“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The atoms, while behaving properly within the system, and seeming to adhere to its rules and assumptions, nevertheless actually straddle probabilities. Your time structures, then, are intimately connected with probable action and fields of actuality. In your terms, for example, it would seem as if Joseph could not have seen that house for sale until after a given series of events had occurred. It would seem as if all of this was dependent upon earlier events: his mother’s prior meeting with Mr. Markle years ago, when both were young; her daydreams and fantasies in later years; her own death; Mr. Markle’s old age, and his own abandonment of the home.

Give us a moment … Those events then arise into significance³ because of the peculiar kind of organization chosen. Other quite-as-valid events do not seem significant — they do not rise into perception, or reality. They exist, however. In one reality, for example, Joseph’s mother married Mr. Markle. Joseph inherited the home. In that reality Mr. Markle died before Joseph’s mother did, so there was no need for a Joseph, here, to even look for a house; he had one. In that reality Joseph did not marry Ruburt. And in this reality [the one you and Ruburt know] Ruburt instinctively felt apart from that house.

(“Well, I know you said in the last session [just before 10:33] that from her nonphysical reality my mother isn’t trying to coerce Jane and me into buying Mr. Markle’s house — yet I keep wondering what others will think about the idea of influence being felt in our reality from ‘the other side,’ you might say — ”)

Give us a moment … Financially, Ruburt and Joseph were beginning to do well. Only then did conventional ideas come to the forefront. Those ideas themselves emotionally attracted certain aspects of Joseph’s mother. Quite simply, in her terms, she wanted her son to do well, and to her that meant possessing an excellent home. Period. On her part it was an innocent enough ambition.

When she sensed any strong feelings that Joseph also wanted such a home, then — in your terms now — she began, from her different framework after death, to bring that opportunity into his experience. This is not manipulation. It does show, however, that one portion of Joseph’s mother, the portion connected to her son, still relates to him in a certain fashion. It also shows that his desires for a house in Sayre (deeper and stronger) helped bring about certain events: He could have such a house if he wanted one.

(We discussed the general implications of Seth’s material on my mother — that she was not only “alive” after her “death,” but that a portion of her was focused upon Jane and me. Jane had allowed Seth to talk about the whole situation in a more personal way than she usually does; the result is that we already have more data on Stella Butts than on the earlier deaths of Jane’s own parents [in 1971 and 1972], for instance.⁴ We knew that Seth wouldn’t continue describing my mother and her present reality indefinitely; such a study could easily grow into a book by itself. In addition, Jane holds deeply felt convictions about giving material on survival personalities; the information in Appendix 10 has a bearing here. I also think that Seth will be able to say more on the beliefs behind her feelings as this book progresses.

Joseph’s mother is not only alive in another level of reality, but still learning. She is quite aware, therefore, of his decision not to buy the [Markle] house.⁵ In her level of reality, she was aware of the fact that Joseph wanted the house strongly; that one portion of him thought of possessing a large home, even though this would require upkeep and attention that another part of him did not want to provide because he felt it would take too much time from his painting and our work.

The portion that momentarily desired the house immediately attracted the same kind of desire always felt on the part of Joseph’s mother. This, on another level of activity than physical, reactivated old conflicts between them. For a while their desires united them. Now, however, Stella Butts is better able to understand her son’s reactions. Through his decision in this reality, she is finally beginning to glimpse the reasons for his actions in the past, that before were incomprehensible to her.

Try to understand that all of these reactions are really happening at once … Joseph’s desire at this end attracted his mother’s like desire. (Pause.) In your terms, however, the reactions continue.