“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause.) The sessions on magical approach do indeed represent the most “natural truths” about the nature and structure of your world, to the extent that you understand them and put them into practice.

My own role in the physical production of Dreams is far from over, however. In notes at the end of this session I’ll briefly consider the latest expressions of large-scale consciousnesses concerning Three Mile Island¹ and the countries of the Middle East,² and then will unify those discussions by explaining how I think those great events of consciousness have counterpart relationships, just as “living” entities do.³ I’ll also refer to our country’s space-shuttle program.⁴ Next, I have to put into final form the complicated notes I began for a number of sessions for Dreams as Jane delivered them. After that will come the job of typing the finished manuscript for this massive two-volume work; I do not know when I’ll have it ready for our publisher. And therein lies another reason for our somber moods: Our dear friend and editor, Tam Mossman, almost certainly will not see Dreams through the publishing process. Tam has grown restless; he needs a change; he plans to leave Prentice-Hall.⁵

In Note 1 for Session 939, in this Chapter 12, I quoted myself as telling Jane last December 1 that she hadn’t walked for “two weeks over a year now, I think it is. Not even with your typing table.” In the opening notes for that session, I quoted her as writing on December 7: “I do feel a blockage of expression; my ass hurts typing—a sweet soreness of joints I sit on that brings tears briefly; yet it is a stretching sensation.” At the finish of Dreams, her span without walking has increased to 14 months and 22 days. She is still uncomfortable sitting—more so, even, and I fear that her flesh will break down from the constant pressure; I’ve seen what I interpret as signs of that happening.

Jane hasn’t contacted a doctor. Her hearing and handwriting remain impaired. Her voice tremor and slowdown remain mild and intermittent; she’s done well during sessions. And as I write these closing notes I remind myself once again, as I often do, of those promises we made each other when we married in 1954—“that neither one of us would interfere with the other’s creative approach to life, no matter what resulted from the actions we individually chose…. Yet as the years passed I still had to learn the obvious—that Jane’s creative powers are inextricably a part of her whole approach to life, including her symptoms. How could it be otherwise?”⁶

What, then, are those “ideal developments” Jane and I are growing toward? Questions like that must intrigue Seth even more than they do us; his dealings with us—but especially with Jane, of course—are as much learning experiences for him as they are for us. After all, here he is, engaged in a “lifelong” process with my wife, and just as dependent upon what he can get through her psyche, as she is upon what she can get from him and then let through to me and to others! What storms of consciousness, as well as peaceful reaches, must Seth travel through in order to help her even as much as he does’? As far as he’s concerned those storms and reaches aren’t physical, but instead consist of intensities of feeling—as they do for us too, basically.

Although Jane has had intimations from Seth in the hospital, she hasn’t spoken for him, and I do not know whether she will or not.

1. In Chapter 10 see Note 1 for Session 933, which Jane held six months ago. I described asking her if Seth could give us some information on the consciousness connected with nuclear energy. She promised me that he would discuss it soon—but we have yet to receive any such commentary. This is as much my fault as hers; I let the question get away from me amid our day-to-day activities. Now that Dreams is finished, we’ll probably not get the information for use in this book. (However, I do have a few related remarks of my own to offer in Note 3 to come.)

Yet from the very day of the accident, this question has existed along with each step of the cleanup process, and will continue to do so: What to do with Three Mile Island, that enormously complicated human creation that now has its own consciousness, and that has in its own way exerted the force of that consciousness throughout our civilized world? To dismantle TMI seemingly would solve the “problem”—but only partially, for once born its consciousness will (like all others) continue to live. I repeat, however, that in this country no public citizen has been either seriously injured or killed in an accident at a commercial nuclear facility (as have a few workers).

Just as the native mujahedin—resistance fighters—of Afghanistan consider it their religious duty to battle the Russian invaders (even while thousands of their countrymen take refuge in Pakistan to the east and in Iran to the west), so do the Iranian fundamentalists think it their religious duty to export their revolution until an Islamic empire extends from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.

The mixing of consciousnesses in the Middle East, then, ultimately revolves around the great overall clash of ideologies between the United States and Russia. At the same time, Iran’s mullahs want a continuing war with Iraq to help consolidate their total power; they do not want victorious, high-ranking military leaders back home from the front to challenge their undisputed power (as internal resistance groups like the Mujahedin-e Khalq are doing). Iran has become a totalitarian religious theocracy. I wrote in Note 3 for Session 936, in Chapter 11, that despite their egoistic orientations, ultimately Iranians bow to the ancient power of their religion, including the demands of martyrdom. They continue their revolution even with their shortsighted military and economic policies, the war, the assassinations of scores of their leaders, and their country’s isolation by the free world. They export terrorism with a vengeance. They hate both the East and the West. With equal fervor they demand the downfall of the United States, France, Russia, Israel, and Iraq, among other nations. And for their grimly creative focus of revolutionary consciousness they unabashedly take full credit.

As I finish this note—and Dreams—I believe it quite safe to predict that whenever this book is published the reader will find that the general situation in the Middle East is essentially the same: The consciousnesses of the countries involved, then, will continue to resist all outside overtures to “sanity” that do not help perpetuate the exploration of their long-term goals. In the Middle East (as anywhere else on our planet) there’s plenty of “time” for peace later! There are endless variations of peace to be ultimately explored, to be held in delicious abeyance, to be savored by each consciousness there, no matter how great or small, like the knowledge of a fine wine or a rich dessert still to come….

According to Seth, and Jane’s and my own experiences, each individual is a member of a group of “counterparts”—each is psychically connected to other men and women alive on earth now, in various countries, who are exploring related lifetime themes in ways that no individual could ever do. Counterparts may or may not meet, yet all share intuitive connections. Although Seth hasn’t gone into the idea yet, I believe that events have counterparts also, just as does any “living” organism, whether human or not. The counterpart notion is Seth’s timeless version of his concept of consecutive incarnations. (And yes, I think that events have reincarnational histories also, but in this note I’m confining myself to the counterpart thesis.)

Moreover, I believe that counterpart relationships do exist between wars and nuclear energy. (Such associations also apply to large geological and geographical events, for example, and I wish I had the time and space to go into those!) But if Jane and I, say, as counterparts are exploring certain long-range connections through our own adventures in consciousness, then the consciousnesses of related major events must have much greater abilities and desires for fulfillment. Consider the following group of events as seen through a narrow window of ordinary time; consider the moral, economic, and diplomatic impact they have had—and are still having—upon our own national interests (let alone the interests of other nations). These events must interact with each other on many levels: The revolution in Iran came to a head with a change of leadership in February 1979, after a ruler long favorable to the United States had been deposed; the accident at TMI took place in March 1979; the American hostages were taken in Iran in November 1979; Russia invaded Afghanistan at Christmastime 1979; and less than 10 months later Iraq invaded Iran. This list can either be expanded almost indefinitely, or compressed—but, I think, these events and states of being all are psychically related. Many fascinating connections could be traced out.

Man’s focus is equally limited in perception theory, which is a deadly psychological game played by the United States and Russia. It’s deadly because nuclear weapons are involved. Perception theory rests upon the assumptions of large groups of people in the two countries, including many of their leaders, and by the political rulers of many other nations, that it is vital for the United States and Russia to possess numerically balanced arsenals of nuclear weapons. Both countries passed the point of potential overkill years ago, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter in perception theory is that whenever one side is seen as pulling ahead in the arms race, the other must match that progress, then do better, even though militarily it’s quite unnecessary. Indeed, military leaders in the United States, and evidently in Russia, concur in playing out the illusion of perception theory for their own psychological and political purposes.

I don’t mean at all to put down everything we’ve created in our world, and to proclaim that Seth’s concept of All That Is is the magical solution that mankind has been searching for throughout his existence. I do mean to relate the self-created elements of our interior and exterior, individual and mass worlds to a larger whole of consciousness. It’s inevitable that we’ll grow. How we’ll grow is the question!

I do think that through her mystical understanding and interpretation of our probable reality, Jane has indeed offered much to us, and that she will continue to do so. We’ll have to resolve our great challenges through voluntary group and international efforts, though. No one nation or entity can impose its way of consciousness upon the rest, without violating the very concepts it’s trying to espouse for one and all.