“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As we sat waiting for the session to begin at 9:20, Jane told me she’d just “picked up” the heading for Chapter Three of Seth’s book: “Telepathy and Belief Gathering” — or “Idea Gathering”; she wasn’t sure which. We’ll see how close she came. At 9:25 she said, “I’m getting ready to start now. I can tell….” She lit a cigarette and looked off to one side and down, her attention already turned inward as she prepared to psychically join a very familiar “energy personality essence,” as Seth calls himself.)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(I asked that Seth comment upon Willy’s behavior, if he cared to, after dictation. Then Jane said, “I knew I was feeling funny tonight. Now l get it. It’s like I’ve got three channels from Seth going at once….

(“I’ve even got directions.” She pointed off to her upper right as she sat in her rocker. “Seth comes through on his book from here, on this channel.” Next she indicated her lower right. “Then over here, immediately available, is Seth on you and me and Willy. And also on the portrait you asked me about the other day — the one you just finished.

(“Over here now,” Jane said, designating her upper left, “is Seth on what you were just saying about peer groups — how young people feel it’s so important to fit in with their own kind, and why. And why I felt that way, but you didn’t. Hey, I’ve even got a bunch of history about that, all ready to deliver — a lot of material on each idea…. I was really confused for a while, yet now I see that each thing’s separate, already prepared by Seth. You’re not going to get two sentences about one subject, then switch to another one….” Jane laughed. “Which channel do you want?”

(“I’m keeping my mouth shut,” I said, joking. “How about going back to the book?” I thought doing that would help her control the proliferation of channels until we could learn more about the development. The possibility had been indicated often: witness Seth’s ability to discuss a variety of subjects with the members of a group, even if they were strangers to Jane. The new step in her abilities would be her conscious awareness of the blocks of material already prepared and awaiting delivery. Jane promptly agreed to resume book work.

(“I’ve never felt just this way before — like I’ve been programmed in advance. It’s as though I need three voice boxes. That’s really weird. I do get it as sound, though. If I could talk three times at once, I could deliver finished material on those three things. Now I have to pick the right channel to get Seth back on his book; and it almost seems that if someone else came here now and mentioned a subject, I’d have that information all ready too.

3. In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is thought of as the total moral sum of an individual’s acts in any one life — thus determining the person’s fate or destiny in the next. Seth sees reincarnational lives as all existing at once, so there is constant give-and-take among them. A “future” life, then, can affect a “past” one, so karma as it is usually considered does not apply.

(Seth returned in a humorous manner at 10:37.) Now: Resume dictation. Chapter Three: “Suggestion, Telepathy, and the Grouping of Beliefs.”

(Pause. Note the difference between Seth’s heading for this chapter and the one Jane gave before the session.)

(Jane said she believed that “Seth could do three books at once, a chapter at a time on each, and with no confusion among them. Right now I feel that this whole book’s just there, ready to be given for the writing down.” Her very active dream life had evidently included a lot of preparation for it, she added, but I didn’t ask her any questions that might open up more channels.

(“Not since the sessions started [in 1963] have I felt that Seth’s material was so richly available. I wasn’t able to be that open before this — I couldn’t accept a lot that was right there because it didn’t fit in with my beliefs.” Jane pointed to her left. “Hmmm. Now I could get stuff on archaeology, of all things. Wild….”

(“Good evening, Seth.”

(End at 12:07 a.m. After coming out of trance Jane attempted to describe a manifestation which, though invisible, was “hovering before us now like a big oval type of thing.” It was made up of a group of energies that could represent a personality like Seth, she said, yet it was nameless. It was just there, and gave her no feeling particularly that it was going to be of assistance. Jane had trouble being precise about the effect and her feelings in connection with it, and I had difficulty translating her narrative into written words. I mention it here in case something develops. She’s had similar perceptions occasionally before.

(A note added a few days later: This session was held on Wednesday. We had guests the following Friday evening, and as Jane described the multiple-channel effects to them, she realized that she was tuning into some of Seth’s backlog of data about peer groups and the need to conform. Seth hadn’t actually given us the material during Wednesday’s session, nor did he now — instead Jane verbalized it on her own to some extent. The next morning I asked her to note down what she remembered of it.

(“I realized that Seth had a great amount of information all gathered and there, including the biological foundations of both characteristics. Take the amoeba, a one-celled microscopic animal, for instance: I knew that the protoplasm in the amoeba, the essential living matter, represents the individual needing-to-go-out quality. Yet the protoplasm must conform to its environment — in this case the amoeba’s ‘body,’ which can only move as a unit when directed by the individualistic need to react to stimuli.