“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The early death of the maid during that existence has overshadowed her present circumstances in her particular case. Because of her death at 17 she finds difficulty in adjusting to womanhood, though she was a female during her brief English life. Nevertheless she was not able, or is not able, to bear children this time.

Patricia was the maid, died two years later. Approximately five years after this, the oldest sister went to France; first to a small town outside of Paris and then to Paris, where she lived with French relatives. In this capacity she saved a dowry, working for a very short time for friends of these relatives, and adding these earnings to the goods given to her by her father. As I mentioned earlier, she did marry a cavalry officer, and bore him many children.

(I did not have time to say it here, but when I did the sketch I had the feeling that there might be more than the one bed in the room. But these I could not see. I also had the thought that I’d probably made the room look too spacious for the times.)

The top coverlet was an heirloom from Lessie’s family. Outside of the room there was a rickety staircase. On the other side of the staircase was a much smaller room where Throckmorton and Lessie slept during Dick’s illness, with a younger boy who was 3 at the time. The stairs led downward to the shop.

As I mentioned earlier, the sign out front was of a wooden spoon. The maid, or poor relative, was attached strongly to the boy who survived Dick. She never married and did not live to see womanhood. At times I will return to this material.

Her clothes were hand-me-downs from the daughter of the family, and since the maid was quite a few years younger than the daughter the clothes fit her poorly. She was glad to see the dissension between the father and the daughter. This time the present personality of the maid tries to make up for the jealousy, and for many quarrels that she initiated secretly between Throckmorton and his daughter, by malicious tattling and playing one member of the family against the other. I suggest you take a brief break, if this material hasn’t already broken you up.

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.

I may add here that they chose to renew this relationship, that is, free will operating in this case as in all others. There are always varieties of personal problems to be worked out, but the time, place and relationship is left to choice. For that matter, a personality can choose to ignore the problems completely, though this is at best a cowardly solution and simply holds the personality back. There is very much detail involved here. Needless to say, Throckmorton could have tried to make reparation to his daughter in a variety of ways, and not necessarily by being her husband.

There was choice also on her part, that is, they chose to be reborn at approximately the same time so that their ages made them contemporaries. In many cases such as this, one or the other waits a longer period of time, being born as a child to the other party. These things fit together very tightly. They are interwoven, and yet loosely applied.

The personality then changes course in midstream. Some, but not all, cases of insanity represent the personality’s inability to handle a particular problem, while at the same time it refuses to obey the orders from the inner senses to change course. On such occasions data from past lives rushes up or through the inner senses. The personality is no longer capable of shielding itself from this material when it goes beyond a certain point. That is, the personality is now working against itself.

Some controls are still present. These struggle desperately to distort the past data, clothing it in all sorts of idea camouflages and fantasy. In this case insanity is actually a protective mechanism, in that the personality will face almost complete disorientation rather than confront truths in its past that bring up problems it cannot solve. At the same time such a personality will not let go, either, and will not change course. The dilemma is therefore a dire crisis.

(Break at 10:20. Jane said that at times she is still afraid she’ll give contradictory information involving past sessions—wrong dates, etc. “Besides, I can’t keep all those names and places and so forth straight. I don’t want to get all mixed up; so I hardly ever read the material between sessions.”

(And watch me put my unthinking foot in it this time. Resume at 10:25.)

(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.)

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.

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.

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.

Sleepy time is no crime. Now I am no poet and you know it.