“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.

(With some elaborations, the following account of my “fourth Roman” is directly from the description I wrote upon awakening. The notes, added later, are intended to give a minimum of “ordinary” background material, and to explore a few of the questions referred to above.)

“Several interesting — and frustrating — questions are raised by today’s episode. As stated, this makes the second time that I’ve had an experience involving the violent death of a Roman soldier in the earlier part of the first century A.D. (I never did arrive at names for those two militant individuals.) Perhaps both instances are merely my own psychological reflections of present concerns or challenges, although I think that more is involved. Given Seth’s concept of simultaneous time, the best connection I’ve made so far between the two soldiers is that as counterparts of mine they explore questions having to do with authority. As I rebel against authority now — a characteristic remarked upon by Seth in the 721st session — so do my Roman selves in their times.

“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.

“Seth’s data and my own on counterparts make sense to me. I feel (as Seth mentioned in the 721st session) that I wasn’t Nebene, or two different Roman soldiers per se, but rather that my whole self chose to manifest such personalities together; that I, too, am such a manifestation at a “later” time, then, and that from my own vantage point I can tune in to those other lives. But I question, at least provisionally, any idea of past or counterpart lives that I lived one hundred percent. At this writing, I think that I am living my only one hundred percent life now, with the privilege of occasionally being able to focus upon scattered portions of those other existences emanating from my whole self, which has its basic reality outside of our space-time concepts.¹⁰

(Jane held her ESP class that same evening. Long after class break toward the end of the night, I presented my fourth Roman by reading from the notes just given. Class members passed my sketches around. Almost immediately Seth came through with further elaborations on his ideas about counterparts. He also cleared up a few points for me. Seth:)

(Seth’s delivery, only partly quoted here, was very forceful. It will help the reader to refer back to the 724th session itself in order to correlate Seth’s material given there with this class session, and with other data on reincarnation and counterparts.

(I was in for a surprise as the students discussed Seth’s remarks. One class member, a close friend whom I’ll call Peter Smith, is an artist and sculptor; after studying my Roman sketches, he had a note passed across the crowded room to me:)

(In the 724th session the following night, Seth remarked upon such circumstances, saying that while Peter and I weren’t counterparts, we’re “closely enough allied so that in certain terms you ‘share’ some of the same psychic memories, like cousins who speak about old dimly remembered brothers.”¹³

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.

5. I experienced much stronger thrilling sensations two and a half weeks ago, during my perceptions of myself as Maumee, the black woman who lived in Jamaica in the early 1800’s. See the opening notes for the 721st session, with its Note 1. In Appendix 21, Seth remarked that those suffusing feelings are my personal sign that I’ve made a “neurological changeover.” When that happens I seem able to at least glimpse other time periods, other realities.

7. See Note 12 for Session 721, in which I quote Seth about my Roman officer’s querulous attitudes toward authority.

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….

11. It’s of interest here to note that although he referred to my three Roman-officer perceptions of last October in the 721st session (which itself was held a month after I’d experienced them), Seth didn’t mention that I had a second Roman-soldier counterpart living in the same time and area of the world in the first century A.D. I didn’t ask about any such possibility, either. I don’t attach any special meaning to these observations, although we may ask Seth to comment upon them eventually (see Note 2). If his material on counterparts is correct, any of us could have many such relationships going in a given century — too many to conveniently uncover, perhaps, considering the physical time that would be necessary to do the psychic work.

12. For some material on Sue Watkins in Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, see the opening notes for Session 692, along with Note 2 for that session.

13. Early in this appendix I wrote that I added these notes later, to give “ordinary background material” for my fourth Roman. So now, what do I make of the considerable similarities between my Jerusalem episode and Peter’s? Although his internal data reinforce mine to some extent, he can be no more specific about a physical location in the city for his visions than I can be for mine. (See Note 6.) I’ve also written about the conflicts involving authority that I believe my two Roman soldiers are expressing. Here I feel on more “solid ground” symbolically than physically. Just as I do, Peter rebels in his own peaceful ways against conventional authority, preferring to go his individual route in the arts, no matter how dubious his rewards may be.

To me, this fact alone lends a credence to his visions that bolsters my own in the most meaningful way: I think our tower experiences of so long ago (in terms of linear time), plus our mutual artistic backgrounds now, with their corresponding social implications, are too closely allied to be explained as “coincidence” in the objective fact world. Peter’s surprising material, then, helps me tentatively recognize the physical connections those motionless visions of mine may have in our space and time.