“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The rockbed reality is the one in which the perceiver is focused. From that standpoint all others would seem peripheral. Taking that for granted, however, any given reality system will be surrounded by its probability clusters. These can almost be thought of as satellites. Time and space need not be connected, however — that is, the attractions that exist between a reality and any given probability cluster may have nothing to do with time and space at all. The closest probability satellite to any given reality may, for example, be in an entirely different universe altogether. (Pause.) In that regard, you may find brethren more or less like yourselves outside of your own universe — as you think of it — rather than inside it. You imagine your universe as extending outward in space (and backwards in time). You think of it as an exteriorized manifestation, expanding perhaps, but in an exterior rather than an interior fashion.¹

(Slowly:) Your idea of space travel, for example, is to journey over the “skin of your universe.” You do not understand that your system is indeed expanding within itself, bringing forth new creativity and energy (underlined).

Give us time … Your universe is only one of many. Each one creates probable versions of itself. When you journey on the earth you move around the outside of it. So far, your ideas of space travel involve that kind of surface navigation. Earth trips, however, are made with the recognition of their surface nature.² When you think in terms of traveling to other planets or to other galaxies, though, the same kind of surface travel is involved. As closely as I can explain it in your terms, your concepts of space travel have you going around space rather than directly through it.

(9:40.) Give us time … You are also viewing your solar system through your own time perspective, which is relative. You “look backward into time,” you say, when you stare outward into the universe. You could as well look into the future, of course. Your own coordinates³ close you off from recognizing that there are indeed other intelligences alive even within your own solar system. You will never meet them in your exterior reality, however, for you are not focused in the time period of their existence. You may physically visit the “very same planet” on which they reside, but to you the planet will appear barren, or not able to support life.

Here I would like to give a very simple example, evocative of what I mean. The other day Ruburt received a telephone call from a woman in California who was in difficulty. Ruburt promised to send [healing] energy. Hanging up, he closed his eyes and imagined energy being sent out from a universal source through his own body, and directed toward the person in need. When he did so, Ruburt mentally saw a long “heavy” beam extending straight to the west from a point between his eyes. It reached without impediment. He felt that this extension was composed of energy, and it seemed so strong that a person could walk upon it without difficulty. Subjectively he felt that this beam of energy reached its destination. And so it did.⁶

Now: In the same way you can be allied and in tune with other probabilities that do not coincide with your space-time axis. The exterior universe with its galaxies — as you understand it, and on that level of activity — can be encountered on certain rigid space-time coordinates. You can visit other planets only in your present (underlined). Your present may be the past or the future as far as inhabitants of a given planet are concerned. Your physical senses will only operate in their and your present.

The portions of the psyche reflect and create the portions of the universe from its most minute to its greatest part. You identify with one small section of your psyche, and so you name as reality only one small aspect of the universe.

1. Jane delivered this material for Seth in the 42nd session for April 8, 1964: “The universe is continually being created … as all universes are … and the appearance of expansion seen by your scientists is distortive for many reasons.

“Their time measurements, based on camouflage [physical information] to begin with, are almost riotously inadequate and bound to give distortive data, since the universe simply cannot be measured in those terms. The universe was not created at any particular time, but neither is it expanding into nowhere like an inflated balloon that grows forever larger — at least not along the lines now being considered. The expansion is an illusion, based among other things upon inadequate time measurements, and cause-and-effect theories; and yet in some manners the universe could be said to be expanding, but with entirely different connotations than are usually used.”

From the 43rd session: “The universe is expanding in the way that a dream does … this in a most basic manner is more like the growth of an idea.”

At the beginning of Appendix 12, see the longer presentation from the 44th session for Seth’s discussion of “the value climate of psychological reality” — the “medium” that spontaneously contains within it all of our camouflage constructions of space, time, growth, and durability. Note 2 for Appendix 12 also fits in here, especially Seth’s references within it to our endless questions about the beginning and ending of the physical universe.

From the 250th session for April 11, 1966: “The atom you ‘see’ does not grow larger in mass, or expand outward in your space, and neither does your universe.”

Seth’s material in those early sessions, given well over a decade ago for the most part, reflected of course his reactions to current astronomical theory about the state — and fate — of our physical (camouflage) universe. The idea of an infinitely expanding universe, with all of its stars ultimately burned out and all life extinct, is still the view largely accepted today; it’s based on the red shift measurements of some of the supposedly receding galaxies, their apparent brightnesses, the “missing mass” of the universe, and other very technical data. Yet I find it most interesting to note that now some astrophysicists and mathematicians believe our universe may be destined to contract — indeed, to collapse in upon itself — after all. But again, these ideas aren’t based on the kind of thinking Seth espouses (that consciousness comes first, that its creations are continuous), but upon other quite complicated camouflage observations and measurements. One of these is the discovery of at least some of that missing mass, thus indicating that gravitational fields may exist among the galaxies, and galactic clusters, strong enough not only to halt the expansion of the universe but to pull all matter back together again.

In scientific terms, it doesn’t seem likely that the conflict between the two views will ever be resolved, or any decision reached that our universe may be an oscillating one, forever contracting and expanding. There are too many variables in measurement and interpretation, including the difficulties the human mind encounters when it attempts to grasp the enormous spans of time and space involved.

I hasten to add that it’s only of academic interest to us, though, whether the universe disperses itself through an eternity of frozen expansion or compresses itself into a cosmic fireball of unbelievable proportions. Our scientists have projected either ending many billions of years into the future, although in the meantime, “only”‘ an estimated five billion years from now, our own aging, exploding sun will have consumed the inner planets of the solar system — including the earth.

Then, in the Appendix of Seth Speaks, see the transcript of the ESP class session for January 12, 1971. Certain sightings of UFO’s (unidentified flying objects), Seth told class members, represented the appearance of visitors from other realities, rather than from elsewhere in our own universe.

Jane is often aware of her “beam of energy,” or variations of it, when she’s reaching out to others. There’s at least an evocative analogy here with the behavior of neutrinos, which are fundamental subatomic “particles.” Generated by the nuclear reactions in the cores of stars, neutrinos travel at the speed of light. They have practically no mass, no electric charge, and hardly ever interact with matter. Not only can they pass through the earth, they can traverse the universe itself without losing much of their energy.

Jane had to renew her very strict control each time she tried to transmit long data, however; I could see that otherwise she’d slide into an extremely slow delivery. That happened often. Then it would take her many minutes to contend with a single syllable; her tongue worked persistently at the “sal” in “universal,” for example, but even so all that issued from her was an elongated hissing sound based upon the “s” alone.