“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(In the opening notes for the 711th session, I referred to Seth’s deliveries in ESP class on the previous evening, October 8, 1974. When Jane and I received the transcript of his material at next week’s class, we saw that it ran to five single-spaced typewritten pages. 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:)

(We read that in ordinary terms highly creative people [like Jane] usually generate large amounts of theta and low-alpha waves pretty constantly while doing their thing. 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. The state of “EEG art” isn’t that advanced yet [if it ever will be]. 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. We also think that her EEG readings would vary once again when she spoke or sang in Sumari, her trance “language.”

(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.

(Sometimes, though, I find it quite a challenge to excerpt a number of sessions to illuminate a particular one. I want the passages chosen to make sense on their own, out of context, and to focus clearly on the subject; at the same time, I don’t want to include too many or too few of my own notes. But in this appendix, at least, I discovered that it wasn’t always possible to achieve both of those goals just as I wanted to — not in connection with each point mentioned. It also became inevitable that at least some elements of Seth’s own “separate-but-connected” reality would have to be considered. In addition to those concerns, on occasion I found myself rearranging the quoted discussions a bit — although really to a minor degree — for even greater brevity and clarity. So here’s how it all worked out:

(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.

(Now I‘ll refer the reader to Note 6 for Session 711, which is the session for which I’m assembling this chronology to begin with. In that note I presented some material on ancient connections with the name, Seth, then quoted Seth on the subject of names from the ESP class session for April 17, 1973. For instance:)

(Jane and I would rather explore specific reincarnational information in an outright book on the subject, and then only after we’d acquired much more personal [and theoretical] material. We do think that in detail, reincarnation, whether it’s seen in ordinary terms or within the “simultaneous” framework espoused by Seth, can be an endless subject.²⁷

(The following excerpt is from an ESP class session that Seth delivered three months after the 711th session [which inspired this appendix] was held on October 9, 1974. As noted much earlier, the chronology for our study of the Jane-Ruburt-Seth relationship “begins long before ‘Unknown’ Reality was started, and continues well beyond the date of its ending in April 1975.” Very soon, then, the quotations to come reach beyond that date: They’re usually short, and are from a mixture of class, regular, and private [or “deleted”] sessions. With an exception or two they contain material that ordinarily might not have been published for several years — if ever. But all of them contribute insights into the subject under consideration.

(In Volume 1, see the material on neurological speeds in Session 686. In Appendix 5 for the same session, see Jane’s own notes on that subject.)

Seth actually initiated his material on the psychological bridge in the last (241st) session. However, I chose to excerpt the 242nd session on the subject because of the information it also contains on the ego and survival personalities in general.

“In our experiments, often, I will give him an impression, and he will automatically translate it into visual terms … There is sometimes at his end a last tug and pull, so that the vocal mechanism will finally speak the correct interpretation. Of course Ruburt’s own associations are used by me, up to a certain point, to lead him to the proper subject or image … When we are successful there is a divergence from his associations so that he says the correct word, even though for him personally it may be the wrong word.

26. Although in that 1971 class Seth stressed his experiences with the human condition through reincarnation, in 1964 he’d had this to say: “To me this [reincarnational and family material] is all so obvious that I almost hesitate to mention it, but this is because I tend to forget what human experience on your plane actually involves.” (See the excerpts from the 27th session in this appendix.) In that early session Seth spoke to me alone; in class he faced a large group. I’d say that from his position or focus as an “energy personality essence” both attitudes are true, rather than contradictory — and that one or the other predominated according to the circumstances and subject matter of the session involved. I don’t think the time gap between the two sessions — seven years — was a factor.

27. Concerning reincarnation, as well as books on the subject, here’s Seth from the 588th session in Chapter 22 of Seth Speaks: “Now when I began contacting Ruburt and Joseph, I hid from them the fact of my numerous lives. (Smile:) Ruburt, in particular, did not accept reincarnation, and the idea of such multiple life experiences would have been highly scandalous to him.