“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At 3:50 PM Jane told me that she’d just received from Seth a definition of cults. She repeated it as best she could: “....a closed, emotionally charged mental environment, in which the characteristics of individuality were purposefully undermined.” Then a little later she picked up some more material while doing her exercises. Some of it drew a comparison between the paranoid individual, and an organization that contained the same ideas. The individual would be called ill for thinking the world was against him, but the organization’s similar beliefs would be more unthinkingly accepted because of its sheer size and power in the society.

(I also asked if Seth could comment on my dream of Mrs. Johnson that I’d had last November, 1978. I showed Jane the pencil sketch of Mrs. Johnson that I’d done at the time. I’ve written my own longer notes explaining why I couldn’t find my account of the dream—I believe I simply forgot to write it down—but since I remembered it well I described the dream to Jane now. I plan to do a small oil painting or two of the sketch I’ve done of Mrs. Johnson, plus another image of her that I hadn’t drawn at the time, but retain well.

(I was surprised when Seth began this evening’s session with material on the dream—but also pleased. A copy of his material is attached to my own material on this dream.

A certain amount of comparative isolation from the world is necessary if you are to understand man’s condition. Yet the woman is not weak, but strong: nor is she unaware of some irony in the situation.

He was president of your country in trying times: rambunctious, at times crooked in his dealings. But with “common roots.” In a way, the woman is the other side of that image. Her qualities are the ones you use to govern your psychic lands (spelled).

She is devoid of possessions of a physical nature, signifying that she does not reach out toward such possessions, but reaches with inner hands (pause) for other fruits.

(I thought the substitution of the names was more interesting than if it hadn’t happened, I told Jane. “The ramifications may be endless. If I hadn’t corrected him, Seth could have evidently interpreted the whole dream from that viewpoint, that of Mrs. Patterson, and the result would have been just as valid—different, maybe, but I’ll bet with a lot of similarities.” I thought the idea fascinating, and commented on the unexpected opening up of a new field of inquiry that ought to be most rewarding to follow—if we had the time. On second thought, I said, there may be few if any similarities in the interpretations through the two names, although each analysis could still be good.

It was created and interpreted according to your own individuality, but it will also remind others that within themselves they possess, each of them, the wisdom, compassion and understanding that exists, whether or not it is expressed in usual terms through physical acts.

(A note: I must write that not only was I surprised that Seth opened the session with an analysis of the dream, but that I was even more surprised with the generous connotations he ascribed to it: I may love my fellow man, but often times feel that that feeling is compromised by events in our world, even though I fully acknowledge my own part in helping create that world in the most intimate detail. Seth’s interpretation of my feelings may be too generous. He may also be taking the larger view, as Jane often says he does. On that basis his material may very well express the content of that dream; from that wider viewpoint, I would feel the compassion he describes more openly. Perhaps it’s all another reflection of that curious dichotomy I’ve often felt: One may rail against the world in general, and the behavior of its individuals in particular. Yet as one gets to know each of the individuals in his or her world in particular, it becomes more and more difficult to blame them for the state of the world, or much else for that matter: One becomes too enmeshed with their individuality and humanness. An understanding on a more personal level of the forces in their lives that push and pull them in often conflicting directions makes it very difficult to actively blame people for very much on an individual basis....)

In such situations you are taught that the self you have is not only flawed, but a facade—a fake self that cannot be trusted, and whose expression must be largely denied. You are told to give up the self to the leader of the group—the guru, the master, the father, the authority by whatever name.

(Pause at 10:10.) At the same time, there is much discussion about the good of mankind, ideal principles, goodness, charity and faith—but these are seen as possible only within the group, for the exterior world, you are told, is full of evil and corruption.

He still does not have all of the implications of the resolutions, but they will come to him. It is important that he and Eve not feel martyred, taking in the father, but I believe they both understand their positions there, and recognize they are forming their own realities and considering an act of kindness for its own sake.

His mother is enjoying being a young girl. That is, she is happily and knowingly hallucinating early girlhood experiences for the sheer joy of the freedom involved. She has made no decisions about rebirth yet, but is enjoying her freedom and keeping an eye out for her husband at the same time, thinking how enjoyable it will be for him to be lithe and free again.