“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now, like then, we close the living room door so we won’t hear the phone or be interrupted by visitors. Rob moves my favorite rocker in. We usually take some wine. So from nine until nearly midnight, there we are — humble listeners. Of course, its also possible that we’re picking up, hearing and transcribing only cosmic noise. I doubt it, but even then I’d rather spend my life in the quest for meaning, the search for learning, rather than ignore the messages and signals that have appeared within our world. And I do believe that we are in contact with a source quite beyond our normal comprehension.

I do not always take what is said at face value. Telegraph messages alone mean something different than the data presented, the dots and dashes that are only symbols for the information they contain. To make sense to us as physical creatures, any “truth” must undergo transformations, be couched in certain terms or we couldn’t understand it. Distortion may be part of the message — or even the medium through which it must come.

The frog did not learn to tell time from his watch, though, and it’s difficult to see how this would have helped him if he had. The Seth Material, on the other hand, is more like a map, vitalized through Seth’s personality, and as we follow it, we do become aware of other realities that had been unknown to us earlier.

Whatever information I can give you will be of great practical benefit. I do not want either of you traveling about unless you know what you are doing. Again I want to mention the matter of subconscious fabrications. Initially, particularly, you will meet with them. You must remember that you are wandering in completely different dimensions, and the rules with which you are familiar simply do not apply.

You may, then, encounter images that are subconsciously formed, quite valid images that belong in another dimension; or constructions created by others in other systems. For any control at all, you must learn to distinguish one from the other. Again, if you meet a disturbing image, you must first will it to disappear. If it is a subconscious construction of your own, it will vanish. But if you do not will it to disappear or realize its nature, then you must deal with it.

I have told you that the form in which you are traveling can be a tipoff to you. If your levitation experience seems to carry you outside of the solar system, then you know that you are in the third form and that your abilities for the time are almost limitless, comparatively speaking. Any image you see here must be accepted. It does no good to call these forms hallucinations, for they are no more hallucinations than the chair in which my friend Ruburt now sits. Ruburt told one of your friends to respect physical reality. ‘Whether or not the automobile is a sensory hallucination, it can kill you,’ he said. And I tell you that whether or not these projection images are hallucinations, they can be dangerous and you must respect the reality in which they exist. I want to be sure that you realize that some of these constructions will belong to other systems. You are safe as long as you do not meddle. You may explore, and freely, and that is all.

When you feel your consciousness withdrawing, the first step is this: Forget the physical body or what you are to do with it. Will yourself out in a quick motion. There is no need to experience the hallucinations mentioned by Fox [in his book, Astral Projection]. If the projection is a success, you will instantly lose contact with the body using this method. You simply will not be in it.

There is no danger of not returning to the body, generally speaking. If in your projection you seem to be flying past treetops, then you are doing so. … You can meet and speak with others on some of these excursions. It is possible, with training, to arrange such meetings. For any kind of scientific proof, of course, this would be a necessary preliminary.

All through this period I was trying to train myself to come “awake” while asleep. It serves no purpose to include all of the many dreams of this nature that I recorded — dreams in which I managed to regain my critical senses, sometimes only to fall back into normal dreaming and sometimes to embark upon conscious experiments. But one experience in particular was very vivid and informative. Excerpts from the following session will show you what I was trying to do.

There are some notes I wanted to give you concerning dreams in which you feel certain you are normally awake. When these dreams are unusually vivid, then the ego is aware and participating, but generally it is not using its critical faculties. As you know, you can become critically alert, but when you do so, you realize that you are not in your normal waking condition.

Almost all of your dream experiences do involve projection of one kind or another. These vary in intensity, type and even duration as any other experiences vary. It takes a good deal of training and competence to operate with any real effectiveness within these situations.

I’m convinced that I left my body when I decided to go into the living room, and met Miss C. who was traveling in her dream body, wandering about in her old surroundings and coming in for help as she used to do. Unfortunately, my critical sense was fully awakened only toward the end of the experience, though I made several valiant efforts to understand my condition.

You must want to do this, however. Often, you do not want to see the body by itself, so to speak, and so choose methods that make this more difficult. Just this one exercise will sharpen your control greatly. It is an ABC. This experience is also less startling to the ego than a more abrupt projection, and the ordinary nature of the activities — walking into the next room, for example — will be reassuring. You are more calm in your own surroundings. Of course, Ruburt was out of his body when he saw Miss Cunningham, who was in the same condition.

An almost automatic determination must be established, however, if conscious projections are to be anything but rare oddities. With the both of you, the problem is somewhat different than it might be with some others. These chemical excesses are used up, for one things, in your own creative work. You do this automatically. It goes without saying that your own work will gain immeasurably through the extended experience of projection. The yoga exercises allow you to draw an abundance — indeed, a super-abundance — of energy. This energy results, also, in chemical excesses that can be utilized in projections, without drawing energy away from your other work.