“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I ‘come to,’ realizing that my body is in bed sleeping. I walk in the bedroom where my father is standing, complaining about his problems. Immediately I get annoyed with him and begin telling him about my problems. He becomes very upset.

Seth touches my shoulder, smiling. He tells me that I am to do something else and gives me a long, friendly lecture. The content is lost now, but I think it had to do with my own psychic development. Then Seth says, ‘In the earlier dream demonstration tonight, your father had problems of his own, and you ignored them. The whole house was aware of your feelings and absorbed them. It will be aware of them for some time.’

Using a series of mental exercises explained to me by Seth, I do step sideways — it is as though I am squeezing between two bars, and I find myself back in the bedroom with my father there, again, complaining. This time I change the events from the way they happened the first time, realize how important his problems are to him, smile and send him good thoughts. At once I am propelled into another, similar scene.

In this experience, it is Thanksgiving Day. My mother’s family is here also. I am in the sunroom watching my father take food from a buffet set in the dining room. My mother and her sister are in there, talking. Suddenly my father becomes angry, throws his plate onto the rug and grabs another. My mother begins to cry. I remember probabilities, however, and instead of becoming upset myself, I send my father thoughts of peace and health. I know that now the scene will not happen this Thanksgiving in physical reality — that I have helped choose another more positive one. The scene ends. I feel as though I have been both watching and participating. I hear Seth remark: ‘You learn well, and manipulate equally well.’

You did very well. Now, because you are interested in probabilities, you will have many more experiences along these lines. We will hopscotch back and forth with our friend Ruburt, for this is also one of his main lines of interest. Your own experience can be used to benefit the class at large, for you must be led to see that you can alter physical events in such a way. You must be led to see that there are other dimensions of reality.

He spoke with such rich understanding humor that everyone laughed, including Shirley. Through this entire period, Seth spoke on probabilities in our own private sessions, as well as in class. He was halfway through his own book, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul which he is completing now and in which he gives further methods that can be used to experience probable realities.

I then observe how haggard they look. Jane is much heavier and is wearing a black long-sleeved turtleneck. Her hair is fuller but quite gray. Rob looks extremely tired and is sitting in a slouch; his face is not fat but fleshy — almost dissipated. He is smoking one cigarette after another. They both look bitter and not very happy.

I nod and we walk out of the restaurant — Seth trailing along behind. We walk down a shaded, quiet street and turn in at a large white house with a screened lower porch. There is a large tree to the left of the porch, and a weedy driveway leads back to a large white barnish-looking building with double top-hinged doors. We go up a set of outside stairs and into an apartment which seems to have a large living room. Rob is about to haul out some paintings — they seem to be landscapes — when he groans in agony and nearly falls down in pain from his back, apparently. He manages to lie down on the floor and I try to show him some yoga exercises for it, but he brushes me off. I suddenly feel desperate to do something for them before it all ends.

It happened some months before our first psychic experiences. Rob was ill, and we were vacationing in Maine. One night we went to a nightclub, hoping for a change of mood. Rob could hardly walk, his back hurt him so badly. The room was small and crowded, the tables were all full, and the band blared. Suddenly, I noticed an older couple sitting across from us. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. As if hypnotized, I sat staring.

“Ask Seth about it,” Sue said. It happened to be a session night night anyway, and without being asked, Seth suspended dictation on his own book to give us the following explanation:

Now, this is not dictation [on Seth’s own book], but it is some material that Ruburt can use in his dream book. I want to comment, therefore, on the experience of your friend, Sue Watkins, and its connection with the probable universe.

Now, Ruburt has also done the same service for a probable Sue in another system of reality, though in an entirely different way. And you [Rob], incidentally, have helped a probable Carl [Sue’s husband] in the same manner, using his creative abilities. The probable Carl, in other words, has strong creative abilities, and you have helped him understand this.

That Robert Butts did not continue his painting with any purpose, trying to be objective and sensible, lacking the understanding of his parents that you have achieved through sessions. He put security in financial terms above everything, took no chances at all along those lines, and despite this, of course, is not making much money because his heart was, with the painting, most largely abandoned.