“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.

(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.

(Pause at 11:51 — then with much emphasis.) The fact is that in life you poise delicately and yet perfectly between realities, and after death you do the same. I used the opportunity, then, to explain the great freedom available to Robert Butts’s mother after death — but also to explain those elements of her reality present during life that had been closed to him consciously because of mankind’s concepts about the nature of the psyche. I comment now and then about photographs that belong to the Butts family [including Jane Roberts], yet any reader can look at old photographs and ask the same questions, applying what is said here to private experience. The “unknown” reality — you are its known equivalent (again, louder). Then know yourself. Your consciousness will expand as you become acquainted with these ideas.

2. Seth’s two previous books are Seth Speaks and Personal Reality — but they’re also Jane’s too, of course. See the frontmatter for a list of her books as published by Amber-Allen Publishing, Inc. (To make the record complete, it should be noted that Jane’s first book on psychic phenomena was How to Develop Your ESP Power. It was published in hardcover and paperback editions in 1966 and 1974, respectively, by Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc., New York, N.Y. 10016. Then in 1976 it was issued in paperback by Pocket Books, New York, N.Y., 10020, under a new title: The Coming of Seth.)