“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In early February, Rob wrote to Dr. Ian Stevenson, who was connected with the Department of Neurology and Psychology at the University of Virginia. Dr. Stevenson was interested in reincarnation, and we had just read about his work. Rob also sent him copies of a few sessions, including some of the information we had been given about our own past lives. According to this, we lived several existences in the very distant past, including one in Denmark three centuries ago when Rob and I were father and son and Seth a mutual friend. Our last lives were in Boston in the nineteenth century.

In a way, Dr. Stevenson’s letter came at an unfortunate time. It had been impossible to keep the sessions absolutely secret. Eventually some of our friends were bound to come around on a Monday or Wednesday evening, and hear the odd voice from outside the door as Phillip did just before we wrote Dr. Stevenson. As a result, Phil began to attend occasional sessions. I’m using the entity name that Seth gave him, since his family doesn’t understand his interest in psychic phenomena—a situation we’ve encountered more than once. Phil lives out of state but travels to Elmira every six weeks or so on business.

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.

I took Phil at his word, but I also thought that coincidence could have explained the episode. Just the same, my spirits rose. Then a few days later, Dr. Stevenson’s letter came and I went into a slump. “See if Seth has anything to say about the letter,” Rob said. I agreed, but when I became tense it was difficult to relax enough to have a session. I skipped our next scheduled session as a result, but I’d recovered my equilibrium when the next Monday came.

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.”

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.

“Individual life, or rather the life of any present individual, could be legitimately compared to the dream of an entity. While the individual enjoys his given number of years, these are but a flash to the entity. The entity is concerned with these years in somewhat the same manner with which you are concerned with your dreams. As you give inner purpose and organization to your dreams, and obtain insight and satisfaction from them though they involve only a part of your life, so the entity to some extent directs and gives purpose and organization to his personalities.

The session lasted until 11:30 P.M. Rob was reassured by Seth’s statements about my ability to handle dissociation, and by his responsible attitude. I was, too, but I kept thinking of the remark in Dr. Stevenson’s letter. “Of course, Seth said that everything was okay,” I said. “What else could we expect him to say?”

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.

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.

Sometimes we followed his council, to our advantage. Other times we didn’t go along, for reasons of our own. In 1964 we went househunting, for example. Seth suggested we purchase a particular house. We liked it very much but it was in poor condition. Seth might very well be right, we thought—and we might be happier if we bought the house—but we just weren’t willing to take the chance.

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.