“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The house that was for sale — and which we came to call the “hill house” — was empty and locked. There were other homes about, but each one had a feeling of privacy amid its thick insulation of trees. We rather casually surveyed the place in question from our car. At the time it didn’t “turn us on.” It bore no similarity to those in Sayre, or on Foster Avenue in Elmira. It was a ranch-style, cedar-sided dwelling that had just been painted a dark green — a conventional one-story affair with white shutters, a fireplace, a picture window, an attached double garage in back, and many trees and shrubs. Part of the front lawn was rather steeply banked, part of the curving flagstone walk was stepped as it rose up to the porch. The house faced the south; before it in the valley lay Elmira itself; almost hidden by trees; beyond the city the hills rose in tiers. Streets — without sidewalks — passed the hill house on but two sides, at the southwest corner, and each one dead-ended less than a block away. In back of the house to the north and east, woods rolled up the gentle curve of the hill and over its top.

(But, I think, in those terms there can be an appreciable lag before an original perception-event takes on any special significance for the concerned person or persons. During that lapse, that first impression is being modified and enhanced within the psyche by subsequent events and understandings; it starts to build up in importance; then, when all of the intuitive-creative “work” has been done, the original perception emerges — or bursts — into consciousness. It’s mature now, it makes sense: “Why didn’t I see that before?” Something new is known. Those synthesized data are available for fresh conscious decisions.

(Now Jane’s and my psyches were involved in this other-than-conscious activity concerning the hill house for 16 days from the time we first saw it. During that period we held the 737th session [on February 17], but since we weren’t consciously concerned with that particular place then, we neither talked about it nor asked Seth to comment; instead, on his own during the session, Seth discussed the house on Foster Avenue as representing a probability, and a pretty likely one, that we could choose to explore. Seth didn’t suggest that we buy that particular place, and had he done so I’m fairly sure we’d have rejected the idea. Jane and I were free to make our own joint decision — and all the while, both of us were unconsciously processing the hill-house situation.

I am not, again, going into detail about the other families, but I will briefly discuss them because counterparts will generally belong to the same family.

The next group (Sumafi) deals primarily with teaching. Again, the relationship with others is good, generally speaking. They may be gifted in any field, but their primary interest will be in passing on their knowledge or that of others. They are usually traditionalists, therefore, although they may be brilliant. In a way they are equally related to the family just mentioned (Gramada), and to the Sumari, for they stand between the organized system and the creative artist. They transmit “originality” without altering it, however, through the social structures.

I say that they (the Sumafi) do not alter the originality. Of course any interpretation of an event alters it, but generally they teach the disciplines while not creatively changing the content. As historians, for example, they pass down the dates of battles, and those dates are considered almost as immaculate facts, so that in the context of their training they see no point in questioning the validity of such information.

(“Yes.” But the pace had been fast.)

Give us a moment … The next family (Tumold), in the order given, is primarily devoted to healing. This does not mean that these people may not be creative, or organizers, or teachers, but the primary slant of their consciousness will be directed to healing. You might find them as doctors and nurses, while not usually as hospital administrators. However, they may be psychics, social workers, psychologists, artists, or in the religions. They may work in flower shops. They may work on assembly lines, for that matter, but if so they will be healers by intent or temperament.

I mention various professions or occupations to give clear examples, but a garageman may belong to this (Tumold) group, or to any group. In this case the garageman would have a healing effect on the customers, and he would be fixing more than cars.

(She did remember that Milumet represented many mystics, then added rather humorously that she didn’t think the name fit the activity — she thought Zuli a much better mystical appellation. All of this, of course, while Jane herself is a Sumari mystic.³ But some mystical differences began to emerge when Seth resumed dictation at 10:40.)

Almost all of their energy is directed in an inward fashion, with no regard as to whether or not inner experience is translated in usual terms. These persons, for instance, may be utterly unknown, and usually are, for as a rule they care not a bit about explaining their interior activities to others — nor, for that matter, even to themselves. They are true innocents, and spiritual. They may be underdeveloped intellectually, by recognized standards, but this is simply because they do not direct their intellect to physical focus.

To some extent they serve as physical models. The vitality of creaturehood is demonstrated through the beauty, speed, elegance, and performance of the body itself. To some extent these people are perfectionists, and in their activities there are always hints of “super” achievement, as if even physically the species tries to go beyond itself. The members of this family actually serve to point out the unrealized capacity of the flesh — even as, for example, great Sumari artists might give clues as to the artistic abilities inherent, but not used, in the species as a whole. The members of this group deal, then, in performance. They are physical doers. They are also lovers of beauty as it is corporally expressed.

(Long pause at 11:01.) Members of this (Zuli) family can often serve as models for the artist or the writer, but generally speaking they themselves transmit their energy through physical “arts” and performance. In your terms only, and historically speaking, they often appeared at the beginnings of civilizations, where direct physical bodily manipulation within the environment was of supreme importance. Then (underlined), normal physical reactions were simply faster than they are now (intently), even while normal body relaxation was deeper and more complete.

(Here’s one point brought out in that deleted material: Since Seth had told Jane and me long ago that the three of us belong to the Sumari family of consciousness,⁴ we were more than curious now when he declared that the woman who presently owns the house on Foster Street is also a Sumari: “[She] added Sumari characteristics of expansiveness.” But to go a step further: According to Seth the house’s previous owner for many years, a male now deceased, had also been Sumari. It’s quite intriguing to watch such psychic and physical connections unfold.

2. Now Seth began a rundown of the roles played by each of the families of consciousness as he’d listed them in the 732nd session. Note that he didn’t name any of them tonight, merely calling each one the “next family,” and so forth. Since Jane had already refreshed her memory of those psychic groupings before the session, and, presumably, would deliver Seth’s material on them in the proper order, I matched up their names with the successive blocks of data given in the session. Perhaps I should have double-checked by asking Seth to rename the families, in order, but I didn’t think it necessary.