“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

All kinds of questions came into Rob’s mind. When Seth paused for a moment, he asked, “You said once that the shock of birth was worse than the shock of death. Why?”

So the first spring of the sessions came, a cold bright March. Miss Cunningham’s apartment door became a stimulus to my constant questions. Every time I passed it, I wondered again: Was she transferring her consciousness to another level of reality? Would she survive death when it came, in meaningful terms? And behind all these questions there was the big one: Was Seth really a personality who had survived death? And would I really ever know?

I wasn’t about to close off the Seth material until I made up my mind, though. Another possibility was always in the back of my thoughts. Suppose I stopped having the sessions while I tried to figure things out, then decided that Seth was right on all counts — and found I just couldn’t have sessions again? That, to me, would be the worst possibility of all — that I might close off knowledge out of uncertainity. So I kept on.

But the deeper questions were now implied in ordinary events as I went about my day. Springtime again — the release of energy, the flowering of a landscape that, by all appearances, had been dead and nearly lifeless only weeks before. The implied promise of recurring life contrasted drearily with the few things we knew about life while we were in the flesh — much less free of it.

I’d identified all life with the birds, of course. Miss Cunningham, Rob, me and all the people that we knew were surely getting shot down; falling through time, we were dying in a descent that we couldn’t understand or control. Either that, or Seth and the material — still so strange to me — were giving answers that I refused, so far, to accept in practical terms.

If you will use psychological time as I have told you, you will get immediate first-hand experience with many facets of reality which take me pages to explain with the use of words. All entities are self-aware portions of the energy of All That Is. They are self-generating, and if you understand this, you will stop thinking in terms of beginnings and endings.

The inner senses operate on all planes and under all circumstances. The outer senses vary according to plane and circumstance. The outer senses are dependable only in terms of the definite system of reality for which they were constructed. Their purpose, of course, is to enable the conscious personality to recognize as valid, camouflage patterns that are only valid under certain conditions. …

Rob was all ready to ask, “Well, how come you’re letting us in on the secret?” But he never had a chance to ask the question.

“All right. Could you say anything about Miss Cunningham’s condition?” Rob asked.

Actually we didn’t get up to see her for some time. In the thirty-third session, March 9, Seth told us that April 15 would be a critical date for Miss Cunningham, but that is all he said.

For a moment I didn’t know what to say. It was almost impossible to imagine Miss Cunningham indulging in such behavior. Then I remembered the date given by Seth, so I asked as casually as I could, “When did all this happen?”

“Mrs. Butts, Mrs. Butts,” she’d call, and when I answered my door, she’d say, “Come, see. Look.” And she’d rush ahead of me down the hall, so agitated that she’d shake all over. “Here’s one of those letters. Oh, where is it? It was here. Oh, I know I saved it.”

He looked right through me, taking no notice of me at all. Since we were acquaintances, I was indignant. “Sam,” I said again, but he walked briskly past. I looked at him fully in the face, running ahead of him, ready to confront him with “What’s the matter with you?” But, instead, I realized that he didn’t see me. He never saw me at all.

All kinds of thoughts flooded to my mind. Consciousness was independent of the body — Seth was right — and if that was true, then there was no reason why he couldn’t be what he said he was: an independent personality, out of the flesh. But why hadn’t I caught on sooner? And why hadn’t I run up to see if the house mailbox had a name on it? I couldn’t wait till Rob came home so I could tell him what happened.