“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Good evening.

Now if you are looking for simple definitions to explain the psyche, I will be of no help. If you want to experience the splendid creativity of your own being, however, then I will use methods that will arouse your greatest adventuresomeness, your boldest faith in yourself, and I will paint pictures of your psyche that will lead you to experience even its broadest reaches, if you so desire. The psyche, then, is not a known land. It is not simply an alien land, to which or through which you can travel. It is not a completed or nearly complete subjective universe already there for you to explore. It is, instead, an ever-forming state of being, in which your present sense of existence resides. You create it and it creates you.

There would be no experience of what Ruburt (Seth’s “entity” name for Jane) calls “the dear privacy of the moment,” so if one portion of your being wants to rise above the solitary march of the moments, other parts of your psyche rush, delighted, into that particular time-focus that is your own. As you now desire to understand the timeless, infinite dimensions of your own greater existence, so “even now” multitudinous elements of that nonearthly identity just as eagerly explore the dimensions of earthbeing and creaturehood.

(9:30.) Earlier I mentioned some odd effects that might occur if you tried to take your watch or other timepiece into other levels of reality. Now, when you try to interpret your selfhood in other kinds of existence, the same surprises or distortions or alterations can seem to occur. When you attempt to understand your psyche, and define it in terms of time, then it seems that the idea of reincarnation makes sense. You think “Of course. My psyche lives many lives physically, one after the other. If my present experience is dictated by that in my childhood, then surely my current life is a result of earlier ones.” And so you try to define the psyche in terms of time, and in so doing you limit your understanding and even your experience of it.

Now the psyche in our analogy is both the painting and the artist, for the artist finds that all of the elements within the painting are portions of himself. More, as he looks about, our artist discovers that he is literally surrounded by other paintings that he is also producing. As he looks closer, he discovers that there is a still-greater masterpiece in which he appears as an artist creating the very same paintings that he begins to recognize.

Now: If you are confused, that is fine — for it means that already we have broken through conventional ideas. Anything that I say following this analogy will seem comparatively simple, for by now it must appear at least that you have little hope of discovering your own greater dimensions.

Now I come from another portion of reality’s picture, from another dimension of the psyche in which your existence can be observed, as you might look upon a normal painting.

(11:30.) Now: Since I imagine you are not ready for a continuation of our first chapter, I will —

You all have physical reality to deal with. This applies equally to Ruburt and Joseph (Seth’s entity name for me). Thus far, my books have included Joseph’s extended notes. They have set the scene, so to speak. My books have gone beyond those boundaries, however. In your terms, only so much can be done in time. Joseph is even now involved in typing my previous manuscript (The “Unknown” Reality). It was written in such a way that it tied the personal experience of Ruburt and Joseph in with a greater theoretical framework, so that one could not be separated from the other.

Largely, the writing of this book occurs in a “no-time, or out-of-time context.” Physically, however, Ruburt and Joseph take many hours in its production. They have moved to a new house. Ruburt, as usual, is smoking as I speak. His foot rests upon a coffee table, as he moves back and forth in his rocking chair. It is nearing midnight as I speak (at 11:42). Earlier, a great thunderstorm raged, its reverberations seeming to crack the sky. Now it is quiet, with only the drone of Ruburt’s new refrigerator sounding like the deep purr of some mechanical animal.

(“No, I’m not,” she retorted. Her denial was both funny and dogged, for I could see that she was tired. But she went on: “Now let me get a couple of paragraphs on the chapter… The heading is: ‘Your Dreaming Psyche Is Awake.’” Then Seth came through at once:)

That will be enough for now. End of session. As Ruburt would say: “Peace and cheers.”