“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.

Seth rarely gives reincarnational data unless it is directly tied in with the overall development of an individual’s present life, and he refuses to give past life histories, for example, to those he thinks will not apply the lessons involved. Strangely enough, he did give such information once in a class to three college girls who clearly did not believe in reincarnation to begin with. They had just begun classes, and while they were curious about ESP, they had little patience with the theory of reincarnation—before the session, that is.

“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.

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:

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.