“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane was so relaxed and “floppy” before the session that I asked her if she’d rather not have it. She decided that she wanted to try. She’s been experiencing many muscular changes and releases in recent days. I read parts of the last session to her, to remind us both of what Seth had discussed. At 9:30 Jane said: “There — I’m just beginning to feel him around….”)

(Still in trance, Jane set the milk aside. She didn’t return to it, but sipped her wine for the rest of the session. I was tempted to ask Seth to explain his idea of what good milk was like, and in what life [or lives] he’d enjoyed such a potion, but I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the material. While tasting the milk during break, however, Jane “herself” had had no such reaction.)

Now this is a mental camera we are using. There is a knack about being a good dream photographer, and you must learn how to operate the camera. In physical life, for example, a photographer knows that many conditions affect the picture he takes. Exterior situations then are important: You might get a very poor picture on a dark day, for instance. With our dream camera, however, the conditions themselves are mental. If you are in a dark mood, for example, then your picture of inner reality might be dim, poorly outlined, or foreboding. This would not necessarily mean that the dream itself had tragic overtones, simply that it was taken in the “poor light” of the psyche’s mood.

(Seth spent the next six minutes or so giving some personal material for Jane. Then, as he was about to wind up the session:

(In ordinary terms I can only wait, of course, to see if I decide to create that distant probable moment in this reality. In the meantime, I have no conscious memory of being an old man, let alone one in the specific, dependent situation in which I saw myself: However, aside from the idea of simultaneous time, I do believe that an individual can touch upon at least some of his or her earlier lives, provided enough long-term effort is given to the endeavor. Since through my internal vision I evidently looked in upon a particular past life of my own, however unaware I was of what I was doing, it seems that the knowledge of that existence may not be too deeply buried within my psyche. I might try jogging my memory through suggestion, to see what else about that life I can recall. It would also be interesting to see whether the same technique could help me tune in to my future in this life.

After tonight’s session, Jane told me that his Practice Element 13 was one of the two she’d had insights on during the night preceding the deleted 717th (James-Jung) session. Practice Element 14 didn’t seem at all familiar to her, though. See Note 1 for Session 718.

4. I lay down for a nap as usual at 4:30 this afternoon (Monday, November 11). As I started drifting toward sleep I became aware that I was looking at my own head; the image lasted for several seconds and was quite clear, without being needle-sharp. My view was from my right side as I lay face up on the cot. This is a bit difficult to describe, but the glimpse of my own head came from a point usually invisible to me — centered perhaps two inches or so above and behind my right ear.

I saw the head of a very old man, in his late 80’s or early 90’s. I had no doubt that this was a definitely probable version of myself in this reality. How strange to peek at the curve of my own skull from that odd viewpoint. I saw short, almost wispy white hair, but I wasn’t bald. Through the hair I could see the pulsing bluish veins in the skin as it lay over the bone — and in some fashion this sight alone was most evocative of the very young and the very old. I lay face up, bony arms folded across my chest, just as my present “me” did. I knew that I was resting, and that I wasn’t senile. I don’t believe I was bedridden, but that I was being cared for somehow.

My eyes were closed, and something about my bearing or pose reminded the present me of my father in his old age. When he lay dying, early in February 1971, I stood so that I had a view of him similar to the one I’d just experienced of myself. I was sure that this old man was me, though, and no one else. I was very thin beneath the blanket, which I believe was an ivory color.