“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“In your dimension it is as if remembered events were like pieces of furniture, all arranged in one room, in a given order. Living in that room, you can find your way between the various pieces easily.

During our break, Rob mentioned several questions that he thought Jon would like answered, or that might come to his mind as he read the session. One had to do with the kind of body Sally had at her disposal. Seth said, “Now the new body is, of course, not a new one at all, but simply a body not physical in your terms, one that you use in astral projections, one that gives the vitality and strength to the physical body that you know.

“Your flesh is embedded in it now. When you leave the physical body, the other body is quite real to you and seems as physical, although it has many more freedoms. … Sally is delighted with this body, comparing it with the [sick] physical one. She is trying to cut off all identification with her physical body, whether it is alive or dead in your terms.

The girls were all intelligent, bright, alert—and wary. They weren’t about to be taken in by any mumbo jumbo. At the same time they were intensely interested in Seth’s ideas that consciousness can be expanded safely and without drugs, using his methods. One girl, Lydia, was the most vocal of the group in her arguments against reincarnation.

“Seth said earlier that all time existed at once,” said Jean. “Then how come he talks about reincarnational lives or a series of lives one before the other? The two don’t seem to go together.”

“When I tell you that you lived, for example, in 1836, I say this because it makes sense to you now. You live all of your reincarnations at once, but you find this difficult to understand within the context of three-dimensional reality.

Actually Seth has used several analogies to explain reincarnational experiences. On page 3,600 of our own sessions I find this: “The various reincarnational selves can be superficially regarded as portions of a crossword puzzle, for they are all portions of the whole, and yet they can exist separately.”

In the 256th session he said, “Because you are obsessed with the idea of past, present, and future, you are forced to think of reincarnations as strung out one before the other. Indeed we speak of past lives because you are used to the time sequence concept. What you have instead is something like the developments narrated in The Three Faces of Eve. You have dominant egos, all a part of an inner identity, dominant in various existences. But the separate existences exist simultaneously. Only the egos involved make the time distinction. 145 B.C., A.D. 145, a thousand years in your past, and a thousand years in your future—all exist now.”

In fact, Seth gave three or four sessions in which he compared cases of “split” personalities to our reincarnation selves. He ended up by saying, “It is interesting that the personalities [in Three Faces of Eve] did alternate, and all were in existence at once, so to speak, even though only one was dominant at any given time. In the same way, so-called past personalities are present in you now but not dominant.”

“Since all events occur at once in actuality, there is little to be gained by saying that a past event causes a present one. Past experience does not cause present experience. You are forming past, present, and future—simultaneously. Since events appear to you in sequence, this is difficult to explain.

“The whole self is aware of all of the experiences of all of its egos, and since one identity forms them, there are bound to be similarities between them and shared characteristics. The material I have given you on reincarnation is quite valid, particularly for working purposes, but it is a simplified version of what actually occurs.”

So while Seth often explains present life problems as the result of past life difficulties, he makes it clear to those that can understand that the lives really exist simultaneously, just as three personalities can exist in one body at one time. But all problems are not the result of such “past life” influences. In one case, a friend’s hang-ups in the present originated right in this life, though her boyfriend’s were left over from the past.

Doris was having all kinds of problems. For one thing, she kept falling head over heels in love with men who didn’t want marriage under any circumstances. In these relationships she was the aggressor. The men in each case were men who did not date, were overly attached to their parents, or who for some reason or other did not have ordinary relationships with women. Doris was smart enough to see this, but each time she was certain that there was something about the new man that made him more eligible—or at least more liable to accept her advances. In the meantime she was dreadfully lonely, for she would refuse dates with “ordinary” men, since they seemed so inferior compared to the new idol.

“You see the male in terms inspired in you in this childhood. You felt that your father had godlike qualities and attempt to project these onto the men you meet. Therefore they disappoint you, but this also serves your needs. Because while you see the male as godlike, you also see him as one who gives out punishment, and as unreasoning and cruel. So you are afraid to ‘come under a man’s thumb’ or domination. Because you were a male in past lives, you resent this all the more.

Much more psychological advice was given. The whole session was of great help to Doris—who hasn’t been frightened of Seth since, by the way! But it is an oversimplificaton to say that all present problems are the result of past life difficulties. We are not “stuck” with our problems, whether they come from this life or another. We don’t have to drag them along with us. They can be solved, and while reincarnational influences certainly operate, they don’t operate in a vacuum. The following chapter on health will contain some of Seth’s methods for maintaining mental, psychic, and physical vitality—and perspective.

Seth had previously given us some information about Matt, his publishing company, and his associates. And the next evening, when we were all more comfortable with each other, Seth came through and held an excellent session.

“In two other lives, there was instead the development of inner abilities to the exclusion of others, a closing down of windows and barring of doors. He would not look out, and no one dared look in. He would make horrible funny faces at the window of his soul to frighten others away. Yet through all of this, the inner abilities did grow. He ‘added to his stock.’

“They changed it in their own ways, not in your ways, but this will be discussed at a much later date. Yet all of this occurs, basically, within the blinking of an eyelid, all with purpose and meaning, and based upon achievement and responsibility. Each part of the self, while independent to some considerable degree, is nevertheless responsible to every other portion of the self; and each whole self [entity] is responsible to all others, while it is largely independent as to activity and decision.