“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The Personality: Dissociation and Possession
The Inner Senses and Mental Enzymes
Seth Looks out the Window

In the next session the following night, Seth launched into the nature of my last trance experience and used it as a stepping stone for his first real discussion of the nature of human personality. As the session shows, Seth apparently decided that it was time to take me in hand. From here on, he would continue to comment on my trance experiments and teach me to regulate them.

Rob was intrigued not only by the material but by Seth himself as he began to manifest his own personality more clearly. My voice had been undergoing changes, becoming more similar to what we now call the Seth voice — deeper, lower, richer in tone than mine and more masculine. But on this particular night, Rob watched, amused, while Seth told him in no uncertain terms what he thought of my experiment — using my own lips to do it! (I’m also including Rob’s notes, as they apply.)

“Yes, I think we have, Seth.”

(With a laugh, Rob told me that as Seth, I’d been pacing up and down the room, giving “myself” the dickens about the trance experiment, then switching to the humorous comparison of his voice and mine. I still haven’t stopped smoking, incidentally. Back in those days, I wasn’t about to have a trance personality order me about, even for my own good. Now the habit still lingers, partially as a sign of my independence from Seth and partially as a sign of my dependence upon tobacco …

(In an earlier session, Seth said that while on vacation in Maine, we both unwittingly created two images — versions of ourselves — and then reacted to them. See The Seth Material.)

(We took a break here. Rob said that his fingers felt as if they were falling off. It was almost 10:00 P.M. and Seth had been speaking quite rapidly since the beginning of the session at nine o’clock. We started up again in ten minutes, and once more, my voice began to deepen.)

As a special favor, I would like to make a request, Seth said. Would you for a moment turn off your main light and open your blinds and curtains so that I can look out into the snowy night?

(For some reason, Rob began to think of Frank Withers. Almost immediately Seth continued,)

“I really felt that someone else was here, that Seth was looking out the window,” Rob said, when the session was over. “It was … nostalgic.” He told me what had happened.

Part of Rob’s confidence came from observation. He could see the change that came over me while I was speaking for Seth, and Seth inspires confidence. Rob liked Seth immediately. The two of them set up an excellent rapport. Through me, Seth related to Rob. Almost from the beginning he was an objectified personality to Rob; a visitor regardless of the unconventional situation; someone in whose ideas Rob was tremendously interested. On the other hand, I only knew what had been said when the trance (or the fun) was over. It was a terrific change for me to suddenly have to rely on someone else — even Rob — to tell me what “I” had been saying for a period of two or three hours.

As Seth continued to explain the inner sense and the unseen reality beneath the objective world that all of us know, I began to understand a little of my situation. And, of course, Rob and I both began to experiment with the inner senses. These experiments gave us first-hand information that was invaluable — especially to me. The next session cleared up several points I had been wondering about and gave us several clues as to how the inner senses could be used. It also includes a brief mention of flying saucers that I didn’t delete because of its obvious general interest. Again, Rob’s notes are inserted whenever they help explain the text.

“How are you this evening, Seth?” Rob asked.

(Here I put the board aside and began to speak as Seth.)

(Break at 9:45. Jane and I were both surprised at the amount of material delivered in forty-five minutes; the time seemed to fly. During break, I mentioned to Jane that I would like to ask Seth to say something about flying saucers. Resume at 9:51 P.M.)

We didn’t realize it at the time, but in these early sessions, Seth was gently leading us down the “garden path” — it became more difficult to think of the world in the usual terms, for example. Even though I had come to no conclusions as to what Seth was or wasn’t, the Seth material itself fascinated me. Its source in Seth made it only too clear that other channels of information and experience were open to us beside those we had known earlier.