“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

SESSION 100

(Our first session took place on December 2,1963, after a few preliminary and quite brief gropings during November 1963.

(This evening Jane and I had supper with Marian and Jimmy Spaziani. Jimmy is our landlord. We were back home from their place in Pine City, five miles distant, by 8:40. Jane had a “slight” feeling that someone would attend the session, yet she was not sure the feeling was legitimate. She could not say why she felt that way, being unable to determine at least yet when such feelings are legitimate. As it developed, we had no witnesses.

(The Spazianis also related a mutual experience they underwent recently, involving Jimmy’s deceased father. They asked for Seth’s interpretation of this quite vivid happening. Since it is rather involved, I will insert an account of it in the session where Seth takes note of it. This page of the session will also be used for future reference.

(Jane was not nervous before the session, and had no idea of the material to be dealt with. Once again she began without her glasses. Her eyes were dark, her voice normal, her pacing regular. Her rate of delivery was somewhat slow, with pauses.)

This will be a fairly informal session, and I am indeed aware that it is our hundredth session.

As I told you many sessions ago, I tell you once again: Our sessions are but barely beginning. I did want to mention the fact that Ruburt is doing very well with the initial chapter that will introduce our material.

I also hope that you both realize how your abilities have begun to ripen, and how our sessions have led you into an increased awareness in all avenues of focus and activity. We are as I have told you going slowly, and yet the progression will be a steady one that rests upon disciplined sensitivities, without those possible dangers that can result when there is an overly intensive or fanatical attention to one line of focus, and a lack of disciplined understanding.

We are attempting in these sessions to develop both of your abilities in many areas, while we still maintain a most necessary balance of development so that one part of you does not get top-heavy, and topple over. I say this partially in jest, nevertheless there is a definite reason for such a steady, balanced progression. From the beginning of our sessions you have been learning the method with which we will explore the whole self, but we have not plunged headlong into any foolhardy expeditions.

(In line with the above material, it might be noted that Seth had cautioned Jane to go easy with her “ecstasy” experiments in the 54th session, May 18, 1964. She had achieved this ecstatic state, as she described it, several times by that date. She had also been concerned as to how far to go along with this experience while she was alone in the house. Seth stated that he did not realize Jane would achieve this focusing of inner energy so early in her studies with psychological time, and furthermore said that it could have unpleasant effects if it was unwittingly directed toward someone else. Nor was this possibility “shades of witchcraft. Any energy can be used for almost any purpose.”

(After that session Jane stopped trying to reach this state, and has not experienced it to this date.)

In the past few sessions we have begun discussing some material that will be the basis for many other sessions, and well may be considered as a general outline for another year’s work.

I am tempted to give you some new material this evening, although I had decided to hold a brief session, merely because of certain rhythms and crests of activity, that ebb and flow. I had intended this to be an informal, generalized discussion, and definitely mean to mention again that the general setup of this room is now excellent, regardless of what additions or so forth you might choose to make.

I am myself rather dusty this evening, since I am very relaxed, and indeed come with a certain smug satisfaction in having survived one hundred sessions; and you may feel a smug satisfaction also.

It is no small feat. The maintenance of overall equilibrium has been excellently maintained, with nevertheless optimum results as far as the development of your psychic abilities. The early stages of our sessions were the crucial ones in that respect. Yet there is always the necessity of maintaining an overall balance of spontaneous inner freedom with disciplined attention. Both are required.

(Jimmy is obviously proud of this similarity between J.J. and himself. This evening he showed Jane and I a family photograph taken when he was about J.J.’s age, and of course the physical similarity was even then unmistakable. This old family photograph, incidentally, included Jimmy’s father, whom Jane and I had not met, and who is referred to in the following session material.)

Most of all in this session, I merely intend to congratulate you both for your perseverance, and I hope you will congratulate me for mine. The experience on my part has been most enjoyable.

You may if you prefer ask me questions, or since I left this evening’s session relatively open, you may take the occasion to rest and close early.

(Break at 10:05. Jane was dissociated as usual. I did remember Seth’s previous answer concerning the top question above, and it was to the effect that his experience with Jane and I is his first, at least on this plane. I was hoping he would elaborate on the experience. I regret that I am unable to give the reader a page number for the previous answer. I am making my own version of an index for the material, and have not yet covered that particular session.

(Talking it over at break, we thought that at first we could ask Seth to comment briefly on a very vivid dream I had on Friday evening, October 10, 1964. Then I thought it better to ask for a comment on the vivid experience Marian and Jimmy Spaziani had, concerning Jimmy’s deceased father, recently. We made that the official question. Marian had described the experience to Jane a few days previously, but at supper this evening the Spazianis went over it again for our benefit. And since it is still fresh in mind I will note an account of it below, although Seth does not discuss it in any detail in this session. This account can be used for future reference.

Now. The experience involving your landlord, his wife and his deceased father, was a legitimate one; but one that I should like to use as an example for a rather long discussion of questions directly resulting from some recent sessions. That is, the question as to the survival of the physical image after the point of so-called death, and the lingering about the physical plane of portions of the personality.

I do not want to begin an involved discussion this evening. I will say that the mentioned experience did involve a communication of the father and his son, taking place through the cooperation of the wife. I will not continue with this this evening, though I will begin the discussion at our next session if you prefer.

I will go into this more deeply. I will also discuss your dream at another session. Since I attempt to use such incidences as examples to expand your comprehension along many lines, it is almost impossible to bring up a great variety of such incidences as they occur.

(End at 10:42. Jane was dissociated as usual. She was now quite tired, as she had been at the end of the last session.

(Almost as soon as she began delivering this last material, I regretted having asked her to do so, since I could see her visibly tire. Jane remarked upon the fact that after some sessions she feels less fatigued than before they began, while after others she is tired; at the same time she said that fatigue has no meaning for her while she is delivering the material.)

(It may be coincidence, but upon checking my back records I find that the last psychological time experiment I had listed, for September 9, was identical to the one above. See my notes on this on page 1, the 86th session.