“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

SESSION 23

(By 8:45 Jane had the jitters as usual before a scheduled session. Last night she was not nervous, since the session was unscheduled.

(We had been speculating about spending our immediately-past lives in Boston, since Seth had hinted at this in the last session. We opened the session by sitting silently at the board, but Jane began to receive Seth even as the pointer spelled out his greeting. She laid the board aside and began to dictate in a normal voice, pacing as usual.)

You never were proper Bostonians. I hope our little session last night wasn’t too much for you.

At that time old challenges had been met and old debts had been paid, to a large degree. I will not make this evening’s session too long because of last evening’s unscheduled one. However as you have probably supposed by now, change of sex and race is the usual as far as continuing existences on your plane are concerned.

We have, I believe, used the analogy of air, comparing it to the vitality of the universe in one of our previous sessions. As air is dispelled from the lungs in various forms and used and reused without any loss of power, strength or quantity, so is the vitality of which we speak used in different manners. So does it enter as one thing many times, and so does it emerge as something different many times; and so does it change shape and content, and so does it show many faces and yet never disappears. And as air seems invisible so does this vitality seem invisible, and yet like air this vitality gives shape to every object that you see, and so does it form every camouflage. Without it all camouflage would vanish. And so the ability to use this vitality well is as necessary to life as is the necessity to use air for breathing.

(Break at 10:32. During break Jane seemed to become aware of several things at once. She said she thought she’d been in a trance of some kind almost from the beginning of the session. She had no memory of giving the above monologue; she said it was as though she had “vanished.” I told her that of course she was with me all the time, pacing so fast that at times it was distracting. The material, she said, came through with no distortion at all. She felt as though she were a pure vehicle; she had no conscious thoughts about it, she was hardly aware of her environment at all. She had a vague memory of picking up a wineglass once. Actually I had watched her smoke a couple of cigarettes while dictating, pace back and forth, pause to look out the windows, etc. She did not feel tired, nor had her voice shown any changes.

(By now Jane’s delivery was really wound up. Though she did not talk much faster she emphasized the words more, used more gestures, and paced about even more rapidly. However I had the feeling she was not in as deep a trance state as before. Her hands still bothered her also; she had taken off one ring at the start of the session but had left her wedding ring on; now she was trying to get that one off too, but without success.)

This is not meant to discourage the intellect, but the intellect has never yet been used for the purpose for which it was developed. I suggest a brief break, and may I say that I am unusually pleased with tonight’s session, and with Ruburt’s performance, since this material is coming to you without any distortion whatsoever, as far as I can tell. This is indeed our best session to date.

(Through this session her voice had been normal. However when she resumed dictation her voice abruptly changed pitch, rising several notes up the scale. It was not a falsetto voice yet was close to it, and was the first use of this kind of voice. She maintained it until the close of the session, along with her fast pacing. Resume at 11:27.)

Unless man learns to use this inner sense he may well lose whatever he has gained. I will say much more along these lines at a later date. I believe I will close the session. I do not want to keep you up too late, although as usual I could keep on for hours. I am extremely pleased that we could come together in this manner. A certain development on your part was absolutely necessary before such sessions between us could take place.

(Jane felt about the same as she did at our last break. Now that the session was over she realized that she’d had hardly any consciousness of what was going on through the whole thing. Yet, she didn’t feel as tired as usual. We had little thought of continuing however.

(Jane said the bravo referred to the session. End at 11:51.)

(Since this material is discussed by Seth in the following session, the 24th, I include it here to avoid interposing such a lengthy question in the midst of the session material itself.

(I remember that I stood up and paced about for a few moments. Within a short time I forgot about it, until now. I recall that in a recent session Seth said that I had called for help. I had not left my full-time job at Artistic then, but was close to doing so, and at the time I had not been feeling well. Also, when I had the experience last Saturday, I was not feeling my best. As best I can remember, I did not tell Jane of the sensation I experienced at Artistic a year ago.