“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At 8:15 PM John Bradley arrived to be a witness. John has witnessed several sessions; with him he brought the first carbon of Volume 1 of the Seth material, which he has been reading. This consists of the first 38 sessions. John now had for us questions on beginnings and endings, inner reality, the inner senses, etc. John is also an indefatigable worker at finding people who are willing to devote free time to typing up extra copies of the material, and he had news for us on this score also. Needless to say Jane and I have been lax in this field, and we are most grateful to John for his efforts.

Energy is self-perpetuating. The universe and all planes and universes of existence, come indeed from what you may call energy, vitality, idea; or despite Ruburt’s stubborn blocking, from a personality essence or psychic gestalt which you may refer to as God if you prefer. And this statement is an extremely simplified version of actuality.

Before any universe as you know it, or as I know it, existed, there was first a striving. To make this as simple as possible is difficult, since it has been simplified for me. In ultimate terms, there is and never was a beginning, Philip. This strains the intellect, and so I will say that in your practical terms, of which we have somewhat spoken in the past, there was what you may all refer to as a beginning, when strife and striving and a wish to be formed itself and gathered itself sufficiently together to form a contracted whole in which all possibilities were latent.

It is not to minimize the importance of the intellect that I once again repeat: Inner reality will only be known directly through the inner self, and the inner senses. The intellect must deal and interpret the realities of camouflage existence, this being its purpose.

There is a constant, ever-enfolding and ever-expanding reality. The pyramids of psychic gestalts of which I have spoken represent in your terms all beginnings and all endings, which again expand into new beginnings and new forms.

Philip should read the sessions dealing particularly with the laws of the universe, that is with the inner laws of the universe, appreciating then the facts that this universe within all universes is spontaneous while having durability. It would be backtracking to repeat that long discussion, but as the inner universe has as its attributes spontaneity and durability, and as the spacious present is simultaneous while containing within it all pasts and all presents and all futures, and as Philip understands the meaning of expansion in terms not of time or of space but of value fulfillment, so will he intuitively then grasp that no contradiction occurs with actual reality when I say that there is no beginning and no end.

As there is in actuality no beginning or end to a dream, so there is no beginning or end to any reality. A dream does not then begin and end, only your awareness of a dream begins and ends.

You come into awareness of a dream, and you leave awareness of a dream, but the dreams that you seem to dream tonight have been long in existence, in your terms of time. They seem to begin tonight because you are aware of them tonight, so you think that reality must begin and end.

For every consciousness on your plane, or any other plane, existed simultaneously and in essence even before what you may call the beginning of your world. And what you are yet to be existed then and still exists now; and not as some still unfulfilled possibility, but exists in actuality.

What you will be, Joseph, what Mark and Philip and Ruburt will be, you all are now, not in some misty half-real form, but in the most real sense. You simply are not aware of these selves anymore on a conscious level than you are aware of what you refer to as past selves.

Now. I have said that any of you and all of you create a dream universe of validity, actuality, durability, and for Philip's benefit, self-determination, in the same manner that the entity projects the reality of its various personalities. As there is no contact between the entity and the ordinary conscious ego, so there is no contact on a conscious level between the self who dreams and the dream world which has its own independent existence.

We will now come to one main attribute then of all reality, and of that that is as ultimate as anything I know—that energy gestalt which may be called God.

The personality is on its own, with what you may call the power of self-determination and free will. If you had thoroughly remembered our material on value fulfillment, you would know that the only detriment to so-called free will is the built-in necessity for value fulfillment. The personality must gain experience, in other words, on a particular level of existence, on which or within which it operates, and it cannot choose otherwise. It must experience existence on the particular level on which it has been projected.

The father does not negate the reality of, say, the artist. The father does not rob the artist of free will, nor does the entity rob the personality of free will. It is the personality who makes the choices. The entity may not either aid or prevent any choice that the personality may make. The entity may not like any particular choice made by the personality, but he, the entity, cannot change the course that the personality chooses to take.

Now. What you call karma has meaning only in basic terms within your particular plane. I do not want to get too complicated. Nevertheless personalities on your plane work out individual problems within that plane through various existences. Here we have also free will, but a continuity so to speak of purposes. No purpose is forced upon any personality. He, the personality, adopts in various reincarnations upon your plane those purposes most in keeping with his own needs. And for Mark’s sake may I say that levels of existence do not necessarily imply higher or lower levels, but concentric levels, even as the layers of the subconscious do not imply upper and lower levels, but are merely terms used for the sake of simplicity.

(End at 10:58. Jane was dissociated as usual. See page 58 for a brief resume of the material involving John Bradley’s neighborhood in Williamsport, PA. Again, John said the initial V meant nothing in particular to him, but when he returned home he planned to do what he could to ascertain just what did take place three doors from his own place, to a woman with at least two children, or who is connected somehow with children. I suggested that a visit to his local newspaper back-issue file might be the easiest way to check.