“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Seth, are trees and plants fragments?”)

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.

(Jane continues:) In a sense the present individual in any given life could be called a fragment of his entire entity, having all the properties of the original entity, though they remain latent or unused. The personality fragment in this sense can learn to develop what it has, rather than seek new powers. There are no new powers. The image that your friend saw was, as I said, a personality fragment of his own. It contained all the abilities of your friend, whether latent or not I do not know. This type of personality fragment is of different origin than your friend, who is himself a fragment of his own entity. We call this type a split personality fragment, or a personality image fragment. Usually it cannot operate on all levels of your physical plane.

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.

Increased concentration of the conscious individual is the trend. Then these split personality fragments or images can be kept under scrutiny without taxing the present ego to distraction. Now, the subconscious performs this task-not too well, since it was never meant to focus clear attention.

The consciousness will expand on your planet, just as it expands for those who go beyond your plane. The scope of consciousness will be so broadened in the future that all personality fragments, split personality images, and even individual fragments in succeeding incarnations, will be held in clear focus without strain. It is toward this that evolution on the earthly plane is headed, though of course with its usual donkey-slow rate.

(We took a short additional rest. During it, I remarked that the next question I wanted to ask Seth was whether either Jane or I, or both of us, had ever unknowingly seen a fragment of the type our friend Bill Macdonnel had. Once again, pacing back and forth while I took down the message, Jane began to dictate:)

The man and the woman in the York Beach dancing establishment, sitting across the floor alone at a table. They were fragments of sour selves, thrown-off materializations of your own negative and aggressive feelings. Jane’s were even stronger than yours, since the woman was fatter than the man. She almost recognized them because of the circumstances and your illness, and because of the peculiar vitality of your conflicting emotions at the time.

These fragments existed for a longer period, had solidity and did not deteriorate, because you gave them continued inflation. At the same time these fragments contained your intellect, and therefore they partially recognized you and Jane.

Your friend’s image fragment did not recognize him because he was not strongly attuned. His emotions were not creatively—if you’ll excuse the term—destructive. You and Jane both have a peculiar problem in that you are creative even when you are destructive.

At the time, one of the reasons for the two split personality fragments was the power of the struggle going on at that time. The images were formed by the culminating energy of your destructive powers. While you did not recognize them consciously, unconsciously you knew them well. Unconsciously you saw the image of your destructive tendencies, and these images themselves roused you to combat them.

Jane was literally though unknowingly kicking her heels in the faces of the images you had created. You are lucky that the images themselves did not rise up and fight back, since the image fragments have all the powers of their parents, though they may be latent.

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.

(“Seth, who left the dance hall first—Jane and I, or the projected fragments?”)

The projected fragments disappeared. They stood up, walked across the floor and disappeared in the crowd in the anteroom by the door. They had no power to leave the place where they were born, unless you gave it to them. Remember, however, that they did exist; and having once existed could reappear with less impetus than the original. As Joseph represents the fullest potentiality of your entity the image of the man represents a possible, though I hope not probable, pitfall image of your present personality, though not of your overall entity.