“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

SESSION 645, MARCH 5, 1973
9:40 P.M. MONDAY

(After supper Jane began to show signs of going into an altered state of consciousness. She started talking about her “silky” skin, and the luxurious feeling of her sweater against her back. She’d had similar feelings preceding the last session, too, although to a lesser degree; see the appropriate notes. Now, her already acute hearing began to magnify sounds — the rustle of cellophane as she opened a pack of cigarettes, the quality of my voice as I talked to our cat, Willy, the noise of my handling the newspaper. “But words are such poor things to describe the effects,” she said more than once. “They’re too trite….”

(Her situation reminded me of several transcendent states she’d achieved during the last year, so I suggested she go along with it. Jane said she preferred to hold the session. She went into the living room to read, and found the magazine she picked up “heavier” than it should be. Gradually her perception of the beauty in ordinary things became considerably heightened. She’d planned to turn her easy chair around so that she could look out at the street lights, but instead she found herself admiring the bookcase that the chair already faced. By now her voice had acquired a hard-to-define richer quality, joyous but subdued.

(We had a snack, then Jane moved to her rocker. While we waited for Seth to come through she stared wonderingly about the room, her eyes much darker than usual. “Everything looks so great: you, the room, Willy, but I think I can have a session. I want to….” Late in the session, Seth commented upon her state of expanded awareness.)

Questions you cannot seem to answer as you study your own ideas, for example, may lead you to suspect the existence of such invisible core beliefs. Let me emphasize that they are consciously available. You can find them through the approaches mentioned earlier (in the last session), working from your feelings or by beginning with the beliefs that become most readily available.

(9:50.) This subject leads to what I will call bridge beliefs, and again Ruburt received some information on this topic ahead of time for his own benefit. (See the notes prefacing the last session.) As you examine your ideas you will discover that even some apparently contradictory ones have similarities, and these resemblances may be used to bridge the gaps between beliefs — even those that seem to be the most diverse. Because you are the individual who holds the beliefs you will stamp them, so to speak, with certain characteristics that you will recognize. These aspects will themselves emerge as bridge beliefs. They contain great motion and energy. When you discover what they are, you will find a point of unity within yourself from which you can with some detachment, view your other systems of belief.

Andrea never doubted the “fact” that life was more difficult for a woman than for a man. (See the 643rd session.) When she examined her beliefs this escaped her. The invisible belief, however, affected her behavior and experience. Now she understands it and can deal with it as belief, and not as a condition of reality over which she has no control.

Dialogues (see the 639th session in Chapter Ten) is now a book, just completed, but it also represented a movement of the self through a question-and-answer format, through which Ruburt recognized and faced many diverse beliefs. Each reader can utilize the same method whether or not artistic achievement is also involved, through objectifying personal beliefs in a dialogue form. This also happens frequently in the dream state, when you allow your natural creativity so much freedom. Often there are dreams in which “you” are two separate people, either strangers or familiar, each asking questions of the other.

The day Ruburt received the “advance” information on bridge beliefs (see the last session), the obvious suddenly became clear. The writing self was finding itself more and more hampered, unable to use excellent material because of its limited beliefs. It focused so defensively on its own material that it was hampering its flow of creativity, while the “unacceptable” aspects of Ruburt merrily went on creating other books, not even including my own.

(The sound of a passing automobile leaped up her legs, through her body and down to her fingertips. Water running somewhere in the house filled her with a great thrilling. Jane, wanting to continue the session, made strong efforts to quiet her reactions. She lit a cigarette, sat in her rocker, and closed her eyes. Resume at 11:55.)

(Louder, smiling:) And that is the end of our passionate session, and you may delete the word.

(12:02 a.m. “Those feelings even came up a couple of times while Seth was talking,” Jane said. And her richly sensual responses continued. The feel of the bedsheets against her body was “almost too much” for an hour or so after the session. Traces of the experience lingered into the next day.

(A note added later: For some related material about the flexibility of Jane’s perceptions, see our extensive notes for the 653rd session in Chapter Thirteen, as well as those for the already mentioned 639th session.)