“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.”

In sleep your ordinary brain waves as you understand them register a chaotic jungle of experience not normally processed. Biologically or psychically, there is little need for such disorientation. The normal waking consciousness, with its characteristic patterns, can indeed follow [into sleep]. A mixture of brain waves would result. Consciousness as you think of it expands tremendously under such conditions. You would follow your own pattern of continuity and understanding, weaving this into the sleep and dream states, forming a “new” pattern that triumphantly combines all, as to some extent this occurs in our sessions.

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.

(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. These rhythms can vary somewhat, and are best thought of as areas of activity. 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.

[...] In this case the projections on the screen would be fully dimensional, aware of each viewer in each living room. (Pause.) Not only this, but the screen people would understand the relationship between you the viewer, and, say, the other viewers in the same town. Behind the scenes not only would the performers, as performers in all of the programs, all know each other, but the characters portrayed by them would know each other and be aware of each other’s roles in the programs, and even now and then stray into one another’s dramas.

If an inhabitant from another reality outside of your own physical system entirely were to visit it, and if “his” intelligence was roughly of the same degree as your own, he would still have to learn to focus his consciousness in the same way that you do, more or less, in order to perceive your world. He would have to alter his native focus and turn it in a direction that was foreign to him. In this way he could “pick up your station.”¹ There would be distortions, because even though he managed such manipulations he might not have the same kind of native physical structure as your own, of course, through which to receive and interpret those data his altered consciousness perceived.

[...] If for simplicity’s sake you think of other realities as different cities, then after you leave your own you would pass through the suburbs, then into the country, then after a time into other suburbs until you reached another metropolis. Here each metropolis would represent a conglomeration of consciousnesses operating within an overall general frequency of clearest focus, a high point of psychic communication and exquisite focus in the given kind of reality. [...]

From the point of view of the perceiver these would be unofficial events, and yet they could serve as important clues to the nature of reality. [...] From your point of view you could not pick up the grocer’s escapades and the symphony, for instance, if both came through at 8 o’clock in the evening, without switching from one to the other: You would have to choose which program you wanted.

(Seth, then, would be a message from the source self except that in this case the messenger is the message, formed into a richly “worded” psychological structure instead of into dry words on, say, a telegram. Seth in sessions would stand for Jane’s Seth Aspect, who does indeed exist in a different kind of reality than ours. But that “invisible” Seth would send out an actual psychological structure that takes over in place of Jane’s, as her own structure voluntarily steps aside during sessions. [...]

“At the same time — and this is the difficult part to explain — neither of the two faces would ever see the other world. They would not [usually] be aware of each other, and yet each would be fully self-conscious.”

[...] Just how would Seth propose to have his “previous personalities speak for themselves….”? Since Seth presumably wouldn’t simply relay such messages, would Jane find herself giving voice for a host of others, male and female, young and old, from many time periods and of the most diverse nationalities? A long project, and one for which she would use her abilities in new ways.

[...] But, scientifically, this would not be proof of my existence as an independent personality who has survived physical death. [...] Either way, this would be no proof as to my independent nature. [...]

[...] What kind of world would you create?

[...] [If I did] then I would be denying you your own power, and therefore seemingly building my own … I am here because I enjoy it. [...]