“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I do depend upon Ruburt’s willingness to dissociate. There is no doubt that at times he is unaware of his surroundings during a session. However, this is no more binding upon him than autosuggestion. It is a phenomena in which he gives consent, and he could, at any time and in a split second, return his conscious attention upon the physical environment.

Once or twice he looked for signs, and this is hardly a healthy reaction. For one thing, Ruburt’s ego is extremely strong. Ruburt’s intuition is the gateway that relaxes an otherwise stubborn and domineering conscious ego. The intuitive qualities however are not frivolous, and the personality is integrated. Have no fear of this.

It is true that the conscious mind must be relaxed to some extent, and that a state of apparent dissociation is necessary. Now, believe it or not, this will not always necessarily be the case. You can have two doors open at once. You can listen to two channels at once. But until you learn to focus in two directions, and this is simplified to a pathetic degree, in the meantime you simply turn down the volume of the first channel, while you attract your attention to the second. This process you call dissociation.

(In the above paragraph the phrases “meaning the personality,” and “a much larger sense,” came clearly to my mind just before Jane voiced them. The match was exact both times. For some reason it made an impression on me, whereas many times while Jane is dictating I have had a thought similar to the one Jane was about to voice. I might be too sensitive about this instance simply because of John Bradley’s telepathic experience in the 26th session.)

To a different degree it is filled with conscious semipersonalities. I call them semipersonalities merely to point out that they are not as developed as you are, as you are not as developed as your entity is. Nevertheless, that dream world experiences continuity. It is not aware of any break while, for example, you are sleeping. It does not know you sleep or wake. It merely exists to a fairly vivid degree while you sleep, and it sleeps but does not die while you are awake.

(Break at 10:30. Jane said that during this delivery she was “far out”, although she was aware that she was voicing some new and startling material… She reports that as a delivery nears its end, Seth begins to recede slowly, and at the same time she slowly regains conscious awareness of her surroundings. There is nothing sudden or startling involved. Resume at 10:35.)

The entity itself does not have to keep constant check on its personalities, because in each personality there is an inner self-conscious part that knows its origin. This part, for now, I will call the self-conscious beyond the subconscious. The breather and the dreamer are not so automatically controlled as it would seem. I have mentioned before that some part of you knows exactly how much oxygen the lungs breathe, and how much energy it takes to pace a floor, and this is the part of you of which I spoke. It is the part, and the self-conscious part, that receives all inner data.

The part that translates inner data sifts it down through the subconscious, which is a barrier and also a threshold to the present personality as it operates on the camouflage plane. I have mentioned many times how vitality changes as it approaches and forms various planes. I have said that the topmost part of the subconscious contains personal memories. That beneath these are racial memories and so forth. Things are simply not layered in the way I speak of them. But continuing with the necessary analogy, on the other side of (or beneath to you) the racial memories, you no longer exist within your plane, and look out upon another with the face of this other self-conscious part of you. This part receives inner data, is in contact with the entity, to some greater degree than you are in contact with your dreams, and actually directs all the important functions that you think are either automatically controlled, or unconsciously controlled.

When such abilities as telepathy occur, this telepathic function is carried on continually by this other self-conscious part of you, but as a rule you act upon such data without the knowledge of the conscious self with which you are familiar. I wanted to at least get into this material this evening, because while it may sound complex to you now, it is really basic. And it is knowledge that you must have before we can go further.

There is also a corresponding, but lesser, self-consciousness that connects your present personalities with the dream world, which is aware of its origin and communicates data from you to it. Again you are no more aware of your dream creations, and no less aware than your entity is of you, but in the last analysis you are aware and connected with your entity through this self-conscious part of you that faces another plane.

(Jane laughed.) There is of course an apparent contradiction here, but it is only apparent. It is certainly to you contradictory, your dilemma being this: if you have another self-conscious self, then (with a laugh) why aren’t you aware of it? (Laugh.)

At the same time imagine that these creatures are really one creature, but with definite parts equipped to handle two entirely different worlds. The subconscious therefore, in this truly ludicrous analogy, would exist between the two brains, and would enable the creature to operate as a single unity. At the same time, and this is the difficult part to explain, neither of the two faces would ever see the other world. They would not be aware of each other. And yet each would be fully self-conscious.

You in particular, Joseph, need such contact, since you are not consciously aware of its intrinsic value. I want to end this session early. There is however one point along these lines I would like to make, and that is that your present father impeded his own inner development, and stunted it, through an unwillingness to face challenges in the outside world.