“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

All during this time I was working at the local art gallery in the afternoons. Mornings I spent on my ESP book, writing up the results of our experiments. We still hadn’t told anyone what we were doing, except our friend, Bill. In fact few of our friends even knew what we were up to until the book was out. Now I wonder why we were so secretive, but at the time it seemed much better to keep the world with all of its questions out. We had enough of our own to consider.

Running into the session’s second hour, my voice had sounded progressively more hoarse, and it was the first time in sessions that it had ever shown signs of strain. After the initial discussion of the Inner Senses, Seth said, “I did not intend to make you work so hard this evening, Joseph. If your hand is working as quickly as Ruburt’s mouth, you must be exhausted. Would you like to take a break, or end the session? I am always thinking of your convenience, at least when I am not concerned with your education,” he added with a smile.

Rob asked for a break, but then he urged me to end the session before my voice gave out. I knew that he was concerned about me, but also tremendously interested in the material Seth had been giving. Besides this, as Seth, I had been extremely active, making funny remarks now and then to break up pages of serious monologue. The sense of another independent personality was stronger than it had ever been, and so I decided to continue. By now it was after 10:30. While we were talking, Rob had wondered aloud about the meaning of time; when we resumed, Seth started discussing this question.

“Time has no meaning without barriers. To put it another way, time has no meaning without the necessity to counteract against other actions. Basically, this is a gem of a description, if I do say so myself. The sad part is that you probably won’t be able to understand it yet. It all takes time! As I try to counteract your ignorance, I couldn’t resist. I mean it kindly, for you have no idea of the difficulties involved in explaining time to someone who must take time to understand the explanation.

“The study of time will teach you much about the nature of fifth dimension also. Our imaginary wires composed of solidified vitality are fluid, I hope you understand this, even while they are solidified. For solidity is illusion.”

Here, as Seth, I pounded on the desk for emphasis, and suddenly began speaking in a stronger voice. At the same time the hoarseness disappeared. Word by word the voice grew deeper, more formal, louder. As Rob looked down to take his notes, he realized that a vocal metamorphosis of some kind was taking place. He wrote as fast as he could, so he could also look up now and then to see what was going on. Now I stood almost in front of him, the un-Jane-like open eyes staring at him as if to make sure he understood what was being said.

“I have also said that this feeling of vitality—and I prefer that term, vitality—is moving and itself a part of the living stuff of the universe. Now as these wires pass seemingly from plane to plane, they actually form the boundaries of each plane and become subject to the particular laws within each. Therefore, they become subject to time within your particular three-dimensional system.”

Rob had little time to make extra notes, though, as the passage continued without pause. “The motion of the apparently solidified vitality gives the illusion of time. The counteraction involved in this case is counteraction within the core of vitality itself, in much the same manner that we spoke of a closed mental enclosure earlier. … The action and counteraction is the time trigger. On some other planes motion is simultaneous and time unknown. To me your time can be manipulated; it is one of the several vehicles by which I can enter your awareness. …

We didn’t realize either that the emergence of the Seth voice completed the psychic structure through which we would receive the Seth Material, and through which Seth’s personality would express itself. From this session on, there was always some voice change during sessions, but the deep booming tones were the exception rather than the rule for some time to come. On occasion there is the sense of really tremendous power behind the voice; and my own voice is never strained. Much later, Seth told us that this psychic energy can be translated into sound like this, or it can be used for other purposes. Now when Seth gives clairvoyant material, for example, the voice is seldom loud. The energy is used to gather the data instead. (As you will see later in this book, that energy can also be a springboard into other dimensions.)

At this point, there were several courses we could have taken. We could have told no one what was happening, we could have contacted a spiritualist group or we could have informed the parapsychologists. We definitely decided not to tell any of our friends or relatives, at least for the time being. The spiritualist groups would have been out in any case, because of my views at the time on religion in general. But the ESP books we’d read all advised that anyone having such experiences contact a qualified psychologist or parapsychologist.