“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

(The session was held in our old bedroom, which, having been cleared out now, is an adjunct to my studio. The additional space we’ve acquired is most welcome.)

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.

(9:37. Seth spoke humorously about break, since the pace had been mostly fast, with few pauses. Jane’s trance had been good. I had to work harder than usual taking notes because I was out of practice; I also discovered I’d temporarily forgotten some of the symbols I use in my own version of Speedwriting.

(During the break Jane read over parts of Chapter Eighteen of The Seth Material, then announced that she thought there was a contradiction, between that material — originally from the 491st session on July 2, 1969 — on the three Christs, and the information given by Seth this evening. Here are the paragraphs in question from pages 246–47 of the chapter on “The God Concept”:

(“There were three men whose lives became confused in history and merged, and whose composite history became known as the life of Christ…. Each was highly gifted psychically, knew of his role, and accepted it willingly. The three men were a part of one entity, gaining physical existence in one time. They were not born on the same date, however. There are reasons why the entity did not return as one person. For one thing, the full consciousness of an entity would be too strong for one physical vehicle. For another, the entity wanted a more diversified environment than could otherwise be provided.

(“The entity was born once as John the Baptist, and then he was born in two other forms. One of these contained the personality that most stories of Christ refer to…. I will tell you about the other personality at a later time. There was constant communication between these three portions of one entity, though they were born and buried at different dates. The race called up these personalities from its own psychic bank, from the pool of individualized consciousness that was available to it.”

(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.

(There followed a short exchange between Seth and me, which isn’t recorded verbatim because it was too rapid. I was interested in learning whether, and when, the three personalities of the Christ entity had met as physical beings. It seemed that superior psychic interactions would have taken place among them, and I wanted to know more about this. Jane, as Seth, listened politely to my groping questions.)

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.

His was the portion that was to deal with physical reality and manipulation, and so these qualities were strong in him. To some extent they overruled him. When the historical Christ “died,” Paul was to implement the spiritual ideas in physical terms, to carry on. In so doing, however, he grew the seeds of an organization that would smother the ideas. He lingered after Christ, [just] as John the Baptist came before. Together the three spanned some time period, you see.

John and the historical Christ each performed their roles and were satisfied that they had done so. Paul alone was left at the end unsatisfied, and so it is about his personality that the future Christ will form.

The entity of which these personalities are part, that entity which you may call the Christ entity, was aware of these issues. The earthly personalities were not aware of them, although in periods of trance and exaltation much was made known to them.

(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.

(1. Seth had intended the word zealot, as applied to Paul, to be descriptive of his temperament — not a reference to the Zealot sect. A note, added later: More was to come on Paul and the Zealots, though.

(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.

Ruburt was correct in the answers he just gave you.