“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now—dictation.

At one time, then, you were more open in a fashion to the kinds of consciousness that you admitted into your circle of reality. At one time, in those terms, you did not draw the lines as finely as you do now. Instead you included such cousins of consciousness into your midst, accepting a kind of comradeship—for to some extent at least you could see the different versions of humanity that resulted from a change of focus, an adjacent affiliation of humanized energy with the environment. Quite simply, you felt that in certain terms you had other brothers and sisters in the world that were like you but unlike you, that put together the contents of the universe in their own fashions. Such species, of course, can nowhere appear within the dictates of evolution or be perceived as realities except under those conditions when you relax your usual conventions of perception and behavior.

(10:18.) Nevertheless, encounters between you occur frequently—in the dream state as stated, in alterations of your usual focus, and in your arts, where you are less arbitrary in your definitions. As you began to bring your own physical reality into harder, clearer focus, you stopped with your own view of human consciousness, shutting off completely and rather arbitrarily those other elements in order to more clearly frame and define the boundaries of physical order. It seems to you now that such personalities (long pause) are not physically perceivable, but at one time you could bring them into the range of your perception.

You ended your classifications where you did, however, preferring to see man as the king of intelligence. This meant that you abruptly drew the line where it now seems it must have been drawn. You continued that companionship, however, at other levels of activity, levels that are still open and that must be taken into consideration whenever we approach any discussion of dreaming and the dreaming world (intently.

(10:27.) End of dictation. Now give us a moment. Rest your fingers….

I see that expanse of time (that four years and five months), as being really an emotional bridge between Jane’s poem in Note 6 for the 936th session and the two she wrote in March 1977. All three are entirely consistent not only with her beliefs and emotions, but with my own. For I feel now, in connection with the two “new” poems, the same profound sensations I had concerning Jane’s challenges when I wrote in Note 6: “Perhaps it was her poetic art of expression that helped me identify so strongly with her emotions, but I suddenly felt that even I had never really understood the myriad depths of her challenges and her reactions to them.” All three poems, then, are of a piece, in which she explores across time and emotion different facets of a common set of beliefs about friendly psychic colleagues and feelings of safety.

Now, however, I took another small step and understood that if the three poems reflect deep fears Jane has, revolving around her abilities, they’re also united by her determination to press on with those gifts. Her “undeviating direction,” expressed in Poem One below, is directly related to the material about her that I quoted from Seth in Note 6 for Session 931, in Chapter 9 of Dreams: “Nothing, however, would have kept him at the sessions for this amount of time unless he wanted them.” (The session I cited had been held in February 1980, when Jane had been speaking for Seth for more than 17 years.)

So now it’s time to say— / “It’s all right,” /
and pick up the / magic bone / to try / its strange new /
nourishment. / I’ve prowled around it / for too long /
in circles; sniffing; / and I never did / say thanks.

That was years ago. / Now I’m shivering, tired, /
tied out alone in the / black wind. / I keep tugging /
at the leash that isn’t there / but seems so real.