“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 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.

Then give us another moment.... Ruburt’s chain of association gave the name Patterson because of an old song. The [name] Johnson brings in the woman’s sense of strength, and yet says that she is of ordinary heritage—a person of the earth, a powerful person in her way—and the connections with your associations have to do with the late President Johnson. Behind all of his carryings-on there was a strong quality of compassion that he found most difficult to express.

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).

(9:44. “Sorry about that.” Jane said in reference to her substituting Mrs. Patterson for Mrs. Johnson while in trance. She said the Patterson connection was from an old song—perhaps a Beatle title—having to do with “Oh, Mrs. Patterson,” or something like that.

(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.

I have just interpreted for Joseph a dream of his, in which he was able to express emotions of a rather profound nature, and I want to stress here that you are above all an expressive (underlined) species.

(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....)