“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The psychic groups, however, overlap physical and national ones. The Sumari are extremely independent, for instance, and as a rule you will not find them born into countries with dictatorships. When they do so appear, their work may set a spark that brings about changes, but they seldom take joint political action. Their creativity is very threatening to such a society.

However, the Sumari are practical in that they bring creative visions into physical reality, and try to live their lives accordingly. They are initiators, yet they make little attempt to preserve organizations, even ones they feel to be fairly beneficial. They are not lawbreakers by design or intent. They are not reformers in the strictest sense, yet their playful work does often end up reforming a society or culture. They are given to art, but in its broadest sense also, trying to make an “art” of living, for example. They have been a part of most civilizations, though they appeared in the Middle Ages (A.D. 476–c. A.D. 1450) least of all. They often come to full strength before great social changes. Others might build social structures from their work, for example, but the Sumari themselves, while pleased, will usually not be able to feel any intuitive sense of belonging with any structured group.²

Generally speaking, America has not been a Sumari nation, nor have the Scandinavian countries or England. Psychically speaking, the Sumari often very nicely arrange existences in which they are a minority — in a democracy, say, so that they can work at their art within a fairly stable political situation. They are not interested in government, yet they do rely upon it to that extent. They are apt to be self-reliant within that framework. Their recognized artistic abilities may predominate or be fairly minimal.

Nevertheless, they are often part of the cultural underground simply because they are seldom conformers. A Sumari is very uncomfortable as a member of any large commercial venture, particularly if the work involves habitual or boring routine. They are not happy on assembly lines. They like to play with details — or to use them for creative purposes. They often go from one job or profession to another for that reason.

(Long pause.) There are few with any position within organized religions. Because of their feelings of self-reliance, however, you can find them as farmers, working intuitively with the land. They are equally divided between the sexes. In your society, however, Sumari qualities in the male have until lately been frowned upon to some degree.

(Neither Jane nor I had expected our unexpected out-of-state visitor, of course. I can note later that Jane dealt more extensively with the whole episode in Chapter 18 of Politics — [and also that it’s interesting to compare our individual accounts of the same event, even though mine is much shorter]. Just let me state here that we found ourselves confronting a well-educated individual who was deeply afraid of her own energy. Because of that fear she had developed certain problems that were severe enough to keep her from working at her profession in the law.

2. Jane and I are Sumari (see notes 7 and 10 for Session 732). I can write that many of the characteristics Seth mentioned this evening apply to us, as we’ve learned over the years — especially those concerning our love of art, our being initiators, and our desires to be free of social structures. At the same time we readily agree that organizations are indispensable within the world’s very complicated cultures. We do have strong interests in national and world politics. Yet if our work is to ever result in social changes of any kind, those changes will have to be carried through by others, for primarily Jane and I work alone.

If we’d encouraged him to begin answering question No. 2, then, Jane and I assume that as time passed much of his succeeding work would have been changed and enlarged in scope to some observable degree. Seth could have based future sessions upon the additional conscious knowledge already given us; we’d have possessed the larger frame of reference necessary to accommodate even more new material.