“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane and I decided to remain behind when, finally, last minute requests to evacuate our section of Elmira were made before dawn. Our decision, of course, contained deeply symbolic meanings for us that we still only partially understand. The Chemung River passes less than a block from our apartment house on its way through the center of the city, but since we lived on the second floor we thought we’d be secure. The house was solid, we decided. The neighborhood emptied itself except for us, and became extremely quiet.

(The water, thick with topsoil, exuding a near-suffocating odor of petroleum effluents, became one foot deep in the yard, then three, then five…. Jane and I found ourselves experiencing a drastic new world, and although Seth hasn’t said so yet, I believe that to be one of the reasons we stayed. We sipped wine and used light self-hypnosis to take the edge off our tension, but as we watched the water crawl up the side of the old red-brick house next door, our new reality threatened to turn into a terrifying one indeed. Had we made the right decision?

(By now escape was probably impossible. I suggested that Jane “tune in” psychically to see what she could learn about our situation. “It’s hard to be calm when you’re really scared,” she said, but began to compose herself. Gradually she attained a very relaxed state. She told me that the water would reach its highest level late that afternoon; incredibly, it would become almost ten feet deep in the yard and reach halfway up the first-floor windows of the house next to ours. We would be safe as long as we stayed where we were. Jane sounded awed, though, when she said that the Walnut Street Bridge would “go.” I was awed too, since the old steel bridge crossed the Chemung River less than half a block from us. We couldn’t see it because of the houses across the street.

(We were lucky compared to many others in the city. We’d lost our car, but we had a place to live and had all of our paintings, manuscripts and records, including the fifty-three volumes of the Seth material, intact. Since we occupy two apartments in order to have enough living and working space, we had room to take in a couple who had been flooded out. The weather was cold and rainy. Our days became a routine of actions devoted to survival, although Jane finished Oversoul 7 early in July, and resumed her classes. This book was put aside for a long time.

Even the duration of an event or object in space or time is determined by the intensity of the thoughts or emotions that gave it birth. Duration in space is not the same as duration in time, however, though it may seem that this is the case. I am speaking in your terms now. An event or object that exists briefly in space may have a much greater duration in time. It may have far greater importance and intensity, existing in your memory, for example, long after it has disappeared in space. Such an event or object does not merely exist symbolically within your mind or memory — but in your terms its actual reality continues as a time event.

(9:40.) If the doll sat on a bureau and this is also vividly recalled, then the space in which the doll sat still carries the impression of the doll, though other objects may be placed there. You react, therefore, not only to what is visible to your physical eyes in space, or to what is directly in front of you in time, but also to objects and events whose reality is still with you, though they may seem to have disappeared.

(Pause.) They give the overall emotional coloration that characterizes what happens to you. Period. You are what happens to you. Your emotional feelings are often transitory, but beneath there are certain qualities of feeling uniquely your own, that are like deep musical chords. While your day-to-day feelings may rise or fall, these characteristic feeling-tones lie beneath.

Sometimes they rise to the surface, but in great long rhythms. You cannot call these negative or positive. They are instead tones of your being. They represent the most inner portion of your experience. This does not mean that they are hidden from you, or are meant to be. It simply means that they represent the core from which you form your experience.

If you have become afraid of emotion or the expression of feeling, or if you have been taught that the inner self is no more than a repository of uncivilized impulses, then you may have the habit of denying this deep rhythm. You may try to operate as if it did not exist, or even try to refute it. But it represents your deepest, most creative impulses; to fight against it is like trying to swim upstream against a strong current.

(Very slowly at 11:18:) The conscious mind is an excellent perceiving attribute, a function that belongs to inner awareness but in this case is turned outward toward the world of events. Through the conscious mind the soul looks outward. Left alone, it perceives clearly.

In certain terms, the ego is the eye through which the conscious mind perceives, or the focus through which it views physical reality. But the conscious mind automatically changes its focus throughout life. The ego, while appearing the same to itself, ever changes. It is only when the conscious mind becomes rigid in its direction, or allows the ego to take on some of its own functions, that difficulties arise. Then the ego allows the conscious mind to work in certain directions and blocks its awareness in others.

The effect of the visit was good, particularly on Ruburt. We will get to his [scientific] questions. For Ruburt’s confidence, I wanted this book decently begun. Other sessions may take over from dictation now and then, but the main project will be the book.

(End at 11:32 p.m. Jane was quickly out of an excellent dissociated state. “I’m glad Seth’s working on his book again,” she said. “I know it’s silly, but I feel a lot better. I was even wondering if my own attitude was holding the thing up now, after all of those other interruptions….” And so, like Seth Speaks, this is really two books in one: It’s not only about the nature of personal reality, but the circumstances surrounding Jane’s production of the material and the many ideas she has concerning it.

2. A note added later: The Seth Material and Seth Speaks contain some references to the reincarnational connections that Seth postulates involving himself, Jane, and me. Such personal data is outside the scope of this book; but in Chapter Nineteen, Seth does go into his ideas on reincarnation, time, etc., in a more objective way.