“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause.) Once individual travelers took those snapshots, and they represented original interpretations of other realities. They stood for individual versions of certain travelers taking brief glimpses of strange worlds, and interpreting their experiences to the best of their abilities. As such they were very valid. (Louder:) They were as valid as any snapshot that you might take of your backyard in the morning. That picture, however, would vary considerably from one taken by an inhabitant of your planet in a different part of the world, and in a different environment.

First of all, in your own world those travelers into unknown realms were considered outcasts, so to speak, as if they were picking up television programs that no one else saw.⁸ If their stories of their experiences did not jibe, who would believe them? They felt threatened. They felt that they had to tell the same story or they would be considered insane, so they made a tacit agreement, interpreting their experiences in the terms used by those who had gone “before.”

“If I can get this it’ll be something, I’ll tell you,” Jane said, lighting up. She sipped her beer. “Bob — what I’m getting is something like it would be in real fast, quick beautiful sounds that I can’t duplicate — very quick, very musical — connected with the spin of electrons⁹ and cellular composition.

(Jane told me that her feelings of massiveness had left her by the time she began her own dissertation. I was surprised to suddenly notice that her voice was much clearer now, cold or no. She did feel unsettled. She didn’t quite know what to do. She let our cat, Willy, into the living room from the second apartment we rent across the hall. I suggested she eat something. “It’s strange,” she commented. “I feel that no matter which way I turn, there’s a path laid out for me — and I never felt that way before.” Then she announced that she was going to bed. “But as soon as I get over there [in the other apartment] I’ll turn around and come back here, I’ll bet.” She left. I decided to have a snack myself and to work on these notes while waiting to see if she would return.

8. And “those travelers into unknown worlds” can still be called outcasts, strange, weird — or worse. Jane has had her share of such reactions from others (as have I). When combined with her own natural-enough questions about her psychic abilities, as sometimes happens, such episodes aren’t any fun. In accidental ways that would be quite humorous if they weren’t so personal, we’ve also learned what negative ideas others can have about us: A person will inadvertently reveal to us, during a conversation, or in a letter or over the telephone, the unflattering opinions his or her mate, or parents, or friends, really have of Jane and me and the work we’re engaged in with the Seth material.

Occasionally we’ll meet one or more of our secondhand detractors. Then of course we’re greeted with polite smiles; the conversation may touch upon the weather, but hardly ever upon matters psychic. Sometimes we’ll discover that the “knowledge” of us held by the skeptic(s) in question is so far removed from our actual beliefs and activities that it would take us a very long time to establish any real understanding among all involved — if it would be possible to begin with, that is. We always elect to pass up such “opportunities.”