“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane described her feelings and experiences at her father-in-law’s funeral. Theodore M. told of his experiences in the Great Hall and Joel related his experiences with his personality, Bill. The question was raised, where is consciousness when one is in trance?)

Now no one asked me what it was like when I go in trance. Now to go into a trance is simply to focus intensely in a highly specific area of reality and, therefore, I throw or project a part of what I am here because I am able to utilize greater areas of my personality than those with which you are now acquainted in yourself. I can do this in a conscious manner and yet still, as I am here and as I have mentioned, I find a difficulty in looking at you and relating to the selves that you think you are within your given moment of time for I see the composites, so it takes some training on my part to pinpoint you in the time and space with which you are acquainted.

(After break, Seth responded to a question that was not recorded.) It means this particular personality, otherwise you lose all aspects of free will. You, as you know yourselves, only accept those suggestions and ideas and concepts and hangups that suit your purposes at this time. You are not, therefore, at the mercy of any neuroses from a past life any more than you are at the mercy of any neuroses from this life. There are no fears from your present life that you cannot escape and conquer. I have not said that you will necessarily escape and conquer them, but it is within your ability to do so. The decision is your own according to your understanding as the individual personality. You cannot be hounded from one level of reality to another by a fear that you do not understand. You cannot be threatened in this life by fears from your early childhood in this life or by so-called past existences unless you believe so thoroughly in the nature of fear that you allow yourselves to be conquered by fear. Each of your personalities are free to develop, to accept, from the miraculous bank of reality those experiences and emotions that you want and to reject those that you do not want.

([Florence:] “Do we make instantaneous decisions? For example, I was thinking of the Los Angeles earthquake, one man walked out into the street and was killed by a brick. What made this one person in the entire building walk out?”)

This particular individual was quite aware of what would occur, on what you would call an unconscious basis. He was not predestined to die. He chose both the time, in your terms, and the method for reasons of his own.

([Florence:] “Regardless of who chose, it was destined that he die.”)

It was not predestined, he chose. No one chose for him.

([Florence:] “Before he was killed.”)

He knew in his mind that he was ready to go on to other spheres of activity. Subconsciously, or unconsciously then, he looked about for the means and chose those immediately available. This particular individual, three days earlier, had made the plan. There was no predestination involved. Because a tree branch falls this does not mean that it was destined to fall in either the particular manner of its fall nor in the timing of the fall. There is a great difference between free choice and predestination.

([Joel:] “Didn’t you say earlier, referring to the woman who was born in a minority race, that her challenges had been set up by a previous personality in our terms?”)

([Joel:] “I wondered if a previous personality had accomplished this or if when that personality went back and became apart of the whole self and this period of reevaluation, if that’s when the decision was made?”)

([Daniel:] “What recourse would the poor individual who was born handicapped have with all of these other seemingly insurmountable difficulties? What recourse would that individual have were he consciously, at the ego level, to say, I just don’t want any of this, I would much preferred to have been born aristocratic?”)