“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I’ll preface the abbreviated version to follow of Jane’s first slow, or “long sound” session, the 612th for September 6, 1972, with these notes about Seth Two, since this is the ideal place for them.

(Seth Two wasn’t dealt with in Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality. In Note 1 for Appendix 18, I wrote that I wanted to at least briefly discuss Seth Two in another appendix for this Volume 2, “the idea being that that material can be taken as an extension of the Jane-Ruburt-Seth study presented here.” The few references to Seth Two in Appendix 18 were all meant to be resolved below, including my note that “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.”

(With Seth’s help Jane first encountered the idea of Seth Two in the 406th session for April 22, 1968. That important development in her abilities took place four and a half years after she began to speak for Seth, and once it opened up Seth Two came through in the next seven twice-weekly sessions. Most of that material hasn’t been published, although in Chapter 17 of The Seth Material Jane described Seth Two to some extent, including “his, hers, or its” intimate connections with Seth: the subjective pyramid or cone effects she experiences just above her head when contacting Seth Two; and the great energy she feels at such times. In Chapter 17 she quoted Seth Two from sessions 406–7, and from a couple of others that were held later in the year. The excerpts show not only something of Seth’s connections on the “other side” of Jane, but in one case her violent reactions of surprise and panic when she attempted to translate something of Seth Two’s reality in terms of our own camouflage world: She found herself deeply involved in an unexpected experience with “massiveness” — one of the subjects I want to refer to in these preliminary notes. And Seth Two — or our imperfect grasp of what such an energy gestalt can mean or represent — comprises at least one of the sources of the Seth material itself.

(Unlike Seth, Seth Two has never been physical in our terms, and only partially comprehends our reality even while helping to form it. Very quickly, and perhaps simplifying too much, here’s Seth Two from the 407th session, speaking in Jane’s high, distant, deliberate and asexual interpretation of what such an energy gestalt’s “voice” might sound like:)

Seth is what I am, and yet I am more than Seth is. Seth is, however, independent, and continues to develop as I do … Simply as an analogy, and only as an analogy, I am what you would refer to as a future Seth, as Seth in a “higher” stage of development. This is not to be taken literally, however, since both of us are fully independent and exist simultaneously.

(Following those introductory sessions, Seth Two has spoken at widely spaced intervals. At this writing I think it’s been well over a year since I’ve heard that very complicated personality. Occasionally Jane will speak for Seth Two in class. I do think that she could contact Seth Two at my request. Yet she has to get into a “certain mental climate” in order to reach Seth Two, Jane said, and all of her other trance phenomena — Sumari, and so forth — are also related to that state.¹

(I’ve already cited Jane’s experience, as given in Chapter 17 of The Seth Material, showing that on rare occasions Seth Two and her feelings of massiveness can go together; but she can also be in an altered, massive state of consciousness without having a session, or she can be speaking for Seth. Seth or Seth Two — obviously, when either of those qualities combine with her massive perceptions, then Jane knows a multifaceted trance state. In Volume 1, Seth devoted much of the 681st session to a discussion of probabilities, or, in sum, All That Is, and interwound Jane’s psychic and physical experiences with that material: “The cellular consciousness experiences itself as eternal … Part of Ruburt’s feeling of massiveness² comes from the mass [life-to-death] experience of the body, existing all at once. Therefore to him the body feels larger.” Beginning at 11:10 in that session, see also Jane’s own comments on her massive responses.

(These two ideas from Seth, which came through in connection with his data on moment points, are to me very suggestive of the concept of long sound. From the 681st session:) In your terms — the phrase is necessary — the moment point, the present, is the point of intersection between all existences and reality. All probabilities flow through it, though one of your moments may be experienced as centuries, or as a breath, in other probable realities of which you are a part. (From session 682:) There are systems in which a moment, from your standpoint, is made to endure for the life of a universe…. ³

(Jane’s expressions of long sound and her sensations of massiveness are of course directly related to the multidimensional neurological activity, the “sidepools” of consciousness, that she described in Appendix 4 of Volume 1. Seth also mentioned neurological pulses and/or speeds in various sessions in Volume 1. In the opening delivery for Session 686, for example, see his information on our species’ selection of one “official” series of neurological pulses for physical reality, and, at 12:19 A.M., his remarks on prejudiced perception. Appendix 5 for the same session contains more of Jane’s own material on neurological speeds.

(Finally, the excerpt to follow from the 612th session is presented just as received, but I’ve updated some of the notes for it [beginning with Note 4] in order to take advantage of later material, including some published in Volume 1.)

(The first delivery for this session,⁴ running until break at 9:47, is deleted here since it contains much personal material. During it Jane spoke for Seth as usual. His last sentence before break was: “I will have something to say concerning Ruburt’s experience the other evening….” With that statement he referred to Monday night’s session, which had been an entirely personal one. Just before its start, Jane had had the self-conscious idea that she should rub between her eyes with a circular motion — “You know, where the third eye⁵ would be….” In the session itself she came through with material about herself on her “own,” without Seth, but in an altered state of consciousness in which she experienced many vivid subjective images, coupled with strong feelings of massiveness. Some of the images reflected internal states of her own body. I thought her very interesting way of acquiring the information represented another step in the development of her abilities.

(Now to recap the situation leading up to tonight’s [612th] session: At supper time Jane encountered some relaxation effects⁶ — so much so, in fact, that she had to lay down briefly in the midst of preparing the meal. Then not long before the session was due she became aware to some extent of her pyramid sensation, meaning that Seth Two, or possibly a variation of that personality gestalt, was around. And once again she felt like rubbing her forehead where the mythical third eye would be. Many things, it seemed, were developing at once; we expected that after first break tonight Seth would comment upon them, as well as upon Monday evening’s session. But events didn’t work out that way at all; Seth did not return. Jane carried the rest of the session herself — and a unique one it turned out to be….

(10:09. “I’m getting the feeling of a whole lot of beings or personalities way behind my head,” Jane said as she sat in her Kennedy rocker. Her eyes were open; she was very relaxed; she smoked a cigarette as we waited for Seth to return. Then after a pause: “I’m getting stuff but I don’t know how I’m supposed to give it — through Seth Two, or what. So I’m just waiting….”

(10:36. Now Jane’s place slowed considerably. In the same high voice she began stressing as separate units many of the syllables of the words she spoke. This was reminiscent of Seth Two’s method of delivery, yet subjectively I felt differences. Also, Seth Two had usually expressed “itself” in the singular, whereas tonight’s material was coming through under the plural “we”:) “All con-scious-ness has as-pects that are act-i-va-ted and ex-pressed in all idi-oms or real-i-ties. This is all we can clear-ly com-mun-i-cate with you now.”

(10:38. Jane slumped in her rocker, eyes closed. She had trouble getting them open. She remembered giving the variations on the sounds and methods of speech. She told me that “something” wanted to manifest through her so slowly that it was almost inexpressible; she’d felt deep rolling sounds going through her, yearning to be translated, yearning to make sense in our terms. “It would have taken me three hours to do it right.” The slow material simply came out that way when she tried to express it. She couldn’t really understand what “they” wanted her to do, if anything.

(Jane said the high-voiced, rapid delivery reminded her of Seth Two, then mentioned a point I’d forgotten: She’d experienced a similar effect once before — last month, while writing poetry, and only mentally. At that time, as now, she hadn’t been able to comprehend what was happening well enough to translate it, let alone write down anything.⁷

(10:48. After we’d rested for a few minutes, Jane began to speak in her regular voice. I’ve purposely refrained from mentioning earlier the rather extensive material that follows; perhaps the reader, coming upon it unexpectedly, will feel something of my own surprise as Jane started to develop it out of both the slow and rapid effects she’d already demonstrated:)

(11:17.) “I — I know there’s more there … I want to find out more. I don’t get their [the ‘consciousnesses’ behind tonight’s material] purpose. (Jane looked tired and disheveled now, and I suggested she end the session. She sat with her eyes closed. She had trouble enunciating the next sentence, and had to repeat it:) Dead holes turn into live holes … where the motion and impetus, in your terms, would be toward the future … I can’t get any more…. (Once again I urged her to quit.) I’m almost finished. In this case, the core appears as matter-to-be. I guess I’ll stop. I can’t follow it. This whole thing has to do with those voice effects earlier….”

(11:19.) “I was getting images through the whole thing. (Jane rested briefly.) I was trying to explain what they meant. It’s something when you don’t know what you’re trying to say…. (She described the images to some extent — delineating stars, a series of circles, condensing matter, imploding galaxies and other such effects — but they didn’t mean as much to me as her material in the session itself.) I just got tired receiving the stuff. That was really a workout. There’s a lot more there to be had, too….” (She likened her dissertation to the way she often gets impressions concerning people; the information “just comes,” and she recites it.

(I’d maintain that Jane has been on a creative upsurge for a year now. During that time she finished Seth Speaks and helped me proofread it, wrote her novel, Oversoul Seven, and worked on another Seven book [still unfinished], as well as Personal Reality and Adventures. These activities meant keeping to her schedule of two regular sessions a week for the most part, although I do the work of transcribing her trance material. Jane also held her weekly ESP classes and writing classes, and continued her work on poetry and an autobiography [also unfinished]. With all of this, we also went through the flood caused by Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972. Jane’s daily predictions have been working out exceptionally well. Recently she was informed that impressions she gave for certain people as long as two years ago have been proving correct in large measure — a very heartening development….

(The day after this session, Jane greatly enlarged upon her original estimate — three hours — of the time she’d need to interpret the long or slow sounds. Now she felt that “to do proper justice to them would take years — centuries perhaps.” Because of our ordinary time sense the sounds were actually so slow to us that they appeared to be motionless, or “dead,” she told me, leading us to speculate that this may be one of the reasons why in usual terms we call inanimate matter — rocks, for instance — “dead.” But Jane couldn’t really define any sources behind last night’s material, beyond calling them “consciousnesses, or beings — but maybe not personalities as we think of that term.” Then, again increasing her estimate, she said that if “they” tried to communicate with us through sound, through our sensual equipment, “it would take forever.”

(I want to conclude this appendix with a poem Jane wrote during the summer of 1963, a few months before she began the sessions. To me her long sound material, given nine years later in the 612th session, simply represented her psychic way of “catching up” with, and developing, deeply intuitive knowledge that she’d possessed all along:)

1. In Appendix 3 of Adventures Jane listed and described the altered states of consciousness that she’s attained so far in her psychic development. She also considered Seth Two in various other parts of Adventures. In Chapter 2, for instance, the Seth Two quotations are cast in the editorial “we,” the guise in which that energy gestalt often comes through: “We are trying to appreciate the nature of your present existence … For you there may seem to be an unbearable loneliness, because you are so used to relating to the warm victory of the flesh, and [here] there is no physical being … Yet beyond and within that isolation is a point of light that is consciousness. It pulses with the power behind all the emotions that you know … This is the warmth that … is born from the very devotion of our isolation … that creates the reality that you know, without itself experiencing it.”

Seth Two is mentioned but a few times in Personal Reality. Those who are interested can also refer to the Seth Two descriptions and excerpts in Chapter 22 of Seth Speaks; see Session 588 from 11:35 P.M., and Session 589.

3. In Note 9 for the 712th session, see the two analogies to long sound that I drew from the 514th session in Seth Speaks.

4. By the time the 612th session was held we were finally getting back into our old rhythms of work; they’d been seriously disrupted by the flood caused by Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972. Just before the flood materialized (over two months ago), Seth-Jane had completed the Preface and the first session for Chapter 1 of Personal Reality; see the opening notes for Session 613 in that work.

7. From Jane’s notebook: “I was writing poetry one day early in August 1971, when suddenly I mentally heard the oddest sounds — incredibly fast, too quick to follow. Instantly I ‘knew’ that these faster sounds were objects coming into material focus. They slowed down to become physical. I sensed this neurologically, though how that was possible, I don’t know….”

Perhaps this mental event was Jane’s way of “practicing” for the physical one that was to follow a month later, in the 612th session. In my opinion, she offers a most important insight here toward understanding the formation of our mundane physical reality. Besides Jane’s material in appendixes 4 and 5 for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, see Seth’s deliveries on inner sound, light, and electromagnetic patterns in the four sessions (623–26) making up Chapter 5 of Personal Reality.

8. Since Jane has just referred to them, in this note I’ll touch upon atoms (and, incidentally, molecules), faster-than-light particles, and mass. The reader can use the definitions below to make his or her own associations with Jane’s material. (The other sources given will also add extra dimensions to this 612th session.)

In conventional terms, atoms are regarded as the submicroscopic entities making up all objects and substances in our world. Each atom consists of a nucleus of protons, neutrons, and other subatomic particles, around all of which move a complicated system of much lighter electrons. (An atom of hydrogen, however, is made up of but one proton and one electron.) All is in balance: The number of positive charges on the nucleus equals the number of negatively charged electrons. Note 24 for Appendix 18 contains a short discussion of the particle-wave duality involving the components of the atom. In Note 35 for the same appendix, I quoted Seth from the 702nd session in Volume 1; he advanced his own idea of interrelated fields versus particle-wave theory.

In Note 1 for Session 709 I wrote that “Tachyons … are supposed faster-than-light particles that are thought to be possible within Einstein’s special theory of relativity.” (In the session itself Seth makes some intriguing references to related possibilities: “In out-of-body states, consciousness can travel faster than light — often, in fact, instantaneously.” Also see Note 2.) In the 682nd session for Volume 1, while discussing his CU’s, or units of consciousness, Seth told us: “Of course they move faster than light.” Then see notes 3 and 4 for that session.

The 581st session for Chapter 20 of Seth Speaks not only contains notes on tachyons, but Seth’s own material on superspeed entities: “Some of these in your terms share the same space as your own universe. You simply would not perceive such particles as mass.” And: “There are many ranges and great varieties of such units, all existing beyond your perceivable reach.”

I remind the reader of a remark Seth made in the 702nd session for Volume 1, when Jane was delivering material for him on electron spin and related concepts: “Ruburt’s vocabulary is not an official scientific one. Nor, for our purposes should it be — for that vocabulary is limiting.” Jane has only the sketchiest of scientific backgrounds, but a very strong intuitive grasp of the qualities involved. By choice, even in trance she attempts to relay specialized information in ordinary verbal terms, without the use of formulas, equations, or highly technical language. The material in this session is a good example of her approach. We’ve never tried to get her — or Seth — to deliver mathematical or chemical formulas during a session; it’s not her thing. However, she thinks that if she were to motivate herself she could accomplish something through the formalized language of mathematics, say, but that in the beginning at least she’d acquire the information visually; then she would write it down, even while the session was in progress….

In his special theory of relativity, however, Albert Einstein showed that mass is a highly concentrated form of energy. Any object contains energy “on deposit” in its mass, then. The masses of colliding subatomic “particles,” for instance, can be transferred into both energy and new particles. In Volume 1, see the material on Einstein in Session 701, with notes.

9. In the physics of elementary particles, time reversal, or symmetry, is a basic concept. I’ll make two references to Volume 1: In Session 682, after 9:47, Seth told us that in our terms his CU’s, or units of consciousness, “can move forward or backward in time. But they can also move into thresholds of time with which you are not familiar.” In Session 702, Seth discussed relationships involving electron spin and the direction, or flow, of time; also see Note 6 for that session.

10. Sound, and various symbolic attributes of that phenomenon, are uniting factors in back of much of Seth-Jane’s material, and I could list many instances. I’m not referring here only to “outside” developments like Jane’s powerful Seth voice, her speaking and singing in Sumari, or her slow and fast sounds as produced for this session, but to inner, audible and inaudible manifestations or translations of sound.

In the 24th session for February 10, 1964, Seth explained how a recent vision I’d had, involving a ladderlike series of heads opening and closing their silent mouths, had really been my attempt to cast inner data into a more familiar outer-sense kind of perception. “You felt sound,” Seth told me. After my initial unease over this new type of experience, I found it most intriguing; I’ve had my own little adventures embodying that feeling perception of sound ever since. In the same session, Seth discussed Jane’s periodic feeling of sound; in her case, she often hears music internally.

Seth, from the 154th session for May 12, 1965: “Basically, the physical body has the potential for perceiving stimuli on a generalized basis. By this I mean that although the eyes are for seeing, the ears for hearing, and so forth, the potentials of the physical body include the capacity to hear, for example, through any given portion of the bodily expanse … Sound, then, can be felt as well as heard, although in such cases you may say that the sound is heard in the depths of the tissues; this, however, being an analogy … Ruburt, in feeling sound, merely experienced it from a different perspective.

For some other material on sound see the 572nd session for Chapter 18 of Seth Speaks, for instance, or the already mentioned sessions (in Note 7) that make up Chapter 5 of Personal Reality.

And added later: Many people undergo some form of chromesthesia — that is, certain colors or color patterns are seen upon hearing certain sounds. Occasionally Jane will experience one of her own variations of such an ability. A good example for this note can be found in her material at 10:47 in the 714th session: “Wait a minute … What I’m getting is a fantastic sound that’s imprisoned in a crystal, that speaks through light, that’s the essence of personality. I’m getting almost jewel-like colored sounds….”

Interestingly enough, several very distant quasars have been linked to certain observed faster-than-light effects, thus contradicting current physical theory that nothing can exceed the speed of light. For science this is a very uncomfortable situation that has yet to be resolved. But I’m sure that in scientific terms (quite aside from Seth’s material in Note 1 for the 712th session) there are many discoveries to be made in this area. The faster-than-light effects may be the results of observations that are simply not understood in some as-yet-unexplained way….

In closing: See the 593rd session in the Appendix of Seth Speaks for Seth’s material on black holes, white holes, and coordination points: “A black hole is a white hole turned inside out … The holes, therefore, or coordination points [points of double reality, or where realities merge], are actually great accelerators that reenergize energy itself.” In the 688th session for Volume 1, Seth presents an analogy in which his basic units of consciousness, or CU’s, operate as minute but very powerful black holes and white holes.

12. A note added over a year later: For some time I’ve intuitively felt connections between Jane’s material in this paragraph and ideas we first read about some six months after this 612th session was held in September 1972: that for various reasons (having to do with gravitational waves, mass, et cetera) many galaxies, including our own, could have been formed out of matter accumulating around black holes at their centers.