“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane’s voice in trance can be almost conversational in tone, volume, and pace, but is subject to a wide range of these qualities. Usually it’s somewhat deeper and stronger than her “own” voice. Once in a while her “Seth voice” is very loud indeed, much more powerful, with definite masculine overtones and with an obvious, tremendous energy behind it. Most of our sessions however are fairly quiet.

(Seth speaks with an accent that’s hard to pinpoint. It’s been called Russian, Irish, German, Dutch, Italian, and even French. Seth once humorously commented that his way of speaking was actually due to his own “cosmopolitan background,” acquired through many lifetimes. Jane and I think it is simply individual, and that it invokes various responses in people according to their own ethnic and emotional backgrounds.

(I think these changes in Jane during sessions are caused by her creative reception of a portion of an entity, an essence, that we call Seth, and by her own ideas of what this certain segment is like as she casts it in the masculine gender. Her transformation as Seth is original, and absorbing to watch and participate in. Regardless of degree, Seth is uniquely and kindly present. I am listening to, and exchanging dialogue with, another personality.

(Before the session, Jane said she felt rather nervous; she thought Seth would start his own book this evening. Her feeling of nervousness is quite unusual in these sessions. I offered reassurances, telling her to forget the whole thing and let the book come out in its own way.)

My readers may suppose that they are physical creatures, bound within physical bodies, imprisoned within bone, flesh, and skin. If you believe that your existence is dependent upon this corporeal image, then you feel in danger of extinction, for no physical form lasts, and no body, however beautiful in youth, retains the same vigor and enchantment in old age. If you identify with your own youth, or beauty, or intellect, or accomplishments, then there is the constant gnawing knowledge that these attributes can and will vanish.

Consciousness creates form. It is not the other way around. All personalities are not physical. It is only because you are so busily concerned with daily matters that you do not realize that there is a portion of you who knows that its own powers are far superior to those shown by the ordinary self.

I do not speak through Ruburt as one might through a telephone. Instead there is a psychological extension, a projection of characteristics on both of our parts, and this I use for our communications. Later I will explain how this psychological framework is created and maintained, for it is like a road that must be kept clear of debris. You would be much better off in reading this book if you asked yourself who you are, rather than asked who I am, for you cannot understand what I am unless you understand the nature of personality and the characteristics of consciousness.

I speak to those who believe in a god, and those who do not, to those who believe that science will find all answers as to the nature of reality, and to those who do not. I hope to give you clues that will enable you to study the nature of reality for yourself as you have never studied it before.

There are several things that I shall ask you to understand. You are not stuck in time like a fly in a closed bottle, whose wings are therefore useless. You cannot trust your physical senses to give you a true picture of reality. They are lovely liars, with such a fantastic tale to tell that you believe it without question. You are sometimes wiser, more creative, and far more knowledgeable when you are dreaming than when you are awake.

What I will tell you has been told before throughout the centuries, and given again when it was forgotten. I hope to clarify many points that have been distorted through the years. And I offer my original interpretation of others, for no knowledge exists in a vacuum, and all information must be interpreted and colored by the personality who holds it and passes it on. Therefore I describe reality as I know it, and my experience in many layers and dimensions.

This is not to say that other realities do not exist. I have been conscious before your earth was formed. To write this book — and in most of my communications with Ruburt — I adopt from my own bank of past personalities those characteristics that seem appropriate. There are many of us, personalities like myself, unfocused in physical matter or time. Our existence seems strange to you only because you do not realize the true potentials of personality, and you are hypnotized by your own limited concepts.

I am primarily a teacher, but I have not been a man of letters per se. I am primarily a personality with a message: you create the world that you know. You have been given perhaps the most awesome gift of all: the ability to project your thoughts outward into physical form.

The gift brings a responsibility, and many of you are tempted to congratulate yourselves on the successes of your lives, and blame God, fate, and society for your failures. In like manner, mankind has a tendency to project his own guilt and his own errors upon a father-god image, who it seems must grow weary of so many complaints.

The fact is that each of you create your own physical reality; and en masse, you create both the glories and the terrors that exist within your earthly experience. Until you realize that you are the creators, you will refuse to accept this responsibility. Nor can you blame a devil for the world’s misfortunes. You have grown sophisticated enough to realize that the Devil is a projection of your own psyche, but you have not grown wise enough to learn how to use your creativity constructively.

(Pause at 10:45.) The hour is growing late. Both of my friends must get up early in the morning. Ruburt is working on two books of his own and must get his sleep. Before I end this session I ask you to imagine our setting, for Ruburt has told me that a writer must be careful to set the scene. (Humorously.)

Physical reality has always been refreshing to me, and through Ruburt’s cooperation and as I write this book, I see that I was correct in appreciating its unique charms. There is one other character to be mentioned here: Willy, the cat, a beloved monster who is now sleeping.