“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“All right.” Seth’s pace was rather fast.)

Give us a moment. Now. The Essenes had deep roots in some of the mystery religions of the Greeks. Some of the Essenes set up schools that were not what they appeared to be. Subterfuge was used. There were various tests applied before an initiate could come close to the interior doctrines. (Pause.) There were other groups of Essenes, therefore, beside the one generally spoken of.

Some of the members of the Zealots were originally Essenes. The Essenes predated them. John the Baptist was an Essene in all important ways; yet a man who steps forward in such a way automatically steps out of his group, and so did your friend, John.

(9:46.) There was some jealousy, then, from certain members of the Essenes at John’s progress. At one time John attempted to join various divergent groups together as one brotherhood, but he failed. The failure weighed heavily upon him. Fire is seldom gentle, and John the Baptist was as filled with fire as Paul.

He was a far more gentle man, and yet in his own way as fanatical as any of the other main characters of that day. He was much more against what he was against, than for what he was for. Christ, you see, was to deliver the message and John was to prepare the way for it.

Now: Records were often falsified; completely doctored, and false records were often planted. Religion was politics. It implied sway and power over the masses. It was the business of the rulers to know in which direction the religious winds blew. There were deliberate falsifications of fact, then and later. Some sects kept false records on purpose as blinds, so that if these were stolen, the robbers would think they had what they were after.

(Pause.) You had better remember in what session that information was given you.

(The session was being held in our living room. Jane sat in her rocker, facing Sue and me on the couch. Our long coffee table separated us. There was a light to Jane’s left, and one lit beside me. Sue handed Jane a piece of paper and a pen, while I continued to take notes.

(This was the first time Jane had written anything while in trance. Actually she was making some small diagrams or symbols, moving the pen quite deliberately, squinting down at the paper.

Now, number one is an attempt to get at number two, which was simply a sign of a copy made, a distorted or doctored copy. The middle one, (three), was a mark made for a much less distorted copy, and the last mark, (five), was for an undoctored record.

(Concerning symbols… In 1947 scholars began acquiring the seven now famous Dead Sea Scrolls. They had been found in a cave situated above the usually dry Qumran wadi, or riverbed, which leads to the Dead Sea a mile or so away. Excavations in the Judaean desert nearby soon revealed the ruins of a monastery which had been occupied by a divergent Jewish group, for varying periods, between 180 B.C. and A.D. 68. The Qumran settlement was but fifteen miles from Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It has been linked with the peaceful Essene sect by some authorities, while others just as strongly associate it with the more aggressive Zealots.

(10:17.) Now, in some of these records, the dating, for example, would be just off enough so that only one well-versed would recognize a discrepancy. Some would include an obvious error. Those in the know would immediately recognize that the record was a fake.

(10:24. At break, Jane told us she couldn’t draw versions of the symbols based upon those she’d done in trance. “I saw them quite clearly, mentally, when I was doing them,” she said. “I don’t see anything now, though.” Looking at the last drawing, number five, Jane did say that the serpent’s tail was supposed to be represented by the lower loop. Resume at 10:45)

Words, therefore, are often used to cover up as well as to reveal. Great efforts are taken so that knowledge is kept, often, from a majority and for a few. In Biblical times this was all the more true. Literary devices themselves served as formalized methods of seeming to indulge certain information, while actually offering instead falsified data. No question in those days was answered directly (emphatically) — not by those who were at all literate.

To answer a question directly meant that you were simpleminded and lacked any appreciation of the questioner’s greater intelligence, for he seldom asked a question he really wanted answered. It was highly ritualized behavior; understood, however, in those terms.

Again, those in the know had no worries. They would not be misled. To them the information was clear and the distortions obvious. Now the Scrolls are full of such protective distortions. The signs mentioned were but some of the clues used. They appeared in many guises, sometimes intertwined with signatures.

These people were much given to codes; even the arrangement of the letters upon the pages, as you think of pages, had their meanings. The weight or thickness of various strokes had meaning in terms of emphasis. There were even certain ways of handling a preceding word, so that the word would be a clue that the next word was false. Only those in the know would recognize this, of course, and the others would merrily digest the false information.

(In spite of the humor, Seth-Jane was very emphatic and serious in giving this material. The pace was fast. Pause at 11:00.)

Often Paul, or Saul, seemed to be where he was not, for example. Word would be sent that he would travel to such and such a location, and stories planted there of his arrival, while instead he journeyed to an entirely different place.

(11:05. Jane’s pace had been fast through the delivery. “Boy, he sure has energy,” she said when she came out of trance. “I felt like I was going right through the wall….” Resume in a bantering manner at 11:15.)