“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I am particularly concerned, you see, with this matter of projection, simply because your own abilities will rather swiftly lead you along in that direction. Therefore whatever information I can give you will be of great practical benefit. I do not want either of you traveling about unless you know what you are doing.

You are familiar, all of you, with subconscious fabrications as they exist in the nightmare condition. Now on occasion when you are projecting from a dream point, you will meet such subconscious images. Your ordinary standards of reality mean absolutely nothing when you leave the physical system, therefore you will encounter, simultaneously perhaps, images that are subconsciously formed; quite valid images that belong in another dimension; constructions created by others within another system; and for any control at all, you must learn how to distinguish one from the other.

Without such recognition however an encounter could be unpleasant. You have little control, and I am speaking here now all evening, of projections and their circumstances—you will have little control over the constructions of others. If, for example, during projection travel you encounter a disturbing image, you must first will it to disappear. If it is a subconscious fabrication it will vanish, but if you do not will it to vanish it will remain, and then you must deal with it as a reality.

I cannot emphasize too strongly however the fact that the ordinary standards by which you judge reality will not here apply. And Joseph, you must learn the new rules. Our small friend in the corner (Jane pointed to Ann Diebler) must learn the new rules. Now. Every image that you meet, and every experience, will be varied within its own framework. And do not forget that the experiences which you encounter will have an effect upon your own personality, as vivid or more vivid than the effect of any waking experience.

(Eyes open, smiling, very emphatic with gestures.) Ruburt told one of your friends to respect physical reality. Whether or not the automobile is a sensory hallucination, it can kill you, he said. And I tell you, whether or not these images are hallucinations, they can be dangerous, and you must respect the reality in which they exist.

Now. We will say that you are attempting a projection from a light trance state. Much of what you have read in your Mr. Fox’s book is quite legitimate.

Otherwise, you see, you will expect them, and they will happen for that reason. The method that he gave is quite sufficient as far as the initial stages are concerned. However there is much more involved, in what he calls the pineal doorway projection.

The first step is this. Forget the physical body, or what you are to do with it. Will yourself out in a quick motion. There is no need to experience the voice hallucinations mentioned by the author, Fox. If the projection is a success you will instantly lose contact consciously with the physical body. You simply will not be in it.

Now your consciousness will not be in it, but it is hardly lifeless. Its maintenance is being controlled by the consciousness of the individual cells and organs of which we have spoken. I will give you alternate methods of projecting, but I will be concerned now with what you can expect the few moments after you have left the physical body.

Some distant connection with a mission. I do not know to what this refers (Jane shook her head) and with objects in a row, or a series, perhaps of numbers.

(“What does the M and G refer to?”)

(“Four, plus one or two.” On the back of the object Marilyn Wilbur had written April 4, 1966, as well as the name she had given her ceramic sculpture. This date is the day Don took the picture and gave it to us. April is the fourth month; the number four also shows; and the number 1 in 1966. A 2 also shows in the serial number on the right back edge of the object. We don’t know whether Seth might have referred to this, and since I didn’t know what the object was either I couldn’t ask questions to help clear it up.

(“Some distant connection with a mission. I do not know to what this refers” Here Jane shook her head in giving the data. We speculate that mission here refers to Don’s trip to our apartment last April 4, from his out-of-town residence, to tell us that he and his wife could not attend the 248th session after all; on this visit he gave us the object used this evening.

(“M and G”, raises once again the question of what meaning to assign to initials. The M can refer to Marilyn, who made the ceramic cat. Marilyn said the G did not refer to any person with that initial that she knew of, in connection with the object. However, she thought it might refer to the fact that the ceramic cat has a certain type of high-gloss glaze fired on; this glaze being made of glass.

(Since I didn’t know what the object was all my questions were asked in the dark, so to speak. My first one asked just how the yellow and green were connected to the object. “Perhaps yellow in the center of a slightly rectangular shape, outlined in green.” The object is rectangular, but more than slightly so. The above data is a good description of the yellowish brown grass in back of the cat’s head, as explained under the yellow and green data on page 212; and of the way the yellow grass merges into the darker green brown grass around the edges of the photo. See the tracing on page 206.

Now. Once your consciousness is outside of the physical body, then you are dealing with a different kind of reality indeed. This is experience every bit as real as any other.

Now I have told you that you may legitimately visit not only the past, present and future as it existed, or will exist in physical terms; but you may also visit realities which never existed in physical terms. In our earliest sessions I emphasized that the intensity regulated the duration of an experience. Now, many events that were only imagined and never took place, physically speaking, many such events still exist. They are simply not a part of your definition of reality. You may therefore visit a museum which was planned in the 16th century, but never built. Such a museum has a reality as real, you see, as the house in which you live. Ordinarily you only perceive physical reality. In projections you may visit other realities such as these also—which you may be tempted to call imaginary, but they are not.

Now I have been speaking of projection from a trance state. You may of course project from a dream, and not realize that you have done so. Upon awakening you may then be frightened to find the physical body in what amounts to a trance state, while the mind is wide awake. As I believe Ruburt told our small friend, such has been the case on rather frequent occasions with her. (Jane, her eyes open, pointed at Ann Diebler.)

Projection from a dream state is something else again, therefore, and when it is executed successfully then you have a fine example of the self as it changes the focus of its own awareness. Here the critical consciousness is quite apparent, while the body sleeps. Projections occur quite naturally under these conditions. For the development of the whole self however, and for the perfection of such experiences, it is beneficial that such projections be carried out by the conscious wish of the projector. You learn therefore to manipulate your own consciousness in different realities than the ones with which you are usually concerned.

More generally however, and quite simply, such projections allow you to practice in dealing with realities that you will meet when you no longer operate within the physical system. The conditions then will not frighten you, for you will be familiar with them.