“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It was as if the physical world were really tissue-paper thin, hiding infinite dimensions of reality, and I was suddenly flung through the tissue paper with a huge ripping sound. My body sat at the table, my hands furiously scribbling down the words and ideas that flashed through my head. Yet I seemed to be somewhere else, at the same time, traveling through things. I went plummeting through a leaf, to find a whole universe open up; and then out again, drawn into new perspectives.

As it was, I didn’t know what had happened, yet even then I felt that my life had suddenly changed. The word “revelation” came to mind and I tried to dismiss it, yet the word was apt. I was simply afraid of the term with its mystical implications. I was familiar with inspiration in my own work, but this was as different from ordinary inspiration as a bird is from a worm!

“We are individualized portions of energy, materialized within physical existence, to learn to form ideas from energy, and make them physical (this is idea construction). We project ideas into an object, so that we can deal with it. But the object is the thought, materialized. This physical representation of idea permits us to learn the difference between the ‘I’ who thinks and the thought. Idea construction teaches the ‘I’ what it is, by showing it its own products in a physical manner. We learn by viewing our own creations, in other words. We learn the power and effects of ideas by changing them into physical realities; and we learn responsibility in the use of creative energy. …

“The eye projects and focuses the inner image (idea) onto the physical world in the same manner that a motion-picture camera transfers an image onto a screen. The mouth creates words. The ears create sound. The difficulty in understanding this principle is due to the fact that we’ve taken it for granted that the image and sound already exist for the senses to interpret. Actually the senses are the channels of creation by which idea is projected into material expression.

Apparently I’d reached a point where these abilities were ready to show themselves, so they did. Because of my early training as a writer, they emerged through words, rather than, say, visions, and in an experience that wouldn’t frighten me too much.

Our curiosity was aroused, to say the least. At a newsstand we noticed a book on ESP. The words “Clairvoyant Dreams” popped up from the cover, and we bought it. About this time I was also looking for a new book idea, and Rob made the suggestion that was to lead us further and further away from the way of life we’d always known.

Rob asked the questions, then we paused while he wrote out the answers the pointer spelled. Frank Withers had given simple one- or two-word responses in previous sessions. Now the answers became longer, and their character seemed to change. The atmosphere of the room was somehow different.

The next two were much the same, except for one bewildering element: I began to anticipate the board’s replies. This bothered me no end, and I grew uneasy. At the next session—our fourth with Seth—I heard the words in my head at a faster and faster rate, and not only sentences but whole paragraphs before they were spelled out.

I hardly heard Rob ask the question. Through the whole session I’d been hearing the words in my head before they were spelled, and I’d felt the impulse to speak them. Now the impulse grew stronger and I grew more determined to fight it. Yet I was terribly curious. And what could happen, after all? I didn’t know—and this made me even more curious.

The pointer paused. I felt as if I were standing, shivering, on the top of a high diving board, trying to make myself jump while all kinds of people were waiting impatiently behind me. Actually it was the words that pushed at me—they seemed to rush through my mind. In some crazy fashion I felt as if they’d back up, piles of nouns and verbs in my head until they closed everything else off if I didn’t speak them. And without really knowing how or why, I opened up my mouth and let them out. For the first time I began to speak for Seth, continuing the sentences the board had spelled out only a moment before.

Suddenly the words stopped. I stared at Rob.

Again the words were speeding through my head while the little pointer spelled them out slowly and methodically. I remember a terrific impatience, and then I was finishing the message aloud: “They have to be translated into physical reality. Fragments of another sort, called personality fragments, operate independently, though under the auspices of the entity.”

Once more the words just stopped. This time I was determined not to let the same thing happen again until I had time to think it over, and I told Rob. Still we agreed to check with the board. “Was Jane’s answer right, Seth?” Rob asked.