“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“If you keep these channels open and free, you will get material that is as undistorted as possible,” he said. “Ruburt’s range is an excellent one, and the plane of reality in which I have my existence is far beyond those to which persons in the physical system usually have access. … You and he must see to it that Ruburt does not color his experiences through reading material that is distorted. This [kind of material] has its purposes, and it does do some good, explaining reality in terms that people can understand, for the props and fantasies are familiar ones. There is no necessity for them here, however.” He continued, suggesting that I stay away from books that “deal exclusively with conventional religious subjects, interpreting reality in those limited terms.”

Seth said, “We will make an effort in the future to give you both some direct experience in concepts. These experiments will run along with, and closely follow, the vocalized expression of the concepts involved. They will give you some small glimmering of the unfortunate but necessary loss of meaning that occurs when any concept must be communicated in physical terms. This will be a different kind of in-depth learning, a rather unique and original development that will be as devoid as possible of stereotyped symbols, which are usually almost automatically superimposed on such experiences. Do you understand?”

“The Seth personality has been an intermediary and a legitimate one. The information already given to you regarding the nature of personality gestalts should make this development seem a fitting one. Seth is what I am, yet I am more than Seth is. Seth is, however, independent, and continues to develop as I do. In the Spacious Present we both exist.

Here we had a break and I came out of trance easily enough. This also gave me the opportunity to tell Rob something that happened just before the session started. I got the feeling that a cone came down just over my head. I didn’t think that an actual physical cone was there, but the idea of shape was definite. The wide end was about the size of my head, with the narrow part on top like a pyramid.

When the session was over, Rob and I sat up talking. “It’s crazy,” I said. “When we have a usual Seth session, I sort of feel Seth take over, though I don’t like that term. With this personality, though, I go somewhere, out of myself, and seem to make contact with it in some nowhere, leaving my body empty. I don’t know how I get there, wherever it is, or how I get back.”

“I have told you who we are. We are Seth, and whenever we have spoken we have been known as Seth. The entity had its beginning before the emergence of your time. It was instrumental, with many other entities, in the early formation of energy into physical form. We are not alone in this endeavor, for through your centuries other entities like us have also appeared and spoken.

“Physically you would find me a mass smaller than a brown nut, for my energy is so highly concentrated. It exists in intensified mass … perhaps like one infinite cell existing in endless dimensions at once and reaching out from its own reality to all others.

The transition from Seth’s deep voice and lively gestures was very startling to Phil, who hadn’t heard the other personality speak before. Now my body was almost puppetlike, and my face was devoid of expression. Just before the voice began to speak, I felt my consciousness drawn up through the invisible pyramid like a draft up a flue. There was no indication that anything else was about to happen, however.

The voice said: “You are like children with a game, and you think that the game is played by everyone. Physical life is not the rule. Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed. You see physical bodies and suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms. Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one. It is only because your own viewpoint is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence.

“The source and power of your present consciousness has never been physical, and where I am, many are not even aware that such a physical system exists. The physical system is an illusion, but you must accept it and from its viewpoint try to understand the realities that exist beyond it. The illusions are real since they exist. Your [reality] is simply not one that I have pursued, and one of the purposes of my participation in these sessions is to acquaint the one called Ruburt with inner travel. He must leave the physical system, and in so doing set up habits and paths that can be used to advantage.”

“The inner portions of your own identity and reality are not known to you, for you cannot objectify them, and therefore you do not perceive them. So much of your energy is used in these physical productions that you cannot afford to perceive any reality but your own. Again, like children playing with blocks, your focus of attention is upon physical blocks.

“Later, in your time, all of you will look down into the physical system like giants peering through small windows at the others now in your position and smile. But you will not want to stay, nor crawl through the small enclosures. … We protect such systems. Our basic and ancient knowledge and energy automatically reaches out to nourish all systems that grow—”

When the personality compared physical reality with children’s blocks, he made a remark about individuals returning in our future to peer into physical reality like giants squinting down to watch children play with blocks upon the floor. (As the voice spoke, my eyes were closed, of course, and I don’t remember what the voice said, but have checked Rob’s verbatim notes of the session.) In here someplace, suddenly I saw a giant’s face peer into our living room, its face filling up the entire window.

The next moment my own body, the room and everything in it began to grow to tremendous size. My body became massive. I could feel the organs inside me grow. At the same time all the furniture—everything—got larger and larger. It seemed as if the room now was huge enough to cover all of the city. Yet everything expanded in proportion, retaining its usual shape.

“The blocks of physical reality appear very real to you when you dwell within their perspective. Your Ruburt experienced a transmigration of systems. It was not meant to be unpleasant. This was his subjective interpretation. First he was involved in a microscopic adventure. Consciousness does not take up space—you must understand this. Then he reentered your own system of physical blocks, and by contrast that system then appeared huge and monstrous.

“When we make contact, his consciousness and personality in concentrated form make a journey—in your terms, like a speck in space—the consciousness reduced to its essence. And from his experience we let him fall back into the physical system. The children’s blocks then became massive by contrast … this was an experience in concepts.”

I started to feel the microscopic nature of our physical universe, comparatively speaking … this is most difficult to put into words. There was a momentary sense of desolation accompanying this—my own, I think. I’m always aware of the pyramid shape above me just before this personality speaks. Usually I “go up through” it. This time, though, at the narrow end far above me I saw the same giant head, peering down at me and the room as through a microscope. If the room and everything in it was going to shrink as realistically as it had expanded earlier—and it was, I could tell—I just wasn’t ready for the experience.

“Now, these characteristics are mine, and I am who I say I am. And yet the Seth that you know is but a small portion of my reality … the part that has been physical, and can understand your problems.

“But beyond that self there is another self and still another self of which I am fully aware. And to that self, physical reality is like a breath of smoke in air … and that self does not need the characteristics that you know and think of as mine.”

“Know that within your physical atoms now the origins of all consciousness still sing and that all the human characteristics by which you know yourselves still exist. …

“We gave you mental images and upon these images you learned to form the world that you know. We gave you the pattern by which your physical selves are formed. We gave you the patterns, intricate, involved, and blessed, from which you form the reality of each physical thing you know.