“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

10
Seth Meets an Old Friend in Our Living Room

You are excellent teachers, I must admit. However, Joseph, while I admit I came uninvited and while I understand the reason for last night’s absence, I took it for granted that we would have our missed session this evening. I find it very impolite of you to restrain me in this fashion.

Our sessions are important and not to be put off at the mood of the moment. As Ruburt told you, I was here at the regular hour last night and aware of the happenings, and perfectly willing to let the session go, understanding the circumstances.

This evening was different. You were polite to your guest, and I recognize his presence. You were not, however, as polite with me. Ruburt was dubious about a session with company present but willing to go along. You know that I have no objections to your friend’s presence. For that matter, I welcome a witness, and it is time you had one for your own edification, not mine, and it should do our nervous pigeon, Ruburt, some good.

So-called human consciousness did not suddenly appear. Our poor maligned friend, the ape, did not suddenly beat his hairy chest in exultation and cry, ‘I am a man.’ The beginnings of human consciousness, on the other hand, began as soon as multi-cellular groupings began to form in field patterns of a certain complexity.

More material was given than the excerpt just included. Actually, Seth spoke steadily for an hour before our first break. When I came out of trance, Mark was staring at me intently.

I delight in astounding the present personalities of old acquaintances by letting them know we have known each other before. It is a failing of mine, but I enjoy it. … There are many times that our paths have crossed, and that is why I wanted you here and why you happened onto the art gallery where Ruburt is employed. Not that free will is not involved, because it is. Only that old friends have a way of meeting. And I was not joking when I spoke earlier of your having a predisposition to gout; for you have also been lecherous in your way.

Belgium in 1632, and our Phillip, in a rather sensational case for the times, actually brought this husband to a village trial — a particularly unusual occurence at that time. Her name was Yolanda Schrav. …

Schravansdatter. He was thirty-three at the time and had been caught in an act of, shall we say, indiscretion, for which he was severely and unjustly beaten. Unjustifiably because the pigheaded husband was, forgive my pun, a bore. … I must admit that this brings us far afield from our discussion of evolution.

There is nothing like a witness to convince our darling Ruburt that I am I, and not her, [meaning Jane] or like a good evening of telepathy, as in the case of this evening.

It was midnight before the session ended. After it was over, and our salesman friend left for his motel in a nearby town, Seth came through with a few personal remarks for Rob. We had already gone into the bedroom when I felt drawn to go out into the front room to my desk. Standing there, silently, I felt Seth near. My mind was a whirl. I knew that I felt that Seth was near, but, intellectually, I was full of questions. Had Seth really read Mark’s mind, or had Mark just wanted that to happen and convinced himself that it had? Did I feel Seth, or was I indulging in fantasies of a highly dangerous nature?

In this particular period, we had Seth and the Seth Material only — twenty-six sessions — and thus far, no evidential material at all; there was nothing to go on except our experience and faith in ourselves. I’d always trusted myself as a writer. As a psychic, I felt on very shaky ground for a while. Yet Rob always managed to help me see things in perspective, and this time, he again helped me maintain faith in myself and my abilities.

Rob smiled, amused by Seth’s rather cavalier advice to keep the board. It belonged to our landlord.

That ability is also growing on your part, Joseph, and with you, it will involve visionary data, as you call it. And another word about our material; Ruburt’s mind is an excellent one and well given to serve our ends at this time. There is a reciprocal agreement here, a give and take, quite different from your friend’s idea of psychological invasion.

Indeed. One reason for the success of our communications is the peculiar abilities in both of you and the interaction between them — and the use you let me make of them. Ruburt’s intellect had to be of high quality. His subconscious and conscious mind had to be acquainted with certain ideas to begin with, in order for the complexity of this material to come through.

There must, of necessity however, be some distortion. If our communication involved invasion, then there would be no distortion because the person so ‘invaded’ would be blotted — out and this is not possible.

Then, toward the end of the session, Seth made a suggestion about our living quarters. Our living room is very large — opens from the apartment house hallway and runs down to three large bay windows at the other end. I always worked at my table in front of the windows. Seth suggested that we shield the door to the hallway with a room divider.

Then, room by room, Seth commented on our physical arrangements. He suggested that the bed be placed with the head at the north, for example, and made other comments. He said that many of my needs were really based on fears which would have to be faced as time went by, and he discussed several of them in the session. Then he said,

A barricade in front of the door is not necessary. Afterwards, as we sat discussing the suggestions, he said, I do not want Ruburt’s energies soaked up in trying to fight these needs. We need all of your energies for our work — and for your own. Later you will learn to use these energies well and to draw energy from the basic vitality of the universe.

In the meantime, we held our twenty-eighth session. In it, Seth assured us that the sessions were constructive and made many comments quoted in The Seth Material about the nature of the subconscious, repeating that he was an independent personality.

Also, Ruburt has experienced and used dissociation in his work, though to a lesser degree, before our communications and knows how to handle it… Our relationship will enable you both to deal more adequately with the outside world. … The development of the inner senses will not blot out physical reality but allow you to see it more clearly for what it is, and, therefore, you will be able to manipulate camouflage patterns better. …

“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.

It was in this session that Seth made the analogy of the “weird creature with two faces,” one turned to physical reality and one to inner reality, both conscious and aware, each representing one facet of our consciousness.

I was going to mention the furniture arrangements that we embarked upon during this time but find that a few excerpts from this same session give a pretty fair picture. They are pertinent for several reasons. Seth seemed to know how we could best utilize our surroundings to serve conscious and unconscious needs. We’d been in the apartment three years when the sessions began, yet in a few session comments Seth managed to clear up several points that we had had never settled.

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. …