“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The following data are from Jane’s psychological time notebook: January 5, Tuesday: No results in particular. January 6, Wednesday, 11:30 AM: Achieved a light trance first, then felt as though my hands were crossed, but knew they weren’t. Extreme sensation of lightness and rising, as if from some pressure beneath me. Left hand moved occasionally of its own accord.

(John Bradley, of Williamsport, PA, visited us yesterday. He has witnessed several sessions. He could not attend tonight’s session but left with us a question concerning transubstantiation; John wanted Seth’s comments on the literal results, if any, of this Catholic ceremony.

(She was sitting opposite my table in a wicker chair as 9 PM arrived. She did not get up, or remove her glasses, but began to speak in a normal voice with her eyes closed and her head down somewhat. She was smoking.)

(The word was unfamiliar to me and I asked Jane to repeat it. She did so but I still did not understand it very clearly, and decided to wait until I could refer to Jung myself.

Jane’s animus is indeed quite a different sort of chap from myself, much more omnipotent to Jane’s subconscious. I will indeed speak concerning the inner ego, which is the organizing principle within the subconscious, but which looks into other worlds; toward worlds in which it has its origin, and does not have awareness of itself or possess self-consciousness within the physical universe. Its attention and focus is, rather, directed elsewhere, so that it appears to be dormant. But it is not.

It is the ego or directive consciousness behind all personified aspects of the subconscious; in dormant fashion however, and contrary to Jung’s propositions, within the subconscious and in those personified aspects of it will be found remnant memory personalities of past reincarnated selves. They may be called shadows and yet they are not powerless. The inner ego, the directive organizer of the subconscious, also is the part of the self which is familiar with activities and methods of which the outer ego is ignorant. It is this organizer who directs not only the movements of the physical body from within, but directs from within those intimate survival mechanisms, without which the physical body could not exist, and upon which the existence of the outer ego is so dependent.

The outer ego, being of later development, is jealous of its position and would have all knowledge at its fingertips. This is impossible. It cannot stand to have anything hidden, but the very mechanism of its own behavior is hidden from itself, and it knows only the feel of its own surfaces.

In many respects it is a reflector, the surface of the self looking outward. While this is necessary, the whole remainder of the self could not be left to an organizer or caretaker who did not focus his attentions within the depths but sat, as it were, on the front porch of the house, leaving the inner workings unattended. The outer ego does not want to meet the inner ego. The outer ego does not want to admit the existence of the inner ego. As the eye cannot see its own pupil without a mirror, so the outer ego could not even see itself, were it not that the inner ego hides in the depths of all reflections.

(Break at 9:30. Jane’s eyelids were heavy, and she had trouble keeping her eyes open for some few minutes. She had been well dissociated, she said, going into a deep trance after the first sentence or two. Her pauses were not overly long, and she knew what she was saying as she gave voice to it, but then forgot it.

(Jane said that when she delivers material while sitting and with her eyes closed, she is aware of a feeling of resistance at going into the dissociated state. The feeling is not strong, but she is aware of it. Once more now she resumed dictation while sitting down and with her eyes closed. At times she was again in the prone position, which she achieved by sliding down in the wicker chair, and elevating her feet upon the register. Resume at 9:44.)

The choice was made and is always made by the inner ego, who does this appointing according to his knowledge, or its knowledge, of the personality’s qualities. Any of these subconscious personalities could have learned in some fashion to cope with the outside world as well as the present dominant ego, but for various reasons of inner development they could not be so trusted.

These subpersonalities are not unconscious to themselves. They are conscious of themselves, but they are not conscious of themselves in relation to other selves. They are conscious of needs and drives, and of their existence. They are different from the inner ego or director in that the inner ego is conscious not only of itself, but of the outer ego, and is aware of the existence of the outer world, although not too much concerned with it unless the whole self becomes jeopardized through the actions of the outer ego.

The inner ego knows when to apply safety valves, and is aware of the danger before the outer ego is alerted. The inner ego is concerned with maintaining the foundations and balance, which is very important, of the whole self, and it is open to messages from the overall entity. The inner ego receives messages through the inner senses, and is aware of realities which the outer ego cannot afford to recognize because of its specialization. In some important aspects the outer ego is supposed to represent to some degree the subdominant personalities who still dwell in the subconscious. When the outer ego is narrow, and poorly represents these subdominant personalities then they rise up in arms, and when conditions are favorable attempt to express themselves through a momentary weakness on the part of the dominant ego. But without even doing this they may momentarily take over or express themselves through a single function, such as speech or motion, while the outer ego is blissfully unaware.

This outego, among its purposes, has the duty of expressing not only itself but to a lesser extent those various hidden personalities which compose the subconscious. In larger terms and in more comprehensive terms, the whole self, the whole field of the complete subconscious and inner self, reaches back to the entity. There is no end to the past projection or existence of the subconscious of any given self; and though it is not understood in your field, there is no end to the forward thrust of the subconscious of any given self.

(January 11, Monday, 11:30 AM: Saw a pair of scissors. Later, while resting, I received a mental impression of Linda Butts and perhaps her mother Betts. I am not certain it was Linda, but whoever it was was either very angry or frightened. Linda and Betts could have been arguing [although this is unlikely; as far as I know Linda is away at school.] All of this was a mental impression, more of a jumbled sense of sound and emotional clutter, with but vague images. I did not see Linda clearly, yet assigned this data to her.