“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(One of the first houses Jane and I looked at yesterday occupied a hill side corner lot in West Elmira, on a street we’d never been on before. Our friend in real estate, Debbie, had directed us to it from a photograph in the same catalog she’d used to point out the Foster Avenue place, which we had inspected Monday. In fact, both houses are pictured, one above the other, on the same page of the catalog. See the opening notes for the last session.

(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.

(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.

Various kinds of seemingly contradictory characteristics may appear, then. One Sumari may have many deeply rewarding personal relationships. Another might find friends a distraction. One Sumari might enjoy performing in front of an audience, while another might not even be able to bear the thought. Since each person is unique, the various Sumari characteristics will then appear quite differently. Some live in cities, basking in the emotional nearness of others, content with a few flowerpots for a reminder of nature’s beauty. Another might have a farm. In most cases, however, the slant of consciousness is primarily creative. Period.

(A one-minute pause at 9:59.) Give us a moment … The healers might also appear as politicians, however, psychically healing the wounds of the nation. An artist of any kind, whose work is primarily meant to help, also belongs in this category. You will find some heads of state, and — particularly in the past — some members of royal families who also belong to this group.

In conventional terms they may appear to be great activists and revolutionaries, or they may seem to be impractical dreamers. They will be possessed by an idea of change and alteration, and will feel, at least, driven or compelled to make that idea a reality. They perform a very creative service as a rule, for social and political organizations can often become stagnant, and no longer serve the purposes of the large masses of people involved. Members of this (Vold) family may also initiate religious revolutions, of course. As a rule, however, they have one purpose in mind: to change the status quo in whatever the area of primary interest.

(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.