“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This is the first regular session since May 12. There were many factors behind the long layoff: Jane’s sheer need for rest; problems and questions of our own that we had wanted to deal with, but had put off for a long time; some work with others; a vacation; and the acquisition of several more rooms across the hall from our original apartment. Jane held ESP classes for some of this time, though, and gave a few sessions within that format.

(Jane preferred that Seth simply start in where he had left off on the chapter — a feat I was sure he was quite capable of. “But I don’t care what he does,” she laughed, “as long as we have a session.” She was somewhat nervous because of the break in dictation, in spite of my reassurances. She was strongly interested in seeing that Seth finished his book, although she still has to read most of it.

These psychic entities are real, however. It is quite true to say that their reality consists not only of the core of their own identity, but also is reinforced by those projected thoughts and feelings of the earthly audience for whom the drama is enacted.

(9:05.) Psychic or psychological identification is of great import here and is indeed at the heart of all such dramas. In one sense, you can say that man identifies with the gods he has himself created. Man does not understand the magnificent quality of his own inventiveness and creative power, however. Then, say that gods and men create each other, and you come even closer to the truth; but only if you are very careful in your definitions — for how, exactly, do gods and men differ?

The attributes of the gods are those inherent within man himself, magnified, brought into powerful activity. Men believe that the gods live forever. Men live forever, but having forgotten this, they remember only to endow their gods with this characteristic. Obviously, then, beyond these earthly historic religious dramas, the seemingly recurring tales of gods and men, there are spiritual realities.

For example, the main character in a religious historical drama may or may not consciously be aware of the ways in which such information is given to him. And yet it may seem to him that he does know, for the nature of a dogma’s origin will be explained in terms that this main character can understand. The historical Jesus knew who he was, but he also knew that he was one of three personalities composing one entity. To a large extent he shared in the memory of the other two.

Now there will be several born before that time who in various ways will rearouse man’s expectations. One such man has already been born in India, in a small province near Calcutta, but his ministry will seem to remain comparatively local for his lifetime.

(I too had begun wondering. All along we’d been thinking the three personalities making up the Christ entity had already lived and died, but now here Seth was talking about the third personality returning in the next century. What was the explanation? We weren’t upset; yet we did feel uneasy as the session resumed at 9:57.)

This person had superior energy and power and great organizing abilities, but it was the errors that he made unwittingly that perpetuated some dangerous distortions. The records of that historical period are scattered and contradictory.

The man, historically now, was Paul or Saul. It was given to him to set up a framework. But it was to be a framework of ideas, not of regulations; of men, not of groups. Here he fell down, and he will return as the third personality, just mentioned, in your future.

Now Saul went to great lengths to set himself as a separate identity. His characteristics, for example, were seemingly quite different from those of the historical Christ. He was “converted” in an intense personal experience — a fact that was meant to impress upon him the personal and not organizational aspects. Yet some exploits of his in his earlier life have been attributed to Christ — not as a young man, but earlier.

Now he did not create them on his own, and thrust them upon historical reality. (Jane paused, a hand to her eyes.) He created them in so far as he found himself forced to admit certain facts: In that world at that time, earthly power was needed to hold Christian ideas apart from numberless other theories and religions, to maintain them in the middle of warring factions. It was his job to form a physical framework; and even then he was afraid that the framework would strangle the ideas, but he saw no other way.

He was called both. (Pause.) When the third personality reemerges historically, however, he will not be called the old Paul, but will carry within him the characteristics of all the three personalities.

Paul tried to deny knowing who he was, until his experience with conversion. Allegorically, he represented a warring faction of the self that fights against his own knowledge and is oriented in a highly physical manner. It seemed he went from one extreme to another, being against Christ and then for him. But the inner vehemence was always present, the inner fire, and the recognition that he tried for so long to hide.

(10:27.) In the next century, the inner nature of man, with these developments, will free itself from many constraints that have bound it. A new era will indeed begin — not, now, a heaven on earth, but a far more sane and just world, in which man is far more aware of his relationship with his planet and of his freedom within time.

(10:30. Jane’s pace had been good again for the most part, but she came out of trance easily. She was relieved that Seth had named the third personality of the Christ entity. Although she said she hadn’t been worrying about this data, I knew she had been more than usually concerned about getting it.

(Our discussion at break concerned several other points I thought readers might be interested in: One was the zealot designation Seth applied to Paul. At first I’d thought he was going to say there was a connection between Paul, or Saul, and the Zealots, one of the religious sects the Jewish people had been divided into in Judaea in the first century A.D. The Holy Land was occupied by the Romans then, and Paul was a Jew and a Roman citizen. I’d been reading about these sects recently in a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and had been somewhat puzzled by my interest in both the scrolls and the sects; but after hearing Seth tonight I assumed he wasn’t going to say much about these subjects.

(As we continued to talk during break, Jane then told me she knew the answers to the questions I had asked. The answers had “come” to her. She didn’t get this information in exact words, she said, but felt it and had to translate it:

(2. The country — with a name and dates — which would see the appearance of the third Christ in the next century, would not be given to us now, but might be in later years. Seth, she said, had deliberately refrained from being more specific. This was to prevent any overreactions to every personage born in a particular country, who might seem to fit descriptions and dates given. This would be very unfair and misleading.

This personality will refer to the historical Christ, will recognize his relationship with that personality; but within him the three personality groupings will form a new psychic entity, a different psychological gestalt. As this metamorphosis takes place, it will initiate a metamorphosis on a human level also (emphatically), as man’s inner abilities are accepted and developed.

(11:02.) Many of the lessons “that come with age” will then be available to the young, but the old will not lose the spiritual elasticity of their youth. This itself is important. But for some time, future incarnations will still be hidden for practical reasons.

Man’s experience will be so extended that to you the species will seem to have changed into another. This does not mean there will not be problems. It does mean that man will have far greater resources at his command. It also presupposes a richer and far more diverse social framework. Men and women will find themselves relating to their brethren, not only as the people that they are, but as the people that they were.

(“Yes, but I guess we’ll ask them later.”