“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We sat silently at the board. Both of us were tired and not very much in the mood. We’d both had rough days working, and almost decided not to hold the session at all. But the pointer began to move.

In a sense all things could be called fragments, but there are different kinds. Personality fragments differ from others in that they can cause other fragments to form from themselves. In a way, say, (Here Jane lay the board aside and stood up. Pacing back and forth, she began to dictate:) that a tree cannot, personality fragments form other fragments having all the properties of the parent fragment—emotional life and so forth.

As for others all fragments have (pause) are throwoffs or projections. Difficult to explain, I am not doing well. In a physical sense this board is a projection of wood or a tree, but in this case the board has less properties than the parent tree. The tree can grow, the board cannot. A personality fragment on the other hand never has less properties than its parent. This is the difference. A personality fragment has all the properties of its parents inherent, though it may not know how to use them. The board however cannot learn to grow, even though you stick it in the earth.

Seldom, but sometimes, an individual may send a personality fragment image into another level of existence entirely, even without his own knowledge. This image personality fragment may even gain valuable experience on this other level. It will then return to the individual. Sometimes the individual is not even capable of assimilating this knowledge, or even recognizing his own returning personality image. The type of fragment your friend saw was something like this latter personality image, but so disconnected from your friend, and so absent-mindedly was it sent upon its travels, that its information was probably passed directly to the entity which your friend represents.

Looking back, you can say that this effect was therapeutic, but if you had subconsciously accepted the images it would have marked the beginning of a severe deterioration for you both personally and creatively. Again, the images marked the critical culmination of your destructive energies. The fact that the images were of yourselves shows that your destruction was turned inward even though materialized in the outer world.

A subtle transformation could have taken place. Such a thing is far from usual but possible, in which you and Jane transferred the bulk of your personalities into the fragments you had yourselves created. Jane’s intuition here was right. The images did represent a possible variation. You could have actually transferred yourselves to those images, and from their eyes watched yourselves across the room. In this case, your present dominant personalities would no longer be dominant.

That image is only connected with your present personality ego, and could be likened to a fibrous projection or growth, into which your present personality could become entombed. I use the word purposely to show the danger, because such an occurrence would be a setback, not only to your present personality but indirectly for your entity, since you would be further away from it than you are now. By the same token, your triumph represented a necessary one, and reinforced the healthy points of your present ego.

(The incident referred to is as follows: Rob was very sick last winter and spring and into summer. We planned on a vacation in Maine. Rob was inclined to call it off, but I was for it and we went. In a York Beach joint, I immediately noticed a couple sitting across the room from us. They disturbed me to such an extent that I watched them almost constantly all the time we were there, three hours or more.

(The couple seemed detached from the room, observing, as we were also detached and observing. I wanted to speak to them, had strong impulse to do so but didn’t—after all, what on earth would I say? I mentioned my feelings to Rob, along with their uncanny resemblance to us, and also said that they could almost be us many years from now, though I certainly hoped not.