“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Saturday, Feb. 1, while doing some other art work, I had a vision. This was of my present younger brother Dick during his life in England in 1671. I saw very clearly the front upstairs bedroom in which he slept, and the bed in which he died as a boy of 9. I made a very quick sketch of this mental picture with a ballpoint pen. Jane and I both liked it, so I matted it. When this session began I had the drawing propped up on the bookcase so Jane could see it easily as she paced back and forth.

(At the start of the session our cat Willy became very frisky. As we sat at the board preparatory to greeting Seth, Willy jumped up on it; from there he vaulted up on the bookcase, knocking the sketch to the floor. As I retrieved it Jane began to receive Seth within. After Seth spelled out his greeting, Jane rose and began to dictate. She exhibited no voice or hand phenomena this evening, merely the darkening of the eyes.

Behind the shop was another room that served as a kitchen and, you might say, parlor. In any case it was the family’s social room. Behind this was a storeroom with earthen floor, and a shed. An imbecilic boy sometimes did errands for Throckmorton about the shop. He slept in the shed. Lessie had already had and lost 4 children. One actually lived to be 18 and was born when Lessie was very young. The others died in childbirth or in the first year. Throckmorton had wanted a son to carry on his shop. The child who died at 18 would have been such a boy, and Throckmorton never really recovered from the lad’s death. He died incidentally of pneumonia: took sick and died within three days.

The son who did survive, you do not know in your present existence. Throckmorton however is your present father. One of the side chores he has taken upon himself is to do reparation to the eldest daughter, obviously, taking her as his wife in this existence. However she holds strong resentment against him from that earlier treatment.

They were drawn to each other because of those previous ties, and yet in that past life this daughter was extremely cruel, particularly in speech, to Throckmorton. Sensing of course the bitterness that he felt because she was not a boy—incidentally this is a strong subconscious motive—this caused her to bear him three sons to help allay his bitterness. She gave him these three sons as a gift or sacrifice; and when it seemed he would not accept them as such she turned against him, made too much of the sons to pay him back. The relative who is now your mother’s niece contributed to some degree to the unrest in the previous family as it existed in England. The young relative was very jealous of the older daughter for her position in the family, and for the dowry which was hers.

The reason that Dick has had the same father twice is simply that he died at such a young age, before the relationship could be worked out between the two. Dick’s wife was also alive in England during Dick’s short life. She was the daughter of a baker who lived across the street, and was one of the boy’s playmates. The two children were very fond of each other. Both with warm and sunny dispositions. They were attracted to each other at that time, and renewed that relationship in this existence.

(It was John Bradley, a medical-salesman friend whom we saw occasionally when he was in town. The three of us seemed to get along well and we had some interesting evenings of conversation on many subjects.

(It was now 10:45. We asked John if he could come back later, explaining that we were doing some research on ESP for Jane’s book. John thanked us but said it would be too late and that he would see us next time. He said he believed in ESP. Both Jane and I were glad to see John, and later we discovered that both had the impulse to ask him to stay, but did not for fear the other would rather not. And of course Jane and I were wondering what effect, if any, the interruption would have on her ability to continue the session. But John no sooner closed the door upon leaving, than Jane resumed dictating.)

Your eager, bungling friend was an acquaintance in your immediately past lives, making late contact with you now. He was a sort of educated medicine man in those days, peddling many potions supposed to arouse erotic passions in weak and fainting Victorian ladies. He had seven children, a wife of almost obscene girth, and a child called Stephen who was a pharmacist or doctor. His name was Cronton the Third.

He knew you both slightly. You came in contact with him at various times. His wife Geneva—that is not Geneva the city, G-e-n-e-v-e-v-a (spelled out)—came to Ruburt to contact a dead brother. Geneveva was wealthy, upright and homely. Your friend was four years younger than she, five times poorer, and ten times more ambitious.

They married over the objection of her family. He actually had a small pharmacy which he ran himself, in Boston. On the side he sold whatever merchandise idiotic men and women would buy to secure lovers. Behind the respectable scenes such concern was high, and many a good churchgoer let ministers in the front door while they collected bottles supposedly filled to the brim with fleshy incentives in hidden back rooms.

He died in 1863, fat, widowed, and fairly prosperous. He choked to death on a prune pit. Since he was short of breath and fairly portly and filled with gout, this isn’t as silly as it sounds. He was 82 or 83. He should watch his drinking habits closely in this life as he has a predisposition toward gout, and drinking to excess can lead in this direction. And I don’t care what your doctors say.

He merely moved in the circle, the outer circle, of your acquaintance at that time. There is no reason in particular why you met him this time, except for this sense of familiarity. It does not follow, in other words, that everyone with which you are concerned involved themselves with you in past lives. You always meet completely new and different personalities in various existences as well as old ones. Many times in fact you solve problems that arose with certain personalities by helping other personalities in other lives.

I believe that you are far enough along so that you could work with an observer present, providing the observer was someone with whom you felt comfortable. This is as you wish. That is, it makes no difference to me. If Ruburt becomes uncomfortable, then of course you would not have a good session. Since I make no effort to control Ruburt in any way, I have no idea how he would react.

Frank Watts, dear inquisitive Joseph, is resting, and he needs it. You are right in supposing that I ran after him, grabbing his shirttail so to speak, in our beginning sessions. And yet, you see, it was easier for him to make contact for me in the beginning than it was for me to do it myself. He was simply more open to your plane. There are many things, naturally, that I have not explained to you simply because of the time involved on your part. Needless to say there is great fluidity and variety and challenge on the part of personalities and fragments and personality fragments.

There is great give-and-take here as in all other matters. I will go into this further at a later date. I am not squelching Frank Watts. I am sure he appreciates your concern. There is much involved here in the matter of personality fragments and of particular personalities, and it is too late for me to begin a discussion in depth.

You needn’t. He is doing very well for himself. And now, dear friends, good night. I will of course continue the session if you want me to.