“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This was to be the first time Seth really spoke to anyone else. I was half reluctant to hold a session and half curious as to how Seth would handle other people. I was also quite nervous. The session was actually a breakthrough in many respects, as these excerpts will show. I’m also including some of Rob’s preliminary notes.

(As we sat speaking with Mark, Jane finally told me that Seth wanted to have a session since we had missed last night’s regular one. Seth also wanted Mark to stay. But tonight, since it was getting late and I had doubts about being able to keep up with the dictation, I thought it better that we pass up the chance. I also thought Jane would be too tired, after the exhausting time she’d had last night. Mark offered to leave after I explained as best I could what was happening, but I said that we’d rather wait for the next regular scheduled session night.)

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.

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.

While there was no specific entry point as far as human consciousness was concerned, there was a point (in your terms) where it did not seem to exist. The consciousness of being human was fully developed in the caveman, of course, but the human conception was alive in the fish.

Human self-consciousness existed in psychological time, and in inner ‘time’ long before you, as a species, constructed it. For your friend’s sake, I will say this as simply as possible: Human consciousness was inherent and latent from the beginning of your physical universe. I suggest a brief break, and do not crack up into pieces. I give you this slight evidence of my humor, Joseph, simply to show you that I am not, after all, one to carry grudges.

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.

“The material was all on related subjects,” Rob said. “Could that explain it?”

“It would be the simplest explanation, and I’d be a lot less bewildered if I could think that was it,” Mark said. “But the answers were just too specific, too on time, too direct. I’ll tell you, I’ll make out a statement to that effect.”

Was Mark right? I wondered. “I’m quite willing to admit that telepathy might exist,” I said. “But if I have any part in it, I’d like to know what’s going on and how Seth did it — or how I did it.”

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.

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.

He was in a different position when he was a woman, Seth said with obvious humor. And if I may give away some secrets, he was beaten by one pigheaded husband who had a snout to match!

“When did this happen?” Rob asked. He was trying to lead Seth on again. Mark just looked from one of us to the other.

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.

The session continued. I had long forgotten that we had a visitor. My previous nervousness was like a dream. I was aware of nothing except of a great supporting energy and, someplace far off, the room in which my body walked. Mark sat there fascinated, Rob told me later, his salesman’s smile replaced by bewilderment and determination. He was to attend many other sessions. Whether or not he and Seth were friends in a past life, they became good friends in this one. Some excellent evidential material was to be obtained through sessions with Mark several years later. He was to recall Seth’s warning to cut down on drinking because of his predisposition to gout; he came down with gouty arthritis.

But that night, Mark insisted that Seth had read his mind and listened spellbound as Seth told him about the inner senses. None of us suspected that Seth would give Mark detailed information about the inner organization for which he worked, or help him understand personal problems, or delight in telling him what had gone on at sales conferences that Mark had already attended — or with a great rush of humor tell him the exact amount of a new raise he had just been given. All of that was in the future.

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?

My dear Joseph, one word only. I would not leave you with the impression that I was truly displeased or that I judge you unjustly. I do not want to hurt Ruburt’s feelings, and I have avoided making this statement thus far, but I have been emotionally more involved with you in past existences [than with Ruburt]. I know your capabilities so well that when I seem severe, it is only because I wish so for your happiness and success.

The emotional feeling of this brief statement was alive in the room when I came out of trance. We just stood there, staring at each other. Then, as if to break the mood, mentally I heard Seth make a joke to the effect that Joseph was not to get a big head just because Seth had apologized. Then all feelings of Seth vanished, and we went to bed.

I did a lot of thinking in the next few days. As I worked at the gallery or at my book or did my house chores, the last session kept coming to mind. If Seth had read Mark’s mind, this was an excellent progression. If not, then Mark had deceived himself, and Seth had gone along and taken advantage of the deception. And if Seth was a personification of my subconscious, then this would be an excellent example of subconscious fraud.

“No. But even though I think telepathy is possible … I can’t quite believe that in a trance state, through me, another personality read someone else’s mind — that’s it!” I said. “I’ve put my finger on it. Besides, I didn’t like Seth taking you to task in front of Mark. And that made me question if I was really far more disturbed than I think I was because you didn’t help with Miss Cunningham the other night. What a beautiful and sneaky thing to do! Have a secondary personality give you the dickens over it — and in front of company — with me supposedly in the clear, taking no responsibility for it at all.”

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.

During the next days, I regained my positive frame of mind. Several times, flashes of concepts came to me while I was house-cleaning — sudden intrusive patterns of thought accompanied by a feeling of intellectual and emotional illumination. I felt at these times as if new information was being “popped into my head,” or rather, into my whole being. And I knew that, mentally, I only retained a part of it. These experiences made me accept the telepathy episode in the last session, though I still wasn’t sure of the agent involved.

Rob felt my attitude was rigid, and it was, of course. Yet, I’d made some progress. In the twenty-seventh session, February 19, 1964, Seth told us we could dispense with the Ouija board completely. Up to that time we’d used it to open sessions. He said,

There are many things I want to tell you tonight. For one thing, you may dispense with the board. It was important in the beginning, but after this it served to upset Ruburt. It was in the way, and he kept waiting for the most favorable moment to dispense with it and begin speaking for me, so that he became anxious. Do not let it go, however. That is, do not return it. It has sentimental value.

(Rob’s notes: I had to ask Jane to repeat the last few words of the above paragraph. As soon as I did, a startling thing happened. Jane-Seth began to talk in a very loud and exceptionally vibrant voice, as if an extra charge of energy was suddenly made available. This strong voice persisted, though it did drop some in volume as the session continued.)

In my operations in your plane, I must use the materials at hand, but despite any ideas to the contrary, this involves a give and take … Ruburt’s “Idea Construction” was rather amazing under the circumstances. The inner senses provided him with much, but the manuscript itself [as written up] also represented an achievement of the conscious mind. I was drawn by this to realize that you were ready for me.

“I though you didn’t think he was a ghost?” Rob said, grinning.

“Well it does have humorous aspects,” Rob said. “I could hardly keep a straight face, hearing Seth make the suggestions and knowing ahead of time what you’d say. He knew too — it was funny.”

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.

The letter upset me considerably, yet it also objectified some of my own doubts. They were out in the air where I could at least deal with them. As far as we could tell, for all of my stewing and hemming and hawing, there were no alarming changes in my personality. I was doing twice the creative work I had done earlier. I was satisfied with the quality of the Seth Material; it was far superior to anything I could do on my own. If nothing else, I thought the sessions presented a way of making deeply unconscious knowledge available on a consistent basis.

I was determined to go ahead. There was too much to learn for me to stop. Besides, I felt that this was “my thing;” something that came unannounced, suddenly, into my life; something that I could not ignore; that I had to see through or regret my lack of courage for the rest of my life. Rob saw, much more clearly than I did, the connection between psychic experience and my poetry and earlier subjective experience.

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.

Still, I didn’t know what to make of the material Seth gave us on dreams and the personality that night. Was it symbolically true or practically true or both? When it was typed, we both read it over several times. We were to discover that the dream universe was far more valid than we had ever supposed, but what Seth said then sounded like nothing we had ever read or heard before.

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.

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.

I had to grin. “I’ve always moved furniture, even as a kid,” I said. “I used to move from a side bedroom to a front one whenever the mood hit me. The front room was my work-mood room, with all my poetry books predominating and no curtains, very spare. The other room was my play-it-safe-be-like-everybody-else-mood-curtains and conventional paraphernalia.”