“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Many people know of Jane’s death by now, and this makes it impossible for me to deal with that event in chronological order within her books. By rights, I shouldn’t be mentioning it sequentially until I publish the two books that Jane and I had finished while she was hospitalized — then it would be all right to announce that she is dead! But for convenience’s sake, in Seth, Dreams … I bring together certain events in chronological time; I feel that its having been written some time ago makes this book the ideal place for me to discuss Jane’s death, to unite the “past,” the “present,” and the “future’; I regard it as being next in line after Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, which Prentice-Hall, Inc. is publishing in two volumes in the spring and fall of 1986. In Dreams, “Evolution, “… I stuck to Jane’s production of the Seth Material for that work, plus a strict chronological account of our personal lives while she delivered it. I made no leaps in time to write about her physical death, for to me that sad event lay too far in the future — over two and a half years — from the time she finished dictating Dreams, “Evolution,” … in February 1982.

So if I insist that I’ve communicated with Jane at times, then I’m obligated to consider statements from others claiming the same thing. But in ordinary terms, even if my wife’s death has left me more open and vulnerable to psychic possibilities, I still shrink from offering any sort of blanket assurance. (“Yes, I’m convinced that you have reached Jane, just as I have.”) I’m not contradicting myself when I note that perhaps — and I’ve suspected for a long time that ultimately this is correct — it is true that on some far levels of consciousness and communication that we do not (or even cannot) understand at this “time,” each person who is so inclined to do so has at least touched a Jane who responded clearly enough. She will continue to do so. In this view, those elements in such messages that have no meaning for me can be only distortions on the part of the medium or the letter-writer or the poet. I do think that communication among entities, whether they’re physical or nonphysical, is always going on, and from every conceivable angle and in every way. Hardly a new thought, yet grasping it, or even speculating about it, is to touch upon a portion of the mystery of life. (And from where you are, Jane, what do you think of my very cautious approach?)

I wrote Valerie that she was gifted psychically and suggested that she might cautiously proceed with learning more about her abilities, to whatever extent she chose. Valerie is thirty-eight years old, and lives with her husband in a western state; they have two children. She works part time in the field of education. She is developing her gifts through study and practice. During the year she sent me a number of messages “from” and about Jane. Some of them subjectively feel right to me; they effortlessly mirror or echo the way the Jane I lived with for almost thirty years often talked and wrote. In fact, at times I found the similarities between the contents of those messages and my ideas of Jane’s own ambience to be striking.

In a dream, I have said, you can experience many days while no corresponding amount of physical time passes. [...] Now, condensed time is the time felt by the entity, while any of its given personalities live on a plane of physical materialization. [...]

Human self-consciousness existed in psychological time, and in inner ‘time’ long before you, as a species, constructed it. [...]

Belgium in 1632, and our Phillip, in a rather sensational case for the times, actually brought this husband to a village trial — a particularly unusual occurence at that time. [...]

I have described those early sessions elsewhere, but here I’m including, instead, a poem that is a dramatic, intuitive statement about my feelings at the time. [...] Seth didn’t really announce himself until we had worked with the Ouija board four times. [...]

It was the first time Miss Cunningham and I had really talked together in some time, and I was shocked by the change in her. [...]

During the rest of that September in 1963, I reread the “Idea Construction” manuscript many times, trying to understand it and hoping to recapture some of the feelings I had had during its delivery. [...]

Time and space are both camouflage patterns. The inner senses conquer time and space, but this is hardly surprising because time and space do not exist for them. There is no time and space. [...]

[...] After a short time, I began to speak as Malba. I mentioned this experience briefly in How To Develop Your ESP Power, but here I’m including Rob’s notes which provide a fuller version of the event and our attitude toward it at the time.

[...] There is no lapse of time in perception, since there is no time.

During this period I was trying the psychological time exercises suggested by Seth, and often, just when I got started, Miss Cunningham would interrupt me. One day I went into the bedroom where it was quiet, closed my eyes, lay down and began clearing my mind of thoughts for my psy-time exercise. Several times Miss Cunningham came to mind: I wanted to ask her doctor about her condition but hesitated because I wasn’t a member of her family.

Miss Cunningham stayed in the nursing home for a short time when the family was notified again that she was unmanagable, and that other arrangements would have to be made. [...] Not wanting to commit her, the relatives returned her to the apartment, in care of a part-time housekeeper.

This time we both stopped in dismay. [...]

At times, the ego can hold you in a tight vice, which the dissociation breaks. [...] This is why I suggested the exercises at this time.

[...] This time, we decided not to have any “format” or particular plans but to leave ourselves open to whatever might happen. [...]

[...] On the other hand, it may be less than trustworthy at times, simply because their achievement level is not high. [...]

Time to your dreaming self is much like ‘time’ to your waking inner self. The time concept in dreams may seem far different than your conception of time in the waking state when you have your eyes on the clock and are concerned with getting to some destination by, say, 12:15. But it is not so different from time in the waking state when you are sitting alone with your thoughts. Then, I am sure, you will see the similarity between this alone sort of inner psychological time, experienced often in waking hours, and the sense of time experienced often in a dream. [...]

[...] Like other experiences of this nature, it was intrusive, in that it seemed to have no connection with what he was doing or thinking at the time.

[...] Seth said, Sleepy time is no crime. [...]

[...] 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. [...]

[...] These saucers cannot stay on your plane for any length of time. [...] To conform to the laws of a particular plane is a practical necessity, and at this time, the ‘saucers’ cannot afford to stay betwixt and between for any indefinite period.

[...] Planes may also involve various aspects of apparent time. [...] A plane may be a time … or only one iota of vitality that exists by itself. [...]

From its framework you will see that clock time is as dreamlike as you once thought inner time was. You will discover that ‘inner time’ is as much a reality as you once considered outer time to be. In other words, peeping inwards and outwards at the same ‘time’ you will find that all divisions are illusion and all time is one time. [...]

You can look through psychological time at clock time and even use clock time then to your greater advantage; but without the initial recognition of psychological time, clock time becomes a prison. … A proper use of psychological time will not only lead you to inner reality but will prevent you from being rushed in the physical world. [...]

[...] As you can experience days or hours within its framework in the dream state and not age for the comparable amount of physical time, so as you develop, you will be able to rest and be refreshed within psychological time even when you are awake. [...] Within any given five minutes of clock time, for example, you may find an hour of resting which is independent of clock time.