“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The first time, the sensation was not as strong as the next two times. When it first swept over me, I wondered if the wine could be responsible, though actually I had drunk little. I waited quietly, and in a moment or two the sensation was gone. I was balanced on the arm of our davenport, talking to our company. I had the odd feeling that the sensation was related both to the subject of conversation, and to some kind of message or communication I felt within me.

I also sensed, or felt, a great chute or trough or pathway of some kind that reached down into me from above me, or at least from outside of me. At this point, I definitely was apprehensive. The sensation in my chest was very strong. I even thought that perhaps I was having some sort of physical attack, though I felt no pain.

Looking back now, the next morning, I think the possibility crossed my mind that some psychic effects were being felt, but, actually, I was so startled that I didn’t think much of anything.

It was invented by the ego to protect the ego, because of the mistaken conception of dual existence; that is, because man felt that a predictable, conscious self did the thinking and manipulating, and an unpredictable self did the breathing and dreaming. He set up boundaries to protect the ‘predictable’ self from the ‘unpredictable’ self and ended up by cutting the whole self in half.

Originally, psychological time allowed man to live in the inner and outer worlds with relative ease … and man felt much closer to his environment. In prehistoric times, mankind evolved the ego to help him deal with camouflage patterns that he had, himself, created. This is no contradiction, as will be explained later. He did the job so well that even when he had things well under control, he was not satisfied. He developed at a lopsided level. The inner senses led him into a reality he could not manipulate as easily as he could physical camouflage, and he feared what he thought of as a loss of mastery.

What you experienced is rather difficult to explain until we have a thorough discussion of the inner senses, but I will give you a simple explanation for now. You felt an onrush — or should I say an onslaught? — of data in its pure form, rushing through the inner senses like a wind in a kaleidoscope because you did not know how to control or disentangle it.

For this reason, you attempted a rather hilarious feat. You tried to switch over and pick up inside data with the outer senses, and then project this inward. For a beginner, it was quite a performance. … It was a defect on the receiving end that caused fear on your part. You felt sound. But, because you did not hear sound with your ears, you panicked and formed the image of mouths that could not speak. This was a projection of your inability and should not be taken as any condition of helplessness existing in the inner world, as I am afraid you interpreted the image.

Your feeling of a door or funnel is quite legitimate, however, and if you felt attacked because of the onrush of data that seemed to crash down upon you, it was only because of your inability to control the volume, so to speak. You switched yourself off automatically because the experience frightened you, but the whole affair was beneficial since it gave you some first-hand experience with pure inner sensory data. It was unfortunate that it was so uncontrolled, but I’m afraid this can often be expected in the beginning. If possible, try to relax if the experience happens again, and the data will slow itself up.

Unlike last time, I wasn’t frightened. I held up my hand without speaking. Jane stopped talking and we waited quietly to see what might develop. I hoped the feeling would somehow turn into sound or images, but it didn’t. At least I felt that I hadn’t slammed any ‘interior door’ shut.

Through all of these early sessions, Rob was not feeling well. He is in such good health now that it’s difficult to remember how badly he felt. The session notes show his condition quite clearly, though. Often Seth would give us a break so Rob could rest. Frequently he took notes on the old TV set, standing up, and sometimes he sat in the new rocker.

That weekend he didn’t feel well. Monday morning he tried self-hypnosis with good, though temporary, results. He felt better the rest of that day and on Tuesday. On Wednesday evening an upsetting incident happened, throwing our household and a neighbor’s into confusion, and aggravating Rob’s symptoms.

I hadn’t felt well. My back was acting up, work was difficult, and by suppertime, I was drained. I did not really feel like taking fifteen to twenty pages of dictation from Seth; I was concerned lest I miss some of the material.

As the regular hour for our session came and went, Jane began to get ‘nibbles’ from Seth. At the same time, I felt worse. I had not been helping Jane and felt guilty about it and was angry at Miss C’s relatives. Once I had such a severe attack of back cramps that I couldn’t stand.

Coming in and out of Miss Cunningham’s apartment, Jane would tell me the snatches of thought she received from Seth. I was in no condition to cooperate, so Jane wrote the words down. Several comments were directed to me, and one, in particular, was quite illuminating. ‘You want to help but fear to move. If you had helped tonight, you would not have felt the need to turn your emotions inward against yourself in such a self-destructive manner.’”

The next night Mark Ragen, a friend, dropped by. We were somewhat tired, but glad to see him. For the first time, I felt that Seth was “around” while we were socially engaged. My feelings were confused. I thought sardonically, “A guest from another layer of reality is one thing, but do you really want your friends to meet him?” Finally my nervousness was so apparent that Rob asked me what was wrong. For a moment I just sat there. Should I introduce Seth to Mark or not? I remember thinking that no book of etiquette even written could give me an answer.