occasions when he becomes too heavy-handed and worries about the responsibility of helping to solve the world’s problems—about his or my capacities in that regard—and when he considers the possible and various objections that any given subject might activate on the part of any given group of people. So if the area becomes too sensitive we let dictation go for a while. Sometimes I insert the particular material in your private sessions first of all, so that he becomes somewhat acclimated to it.”⁶

During the first week in May, Jane received from Tam the copy-edited manuscript for If We Live Again. As she checked that book she listed several areas of her body where beneficial changes had begun to appear, as well as others that hadn’t shown any improvement. Her difficulties maneuvering in the bathroom were especially bothersome. She was both encouraged and discouraged, then—but did have more energy. I returned the poetry to our publisher on May 13.

By now it must be plain to the reader that Seth’s material on the sinful self—any sinful self, or all of them—could very well be considered the other side of his information on the magical approach to reality. I was all too aware of an uncomfortable dichotomy. Indeed, how irritating it was, I thought, that for Jane and me at least the magical self seemed to be so far removed from daily reality, while the sinful self was so close! Reaching out to the magical self could be thought of as some theoretically attainable goal—but the sinful self was right there, functioning within the most intimate areas of personal life. For how many others is the same situation true? Seth, I knew, would simply say that the magical self is just as real and close as any other self. The challenge for the individual is to know and to believe that, to clear unwanted growth from around the magical self so that it can bloom unimpeded….

Now while it seems that your world contains more and more information all the time, your particular brand of science is a relatively narrow one, in that it accepts as valid only certain specific areas of speculation. The areas outside of its boundaries become taboo, so that the realm of the unknown is no longer the material universe or the mysteries of space, but the interior universe and the mysteries of the mind as these are experienced or suspected to exist outside of those official areas. To that degree, the unknown is more feared by science than it ever was by religion.

“Outside of that context, none of those fears make any sense at all. In a large regard the church through the centuries ruled through the use of fear far more than the use of love. It was precisely in the area of artistic expression that the inspirations might quickest leap through the applied dogmatic framework. The political nature of inspirational material of any kind was well understood by the church. Ruburt well knew even as a child that such religious structures had served their time, and his poetry provided a channel through which he could express his own views as he matured.

“Each person seeks value fulfillment, and that means that they choose various lives in such a fashion that all of their abilities and capacities can be best developed, and in such a way that their world is also enriched. Some people will choose ‘defective’ bodies purposely in order to focus more intensely in other areas. They want a different kind of focus…. Such a choice demands an intensification. It is made on the part of the individual and on the parts of the parents as well….”