“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The shop was directly across the way from Throckmorton’s, and in like manner the family lived upstairs and in the rear. A cobblestone street lay between the two shops. One of the small daughters, Anna, was the child with whom Dick played.

One of the other children, a brother, is now one of your cousins; and another child is now a twin of Dick’s present wife. There is, incidentally, a variant in the case of twins that I will go into sometime. The family was more prosperous than Throckmorton’s. The house had two small extra rooms.

As a rule each entity is born so that he experiences at least three roles, that of mother, father and child. I make three roles rather than two because a complete childhood, for example at least once, is usually necessary so that a personality can experience the knowledge of human growth.

Of course two lives would be sufficient to give you the three roles, but in some cases a personality does not function into adulthood, and therefore does not experience motherhood or fatherhood. Also for one reason or another a personality may not have offspring. Beside the three necessary roles there is another quality, different in dimension, which is also necessary for the personality, and this involves the fullest use of potential.

Therefore, with such an unnatural division it seems to man that he does not know himself. He says “I breathe, but who breathes, since consciously I cannot tell myself to breathe or not to breathe?” He says “I dream, but who dreams? I cannot tell myself to dream or not to dream.” He cuts himself in half, then wonders why he is not whole. Even in my own lifetimes on your plane I sensed this basic contradiction. Man has consistently admitted to the evidence only those things he could see, smell, touch or hear, and in so doing he could only appreciate half of himself. And when I say half of himself I exaggerate. He is aware of only a third of himself, because two-thirds of himself exists in that realm to which he will not admit.

(We had company. I had just finished my first small glass of wine when a wave of “feeling” swept over me from foot to head. It was like a magnified tingling, or thrilling, suffusing the whole body, flooding up my legs into the abdominal and chest cavities; I was left feeling as though I might be lifted up and swept away. The first time the sensation was not as strong as the next two times. When it first swept over me, I wondered if the wine was responsible, though actually I had drunk very little.

(I waited quietly, and in a moment or two the sensation was gone. I was balanced on an arm of our davenport talking to our company. I had the odd feeling that the sensation was related both to the subject of conversation, and to some kind of message or communication I sensed or felt within; I believe that each time I experienced it, I was involved in talk about other people; relatives, children or perhaps parents.

(The next two sensations appeared somewhat later in the evening. The second one came perhaps after 11:30 PM, while we were sitting around the table eating. This sensation was so strong that I put down my sandwich and took off my glasses, because I literally did not know what to expect next. The wave of feeling washed over me very strongly. Although everyone about me was talking quite loudly, I had the weird sensation of voices within me, of mouths open or crying in soundless rhythm. I also felt, or sensed or perhaps glimpsed, a great chute or trough or pathway of some kind that reached down into me from above me, or at least from outside of me. I definitely felt apprehensive on this second occasion; I thought of some kind of attack, although there was no pain of any kind. The sensation in my chest was very strong. I believe, now that I look back, that this time I barely glimpsed the possibility that this might be an attempt at communication with me, from where I don’t know, or that perhaps it might be a premonitory warning. I believe I thought of my aging parents, but am not sure.