“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I would now like to describe two effects, one of Jane’s and one of mine, that took place almost simultaneously some few minutes before the session began. In addition, my experience blended into another one after the session started — but more about that later.

(At times the interference had covered a wide enough area so that I had a difficult time seeing the drawing paper before me, for instance, or the pencil I felt in my hand. The shimmering varied in intensity. On one occasion I lay down and closed my eyes simply because it was easier to do this than anything else. Such effects lasted half an hour at the most, usually less.

(There is more to follow; for as this experience waned it was replaced, or led into, an event of a different kind. This one was new to me, and most interesting. Subsequent notes, and Seth himself, explain what transpired as the session progressed. I’ll say here that the new effect involved the gradual loss of my ability first to spell, and then to write….

We will resume dictation. (Pause; one of many.) Consciousness has many characteristics, some of course known to you. Many of the characteristics of consciousness, however, are not so apparent, since presently you largely use your own consciousness in such a way that its perceptions appear in quite other than “natural” guises. You are aware of your own consciousness, in other words, through the medium of your own physical mechanism. You are not nearly as aware of your own consciousness when it is not operating primarily through the mediumship of the body, as it does in out-of-body states and some dissociated conditions.

The characteristics of consciousness are the same (seme) whether you are in a body or outside of one. The peaks and valleys of consciousness that I mentioned exist to some degree in all consciousness despite the form adopted (adepted) after death (deth). The nature of your consciousness is no different basically (bascially) than it is now, though you may not be aware of many of its characteristics.

(In considerable surprise I asked Seth to wait once more. I missed a couple of sentences here, and very nearly gave up trying to take notes. I thought of one more try, however. Jane, as Seth, sat waiting rather noncommittally, eyes open.)

Now I am ending this chapter, and with it I am ending Part One of my book. Give us a moment now — and end of dictation.