“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

(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.

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.

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.

Your dancing represented the first move away from what those images meant, and violent action was the best thing under the circumstances. Because your personalities were momentarily disconnected from their usual physical and psychic environment, and because the ordinary physical duties were not necessary, it was all the more easy for you to release these energies into the formation of the images you saw. However, you very nearly drained your energy reserve in forming these images. The energy you used dancing came from psychic reserves, saved subconsciously for emergency.

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.

(Break at 10:30. This York Beach dancing establishment was actually a ground floor room in one of the older beach hotels there. It was a rectangular room, lined with tables and chairs in rows. The ceiling was very low, and it was dimly lit. It was not a large room, and the dance floor was quite small; fifteen couples would be forced to stand elbow to elbow. The bandstand was at the end of the dance floor, and when the trumpet blared the noise was deafening. Both times we were there, it was very crowded, blue with smoke.

(The couple in question sat at a table for two directly in front of the bandstand; a most peculiar spot, I recall thinking, for an older pair who did not smile, did not dance, who caught our eyes occasionally, who did not seem to care about the drinks before them. I also recall that at the end of our stay there, Jane pointed out to me the fact that they were smiling. This was after we had been dancing for a while. Part of the time while dancing, we had been so close to their table we probably touched it. Truly, we had kicked up our heels in their faces. Jane resumed dictation at about 10:40.

(Jane dictates:) The old woman was the mother. The drawing represents a synthesis of the knowledge that you learned during that personality. The knowledge of the mother lingers in the mental genes, and the memory of the flesh still occurs in your physical genes. That which is, is never blotted out. Another drawing of a woman and a baby also represents you as a young mother with a child.

(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 man resembled Rob to an amazing degree, except that he was an older version; profile darn near identical, hair white, same brows and same expression as Rob has when deeply upset. The woman reminded me of myself, though she was older, much stouter and also unpleasantly reminiscent of my mother.

(Rob surprised me by asking me to dance, insisting even, though the dance number was a twist, and we didn’t know it. Reluctant, I agreed. We found ourselves on the other side of the floor, shoved next to the couple’s table, dancing very close. The woman smiled. I do not remember them leaving. We just looked up much later and they were gone. I am very poor at visual imagery yet their faces came to mind often during our stay at York Beach, and for months later after our return.)