“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We have known several people who were monks in a previous existence. Now. (To Ron): In a life in the east before the time of Christ, 1200 B.C., you were a member of a body of men who belonged to an esoteric heritage. You were wanderers and traveled also through Asia Minor.

You carried with you in your heads messages and laws that had been given to one of your kind in a time that was already nearly forgotten. These were codes of ethics. They originated from the time of Atlantis. Before that, these codes were given by a race from another star. This race had to do with the origin of Atlantis. The messages were put into words and language and written down at the time of Atlantis, but after that they were handed down by word of mouth.

You traveled through Asia Minor in a time of great turmoil, and wherever you went you spoke — which means you gave utterance to the ethics. It took you twelve years of training to memorize this code of ethics.

(The Essenes were one of the four known Jewish sects active in the Holy Land at the time of Christ. They were a peaceful, contemplative group. They aren’t mentioned in the Bible. If Seth means that the Essenes were promulgating the Speakers’ codes of ethics in, say, the first century A.D., then this of course is a time many centuries later than Ron’s life in 1200 B.C.

(Ron’s wife, Grace: “Seth, did we fulfill our purposes in that time?”)

In that existence, yes. You must give me time. There was turmoil within the group, disagreement. There was disagreement over the meaning of the words that were recalled. The group became divided. One portion of the group traveled to the land we now call Palestine, and the other migrated, in the next century, appearing in southern Europe.

(Ten sessions after this one, Seth told Jane and me that we had been Speakers also, although he said nothing about dates or countries, or whether Jane, Ron, or I might be renewing acquaintances made in other, perhaps very ancient times. It seems to me that in this life at least, Ron and I encountered each other in quite a strange way: almost of an age, we grew up in the same small town near Elmira many years ago; we knew of each other’s family — and yet we didn’t meet until 1970….

(Ramah is the name of several Palestinian towns, and means “height” in Hebrew. Biblical allusions associate the name with some of the “high places” of cultic practice. These sites, rejected as immoral and threatening to Israelite belief, contained objects of illegitimate worship — the sacred pillar of Baal being one such. I discovered all of this information through research after the session. None of it was known to us at the time. Resume at 11:48.)

In your terms, and in your terms only, the coming of Christ was the Second Coming. (Pause.) In those terms — and, again, this is important — in those terms only, he appeared at the time of Atlantis, but the records were destroyed and forgotten except in the memory of a few who survived.

Now, again in those terms, he is an entity who appears time and time again within your physical system, but he has been recognized on only two occasions. Once in Atlantis, and once in the Christ story as it has come down to you in all of its distortions. He appears and reappears therefore, sometimes making himself known and sometimes not. He was not one personality, as I have told you, but a highly developed entity, sometimes appearing as a fragment of himself.

In your terms he eternally weaves himself within the fabric of your time and space, born again and again into the world of flesh, being a part of it while also independent of it, even as you are all a part of it but independent of it.

(After the session Ron explained the Second Coming as given in the Bible in Matthew 24. He also told us about Jesus predicting his own death and resurrection several times in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and of the resulting uncertainty and misunderstanding of the disciples. Even after his crucifixion the risen Jesus wasn’t recognized on various occasions.)