“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Have you lived before, and will you live again? According to Seth all of us have been reincarnated, and when we are finished living our series of earthly lives, we will continue to exist in other systems of reality. In each life we experience conditions that we have chosen beforehand, circumstances and challenges tailored to fit our own needs and develop our own abilities.

“Too objective, I’m afraid. Sometimes it holds me back from using my abilities fully.”

“It is not time for you to run willy-nilly, looking for truth in any treetop. The truth is inside yourself. Your son is not a three-year-old any longer. He is an entity older than you, and he has tried to point out the way to you. … He was not a child taken before his promise was achieved, but a personality who left you when his own reincarnations were finished. He will not return, but go on now to another reality in which his abilities can be used to more advantage.”

At one point Seth smiled broadly and said, “Now, I have lived and died many times, and you can sense my vitality. And I tell you that the boy’s vitality exists in as vital terms. It would have been almost a penance for him to have stayed longer. You helped him ‘save his soul’ at one time [in a past life] and he was returning the favor. At one time he was tempted to use his abilities to gain power, and to use the priesthood for gain. On that occasion you stopped him.”

He said more about the symbolism of Peter’s illness, spoke about Jim’s past relationships with Ann, and said that Jim had mathematical abilities he was not using. “They result from your two priestly existences where you were both highly involved with calculations having to do with movement of the planets.”

There was more, much of it verified on the spot. Though they hadn’t anything to do with reincarnation, these impressions did have a lot to do with demonstrating to Jim and Ann that we do have the ability to receive knowledge other than through the physical senses. The events that I “picked up” were often emotionally significant to the Lindens, though trivial in other respects.

I felt pretty humble when the whole thing was over. Jim and Ann were almost transformed, and before the session, I had been so dubious that I hesitated. (The thing is, when I consciously think in such a limited fashion, my intuitive inner self rises up and shows me that much more is involved than the ego. Actually I think that these abilities flow through us as the wind flows through the branches.) Ann wrote me a letter shortly after, telling me that she and Jim no longer felt the tremendous sorrow that had burdened them earlier.

More and more I have seen how reincarnation makes sense out of such apparently senseless tragedies, and provides an inner structure to situations that would otherwise seem chaotic and unjust. I was so pleased to be able to help Ann and Jim; and that session and others like it have helped me also by showing me the value of ideas that originally I could not accept. The same thing applies to Seth: I am literally amazed at his capacity to help others, at his psychological understanding, at all the abilities he draws upon and focuses in our sessions.

But what about serious diseases—and where does reincarnation fit into the picture? To begin with, Seth does not use the word “punishment.” We are not “punished” in one life for the “transgressions” of a past one. Nor do we choose illness per se as a given life situation, even though we may utilize such an illness as a part of a larger plan, as a method of teaching ourselves some important truth or as a means of developing certain abilities.

Again I felt this strong desire to help, and again I was filled with doubts. Suppose—just suppose—Seth held a session and suggested treatments or medicine that made Sally worse? I was Jane Roberts, not Edgar Cayce. And how could some stranger have such faith in Seth and my abilities when I was so often filled with doubts myself?

Seth emphasized that in the life immediately past, Sally had taken a rest from problems, had enjoyed excellent circumstances and fulfilled her creative abilities.