“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Besides normal reasons (Jane dictates:) he was psychically inclined, at a time when Jane was young and herself close to a past life. She sensed his deep and personal inner awareness. It confused and haunted him, since his inarticulateness applied also to thoughts within himself. He felt strongly but could not explain. In his solitary nature he came close to being a mystic but he was unable to relate his personality as Joseph Burdo with the social world at large, or even to the other members of his family. There was a block, regrettably. He felt strongly his connection with the universe as a whole and with nature as he understood it. But to him nature did not include his fellow human beings. The solitariness that besieged him—because it did besiege him—is dangerous to any personality unless it comes after identification with the human race.

That is, in his feeling of unity with All That Is, he excluded other human beings, and on your plane it is necessary for the personality to relate to them. Only after such relation is isolation of that nature of benefit. Jane sensed her grandfather’s feeling of identification with the rest of nature however, and since she had not yet developed a strong ego personality as a young child she felt no sense of rejection as did, for example, the other members of the family. When he spoke of wind she felt like wind, as any child will unself-consciously identify with the elements.

He responded to his own attraction for her and was able to expand in her direction because she was not an adult. He was essentially childlike in one manner and yet he had little use for most people. Had he lived to see Jane mature the feeling between them might well have dissipated. (Joseph Burdo died in 1948 at the age of 68. Jane was 19.) He could not relate to another adult, and when in his eyes she joined the league of adulthood he would not have been able to retain his strong leaning toward her.

He never forgave his own children for growing up, nor did he forgive his wife for tending to earthly ways. Yet he related his own body, at least until the very end, very well with nature. He considered that he aged as a tree will age, but perversely he felt that others aged to spite him.

It was an unfortunate defect in the personality. The psychic nature grew in an oddly distorted manner in some aspects and yet remained stubbornly shrunken in others. From early age however Jane drank in his feeling of completeness with nature, and it had much to do with her later development. She now displays in some instances her grandfather’s closed attitude toward people. At times both you and Jane reinforce each other along these lines.

As far as the ink sketch is concerned, do not forget that while your man was imprisoned by his senses, in trying to reach beyond them in your physical universe your man could not perceive anything at all; and yet it is through these very earthy senses that he has a chance to glimpse beyond, or indeed realize that there is a beyond to glimpse.

We have a much stronger sense of play and relaxation than you have, and much more enjoyable. We can play as a child plays, having however full conscious appreciation—the I am principle—which the child lacks in his fanciful games.

I didn’t say he wasn’t happy, merely impulsive and in need of friendly reinforcement. Dying as a boy in his last life, the experience of adulthood is new to him this time. The transition into adulthood is easier for people who lived to adulthood the last time.

(Yet for my book I tried crystal gazing, using a round glass vase filled with water. I saw nothing but the usual reflections that could be expected. When Rob finished work in his studio at around nine, I told him about the experiment which was unsuccessful as far as I was concerned. I mentioned that the experiment was fascinating because of the natural effects of reflection, etc., and as far as I know I was myself at this time.