“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Now I’ll refer the reader to Chapter 20 of Jane’s The Seth Material. She called the chapter “Personal Evaluations — Who or What is Seth?” In it she made a number of excellent points concerning her relationship with Seth and Seth Two; for example: “If physical life evolves [in ordinary terms], why not consciousness itself?” The questions we had at the time can be found throughout the chapter. Indeed, we still have many of them — or, I should note, we’re still intrigued by the latest versions of those “old” questions, for like consciousness itself they’re endless in their ramifications. But here I want to call attention mainly to the excerpt in Chapter 20 that Jane presented from the 458th session for January 20, 1969. Seth discussed the psychological bridge Jane and he have created between themselves for purposes of communication; yet most of his material came through in response to my question about his availability to us. “We [Rob and I] both know that some sessions seem more ‘immediate’ than others, and now as Seth continued we saw why,” Jane wrote in Chapter 20. Seth, briefly, from the 458th session:)

(I finally decided that the best way to present the variety of material desired, whether from Seth, Jane, or myself, was in chronological order, letting a composite picture emerge as the work progresses. This system automatically makes room for any references in Volume 1. In actuality the chronology begins long before “Unknown” Reality was started, and continues well beyond the date of its ending, in April 1975. Since the excerpts are still more representative than complete, however, due to the accumulated mass of information available, my own choices enter in: ESP class data are quoted a number of times; included is material summarizing Jane’s own theories about the Seth phenomena, as she worked them out in her recently completed Adventures in Consciousness; but reincarnation, while mentioned often, isn’t stressed in terms of particulars — that is, I refer to Seth’s statements that he, Jane and I led closely involved lives in Denmark in the 1600’s, but those lives aren’t studied per se. Within our ordinary context of linear time I think of reincarnation, even though in Seth’s terms it’s really a simultaneous phenomenon, as being further away, or more removed, from us physical creatures than the more “immediate” psychic connections and mechanics I want to show as linking Seth, Jane, and myself. And also because of that sense of removal, Seth Two¹ is hardly mentioned at all.

(The Seth Two phenomenon began to manifest itself through Jane in the 406th session for April 22, 1968. Seth Two exists in relation to Seth in somewhat the same manner that Seth does to Jane, although that analogy shouldn’t be carried very far. Even though deep connections endure among the three, then, at the same time, as I wrote early in this study, Seth Two is too far “away” from Jane [and the subject matter of this appendix] to go into here. See Note 1.

Perhaps it’s been remiss on our parts, but Jane and I haven’t concerned ourselves with any connections her Seth may have with ancient Seths. We don’t believe such relationships exist on any kind of personalized basis, although someday we’ll ask Seth to comment here. We think the name of Jane’s Seth came about through much more pragmatic needs. In Chapter 1 of The Seth Material, Jane quoted Seth-to-be from the 4th session for December 8, 1963, as that personality came through on the Ouija board (which we’d used to initiate these sessions): “You may call me whatever you choose. I call myself Seth. [...] Once Seth gave us a name by which to call him, we simply began using it. I’m sure that at the time Jane had no conscious knowledge about Egyptian, Hebrew, or even Christian origins or uses connected with the name, Seth.

6. About Seth’s reference to the myths connected with his name: Set, or Seth, was an Egyptian god of evil (with an animal’s head) whose complicated origins could, it’s thought, reach back in antiquity to at least 7500 B.C. In Judaism, of course, Seth was the third son of Adam and Eve, after Cain and Abel (Genesis 4 and 5). (As one correspondent wrote us: “Seth is also a Hebrew name meaning ‘appointed’ — i.e., the appointed one.”) However, some very early priestly genealogies omit Cain and Abel, and consider Seth as the oldest son of Adam; in the second century A.D., for instance, the Sethites, who were members of a little-known Gnostic sect, thought of Seth, the son of Adam, as the Messiah. Seth also shows up in writings of the ancient occult religious philosophy, the cabala, which was originated by certain Jewish rabbis who sought to interpret the scriptures through numerical values; the soul of Seth is seen as infusing Moses; he was to reappear as the Messiah….

[...] The 32 people crowded into  our living room enjoyed rich, active, loud, and even profane exchanges among themselves, with Jane, and with Seth. “Fuck you, Seth!” one girl screamed — which daunted that worthy not at all: Class members hardly agree with Seth or anyone else all of the time. [...] She also took time to sing very delicately in Sumari, in contrast to Seth’s powerful deliveries. [...] We’re to get a transcript of the evening’s Seth material at next week’s class.*)

(Seth did give much unexpected material about the brain — and about his own reality, incidentally — but the session turned out to be so long and closely interrelated that I found it very difficult to excerpt; most of the portions I picked out were left hanging, or were too incomplete. Naturally, Seth said what he said from his own viewpoint. I ended up choosing the few quotations gathered together here just to indicate the direction of the information, while hoping that the entire session, with others promised on the subject by Seth, will be published some day.

(Even if beta waves, then, seem to be the “official pulses” of our civilization [to use Seth’s phrase from a session that will be quoted in part below], still Jane and I wonder: When aren’t we actually in a state of altered consciousness? [...] But more than this, why not call all actions of the brain “altered” when compared to Seth’s concept of the individual personality’s whole self or entity?¹

[...] Nor at this time, given the minimum premise that Jane’s speaking for Seth constitutes any indication of “paranormal” activity, do we think that her performance could be identified as such per se on the graphs of her brain waves. [...] Presumably, however, when speaking for Seth, Jane would show definite changes in all frequency areas in both hemispheres, with the theta and delta ranges altered the most. [...]

(In the opening notes for the 711th session, I referred to Seth’s deliveries in ESP class on the previous evening, October 8, 1974. [...] Seth talked about many things, but his remarks here, as I’ve put them together, mainly concerned a subject he’d first discussed with members of class just a week ago [on October 1]¹ — the “city” they could start building in their individual and collective dream states:)

2. Seth didn’t quote Jane’s little poem exactly from 26 years ago, but paraphrased it. [...] Once again in an early work we see clear signs of the Seth material to come (in 1963). [...]

[...] When Ruburt (as Seth calls Jane) was a young girl he wrote a poem in which he declares: