“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“The truth is,” Jane said to me the other evening, “I’m alone in this psychic thing. I’m the one who’s got to do it….” We were discussing the material Seth had given after 11:38 in the last [712th] session; he’d talked about some of the strains Jane had experienced while serving “the first portion of her apprenticeship” in the development of her psychic abilities. I’ve heard her say the same thing before, of course; see Note 13 for the 712th session. Basically, her examination of her inner dimensions must be a solitary one. When she began the sessions over 11 years ago, we requested advice and help from a few people,¹ but as we slowly began to understand the very personal nature of her gifts we realized that she’d have to find her own answers as she went along, with whatever help I could learn to offer.

Like this imaginary multidimensional television, the psyche contains within it other programs than the one in which you are acting — other plots, environments, and world situations. Theoretically you can indeed momentarily “walk out of” your program into another as easily, when you know how, as you now move from one room to another. You must know that the other programs exist or the possibility of such action will not occur to you. In larger terms all of the programs are but portions of one, colon: The various sets are real, however, and the characters quite alive.

The kind of reality thus created by that portion of your consciousness forms a given kind of experience. It is valid and real. When you want to travel, you do so within the dimensions of the reality thus created. If you drive or fly from one city to another, you do not consider the journey imaginary. You are exploring the dimensions given.

(10:18.) Now: If you alter that picture a little so that the images are somewhat scrambled — and you do this by altering the focus of your consciousness — then the familiar coordination is gone. Objects may appear blurred, ordinary sounds distorted. It seems as if you are on the outskirts of your own reality. In such a state, however, it is easy to see that your usual orientation may be but one of many frames of reference. (Pause.) If you did change the focus of your consciousness still further, you might then “bring in” another picture entirely. On the outside this would give you another reality. (Intently:) In it your “old” reality might still be somewhat perceivable as a ghost image,⁶ if you knew what to look for and remembered your former coordinates. On the inside, however, you would be traveling not around or about, but through one portion of the psyche with its reality, into another portion of the psyche with its reality. That kind of journey would not be any more imaginary than a trip from one city to another.

(11:26. But in our opinions a lot of what Seth had to say was pretty personal — so much so that only certain parts of it are given below, along with a few bracketed changes I’ve made to help tie it together. These excerpts still furnish characteristic insights into aspects of Jane’s personality, as well as my own, and I might add that the deleted portions are even more meaningful to us. We’re making good use of all of this material.)

(And added a year later: Seth also discussed the will in a personal session that was held just six months after he’d finished dictating “Unknown” Reality in April 1975. As soon as Jane came through with the material, I thought of adding some of its more generalized portions to this session. Seth:)

The universe is with you and not against you. Your fellow men are with you and not against you. When [each of] you realize that, then you reach those portions of your fellows that are with you. You meet them at a different level that is illuminating to them also, and starts them developing…. The will’s power is impressive, and it is “distributed” throughout the body. The body depends upon it for direction. The will’s beliefs, again, activate the body’s automatic resources.