“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Think about it: Some of us are born brilliant and some mad, some with bodies swift and elegant, others missing vital organs or whole limbs. Some of us are born so blessed with riches that we live in a world hardly imaginable to the majority of men, and others grow old and die in dark pockets of poverty, equally incomprehensible. Why? Only reincarnation weaves these seemingly disparate conditions into a framework that makes sense. According to Seth these situations are not thrust upon us, but chosen.

Why do some children die young—particularly gifted children with devoted parents? I don’t believe that there can be any single answer or blanket explanation, but we have had two readings involving such children, and I can give you the explanations offered in these specific instances.

“I’ve only met Ray once,” I said. “He must have told you that I don’t give readings but concentrate on our private work and the Seth sessions.”

“Yes, he did,” Ann said. “But he thought that you might make an exception. He said you did sometimes, in cases like these.” She paused.

“We’ll be there,” she said quickly. “My husband is in New York for the day, but he’ll be back by late afternoon.”

I told her to come over, and Rob came out from his studio to take notes. During the proceedings I felt that I was the deceased woman, reliving an argument she once had with her husband. As the woman, I banged my fist up and down so hard on our table that Rob was afraid I’d break my hand. The argument was a violent one. The other personality took over rather completely, and Rob was actually concerned for my physical safety. I was able to “pull out” without any strained muscles or bruised bones—she was obviously used to a much larger and stronger body than mine—but since then Rob and I have been cautious.

If it was subconscious role-taking on my part, then it was a darned good job, and if telepathy was involved, then it was a darned good job too, because my student had to check some of the facts with others. But I didn’t like it, and I didn’t want anything like it to happen again. I’m pretty choosy as to whom I let in my house, and living or dead, people like that weren’t going to find a welcome mat here.

“Brooklyn?” I nearly dropped the phone. “I thought you meant that your husband was in New York for the day, but that you lived here—”

“Oh no,” Ann said, “but Jim got home early in the afternoon, and we thought it only took a few hours to get to Elmira.”

“But you were highly recommended. We’ll be late, which is why I called. I hate to ask you, but could you wait until we get there?”

What can you say in a situation like that? I wanted to help. I felt their terrific need, but I also realized that it was well-nigh impossible to prove life after death. Suppose I contacted the boy, or thought I had? How would this help? Instead of making them face the facts of his separation, couldn’t such an incident simply make things worse? And my own doubts rose: if subconscious playacting were involved …

“He was a light to you, and the light is not extinguished. It will lead you into knowledge that you would not have known otherwise, for you would not have sought it so vigorously. He is well aware of this, and wanted you to begin the pilgrimage; but the pilgrimage is within yourselves.”

“He was involved in scientific endeavors both in Atlantis and Egypt, but he had no desire to continue those pursuits now. He had gone quite beyond them. You [Jim] were also involved with him in two past lives in the same relationship, and as priests you both were interested in the inner workings of the universe.”

Seth went on to say that Jim had fallen by the wayside in some respects, forgetting what he had learned in the past. “He [Peter] could not force you to remember, but he could give you a nudge and a push, and in this existence he did so.

“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.”

He ended in this manner: “It is natural that you come to others for help in your situation, and in my way I hope I have helped you. There is a difference between being told things and knowing them, however. And knowing comes from within. When you know, you do not need to be told, and you can have that kind of knowing. I will be glad to help you find it, but no one can find it for you.”

These impressions also included some statements concerning the origin of the disease that killed Peter. Its cause is unknown, and there is no reason to go into my explanation here. But the characteristic symptoms of the disease I gave also described Peter’s condition accurately. The Lindens had not discussed these with us—perhaps they found the subject too painful. Since this information was correct, there is no reason to suppose that the impressions concerning the disease’s causes were wrong, though they are unknown. By the same token, there is no reason to suppose the reincarnational material was any less correct, though we can’t check it because of the long time periods involved. (Some reincarnational data is much more recent and can be checked to some extent if the people involved have the time and want to make the effort. So far we have run across very few priests, and no one else who lived in Atlantis.)

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.

“The husband should follow this exercise three times a day: He should imagine the energy and vitality of the universe filling his wife’s form with health. This should not be a wishful-thinking sort of thing, but a definite effort to understand that her form is composed of this energy, and in this way he can help her use it to advantage. If possible, he should touch her during this exercise, and it should be done morning, evening, and night.

“Do not manufacture hollow false assurances, but honestly and persistently remind yourself that the physical matter of your wife’s image is filled with and formed by universal energy. A block has been preventing her from using this energy with normal effectiveness. You can partially make up for this by your own attitude and the exercises I have given you. This itself will give her a breathing spell, when the disease will cease its progression. If my instructions are followed completely, then some improvement should take place shortly.

He recommended that Sally’s limbs be rubbed with peanut oil, and that iron be added to her diet. He emphasized that she would be happier in another room and said: “I believe you have a fairly small sunny parlor. This room has beneficial connotations for her. Let her be moved there.” In passing he spoke of several episodes in Sally’s present life, some that Jon corroborated in his next letter, and one in particular that he did not know about until Seth mentioned it. Seth said, for example, that she had worked in a five-and-dime store with a girl friend, and that a visit from this friend would be helpful. Jon didn’t know that Sally had worked in such a place, but her mother remembered.

The story of Sally’s past life is fascinating. Note that this was not the life immediately past, but an earlier one in which problems were “shelved” until this existence:

“He wanted to remarry, but no one would have him because of the daughter. When she could, she defied him. She was a handsome-looking young woman, crippled but not deformed. When she was in her thirties, she was more youthful appearing than many women much younger who had to work in the fields. They had a small farm, and itinerant help. A widowed man with no children came from a nearby village to help out on the farm. He fell in love with her, and despite her condition, took her to his home village.

“The problem is a challenge set up by the entity for one of its own personalities, but the outcome is up to the personality involved. This was the last major stumbling block for this personality. … One does not choose illness per se for a lifetime situation. In this case, in order for the personality to see its own past activities clearly, it felt that it must develop a position of complete dependency.”

But Sally was in such terrible condition, going blind, unable to speak or move voluntarily. Why, Jon wrote, couldn’t she have chosen something less damaging? Why couldn’t she have been just sickly for three lives, say, instead of being struck down with such a killing disease in this one?

Now, over two years later, Sally is still alive but in poor condition. Seth said that she had solved the challenges she had set for herself, but in so doing had damaged her physical body to such an extent that she had decided to discard it. As of this writing she is in coma. Jon wanted to know what was happening to her in this state. “Is she really conscious someplace else? Or just dreaming? And what happens after death?” In a recent session Seth answered these questions. Many of the answers apply to death in general, so I’ll include some excerpts from this session in the next chapter, and also go into Seth’s ideas on reincarnation more thoroughly.