“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] He does not want to be involved with anything that may fail... [...] His ego is such that it makes him, in a strange manner, often prevent the sort of effects that he seeks. He asks too much, and receives too little. He will always be that way.

[...] He stressed that it was best to be very careful about inviting others to participate. Also he mentioned that he would like an example of voice effects on tape, as long as we had a recorder, and we discussed mailing the tapes to him from Elmira. [...]

[...] Dr. Instream said that the impression he had of Seth was of a very mature and capable mind. He was interested in getting this impression on tape because the Seth voice itself reinforced this feeling. Seth, he said, possessed tremendous insight.

[...] During our discussion Dr. Instream revealed that he had mailed the sessions listed above to his friend Dr. Gardner Murphy, at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and asked for his opinion. [...]

Later, as man insisted upon more objectivity of a certain kind, he determined that images of men should look like men—human beings, with weaknesses and strengths. [...] Some of da Vinci’s sketches already show that tendency, and he is fascinating because with his undeniable artistic tendencies he also began to show those tendencies that would lead toward the birth of modern science.

[...] Man always does best, or his best, when he sees himself in heroic terms. [...] He turned to landscapes also. [...] As it occurred, however, [man] began to make great distinctions between the world of the imagination and the world of nature, until finally he became convinced that the physical world was real and the imaginative world was not. [...]

(After lunch today Jane and I were visited by our old friend David Yoder, who’s been in Florida recuperating from the heart bypass surgery he underwent early this year.¹ David brought news that was at first startling, then quickly developed into several conflicting emotions and ideas for us: He’d just learned from a relative of hers that a few weeks ago Mrs. Steffans [not her real name], the wife of the couple we’d purchased the hill house from in March 1975, had committed suicide at her home in a Western state while her husband was away on a business trip.

[...] Jane met Mrs. Steffans just once, in 1973, when she came through with a spontaneous “reading” for the lady at an informal party David Yoder gave in the apartment he was renting at the time. [...]

Somewhat to my surprise he answered quickly, and he was quite enthusiastic. What he wanted was three or four sample chapters. [...]

[...] Bill in turn had told us about an apparition he’d seen a few years earlier when he was an art student. He’d never mentioned such a thing before. [...]

The next time we tried a few days later, Frank Withers said that he had been a soldier in Turkey during one life, and insisted (through the board) that he had known Rob and me in a city called Triev, in Denmark, in still another life. [...]

I don’t know what Rob would have thought then if he’d realized what Seth meant by “internal visual data,” though; and writing this now I just remembered that he was pretty surprised when his first few internal visions appeared with extraordinary vividness. [...]

(Our dear friend, Frank Longwell, who has been a great help to us for many years, visited while I had lunch today; he’s made his first sale of a hearing aid. [...] He apologized.

[...] In it he’d referred to early humans living for several centuries — the only time he’s ever made such a reference. [...]

[...] He knew instinctively what pressure points he wanted you to touch. [...]

(“What was that reaction he had when I rubbed his left temple?”)

[...] I added that we expected the Dutch translation of the same book to be published later this year, but that we didn’t know just when this would happen — so Jane and I were understandably surprised last Thursday to receive a letter from a reader in Holland, informing us that he’d just purchased a copy of the Dutch edition of Seth Speaks! [...] Jane called her editor at Prentice-Hall, Tam Mossman, who had no knowledge of the Dutch Seth Speaks being marketed either; he’s to check with Ankh-Hermes and let us know. Jane and I are pleased, though, since if Seth isn’t available yet in two foreign languages, he soon will be.

[...] With one exception [involving a portion of Session 862], he’s kept to that policy, setting aside Monday nights for other regular or private information.

(9:56 P.M. “Boy, how he got all that out of me, I don’t know,” Jane laughed, for she had been very relaxed before the session. [...]

[...] Seth has also used the phrase in connection with a next work.⁴ Now it appears that he’s settled upon a formal title for his book — one that Jane has received from him several times lately: Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment.)

[...] He has sense experiences. He runs, though he lies in bed. He shouts, though no word is spoken. He still has the language of the flesh, and yet that language is only opaquely connected with the body’s mechanisms. He deals with events, yet they do not happen in his bedroom, or necessarily in any place that he can find upon awakening.

(11:26 P.M. Jane said that it was as though Seth had just so much material planned for this evening’s session, and when he’d covered everything he called it a night.)

[...] You would do much better by being frank with him, for he becomes irritated and resentful when he feel you are upset, and is left to guess at the cause. For often he is not sure...

Now within certain boundaries, and taking certain circumstances for granted, Ruburt is more flexible than you may think he is. [...]

[...] Now he reacts you see by bothering you all the more, peeking in on you, to discover whether or not you are really upset, or rather, if his own imagination runs away with him.

The personality has endeavored to right old wrongs, and has succeeded to a great degree, but at the risk of sacrificing inner spontaneity, and even at the risk of losing the very authoritative aspects of his nature, so that there is still a tendency to follow rather than to lead; simply because in the period of the Inquisition he was in a place of authority, he led; and he led men into atrocities committed in the fine name of principle and religion. For this reason, while he is still tempted to lead, he allows himself to lead only in small ways, not trusting yet the judgment which at one time betrayed him.

[...] He is given to fervent allegiances, and often should listen to the dictates of inner discipline. The cruelty which he inflicted upon others during the period of the Inquisition was inflicted with the most pure of purposes. He believed firmly that he was following the dictates of God. [...]

(Seth stated that Jim Tennant is one of the group he expects to gather around Jane and me. Jim T. reported that this afternoon, upon being invited to attend a session by Jim B., he felt his scalp distinctly crawl on three separate occasions; lifting up as though it would detach itself. Jim T. stated that his mother is quite clairvoyant, that often when he is ill, for instance, she will get in touch with him before he has time to inform her of his illness.

[...] Jim Beckett stated that midway through the monologue, he felt the presence of Bill Macdonnel so strongly that he expected to see Bill walk in the door. [...]

[...] In ESP class the following night, Seth indicated that he was ready to expand his concepts of personality still further — though, again, he didn’t mention counterparts per se. He started by commenting on my experience with Maumee once more. Then he continued.)

[...] (To the class:) That is, he knew the black woman was not in the physical room with him in this space and time, running through his studio [where he had the experience]. But in other terms, she was indeed running in another environment that our friend was able to see, and to superimpose over the reality he knew, while keeping both intact.

[...] (Florence is in her late 40’s.) He has starved for years. He feels very vulnerable. [...]

[...] He believes that this is an opulent, luxurious, and wicked society, and yet he yearns toward it with all his heart.

“If you will remember our imaginary man as he stands upon a street, you will recall that I spoke of his feeling all of the unitary essences of each living thing within his range, using the first Inner Sense. [...] If he so chose, he would also feel the past amd future essence of each living thing within his range.”

There is a rather important section in the work he did today. He hit upon something, and if he had continued working, then he would not have needed to ask me in what dimension dream locations exist. He was close to the answer. In this particular section he told the reader that he suspected that Freud’s terms, the ego, or the conscious and the subconscious, had in themselves led you seriously astray. [...]

[...] He said that I might speak about dream locations, since he has been working on this subject for his own book.

He wants to know in what dimension dream locations have their reality, and indeed he has considered all of the possibilities save the correct one. [...]

[...] He has taken it for granted that dream locations do not exist within physical space.

[...] He is a portion of my reality and as such he continually exists. He does now exist in his own reality. [...] I am not only what he will one day become in your terms I am far more—and in me your Seth, while remaining a developing identity on his own, is a distant memory in my consciousness. [...] He entered your universe in a reality I find difficult to remember. He gave guidance to your kind for eons of your time. [...]

[...] But before I go, let me say this: Ruburt does not let himself realize, as yet, what he knows. For right now he feels he cannot afford to. He is learning to operate in several realities at once. [...]

[...] Yet he is a part of what I was. [...]

[...] He is lost in the netherlands. [...]

[...] There is a missing key, and the old man also possesses one to the mechanism, which he finally gives to Ruburt, who then operates it. The odd mechanism represents the mechanics of the law, which his father used poorly, and in fact he died before he had time to make the contraption mentioned in the dream.

[...] The creative artist is always involved in the expression of the ideal, and his work expresses that ideal as best he can.

[...] (Pause.) He was willing to put up with a good deal to do so, to overlook lacks of taste in presentation, say.

[...] Ruburt, however, would rarely deal with such issues at all, though he was aware of them, so you felt you bore the brunt. [...]

He must think of it as lovely, flexible, quick and responsive. [...] He must think of lovingly recreating it, of helping it. He knows this but lest he forget I will remind him. He must think of it as a joy, a comfort, an aid, rather than a rigid bony thing he must put up with. He should consider it a thing of joy to himself and to you.

Now it will help him to some important degree if he considers his arms and his hands in the following manner.

[...] Before the session I had asked that Seth give Jane a prayer that she could use for herself; I would say from the above that he responded in excellent fashion, as usual.

Now Ruburt did follow through here with your car, and he simply saw you paying the last of the money, without any idea of where the money was coming from, but believing it would be there while not draining your own account.

[...] Sometimes he paints for fairly long periods of time, then forgets about it. [...] He asked Joseph what he would like for a gift, and Joseph more or less replied: “A book on Cézanne.”

It did not occur to him that those experiences had anything to do with this book, or that in acting so spontaneously he was following any kind of inner order. He wanted these pages to follow neatly one by one. [...]

[...] Still, he often expects his own rather unorthodox experiences to appear in the kind of orderly garb with which you are all familiar.

[...] He did not contact Cézanne per se, but Cézanne’s comprehension of painting as an art.

He will not die, despite himself, so to speak. [...] He is, therefore, not abandoned. [...]

Remind Ruburt further (pause) that he did his best to help your mother, making efforts toward love and communication (long pause) that he felt you were not able to express toward your mother at times.

[...] Also remind him that he did not deal with malice toward his own mother. Do remind him affectionately and often that for many years he loved his mother deeply, and that his own existence made his grandfather experience a love that was a light in his later years.

[...] He is Jane to himself and to the universe and to you, and to his friends and his readers.

[...] Doug’s is unsteady, or wavering, because he held the envelope flat against his leg and tried to write on it with no other support. As stated he was trying to show me how he writes left-handed.

[...] As soon as Seth explained the data I remembered that Doug explained to Jane and me that he was wearing a new suit. This was when he first arrived. [...]

[...] Seth devoted much of the 229th session to what he said were tax and money problems involving Jimmy. [...] Saturday night Jane and I did wonder why Jimmy asked the particular question he did. [...]

[...] The object came into being when Doug, who is 14 years old, was showing me how he writes left-handed. [...]

Such financial success is therefore important, and has its place, but when Ruburt allows himself to become overly concerned with this, then he identifies too closely with the ego alone. There are obvious financial moves he intends to make. [...] When he identifies too closely with the ego he loses inner direction.

If he first of all focuses his abilities in his creative pursuits, then everything else will follow. He will have the energy to do whatever else he should do. But he must primarily focus his energies in his creative pursuits, for these give him the exuberance that makes other pursuits possible.

He has finally decided to make financial steps. [...] He is now ready to accept this rather than brood, and this will be of help, for the brooding drained his energy. [...] He is reinforcing them inadvertently. [...]

When these symptoms show themselves, then he should look out for health difficulties. [...] However he has his own pattern. [...]

[...] He is however under a considerable strain, as undoubtedly he has told you. [...]

[...] Ruburt naturally can learn and is learning to control his responses to such conditions, and incidentally this week he has made a few strides as far as the quiet times he has spent in using psychological time.

[...] He has read much of the material, and participated in the seance we tried. He has quite often expressed a desire to witness a session. [...]

[...] It was brief, but to the effect that if he were with a roomful of people he would not confront each one in turn but “experience” them altogether, using his inner senses to appreciate as a whole all the personalities and emotions about him.

April 14 Rob decides we really have to do something to tackle my difficulties which have been more than considerable lately, he suggests I call Tam to see when Events is out; or if it is, since April 13 is date of arrival. [...] Tam said he’d call back; no books had come yet but should, as far as he knew. [...]