“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I was unhappy with the reincarnational material simply because I still didn’t want to accept the idea—it just seemed too far out. I didn’t exactly encourage Rob to ask Seth to enlarge on this information or to fill in on the details he’d given. But it was a part of the material—I could hardly deny that.

Dr. Stevenson wrote us a letter much like one I would probably write today to someone else under the same circumstances. He thought that the fluency of the material suggested a subconscious origin, but emphasized that at this stage it was impossible to tell. He also told us that amateur mediumship could produce mental symptoms under certain conditions.

“Oh, great,” I said to Rob. “Do I act any nuttier than usual?” Rob solemnly assured me that there had been no change in my behavior. Actually he had been watching for such signs, and so had I. But Dr. Stevenson’s well-meaning warning did throw me for somewhat of a loop, even though we had read the same cautions ourselves in some of our psychic books.

Just a few days before we received Dr. Stevenson’s letter, we had an unscheduled session with Phil present. We gave him paper and pen to write down any questions he might have, but Phil never got a chance to write anything down. According to him, Seth answered each of his questions in turn as Phil formed them in his mind. Phil wrote and signed a statement to this effect.

Seth had quite a bit to say! “A fond and exasperated good evening,” he began. “The exasperation comes because your good psychologist almost undermined the confidence I managed to give Ruburt in our session with your friend, Phillip. I tried to build Ruburt’s confidence, and some stranger tore it down. His intentions were of the best, but I suppose that I must now feel obligated—and I do—to go into the matter of mental and emotional stability and any dangers to such stability that might be involved here.

“I feel a strong responsibility for you and for any results coming from our communications. If anything, the personal advice I have given you both should add to your mental and emotional balance and result in a stronger relationship with the outside world. … I do depend upon Ruburt’s willingness to dissociate. There is no doubt that he is unaware at times of his surroundings during sessions. It is a phenomenon in which he gives consent, and he could, at any time, return his conscious attention to his physical environment.

“For one thing, Ruburt’s ego is extremely strong. His intuition is the gateway that relaxes an otherwise stubborn and domineering ego.” At this, Rob looked up and laughed. “The intuitive qualities, however, are not frivolous and the personality is well integrated.” Seth went on to describe dissociation, saying that I was always aware of my surroundings to some degree in sessions. “It is true,” he said, “that a state of dissociation is necessary. But because you open a door, this does not mean that you cannot close it, nor does it mean that you cannot have two doors open at once, and this is my point. You can have two doors open at once, and you can listen to two channels at once. In the meantime you must turn down the volume of the first channel while you learn to attune your attention to the second. This process you call dissociation.”

“The slight evidence of telepathy I gave you had a purpose. I wanted to show you that telepathy did exist, and I wanted to show Ruburt that more than his own subconscious as he knows it was involved. … Now Ruburt assembles me or allows me to assemble myself in a way that will be recognizable to you, but regardless of this, I exist in an independent manner.”

Later elaborations on the above statement gave us a pretty fair idea of what inner processes go on so that Seth and I can make contact. This involves the construction of a “psychological bridge” that will be explained later in this book. At this point I’d been speaking as Seth for about forty minutes, and he recommended a rest period, saying: “Sometime between now and twenty-five years of laying your doubts at rest, I would like to go into some other matters that I have been trying to tackle for several sessions. But take your rest, pussies.”

I used to envy Rob his viewpoint of the sessions. He could see and hear me as Seth and I couldn’t. Now during break I questioned him again. I hated to have to depend on someone else to tell me what was going on, but I had learned one thing: I couldn’t be Jane and Seth at once. For Seth to come through I had to stop such mental quibbling—at least temporarily.

“Please be frank, as I do not like this hanging over our heads,” Seth said. Then he went on to give us some information concerning entities and the various personalities that compose them. Rob was particularly curious about the differences between entities and personalities.

In early spring Rob came down with several annoying gumboils and one night he asked Seth how he might get rid of them. Seth immediately launched into a rather hilarious discussion of the unsanitary aspects of a refrigerator in the bathroom. He made a few kindly but definite statements to the effect that we should know better, and suggested that the appliance be moved into the kitchen, where it would hold all our refrigerated food. If so, he assured Rob his gumboils would disappear.

“Besides,” Rob said, “Seth didn’t order you to do anything. I asked him a question, and he answered it.”

In other words, I used to watch Seth like a hawk, particularly during the first year or so, but he always behaved intelligently, with dignity and humor. As soon as I began judging him by his actions and his effect on us, I dropped this habit. He won my trust. He has given us excellent, psychologically sound advice, but he never tried to give us orders.

About a year and a half ago, Seth suggested that I leave my job at the art gallery and give psychic classes. He even told me how many students I would have within three months’ time. I followed his advice, though I didn’t really think there would be much response in this area. Seth was correct: I’ve enjoyed the classes, learned a great deal from them, and enlarged my own abilities as a result, in ways I didn’t know were possible.

During the first six months or so of the sessions, our cat, Willie, began behaving in a most unsociable manner. A few times he began to hiss and spit quite madly just before sessions. One night he really startled us. We were getting ready to begin, and Willie was sleeping in the bedroom closet. Suddenly he ran out of the closet, fur on end, bolted through the living room, and hid behind the curtains. Once he nipped at my ankles as I was speaking for Seth, and in trance I dragged him half across the room while he hung on to the bottom of my slacks. Rob had to shut him in the studio.

Finally, Rob asked Seth if he knew what was wrong. The reply was that Willie’s very acute senses picked up Seth’s presence just before session time. He told us that the cat’s behavior would change as Willie became more accustomed to the situation. A month or so later, Willie became himself again. Now he pays no attention to the sessions, and even occasionally jumps into my lap when I’m in trance.

During this time Rob had a recurrence of back trouble, though far less severe than before. Seth devoted several long sessions to an analysis of Rob’s condition and explained the reasons for the symptoms. They disappeared without medication, and we think that the knowledge Rob gained through these sessions was responsible. Earlier we had purchased a Kennedy rocker because of Rob’s back. He used to sit in it to take session notes and for a while it was the only chair in which he was comfortable. He no longer needed it when he recovered, and I got into the habit of using it. Much later, when I finally consented to sit down during sessions, it would be my favorite “Seth” chair.

We quickly learned that Seth regarded physical symptoms as the outward materialization of inner dis-ease. He emphasized the importance of suggestion and the dangers of self-pity. He did tell us then that when one of us was ill, the other was not to offer excessive consolation and thereby reinforce the idea of sickness. In later sessions he would give some excellent material on maintaining good health. This will be covered in Chapter 13.