“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(My mother lives with my brother and his family in a small community in upstate New York, near Rochester, and Jane and I had spent the weekend visiting one and all. During our drive back to Elmira this morning Jane said, “Somebody’s working on Seth’s book, I can tell you that. I keep getting snatches of it. It’s about imagination and beliefs, I think, and how they interact — only there’s a lot more to it. Well,” she added, pleased, “it’s nice to know the work’s being done….”)

4. In this book there are many examples of various kinds of altered states of consciousness on Jane’s part. In addition to Seth’s volume, these sometimes resulted in very creative products of her “own”: Some of the psychic experiences connected with her book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, which she began in November, 1972, are described in the 639th session in Chapter Ten. And in the 653rd session in Chapter Thirteen, we go into those involved with the writing of her long poem, Dialogues of the Speakers, on April 2, 1973.

You do not have to carry such a belief. I am well aware that strong elements of your civilization are built upon ideas of guilt and punishment. Many of you are afraid that without a feeling of guilt there would be no inner discipline, and the world would run wild. It is running quite wild now — not despite your ideas of guilt and punishment, but largely because of them. But we will have more to say about that later in the book.

(10:01. Jane said she had been really out during her trance, and that now she felt “almost drunk with exhilaration.” The times noted as she delivered the material show that she’d marched along at a good pace. “On the one hand,” she continued, looking a little bleary, “I could go way under and deliver the book until morning; or I could just go to bed and conk right out.” She was quite curious about the reasons behind these feelings.

(I told Jane I’d thought of using the pendulum after the session to get at the cause of the hand phenomenon, since I didn’t want to interrupt book dictation by asking Seth about it. [Briefly for those who have asked me: The pendulum is a very old method. I use it, with excellent results, to obtain ideomotor — “subconscious” — responses about knowledge that lies just outside my usual consciousness. I hold a small heavy object suspended by a thread so that it’s free to move. By mentally asking questions, I obtain “yes” or “no” answers according to whether the pendulum swings back and forth, or from side to side.]

(As we talked about our individual hang-ups, Jane said that we had a choice: We could get material on them or continue with book work. Both channels were available from Seth, complete. Although we wanted dictation to continue we were also interested in learning more about our personal questions. Feeling somewhat guilty, we opted for the latter course — but as the material unfolded we were glad we’d done so. Resume at 10:20.)

Hinged to this is the belief that this felt lack of communication is wrong, and that for anything wrong you should be punished. In taking dictation for this book you are helping us communicate with many people, while at the same time you feel that you cannot communicate with your own parent.

You should both become equally aware, and consciously and alertly aware, of the beneficial ideas and their importance in your lives — and this will be a portion of the book for others also.

I saw to it that he became aware that I was working on our book (this morning). Ideas about it came into his consciousness. In the past, he did not believe that such bleed-throughs should occur, and so in his experience they did not usually emerge. They were there but his belief prevented his recognition of them.

I will from time to time give subsidiary material for Ruburt and also for you, implementing a chapter in the book for your personal use. It is vital that you realize you are working with beliefs in your mind — that the real work is done there in the mind — and not look for immediate physical results.

Now: Take a brief break. I will then add some book material to get us further into the chapter, but I will not keep you overlong.

You may believe that you have a right to health, and yet with equal intensity believe that the human condition is by nature tainted. So you will try to be healthy and not healthy at the same time, or successful and not successful, according to your individual system of beliefs — for later in the book you will see how your beliefs will generally fall into a system of related ideas.

(The next morning Jane told me that she and/or Seth “worked on the book all night. Each time I woke up, dictation, or stuff like that, was going on. It was pretty insistent — almost unpleasantly so at times….” She’s experienced such effects before in connection with the book. They aren’t a nightly occurrence by any means, but I suggested she tell herself upon retiring that she wouldn’t be aware of such activity during sleeping hours. We planned to ask Seth about it also.)