“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It sounds ridiculous, but I knew that this thing was “out to get me.” I knew that I was out of my body, and I was overwhelmed with astonishment, as well as very frightened. Although I’d read of people being attacked by demons or the like while they were “projecting,” I just didn’t believe in demons. So what was it? I didn’t have time to wonder, because it bit me several times on the hand. It was amazingly oppressive, and kept up its efforts to drag me farther away from my body into the bedroom closet.

Seth went on to say: “The evil that Ruburt imagined he was projecting outward does not exist, but because he believed it did, he formed the materialization from his fears. It was the shape of his recent depression. In larger terms, there is no evil, only your own lack of perception, but I know this is difficult for you to accept.

“Although the dreamer creates his dreams for his own purposes, selecting only those symbols which have meaning to him, he projects them outward in a value fulfillment and psychic expansion. The expansion occurs as the dream is acted out. A contraction occurs as the dreamer is finished with the dream events, but energy cannot be taken back.”

Still speaking of dreams, Seth says: “Energy projected into any kind of construction, psychic or physical, cannot be recalled, but must follow the laws of the particular form into which it has been for the moment molded. Therefore, when the dreamer contracts his multi-realistic objects backward, ending for himself the dream he has constructed, he ends it for himself only. The reality of the dream continues.”

Seth gave us instructions first in dream recall. Following this, he told us how to awaken our critical faculties while we were dreaming, and how to project our consciousness out of our bodies, using a dream as a sort of launching pad. I was always delighted to try any experiments Seth suggested, and I still am. The resulting personal experience gave me subjective evidence of the validity of many of Seth’s concepts; besides, I like to do things on my own.

Look at this projection from the dream state, for example. One morning after breakfast I lay down to try a dream projection. This simply means that I can sometimes recognize when I am dreaming, bring my normal “waking consciousness” into the dream situation, and then use it to project my consciousness elsewhere. When I got to this point that morning, I felt myself leave my body, knowing all the while that it was safe and comfortable in bed, with the door locked.

I didn’t know what to do or say. “Look, I’m really in an out-of-body state. This is an astral projection!” They’d never believe me. But what about the three books with my name on them and the clerk’s knowing smile?

Naturally we asked Seth about the experience. He was giving us general information about the conditions we could expect to meet in projections from the dream state.

“Now in certain levels of dream reality, forms such as this can be perceived. Within dream reality you can come into contact with many other kinds of phenomena with which usually you do not have to deal. With the projection experiments you have in mind, this information becomes highly practical. I would like to give you some idea, you see, of what to expect.

Whole blocks of sessions deal with the methods used and the conditions that can be met in projections of consciousness from the dream state. Seth says that he has personally assisted me in some of my own projection experiments, but that I have not been aware of his assistance. I’ve never dreamed of Seth, and I find this rather strange. I’ve often awakened, fully alert, in the middle of the night, suddenly conscious that I’ve been giving a kind of Seth session. I can hear Seth’s words going through my head like signals. It’s as if I’m tuning in on a radio broadcast that I’m not supposed to be hearing, because when I start to listen there is a clicking sound in my head, and the “station” turns off. On two occasions I heard enough to know what was being said and to whom the sessions were directed. Later the people involved told me that they dreamed that Seth was speaking to them through me on the same nights as my experiences. I had said nothing to them; they volunteered the information.