“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

At one time there were also species of birds, however, with high intelligence — this before the period mentioned earlier.² They were not humanoid; not, for example, people with wings. They were large birds, with the capacity for dealing with concepts. They were social, could swim well (pause), and for some time could live on the water. They had songs of great beauty, and a most extensive vocabulary. They had talons. (Her eyes wide and dark, Jane held up her hands, fingers bent as though ready to grasp — or claw.) When he was a cave dweller,³ man saw these birds often, particularly in cliffs by water. Many times the birds saved children from falling. Man identified with their easy flight up the cliffsides, and followed the sounds of their songs to safe clearings. These memories turned into the angel images. In each case in those times there was the greatest cooperation, on a global scale, between species. The inner impetus toward development, however, came from the innate comprehension of future probabilities. In that picture all species alive at any time joined. This included plants and fauna. Those who cooperated survived, but they did not think in terms of the survival of their own species alone — but, in time terms, of a greater living picture, or world inviolate, in which all survived.

2. The time span Seth referred to here existed 30 million to 50 million years ago, he told us in the 689th session, and fell within the Tertiary Period. How long before that period had the intelligent birds lived? I wasn’t quick enough to ask him; I didn’t remember the details in the 689th session well enough …

3. Nor was I quick enough to ask Seth if the material Jane delivered for him tonight constituted any kind of contradiction with that of the 689th session; for in that session he discussed man-animal and animal-man as existing within the Tertiary Period. Presumably these “mutated forms” had implied the beginnings of man, in ordinary terms, yet now Seth spoke of cave-dwelling humans as coexistent with large birds at an earlier time. Had Jane distorted information in one session or the other? Was it possible that during the complicated rhythms of history, man could have been man (at least approximately as we know him) even before the Tertiary Period, then moved into a long cycle of animal-man forms before returning to being man again? In tonight’s session had Jane tuned into data on a parallel (or probable) reality, for example? Too involved to determine, these questions, on too little material.