“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Sue’s note intrigued me anew: After class I promised her that not only would I search our files about Grunaargh, but that with Seth’s help Jane and I would eventually get more information on that family, and present it somewhere in the notes for “Unknown” Reality. The point I want to make here is that others beside Jane can intuitively divine material on the families of consciousness. Actually, for whatever reasons, Sue had glimpsed a family other than Sumari before Jane had. Going through back sessions late this evening, I found what I wanted. Sue had picked up on the Grunaargh¹ during the 598th session, which she’d recorded for me the evening after Jane had made the whole Sumari breakthrough in class, on November 23, 1971.

(Jane had declared before the session began tonight that she thought Seth would go into our house affairs in connection with probable realities, but that such material wouldn’t go with his book dictation on the families of consciousness. I facetiously replied that if the information didn’t fit into “Unknown” Reality we’d “force it to.” I was only half putting her on. Anything on our house hunting, I thought, would be welcome here because it would help unite these late sessions for “Unknown” Reality with some of its much earlier ones [in Volume 1, as it turned out]. It almost seemed as though we’d planned things this way.

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

(11:43. I told Jane that, once heard, much of Seth’s material had the quality of being so obvious that we in turn seemed to be quite opaque not to have reached the same conclusions ourselves. After considering the alternatives Seth suggested immediately following last break I decided to leave his delivery in place in the session as a guide for the reader; parallels can be drawn with many other situations, I think having nothing to do with art or houses.

(Considering parallels, here’s another of the many “connections” that Jane and I have become aware of since we began our housing odyssey last year [already we’ve compiled a list of 30 similar relationships]: Three out of the four dwellings that in one way or another we’ve been seriously involved with possess driveways shared by next-door neighbors — Mr. Markle’s in Sayre; the apartment house we live in now; and the house in Elmira that we considered buying in 1964. Only the Foster Avenue place is exempt here. I see such connections as symbols running through our personal experiences.

(A clarification: Seth didn’t actually suggest that Jane and I buy the “1964 house.” His statements just before break that he did so are distortions on Jane’s part, I would say, while speaking for him tonight; even in trance, her memory could have been in error — or she could have been touching upon another probable reality. What Seth did talk about, and quite legitimately, were the benefits we’d enjoy if we did acquire that place. He discussed the whole affair in the 65th session for Sunday, June 28, 1964, using passages like: “I am certainly not going to make any decisions for you. The house you looked at today should prove an excellent buy …” and, “If you purchase the house …” and, “You will have to make your own decisions.”¹⁵

And Jane herself has been thinking about the whole subject of psychic interrelationships since holding the 732nd session almost a month ago. She wrote recently: “We regard Seth’s material on counterparts and families of consciousness as excellent explanations — as thematic frameworks that help us perceive and organize facets of our greater reality that are ignored by conventional academic disciplines. Seth’s explanations stand for aspects of reality that usually escape us.

It might be added later here that on succeeding days Jane had several more auditory-type experiences, all involving topics other than houses or “Unknown” Reality. In none of those episodes was she aware of Seth’s voice, per se, but even so we see relationships between them and the time she did hear his voice; see my description of that event at the beginning of the 710th session.

9. In Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, see sessions 693–94 for April 29 and May 1, 1974.