“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Seth had often told us that when we’re finished with our lives here, we’re actually anxious to leave this existence. When the body is worn out, we really want to get rid of it. The instinct for survival is served quite well, because the inner self knows that it lives beyond death. Still, I hated to say this to Jon over the phone. In theory it sounded fine, but naturally I knew he wanted Sally to live. I knew that he hoped for some miracle—at least a partial recovery, a reprieve.

I did promise to hold a Seth session for him, and later I was glad I did. Not only was the session a help to Jon, but it contains some excellent information on what can go on while a person is supposedly unconscious, in coma, and what we experience just before and after death.

“I have appeared to her as a very gentle John of the Disciples, and spoken with her. This is not trickery, but a method of helping that she can accept. It is not unusual for those trying to help to assume such comforting forms and images.”

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.

A few days after this session we were visited by a retired minister and his wife. Rev. Lowe, as I’ll call him, publishes a national newsletter which discusses the psychic elements of Christianity. We had been corresponding for a few years, but had not met. I told him about Jon’s session, and he was very interested in what Seth had to say about Sally’s experience while in coma.

Rev. Lowe and his wife came on a class night, and so of course I invited them to attend. I try to keep classes as informal as possible. Everyone is on a first-name basis, and each of us wears whatever clothing is most comfortable and natural. Men in business suits mix with people in hippie outfits, and we always have wine for those who like it. I admit I wondered what Rev. Lowe would think, and hoped he didn’t expect something like a prayer meeting. In our own way we do use prayer—but in a highly creative, unstructured, unconventional manner. Sometimes we play rock ‘n’ roll music, for instance, while I read a poem—and this I would consider prayer.

Rev. Lowe asked other questions but no more relating to the subject at hand. He and Seth seemed to get along very well. Later, in a break, I received several impressions of a past life of Mrs. Lowe’s. While a general discussion was going on, I “saw” her near a riding academy in fourteenth-century France; and then I saw her and Rev. Lowe as twins in Greece, when he was an orator and she a soldier. There were other details, but the interesting thing was that Mrs. Lowe told me afterward that she was really crazy about horses, and that Greece and France were the only countries in which she had any great interest.

“You will reincarnate whether or not you believe that you will,” Seth began, smiling. “It is much easier if your theories fit reality, but if they do not, then you do not change the nature of reincarnation one iota.” He went on to give Lydia a rather detailed description of a past life around the area of Bangor, Maine, in 1832, when she was a male. This was Lydia’s first Seth session and she sat wiggling nervously in her chair as Seth gave names, dates, and particular episodes of this past life.

When he was finished, she said, “Well, I don’t know what to say, but I’ll tell you this. The crazy thing is that I spent my childhood in Bangor, Maine, and when we moved to New York State I wouldn’t give New York as my home. I always felt that I belonged in Maine. And Seth said that—” She broke off, and read her notes. Then she said excitedly, “Seth said that a Miranda Charbeau from the French side of my family in that past life married into the Franklin Bacon family of Boston. Again, it’s crazy, it really is, because my family this time is connected with the Roger Bacon family from Boston.”

“She lived in Mesopotamia before it was known by that name. Here we find abilities shown, ignored, and misused through a succession of lives; a rather classic example of the ‘progress’ followed by many psychically endowed, but in poor control of their personalities and abilities.

“China and Egypt. Lives in various religious capacities, but without the necessary sense of responsibility; unfortunately taking advantage of the fortunes made available to the ruling classes through the ages. For this reason, the abilities have not come to fruition. Only in this present existence is there finally some understanding, and sense of responsibility. In the past the psychic abilities were used for the wrong purposes; therefore, they did not fully develop and the personality was at a standstill.

But Seth wasn’t through. He gave reincarnational material for another student, Connie, and mentioned in particular a life in Denmark when she had died as a small boy of diphtheria. And that really did it! Connie surprised everyone, particularly the other college girls, by saying that since she was a small child she’d been frightened of getting diphtheria, and that she could never understand why.

“Your idea of time is false. Time as you experience it is an illusion caused by your own physical senses. They force you to perceive action in certain terms, but this is not the nature of action. The physical senses can only perceive reality a little bit at a time, and so it seems to you that one moment exists and is gone forever, and the next moment comes and like the one before also disappears.

“But everything in the universe exists at one time, simultaneously. The first words ever spoken still ring through the universe, and in your terms, the last words ever spoken have already been said, for there is no beginning. It is only your perception that is limited.

“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.

“Pretend that you have several dreams, and you know that you are dreaming. Within each dream, one hundred earthly years may pass, but to you, the dreamer, no time has passed, for you are free of the dimension in which time exists. The time you seem to spend within the dream—or within each life—is only an illusion, and to the inner self no time has passed because there is no time.”

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.”

As far as we know, this reconciliation of reincarnation and simultaneous time is original with Seth. Most other theories of reincarnation take the time sequence for granted. But what about cause and effect, then? When Seth introduced this idea, this is one of the first questions Rob and I thought of. Seth’s attitude toward cause and effect will become clear enough in his later explanations of the true nature of “time,” but when Rob first asked the question, Seth answered:

“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.

Seth began by saying gently, “Your feelings toward me are connected with other attitudes deeply ingrained within you. You have been afraid of your father since infancy. Now you think of me as an old but wise, extremely powerful male adult, as you thought of your father when you were a child. This attitude overshadows your relationship with the males with whom you come into contact.

“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.

Seth emphasized that for his own reasons, Frank did not want a marriage relationship, and ended by telling Doris that she had chosen him for this reason—that she never saw the man as he was, but only the image she had projected upon him. He gave Frank’s name in a past life as Achman incidentally, and much later Doris learned that his present family has an Achman branch.

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.

An editor I’ll call Matt came to visit us from New York. We had corresponded but never met before. He had read a manuscript of mine and knew about Seth. We liked each other at once, but it was primarily a business meeting. And then, I felt that Matt would want me to “prove my abilities” somehow or other, and I didn’t want to feel under pressure.

Matt has since become a good friend, incidentally, but at that point we didn’t know him from Adam. The psychological insights shown were really astonishing—and I don’t believe that the most accomplished psychologist could have pinpointed this young man’s character, abilities, and liabilities as well as Seth did.

“So we find two lives devoted to the nurture of others. But in both cases the personality was filled with an inner dread, to some extent resenting those he helped. If he were out helping others, then who would mind the store? He was afraid his stock would be gone.

At this, Rob and Matt both burst out laughing. Then Seth went into some information, connecting some of the young man’s present interests with past activities. He mentioned several past lives, but emphasized one as being particularly significant. “You were a member of a monastic group who classified and collected various kinds of seeds. The group worked on manuscripts officially, but our friend here and several others were bootleg seed finders, believing against currently held theories that questions concerning nature could be answered by examining nature.

“Three villagers were hunting on monastery ground. You yelled out to tell them that they trespassed, and tripped on a rock. You were knocked unconscious, and the townspeople ran. You came to at night, and wandered through the fields on the far side of the monastery, and came to a body of water. You knelt and began to pray and lost your balance. You grabbed hold of an overhanging branch, but it gave way, and you drowned.”

He also gave some excellent advice that I’m sure many other people could use: “Do not use your intellect like a shiny banner to wave from your windows. You are using it like a gaudy plaything that belongs to you. You wind it up like a fine toy, but you are careful of the directions in which you let it run. Your intellect is a fine one, but you have allowed yourself to be fascinated by its sparkling quality, and not used it thoroughly as a tool.”

I’ve tried, through excerpts from readings, to show Seth’s ideas on reincarnation as they are personally applied. But there are several important questions we haven’t considered as yet. For example, how many lives do we live? Is there a limit to them? Quite simply, we live as many physical existences as we feel we must in order to develop our abilities and prepare ourselves to enter other dimensions of reality. This will be discussed thoroughly in the chapter dealing with the nature of personality.

Within this framework of development, however, there is a minimum requirement. Seth says: “As a rule, each entity is born so that three roles are experienced—that of mother, father, and child. Two lives would be sufficient to give you the three roles, but in some cases the personality does not function to adulthood. The most important issue, however, is the fullest use of potential.”

Seth also told us that some personalities do not develop well in the physical environment, but fulfill themselves in other realities. In other words, the “last” reincarnation is not the end. There are other dimensions of existence in which we have an even greater part to play in the maintenance of life and consciousness. These dimensions, and our part in them, will be explained along with the God concept, probabilities, and time. But central to Seth’s discussions of reincarnation are the following excerpts from session 233 that place reincarnation in perspective, individually and historically.

“Learning to some extent is passed on through the genes, biochemically, but this is a physical materialization of inner knowledge achieved and retained from past lives. … The human being does not … erupt into existence at birth and laboriously then begin its first attempt to gain experience. If this were the case, you would still be back in the Stone Age.

“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.

We are still having sessions that deal with reincarnation, and when questions come up, we ask them. This helps to add to our material on the subject, of course, but yet in the entire fabric of the sessions, reincarnation plays a comparatively minor part, as only one aspect of our reality.