“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This session ran fourteen typewritten pages, and is so of one piece that it’s difficult to give excerpts, without including a good bit of background information. Here are portions of the last half of the session. Earlier, Seth and Gene had been discussing reality, and Gene had commented that existence was “kind of a lovely colossal joke.” Seth answered that “it is no joke. It is a means for the Whole to know Itself.”

“Can’t I experience an illusion that I create for myself?”

“How would I know the difference? Is there any way to distinguish between reality and illusion other than by a creation of my own mind?”

“You do not know it now. When that point is reached, you will be able, if you prefer, to experience any ‘reality … illusion’ at your will, but the self who experiences these ‘reality … illusions’ will know itself as reality. There is no place for it to go, because it is the only reality, and will create its own environment.”

“We have come full circle. I am one with what reality I create. There is nowhere to go,” Gene said.

“You must still be able to experience any one of these illusions, knowing they are illusory, with full knowledge of their nature, and still know that the basic reality is yourself. There is no place to go because you are the place—and all places—in those terms. But the ‘joke’ is relevant. The most important thing I have said this evening is that the joke is relevant. You must be free enough to explore the nature and experience of each living thing within your own system, knowing that it is yourself, and then leave your system. These must be direct experiences.”

“You create the depth.”

“Isn’t the object to play the game … not to create or probe?”

“You are creating your own limitations,” said Seth.

“If they are artificial barriers which I create in my own path, surely I can remove them.”

He absolutely refuses to let people use him as a crutch—this goes for me, too—and maintains that the Seth Material itself provides a means by which people can understand themselves better, reevaluate their reality, and change it. Despite the sessions held now and then to help particular persons, and despite their incidents of extrasensory perception, the sessions remain focused primarily on the material. It is here we feel that the real significance of the sessions rests.

We are far more interested in the Seth Material than in demonstrations of ESP, and we always were. We think it offers excellent explanations as to how ESP or any perception works, and to us this is far more important. We also accept Seth’s statements as meaningful, significant explanations of the nature of reality and mankind’s position within it. His theories as to the multidimensional personality are not only intellectually provocative but emotionally challenging. They offer each individual the opportunity to enlarge his own sense of identity and purpose.

But from now on I’ll let Seth speak for himself. I’ve chosen excerpts dealing with the subjects at hand. In some cases, Seth gave demonstrations to make his point. In the chapter on health, for example, I’ve included excerpts from some readings for specific people. I’ve followed the same procedure with the data on reincarnation. To explain his theories on the nature of physical reality, I’m using excerpts from a session in which he really demonstrated that he knew what he was talking about—if an apparition in the living room can pass as a legitimate approximation.

“You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore it behooves you to examine them carefully. If you do not like your world, then examine your own expectations. Every thought in one way or another is constructed by you in physical terms.

“Your world is formed in faithful replica of your own thoughts. … Certain telepathic conditions exist that we call root assumptions, of which each individual is subconsciously aware. Using these, you form a physical environment cohesive enough so that there is general agreement as to objects and their placement and dimension. It is all hallucinatory in one respect, and yet it is your reality, and you must manipulate within it. The world in which your parents live existed first in thought. It existed once in the stuff of dreams, and they spawned their universe from this, and from this they made their world.