“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The circumstances surrounding Jane’s delivery of Seth’s Preface, while she was in trance, are given in the 685th session for February 25, 1974, in Section 1. After a break midway through the session, Seth began the material below at 10:57 P.M. He always indicates each word, phrase, or sentence to be underlined. This time he also called out each paragraph as he went along, and some of the other punctuation; to show Seth’s own sense of organization on such occasions, I’ve left a few of his instructions in place in the first three paragraphs.)

New paragraph. (Long pause.) Some time ago¹ I suddenly appeared within your space and time. Since then I have spoken to many people. Period. This is my third book.² There would be nothing strange to anyone in any of this if I had been born into your world in a body of my own, in usual terms. Instead I began to express myself by speaking through Jane Roberts. Period. In all of this there has been a purpose, and part of that purpose lies in this present book.

New paragraph. Each individual is a part of the unknown reality. Because of my position, however, I am obviously more a part of it than most. My psychological awareness bridges worlds of which you are consciously aware, and others that seem, at least, to escape your notice. The woman through whom I speak found herself in an unusual situation, comma, for no theories — metaphysical, psychological, or otherwise — could adequately explain her experience. She was led to develop her own, therefore, and this book is an extension of certain ideas already mentioned in Adventures in Consciousness.³ To write that book, Jane Roberts drew on deep resources of energy.

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.

In my other books I used many accepted ideas as a springboard to lead readers into other levels of understanding. Here, I wish to make it clear that this book⁴ will initiate a journey in which it may seem that the familiar is left far behind. Yet when I am finished, I hope you will discover that the known reality is even more precious, more “real,” because you will find it illuminated both within and without by the rich fabric of an “unknown” reality now seen emerging from the most intimate portions of daily life. Give us a moment. (Pause at 11:35.) Your concepts of personhood are now limiting you personally and en masse, and yet your religions, metaphysics, histories, and even your sciences are hinged upon your ideas of who and what you are. Your psychologies do not explain your own reality to you. They cannot contain your experience. Your religions do not explain your greater reality, and your sciences leave you [just] as ignorant about the nature of the universe in which you dwell.

(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.

3. Actually, Jane began the final draft of her manuscript for Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology, earlier this month (February, 1974). She’s worked out all of her themes for it in detail, however.