“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

By now I was used to Seth. The sessions, so strange at first, were a familiar part of our lives. There was a lot I didn’t understand—there still is—so I hoped to develop my abilities more fully and to learn more. But I thought that the Seth sessions themselves would more or less remain the same. Looking back now at the earlier material, I can see that I should have known better.

One night in April of 1968, we settled down for our usual Monday night session, unaware that anything new was about to happen. I sat in my rocker. Rob sat on the couch as usual, taking notes. According to Rob, Seth’s voice was unusually powerful that night. My opened eyes were very dark, and Seth seemed to be watching Rob rather closely.

I couldn’t tell Rob what I was experiencing, of course, but he began to suspect that something was happening. Seth became very emphatic, watching Rob closely for one thing. For another, Seth began to stress each word.

“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.”

The voice became even more powerful. Rob thought of asking Seth to slow down, but he wasn’t sure what was happening, and thought it best not to interrupt.

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.

I shook my head, “Wow. If I ever had any doubts … what-ever’s going on, it’s not coming from me, not from my own personality.” Later in my own notes I wrote, “… tremendous energy seemed to flow through me, with the definite certainty—thank God—that this was coming from beyond me, and was automatically translated into words at my end. I feel this is as significant a development—almost—as the original Seth session. The sense of contact was undeniably there. The feeling I had was that I really was in touch with some all encompassing reality.”

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.

The voice was much softer than usual. Rob had to listen closely to get all the words. “The development in the last session was latent from our first session, but it was a development that could or could not have occurred. Had it not, then many important future developments would have been blocked. The points where the [Seth] voice was loudest and most powerful—these points often represented openings through which the development could occur. For various reasons, however, that method was not used. The energy would have been diverted from the voice in which it had already been built up, you see.”

“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.

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.

Here the voice was very distant, high and clear, so unlike the usual Seth voice that Rob was still rather taken back. “I am more, however, than this portion of me that you contact, for it is only one portion of me that experienced that reality. It is highly important, then, that this material not be distorted, for most communications take place on far different levels than this—[levels] so closely connected with your own system that even the most ‘undistorted’ data is highly distorted because the communicators themselves do not realize that they create the realities which they then describe.

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.”

Rob nodded. Both of us felt almost sad, in one way. I think we were afraid that our regular Seth sessions were over, and that the new ones would take their place. “Besides,” Rob said, “what do we call this new personality?” We knew it was meaningless basically, but we felt we needed a name, a label. And how exactly was this new personality different from Seth? What could it do that Seth couldn’t? “I wish it were more masculine or feminine,” I said. “A neuter personality seems so strange.”

“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.

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.

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.”

I came out of trance easily enough once Seth came through. We sat chatting for a few moments and then the session resumed, letting me in for one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. This is rather difficult to describe, so first I’ll quote what the “other” voice was saying.

Here I screamed and started shaking violently. Rob thought that my heavy rocker was about to tip over. Rob and Phil leaped to their feet, Phil knocking his glass of beer to the floor in the process. Rob rubbed my hands and tried to get me out of trance.

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 didn’t feel as if this were happening. To me it was happening, literally. I simply panicked and started yelling. It took Rob some minutes to get me out of trance, but by then I was ashamed of myself. I felt like a real coward.

Rob was worried about me and wondered if I should continue with the session, but by now I was really embarrassed at making such a fuss, and I knew that the experience was significant. I went back into trance, but very soon I was to break off again.

I hoped this was the end of the session, but it was obvious that Jane wanted to continue, or at least was willing to continue, in spite of the unsettling experience. I tried to talk her out of it, but her eyes kept closing. …

“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.”

During the above monologue my subjective experiences continued. Again, I wasn’t aware of what the voice was saying, and only afterward did I realize that my experiences paralleled the meaning of the passages. Here are a few quotes from my notes:

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.

I tried to find my voice to tell Rob I wanted to end the session, but the other personality was using it. Through all of this I use the word “I,” but “I” was so a part of the action that it was difficult to separate myself from it. Now, wanting out, I tried again to use my own voice.

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.

I don’t believe the other personality understood that the experience was unpleasant for me, or for that matter, that such terms had any meaning for it. Information was being given in certain terms —period—as far as it was concerned. I don’t even know if it was aware of my reactions.

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. …

“The most minute cell within your brain has been made from patterns of consciousness which we have given you. The entire webwork was initiated by us. We taught you to form the reality that you know.”