“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The day before the 724th session was held on December 4, I had another experience involving internal perceptions of myself as a Roman soldier in the first century A.D. As far as I can tell, however, this latest episode was not a continuation of my three visions of last October, in which I saw the end of my life while I was an officer in the armed forces of Imperial Rome¹ — yet this time also I confronted circumstances surrounding my own death. The little adventure certainly fits in with Seth’s idea of counterparts, as he introduced it in the 721st session, but it raises a number of questions, too. Jane discussed my previous “visits” to the first century in Chapter 4 of her Psychic Politics, but [I can add later] she never did deal with this one. I don’t mind noting that I wish she had.² She might have been able to offer insights about it that I couldn’t come up with, especially concerning the seemingly endless abilities of the psyche — call it personalized energy, consciousness, or what-have-you — to travel through its own space and time.

“As I lay down for my usual nap this afternoon, I reminded myself that Jane was to hold her ESP class this evening. Jokingly, I thought, I’d probably ‘get something’ just when I’d have the least amount of time to write it up afterward, make any drawings I could, and just plain take a while to think about it. (On class night we eat supper by 6:00; students often begin to arrive by 7:15, although class doesn’t begin until 8:00.) So what happened? I experienced two long-lasting mental images before I slept. Was I happy with them? I didn’t know, for they not only rearoused old questions, but brought up some new ones.

“Now the scene changed, as one might change a slide in a projector. In another little drama, motionless like the first one, I saw my Roman soldier suspended in the act of falling from the tower. He had, in truth, been thrown off it, and I believe that he was either dead or mortally wounded from stab wounds. He had a bandage wrapped around the biceps of his left arm. Now I knew that a ‘task force’ of other Roman soldiers had carried out this assault, reaching ‘me’ by climbing the steps already described. I saw no sign of others on the tower, though. I kept this second image in mind for some time before allowing myself to realize that the victim fell amid a group of his fellows. One of them, I believe, ran a spear into the body.

“However, more questions arise from the fact that over three years ago, long before any of my Roman experiences surfaced, I’d obtained vivid information on another life I’d known in the same part of the first century. And not only that — as a man called Nebene I’d spent part of my life in Rome itself. Seth referred to Nebene in the 721st session also.⁹ Here too, through that individual, the ramifications of authority are confronted again; if in a way less drastic than one involving death, still certainly in a very dogmatic manner, as expressed through Nebene’s rigid personality. The list grows. Counterparts all — three simultaneous lives in which I seemed to play a part, although, as explained below, I insist that I participated in each one of those existences in my own way.

(Peter’s statement was soon confirmed by another longtime friend of ours, Sue Watkins,¹² who also knows Peter well. He’d related the entire affair to her some months ago; his original perceptions had taken place over seven years ago, long before Sue had introduced him to Jane and me in 1973. Peter told me after class that my sketches had instantly rearoused his memories, although in his experience he’d seen the event from different angles. Yet, even with those discrepancies, and a few others, Peter believed that the walls in Jerusalem, the battlemented tower, the soldiers that I’d just described and depicted, were all the same as those he’d seen in his own visions of so much earlier.

2. As he or she has probably done while going over some of the other notes for “Unknown” Reality, the reader might wonder why we don’t just ask Seth to comment upon a point of interest as soon as it happens. Not as convenient as it sounds, however: The next scheduled session may lie several days ahead; book dictation always comes first when Seth does speak, and at session’s end it may be too late for “extra” questions, or we may be tired; even though any given event is interesting, it can easily be pushed out of immediate awareness by succeeding ones that are equally intriguing. Before we know it, often, our best chance to ask about a certain happening has passed. We may not return to it for some time; even years can pass in the interim.

3. Yes, I learned from several reference works containing photographs, drawings, and maps, Jerusalem before A.D. 50 had been walled in. Not once but several times, and in various peripheries enclosing various portions of that ancient site: the old city, the new city, the upper and lower cities, and so forth. Aerial photos show that now, at least, there’s more than one southeastern corner of the city formed as the battlemented, meandering southern wall turns north in a series of steps or right angles. I could see no recent indications of towers there. However, the situation way back then would have depended on what walls existed (as well as upon my own psychic “vantage point”). There could have been other southeastern corners, with or without towers: Not all of the authors I consulted agreed upon the location of certain of Jerusalem’s fortifications (in the first century or any other), or when they had been built or destroyed.

8. Much could be written about the ageless conflicts the individual feels between society’s demands and his or her urges toward personal freedom. It seems to me that no matter what role in any life the individual decides upon before birth (to incorporate Seth’s ideas here), that individual will carry consciousness’s innate drive toward personal expression — but still within the protection furnished by social organization. This applies even to my Roman selves in their restrictive military environments (which are also protective), and even if their chosen courses of action result in demands or challenges they cannot surmount….