“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Mark sat there, considerably startled. I was in trance, of course, but, knowing him, I can well imagine how he must have stared at me as I strode back and forth speaking in that deep Seth voice and talking to Rob in such a manner. When Rob explained briefly about Seth before the session, he’d asked Mark questions he’d like answered. Mark said that he was interested in the connection between consciousness and evolution. Now, almost immediately, Seth said:

I want to reply to your friend’s question. … When he asked it, he was referring to the point at which self-consciousness entered into so-called inert form. You know, now, that all form has consciousness, and so there was no point at which self-consciousness entered with the sound of trumpets, so to speak. Consciousness was inherent in the first materialization upon your plane.

Indeed like you, my dear Joseph, Seth said. In your case, as I have told you, you overcompensate now for past fleshiness by a most unnecessary self-punishing attitude. Phillip, on the other hand, is performing no such compensations, except for one instance of choosing a good-looking wife and therefore permitting himself to treat her kindly.

Now it was Mark’s turn to laugh. Rob and I had never met his wife. Nor was he a close friend, merely a good acquaintance who lived out of town and visited Elmira only when his business required it, about once every six weeks.

And as for advancements as of now — these have to do with the ‘flashes’ that Ruburt has received between sessions. He has achieved a state in which he can receive inner data from me more readily. But beyond that, he is now able in some small way to contact me. That is, I have contacted you in the past, and now he is gaining the ability to contact me.

Now people who believe strongly in your organized religions are used to thinking in terms of an inner world. For that reason, many of them have been recipients of inner data from others like myself. They are often endowed with a readiness to listen, for one thing … there are disadvantages involved, however, which I do not like to encounter.

[Ruburt] is unpredictable in that he is temperamentally good-natured, but you never know when the rocks will fly, and neither does he. Added to this is his strong domestic feelings now as a woman — and this, my dear Joseph, explains the incredible amount of furniture movings in which you have been involved.

But we spent the weekend rearranging furniture. Rob stacked some bookcases, bought vertical dowels for the top, and arranged the whole affair in front of the door so that we had an inside entry hall. We used the bookcases for the books on psychic phenomena that we were beginning to collect and started some potted philodendron vines between the dowels. The minute the bookcase was in place, I felt more at ease. We’ve changed its location several times but never removed it. Today the vines go to the ceiling. I know now that if it hadn’t been for this divider, we would have moved long ago. Just the same, with the attitude I had at the time, I’m glad I didn’t know about the letter that was to arrive the next day.

About three weeks previously, Rob had written to a psychologist interested in reincarnation. He enclosed some session copies, mostly dealing with reincarnational material. Two days after the twenty-seventh session, we received a letter from him. He told us that the very fluency of the material suggested that it might come from my subconscious, though it was impossible to tell. (He mentioned the Patience Worth case, with which we were now familiar, as a notable exception.) But he also cautioned that in some circumstances, amateur mediumship could lead to mental problems.

But the letter made me cautious, too. Quite unknowingly, I set one side of myself — the intellectual — as a watchdog against the intuitive portions of the self. The tendency had always been present, but now I determined to go ahead — often by double-checking my every step. Later, I would have to learn to relax with myself again.

“Well, okay, ever onward,” I said, because despite it all, I felt it foolish to look a gift horse in the mouth. I also felt that in each of us there is a deep connection with “magical” elements of our nature—magical in that they rise like poetic inspiration, filling the mundane world with a special living, personal meaning. To refuse such “gifts” from the “gods” might be far more dangerous than accepting them. These thoughts were far beneath my conscious ones, though. Only now, writing this book, did I recall entertaining them.

It was Session 28, February 24, 1964 and our second session without the board. Seth was right; I had grown anxious wondering just when to dispense with it in a session and let him speak, yet it represented something solid and real that helped the transition take place. Now I just sat there until suddenly I fell into trance and Seth began to speak.

In a dream, I have said, you can experience many days while no corresponding amount of physical time passes. It seems as if you travel very far in the flicker of an eyelash. Now, condensed time is the time felt by the entity, while any of its given personalities live on a plane of physical materialization. To go into this further, many have said that life was a dream. They were true to the facts in one regard, yet far afield as far as the main issue is concerned.

You are familiar through your reading with so-called secondary personalities. Now, this idea comes close to the relationship between the entity and its personalities. They are independent to various degrees, and they operate on various planes of existence for purposes of overall fulfillment and development.

The entity itself does not have to keep constant track of its personalities because each one possesses an inner self-conscious part that knows its origin. This part, for now, I will call the self-conscious beyond the subconscious. … I mentioned that some part of you knows exactly how much oxygen the lungs breathe, and this is the part of which I spoke. It also receives all inner data.

Now a small chat about your hilarious furniture changings and rechangings and rechangings. The bookcases should stay as they are, Ruburt. Enough is enough, and you have optimum benefit from them. The bedroom arrangement is fine, and if no one will blame Ruburt’s subconscious, then I would venture one further suggestion. It is not, however, to involve any more complicated arrangements on Ruburt’s part. Simply put: The addition of a small desk and chair to the bedroom as a more or less permanent fixture for a small private place, accessible when he wants it, for our so-sensitive and sometimes pig-headed Ruburt. …

Otherwise, Ruburt should be satisfied. I suggest the bookcases as a permanent arrangement. These are, after all, only logical suggestions to make your daily lives more comfortable, and therefore free your energies. Ruburt can calm down now. I never saw such stirrings and slammings and carrying-ons. …

“And now?” Rob asked.

“And now … the objects represent inner things we don’t recognize, and when we move them around, we rearrange the inner feelings too; or vice versa. But suppose Seth starts really telling us how to arrange stuff. I mean, whenever he wants to. …