“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today I showed Jane the finished version of my “ghost image” portrait of her as a male in another probability. The painting represented a new approach in art for me, and had caused me a good deal of puzzlement at first. I began it early in February. I won’t take the space to describe the series of mistaken efforts I went through in producing the work, except to say that finally I came to the rather simple conscious understanding that I was trying to paint a probable Jane. All at once, as I watched her delivering the 684th session on February 20, I saw strong resemblances between my painting and certain poses she repeatedly took while in trance.

(Then came Jane’s projection-probability experience involving her home town of Saratoga Springs; she described this episode in her notes preceding the 685th session, in Section 1, and Seth elaborated upon it considerably in the next session. The ghostly qualities in that event fit in with what I was trying to do in the painting: By leaving the thick gray and white underpainting of my “portrait” of “Jane” without color, I realized, I could express not only a probable interpretation of her, but the colorless qualities of the Saratoga experience itself. Once I made those conscious connections I was able to finish the painting very easily. I intend to do more work in this manner.

(I had to smile. After about 30 seconds Jane, as Seth, was already waiting to continue.)

The CU’s form all systems simultaneously. Having formed yours, and from their energy diversifying themselves into physical forms, they were aware of all of the probable variations from any given biological strain. There was never any straight line of development as, say, from reptiles to mammal, ape, and man. Instead there were great, still-continuing, infinitely rich parallel explosions of life forms and patterns in as many directions as possible. There were animal-men and man-animals, using your terms, that shared both time and space for many centuries.⁶ This is, as you all well know, a physical system in time. Here cells die and are replaced. Knowing their own indestructibility, the CU’s within them simply change form, retaining however the identity of all the cells that they have been. (Intently:) While the cell dies physically, its inviolate nature is not betrayed. It is simply no longer physical.

The experience of your species involves a certain kind of consciousness development, highly vital. (Pause.) This necessitated a certain kind of specialization, a certain “long-term” identification with form. Cellular structure maintains brilliant effectiveness in the body’s present reality, but knows itself free of it. Man’s particular kind of consciousness fiercely identified with the body. This was a necessity to focus energy toward physical manipulation. To some important extent the same applies to the animals. The cell might gladly “die,” but the specifically oriented man-and-animal consciousness would not so willingly let go.

Man’s consciousness, and to some extent that of the animals, is more specifically identified with form, however. In order to develop his own kind of individualized awareness, man had to consciously ignore for a while his own place within the structure of the earth. His experience of time would seem to be the experience of his identity. His consciousness would not seem to flow into his body before birth, and out of it after death. He would “forget” there was a time to die. He would forget that death meant new life. A natural message had to replace the old knowledge.

At one time on your earth, in the way you look at time, there were many such species: water dwellers, with brain capacities as good as and better than your own. Your legends of mermaids, for example, though highly romanticized, do indeed hint of one such species’ development. There were several species smaller than the dolphins, but generally the same structurally. Their intelligence was indisputable, and old myths of sea gods arose from such species. There is even now an extremely rich emotional life on the part of the dolphins, to which you are relatively blind; and more than this, on their part a greater recognition of other species than you yourselves have.

(11:50. Jane’s trance had been profound. She was amazed to learn that it had lasted for over two hours; actually, she had run through the whole session without a break. “It’s still a different kind of trance,” she said, “and once you’re in it, it’s better to stay there. But it’s exhilarating in ways that I can’t explain.

(“It’s wild,” she continued, “but I know that all of this is leading up to alternate man, probable man, and parallel man. [See Appendix 6.] I thought you were tired tonight, but I decided I wanted the session instead of looking at reruns on TV … especially after I got that stuff while I was doing the dishes tonight, on cells and biological prayer.”

(Jane decided to “wait a second” at 11:55, to see if she should resume the session. Then we declared an end to it at 12:05 A.M. Actually, I was the one who was bleary. Jane felt fine; she told me that she could cheerfully continue the session for another two hours. I was tempted, but …)

9. At once Seth’s material reminded me of a novel about dolphins that Jane worked on in 1963. Her first book-length fiction, The Rebellers, had been published (as a paperback) that summer, and she was experimenting with several new ideas. A couple of months before these sessions began in late November of that year, she wrote an outline and five chapters for a novel about the development of communications between mankind and cetaceans, and called it To Hear A Dolphin. We hadn’t realized it at the time, of course, but it embodied some of the ideas Seth was to enlarge upon in his own material. Jane had time to show her manuscript to one publisher — who rejected it — before the Seth material got under way. To Hear A Dolphin was then laid aside, evidently for good. We still talk about it every so often; we still think its basic premises are good ones. Yet were she to do the book now, Jane says, she’d have to rewrite it completely.