“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Shortly after supper this evening, Tom Milligan, a former student of Jane’s, brought us a copy of Saga Magazine for December, 1971. It contained an article by our friend Otto Binder, entitled “UFO’s Own Earth and All Mankind” This article touched upon many ideas we are interested in, and quoted astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, among others, re the ownership of the race idea. We spent some time discussing it. We had no opinion particularly, beyond remembering that according to Seth the whole question of the race of man and its origins, and doubts concerning theories of evolution, was vastly more complicated than was generally believed. Seth’s ideas of time give us quite a different approach to these ideas also.

(In The New York Times tonight I read an article, with pictures, of the Mars probe currently underway by our Mariner spacecraft. Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University was quoted in the article. Dr Sagan was also quoted in Otto’s article, regarding the ancient Sumerian-Akkadian legends and UFO’s, to our surprise. The question that has always bothered me is brought up—why does our history only go back five or six thousand years ago, when Homo Sapiens appeared some 50,000 years ago as an established species?

(In addition, I have always doubted the block-and-tackle idea used in constructing such massive, enormous wonders as Baalbek. With this goes my questions concerning the ability of sculptors to do the marvelously intricate carving adorning all of these buildings, on such an enormous scale. I have always wondered just how it was possible, with the few tools then available, according to our history, to do this work. It seems beyond the tools’ scope. I would delight in seeing it duplicated today, using identical stone, tools, etc., with time trials.

(By coincidence—?—Seth’s book has just come back to us from Prentice-Hall for us to go over the copy editor’s suggestions before it is set in galleys, which we will see in April. But we haven’t had time to reread the manuscript.)

(9:29.) It is not nearly as simple as that, however. There is not a one-line development. By the time that feasible intersystem space travel is practical, the psychic abilities are developed to a very high degree. One is necessary for the other. Therefore it became much more feasible to approach earthmen during their dream state, when their natural fear reactions were somewhat minimized, and where the danger to the visitors was far less.

I will be clear. Your Sumarian showed earth people at that time how to communicate, how to initiate crafts, gave them all the fundamentals upon which a civilization then could be based. The Sumarians, your Sumarians however, were not of human stock at that time.

Now. Your Sumarians have become human stock in those terms at other times. It is not a point of them trying to invade a native stock; they simply understood the nature of individual existences, therefore they are able to choose from various physical systems those in which they would like to have experience.

This is a natural aspect, the self-protective principle that operates within earth life as you know it. On occasion discoveries were given before their time, and promptly lost, only to be rediscovered ages later.

The Sumarians—your Sumerians (spelled)—did this when they initiated the culture spoken about in your books. Their sense of time is completely different, as however your own is innately. It is difficult to explain this, but keeping in touch with a civilization for several thousand years of your earth time, would entail perhaps the same amount of time and effort a man might take in his profession over a period of five to ten years, so the relativity of time is important in that context.

Space and time are constructions of ideas. They do not appear physically, as say a table or a chair, yet they seem to define both a table and a chair, in that you cannot easily conceive of a piece of furniture, for example, existing except in the medium of space and time.

The ideas of space and time are constructed in different ways in various systems. In some they appear as natural phenomena, for example as various classifications of objects, in some as variations of sound or light. You find it exceedingly difficult to consider existence at all without space or time, yet basically consciousness is independent of both.

The ideas of space and time emerge only when consciousness adopts camouflage, only when it becomes wedded, in other words, with a physical-type existence. Time and space are both creations of consciousness, in other words, and vehicles of its expression.

Matter is a classification. As explained in my book, various levels of concentration can be used as platforms leading you out of focus, into other time schemes. Time is like color. You are merely focusing upon one hue. (10:39.)

Your present civilization and the “old” (in quotes) Sumerian (spelled) civilization, exist at once, then, simultaneously, but to speak to you about these I must use a time sequence you understand. If it were understood that these civilizations exist at once then you would not be so surprised that they “were” (in quotes) able to build structures that you cannot build in your now.

In the present physical area in which it seems to you that a physical civilization once existed, that civilization still exists. You cannot meet it though you stand at the same spot, because of the ideas (underlined) of time that separate you. The civilization in flower, and the ruins, coexist. The living ancient Sumerians pass the modern tourists without seeing them. Even as the tourists walk in the middle of the old Sumerian marketplaces and see only ruins.

(10:46.) Think of countries existing simultaneously now on your planet. There are differences in language and culture, and it takes a certain amount of earth time to travel through space to visit them. In the same way all times exist at once, with their peculiar customs, and in your terms within the same space that you know.

You have learned how to make roads through space, but not through time on a conscious level. There are intersections in time and space however that you have not recognized. I am speaking in your terms, hopefully to make this simpler. (Pause.) Times exist then as surely as places. You think of time as moving toward something, and of space as relatively stable.

It does not occur to you then that you can get to times, as you can get to places. (Pause at 10:53.) All of this is highly difficult to explain. I do not mean for example that time, each moment, is a finished and done thing to be visited. While time is not moving in a particular direction, in your terms, each moment explodes outward, or expands outward in all directions.

Space and time as you understand them ripple through each other. They do not behave as you think they do, however. Presently you understand your existence only as it intrudes into three dimensions. Its own activity is in many other dimensions however.

In some respects the overenthusiastic use of the sound was responsible for the flood mentioned in the Bible, and other literature. It was for this reason that many attempts were made to warn against the impending disaster. The use of sound was important at various times in irrigating dry areas, quite literally by pulling water from a distance.