“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(To begin tonight, the four of us sat at our small coffee table, holding hands. The room was lit by a candle within three feet of us on another table, and by reflected light from the kitchen on one side of the living room, and from the bedroom on the other side. Jane began speaking, asking if anyone was present. I had hesitated to speak, because on a previous occasion while trying this procedure I had inadvertently brought in Seth. See the 129th session, witnessed by Judy and Lee Wright.

(There were a few new bits and pieces of information throughout the session. One is to the effect that although Seth’s contact with Jane and me is his first venture into education on our plane, [which he had told us many sessions ago], he is also in contact with other groups on other planes. These other groups are not physical in our terms. Seth said that these other groups also have their wrongs, as we have ours. Killing is not one of them however, nor are wars.

(A new physical effect concerned the candle, standing on the table against the wall perhaps three feet from our group. All the windows in the apartment were closed with the exception of one kitchen window, because the night was extremely windy; this wind aggravated my hay fever. The candle burned with a low flame, one perhaps a quarter-inch high. Seth, talking about physical effects, said that he could probably have levitated the small coffee table we sat around tonight, with Ruburt’s help. But Ruburt still needs to develop his abilities further, Seth said. Abruptly the candle flame shot up to a noticeable degree, at least twice its previous height. The increase in brightness was plainly noticeable, causing all of us to look at the candle. Seth then said he had caused the flame to grow. It stayed brighter for several minutes as he continued talking, then died down. Bill confirmed my own thought at the time, that a stray burst of wind had affected the flame. We had no way of knowing if wind was responsible or not; the kitchen window was perhaps fifteen feet away, and around a corner. Seth went on to say that the candle flame would not grow higher again, because Ruburt was alerted to the effect now, and was watching it.

(Seth said my special sensitivity to windy days during hay fever season, [and one I was well aware of], stemmed from an incident that took place while I was traveling to California with my parents when I was about three years old. [This would be about 1922.] On a windy day on the prairie, somewhere west of the Mississippi, but short of the West Coast, I stood by a hill with my parents. My mother and father were arguing loudly. Father threatened to leave my mother and my brother and me. My father also had hay fever. I had had attacks before, but after this incident I had hay fever each year. [I have always had it since I can consciously remember.] When I remarked that my father had got rid of his hay fever, Seth said he gave it to me. Seth said this is a common occurrence in illnesses being passed about among a family group. I identified with my father out of fear, Seth went on, because he threatened to leave me and thus must be all powerful; and since my father had hay fever, I acquired hay fever as a mistaken sign of strength.

(Bill’s mother, who was also an arthritic cripple like Jane’s mother, was a very aggressive personality, a masculine one, who developed arthritis in order to lose her mobility and thus avoid harming Bill’s father and the children. She felt a growing rage and aggressiveness she could not control. Seth said association worked here, in that Jane could perceive this data because her own mother has arthritis. Bill’s mother was very fond of flowers.

(Seth made one short remark I would have liked to question him further on, to the effect that we would have plenty of go-arounds with “your parapsychologists.” He did not elaborate.

(Walter Zeh is a fragment personality, and a disturbed one. Because he had been an invalid in a past life, he tried to slow down Jane’s development in this life to a crawl. Yet Walter has learned much and is doing very well.

(Bill and Peggy agreed that Seth’s material on his parents seems to fit them psychologically, although some of the information given concerning Bill’s subconscious feelings toward his father was a surprise to Bill. At one point Seth asked Bill to not say so much when he answered a question, because this led Ruburt to start to actively and consciously consider the material and to make his own interpretations, which could be distorted. Seth also asked Bill not to tell us any more about his family relationships; presumably so that more material Seth came through with in future sessions could be checked with Bill’s knowledge, as in the blue dress and the bookkeeping incidents.

(Speaking of the fact that civilized man should not kill, Seth said the whole idea of killing is fallacious to begin with: an enemy who is “dead” is far more harmful than one who is still alive. Here he was dealing with the basic unity of all consciousness again. Killing is not thought of as an end in itself on other planes, he repeated. But it is wrong to kill on our plane when we do consider it an end.

(Seth told me that tests similar to our envelope tests, or perhaps involving objects, could probably be held here in the apartment when others such as the Gallaghers are present. Ruburt’s confidence is the big factor. This restriction to home grounds is a very temporary one, and later Ruburt can deal with objects at a greater distance.

(Ruburt has abilities of his own that sometimes get mixed up with Seth’s. There was much telepathy going on tonight. Regarding the individual constructions of the world of matter, each with its own set of atoms and molecules, Seth said that these individual worlds are not as much alike as one might think, even though there is telepathic agreement on such things as the placement of objects in space, etc. We focus on the similarities and ignore the differences to a large extent.

(So far man’s behavior has him headed for destruction rather than survival. Seth repeated several times that for civilized man to kill is wrong. An animal in the jungle killing for food is one thing. To kill for the sake of killing is another. When a wild animal kills, the killed is replaced in the natural scheme of things. No gap is left, and the balance of nature is maintained. When man kills he rips out a part of himself that he has created. Man will stop killing when he realizes this, and that death is not an ending but a change of form.

(Seth told the Gallaghers they should record their dreams, and study the symbolisms therein. Dreams are very cunningly constructed by the whole self so that one symbol can have meaning to many layers of the self.

(Jane’s maternal grandmother is on a midplane—at least one, and perhaps more, lives to come yet. [Or Bill’s mother, I can’t recall]. Later: we believe Bill’s mother is the one on the midplane.)