“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane now smiled as Seth began to consider the theories of both men. Before the session she had hoped Seth would discuss them. As it developed, the session proved to be an unusual one.)

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.

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.

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.

The flame feeds the fire and the fire feeds the flame. Therefore, while this time one of continuous moments is no longer experienced after death, it is still a reality within basic time itself, a reality toward which the personality simply is no longer focused. Because the individual is focused within time one now, you still realize, or should, that the time one is only a small portion of time, and that other kinds of time exist of which you are not aware.

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.

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. Since you have a vacation coming up, I want to make certain that I cover one point in particular.

For Ruburt has a grand idea. A great glimmering of enlightenment has hit him. I hope it did not hurt him; because while his idea is not right in one way, it is not wrong.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now. At some point you, Joseph, and Ruburt and myself, are part of the same entity. This entity is that synthesization that Dunne did not foresee, but it in no way implies a loss of individual identities. This is extremely difficult to explain, since when I use the word individual identity, I am not referring primarily to egotistical identity alone. As a matter of fact, I am in one way, and in one way only, a future self—this is extremely simplified—of Ruburt’s; that could be compared I suppose to a theoretical number twelve self, according to Dunne.

—believe it or not. For we are actually, you see, part of the same entity now. Therefore, if you will bear with me, you represent one of the selves through which I must travel in order to communicate. Is this clear?

It is because of the peculiar connection of selves that our communications are possible. It is for the same reason that such communications are relatively rare, for many conditions and circumstances are necessary; and the number one self is made to bear strains unfamiliar to it, and to perceive data which does not make sense within its number one time system.

Because of this I have always leaned on the side of caution. But these strains, and this data, to some extent lift the number one self from the limitations of the number one time, and lends an advancement ordinarily not possible. For the number one time has changed for both of you since our sessions began, and it no longer seems the prison that it did earlier.

The number one time cannot contain other times but the consciousness, with help, can to some extent perceive these other times. And this perception then allows consciousness to escape some of the confinements of that one time. Our spacious present of which I have spoken contains all times, but it is not a thing apart from them, nor precisely their sum. It is ever unfolding and mobile, and changing itself.

(End at 11:35. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes had opened at times. The candle flame had shown no noticeable change of importance during the session; Jane said she had not been aware of the flame one way or another all evening. My writing hand was tired. Before the session Jane had been tired; she now felt fine. She said Seth could have continued all night.)

(“On Monday night, one of the dinners cost $3.75. On the following Sunday, a restaurant where we ate had a striped awning.”)

They ate at a place with wide windows and blinds, closed because of the sun. One extremely long window at the front, the entire length of the building, covered with this blind.

(“Yes. At our hotel, The Americana, there is a very shallow pool that is actually half in and half out of the hotel, on the ground floor, which is one level lower than the lobby. This pool runs inside the hotel from the outside and is decorated with flowers, etc.”

There is something, a gate or runway with the number 3... 5... 35. Possibly the number on their luggage ticket. But one of these is a 35.

Someplace during their journeys they met a white-haired gentleman. I believe the name begins and ends with an A. His age about 62, perhaps older. The interest was of a business rather than a social one, in connection with this man.

A direction that is mainly to the right, after one turn.

(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.

Peg wears one-piece black bathing suit with a V-neck.

(October 22, 11 AM until Noon, Friday. One hour:

None of what I saw was very clear. I felt I stood on a long narrow porch or verandah with a railing. On either a double-story motel, or a motel of one story that was raised up higher than usual somehow, from ground level.

(Peggy met a black-haired man whom she found to be “repulsive.” She told us she considered this person to be really upsetting to her personally; it was a case of one individual taking a strong dislike to another.

(“You will meet a man you do not like” is one of the advance predictions given Peggy by Seth during the unscheduled session of December 3. Jane and I have wondered what part suggestion might play in such a case. Peggy told us she had also been aware of this, and that she could say that her dislike of the individual in question transcended any suggestion that conceivably could be operating.)

(Peggy remembers one cameraman, out of several present, who carried his camera slung on a strap over his shoulder.)

(This is, also, one of Seth’s predictions given during the unscheduled session of December 3, before Peggy left for Washington.)

A white taxicab. Identified by a round symbol on it, with a border inside the circle, and some sort of figures. Whether these are people, shapes or object shapes, I do not know. The symbol is of more than one color, however, and fairly dark against the white. I am seeing it in the evening, so the color of the symbol is not very clear. It is in front of a stone building.

(Before our envelope test in the 215th session Seth added one more line to the Gallagher test material; see page 121:)