“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(John Bradley was a witness to tonight’s session. He has witnessed many sessions, usually stopping in on his trips into Elmira as a drug salesman. He is from Williamsport, PA. Interestingly, John began to ask us questions about the Indian teacher, Baba, who was discussed by Seth and Gene Bernard in the 303rd session. John has never mentioned Baba before, nor had he read the 303rd session.

He has literally frightened himself away. He has disrupted the part of the self that usually deals with physical reality, and its manipulation. He tried to dispense with this physically-oriented ego, using shortcut methods.

He had not found a strongly centralized inner self as yet, that could take over the organization of the entire psychological structure. He toppled his monarch, had no replacement, and opened his kingdom to ruin.

The physical matters mentioned should be taken care of immediately. That will be a start. Now, he does not entirely recognize his position. (Long pause.) He has temporarily abdicated, but there is no basic reason to believe that this will be permanent. The danger does exist. However, I told you the ego was set aside, and fear was at the root.

He intended a strong inner self to take over control of the entire personality. The ego however was terrified at the thought. Long after he wished the ego to return, the ego hid. He battered down his own doors. He is seeking enlightenment, but he was not strong enough to contain it.

There is a possible new beginning for him, however, and it will be a new reorganization of tendencies that results in the formation of a new ego, born out of the old. (Long pause.) It must be formed slowly, as the child’s ego is. He wanted to cut out too many steps, you see, hence his difficulty.

This new ego that he must form will come slowly. It may be scarred, but it will be fairly dependable. He must face his responsibilities. It does him no good to let him avoid them, and it may do him severe harm.

He will emerge. The drugs allowed him to permit himself a luxury that he could ill afford. There are those who are so tightly meshed within physical reality that the soul is squeezed dry. They are tight, sore, and chafing beneath too-severe habits and ideas. For them momentary release, such as the drugs can give, is highly beneficial. For our friend however the inner self has been overly involved with wandering, and but lightly held within the limits of the intense focus demanded by physical reality. This freedom catered to his weakness, you see. Had he more discipline it could also have released his strength.

He is beginning to come together again. It is necessary now that he see through endeavors, and face the consequences of his own psychological action.

The ego structure had been in danger for some time previous. Psychologically there was some considerable distance between his identity and the physical universe as he knew it. He did not quite make contact. It was too easy for him to stray.

Great adjustments would have had to occur in any case, and subconsciously he was aware of this. He could not have survived as a contributing psychological unit within your system otherwise. The causes began, generally speaking, about the year 1938, and were heightened in the years 1942 to 1947. At the time the course was set and the personality was developed, that had taken a wrong course, for it.

A relationship with one woman beside the mother here connected. An incident with candy bars as a child, of approximately 6, or in grade six. An inner formlessness. It was easy for him, deceptively easy, to overlook physical reality, to say that it was a mirage, simply because he had never completely enmeshed himself within it. He never met it squarely.

Now, it is indeed a mirage, but it is a mirage with which you must deal. It is not so much, you see, as he thought, that nothing has meaning. Everything has so much meaning that basically no one thing can have more meaning than another, because all reality is implied within each sample of it.

He projected a meaninglessness upon reality, and then fell prey to it. Here the senses themselves can help revive him. (Long pause.) He seems now to be choosing between identities, but there is one waiting for him, and it is a probable ego that he did not adopt as a child.

He has been plunged back into a physical universe that he would not accept even as a valid mirage. This time he will be able to find himself within it. (Long pause.) In his case he must accept himself as a human being before he can hope to discover the inner self. The ego got no help from him, and it could not carry on alone. There was a definite splitting of personality elements, and a complete abandonment by the inner self of the ego.

I am trying to get a word. My-barrow (my phonetic interpretation)—only it is one word. I believe a name or place designation. 1521, perhaps a house number, I do not know. He has been at this place or visited here frequently. Usually the shades are down. He still has drugs in his system, and they should be discontinued, all kinds, completely.

Someone who sees him, a male, is not doing him good at this time. It is important to realize that the condition would have erupted in any case. The usual ego would have been much more serviceable however, for a longer period of time, had he not taken the drugs. The whole personality however needed a readjustment, though this is more drastic than was necessary.

The change will come from an implosion, rather than an explosion. He will make the required adjustments on his own.

He had retreated into the formlessness that he had himself created. He will come out on the other side. There will be some distortions. (Pause.) Within three months time there should be a noticeable improvement. Now by improvement I mean an indication that a central core of personality is once again in charge.

This man will not be a stranger, yet he will not be the old Bernard, and Sarah can only help him by letting him know that she is there, and waiting. This is more important than it may appear, for the new ego will need guides to manipulate within physical reality once again.

The whole self contains the ego, and he ignored this. Any investigations into the nature of existence, and any true learning, must take place within all levels of the self. He cut off his ego to save his soul, and nearly lost both in the bargain. The ego indeed is part of the soul. It is one of the voices of the soul. (Long pause.)

It is now important that he relearn the objective nature of your reality, the simple sanity of an apple as an apple. After this then perhaps he can begin to wonder at the reality behind the objective universe. Now he must let it nurse him.

I do indeed wish him good fortune. For now it is sufficient that he take comfort in the familiar physical universe.

(11:02. During break John told us he has no aunt. This puzzled Jane because she said she had such a positive impression of a woman in some such capacity, connected with John’s family. John’s mother died a few weeks ago in Philadelphia. We have never met any of his family—wife, children, other relatives, etc.

I am receiving the impression from Philip (John), so he will be somehow connected. The woman’s build is stocky rather than slim. She is strongly connected with the family. I took it to be a blood relationship. If not, the psychic relationship is close.

(11:25. Jane said her impression of the woman in question was of a person more masculine than usual for a female, but she didn’t voice this during the session. John said that while Seth was speaking the name Laura Bittner popped into his mind. He saw this woman, who is stocky and in her fifties or early sixties, at his mother’s funeral, for the first time in many years, and now remembered that L.B. had been a close friend of his mother’s when he [John] was a child.

(John also told us now that his wife has an Aunt Catherine who fits Seth’s description of a stocky woman in her fifties. He didn’t know about a message however.)