“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This is our longest session to date and at its end we were both weary. Jane smoked 16 cigarettes. Her voice was normal most of the time; she had a few periods of loudness.

The awareness of plant life lies along these lines. In a deep trance there is oblivion afterward, that is the subject though fully aware of what is going on while in deep trance, can remember nothing of it afterward. The awareness of plant life is also like the awareness of a subject in deep trance. Except for the suggestion and stimulus received by regular natural forces on your plane, the plant life does not bestir itself in other directions. But like the subject in trance, our plant is aware. Its other abilities lie unused for the time and latent, but they are present.

It is the physical materialization of the inner self, but it is not meant to snuff out the inner self. If for example our tree bark grew fearful of the stormy weather and began to harden itself against the elements, in a well-meaning but distorted protective spirit, then the tree would die. The sunlight and so forth could never penetrate. The sap could not move upward for the trunk would solidify through and through, trying all the while to protect, and killing the tree with its obsessive kindness.

The idea of dissociation could be likened to the slight distance between the bark and the inside of the tree. Here we do not have a rigid bark, as you should not have a rigid ego. We have instead a flexible bark, changing with the elements, protecting the inner tree or the inner self, but flexible, opening up or closing in rhythmic motion. The bark is so to speak outside our tree; and there is a small space between the inner tree and the bark. This small space is our dissociation.

(Break at 11:13. Jane was tiring by now, and also smoking too much. During break we discussed our experiences in Florida a few years ago. We spent some months at Marathon, in the Keys, with Jane’s father. Driving back to Pennsylvania we passed through Miami. Jane wanted to stay there and I liked the idea, but since I had only thirty dollars I was afraid to chance a strange city with so little, and we headed north to my parents’ home in Pennsylvania. Jane resumed dictating at 11:20.)

(Nor did I understand what was happening, beyond the obvious fact that she was coming to hate the job. I was doing some samples for a business venture with a relative that offered a chance of rather handsome monetary rewards if successful; our agreement was that Jane would hold a temporary job in the meantime.

(Break at 12:20. We were both tired. Jane’s voice was hoarse. This was our longest session, and I thought she might be losing her voice. But she wanted to continue for a little while. Resume at 12:29.)

(At this point our cat Willy became very insistently affectionate. Jane had taken a chair while dictating, and he wormed his way up into her lap and began to purr. His eyes were unusually dark, as were Jane’s.)