“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Now these notes hark back to the end of the 732nd session, when I wrote a paragraph concerning Sue Watkins, our longtime friend who attends class as often as she can these days from the small town where she now lives, some 35 miles north of Elmira. Jane listed Seth’s families of consciousness last month in Session 732, but wound up the evening’s work thinking that several years ago, soon after she’d initiated the Sumari breakthrough, Sue had psychically tuned in on the name of a second family of consciousness — one that Seth didn’t give in the 732nd session. Jane thought the family name was similar to the “Gramada” that Seth had described; at session’s end I wrote that I intended to check our records for the missing name, and to ask Seth about it — but I neglected to do either of those things. One of the reasons for my failure to settle the matter right away was the lack of any immediate pressure to do so, for we hadn’t seen Sue since before the 729th session was held; that’s over five weeks ago now; newspaper work has often kept her too busy to make the trip to Elmira.

The next family (Borledim) deals primarily with parenthood. These people are natural “earth parents.” That is, they have the capacity to produce children who from a certain standpoint possess certain excellent characteristics. The children have brilliant minds, healthy bodies, and strong clear emotions.

These people (the Borledim) believe, then, in the natural goodness of sex, the body, and the family unit — however those attributes are understood in the physical society to which they belong. As a rule they possess an enchanting spontaneity, however, and all of their creative abilities go into the family group and the production of children. These are not rigid parents, though, blindly following conventions, but people who see family life as a fine living creative art, and children as masterpieces in flesh and blood. Far from devouring their offspring by an excess of overprotective care, they joyfully send their children out into the world, knowing that in their terms the masterpieces must complete themselves, and that they have helped with the underpainting.

A good many salesmen belong in this (Ilda) category. In your terms they may be cosmopolitan, and often wealthy, so that frequent travel is possible. On the other hand, however, in certain frameworks, a humble merchant in a small country who travels through nearby provinces might also belong to this family. These are a lively, talkative, imaginative, usually likable group of people. They are interested in the outsides of things, social mores, the marketplace, current popular religious or political ideas. They spread these from place to place. They are the seed-carriers, both literally and figuratively.

In the past some (Ilda) have been great courtesans, and even though they were not able to travel physically, they were at the heart of communication — that is, a part of court life, or involved with diplomats who did travel.

(Pause at 10:24.) Many of the courtesans who ruled the salons of Europe belonged in the (Ilda) category, then. The Crusades⁴ involved great movement of this family, in which trade and commerce, and the exchange of political ideas, were far more important than the religious aspects. Some members of this family served as initiators of new orders in the (Catholic) church in the past — the worldly Jesuits, for example, and some of the more sophisticated popes⁵ (amused), who had a fine eye out for commerce and wealth. These people may be appreciators of fine art, but usually for its commercial value.

The first (in Sayre), mentioned far earlier in “Unknown” Reality, you thought was definitely sold, and today you discovered that the sale was not that final.¹⁰ As you discussed these issues a rather important main point escaped your minds: The man who owned the first house (Mr. Markle) was a dealer in antiques and precious stones, utterly devoted to his work and engrossed in it, considering it his art. The house has a garden on one side, with high trees, and a yard on the other, and was relatively shielded. The man’s family took second place to some extent. The kitchen and dining areas were small. He had his office downstairs and he often worked at home. His art came first.¹¹

The second house (on Foster Avenue in Elmira) was owned for years by the people who gave it its character. The large living room was so spacious just so that it could hold a grand piano. The man who owned the house thought of pianos as his art (he was in the business of selling them), and the living room was simply meant to set a piano off.

Again, you have a small kitchen, a garden and some sheltered privacy. Both homes appealed to you, however, because the people who lived in them organized their houses about their work. This is what you picked up and reacted to. You did not react to the attitudes of others in those families who “had to put up with those conditions,” because to you they are natural.

Neither house expresses your own particular individualistic ways of life, of course, but each one comes close enough to intrigue you, and either one could be made to suit your purposes quite easily. You were attracted also because the people who put their greatest imprint upon those houses so shared some of your tendencies. In the second house your ideas of privacy were shown to you, carried to an extreme, where the windows would not even open. In the first house the stairs to the second floor were purposely steep, and never altered, because no one was invited to view the private family bedrooms. The stairs were meant to be formidable.

As mentioned much earlier, the real estate couple who showed you the first house, in Sayre (see Note 11), have definite artistic leanings. The woman particularly likes the house, and thought you would. She identified with your ideas of art and work, and saw a probable variation of herself happily ensconced in such surroundings.

Your second real estate lady (Debbie), leading you unerringly to the Foster Avenue house, did so for the same reasons. She paints as a hobby.¹² You did not consciously pick out real estate people who had artistic connections, but you were led to them and they to you. You recognized each other’s characteristics.

(11:25.) Now: When you make any important decision you automatically rouse all portions of your psyche. You set probabilities into motion. The kind of decision to some extent organizes the patterns. This should be obvious. But when you decide to move you are putting yourself in league with others who also make the same decision. Someone who moves will leave a house or an apartment vacant for someone else to move into. Unconsciously, then, the movers are in league with each other. There are sympathetic probabilities set up.

I suggested that you take it (but see my note in the material at next break). It would have been good for you both, but you were afraid of it, and your feelings had much to do with the contract being turned down (by the Veteran’s Administration). That house represented what each of you thought of as unbridled, undisciplined creativity. It was dirty and cluttered. The artist had children who ran about without any control. There was much playfulness there, however, that could have tempered some of your great mutual seriousness at the time. You did not choose to accept such a probability then, any more than you could have accepted my advice all the way. The authorities turned the contract down — but the authorities stood for the inner disciplinarians, and you did not want to share your road with the world; nor did you want, later, to share your driveway (for the Sayre house) with your neighbor.

3. It would seem that a computerized study could be rather easily organized to investigate statements of Seth’s like this one. However, results might depend on whether Seth-Jane could identify enough members of the Borledim who had married partners from other families of consciousness.

11. The Johnsons, the husband-and-wife real estate team who had taken us through Mr. Markle’s house in April 1974, gave us the objective information in this paragraph. I could verify those facts myself, and add a bit to them, for even 43 years later I remembered Mr. Markle and his family well. Prior to 1931, the Buttses and the Markles lived only a block apart; in Volume 1, see Note 2 for the 693rd session.

13. Here Seth touches upon several ramifications involving our house affairs that I’ve been saving to present all at once, if briefly. This note, then, will enlarge upon the fertile field of connections, or probabilities, that is enveloping Jane and me, the houses in Sayre and Elmira, the real estate agents we’ve been dealing with (the Johnsons and Debbie — who are not acquainted), and some other people.

When Debbie took Jane and me through the Foster Avenue house on February 5, she told us that another couple — who live in Sayre, and whom I’ll call the Steins — had also inspected the property and planned to make an offer for it, while trying at the same time to sell their present home. Without thinking too much about it, we mentally filed this bit of news along with the connections that had developed out of our house-hunting episodes last year; even now, we still didn’t realize just how the complicated relationships between those events of April 1974, and now, were to continue growing. For instance: When Jane and I “rediscovered” Mr. Markle’s house in Sayre today (February 17), and saw to our considerable surprise that it might still be for sale, we at once visited the Johnsons, who had shown us through it last year. We were then in for another surprise — for the Johnsons are the agents in charge of selling the Steins’ residence in Sayre.

I want to emphasize here that the Steins, who are teachers of music, have been attracted to a home in Elmira that was owned for many years by a man who, as a merchant, had strong connections with music in general and pianos in particular. Mr. Stein, incidentally, teaches in Elmira — hence the decision by him and his wife to move here and so eliminate his workday traveling between Sayre and Elmira.