“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At this conference Jane, A.J. and three other science fiction writers formed a group they called “The Five.” Letters were exchanged for some little time. In her letter of November 12 Jane asked A.J. a few questions about The Five. A.J. replied on November 22, stating that before he could answer Jane’s questions he would like Seth’s answers to three questions: “When was the last time you grew up?”, “What do you love?”, and “When is the self born?”

That was the last time that I grew up, in what was a town called Triev.

As to what I love, I find that question itself has many complications. I love the inquiring consciousness in whatever form it may appear. This is the simplest, most direct and spontaneous answer that I could possibly give.

Man has always feared what he could not objectify. He has always attempted to objectify, to separate whatever realities he could from himself, to hold them in his hands, so to speak, so that he could observe and study them.

Those things, those realities which were most intimately connected with himself, those realities which he could not objectify and hold in his hands, he feared. He attempted to deny the existence of such realities, yet he cannot. You cannot hold a psychological experience in your hand as you can a rock, though its weight may be indeed heavier than a rock. You cannot put it on a scale. Though its color, to continue our analogy, may be as gray, you cannot see a psychological experience as you can see a gray rock.

A psychological experience may take up no space as a rock takes up space, but when a psychological experience happens it may fill you up. Yet you do not deny the existence of a psychological experience, though you cannot rip it apart from yourself and examine it with the physical senses. Still it has its effect, and its validity is well known to every man. So also are there other realities that cannot be examined through the use of the physical senses, realities so close to the self that they cannot be separated from it and objectified.

(Jane began speaking in this manner as we exchanged idle conversation. I was not aware of any sharp point of transition. As soon as I did become aware that a change in her state had taken place I began to ask more pointed questions. What follows is my reconstruction of our conversation. I did not attempt to make notes. We merely exchanged words in a normal manner and at a normal rate.

(Jane remembered parts of what had been said. Her mood was now normal. As far as I recall, the personality I spoke with had nothing to say about any reasons for her excellent mood earlier in the evening. Nothing about this being Jane’s way of trying to establish contact with the group, for instance. Jane did not speak at all like Seth, either in manner or inflection. At times her voice sounded so dry it had a rasp.