“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Measuring and recording brain waves is a complicated task, however; not only is it important which areas or lobes of the brain are monitored — if not all of them — but because of the mechanical limitations of the EEG itself much that goes on in the brain is necessarily missed. In addition, the two hemispheres of the individual brain often show variations in electrical energy states. But most importantly, we think, while the EEG can indicate broad categories of brain activity, it can hardly probe the participant’s very individual and subjective content of mind within this camouflage [physical] reality. 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. [...]

(There are four recognized [electrical] brain waves, and in speed they range upward from 0 to 26 and more Hertz units, or cycles per second. [...] Brain waves overlap. Very simply, delta brain waves are connected with dreamless sleep, theta with creativity and dreams, alpha with a relaxed alertness and changing consciousness; beta — the fastest — with concentration, and with an intense focus upon all of the challenges [and anxieties and stresses, many would say] faced in the ordinary daily world.

[...] For no matter which brain rhythm may predominate at any time, that state is certainly an altered one in relation to the other three. 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

In sleep your ordinary brain waves as you understand them register a chaotic jungle of experience not normally processed. [...] A mixture of brain waves would result. [...]

In an ideal society, each brain wave would be utilized purposefully. You would go to sleep to solve certain problems … There is an overall general difference, nationally speaking — that is, people of various nations do differ to some extent in their prevalent brain frequencies … All in all, however, the beta has predominated, and has been expected to solve many problems unsuited to its own characteristics.

(Jane, for instance, hasn’t had her brain waves formally recorded by an EEG, or electroencephalograph. [...]

(Our curiosity about such speculations led me to plan this appendix shortly after the 711th session was held, and I asked Jane if Seth could eventually offer some insights about the brain’s electrical reality. [...]

(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. [...]

Beta was not meant to carry the full weight of conscious activity, however, although its accelerating qualities can lead to initiations into “higher” realms of consciousness, where indeed the brain waves quicken. [...]

It is possible, then, for a brain to register all of the known patterns at once, though your machines would note only the predominating rhythm.

“Pretend that you are some weird creature with two faces. One face looks out upon one world and one looks out upon another. Imagine, further, this poor creature having a brain to go with each face, and that each brain interprets reality in terms of the world it looks upon. Yet the worlds are different, and more, the creatures are Siamese twins.

Because Ruburt deals in words [as a writer], it is easy for me to communicate in this manner. That is, he automatically translates inner data given by me into coherent, valid, and faithful camouflage⁵ patterns — into words. My information is not actually given as sound. Its transference is instantaneous on Ruburt’s part, and is performed through the workings of the mind, the inner senses,⁶ and the brain.

We have gone into this before, and I have no doubt that we will on endless occasions. And if I succeed in convincing you of my reality as a personality, I will have done extremely well … Ruburt’s subconscious has enough camouflage pattern to enable me to make contact, but not so much as to distort me out of all recognition. I am not his subconscious, though I speak through it. It is the atmosphere through which I can come to you, as the air is the atmosphere through which the bird flies. A certain reassembly of myself is necessary when I enter your plane, and this is done partially by myself, and by the combined subconscious efforts of you, Joseph, and Ruburt. Will this satisfy you for now?

(From the 33rd session for March 9, 1964:) I do not bring about the trance state in the manner of which you [Joseph] are speaking. Ruburt switches on another channel, through which my essence can enter more readily. This certainly does involve a looking inward on his part, but it is not self-hypnosis in usual terms — merely a focusing upon an objective inner stimulus … Any such signs (as the powerful, deeper Seth voice) involve camouflage patterns, and do not actually represent direct experience. This is not my voice, for example. It is a representation or approximation of my voice for your edification. Furthermore, in your terms I do not have a voice. But it is a valid representation, and if I say so myself — that’s a pun — the voice is much like the one I would use….

(From the 58th session for June 1, 1964:) Ruburt and myself are offshoots of the same entity. The difference in time is but a camouflage distortion. The entity was a particularly strong one, and many of its egos have made the decision to turn into entities … And now, my dear patient Joseph, may I tell you that you are also part of that same entity — and this is one of the reasons why I am able to communicate with you both.

(Jane’s account of “a year of testing” Seth’s [and her own] psychic abilities is given in chapters 6 through 8 of The Seth Material. The tests began with the 179th session for August 18, 1965] and finally ended with the 310th session for January 9, 1967, although actually most of them were held during the year following their inception. All that work can’t be described here, but we accomplished our main goal: exploring from new angles the relationships involving Jane, Seth, and our physical [camouflage] reality.

(From the 211th session for November 24, 1965:) First of all, as far as the hands are concerned, to be left- or right-handed has to do with inner mechanisms and brain patterns that come first, before the motions of the hands. Characteristically I operated in certain manners that resulted in the primary use of my left hand, when I was focused within physical matter.

(As she probed the Jane-Ruburt-Seth relationship in Adventures, Jane found herself developing her own nomenclature, separate from Seth’s, for many of the concepts she and Seth had experienced over the years. “But I didn’t plan it that way,” she said. “That’s just the way it all came out.” She calls the conscious self the “focus personality,” for instance, since it’s focused in this physical [camouflage] reality. The focus personality is composed of aspects of the “source self” [or entity]. Each aspect exists independently, in its own dimension of actuality, but the aspects’ combined attributes form the basic components of the selves that we know. To Jane, Seth is a ‘personagram” — an actual personality formed in the psyche at the intersection point of the focus personality with another aspect.

“… the part that translates inner data sifts it down through the subconscious, which is a barrier and also a threshold to the present camouflage personality. I have said that the topmost part of the subconscious contains personal memories, that beneath these are racial memories, and so forth. Things are simply not layered in the way I speak of them, but continuing with the necessary analogy, on the other side of (or beneath, to you) the racial memories, you no longer exist within your plane; you look out upon another with the face of this other self-conscious part of you. This part receives inner data, is in contact with the entity to some greater degree than you are in contact with your dreams, and actually directs all of the important functions that you think are either automatically or unconsciously controlled.

“At the same time imagine that these creatures are really one creature, but with definite parts equipped to handle two entirely different worlds. The subconscious, therefore, in this ludicrous analogy, would exist between the two brains, and would enable the creature to operate as a single unit.