“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The effects continued to flow out of last Monday night’s session. Jane was very intrigued by the material she produced “on her own” after the session, both in the sleep state that night and in the statements she wrote the next day. See Appendix 4. As we made ready for tonight’s session at 9:10, and discussed the information she’d received, she began to feel a continuation of the experience. This time, however, it came through verbally, as dictation, although Seth wasn’t involved. I made notes on most of what she had to say; it’s presented as Appendix 5, and I suggest that the reader review it before continuing with this session.

(It was 9:40 by the time Jane finished her dictation. She sat quietly for a few moments. “Now I’m just waiting for Seth,” she told me. Then: “It’s as though I feel a lot of concepts around me right now, and I’m letting him get them organized for me … But now I think I’m about ready….”

Now: Basically, the cell’s comprehension straddles time as you think of it. Period.

Mankind’s consciousness, however, experimented along time-specific lines. As he developed along those lines, various biological and mental methods of selectivity and discrimination were utilized. When in historic terms mankind became aware of memory, and recalled his past as a past in your terms, it was possible for him to confuse past and present. Vivid memories, out of context but given immediate neurological validity, could compete with the brilliant focus necessary in his present.¹

(9:55.) Such selectivity and specialization therefore represented a pertinent method, as consciousness familiarized itself with earthly experience. Hunters had to respond at once to the present situation. In time terms, the “present” animal had to be killed for food — not the “past” animal. That animal — the past one — existed as surely as the one presently perceived, yet in man’s context, physical action had to be directed to a highly specific area, for physical survival depended upon it.

(Pause, and slowly:) The cells’ basic innocence of time discrimination had to be bypassed. At deeply unconscious levels the neurological structure is more highly adaptable than it appears. Adjustments were made, therefore. Basically, the neurological structure responds to both past and future data. Biologically, then, such activity is built-in. The specialized “new” kind of consciousness in one body had to respond pinpoint fast. Therefore it focused upon only one series of neurological messages.

(As Seth, Jane was enunciating the material very carefully, almost syllable by syllable, as though to give me time to write down without error. Her diction in trance is usually excellent, though; it’s not often that I have to ask her to repeat a word or phrase.)

While the cells required future and past data, and used it to form from that invisible tension the body’s present corporal reality, the same kind of information could be a threat then to the ego consciousness, which could be overwhelmed. Within the corporal structure, however, there are indeed messages that leap too quickly or too slowly² from your viewpoint to allow for any physical response. In that way cellular comprehension is allowed its free flow; but the selectivity mentioned (in sessions 682–3) bypasses such information, so that it does not conflict with present sense data requiring physical action in time.

Other pulses, carrying messages, are quite as valid as those that you perceive and physically react to. Again, the cells respond to those constantly. The body, as mentioned (in the 685th session) is an electromagnetic pattern, poised in a web of probabilities, experienced as corporal at an intersection point in space and time.

The past, in the present, would appear so brilliantly that man could not react adequately in circumstances of time that he had himself created. The future was blocked, practically speaking (long pause), to preserve freedom of action and to encourage physical exploration, curiosity, and creativity. With memory, however, mental projections into the future were of course also possible so that man could plan his activities in time, and foresee probable results: “Ghost images” of the future probabilities always acted as mental stimuli for physical explorations in all areas, and of all kinds.

(Pause at 10:37.) Its focus in the present is now secure. That focus finally brought about, in your terms, an expansion of consciousness, and one that early man did not have to handle. In your terms, time now includes more space, and hence more experience and stimuli. Again speaking historically, in the past the private person in any given hour was aware at once only of those events happening in his immediate environment. He could respond instantly. Events were, to that extent now, manageable. And rest your hand if you want to.

The ego specialized in expansions of space and its physical manipulation. It specialized with objects. As a result, now, a person in any given hour is aware of events happening at the other end of the world. No immediate physical response he or she can make seems adequate or pertinent on many occasions. Bodily physical action, then, to that extent, loses its immaculate precision in time. You cannot kick an “enemy” who does not live in your village or country; an enemy, furthermore, whom you do not even know personally. (Intently:) Again, to that extent instant physical action in time is not the same kind of life-and-death factor that it was when a man was faced with an enraged animal, or enemy, in close combat.

Recognized concepts of the self are the ego’s interpretation of selfhood. They are projected into concepts of God and the universe. They meet with a certain biological validity because of the selectivity earlier mentioned, whereby only one series of neurological pulses is accepted — and upon these rides the reality of the egotistical self. At one “time” a god interpreted in those terms served as a model for the egotistical behavior of one self toward another self.

(11:26. Actually, this was one of those times when it seemed that I could have continued note-taking indefinitely. Seth-Jane certainly appeared able to keep going. Jane had been in trance for an hour and forty-one minutes, but even so she was out of it rapidly. “The trances have changed since he started this book, though,” she said. “Once I get on the right track, Seth just keeps going, and I don’t want to change it or get off … I think it’s a great development. But you know: If you think you’re on to something no one else has, you’re afraid you’ll be called batty by the rest of the world … Seth is a great organizer, though. It’s like there’s a tremendous amount of work being done behind the sessions, so I can get the data — but this isn’t like the channels from Seth [as described in the 616th session in Chapter 2 of Personal Reality].”

Your theories of time are connected with your usual neurological pulses. It is one thing to play with concepts of multidimensionality, or probabilities, and quite another to be practically presented with them, even briefly, when your thought patterns and neurological habits tell you that they cannot be translated. So Ruburt felt frustrated, and he told me in no uncertain terms (see Appendix 4) that his consciousness could not contain the information he was receiving.

(Loudly:) Period. End of session. I will have some personal recommendations next time. Ruburt’s favorite television programs are good for him, and allow his mind to rest. They are his mental play, and for that reason, important.

(After finishing Personal Reality in July, 1973, Jane and I took quite a bit of time off from our usual Monday–Wednesday session routine while we prepared that book for publication. We developed the habit of watching certain television programs on Wednesday evening, but since we’ve gone back to holding sessions regularly, we haven’t been able to see them. I suggested to Jane that we shift Wednesday night’s session to Thursday night.

(And once more: Many times during the night after this session, Jane discovered herself involved with dictation for “Unknown” Reality, both in the sleep state and out of it.)

4. In Seth Speaks alone there is much material on probabilities that I could cite in connection with this session. One of my favorite sessions, however, is the 566th in Chapter 16, where Seth discusses the “profound psychological interconnections” involving probable pasts and futures, dreams, telepathy, present abilities, suggestion, and related subjects. He also produces lines like, “As you sit reading this book in your present moment of time, you are positioned in the center of a cosmic web of probabilities that is affected by your slightest mental or emotional act.”