“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Man thought once, historically speaking, that there was but one world. Now he knows differently, but he still clings to the idea of one god, one self, and one body through which to express it.

There is one God, but within that God are many. There is one self, but within that self are many. There is one body, in one time, but the self has other bodies in other times. All “times” exist at once. (Long pause.) Historically speaking, mankind chose a certain line of development. In it his consciousness specialized, focusing upon sharp particulars of experience. But inherent always, psychologically and biologically, there has been the possibility of a change in that pattern, an alteration that would effectively lift the race into another kind of weather.

(11:22.) Such a development would, however, necessitate first of all a broadening of concepts about the self, and a greater understanding of human potential. Human consciousness is now at a stage where such a development is not only feasible, but necessary if the race is to achieve its greatest fulfillment.

While you have highly limited concepts about the nature of the self, you cannot begin to conceive of a multidimensional godhood, or a universal reality in which all consciousness is unique, inviolate — and yet given to the formation of infinite gestalts of organization and meaning.

These institutions and disciplines are composed of individuals, each restrained by limiting ideas about their own private reality; and so it is with private reality that we will begin and always return, period. These ideas in this book are meant to expand the private reality of each reader. They may appear esoteric or complicated, yet they are not beyond the reach of any person who is determined to understand the nature of the unknown elements of the self, and its greater world.

So the book had a private beginning. Jane Roberts’s husband, Robert Butts, wondered about the death of his mother (on November 19, 1973). In a session (the 679th for February 4, 1974) he brought out some old photographs. Now: Life after death has usually been described quite in keeping with the old accepted ideas about one self, and limited concepts of personhood. I took that opportunity, however, to begin this book.

(Long pause.) The self is multidimensional when it is physically alive. It is a triumph of spiritual and psychological identity, ever choosing from a myriad of probable realities its own clear unassailable focus (very intently). When you don’t realize this, then you project upon life after death all of the old misconceptions. You expect the dead to be little different from the living — if you believe in afterlife at all — but perhaps more at peace, more understanding, and, hopefully, wiser.