“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

One reason for the success of our communications is the peculiar abilities in you both and the interaction between them, and the use that you allow me to make of them. Ruburt’s intellect had to be of high quality. His conscious and unconscious mind had to be acquainted with certain ideas to begin with, in order for the complexity of this material to come through.

(Here’s what Seth said after that first, only moderately successful, envelope test had taken place in the 179th session:)

I speak as my whole self to you … since my personality structure is more advanced than is usual for communications from other systems. Therefore, I do not need to adopt a past ego [of my own]. Perhaps because this is not necessary, the psychological bridge is required to make my messages comprehensible to Ruburt. This connecting framework does some of the translating for me that a reassembled ego would do. It delivers information to Ruburt in a way that he can understand. Occasionally [in your tests] I do impress him directly, telepathically (see Note 19), with a concept. When he receives data in the form of images the framework is operating. With my direction, this framework uses Ruburt’s personal associations to direct his impressions toward the correct point. Then when we are successful I insert the right information.²³

“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.

32. In Volume 1, see Session 679 (with its Note 4, among others) for material on Jane’s early years with her mother. I often remind myself that from her earliest years Jane lived in an atmosphere permeated by the fact of illness, while by contrast my background in that respect was much more ordinary. Growing up, she was “frightened most of the time,” Jane told me as I prepared this note: She often lived alone with her bedridden mother, such periods being punctuated by a succession of itinerant housekeepers appointed by the welfare department. She soon became strongly imprinted by human frailty and vulnerability.