“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We would exist in this other dimension of time whether we knew it or not, of course, just as our cat exists in my four o’clock in the afternoon, without ever understanding what a clock is. In a way, the cat is more nearly right than I am, because clock-time is an artificial device, and he’ll have nothing to do with it. Suppose, as Seth maintains, that past, present, and future are also artificial devices, divisions superimposed over a spacious moment in which all action is simultaneous.

The facts of my experience—and that of others—are these. We are, to some extent, free of our physical bodies. We can see and feel and learn while our consciousness is separated from the physical form. We can perceive portions of the future. We do have access to information that does not come through the physical senses. If it wants to, science can take a hundred years to accept these ideas. In the meantime they are still facts. Hallucination is not involved, unless I am hallucinating now as I write this page, sip my coffee, and feel honest indignation that some of us would limit our abilities to protect limited concepts. Why should we take it for granted that concepts are right, if they contradict our experience?

Above all, I am sure that Seth is my channel to revelational knowledge, and by this I mean knowledge that is revealed to the intuitive portions of the self rather than discovered by the reasoning faculties. Such revelational information is available to each of us, I believe, to some degree. From it springs the aspirations and achievements of our race. I think that revelational knowledge comes first in the form of intuitions, dreams, hunches, or experiences such as mine, and that the intellect then uses the information provided. Both are important.

“In ways, Ruburt is turned into a vitalized telegram. When you send a communication or telegram, you merely send words. I send portions of myself. My entire essence need not always be involved. I need not be entirely focused within your dimension, in other words, but I am sufficiently focused to meet our appointments. The psychological bridge of which I have spoken serves us well, however, and this exists on Ruburt’s part as well as my own.

“It is as if there were two portions of a bridge, like a drawbridge, and these two portions must meet. [Earlier Seth had explained that this “psychological bridge” was constructed by both of us.] When you wish to contact me at other than [the] usual appointed times, I may or may not be easily available. Your own emotional need would be known to me, however. If that need was strong, I would of course answer it, even as you would not disregard the need of a friend. I am not automatically available, however, any more than you are.”

“I am, however, automatically a part of the message that I bring to you. At times I am ‘here’ more completely than in other sessions. These reasons often have to do with circumstances usually beyond normal control: electromagnetic conditions, psychological circumstances. These could be considered as atmospheric conditions through which I must travel.

“As I have told you, projection is involved to some extent, both on my part and Ruburt’s. Your [Rob’s] own presence is also important, whether or not you are present at any given session. … Now when you watch, say, educational television, you see the teacher, and he speaks. He may or may not actually be speaking at that time, for you may be watching a film. But the teacher exists whether or not he is speaking at that time, and his message is legitimate. So now see Ruburt as my television screen. … It makes no difference whether or not I am myself speaking within Ruburt now … or whether I did this last night in his sleep, and tonight is a film or playback.

“Again: the medium is the message in the Spacious Present,” Seth said, smiling, “and whenever the time for the program arrives, I am here in your present, regardless of where I am in what you would term my present. … I may prepare my film in advance when Ruburt is not consciously aware of it. This does not imply that such a session is less legitimate.”

Seth went on to say that I had given my permission for such an arrangement, and that much of our work went on while I was sleeping or otherwise engaged. “This does not mean that I use Ruburt as a puppet, and stuff his mouth with tapes as a recorder, that you are always listening to replays, or that emotionally I am not always with you in sessions. It means that in such multidimensional communications, more is involved than you suppose.

“The teacher is within the tape; the personality is condensed. Your question stems from the feeling that if I am here, I cannot be someplace else at the same time, or that all of my energies must be focused here if I am here. There are aspects of my identity with which you are not acquainted … though at a ‘later’ time you may be.

Obviously I’ve avoided calling Seth a spirit and leaving it at that. I don’t like the phrase for one thing, and for another, I think that this is too easy an answer. In accepting one solution, we may be closing our minds to others that lie beneath. I am not saying that Seth is just a psychological structure allowing me to tune into revelational knowledge, nor denying that he has an independent existence. I do think that some kind of blending must take place in sessions between his personality and mine, and that this “psychological bridge”’ itself is a legitimate structure that must take place in any such communication. Seth is at his end, I am at mine. I agree with Seth here. I don’t think it is a relatively simple matter of a medium just blacking out and acting like a telephone connection. I do think that Seth is part of another entity, and that he is something quite different from, say, a friend who has “survived” death.

I have many questions myself. For example: How conscious is Seth when he is not speaking through me? If he is my window into other realities, am I his window into physical life? My idea is that Seth is fully conscious, but of—and in—other dimensions of existence. But this only leads to the question: What is nonphysical life like?

“Any perception instantly alters the electromagnetic and neurological systems of the perceiver. In your terms this is what a perception is: an alteration of neurological structure. The receiving mechanisms themselves change, and are changed by that which they perceive. I am speaking here of the physical nature of any perception.

“It is a logistic contradiction to imagine, with your physical structures, that any perception can be received without the perceiver’s inner situation being altered. I am trying to make it as clear as possible—information automatically blends with, is intermingled with, and enmeshed with, the entire physically valid structure of the personality.