“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The above notes and my speculations to follow, all added later, look ahead to sessions 738–39 for February 19 and 24 respectively. I’m inserting the material here to continue the record of our house hunting in an orderly way, and to show how even an important perception [in this case of a house] can at first make hardly any conscious impression upon the perceiver — although here two perceivers, Jane and I, were involved.

(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.

(Because we’d been looking at houses today, Jane was excited: “How am I going to get my mind on the session?” Just before Seth came through, she reread his list of the families of consciousness that he’d given for the 732nd session. She did so, I quickly learned, for both practical and intuitive reasons.)

Dictation: House information later if you want it. There is a tie-in here with Sumari characteristics.

Dictation: Generally, the Sumari have the capacity to reach out emotionally to others and empathize. To some extent this feeling for humanity often serves as an impetus for creative work. Many of them also have a mystical sense of connection with nature. At the same time they can be relative isolationists, wanting to work in solitude.¹

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.

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 first family that I mentioned (Gramada²), for example, specializes in organization. Sometimes its members follow immediately after a revolutionary social change. Their organizational tendencies are expressed in any area of life, however. They are behind art schools, for instance, though they may not be artists themselves. They may set up colleges, although they may or may not be scholars.

The founders of giant businesses often belong to this family, as do some politicians and statesmen. They are active, vital, and creatively aggressive. They know how to put other people’s ideas together. They often unite conflicting schools of thought into a more or less unifying structure. They are, then, often the founders of social systems. In most cases, for instance, your hospitals, schools, and religions, as organizations, are initiated by and frequently maintained by this group.

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.

In the Middle Ages they faithfully copied manuscripts. They are custodians in a way. Again, there are infinite variations. Many music or art teachers belong in that category, where the arts are taught with a love of excellence, a stress upon technique — into which the artist, who is often a Sumari (although not always, by any means) can put his or her creativity. Period.

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.

(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.

It is already easy to see how the purposes of these various families can intermesh, complement each other, and also conflict. Yet all in all, almost, they operate as systems of creative checks and balances.

(10:12. Jane’s delivery had been somewhat faster than usual. While we talked now she interrupted herself to say that she “got in a flash” the main activities, the predominant slants of consciousness, of the next three families on Seth’s list: the Milumet, the Zuli, and the Borledim. Yet when she tried to describe their attributes for me she had difficulty in doing so; the information was peculiarly evanescent, she said.

(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.)

Now: Dictation: The next family (Milumet) is composed of mystics.

Those belonging to this (Milumet) family will not be in positions of any authority, generally speaking, for they will not concentrate that long on specific physical data. However, they may be found in your country precisely where you might not expect them to be: on some assembly lines that require simple repetitive action — in factories that do not require speed, however. They usually choose less industrialized countries, then, with a slower pace of life. They have simple, direct, childish mannerisms, and may appear to be stupid. They do not bother with the conventions.

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.

1. Naturally, Seth’s material here began to sound very reminiscent of Jane’s and my own Sumari characteristics — especially those concerning the “mystical sense of connection with nature” that each of us feels, and our individual desires “to work in solitude.”

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.