“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today Jane read all day, finishing up J. B. Priestley’s book, Man and Time, which she liked very much. She had read nothing by Priestley before, nor by Dunne, mentioned extensively in the Priestley book. After supper this evening Jane told me she thought Seth had come through twice, briefly, as she went about her daily chores before the session. Both instances concerned the Priestley book, which had excited her.

(The session was held in our back room. Jane began speaking while sitting down and with her eyes closed. Before the session she had remarked that she hoped Seth would mention Priestley’s book. Her pace was now average to begin, but quickly speeded up.)

Now. Our friend Ruburt has finally discovered the works of Dunne, I see, and he has also been reading Priestley on the subject of time.

Ruburt has not been reading Dunne, incidentally, but Priestley’s interpretation of Dunne, which is something else again, but fairly accurate.

I am glad that you did not encounter these ideas earlier, since we cannot therefore be justly accused of having borrowed any of them. Ruburt is amazed at some of the similarities that exist in the concept of time as I am giving it to you, and the concepts held by Dunne and Priestley.

(Jane was both amazed and delighted. She came across the Priestley book while browsing in the library recently. We have heard of Dunne, of course, but have yet to read any of his works; for some reason the library here has none of his books.

Now. Priestley is indeed the priestly fellow, and Dunne is far from done, If you will forgive my jest. Portions of both of their theories are correct. Sometimes one of them is accurate on one point, and the other one completely off, and sometimes they are both wrong.

(Jane’s eyes now opened to some degree as she lit a cigarette. Her eyes now alternated often between opening and closing. Her pace was fast. She had finished the Priestley book just before supper, and said she hadn’t had time to think it over; but someone had been thinking it over.)

Priestley does not go far enough with his time one, time two and time three, but he is fairly correct up to that point. In a different way he says many of the things that I am saying. I have told you that upon physical death the ego becomes the subconscious in the next existence, and that its conscious knowledge is retained electromagnetically.

Now. Priestley puts it somewhat differently but the results are the same. According to him the consciousness, the individual consciousness of time one, becomes something else at physical death, and the consciousness that is part of time two in physical life becomes dominant in the next existence. There is one large difference here between us however, and I believe an important one. Priestley’s individual, after death, with his dominant time two consciousness, has available to him what was time one during physical life.

He can use it, use the knowledge obtained therein, learn from its mistakes, and advance. But this individual as seen by Priestley at this particular point is somewhat limited, still, by this time one. Time one is available to him, though not necessarily as a series of moments, one after another. From this he is free, but he is still somewhat bound by those events, though he may learn from them. According to Priestley, while the individual therefore is free from successive moments, he still does not have easily available, at fingertips so to speak, any information or realizations from time three. I am using Priestley’s terms here.

Priestley’s concept here becomes more limiting than he realized. At this point Dunne overtakes him precisely where he and Dunne disagree. For once having hypothesized times one, two and three, Dunne continues onward as is the case, and Priestley simply stops here in this particular respect.

I suggest a brief break, and we shall continue along these lines, for we are able to go ahead where Priestley and Dunne were not. We are able to do this, or I am able to do this, precisely because I am from beyond Priestley’s time one, two and three, and therefore free of the distortions which even he is unable to avoid.

When the individual reaches Priestley’s time three, then he is left with little individuality. Priestley’s vision of the birds and the life spirit is not too much different from nirvana. At least only in degree, and this simply will not do.

It is true that Priestley speaks in terms of consciousness being retained at this stage, but a consciousness devoid of personality is an odd bird indeed. The personality structure changes, it is true, but consciousness of overall identities within any given unit of consciousness is always retained. There is no blending or merging, willy-nilly, into a gigantic ever-rushing-on spirit of life. And the spirit of life in these terms cannot be considered as something apart and separate from, and outside of, those consciousnesses which illuminate it, and through which they are illuminated. And here is our second difficulty with Priestley.

It is one thing to conceive of basic time as being outside of physical time, for the sake of making a point; but it must be realized that Priestley’s time one, while only real to the ego, is nevertheless a part or a materialization that exists within this basic time framework, and the life force is at the same time within as well as without.

It is a mistake to assume that any future or inevitable merging with a life force is ahead of you, in those terms. This is an error that is precisely due to that which Priestley himself abhors: distortions in thought caused by reliance upon the concept of time as a series of moments.

Priestley cannot help himself here, for it is not possible entirely for him to escape from his own time system, with the best of intentions. And in many respects his theories come very close to explaining the way things are. The idea of reoccurring time is simply off base, practically speaking.

One concerns myself and where I would stand in this time framework, and you should find this highly interesting. The other has to do with Dunne, for in one instance he saw further than Priestley, for he carried these times further. But he also fell into an understandable error. For at some point the separate selves of Dunne’s, with their separate times, become aware of each other, and merge into the sort of superconsciousness that we have always called the entity.

These times do not go on indefinitely in the precise manner that Dunne thought. Neither do they stop as Priestley believes, at time three. There is a merging of selves into what you may call a superconsciousness, a synthesis; and from then on, dear friends, there is a beginning toward something new, and a something of which I am not prepared to speak this evening, but of which I shall speak in the near future.

(Seth did not elaborate on the test envelope impressions, so what follows are our own interpretations. For his own part, Seth was too eager to get on with his discussion of Priestley’s book, it developed.

Having read Priestley’s ideas about Dunne, Ruburt now wonders if I am not a future self of his own, according to Dunne’s ideas; that is, if I am not one of those future selves of which Dunne speaks, or if I am not consciousness number two, or three even, of Priestley’s concept.

Now. While Dunne and Priestley and myself used different terms often to express the same concept, we also differ in many respects as far as these theories are concerned. My third undifferentiated layer, you see, would correspond to the consciousness of Priestley’s third time, which is why I can tell you that at that point individuality is indeed maintained, and personality continues.

The difficulty lies in making this communication, which is direct from me, to what would be Ruburt’s time three self, clear to the time one self of Ruburt’s, which must speak these words, in what could be called Priestley’s time one.

Communications such as these, incidentally, can be explained quite adequately within Priestley’s system. Very nicely indeed. Not thoroughly but nicely. Completely, if you do not ask too many tricky questions.

Priestley’s theories, although he would not use them in this way, could be used to give some insight along these directions. But because Priestley stopped with time three, you would have to pick up Dunne’s, until Dunne himself finally goes wrong.

Now I would be number six self, so to speak, according to Dunne. According to Priestley however, at this point in his theory, I would simply be that life force, or part of it, with no individuality. Priestley is more correct in depth however, though Dunne goes further, only to peter out. Nevertheless I would be a number six self. Using the same terms, however, I will make some distinctions. For as a number six self I have complete knowledge of all the other selves.

Now I could indeed be Ruburt’s number six self, you see. I am not, but I could be. It is entirely possible however, using Ruburt as an example, for Ruburt’s number six self, to communicate with Ruburt’s number one self; these communications sifting through the intervening selves however, and unfortunately. Now these various times of Priestley’s and Dunne’s have much in common with the planes of which I am speaking in our discussions, and the value fulfillment of our material is akin to Priestley’s insistence on depth within any given moment.

At this point I am at the level, again, that could be compared to Dunne’s number six self, as myself. I communicate through the third undifferentiated layer, that could be compared to Priestley’s consciousness at number three time.

I repeat myself because I want to make the points plain, and this material is difficult. But things simply do not happen as Dunne supposed they did. He was correct in carrying his times further than Priestley, but he was incorrect in assuming the serialization continued indefinitely along the same lines.

I must stress that individuality is never lost. But this is too complicated a subject to cover this evening. We have explained it rather adequately in terms of action however, and gestalts of selves do not imply a giving-up of individuality at all. It should be remembered here that reincarnation is simply a fact, and one which is not accepted by Priestley or Dunne.

Reincarnation, considered in this light however, is much more logical indeed than a reoccurring time. And incidentally it is also much more logically a part of these theories, although both Priestley and Dunne would be unable I believe to admit this.