“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The flood was the worst on record in this section of the country. It grew out of Tropical Storm Agnes — which, somewhat ironically, had lost its hurricane status by the time it began its erratic course up the East Coast from Florida. Agnes was preceded by days of heavy rain that extended on a broad front for hundreds of miles. The storm unexpectedly veered inland after picking up new strength off the Virginia Capes, and when it stalled over New York and Pennsylvania flooding became inevitable.

(As soon as Jane had “picked up” this information we began to feel better. We ate, played cards, and periodically checked the water level. Several hours passed. The flood crested within fifteen minutes of the time Jane had given, and within three inches of her projected high-water mark. We slept that evening knowing that the water was dropping quickly. The next morning I walked over to the Walnut Street Bridge. It had been destroyed; several of its spans had been washed out.

(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.

(In August Jane held one session on the flood — in which Seth had time to just touch upon the reasons behind our personal involvement in it — and late that month and in September we had several house guests in connection with psychic work. One of them was Richard Bach, author of the very successful book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.³

(When she felt it was time to resume work on Seth’s book, Jane discovered to her surprise that she was somewhat nervous about it. Yet, speaking for Seth, she resumed dictation so smoothly that it seemed there hadn’t been any such thing as a three-month lapse….)

(9:24.) The joy of creativity flows through you as effortlessly as your breath. From it the most minute areas of your outer experience spring. Your feelings have electromagnetic realities that rise outward, affecting the atmosphere itself. They group through attraction, building up areas of events and circumstances that finally coalesce, so to speak, either in matter as objects — or as events in “time.”

Some feelings and thoughts are translated into structures that you call objects; these exist, in your terms, in a medium you call space. Others are translated instead into psychological structures called events, that seem to exist in a medium you call time.

Space and time are both root assumptions, which simply means that man accepts both, and assumes that his reality is rooted in a series of moments and a dimension of space. So your inner experience is translated in those terms.

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.

Nor is its reality in space annihilated as long as it exists within your mind. Let us take a very simple example. A child has been told not to play with a doll. The order is disobeyed. The child, wittingly or unwittingly, breaks the doll, and it is finally thrown away. The doll exists in time quite vitally as long as the child or the adult-to-be remembers it.

(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.

(10:16.) The feeling-tone then is the motion and fiber — the timber — the portion of your energy devoted to your physical experience. Now it flows into what you are as a physical being and materializes you in the world of seasons, space, flesh, and time. Its source, however, is quite independent of the world that you know.

Within this framework you have full freedom to create your experience, your personal life in all of its aspects, the living picture of the world. Your personal life, and to some extent your individual living experience, help create the world as it is known in your time.

(I paused, considering the late hour, then asked Seth for his opinion about the recent visit of a young scientist from a Western state. Jane, both as Seth and as herself, had made a good start at tuning-in on certain technical information. I felt however that a great amount of time and effort would be needed, on a regular basis over a period of years, probably, for Jane to make full use of her abilities in such specialized endeavors.)

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.