“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.)

As for the writing, it was by an unorganized, unformed, possible personality of Ruburt’s that merely took the opportunity to show itself and supercede the strong hand that has always dominated it. … Joseph, your part in these sessions is extremely important. Without your participation they could not have begun, nor could they continue. Because of our past alliances, the three of us are closely bound together …

(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 …

Schizophrenia is caused by a personality fragment that is broken off, so to speak, from the primary acting personality, operating often in direct opposition to it, but in any case, operating as a secondary personality.

In your York Beach experience, had you not been able to form those images outside of yourselves, and so endow them with some physical reality, you might very well have turned yourself into schizophrenic personalities instead.

Many people are unable to endow fragments with such physical reality, and thus shove them more or less harmlessly away at arm’s length, as you did. Instead, the dissociated part of the personality dons another personality and battles with the dominant one for control. Many cases of so-called ‘possession’ can be laid to this alone.

Actually, the dominant personality, in your terms, can be compared to the dominant entity. Please understand that I am using an analogy here. As the personality on your plane actually changes, expands and grows to its potentialities, as it presents at various times varied images to the world (such as — if you’ll forgive me for using cliches — a smiling face, a sorrowful face), but is still basically the same personality, so on another level does the entity present at various times a varied appearance and speak in a different voice. As the smiling and sorrowful faces also express and expand the personality, so, too, do the various reincarnated personalities express and expand the entity as a whole.

Without the stages of childhood, adulthood and old age, the personality could not expand to its fullest degree, and without various incarnations, the entity cannot expand…

In dreaming, such a dissociated state as Ruburt reached is, of course, the rule, only the ability is used to form dream images. But these dream images work for the entity as a whole and serve as a means for the various personalities to communicate; that is, in many cases, the previous personalities communicate with the present one. This is a means of acquainting the present personality with its ‘past’ and also of reminding it of its goals, without disturbing the blatant awake ego.

And please do not think of yourself as some sort of a male stenographer. Through means I cannot explain at this date, I could not speak through Ruburt without you, and a kink in your present personality would quite prevent me from communicating with you alone. …

Now, there are various types of dreams and dream fragments. I will follow this through later on, since in these beginning sessions I am giving you what may be considered as a broad outline to be filled in. These dissociated states often occur in sleep, when the ego is quieted. At such times it is very possible for your present personalities to be visited by others such as myself, but only on the bidding of the entity.

And as far as assimilating our old Frank Withers, don’t let me lead you too far astray. The entity never dominates a previous personality. Sometimes these personalities also travel divergent ways for their own benefit and with the entity’s full consent.

There is no such thing as division as far as the personality is concerned. Even a fragment can turn into an entity in certain cases. There are no rules that hold any living thing down to one form or one kind of existence. And now, dear patient friends, a fond good night.

“Wow, and this stuff …” I was reading Rob’s notes. “ ‘A fragment personality can become an entity.’ What’s the soul, then?”

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.

It is often practical that entities or their various personalities visit one plane before another. This does not mean that one plane must necessarily be visited before another. … You could say also that an entity visits all planes simultaneously, as it is possible for you to visit one particular state, county and city at one time. Also, you might visit the state of sorrow and joy almost simultaneously and experience both emotions in heightened form because of the almost immediate contrast. In fact, the analogy of a plane with an emotional state is much more valid than the analogy between a plane and a geographical state, particularly since emotional states take up no room or space. …