“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.)

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

When your training is much further advanced, we may be able to take certain shortcuts, Seth continued. It is difficult for me to have to string this material out in words and for you to record it. You see, it is possible, in theory, for you to directly experience a concept-essence of the material in any given session. This would involve the utilization of most, if not all inner senses, operating as a whole cognizance field. You cannot perform such an achievement yet.

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.

You are so consciously aware of your own needs for privacy, Joseph, that Ruburt’s strong but mostly unconscious needs in these directions sometimes go unsatisfied, since he is not aware of them. … You are both very much alike beneath the obvious differences, but Ruburt’s largely unrecognized needs along these lines are important. … He holds and collects his psychic energy, and without knowing it, he does not like it to ‘bleed’ outward. The illusion of an entryway — an inner hall — would serve these ends. This is merely a suggestion.

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,

Arrangements you can think of that will satisfy some of these needs are worth it. If Ruburt had his way, something would shield you both from the door, also, when you are eating. He does not like to eat in view of others. (As when someone comes to the door at mealtime.) Any corner working place pleases him because it provides for the collection of psychic energy and serves as protection.

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.

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.

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. …