“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Seth had given instructions on relating to our past and present selves. After a pause, Janice Simmonds said, in a tiny choked voice, “I don’t belong here. I want to go home.” She looked over at Phil Levine and said, “What did you do to me?” and she started to cry.

(Jane told Phil that Janice had been his wife in Persia about ten centuries ago. Janice cried again, “Why did you do it? Why did you leave me?”

(Jane said, “It’s all right, Janice,” and then said to Phil, “There was a baby. I don’t want to do this for you, see. I want you to do it, just comfort her and don’t worry about it.”

(Phil went over to Janice and they embraced, “I won’t leave you again; I want to stay this time,” Phil said. Finally, Phil sat down. Someone remarked that he was getting it with both barrels tonight. He and Janice talked about how they had each felt something in common with the other when Phil first came to class. Janice said she had distrusted Phil at first but felt better about it now.

(Suddenly, Jane said to Phil, “Tell her about the journey you took, Phil, the journey!” Phil looked confused.

(Phil said, “I don’t think I can tell her.”

(Phil hesitated and said, “I think I wanted to go off with someone else, but I didn’t want to leave you and I couldn’t tell you,” and stopped awkwardly. Janice started to cry again.

(“I want to come back to you now,” Phil said to Janice.

(Garbled conversation here. Phil and Janice say something about accepting each other as they are now.

(“This goddess was the goddess of fertility...and you were from a province in Persia ...You were both poor ...Province was called Sepharthein in the southwest portion of Persia... It was a national holiday, sacrificial day ...something that we would translate into atonement but that wasn’t the word at all ...where children were sacrificed, so that the earth would grow ... You [Phil], that’s why you hit her [Janice] so strongly. You looked something like you do now, only your build was scrawnier. You lived in a mud-type hut ... You had other wives afterwards ...I’m trying to get something you can check, but it’s so long ago you can’t ...but the emotion is fantastic. She didn’t want you to take the baby, and you just took it. And this was supposed to make you wealthy. If you gave the baby it was supposed to make you really wealthy. It was supposed to do all kinds of fantastic things; and it didn’t, it didn’t, it didn’t! ...And you didn’t have the guts to go back ...and you wandered, and you wandered alone, because you didn’t have the guts to go back. And all you had was a cut—a wound in your left thigh. You were kicked by the mob, because after you threw in your baby boy, nobody gave a damn. It was just this fantastic mob ...and those kids were cooked...and it was all in the name of religion and in the name of all this stuff except that out of it you hoped to get wealth ...and all she [Janice] had was a woman’s common love for the child. She tried to hold it, and it meant nothing. Shortly after, an army came down, of stragglers, in that area; and they were hungry ... They were stragglers from another country and they didn’t have any food and they were disbanded.. And they burned everything they saw and took what they could take and that’s what they did... and you [Phil] never knew, never went back, and you’re meeting Pete K. now ...and I’m trying like hell to cut the emotion part out ‘cause I don’t want to get into...” [Jane stops here.]

(We had been discussing Gert and Phil’s recollections.)