“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The regularly scheduled book session for last night was not held. We sat for it as usual, but became involved watching the last episode of a television mini-series about events growing out of the Watergate break-in.² While we followed the drama, Jane reported to me a steady flow of comments about it from Seth. More often than not he was quite amused as he gave them to her. She also picked up from him the heading of Chapter 8 for Mass Events: “Men, Molecules, Power, and Free Will.” We decided to reschedule the session for this evening.

(After supper tonight, however, Jane chose not to have the session because she felt so free and relaxed. Then a bit later she spontaneously announced she’d hold it after all — early, even. “I don’t know how long I can hold out, though,” she said. “I’m getting great bursts of stuff from Seth about all kinds of things….” She described some of them to me, but I didn’t have time to write them down and couldn’t retain them. She laughed. She was very relaxed. Yet she launched into the session as easily as ever; I had to write fast to keep up with her delivery.)

(I sat working on my notes for the beginning of the session while Jane left the room. When she returned, she said she had things to tell me. “I think it started with Seth, but then I went into another altered state of my own, like the time I got that dream material at the kitchen table — when was that, last March?” [See the 844th session for April 1.]

(Jane began to dictate what she’d just received. This certainly wasn’t Seth coming through. Her voice was rather conversational, yet at the same time it was deliberate in a way quite different from her usual manner of speaking. I began to write at 9:47:

(Jane said: “That’s it as far as I got it. But the idea that each person tries to actualize the idealized good as much as they can through their daily lives — their work, social structures, and so forth — and in the meantime use certain criteria that will help them judge for themselves whether or not their actions are really in line with their ideals. The criteria are actually the ones given in the chapter. That’s all. A whole lot of it was coming to me. I don’t even know if it’s right.

Beneath all of the frustrations and upsets we may feel at their surface manifestations, Jane and I are caught up in the deeper meanings of events like those at Jonestown and TMI, for they represent great challenges that our species has set for itself, through this century and beyond. Science and religion must ultimately be reconciled if we are to progress. These challenges aren’t just national, of course, but worldwide: The scientific rationale embodied in TMI runs headlong into the western world’s reliance upon energy supplies — mainly oil — from nations that are largely religiously oriented, and that profess all kinds of antipathy for social orders other than their own. In our lifetimes Jane and I look forward to our species at least making a start at grappling with such large areas of its own activity as science and religion. We must come to terms with those challenges we’ve created — and are creating.