“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Seth first referred to his incarnation as a minor Pope in Jane’s ESP class session for May 15, 1971. Some eighteen people were present. The session was recorded, so the quotes that follow are verbatim. Seth was in a high, if somewhat ribald, mood:

(“I had two illegitimate children [class laughter], a mistress that sneaked into my private study, a magician that I kept in case I did not do too well on my own, a housekeeper who was pregnant every year that I had her, and three daughters who joined a nunnery because I would not have them — and I am referred to in barely three paltry lines, for my reign did not last very long.

(“For a while I was not in Rome but held my religious call elsewhere. I wrote two Church laws. It should all go to show you that some good ends up from everything. I died of trouble with my stomach because I was such a glutton. My name was not Clement [in answer to a question from a class member] although Clement is a lovely name.

(“We had not yet begun the strong insistence upon indulgences, so I did not have that extra cash that indulgences would bring in. I believed and did not believe, as you [to a class member] earlier believed and did not believe, and I did a good job of hiding from myself what I believed and what I did not believe. And the higher one gets in power, the harder it is to hide such things from one’s self.

(At this writing we do not know which pope Seth referred to. When I came to type up this session I wondered if Seth-Jane’s mention of the third century might be an error. [If so, I hadn’t been quick enough to catch it; I could have asked about it at once.] Since Seth gave A.D. 300 in the class session for last May, I personally think it more likely that his papal incarnation followed this date, taking place in the fourth century. The fourth century encompasses the years A.D. 301 to 400, since our modern computation of time is based upon the assumed date of the birth of Christ. The Encyclopaedia Britannica lists eleven popes and two antipopes between A.D. 296 and 401. Some of the reigns were very brief, some of the dates of tenure uncertain or estimated.

The times and names and dates are not nearly as important as the experiences, and they are too numerous to list here. However, I will see to it at some time that these are made fully available. Some have been given in Ruburt’s class sessions, and some, though few, have appeared in The Seth Material itself.

(Seth Two is dealt with at length in Chapter Seventeen of Jane’s book The Seth Material. This personality speaks occasionally in ESP class, but relatively seldom in our private sessions. In the outline Seth gave for this book before dictation began, we were told that Seth Two would be explained. Some of our questions for Chapter Twenty had concerned Seth Two also. I’d forgotten both points for the moment — hence my surprise.