“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

What wonders do you request of me tonight? How did you like my fireworks? Not only were you tardy, but you brought a friend and wanted a display.

Last night was very instructive in many ways, though for a pair of partners you two are sometimes no helpmates. If one is not reluctant then the other one is. I prefer this to gullibility. Your friend is caught between charming gullibility and self-conscious, sardonic refusal to accept many things. Last night was no 4th-of-July fireworks, but it was your first such experience.

You forget that consciously you did not beckon the fragments at York Beach, and that last night’s materializations were consciously requested. This certainly must hint at some conscious control, Joseph, and should make you feel more confident about our sessions, not less. I am hardly worried that your critical sense will dim in this or other sessions. That is as it should be. But if other demonstrations should follow at least go along with me, as you certainly can.

Had I materialized my creature from outer space—I believe that is a current term, scoffed at and ridiculed—however, if I had materialized this image you would have really opened your eyes. Lines of communication were open and the entity merely slipped through, or partially through, momentarily. Even the shape of the features, never clearly glimpsed, were space distortions necessary to come through on this plane at all. As a stick thrown into the water seems distorted to those who watch, so this image thrown into your plane seemed distorted to you. But the distortions were what gave it any features at all. Without them, the distortions that is, you would have seen nothing.

The house was tall and narrow with three windows on the top floor, with two and a door at the bottom. Very seldom were the windows open. For diphtheria they closed all the windows and the doors. The boy might have lived without the dubious assistance of the doctor. The doctor meant so well, but did so poorly. This time you know him well. Already you must suspect your Doctor Stedge, who has also been connected with your entity on various occasions, though never as a relative. I presume his trade has advanced in stature and proficiency through the ages. I certainly hope so.

Your brother was born on the 22nd of April, I believe in 1671 (I wrote 1871 in an earlier session. See page 49.), and died at the age of 9. I do not believe that the church is still standing or that any records will be found. His eldest sister who is your present mother had a picture of some sort, a miniature in a locket, but it was with her when she drowned. Lack of record should not be taken to ridicule the validity of these facts, since many people today could not find their own birth certificates.

He and your other brother who died at 9 were in Europe for at least part of the same time, though Loren died at a fat and sassy monkish 81. He was not above dallying with shall I say fair maidens, but all in all was competent. Now as a teacher he uses the same talents he used in the past, his rather smirky tongue making up with jokes for prim silence that had suffered in the past. I see him also England 13th century, as a shepherd dying at the age of 33. He has been a male three times. The personalities which he has layered about him are not well rounded. For this reason, though this may seem strange, one-sexed personality pattern is not the best as far as incarnations are concerned.

The seeming dominance of the male in earthkind is merely because the aggressiveness of male personalities makes itself known quicker, and often with a vehemence. The basis however is very strongly female, since without the giving quality the aggressiveness would be but a stationary closed fist, incapable of motion and incapable of unfolding into other lives, as it must. The aggressiveness is a thrust for life and action against inertia, but without the acquiescence of the female quality, life would not open.

I would say something about the fifth dimension, although it is extremely difficult. You understand that I can only use concepts with which you are somewhat familiar. There may be times when I can introduce a completely new concept, but if so this will be a flash of intuition on Jane’s part.

As far as fifth dimension is concerned, I have said it is space. I will have to try to build up the image of a structure to help you understand, but then I must rip out the structure because there is none there.

Consider then a network of wires somewhat like, although different from, Jane’s conception of idea construction—a maze of interlocking wires endlessly constructed, so that looking through them there would seem to be no beginning or end. Your plane could be likened to a small position between four very spindly and thin wires, and my plane could be likened to the small position in the neighboring wires on the other side. Yet not only are we on different sides of the same wires, but we are at the same time either above or below, according to your viewpoint, and if you consider the wires as forming cubes—this is for you, Joseph, with your love of images—then the cubes could also fit one within the other without disturbing the inhabitants of either cube one iota; and these cubes are also within cubes, which are themselves within cubes, and I am speaking now of only the small particle of space taken up by your plane and mine.

Again now think merely in terms of your plane, bounded by its small spindly set of wires, and my plane on the other side. These as I have said have also boundless solidarity and depth, yet in usual circumstances to one side the other is transparent. You cannot see through, but the two planes move through each other constantly.

I hope you see what I have done here. I have initiated the idea of motion, for true transparency is not the ability to see through but to move through. This is what I mean by fifth dimension. Now, remove the structure of the wires and cubes. Things behave as though the wires and cubes were there, but these were only constructions necessary even to those on my plane in order to make things comprehensible to our faculties, the faculties of any entity. We construct images consistent with the senses we happen to have at a particular time. I have more senses, so to speak, in operating use that is, than you have, because not only am I aware of my own plane but of yours and other parallel planes, even though I myself have not existed in some of those parallel planes.

Nevertheless to me the walls are transparent. So are the wires that we constructed to make our point about fifth dimension, but for all practical purposes we must behave as if the wires are there. There are certain planes which I cannot glimpse from my viewpoint, although I have greater understanding of these things than you. I realize that the changes that must occur before I can view those other planes will occur in me, not in the other planes. Again if you will consider our maze of wires, I will ask you to imagine them filling up everything that is, with your plane and my plane like two small bird’s nests in the net-like fabric of some gigantic tree.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that you don’t request a demonstration of the tree to grow up through your living room. You will have to forgive me but I am not really irritated, dear friends, with this desire for demonstrations. Ha, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. It is only that you are so innocent and I am so amused. You have so little conception yet of what is involved, and yet personally I found last night’s session enjoyable. Your friend however really would have intruded, in a bumbling but quite domineering manner, had I so allowed him. He is like a child begging for a piece of frosty cake, and I must admit I was tempted to shove his head in the frosting.

I like him, but after all I insist on even mental manners. That’s the trouble, you see. Consciously he had no intention of trying to dominate the session, but underneath he really wanted so much, and I don’t know him very well. You should at least seek acquaintance before you ask favors.

(Break at 10:27. After the rest, we sat again at the board, but almost immediately Jane laid the board aside, got up and resumed dictating. Resume at 10:47.)

I would suggest in the future that you attend the board at regular sessions. It is better to meet with me less often, but on a regular schedule, than meet with me three or four times one week and none the next. A certain period of recuperation is necessary for all of us, for you two more, but it also involves me in shall I say extracurricular activities. This is my first lesson class.

At one time or another all of us on my plane give such lessons, but psychic bonds between teacher and pupils are necessary, which means that we must wait until personalities on your plane have progressed sufficiently for lessons to begin. To explain more clearly, lessons are conducted with those who are psychically bound to us, although reason is extremely important and I do not mean to minimize its value. Nevertheless what you call emotion or feeling is the connective between us, and it is the connective that most clearly represents the life force on any plane and under any circumstances.

At a later date I will go in even further into this fifth dimension. You consider for example that these wires are also mobile, constantly trembling, and also live, in that they not only carry the stuff of the universe but are themselves projections of this stuff, and you will see how difficult it is to explain. Nor can I blame you for growing tired, when after asking you to imagine this strange structure I then insist that you tear it apart, for it is no more actually seen or touched than is the buzzing of a million invisible bees.