“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

He has free will to make any decisions that he is able to make (intently). This means that his free will is contained, given meaning, focused, and framed by his neurological structure. He can only move, and he can only choose therefore to move, physically speaking, in certain directions in space and time. [...]

[...] The awakening mentioned earlier, then, found man rousing from his initial “dreaming condition,” faced suddenly with the need for action in a world of space and time, a world in which choices became inevitable, a world in which he must choose among probable actions—and from an infinite variety of those choose which events he would physically actualize. [...]

(9:39 P.M. “Before the session, I knew he was going to talk about the Garden of Eden, choices, and reincarnation, “Jane said. “I felt this great big block of information, and again I felt it was shattering, that he broke through doors once more. [...]

The Garden of Eden story in its most basic sense refers to man’s sudden realization that now he must act within time. [...]

(9:32.) As he resumed “normal” consciousness Ruburt found himself wondering about the great violence involved, and the entire situation in which such people placed themselves. (He often has the radio on when he is working with alternate states of consciousness, by the way, using it as a point of reference.)

Someone else may choose to focus upon intellectual achievement to such a degree that he shuts out all true closeness, and though he can accept a permanent relationship, he will not experience the emotional richness that others may derive from a much briefer encounter. [...]

[...] At any point that an individual realizes his point of power in the present, he will not need a barrier to test himself against, or to focus him in what he thinks of as the proper direction.

[...] In those instances the achiever’s beliefs predominate, and yet apart from this he may also be acting out the unrealized aspirations of his family members, or of the group in which he is intimately involved. [...]

[...] Since he seems to keep you in mind sufficiently enough to give the messages, you can presume that he will continue to do so; and when he clearly communicates with me, then I will question him in that regard.

[...] (Pause.) The other personality (smile), which is also myself, has a warm spot in its heart for me (stronger, forceful voice), though again, he would not put it in those terms. He enjoys his own existence.

[...] First of all, in a dream he saw that the book would be published. [...] He leaped ahead into the future out of desire for it to occur. [...]

(The specific reasons were not given, Seth saying he would relay the material to me when next he heard from Van Elver. [...]

He became afraid that the body would go out of control and commit violent action, because he was of course aware of the strength of the denied thoughts and feelings. When a crisis situation arose or when he became lost in despair, an acceleration began that he pretended not to notice, and Augustus Two would appear.

In his normal state he accepted only the beliefs he considered were expected of him. [...]

(10:35.) Augustus Two was filled with a sense of power — because Augustus considered power wrong and set it aside from what he thought of as his normal self. Yet Augustus knew the body needed the vitality that he had denied it. [...]

[...] She repeated the idea she’d voiced several times lately — that although Seth had ended the Augustus data rather abruptly in Chapter Six, he planned to return to it occasionally through the book.

In this book he comments on our religions, sciences, cults, and on our medical beliefs as well, with an uncompromising wisdom — as if — as if he represents some deep part of the human psyche that knows better, that has always known better — as if he speaks out not only with my voice but for many many other people — as if he represents the truths that we have allowed ourselves to forget.

Following this, in our next session, Seth confirmed that the material amounted to a partial outline for his projected new book, and that the title I’d “picked up” while he was still finishing Mass Events was correct. So though he hasn’t begun it as of this writing, two days later, surely he will start dictating Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment any day now. [...]

[...] In this current book, however, he discusses in depth how our private realities merge into mass experience. For that reason he examines the public arena, and devotes a good deal of material to Three Mile Island and to the Jonestown mass suicides as well. [...]

But however we attempt to define Seth’s reality, I’m convinced of one thing by now: He is delivering to our conscious minds our deepest unconscious knowledge about ourselves, the world, the universe, and the source of Being Itself. Not that Seth claims any kind of omnipotence, because he doesn’t. His material, however, is clearly providing such translations of unconscious knowledge, and intuitive disclosures; disclosures, according to Seth, no more remarkable than those available in nature itself, but we have forgotten how to read nature’s messages; disclosures no more mysterious than those available in our own states of inspiration, but we’ve forgotten how to decipher those communications too. [...]

[...] He asked me to vacuum his room, nonchalantly as if it were taken for granted that I perform the chore. [...] If he wanted his room vacuumed he should do it himself. [...]

[...] In dream, he stands for authority; he was also quite a drunk. [...]

[...] The thought belongs to the individual from whose mind it sprang, and yet he does not really possess it. He can keep it but he cannot keep it. He can hold it as his own, and yet he cannot prevent it from passing on to others, though he presses his lips tightly and does not speak it aloud.

Each self is therefore not only ejecting almost in missile fashion such energy from his own core, but he is also constantly impinged by such energy from others. He chooses to translate whatever portions of this energy he so chooses, back into forms that can be picked up and understood by his own mechanism.

[...] Checking with Bill later at the hospital, we learned he was asleep at this time. His condition is much improved and he is due for discharge Saturday.

[...] It is his and yet, though he possesses it, he still cannot prevent others from sensing it. [...]

In prehistoric times mankind evolved the ego and self-consciousness to help him deal with the camouflage patterns that he had created. [...] He did the job so well that even when he had things under control he was not satisfied. He developed at a lopsided level. He used himself as a tool to dissect himself. The inside senses led him to a reality he could not manipulate as easily as he could a camouflage world, and he feared what he thought of as a loss of mastery.

Usually in these sessions only one inner sense is in strong operation, but as I mentioned in our last session, man does not trust anything which occurs to him or in him unless he is consciously aware of what he is doing, how he is doing it, and why. It bothers Ruburt, as he has said in my hearing, that often-times just before we begin our session formally he does not have a thought in his head. [...]

[...] Because actually it is the apparent difference within himself that he fears, and he has projected this fear upon the part of himself he considered less capable of fighting back. And this, dear friends, was a big mistake, because the part of him that he denies fights back with more power than he knows.

[...] He still wants to know if I am part of his subconscious—and I must admit I do find such an idea appalling—and he wants his answers given to him in a manner which his conscious mind can understand. [...]

[...] He did not start with the rudiments of culture, as is thought. He did not learn (pause) through trial and error to think clear thoughts. He thought quite clearly from the beginning. He did learn through trial and error various ways of best translating those thoughts into physical action. [...]

He also realized that at least to some extent this energy had accumulated as a result of his own good intentions, and his desire to help others. He called this “Helper,”¹ and he never saw the form clearly again. [...]

[...] I’d been admiring the loving care with which he’d addressed himself to each portion of his body. In the light from the lamp above and behind my right shoulder on the room divider, his greenish eyes were so beautifully colored, yet mysterious, that I found it hard to believe he can’t see color. I also asked Jane about what use the gorgeous colors of Billy’s luxurious fur are to him if he can’t appreciate those patches and stripes of sienna, black, warm gray, and pure white. [...]

(Pause.) Some years ago, Ruburt had an experience in which he glimpsed in the center of the living room a strange form. He sensed that the form was composed of energy that was definitely predisposed to come to his assistance, or to do his bidding.

[...] More, as he looks about, our artist discovers that he is literally surrounded by other paintings that he is also producing. As he looks closer, he discovers that there is a still-greater masterpiece in which he appears as an artist creating the very same paintings that he begins to recognize.

Our artist then realizes that all of the people he painted are also painting their own pictures, and moving about in their own realities in a way that even he cannot perceive.

In a flash of insight it occurs to him that he also has been painted — that there is another artist behind him from whom his own creativity springs, and he also begins to look out of the frame.

(Then in the 754th session, on August 25, Seth gave an excellent dissertation on what he called “the stamp of identity” — explaining how the individual psychically marks certain exterior aspects of reality and “makes them his or her own,” in tune with personal inner symbols. [...]

Yet on a deeper level he still retains hold upon other existences, so much so that he even yearns subconsciously for those past realities, which mean safety, since their problems have already been solved. He is unbound emotionally and psychically by physical time, even while his physical body ticks with physical minutes.

[...] Since man is aware subconsciously of a heritage for which he ever seeks, and yet which for many reasons he cannot grasp while in the physical state, he must know and not know, and there is a strain here that no fish or bird or worm experiences. [...]

[...] As an actor in a drama goes along with certain acts and gestures that make the play necessary, while at the same time he realizes that the play is a play, he must still focus his attention upon the lines spoken, and use the props available.

He has brownish hair and glasses, and a slight mole on one of his cheeks. He is not even aware of his own feelings in the matter, but considers himself something of a father image as far as Philip is concerned, and feels somewhat betrayed.

There are rhythms he is following, periods of muscular release, in which first he feels somewhat lethargic. These are followed, as over the weekend, by periods in which he feels like physical activity, and begins to strengthen the muscles.

[...] He is following his inclinations. There is a change in chemicals and hormones, so that he is for now mentally cushioned and relatively unconcerned about events.

Now ideally the body could at once heal itself, so that in the next moment he walked with perfect ease. [...]

[...] They represent the fact that he now trusts himself. [...]

He suspects that others have some difficulty, that they do not understand themselves sufficiently, and add to their own problems through putting to use the methods in his first such book. He did not want it (in quotes) “flooding the market,” used by people who would follow the techniques and then write for help.

(In mid-February, Richard Kearns finally called Jane, to tell her he’d been fired from Gallery. He has her short story and a chapter of Seven—promised to return them—but not as of February 21....)

[...] He promised a letter of explanation which still hasn’t arrived as of this session. [...]

[...] He thinks that my book—this one (Personal Reality)—should be read before people begin to dabble with the board and so forth. [...]

(9:01.) Give us a moment… He deals with the effect of thinking upon nature, so to speak. He adds to the rest of nature. (Pause.) He therefore adds a different kind of mental organization — an organization, then, that nature itself requires, anticipates, and desires. [...]

Now: Had Ruburt gone to a doctor or a faith healer when we began our last group of sessions, and then in a matter of a week or so found himself able again to walk with his [typing] table across the kitchen floor, some thirteen or fourteen steps perhaps, where before three were his uncomfortable limit, he might have attributed the improvement to a doctor’s treatment or to a faith healer’s ability — but he would have been impressed. He would have been impressed also with the greater obvious motion of his feet, the feelings of release in the legs now spreading to the back and shoulders.

(Pause.) Man serves his purposes within nature, as all species do, and in the terms of your understanding man “thinks” in his own way, but he is also the thinking portion of nature. He is the portion that thinks, in your understanding, again, of that term.

Those improvements came about in their way magically, because he has begun to use and understand this material. So let him be just as impressed — in fact, more impressed — at the body’s natural healing processes, that will naturally flow and are naturally flowing when he allows himself to trust his life and the support of his own being.

“No, it’s just that before that program I felt he had a lot of complicated material to give, and I couldn’t get it afterward,” Jane replied. [...] At 9:23: “Now I can tell he’s got a new chapter heading…. I hope he comes through with something. [...]

One point before I close for this evening: He was quite correct in his interpretation as he watched your expression one evening while you slept—and it was no coincidence that he awakened to see it. [...]

[...] He’d stopped by on his way home to give me my old lenses, since he’d forgotten to do so at his office four days ago, when I’d had them replaced in my favorite old frames by the new, weaker lenses. [...]

“Probably he’s just getting back from the nearest galaxy,” I joked.

Man has always feared what he could not objectify. He has always attempted to objectify, to separate whatever realities he could from himself, to hold them in his hands, so to speak, so that he could observe and study them.

Those things, those realities which were most intimately connected with himself, those realities which he could not objectify and hold in his hands, he feared. He attempted to deny the existence of such realities, yet he cannot. [...]

He has not done so to any great extent. Until most recently he would not admit the existence of anything unless he could objectify it. Now, even in his scientific studies he discovers that his senses have often misled him, his precious solid objects for example found to be solid only to his senses, an appearance given by the limitations of his sensual perceptions.

[...] A.J. replied on November 22, stating that before he could answer Jane’s questions he would like Seth’s answers to three questions: “When was the last time you grew up?”, “What do you love?”, and “When is the self born?”

[...] Value fulfillment would not be achieved in some important directions if man ceased killing because he knew death did not exist. He must cease killing while he believes death does exist. He must solve the problem in the context that it developed.

Seth is of course a part of the session whether or not he speaks, as you are accustomed. In one way Ruburt’s pyramid image is quite legitimate, for you and he are at the base, with Seth in the middle and myself at the top. [...]

(Pause.) And tell Ruburt he is a rascal. He will know what I mean.

In the beginning of your sessions, Seth spoke about what he called the fifth dimension, and gave you an analogy meant to represent it. [...]

[...] You should always address yourself to the natural person, and when Ruburt becomes confused about images, it is because he is relating himself to other composite versions that he thinks he should live up to. [...]

He may think of some hypothetical literary writer—a composite image again, comfortable enough, slightly avant-garde, fashionably so, in contact with his peers, quite forgetting again that his—and his mind has always been far less conventional than that, far more probing and again, forgetting that he always enjoyed viewing society from a vantage point slightly outside of it. [...]

[...] He tries to view his own work through some idealized image of a psyche who is as gifted as he is as a writer, and also highly gifted in meeting the public, putting on performances, acting as a healer, as a prophet, and as an expert therapist all at once, and in so doing his own characteristics and natural abilities and inclinations become lost along the way. [...]

[...] I also was curious as to what he’d say about my speculation that the symptoms themselves might actually be one of her main challenges in this life.

Ruburt should fix foods that he knows he likes. [...] He eats because he must. Have him think more in terms of the creative preparation of pleasant foods he likes, an emphasis on an old forgotten pattern. He enjoys cooking when he thinks in that fashion.

[...] He will not feel he is force-feeding himself then. He likes gravy and potatoes, but does not bother because of you. He will enjoy the cream. [...]

[...] A good Speaker is as effective within one reality as he is within the other, creating psychic frameworks within physical reality as well as within interior environments. [...]

[...] I read it last night; Seth answered my questions about what he sees when he looks at me, both as himself, and through Jane’s eyes. [...]

[...] He works in great bursts of activity, but instead of understanding this, and trusting the quiet periods and the creative self, he is up in arms. [...]

[...] I could list many more, but probably won’t. I still don’t think Seth would want to spend much time discussing that old material in any detail, since he’s said many times that focusing on what was wrong in the past is negative and self-defeating. [...]

(Willy kept bugging me as I tried to make notes for this session—sitting as he does close to me on the couch, wanting to stare at me and be petted at the same time, while I try to accomplish something. [...]