“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

For a moment I was appalled. All kinds of doubts filled my mind. I hadn’t held a regular Seth session since the tour. Suppose the lights bothered me or the trance wasn’t deep enough? I had a horror, too, of putting on any kind of display. Regular Seth sessions in the privacy of our living room were one thing. Going into trance on television was something else again. “Oh, Seth,” I said mentally, in consternation.

Just then I felt an enormous sense of reassurance, good will and confidence. At a level beneath words, I knew that Seth was right: this was the time. Wholeheartedly I gave assent. I reached over for Rob’s hand. “It’s Seth,” I muttered quickly. My face must have begun to change even then, the muscles rearranging themselves into Seth’s characteristic expressions, because in that last moment I saw what seemed to be a gigantic camera lens coming in for a close-up. …

A small group surrounded us — the producer and assistant producer, Jack, Sonja and the camera men. I looked at Rob with a touch of dismay because while I’d reassured Jack that everything was quite normal, actually something was different this time: I felt as if I’d been in a plane going incredibly fast, only to be yanked suddenly to a halt. Such a tremendous amount of energy surged through me that I didn’t know what to do. For a moment it sent me reeling, and Jack caught my arm. This only embarrassed me further. I could feel my cheeks flush. I always tried to behave very sensibly to show that a trance was not a strange but a very natural phenomenon, and so my momentary stagger caught me by surprise. Rob was beside me in a moment, and I explained how I felt. A taxi was already waiting to take us to our next show, a radio program. I grabbed my bun and coffee and took them with me.

You think that you are only conscious while you are awake. You assume yourselves unconscious when you sleep. In Freud’s terminology, the dice are indeed loaded on the side of the conscious mind. But pretend for a moment that you are looking at this situation from the other side. Pretend that while you are in the dream state you are concerned with the problem of physical consciousness and existence. From that viewpoint, the picture is entirely different, for you are indeed conscious when you sleep.