“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today is Jane’s birthday. She is 45 years old. I didn’t ask her to have a session tonight, but she volunteered. While we waited for Seth to come through, she talked about the deaths of her parents.¹ Her father, Delmer, died on November 16, 1971, when he was 68; her mother, Marie, died on May 10, 1972, at the same age.

(Jane said tonight that she still feels a strong emotional charge in connection with the idea of the “dead” returning in those stereotyped, banal terms. Yet, although Seth has said very little to date about ghosts, hauntings, and possession [we link them together], it doesn’t seem that Jane’s early family experiences have led her to set up any blocks against such topics. “Seth just hasn’t gotten around to them yet,” she said. “When he does, they’ll make a great series of chapters — or maybe a whole book some day.”)

Many have seen that inner world as the source for the physical one, but imagined that man’s purpose was merely to construct physically these perfect images to the best of his abilities. (Very forcefully:) In that picture man himself did not help create that inner world, or have any hand in its beauty. He could at best try to duplicate it physically — never able, however, to match its perfection in those terms. In such a version of inner-outer reality the back-and-forth mobility, the give-and-take between inner and outer, is ignored. Man, being a part of that inner world by reason of the nature of his own psyche, automatically has a hand in the creation of those blueprints which at another level he uses as guides.

In your terms, the inner world does represent Idea Potential as yet unrealized — but those ideas and those potentials do not exist outside of consciousness. They are ideals set in the heart of man,⁵ yet in other terms he is the one who also put them there, out of the deeper knowledge of his being that straddles physical time. Existence is wise and compassionate, so in certain terms consciousness, knowing itself as man, sent future extensions of itself out into the time scheme that man would know, and lovingly planted signposts for itself to follow “later.”

(10:35. Jane’s delivery had been average; and, she said now, the session would be a short one. It was. When Seth came through again in a few minutes he said, humorously: “Tell Ruburt I said ‘Happy Birthday’” — then gave a page of material for Jane on another subject. End at 10:48 P.M.

2. Seth talked very briefly about such blueprints in Chapter 20 of Personal Reality — see the 672nd session after the end of break at 10:28. He concluded his material by stating: “A system of checks and balances exists, however, so that in certain dreams you are made aware of these blueprints. They may appear throughout your lifetime as recurring dreams of a certain nature — dreams of illumination; and even if you do not remember them you will awaken with your purposes strengthened and suddenly clear.

4. Plato, the Greek philosopher, poet, and logician, lived from about 427 to about 347 B.C. Throughout his mature life he treated what he considered to be man’s God-given ideas in a series of Dialogues, or free conversations.

Every so often Jane hears from a female reader who wants to know why Seth often uses the male gender in his books, especially in passages like those in tonight’s 696th session. A little reflection will show that in spite of the “sexist” implications it would be quite difficult to present such material in other ways, so common is the use of “man,” “he,” “his,” and “him.” In the English language we often don’t have the right word, one meaning male and female equally, with which to represent the species. Many times “humanity” doesn’t fit. Nor do we like to substitute “it,” since it’s neuter and devoid of feeling as far as we’re concerned. We also don’t want to become involved with rewriting Seth’s material: We’re sure that when he produces passages cast in the male gender, his intentions are anything but prejudiced in favor of that sex.

“Obviously, Seth’s purpose is to explain what he can within the framework of that language, rather than to change the language itself — as would be necessary, for example, to escape its often prejudiced nature. This prejudice appears most obviously in its sexual aspects: ‘Mankind’ for the species in general, and ‘he’ in referring to the individual member. Linguistically this leaves the female out in the cold — and in more ways than one — for the masculine intent is clear.