“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We had not asked that Bill follow the material from session to session, feeling that it was for him to decide whether to pay any attention to it or not. Jane and I were therefore pleasantly surprised to learn that Bill and Ida had read some of the material; and while not hostile to it, they still expressed a healthy skepticism—an attitude Jane and I much prefer to any gullible, overenthusiastic belief blindly undertaken.

(Ida’s brother, Louie, had also been following the material somewhat more thoroughly, and he visited the four of us at Bill’s home Saturday night. Louie has had more experience than Jane or I with ESP activities; and when in the course of conversation the question of Jane giving a session arose, Jane and I were somewhat surprised, not anticipating this, and did nothing to push agreement to such an idea. However, when we finally became convinced that a session was quite welcome to Ida, Bill and Louie, if only out of curiosity, Jane and I agreed to try to hold one.

(We sat in the fully lighted living room. I held on my lap a sheaf of notepaper and had my pen handy. Jane sat quietly on the other side of the room while the rest of us exchanged ideas on the subject. It was getting late, we had already put in an active day traveling and visiting, and I for one was not sure of how effective such a session might be. Jane had remarked that she had no idea whether she could give one, and no inkling of any possible subject matter.

It was not necessarily my intention to deliver a session this evening. Nevertheless, I did feel a legitimate welcome in advance; and since I feel already as if I know very well two of the present gathering, and since furthermore we have dealt with them in our material, I am more than willing to greet both of them personally.

The other man was not involved with any of you in past lives, nor do I see him indeed at all in England in any era. Instead the Mediterranean area in the 1500’s, and it is from this period that his present speech impediment indeed originated.

The impediment, beginning in this life, 1507, represented a time when he did not speak out, and he should have, for a man’s life was at stake. He did not speak out because of fear, and now when he wishes most to speak out he cannot.

This can be remedied. A sense of guilt carried throughout one lifetime is somewhat understandable. A sense of guilt enduring psychologically since the 1500’s is indeed carrying conscience just a bit too far. He has more than made up for the original offense, which was indeed understandable under the circumstances.

There was an army from another country, an invasion. A man in his company was thought to be disloyal. This man—

—was thought to be the disloyal member. He denied it; but when they decided that another innocent man was the culprit, a man whom he knew to be innocent, then to save his own life he let them think the innocent man was the betrayer.

He has paid time and time again for this. No one asked that you pay. He was then, even then, conscientious, and therefore fourfold bothered more than most by his own betrayal. In his immediately past life he plagued himself through a useless arm; right arm, you see, so he could not point out again. This time the self-adopted defect is less, a mere annoyance.

(Break at 10:32. Jane was fully dissociated. She had been worried about giving a session before three witnesses, she said, this being the first time for that many. During the conversation at break it developed that Louie in this life does not use his right hand for all things, but is somewhat ambidextrous. Ida associated this, which neither Jane or I realized, with the fact that in the previous life a right arm had not been used by Louie.

It is indeed a basic anxiety and fear. The personality can express himself very well. In the 1500’s he was eloquent, and it is precisely because this eloquence, so persuasive, so smooth-tongued, caused his superiors at that time to believe the accusations against the innocent man, that he now fears to use an eloquence, because he once let it run away with him.

Since I will not give a session simply to give a session, and because I will not let Ruburt parade me as part of his precious subconscious, I will indeed here speak for myself, but in terms that will help another and for the benefit of that other. And despite our anxious Ruburt’s furious attempts to block me, I will indeed say that the person who was once betrayed by the personality involved was the present father of the personality, and he knows it—

I am not implying that the father consciously intends either unkindness nor revenge, any more than I am implying that Ruburt intended unkindness or revenge on Walter Zeh; yet was this not the result, and is it not the result here?

He has taken at least as much as he gave, and there were sly and secret ways in which the father repaid him. Yet here we have further conflict, because indeed the present father loves the present son. It is not the son that he would wound. It is the man that son once was.

(Break at 11:02. Jane was again fully dissociated, far-out. There followed a conversation mainly between Louie, Ida and Bill in which family matters were discussed. Not being versed in these, Jane and I could say little, and we had no way of knowing how valid the session’s material might be, or prove to be.

Everything becomes plain. Such and such happened to me at the age of five or six, and ever after have I acted thus and so. So it is with Ruburt’s eyes. The panic reaction, which is true, the fear of seeing reality as it was when he was a child; but this indeed is only a symptom of a symptom, and not an origin.

The incident, the handy incident which gave rise, or rather the incident which allowed the personality to project the symptom finally, in this instance occurred on a Saturday afternoon, and is not remembered consciously by the personality (Louie), and was not known to anyone else.

Saturday afternoon he was five, not six, and for unforeseen reasons left alone for a mere ten minutes in a large house, circumstances being such that only for a brief time no one was present. He played with a large ball, and the actual incident was so simple and uncomplicated that under ordinary circumstances it would have resulted in no such results.

The time, 3 PM. He went out to the kitchen, where the ball after he played with it finally rolled. A portion of a stove had been left on; and though there was no danger of fire, the child was afraid of fire. But this was not the cause of his sudden terror.

It was indeed the sight of that portion of the stove glowing, however, that made him try to call out. There is somewhat more here, but our illustrious and pigheaded Ruburt has indeed implied that I should somewhat maintain silence.

This time when the child tried to scream he could not. The sound of the door was associated with the burn in his mind. When in a few moments his mother returned he tried to explain why he cried, for she had heard the first cries, and he stuttered.

In many cases such symptoms show themselves immediately, even before a situation can be seized upon to justify them. In this case there was time, and the personality could have avoided them.

(End at 11:48. Jane was normally dissociated, gradually coming out of the state as the session neared its end. My writing hand was somewhat tired, since her dictation had been rather fast. Jane used the rather strong voice throughout the session, along with more gestures than usual also.

(End at 12:07. Jane was dissociated as usual.)