“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At 8:30 tonight Jane and I discussed Seth’s progress on his book. Jane was somewhat concerned. She wasn’t reading the book now, but she realized Seth wasn’t following, literally, the outline he’d given for it before he began dictating it chapter by chapter. I told her I thought Seth was presenting it just as he wanted it done; she agreed that she might as well relax and just let it come out.

(For the first time I conceded to myself that perhaps I ought to ask Seth to slow down, while realizing his pace was slow to begin with. I didn’t ask him what was happening. That worthy stared at me through Jane’s eyes without a sign that anything unusual might be taking place in the session….)

(When I started to explain to Jane why I had to stop, I discovered that on top of everything else I was having trouble speaking coherently. Seth then returned briefly, with a broad smile. From memory I recall his saying:)

(Seth suspended dictation on his book at my request, but during a brief interlude suggested that I have Jane turn on the rest of the lights in the room when she came out of trance. Then, I was to imagine my consciousness growing brighter and brighter, filling the room like light; I would find that all of my abilities would soon return. I wasn’t able to remember some subsequent information.

(Thus, I had experienced altered states of seeing, writing, spelling, and speaking this evening — all facets of course of my physical means of communication. Sitting in the glare of the brilliantly lit room, I described everything in detail to Jane, including the vision effects of earlier years. She wondered if my loss of communicative abilities was also related to my father’s senility and his own physical retreat. I didn’t know. I hadn’t experienced anything unusual involving him recently.

In our demonstration, to which of course Joseph gave his permission, he allowed his consciousness to retreat, and to some degree began to cut off its physical expression. He was not aware consciously of his permission, simply because this kind of demonstration could not be held if the normal waking consciousness knew. It would automatically be frightened. As I spoke about the dimming of consciousness, Joseph then experienced it.

Give us a moment. This was an exercise, actually, in the manipulation of consciousness. Close to death, this same sort of thing happens in varying degrees when the consciousness realizes that it can no longer express itself through the mediumship of the body. If the dying person overidentifies with the body then he can easily panic, thinking that all expression is therefore cut off, and for that matter that his consciousness is about to be extinguished.

(But Seth wasn’t through work on his book yet. The following material shows the relationship between my vision effects and the events in the session itself. It’s very interesting that I would choose tonight, of all nights, to try for visual data, although in recent days I’ve been inquiring mentally about subjects for my next oil painting. I haven’t said anything about this to Jane.)