“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(It wasn’t until I was typing up these notes at 9 PM on the same day, that Jane realized she could have been in at least a light trance while giving the material; at first she thought she had not been, but then realized she retained only a hazy idea of the material’s content—just that it was optimistic. But she did not remember specifics: that the first three chapters might be cut, etc.

[...] From my studio I could look down at Jane and the others, but I did not tell her the mail had arrived. [...]

[...] They might want me to cut the first three chapters—not cut them out, but condense them.

[...] The little adventure certainly fits in with Seth’s idea of counterparts, as he introduced it in the 721st session, but it raises a number of questions, too. Jane discussed my previous “visits” to the first century in Chapter 4 of her Psychic Politics, but [I can add later] she never did deal with this one. [...]

[...] I feel (as Seth mentioned in the 721st session) that I wasn’t Nebene, or two different Roman soldiers per se, but rather that my whole self chose to manifest such personalities together; that I, too, am such a manifestation at a “later” time, then, and that from my own vantage point I can tune in to those other lives. But I question, at least provisionally, any idea of past or counterpart lives that I lived one hundred percent. [...]

[...] I didn’t know, for they not only rearoused old questions, but brought up some new ones.

[...] I don’t know whether or not the city had a wall surrounding it earlier in that century, but assume it did.³

Your concept of time does not of course change time itself, but it does force you to perceive actions in a certain manner. Much of this is the result of the limitations of the physical organism, but much more is the effect of the development of the ego, which attempts to set itself up and apart from action.

[...] I took no notes Friday evening, but Peggy did. [...]

[...] An unscheduled social engagement, not in a private home but a public place... [...]

[...] Instead the dimensions of action have to do with intensities; not only the intensities of the electromagnetic components that compose them, but with intensities as they are translated into psychological terms. [...]

Both of you were sure of your love, but each of you at various times were quite willing to let its personal aspects take second place, and I am not speaking alone of physical love-making. [...]

(Now in an aside Seth told me there were many “strings” to the material; that it seemed to come “sideways,” but that it would all come together.)

[...] Eleanor, he discovered, was anything but his idealized concept of a literary editor. [...]

He felt he did not know much, but that he knew more in ways important to him than these people did. [...]

His reaction was to not hide the ability in your way, but to force the world to accept it. [...] But your limited focuses blinded you. [...]

[...] You were both happy when he showed some improvement, because neither of you wanted physical disability carried too far, but as soon as he showed signs of being free enough so that he could really take a trip, or dance, you both clamped down. [...] But despite what you said, he saw that you did indeed disapprove.

[...] The sportsman, the writer or the artist—any of them would utilize that background differently, but well, and in such a way that it was particularly suited.

[...] You were contributing financially, but neither of you correctly understood this because of that specialized focus.

[...] There is a relationship between the mountain and those strata but the term “mountain” is one that you have applied. [...]

[...] The cells are imprinted with physical information in terms of space and time,³ but those data came from a reality in which space and time are formed.

[...] The tree knows its present and future history,⁷ in your terms, but it understands a future that is not preordained. [...]

(10:52.) You choose your futures, but you also choose your pasts. [...]

[...] But obviously Jane has the freedom to engage in any project, and she chooses not to follow through with some of them. I think Magical Approach would have been a fine book as she planned it—but that it ended up squelched by at least two major factors: She was too inhibited by the subject matter [her physical symptoms] out of which the magical approach material had grown, and she was bothered because she had chosen to emulate the plodding way in which I put together the Seth books. [...]

[...] Questions like that must intrigue Seth even more than they do us; his dealings with us—but especially with Jane, of course—are as much learning experiences for him as they are for us. [...] As far as he’s concerned those storms and reaches aren’t physical, but instead consist of intensities of feeling—as they do for us too, basically.

[...] The mental and physical freedoms available will vary widely, according to time, nation, and history, but they will always be chosen. [...] Indeed, it’s quite obvious, but it’s the best way I can put it into words at the moment….” [...]

[...] (Such associations also apply to large geological and geographical events, for example, and I wish I had the time and space to go into those!) But if Jane and I, say, as counterparts are exploring certain long-range connections through our own adventures in consciousness, then the consciousnesses of related major events must have much greater abilities and desires for fulfillment. [...] This list can either be expanded almost indefinitely, or compressed—but, I think, these events and states of being all are psychically related. [...]

[...] But in this case the double was going about “its own affairs.” [...]

[...] He tried to have you take notes, but realized the physical incongruities. [...]

[...] Your concepts may limit your conscious experience of the psyche’s vast activity, but the psyche does not limit its experience.

[...] Ruburt was asking for flexibility but he did not fully want it, and so halfhearted questions bring halfhearted answers. [...]

[...] You are left with vague idealized feelings of wanting to change the world for the better, for example — but you are denied the personal power of your own impulses that would otherwise help direct that idealism by developing your personal abilities. You are left with an undefined, persisting, even tormenting desire to do good, to change events, but without having any means at your disposal to do so. [...]

[...] “There’s more there, but I got so I couldn’t get it,” she said, referring to her very relaxed state, which she still enjoyed. “But I feel this generalized material, then Seth zeros in on it specifically. [...]

[...] Many have high ideals, but ideals that have never been trusted or acted upon. [...]

[...] I do want to point out that few crimes are committed for “evil’s sake,” but in a distorted response to the failure of the actualization of a sensed ideal.

[...] You liked working with the land, but because of conflicts with your father you turned against, for example, gardening.

[...] This annoyed you greatly, but now to some extent you identify with those leanings, and look down upon the garden when Ruburt does not find his way to follow the gardening rules.

[...] (Humorously.) This is not to say that one of you is completely right and the other completely wrong, but I will tell you this: you can count upon Ruburt to recognize immediately and intuitively cases of such overly charged behavior on your part.

He thinks of this place in terms of a dwelling rather than as land, but because his attitude is not charged and because he does love land, he is able to enjoy what land there is. [...]

Now the image analogy is in some respects distortive, but good enough for our present purposes. [...] But when you realize that your own body cells are much more than physical, contain their own capsule comprehension, then you will see that they could, at least theoretically, operate in such a manner if you could throw your own consciousness into them, and perceive their seemingly alien experience.

[...] This was not because the discussion had upset her, but because it had fired her up. [...]

There is some slight analogy here in your associative processes, where you might think of a person as you have known him in different periods of time, and hold that idea in your present; but that does little to give you the concept’s complexity. [...]

[...] We well have to clear up many points for you, but we have to begin somewhere with various analogies to make a dent.

[...] “But I didn’t want to miss a session,” she said sleepily. [...]

Specific creativity is but one important aspect of the psyche’s vast, almost incomprehensible productivity, for it produces your lives. [...]

(9:49.) Many other issues were involved, as stated often—but all were based upon the misunderstanding of the spontaneous self—its creativity. [...]

The session just referred to on the creative state has important hints that Ruburt has been using, but can use better. [...]

[...] Our young gentleman friend has come a long way to visit me, but then I also came a long way, you see, to visit you.

I know that you have many questions, but we shall have to take these slowly, so that the answers are as plain as possible.

[...] Perhaps it is unfortunate, and perhaps it is not, but if you are to become involved to any important degree in this particular kind of endeavor, then you must be willing to devote time, energy and concentration to that work.

[...] I do not know, but the connection is there. [...]

In your terms of time, man has always projected unassimilated psychological elements of his own personality outward, but in much earlier times he did this using a multitudinous variety of images, personifications, gods, goddesses, demons and devils, good spirits and bad. Before the Roman gods were fully formalized, there was a spectacular range of good and bad deities, with all gradations [among them], that more or less “democratically” represented the unknown but sensed, splendid and tumultuous characteristics of the human soul, and have stood for those sensed but unknown glimpses of his own reality that man was in one way or another determined to explore.

(Jane’s arms and legs have been sore today, off and on, but she feels that beneficial changes are taking place in them as a result of the sessions on the magical approach to reality. [...]

[...] They have always represented, again, portions of mankind’s own psychological reality that to some extent he had not assimilated—but in a schizophrenic kind of expression, projected instead outward from himself. [...]

[...] In many such instances there will also be at least a short spurt of intense but scrambled, perhaps garbled, creative activity, in which the individual tries to recognize these various elements, as mankind himself has attempted many times in the creative, sometimes garbled creation of his own religions (with soft irony).

The type (underlined) of commercial art you did as a young man was not the answer, but served many purposes. [...] It gave you practice, but beyond the point that you pursued it, it could have frozen your abilities. [...]

[...] You felt that there was nothing you could do about the situation, that there was no reason to worry about it, but the anxiety was displaced then, draining your energies.

I am not saying that he was completely better then, but the improvements far outweighed the symptoms at that time. [...]

[...] You always have the energy and the means to meet the deepest needs of your own personality, but not to meet the needs of other kinds of personalities.

[...] You have taught yourselves to look outward into physical reality, but the inward validity of your being cannot be found there — only its effects. You can turn on television and see a drama, but the inward mobility and experience of your psyche is mysteriously enfolded within all of those exterior gestures that allow you to turn on the television switch to begin with, and to make sense of the images presented. [...]

[...] “But you have nine months to get used to having a baby. [...]

[...] I’m not sure, but I think that’s it….”

[...] I understood that she might be a little concerned about his starting a new book on such short notice; but on the other hand, I had no doubt at all that Seth — and Jane — could do it. [...]

[...] Now man is obviously part of nature, so you may say: “But those changes wrought by him are natural.” When he studies such animal behavior, however, and sometimes uses the sexual patterns of the animals to make certain points about human sexuality, then man does not take this into consideration, but speaks as if the present observed animal behavior is the indication of a prime or basic nature inherent in their biology.

To some extent the churches as well as the scientists are responsible, but priests and scientists are not some foreign people, thrust upon you. [...]

[...] Love goes underground, but springs up in distorted forms and exaggerated tendencies. [...]

[...] The acceptance of the species’ natural bisexuality would ultimately help solve not only those problems but many others, including the large instances of violence, and acts of murder. [...]

[...] Eleanor is to call again Friday after conferring the production manager about costs, etc., but in the meantime is preparing contracts. [...]

[...] But Dick’s message was certainly a heartening one, and one I’d say that Jane could really use to good effect.

[...] For Ruburt in a way it was an expression of daring, partially the result of your suggestions, and his growing understanding that he had become not too spontaneous, but too conservative. [...]

The desire to write was not conservative, but in many ways his attitude toward it became so. [...]

In the same way each of you form an overall dream world in which there is some general agreement, comma, but in which each experience is original. [...]

[...] There are other important reasons for dreaming, but here we will confine ourselves to this particular issue and to the dream landscape itself, period.

[...] He’s indicated this kind of punctuation throughout the book, but is usually more concerned about words to be underlined, or put in quotes or parentheses. [...]

[...] And let it above all, also arouse questions as it has with you (Arnold) and with you (Tom D.) but realize again that this vitality that rings through this voice rings through your own identity and yours. That the power beneath the voice is but a shadow of the vitality that is within each of you. [...]

[...] Now you are controlling it and disciplining it, but also, you are afraid of it. [...]