“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Without taking into account here the essences of other life forms, do I think the human personality survives physical death? Considering the loving, passionate “work” that Jane and I engaged in for more than twenty years, of course I do. No other answer makes intuitive or consciously reasonable sense to me. I think it quite psychologically and psychically limiting to believe otherwise, for such beliefs can only impede or postpone our further conscious understanding of the individual and mass realities — the overall “nature” — we’re creating. I think that all of us seek answers, and that our searches are expressed in our very lives.

To me, even thinking about an entity who has died is a form of communication with the essence of that departed one, whatever its nature, shape, and complexity “was.” We must have much to consciously learn here. Imagine our planet swinging through its orbit independently of the sun’s illumination. I’ve often thought that if each birth and each death was signalled by a flash of light, an observer in space would see an earth that was always bathed in a flickering gentle glow because of all of the activities of consciousness going on there. What a profound and revealing sight that would be!

It seems incredible to me that my wife, Jane Roberts, has been dead for more than thirteen months. It’s late October 1985 as I begin this Preface for her Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness. As I have informed many correspondents, Jane died at 2:08 A.M. on Wednesday, September 5, 1984, after spending 504 consecutive days in a hospital in Elmira, N. Y. I was with her when she died. The immediate causes of her death were a combination of protein depletion, osteomyelitis, and soft-tissue infections. These conditions arose out of her long-standing rheumatoid arthritis. I’ll be discussing Jane’s illnesses — her “symptoms” — much more thoroughly in other work. Indeed, I plan to eventually write a full-length biography of her, and am doing research for that project now.

I couldn’t believe it when I realized that my wife had been dead for a week. As I lived and worked in it, our house looked the same as it ever had. In spite of my sorrow, I presented a cheerful face to the world; I talked and joked, and did everything I was supposed to do. I also discovered what must be a very common phenomenon: Those who knew of Jane’s passing became instantly self-conscious when we met. I felt their embarrassment at their damned-up sympathies, and their fear of the same thing happening to them. They didn’t want to hurt me further. Amazingly, I found myself offering comfort to them, to help them surmount such barriers so that we could talk. My visitors reminded me anew of how private an event Jane’s death is for me, yet how universal it is. How many uncounted quadrillions of times has that transference from “life” to “nonlife” taken place just on our planet alone? And I don’t believe that anyone has tried to cope with questions of life and death any more valiantly than Jane did.

[...] … When he asked it, he was referring to the point at which self-consciousness entered into so-called inert form. You know, now, that all form has consciousness, and so there was no point at which self-consciousness entered with the sound of trumpets, so to speak. Consciousness was inherent in the first materialization upon your plane.

Self-consciousness entered in very shortly after but not what you are pleased to call human self-consciousness. I do not like to wound your egos in this manner, and I can hear you yell ‘foul,’ but there is no actual differentiation between the various kinds of consciousness.

You are either conscious of self or you are not. A tree is conscious of itself as a tree. [...] What I am trying to point out here is this supreme egotistical presumption that self-consciousness must of necessity involve humanity per se. [...]

So-called human consciousness did not suddenly appear. Our poor maligned friend, the ape, did not suddenly beat his hairy chest in exultation and cry, ‘I am a man.’ The beginnings of human consciousness, on the other hand, began as soon as multi-cellular groupings began to form in field patterns of a certain complexity.

[...] Yet consciously, she was ignorant of her own inner decision.

Of course, the conscious mind cannot be aware of such critical inner decisions. [...]

[...] Every time I passed it, I wondered again: Was she transferring her consciousness to another level of reality? [...]

[...] Was their consciousness born anew, and was it really something quite independent of the images they wore?

During all of this time, Rob and I were having our first experiences with mobility of consciousness. What else could consciousness do? [...]

Because of the Miss Cunningham dream and the “Idea Construction” experience, Rob suggested that I try some experiments in ESP and expansion of consciousness and do a book on the results — negative or positive. [...]

[...] Now, in my ordinary state of consciousness, I can only appreciate it or even criticize it. [...]

[...] I’m convinced that this sort of exercise is most valuable in that it helped to shake our consciousness out of its usual focus in objective, ego-oriented reality.

As to Jane’s feeling about the tree having a certain consciousness, of course this is the case. [...] In some ways, its living forces and consciousness are kept to a minimum. [...]

[...] Without the conscious mind of man it nevertheless retains this inner consciousness of all its parts, above and below the ground, and manipulates them constantly.

[...] In this session, he also spoke about the consciousness of trees in such a way that I was never able to look at the trees outside of my window with the same old detachment. [...]

[...] However, conscious fears cause the ego to tighten its grasp, and some effects of this nature were starting up. [...]

Because you know that you breathe, without being consciously aware of the mechanics involved, you are forced to admit that you do your own breathing. When you cross a room, you are forced to admit that you have caused yourself to do so, though consciously you have no idea of willing the muscles to move, or of stimulating one tendon or another. [...]

He says, ‘I breathe, but who breathes, since consciously I cannot tell myself to breathe or not to breathe?’ He says, ‘I dream. [...]

As breathing is carried on in a manner that seems automatic to the conscious mind, so the important function of transforming the vitality of the universe into pattern units seems to be carried on automatically. [...]

[...] Who moves?’ How much easier it would be to admit freely and wholeheartedly the simple fact that you are not consciously aware of vital parts of yourself and that you are more than you think you are.

This sense would permit our man to feel the basic sensations felt by the tree, so that instead of looking at it, his consciousness would expand to contain the experience of what it is to be a tree. [...] He would in no way lose consciousness of who he was, and he would perceive these experiences again, somewhat in the same manner that you perceive heat and cold. [...]

[...] I preferred to think of our psychic experiences as emphasizing, instead, the unknown abilities of our present consciousness. [...]

[...] Yet, you would not have consciously admitted the experience not too long ago, as something like it happened at an earlier date and you forgot it consciously.

[...] One point, however: conscious fear is usually the main hindrance as far as inner data is concerned. Therefore, a realization that these senses belong to you and that they are quite natural, will help you avoid the closing off of such data by the conscious mind.

[...] He wants his answers given to him in a way that his conscious mind can understand. [...]

[...] Psychological time operates during sleep and quiet hours of consciousness. [...]

Consciously, you didn’t know what you were up to; unconsciously, you knew very well. [...]

If you recall, part of your mind was conscious in usual terms. [...]

[...] You get a subconscious focus different in many ways from conscious concentration. [...]