“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

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.

(Seth began dealing with these ideas in the very early sessions, mixing it in with reincarnational data. He elaborated to some degree in the sessions on the electrical field and related subjects: In Volume 3, see sessions 122-135.)

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.

In concept, again on this particular point, Dunne went further. But in doing so he ended up in a frenzy, losing sight of where he was. And no wonder. It is simply because I am outside of these times that I can see through them more clearly, and there is no particular reason why I should be considered wiser in this respect than they. I am simply in a better position to observe. If Dunne were able to write another book now, on his time theories, he would be able to correct several of his well-intentioned errors.

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.

(Seth gave his first lengthy dissertation on the above theme in the 12th session, of January 2,1964. He places the subject under the general term of fifth dimension. He spoke on the idea for several typewritten pages; this was his longest delivery by a wide margin at the time, and Jane and I were quite surprised. See Volume 1.)

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.

(We would think in the last paragraph of his delivery above, Seth hinted at the psychic gestalts of which he has spoken very briefly at various times. We gather that he visualizes a chain of such gestalts, with each link one of greater complexity. He has called them “great building blocks of energy.”

Now. Such thoughts are excellent mental exercise for him, and while he is not precisely correct in either of these suppositions, in a basic manner I cannot say that he is precisely wrong.

Long before he read any notions such as these, I told you that I spoke through the third undifferentiated level of the subconscious, did I not?

(Jane was again smiling. Seth devoted the 88th session of September 16,1964, to explaining what he meant by this. He had mentioned it before at various times without elaboration. He also dwelled on the subject to some extent in the 152nd session, the 157th, and others. Again, reincarnation is involved in a basic way.)

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.

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.

His observations were not complete enough, for there are changes occurring now that he did not perceive. Therefore he did not project them into these other times. The becoming self grows more and more aware of its own portions, and of these various aspects of time in which these portions are or will be focused.

I do not believe that Dunne understood this. There is no serialization as he imagined, after a certain point, simply because this progression of selves through various times in a serial fashion is no longer necessary. The selves reach a point which is not a theoretical point, but a particular mathematically existent point, whereby these times and selves simply become one, or in our terms, an entity.

(Seth began explaining his source and the source of this material in the very early sessions. In the 15th session for example he likened his state to the dream state of a physical individual. By the 24th session he was dealing with the problems involved in communicating with us. By the 63rd session he was explaining his state as energy not materialized into mass; this after telling us in the 54th session that Jane, Seth and I had been part of the same entity once; he could not tell us this earlier, he said, because Jane and I would have immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was part of Jane’s subconscious mind.

(“No, as to the husband’s squat build. He is tall and slender. Yes, in that he uses his hands in his work. He is a contractor.”

(“Yes to both. Bill clearly remembers a white man, at least 60 years old by his estimate, who stood next to him at the roulette table at the casino. Bill noticed that the man wore three rings on his fingers; he thought this quite unusual.”)

Our friend’s ulcer may show a slight twinge here as he passes through the terminal.

(Bill told us his ulcer bothered him somewhat more than usual during his vacation. He said that usually he has complete freedom from pain on such junkets.)

(Bill Gallagher had a narrow escape from drowning while skin diving in Puerto Rico. He hardly lists this as a bizarre experience. Seth deals with it to some degree in the unscheduled 203rd session of October 28,1965.

(Bill did have one experience in Puerto Rico, however, that he said might be called bizarre. He is quite sure he hasn’t had any other experience like it, and believes that if he hadn’t been somewhat familiar with these sessions that this one too would have escaped his notice; that is, he would not have followed it through.

(The experience did not take place at five o’clock, but later one evening while Bill and Peggy were in a restaurant in San Juan. As an entertainer the restaurant had a white Puerto Rican female pianist. During a break she stood next to Bill at the bar. Bill then had the strange feeling that she would at once go back to her piano, on a raised platform, and begin to play. She did so. Bill then proceeded to name, in the correct order, the first three numbers the pianist would play. He has no idea as to how he was able to do this, or why he felt impelled to. After his first three correct calls he felt the ability wane, and began to make errors.

I see someone male: Bill? Diving, or at least underwater. Flippers, don’t recall a tank, seems he has a mask though.

(The snorkeling device enables the diver to breath through a tube to the surface while remaining underwater. Bill said the boat reference above, reminds him of the peculiar look thinks appear to have on the surface of the water when seen from below. Several times while snorkeling he was close to coral cliffs or outcroppings rising above him. Surf breaking over his head appeared to have a “white sideways movement.” It had a more or less solid look, like the white ceiling of a room.)

(Later Bill told us the skull association may be linked to the skeletons of fish he saw on the ocean bottom while skin diving; but he is not at all sure.)

After I reset the alarm I tried to wander to the other side of the motel to find a name sign. Instead I watched a man from above and behind; dressing in suit, hat, carrying a bag or briefcase. He crossed a blacktop expanse of some kind and walks on sidewalk by a large bulky building.

({Peggy:] “Yes. Bill watched such a man from just outside the guest house. He was colored. Bill watched this man each morning; he noticed the man because he wore a suit and hat as though for business, instead of the usual tourist attire. He carried a black briefcase. The large bulky building was a post office.”

(Seth gave data on Peggy’s trip in the 214th and the 215th sessions, December 6 and 8. He also gave some preliminary data on the trip during an unscheduled session held on December 3; Peggy took a copy of these predictions with her to Washington. Seth listed nine predictions and Peggy verified three of them. Seth gave them in Peggy’s presence; his score in the two sessions held while she was in Washington was much better.

(Yes, most definitely. This evening, Monday, December 6, Bill Gallagher’s ulcer bothered him to such an extent that he called a doctor. This he seldom has to do.

(At first Peggy saw no connection here. Then she remembered that when she arrived in Newark, NJ from Elmira, she transferred to Kennedy Airport on Long Island by helicopter. During the trip, at an altitude of no more than 600 feet, she thus flew over many of the docks, piers and shipyards lining the Brooklyn waterfront. She thought at the time that Bill would have enjoyed the sight, since he likes ships. The helicopter flight traveled past the Statue of Liberty.)