“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I am being maligned. I have spoken to our Lady of Florence over here many times and you could have explained to our new student what I mean. I should be quiet and let you do so. You do indeed choose your own environment and your own life circumstances. And before this life you have already set those challenges that you will meet. But you also are endowed with free will and there is no punishment except [for] those of you who choose to punish yourselves. There is no punishment in those terms. You grow in understanding, and if you kill, then it is necessary that you learn what it means to be a victim and so you become a victim if you choose. You may indeed learn what it is to be a victim in other ways. You must learn how to use the consciousness that is yourself.

You said earlier that everyone is looking to find themselves, and as our regular students should know, there is only one place to look, and you begin with yourself. All That Is is not male or female, and I am sorry to upset anyone. All That Is is indeed energy and yet all energy is individualized so you are not dealing merely with impersonal energy but neither are you dealing with a personality in the terms usually used. For you do not understand as yet what personality is, and when you understand what you are, then you will have some small glimmering of what All That Is is and basically you will find All That Is within yourselves.

You have a different form every seven years. The atoms and molecules of your body have completely changed. There is not one small vestige within your physical body at this moment that was within it eight years ago. Your forms are completely new and different, and yet I see that you carry on quite effectively and it does not seem to bother you. Look at your friend over here (Doug). It does not bother him. And so if you change your physical form without knowing it as the years go by, why should it surprise you that at one time you leave the present form that you call your own for another. For if I am speaking through the body of a woman, so have the three men here present spoken through the bodies of women when those bodies were their own, and the women spoke as men.

I do not wish to make that kind of impression upon young ladies. Now I am indeed a harmless gentleman. A gentleman without a body must be harmless, so why do I meet such fear as I always do in this class. I’m trying to make one basic point and the point is that energy and being are not sober, that the personality continues to exist, that those characteristics of mine which I considered mine, in your terms, at one time still continue to exist, and that your personality will also continue to exist. Now when I make such efforts to be jolly, then I do not understand how I can possibly frighten you. Young women always frighten me, but you do not see me quaking in terror. I hide my feeling.

(To Arnold.) (Words lost) he gets confused, but I do not get confused. He is in a trance, but I am not in a trance. You are all in trances, however, for you believe in this improbable physical existence and therefore I must couch all my language so that it makes sense to you, who believe in this fantasy in which you now live.

It is always mental and emotional. But then you do not need words either. It is always telepathic. But your own communication is telepathic. (This sentence was written in the margin of the Yale copy.) It is only you that believe you need words, otherwise I would not have to deal with them and words can be very deceiving and quite confusing. I should tell you that while I use the word telepathy we do not communicate in mental words. We do not need words, mental or otherwise. Thoughts in your terms suggest words and we do not need words. We communicate whole concepts and emotional states. Now I am having an entire chapter on that subject in my book.

He has a body a lot longer than I do. Now I am joking because I never could miss a good joke, so do not take that seriously.

I can imagine a lovely scene where bodiless individuals, spiritual psychologists and I, sit in a dark room all dressed in gowns at another level of reality, and they ask me what is wrong with me and I say—I am obsessed. I have it in my head that there is a physical reality somewhere where objects have shape and form—where there are things like trees and people and streetcars and a strange thing called progress. And where people believe in things like ghosts and demons all on the same line, seeing little difference between them and I imagine in my most schizoid (Doug—“that’s what I said”) moments that there is a woman called Jane Butts in a strange, funny little town in a completely fantastic place called Elmira, New York. And I have the delusion that I speak through this woman and look out through her eyes at the most fantastic creatures imaginable.

What you do not realize is that in other ways that you may not understand I am also graded on your progress and I am not doing very well on you. It is well known that these classes are held.

I am graded by someone else. You have not attended any classes so you do not have the background to understand this. Our friend over here will know who grades me.

You have already tuned in—whether or not you realize it. Some of you may wish to have the sort of relationship that Ruburt and I have. Some of you may not wish for this. I am a teacher, Ruburt is a teacher and so we get along very well.

You all do indeed, at a lower development than your own. I would make a remark here but I shall not to show you that I am pure of heart, invisible heart or otherwise.

([Gert:] “Seth, would you answer me? I am supposed to be a teacher and I have felt a conflict since I have read Ruburt’s book and I have delved into Christian Science.”)

([Gert:] “Then I am bound not to teach it. Is that true?”)

(Words lost) you experience—as you listen to my melodious tones and look upon my godly countenance, it is not myself. As I have explained in my book, but also in the Seth material to date, there is a psychological bridge that is constructed not only in this situation but in any like legitimate situation. What you see, therefore, is a representation of what I am. I am not Ruburt. I am myself. In your terms, however, and strictly in your terms, I could seem to be a future Ruburt, and if you were in connection with other more eternal portions of your own personality that you could not materialize in physical terms. This does not mean, however, that the person would not be entirely independent and have an existence completely divorced from your own.

I am still here. I am just not speaking or at least I was not.