“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At the supper table this evening we had been speculating about the times Seth had given in connection with his life as a pope, both in the ESP class session for May 25, 1971, and the 588th session in this chapter. When I wondered if I was right in thinking it likely that Seth’s papal incarnation took place in the fourth century, Jane said she “got” the year A.D. 325. This seemed like a confirmation. To our further surprise, Seth added to the data concerning that life in tonight’s session.)

A few extra notes for your own edification. Often during that time, and for some time afterward, the records are rather unreliable. They were doctored. Sometimes the name of one man would be given as a reign covering a span of years.

The records would show one reign of one pope; but one, two, or even three different men may have filled the position. A change of policy is the clue in such cases; vacillation.

The dates 325 and 375 come to mind in connection with my own life at that time. Again, the names and dates have little meaning to me now. In that life I learned to understand the interplay between men and their ambitions, the gulf that often exists between ideals and practical action.

You must also understand that politics was a legitimate hand of the church in those days, and a churchman was expected to be an excellent politician. I seem to have spent some time in a place that sounds like Caprina, also during that lifetime.

(10:25. “I knew he was doing that,” Jane said, then added that she just went along with it. Her pace had been rather slow, but picked up when she resumed at 10:32.)

You are not fated to dissolve into All That Is. The aspects of your personality as you presently understand them will be retained. All That Is is the creator of individuality, not the means of its destruction.

My own “previous” personalities are not dissolved into me any more than your “past” personalities. All are living and vital. All go their own way. Your “future” personalities are as real as your past ones. After a while, this will no longer concern you. Out of the reincarnational framework, there is no death as you think of it.

My own frame of reference, however, is no longer focused on my reincarnational existences. I have turned my attention in other directions.

Since all lives are simultaneous, all happening at once, then any separation is a psychological one. I exist as I am while my reincarnational lives — in your terms — still exist. Yet now I am not concerned with them, but turn my concentration into other areas of activity.

(10:41.) Personality changes whether it is within a body or outside of it, so you will change after death as you change before it. In those terms, it is ridiculous to insist upon remaining as you are now, after death. It is the same as a child saying: “I am going to grow up, but I am never going to change the ideas that I have now.” The multidimensional qualities of the psyche allow it to experience an endless realm of dimensions. Experience in one dimension in no way negates existence in another.

You have been trying to squeeze the soul into tight concepts of the nature of existence, making it follow your limited beliefs. The door to the soul is open, and it leads to all the dimensions of experience.

(10:50.) If you think, however, that the self as you know it is the end or summation of yourself, then you also imagine your soul to be a limited entity bounded by its present ventures in one life alone, to be judged accordingly after death on the performance of a few paltry years.

In many ways this is a cozy concept, though to some it can be quite frightening with its connotations of eternal damnation. It is far too tidy an idea, however, to hint at the rich embellishments that are at the heart of divine creativity. The soul stands both within and without the fabric of physical life as you know it. You are not separated from the animals and the rest of existence by virtue of possessing an eternal inner consciousness. Such a consciousness is present within all living beings, and in all forms.