“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

When I came to, I found myself scrawling what was obviously meant as the title of that odd batch of notes: The Physical Universe As Idea Construction. Later the Seth Material would develop those ideas, but I didn’t know that at the time. In one of the early sessions Seth said that this had been his first attempt to contact me. I only know that if I’d begun speaking for Seth that night, I would have been terrified.

The ideas that I “received” were just as startling. They turned all my ideas of reality upside down. That morning and each morning until that time, I’d been sure of one thing: you could trust physical reality. You might not like it at times, but you could depend on it. You could change your ideas toward it if you chose, but this would in no way change what reality was. Now I could never feel that way again.

Those ideas were only a touchstone for what would come later. The manuscript finally consisted of about a hundred pages, including new definitions of old terms. For example: “The subconscious is the threshold of idea’s emergence into the individual conscious mind. It connects the entity and the individual. … The physical body is the material construction of the entity’s idea of itself under the properties of matter. … Instinct is the minimum ability for idea construction necessary for physical survival. … The present is the apparent point of any idea’s emergence into physical matter.”

Then, on December 8, 1963, we sat at the board again, wondering whether or not it would work. It was a comfortable evening, warm in the room. Snow fell past the windows. Then suddenly the pointer began to move so quickly that we could hardly keep up with it.

Rob and I shrugged at each other: this was really wild, and the pointer was speeding faster and faster. Rob waited a moment, then asked, “What would you prefer to be called?”

We looked at each other again. I grimaced. “Would you clear that up a bit?” Rob said.

“Oh, hon,” I said, rather disgusted. “Besides, what purpose would he have? If there are spirits, they must have better things to do than going around moving Ouija boards.”

SHE IS CONCERNED BECAUSE SHE RECEIVES MY MESSAGES BEFORE THEY ARE SPELLED OUT. IT WOULD MAKE YOU CAUTIOUS, TOO.

“When Bill saw the image and reocgnized its presence, the fragment itself seemed to have a dream. The entity operates its fragments in what you would call a subconscious manner, that is, without conscious direction. The entity gives the fragment independent life, then the entity more or less forgets the fragment. When a momentary lapse of control occurs, they both come face to face. It’s as impossible for the entity to control fragment personalities as for the conscious mind to control the body’s heartbeat.”

“Seth, would you verify Jane’s reception of the above message?” Rob asked.

NOT VERY GOOD. ANY CONTACTS ON YOUR PART WILL PROBABLY INCLUDE INTERNAL VISUAL DATA. JANE WILL PROBABLY BE ABLE TO RECEIVE ME DIRECT. IN EITHER CASE, CONTACT IS NOT POSSIBLE AT ALL TIMES. YOU WOULD FIND THIS MORE EMBARRASSING THAN I WOULD.

I don’t know what Rob would have thought then if he’d realized what Seth meant by “internal visual data,” though; and writing this now I just remembered that he was pretty surprised when his first few internal visions appeared with extraordinary vividness. I’ll describe these later. That night, of course, we were primarily concerned with my speaking experience. If I’d known how this was to be expanded in the next session, I probably would have been a nervous wreck.