“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(During her mid-morning exercise-and-rest break today, I asked Jane if she had any idea why Seth had come through with the material he’d given us in last Monday evening’s session. At first she said no, rather matter-of-factly. Then: “Well, I don’t tell you everything, but for some time now I’ve known Seth gives what I call ‘fill-in’ sessions, or ‘floating material’— stuff he could give any time. It isn’t private, really, or book work either. They’re like ‘maintenance sessions.’ It’s good material, all right, but. …”

(“October 1/80. There are certain sessions I’ve labelled ‘fill-in’ sessions in my mind for some time now, or thought of them as covering ‘floating material.’ They aren’t book sessions or specifically personal ones. They keep the sessions going over periods of time. Like maintenance sessions, but usually by discussing past material — connecting it with the present [‘connective sessions’ is more like it] — while not necessarily adding new thrust. And not specifically given to one subject.

The fact that he is now thinking of walking after dinner is an obvious advance. His irritability is somewhat natural — but also based on the idea, still, that when he is laying down that is dead time (with amusement), or useless time, enforced inactivity. It would help, of course, if he reminded himself that his creative mind is at work whether or not he is aware of it, and regardless of what he is doing, and that such periods have the potential, at least, of accelerating creativity, if he allows his intellect to go into a kind of free drive at such times. You might have him become more aware of when he actually becomes tired, or uncomfortable, so that he does lay down then.

That is also why it is easier, generally speaking, for Ruburt to receive such information in the evening, because you are jointly free of limitations that might hamper you at other times of the day — not simply that visitors might arrive more usually then, but because you yourselves are less visited by preconceptions of what you are supposed to do in any given hour of the day.

Ruburt has some inclinations in that direction, as do many creative people, but these rhythms are often nearly completely overlaid by culturally-learned ones. Cultures that were night-oriented (pause) appreciated the night in a different fashion, of course, and actually utilized their consciousnesses (pause) in ways that are almost nearly forgotten. I believe there are ancient fairy tales and myths still surviving that speak of these underworlds, or worlds of darkness — but they do not mean worlds of death, as is usually interpreted.

In a fashion, the intellect goes hand-in-hand with the imagination under such conditions. It is not that man stressed physical data less, but that he put it together differently — that in the darkness he relied upon his inner and outer senses in a more unified fashion. The nightly portions of your personalities have become strangers to you — for as you identify with what you think of as your rational intellect, then you identify it further with the daytime hours, with the objective world that becomes visible in the morning, with the clearcut physical objects that are then before your view.

End of session — but those rhythms are also more natural to you than you have suspected. You often have freedoms, then, that you do not use — a 24-hour period that you use quite arbitrarily, one that is already sectioned for you by society — but only if you allow it to be. It can be used in any fashion that you wish.

(After the session I reminded Jane that she’d just given a terrific session — something that no one else could do — but that she didn’t give herself much credit for it. My remarks came about because as she sat on the couch after the session she said that she hadn’t done anything today “… but sleep and lay around. …”)