“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Good evening.

(In high good humor): Now: We are writing some saga. Resume dictation, then.

(9:32.) Now, many individuals do not need to pass through this particular period. It goes without saying that the hospitals and training centers are not physical in your terms. They are often, in fact, maintained en masse by the guides who carry out the necessary plans. Now you may call this mass hallucination if you will. The fact is that to those encountering that reality, the events are quite real.

Now I have spoken of such development earlier. Some of my readers, not being perhaps aware of any psychic ability of their own, might think then that they are in for a long and protracted period of after-death training. Let me hasten to tell you that all such ability is not necessarily conscious, and that much of it takes place during the sleep state when you are simply not aware of it.

Now I suggest your break, and we will return.

(“All right.” 9:42 to 9:58.) Now: You may after death utterly refuse to believe that you are dead, and continue to focus your emotional energy toward those you have known in life.

Now: I will cover the subject of ghosts separately, rather than in this chapter. Suffice it to say that large fields of emotional focus toward physical reality can hold you back from further development.

When consciousness leaves the body and is away for some time then the connection is, of course, broken. In out-of-body states the connection still holds. Now it is possible for an individual who has died to completely misinterpret the experience and attempt to reenter the corpse. This can happen when the personality identified himself almost exclusively with the physical image.

This form will seem physical. It will not be seen by those still in the physical body however, generally speaking. It can do anything that you do now in your dreams. Therefore it flies, goes through solid objects, and is moved directly by your will, taking you, say, from one location to another as you may think of these locations.

If you wonder what Aunt Sally is doing in, say, Poughkeepsie, New York, then you will find yourself there. However, you cannot as a rule manipulate physical objects. You cannot pick up a lamp or throw a dish. This body is yours instantly, but it is not the only form that you will have. For that matter, this image is not a new one. It is interwound with your physical body now, but you do not perceive it. Following death, it will be the only body you are aware of for some time.

(Pause at 10:15.) Much later and on many levels you will finally learn to take many forms, as you choose, consciously. In one manner of speaking you do this now, you see, translating your psychological experience — your thoughts and emotions — quite literally but unconsciously into physical objects. You may find that when you imagine yourself as a child — after death — that you suddenly have the form of the child that you were. For a certain period of time, therefore, you can manipulate this form so that it takes any appearance that it had when it was connected with your physical form in the immediately previous physical life. You may die at eighty and after death think of the youth and vitality that you had at twenty, and find then that your form changes to correspond with this inner image.

Now you may take a break, and I will contact you again.

(As Seth, Jane pointed to John Barclay, sitting beside me on the couch. In connection with his business, John had attended a gathering this afternoon at which champagne had been served; he was now sleepy….)

Now: May I continue dictation?

As your perceptive mechanisms insist that objects are solid, for example, so they insist that such a thing as space exists. Now what your senses tell you about the nature of matter is entirely erroneous, and what they tell you about space is equally wrong — wrong in terms of basic reality, but quite in keeping of course with three-dimensional concepts. (Humorously): In out-of-body experiences from the living state, many of the problems are encountered, in terms of space, that will be met after death. And in such episodes, therefore, the true nature of time and space becomes more apparent. After death it does not take time to go through space, for example. Space does not exist in terms of distance. This is illusion. There are barriers, but they are mental or psychic barriers. For example, there are intensities of experience that are interpreted in your reality as distance in miles.

After death you may find yourself in a training center. Now theoretically, this center could be in the middle of your present living room, in physical space, but the distance between you and the members of your family still living — sitting perhaps, thinking of you or reading a paper — would have nothing to do with space as you know it. You would be more separated from them than if you were, say, on the moon.

Now: Do you have any questions?