“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Seth began the session, our 406th, by telling Rob the direction the material would take in following years. “You have been given a sketchy outline, but we have time to fill it in,” he said, smiling. “For that matter, the outline itself is scarcely completed. … We want to deal with the nature of reality as it exists within your camouflage system and within other systems, and to study the overall characteristics that pertain to it, regardless of any given materialization.

“Yes,” Rob said, but he spoke almost automatically; the delivery had quickened, and he was having trouble keeping up with the notes. Later we were to read that above paragraph over many times when—as you’ll see shortly—I found myself almost “in over my head.”

Then, to Rob’s surprise, Seth told him to end the session. Rob was to follow the procedure given, recently, to end my trance. (Just lately I had begun going into particularly deep trances compared to earlier ones, and Seth had suggested that Rob call my name three times.) Seth said, “This evening you have reached somewhat beyond the personality by which I usually make myself known to you. Even if I continue to speak, end the trance.”

Rob called me several times, getting no response. Then he touched my shoulder and I jumped rather violently. This interrupted the trance state. I didn’t know what was going on either. The powerful energy kept flowing through me. If I stood up I felt as if I’d go flying through the wall, propelled by this force. My head felt huge, as if my ears were out several feet. This last sensation wasn’t new; I’d had it in some Psy-Time experiences. But trying to contain that energy was something else.

The next Wednesday night I was somewhat hesitant as session time approached. We began at the dot of nine, but instantly Rob knew that this wasn’t going to be a “normal” session. For one thing, the voice was different. It was much more like my own voice, yet it wasn’t mine. Seth’s deep tones, his gestures and characteristic way of using words—these were absent.

“Some material he can present to you more clearly than I.” Rob looked up sharply this time. If Seth wasn’t speaking, who was?

“While I was the source of the material [in the last sessions], Seth, as you think of him, was at times a silent partner, helping Ruburt make the proper translations, while stepping aside in a personal manner. Earlier [in previous sessions] Seth interpreted material from me so that Ruburt could receive it.

“There are points of contact having nothing to do with time, as you know it, that are significant to all personalities; origins of new energy that are sometimes brought into existence because of the strong latent psychic capacities within individual selves. At these points, whole conglomerations of new self-units come into being, their origin sparked, as given in the last sentence. They then disperse and go their own ways, but the mutual origin and the strength of that initial psychic birth remain.”

“This communication, while taking place in your time, is nevertheless responsible in other dimensions for what you would call future developments in your own personalities which you can, in turn, contact. I look back on you as the selves from which I sprang, yet I am more than the sum of what you will be when you are finished with the dimensions and times that I have known.

“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.

“Our entity is composed of multitudinous selves with their own identities, many of whom have worked in this behalf. Their messages will always be basically the same, though the times and circumstances of their communications may differ and be colored accordingly.

No one thought anything in particular about that last statement until later that night. The voice continued for a short time and I encountered some difficulty “getting back.” I felt suspended in darkness somewhere far above, but I was also aware that Seth was close by. A few minutes passed. Suddenly Seth came through, loud and clear. The contrast between the two personalities was so marked that even Rob was startled. Seth started to joke. “Now that ‘Big Brother’ has had his say, I will bring our Ruburt back to you.”

“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—”

This time I’m quoting from my own notes, made later that evening:

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.

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.

This time I “found myself,” pulled myself together, and found my vocal chords while the other personality paused for a moment. It was just about here that I saw the giant face peering down through the pyramid above me. In the earlier episode, I’d screamed involuntarily. In the second, I found that there were ways of “finding” my own voice, and ending the experience. With Seth such a question never arose. There was no pressure put upon me by the other personality to continue the experience … but I had to learn how to terminate it myself when I wanted to.

Very startling though, the whole thing. If a psychologist wants to say simply that the whole thing was hallucination, then he would have to admit that it was hardly random, but well directed, to a point and for a purpose. The merging of myself with the action in the expansion episode was frightening at first. All in all I guess I reacted well enough and brought the thing to an end in the second episode when I decided I’d had enough for one night. I wasn’t just tossed willy-nilly the second time, and I broke the trance in anticipation of the experiences I knew were coming. So I did learn from the first episode.

That session was well over a year ago. Our usual Seth sessions still continue, and only now and then does this other personality speak. We refer to it as Seth Two. Often these sessions involve me in some kind of subjective experience, though now I am learning how to handle myself when this happens. Once during a rest period, for example, Rob wondered what it was like to be nonphysical. When the session resumed, I felt myself seemingly suspended, fully alert and aware—but bodiless—in space. I had no form as far as I knew, but I possessed complete freedom of motion—something like conscious air. This time I wasn’t frightened, realizing that we were getting an answer to Rob’s question. During this experience, the emotionless, lilting, distant voice explained what nonphysical existence was like.

The difference in the two personalities was particularly apparent in a recent ESP class session in which Seth was at his jovial best, showing personal interest in each student. As usual during such times, my face was extremely animated, and Seth’s characteristic gestures were quite noticeable. After speaking to each student individually for a moment, Seth said with a touch of humor: “I come here, I hope, as an ‘endearing’ personality, with characteristics to which you can relate.

The voice had been vibrant and full, booming and loud. Then there was a pause. And for the first time the other personality came through in class. All of Seth’s gestures and mannerisms vanished. Instantly that high, distant, asexual voice began to speak. It is almost musical, without inflection, like single notes. “And that self tells you that there is a reality beyond human reality and experience that cannot be verbal nor translated in human terms. …

“Although this type of experience may seem cold to you, it is a clear and crystal-like existence in which no time is needed for experience … in which the inner self condenses all human knowledge that has been received through various existences and reincarnations … for all this has been coded and exists indelibly. You also exist now within this reality. …