“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Mark the mark; Mark has arrived.” At 8:50 this phrase came into Jane’s mind. She said she almost didn’t bother to tell me about it, that she wasn’t sure it was from Seth. She didn’t hear it clearly within as she ordinarily would if it was a message from Seth before a session was to begin. Her own thought was that it indicated Bill’s arrival sometime after the session had begun.

A mistake for example in notes would not apply here. However, my dear distortive and naughty Ruburt here not only put words into my mouth, unconsciously of course, but then said sweetly that they were not distortions.

For personality reasons neither of you would be happy, I’m afraid, were Ruburt to go into deep trances at my instigation during sessions. And you, Joseph, would be much less enthusiastic even than Ruburt. So we must simply work as we are and make the best of it for now.

You should not, and I repeat this, grow panicky at the thought of distortions occurring, simply because to expect no distortions is just as unrealistic, and would send you flying headlong against an eventual wall of disillusion. We are not dealing with rigidities. Ruburt will improve. I do not want to set up a fear that is an exaggerated fear of distortions, since this might well make him so rigid that he would block perfectly valid material, fearing he was adding distortion.

Had the visitor arrived on time Ruburt would have been able to handle the situation. It was the extra conscious and subconscious element of anticipation that got him into trouble.

(Jane and I had discussed this problem at supper time. Her explanation had sounded better than mine, and tallied closely with Seth’s presentation above. We had been hoping he would discuss it during the session.)

Theoretically an animal has free choice, and this will do very well as an example of what I mean by limitations. An animal is free enough to travel to, say, California from New York. There is nothing in his physical makeup to prevent the physical journey, but the point, if you’ll excuse the pun, is pointless. Even a pointer would have difficulty. The dog’s legs could easily make the trip with planned or unplanned rests, but the animal is simply not aware that such a place or destination exists to begin with.

Nor could he purposely set out for such a journey as a rule. Animals, many times using their own inner senses, have made such journeys, but their conscious apparatus alone would not permit it. In like manner such choice possibilities exist for human personalities, but to all intents and purposes they do not exist because the personality is too limited to take advantage of them.

The ache in Ruburt’s shoulder for example was an indication of nervousness; although consciously he was not bothered, unconsciously he knew that your friend would not arrive on time, and this disturbed him to some degree.

The ache was the physical and nervous construction of his subconscious irritation. I would like to make another note, and I believe I may have mentioned this. I know Ruburt at one time or another was aware of it. I have nothing against Ruburt’s reading of the material of course. I strongly suggest, however, that he does not in the future read the material on the night of a session. It only makes him apprehensive and nervous.

Now, both of you have particularly strongly-developed latent abilities as far as the inner senses are concerned. Otherwise these sessions would not be possible. It is true that at the present time your abilities vary in direction, yet they complement each other in action and therefore in result.

Others are watching. There is some friendly disagreement; we are all here what you would call educators, and I sometimes fear that we become too concerned with methods. I much prefer personally an active, fairly alert personality student rather than a deep trance subject who passively receives and transmits spoon-fed knowledge. I thrive on flexible give and take. Ruburt is dissociated but all the connections are left open.

There are many more than you would suppose. The trouble here is that the personality has little protection, and is open to fragments that may enter if the educator on my plane does not scrupulously keep guard. I do not approve of this except for certain particular purposes.

(“They wouldn’t be entering such states in sleep, would they?”)

Before we close I want to mention the importance of the third inner sense with the experience of concept patterns. The third inner sense, involving what you would call perception of past, present and future, is the sense that enables the inner ego and entities to experience direct concept-patterns, and free them therefore from successive cause and effect limitations.