“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Because of the press of other matters following the 753rd session — my work doing the notes for Seth’s “Unknown” Reality, Jane’s involvement in writing a new introduction for one of her own books that’s coming out in a new paperback edition, and a stream of unexpected visitors — we didn’t hold any sessions for several weeks. [The paperback in question is The Coming of Seth, originally published in hardcover as How to Develop Your ESP Power.]

(Then in the 754th session, on August 25, Seth gave an excellent dissertation on what he called “the stamp of identity” — explaining how the individual psychically marks certain exterior aspects of reality and “makes them his or her own,” in tune with personal inner symbols. Later in the session Jane felt that Seth was taking her on a guided tour of Jerusalem, way back in the first century A.D. None of this consisted of book work, though, so the session remains in our files along with other material that we hope to publish one day.

(An hour before she went into trance this evening, Jane told me that she could get several channels from Seth, each one concerning a different subject, and that “we’d better see” which one came through tonight. Then just before the session started, she said it would concern dictation on Seth’s new book.)

Any word, simply by being thought, written or spoken, immediately implies a specification. In your daily reality it is very handy to distinguish one thing from another by giving each item a name. When you are dealing with subjective experience, however, definitions can often serve to limit rather than express a given experience. Obviously the psyche is not a thing. It does not have a beginning or ending. It cannot be seen or touched in normal terms. It is useless, therefore, to attempt any description of it through usual vocabulary, for your language primarily allows you to identify physical rather than nonphysical experience.

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.

(Long pause.) Let us try another analogy: You are an artist in the throes of inspiration. There is before you a canvas, and you are working in all areas of it at once. In your terms each part of the canvas could be a time period — say, a given century. You are trying to keep some kind of overall balance and purpose in mind, so when you make one brushstroke in any particular portion of this canvas, all the relationships within the entire area can change. No brushstroke is ever really wiped out, however, in this mysterious canvas of our analogy, but remains, further altering all the relationships at its particular level.

(Pause.) Again, rather than trying to define the psyche, I will try to incite your imagination so that you can leap beyond what you have been told you are, to some kind of direct experience. To some extent this book itself provides its own demonstration. I call Jane Roberts “Ruburt” (and, hence, “he” and “him”) simply because the name designates another portion of her reality, while she identifies herself as Jane. She writes her own books and carries on as each of you do in life’s ordinary context. She has her own unique likes and dislikes, characteristics and abilities; her own time and space slot as each of you do. She is one living portrait of the psyche, independent in her own context, and in the environment as given.

(10:20.) So Ruburt’s subjective perspective opens up because of his desire and interest, and discloses my own. He opens up a door in himself that leads to other levels of his being, but a being that cannot be completely expressed in your world. That existence is mine, expressed in my experience at another level of reality, so I must write my books through Ruburt. Doors in the psyche are different from simple openings that lead from one room to another, so my books only show a glimpse of my own existence. You all have such psychological doors, however, that lead into dimensionally greater areas of the psyche, so to some extent or another I speak for those other aspects of yourselves that do not appear in your daily context.

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.

(Loudly and humorously.) End of Chapter One, and end of session.

(It was 11:50. Jane had been in an excellent trance state. After we talked for a few minutes, she added: “My God, I’ve got Chapter Two. No, it’s too late! I don’t have the heading for Chapter One yet, but I’ve got it for the next one….” She looked bleary, her eyes dark. I told her she appeared to be too tired to continue.

(Before Seth finished dictating Chapter Two, Jane got from him mentally the heading for Chapter One, and inserted it into this manuscript.)