“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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 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.

(The candle flame had not varied since the beginning of the session. It was not warm to the touch except at the edge of the lip, and even here it was only warm.

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.

But when you leave time one behind, or because you leave time one behind at death, this is no reason to imagine that time one exists separate and apart from basic time. The same sort of error here exists concerning the life force, as I mentioned. You are merged with the life force now, and no one can deny that you are individualistic.

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.

Ruburt here is thinking of your monk. Because of my mention of the word missionary, this started a train of his personal associations.

(See the tracing of the test object on page 140. It is of the front of an envelope addressed to Jane and me by my mother on December 1. The letter contained in this envelope figures in the test results, and will be kept on file with the envelope. The letter would be quoted here except that the contents are rather personal. It is of course available however to anyone seriously considering these tests, should they be that interested.

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.

(Here Jane laughed.)

Now. I will not keep you longer, though it grieves me to stop here.

A large white or pastel building, they had something to do with today. Flowers here.

They passed here. Bars at the windows of iron, not in jail.

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

A room on the fifth floor or higher, but not lower. They eat a meal here also. I pick up some connection with the word elm, and this building.

(The boat reference here makes us think also that it could be a reference to Jane’s next data.)

(“Bill has a definite general association here, but can’t recall any details.”

(In the 201st session for October 25, Seth commented: “...and incidentally, Ruburt’s experience in psychological time was quite legitimate.” Jane’s account of Friday’s psy-time experience was included in the 201st session along with our drawing; it is repeated here, with the addition of the Gallagher’s comments and Peggy’s drawing.)

Doors opened off the long narrow porch which extended full length, and I wondered if Bill and Peg were staying here. I thought their room might have the door near the center of the porch.

Survival is a strong issue here, though it may not be the title of the discussion, formally.

(As stated, the title was A Seminar on Poverty. However, the discussions dealt with the survival of the hard-core poor, the deprived, on a strong, even desperate level, Peggy said. The seminar concerned the literal survival of these individuals, and methods of raising their standard of living. Much more than money was involved here.)

(Nothing specific here, unless this is a distorted reference to the obvious fact of government buildings, etc., in Washington.)

(Peggy said that at the seminar many thousands of people were mentioned at different times. She had no idea of the total however, but said the 14,000 figure would not be unreasonable. She thought she might have a total figure in her notes, taken for the series of articles she is to write for the local paper, but a check of the notes yielded no clues here. 14,000 people of course did not attend the seminar.)

A disturbance of some sort, though not necessarily here.

(Peggy said she has no connection here.)

(Peggy has no recollection here.)

(See also the notes on page 122, concerning the possibility of Seth giving information, in such tests, on something that is not noticed by the subject. A good example here is the taxicab symbol material on page 167-68.)

(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.)