“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Concentration. (Jane dictates:) Yet ego is relaxed. The cat focuses upon one thing at a time even though it has no strong ego. So Jane concentrates while I give her the messages, even though it is not her ego which is concentrating. You get a subconscious focus different in many ways from conscious concentration. In this state the attention is focused inward rather than outward, and it is the inner senses more than the outer that are being exercised. The cat is doing the same thing in his way that Jane is, and in the particular situation you are thinking of his inner senses, that is the cat’s, were focused in my direction.

Because mental enzymes seem to give the same effects most of the time in your physical universe, your scientists for years blithely labeled these as the laws of nature, that is, the apparent laws of cause and effect. Now because, if you’ll excuse the pun, a certain cause will usually give a certain effect in your physical universe, you may be justified in saying that these apparent results are laws that operate within your physical universe. But please, stay in your own backyard.

(Break at 9:45. Jane and I both were surprised at the amount of material we had gathered in forty-five minutes. The time seemed to fly. During this session our cat Willy slept the whole time. Jane’s voice never went beyond a certain medium deepening and a small increase in volume. At times as she talked it was quite normal. During this break I mentioned that I would like to ask Seth about flying saucers. Jane resumed dictating at 9:51.)

It is unfortunately true that the dominant present ego can be degraded on your plane to an amazing degree, through for example brainwashing and so forth. However this situation, while bad enough, is not as dire as you might think. When you are considering the human personality as a thing of this time only and destroyed by death, then its disintegration for any reason seems truly a tragic thing. And it is tragic.

Nevertheless, when you think in terms of the entity and its various personality manifestations throughout your earth time then you realize that the basic self, the entity, cannot be destroyed in any particular earth life. You are, I know, acquainted with the idea of regeneration. If you will imagine the various reincarnated personalities—and this is a most unpleasant analogy—as the various limbs and other faculties of the entity, then you will see why if one fragment is disintegrated it can be regenerated in the same manner that a physical cell of your body can be regenerated.

What may occur is that lesser fragments of the personality, that were at one time possible competing elements for the dominant personality, take over.

It is not complicated in itself, but complicated in the telling. I do want to mention one little point with which you might be concerned or pleased. You are both experiencing at this point, and have experienced in the past, the distorted time element, or so-called foreshortened time that you read about in your books on hypnotism. If you will notice the time by the clock you will see how much material I have given you in something like 15 minutes. I do like to save a few little surprises like this for you now and then.

(However, I did take down three full closely-written pages of material during this time. This included pauses during Jane’s dissertation, besides the regular-paced rhythm she uses. Therefore it seems plausible to us that some sort of time foreshortening may have taken place. Note that I had also remarked at the end of the first break how the time seemed to fly, and commented upon the amount of material we were accumulating.)

Ruburt, you can stop playing ring around the rosy. (Break at 10:20. Seth referred to Jane’s habit of pacing endlessly around the room as she talked. Although her voice sounded normal to me, Jane said that during this session even so she has a subjective feeling that her voice is different, and that sometimes it is a strain to pause in the middle of a monologue to speak to me as herself and not Seth. At these times she reports that she would rather nod her head to a remark or question of mine, so as not to break her continuity with Seth. Jane resumed dictation at 10:28.)

I still haven’t gone completely into our fifth dimension discussion, but I am rounding out our imaginary structural universe in such a way that the fifth dimension material will fit in almost effortlessly when the time comes. You have already been given a tremendous portion of material this evening. I hit upon the foreshortened time idea to save you actual practical time that you might wish to use in other matters. I will go along with it as far as I can and still achieve the best results, that is, it may tire you in ways that I am not aware of, though I doubt it. In this case I should of course dispense with it.

This sort of experience involves a sudden psychic awareness, straight from the entity, that all boundaries are for practical purposes only. However there are indeed many kinds of science. There are many sciences just dealing with locomotion. Had the human race for example gone into certain mental disciplines as thoroughly as it has explored technological disciplines, its practical transportation system would be vastly different, and yet by this time even more practical than it is now. I am making this point because I want it made plain—this, dear Joseph, is a pun—that when I speak of science on another plane I may not speak of the plain old science that you know.

The flying saucer appearances come from a plane that is much more advanced in technological sciences than earth at this time. However this is still not a mental science plane. Therefore the camouflage paraphernalia appears, more or less visible, to your own astonishment. Now, so strong is this tendency for vitality to change from one apparent form to another, that what you have here in your flying saucers is something that is actually, as you view it, not of your plane nor of the plane of its origin. What happens is this. When the flying saucer as you prefer to call it starts out toward its destination, the atoms and molecules that structurally compose it, and which are themselves formed by vitality, are more or less aligned according to the pattern inflicted upon it in its own territory. Now as this enters your plane a distortion occurs. The actual structure of the craft is caught in a dilemma of form. It is caught between transforming itself completely into earth’s particular camouflage pattern, and retaining its original pattern. The earthly viewer attempts to correlate what he sees with what he supposedly knows or imagines possible, in the little he knows of the universe.

What he sees is something between a horse and a dog and resembles neither. The craft retains what it can of its original structure and changes what it must. This accounts for much of the conflicting reports as to shape, size and color. The few times that the craft shoots off at right angles, it has managed to retain functions ordinary to it in its particular habitat.

I do not believe you will have any saucer landings for quite a while, not physical landings in the usual sense of the word. These saucers cannot stay on your plane for any length of time at all. The pressures that push against the vehicle itself are tremendous. It is literally caught between two worlds. This struggle to be one thing or the other is very great on any plane. To conform to the laws of a particular plane is a practical necessity, and at this time the flying saucer craft simply cannot afford to stay betwixt and between for any indefinite period.

One note along these lines. A plane—and I am using your term, I will try to think of a better one—is not necessarily a planet. A plane may be one planet, but a plane may also exist where no planet is. One planet may have several planes. Planes may also involve various aspects of apparent time. This particular matter is too difficult to go into right now. However I will continue it later.

Planes can and do intermix without the knowledge of the particular inhabitants of either plane. I want to get away from the idea of a plane being a place. It may be in some cases but it is not always. A plane may be a time. A plane, believe it or not, may be only one iota of vitality that seems to exist by itself. A plane is something apparently divided from the rest of the universe for a time and for a reason. A plane may cease to be. A plane may spring up where there was none. A plane is formed for entities as patterns for fulfillment along various levels. A plane is a climate conducive to the development of unique and particular capacities and achievements. A plane is an isolation of elements where each element is given the most possible space in which to function.

In other terms you could also say that an entity visits all planes simultaneously, as it is possible for you to visit one particular state, one particular county, one particular city at one time. Also you might visit the state of sorrow and joy almost simultaneously, and experience both emotions in heightened state because of the almost immediate contrast between them.

I really could keep going for hours again but it is not a good idea. These sessions should be regular above all else. If we begin stretching them into longer sessions within one night, you will not have time to correlate the material or to completely recover from the effort involved. I am afraid we would then end up with only one session a week, and I prefer the two. So, because of this flawless logic and again because of my innate consideration for your convenience, I hereby bid you a fond good night.

(Malba said it takes time to prepare for a seance, 15 minutes at least in relaxation before; a black cloth on our table reaching to the floor would help, as well as drapes on the upper half of our windows, to cover the white Venetian blinds. She said that my old friend, Father Trainor was on her plane, and that both of them would probably reincarnate again. She is a female personality but does not operate sexually.

(Tired consciousness sometimes yields good results; so may a clogged-up consciousness. The middle state is usually too concerned with practical matters. Bill Macdonnel should be good in seance sessions, though he is somewhat like mercury, changeable; at times he may not do well, other times good. James Spaziani might be good. [Our landlord.]

(She has not been looking in on us. She could not give name of town in S. Dakota because I was blocking her, already worried about possible failure if I checked on a map. She had lived in frame house, sandy yard, old house. She suggested Rob do same back exercises I am doing since they teach concentration. I didn’t say this at the time, but told Rob later.

(Rob and I weren’t as alone as we thought, when we tried first seance. Friends helped us get good results so we wouldn’t be discouraged. But we couldn’t count on such help all the time, or we wouldn’t develop our own abilities. The fingers I materialized were ectoplasm, done with the help of friends.

(I had the feeling that Malba had trouble with pronunciation at times. I often spoke in a light fading voice.