“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt glimpsed some of the principles involved when you were at [your downtown apartments] on several occasions—once when he tried to write a poem about the comprehensions that simply would not be verbalized.² I do not know how to explain some of this, but in your terms there is (underlined) light within (underlined) darkness. Light has more manifestations than its physical version (intently), so that even when it may not be physically manifested there is light everywhere, and that light is the source of your physical version and its physical laws. In a manner of speaking, light itself forms darkness. Each unit of consciousness, whatever its degree, is, again, composed of energy—and that energy manifests itself with a kind of light that is not physically perceived: a light that is basically, now, far more intense than any physical variety, and a light from which all colors emerge.

“Jane and I went to bed at about 1:15 A.M., after watching a movie on television. Subject: World War II. Jane lay quietly on my right, her back to me. As I rested face up in a very pleasant and peaceful state, waiting to enter the sleep state, I became aware of two extremely bright lights shining off to my right, beyond Jane’s form but within my peripheral vision. I knew, or saw, that these lights came from ordinary table lamps with columnar shades of white fabric, and that they sat on a round oak table like the one in our living room. The shade of the closest lamp was fatter and taller than its companion’s, but this didn’t seem to matter: I soon realized that both lights were supernally bright—so strong, indeed, that although I was very tempted to turn my head to look straight at them, I refrained because I wasn’t sure I could stand facing them. I understood that the lampshades were both comforting and protective, however, and I felt no fear, or even unease, at this adventure. I knew that I wasn’t dreaming, that the experience was most unusual. I also knew that by an act of will I could ‘swing’ the lights around in front of me if I wanted to, and I tried enough of this to verify that it was possible: As they moved the lights began to grow even more powerful—enough to quickly convince me that I didn’t want to confront their glare full blast, even with the shades.

The light of your questions (pause) is, in its way (underlined), an apport from that other inner universe. In your world light has certain properties and limits. It is physically perceived by the eyes, and to a far lesser degree by the skin itself. In your world light comes from the sun. It has been an exterior source, and in your world light and dark certainly appear to be opposites.

After supper Jane reread my accounts of my dream of last Saturday morning. February 9, and of my waking experience the next evening.¹ Both events had involved intense perceptions of color and/or light, and I’d told Jane that anything Seth cared to say about them would be most welcome. I’m especially intrigued by any similarities between my two adventures and the near-death experiences we’ve been reading about lately. In those NDE’s, as they’re called, people have often reported encounters with intense white light. I hadn’t been near death during my own experiences, certainly, but I do feel that through them I’d glimpsed ever so slightly that “light of the universe” that’s been so eagerly sought for—and sometimes reported—throughout history.

(According to the theory of relativity, no particle can be accelerated to the speed of light because its mass would become infinitely large as it approached light’s velocity; but this barrier is bypassed by stating that the particles in question have an imaginary proper mass — not rest mass — that is never less than the speed of light. M.H. asked, then: “Are these faster-than-light particles the same as, or like, the electromagnetic energy or EE units Seth discusses in the Appendix of The Seth Material?”)

Your light, again, represents only a portion of an even larger spectrum than that of which you know; and when your scientists study its properties, they can only investigate light as it intrudes into the three-dimensional system. [...]

Some of these will fall into the faster-than-light groupings, and have a perceivable vitality within that framework. These faster-than-light particles of course exist in their own kind of form then. [...]

(A note, pertaining to faster-than-light effects. On the Sunday following this session, a leading New York City newspaper reported that astronomers have observed two components of a quasar flying apart at, apparently, ten times the speed of light. [...]

[...] One light was on in the living room but this bothered her, even though she sat with her back to it. I turned this light off then and turned one on in the kitchen; this cast an indirect light into the living room, enough for me to see to write.

(But this light also bothered Jane, to such an extent that within a few minutes she switched it off. This left the room lit spasmodically by the lights from passing traffic. [...]

[...] I tried to take notes in this poor light, but gave up after half a dozen lines. [...]

[...] Her chair was against a wall, and out of the direct line of reflected traffic lights, although I could see shadows pass across the white blur of her face. [...]

[...] We turned most of the lights off; at one point all were off though there was some light from the streets. The auras, oddly enough, were more easily seen by us in the light. [...]

Then we sat around coffee table with lights on, and lighted candle down to the end of the table. [...]

[...] If this was the case, how come the auras were more visible in light than darkness, since you are more suggestible in the dark. The other manifestations also happened in light, though we did try darkness with no effects showing. [...]

During class, with the lights on, Rose Cafford suddenly said that she saw my aura. [...]

[...] But there are no friends like old friends and no lights like lights that explode. [...]

All, all–life is full of vitality, and all life is joyful, and sitting around the table with long faces is not any more beneficial than sitting around the table with wine on it and the lights lit. [...] Vitality grows as it triumphs over sorrows and in any of my antics, as with the suddenly exploding light, there is also a purpose. [...]

Now if I were coming here for fun, I would indeed enjoy smiles and light and conversation. [...]

[...] But the matter, the lights, did indeed seem a suitable reaction on my part. [...]

[...] A mental image then is also a pattern of internal sound with electromagnetic properties imbued with certain light values. In a sense, and a very real one, the mental image is incipient matter; and any structure so composed, combining the electromagnetic sound and light values, will automatically try to reproduce itself in physical existence, or materialization. [...]

(Pause at 9:25.) Electrons, atoms, and molecules¹ all have their independent interior sound and light values. There are definite sounds produced when messages leap from your nerve ends.² It is very difficult to explain some of this, but there is “invisible” light, then, and inaudible sound, that affects your body and helps form the pattern about which it constantly emerges.

[...] (Long pause.) The electromagnetic and inner sound patterns are impinged upon by certain kinds of light. [...]

The atoms and molecules that compose your cells and your flesh, for instance, do not react to the physical sounds that you hear or to the light patterns that your physical eyes perceive. [...]

The same applies however to light, for the atoms and molecules also exist as patterns of light that are unperceived by you. [...] At a certain point sound becomes visual, and light becomes sound. [...] At one level sounds then can be theoretically perceived as light. Vowels and syllables exist as light as validly as they exist as sound.

Vowels and syllables build up their own kind of (in quotes) “light pattern,” or light picture, again, that you do not perceive. Light as you think of it then also exists as sound. [...]

[...] Sound and light both result from the interaction of different kinds of cordellas. [...]

Then let me add that numbers, sound and light are of course all related and all versions of highly complicated cordellas. [...]

[...] The last line in the poem he had completed just before dinner spoke of a light that would illuminate both worlds, one of the soul and one of the flesh. Consciously he thought the light must have been caused by lightning, even while he knew with another portion of himself that that was not the case.

[...] His eyes were wide open and he stood in the exceedingly small kitchen — when suddenly there appeared before him a round soft yellow light.

[...] The meaning of the light will become even clearer through Ruburt’s dreams,³ the intuitive continuation of the poem, and physical example.

The meaning of the light will normally become unfolded as he is ready to fully perceive it. [...]

(A tiny point of light grew on the edge of the ring. But by moving my arm, I discovered I could make this light wink on and off; it was simply red reflection from the candle. So I placed the light behind the curtains, where it was much diffused.

(Seth then had the cold inner light suffuse Jane’s wrist and palm to an even more remarkable degree. At the joining of hand and wrist, the flesh rose up in an egglike lump; the light crept up Jane’s arm to her sweater, and bled down her fingers until all semblance of shadow was gone. [...]

[...] Your bathroom is much too light for what you desire. [...] When I asked if he required total darkness to be at his best, he replied, “We make light from darkness.”

[...] Sitting quietly in the dim light, staring at the ring, I soon realized that with a nudge or two from the imagination the unwary observer might not have too much trouble seeing what he wanted to.

[...] Cells are not just responsive to light because this is the order of things, but because an emotional desire to perceive light is present.

[...] The cellular structure at that point responds to light, and activates latent abilities in the cellular structure of the mother’s body. [...]

[...] He is aware of light and shadow, of shape and form, though he must learn to distinguish these portions from the available field of reality that you accept as objects, from the available field that you do not accept as objects.

The desire appears on this other level in the form of these electromagnetic units, which then cause a light sensitivity. [...]

[...] As usual, the little light on her bureau to my right was on. I lay flat on my back, with my head turned a little toward the dim light. [...] Then I became aware that once again I was perceiving “the light of the universe,” as Seth calls it. [...]

“As I came out of the experience a few moments later I resolved to paint a small oil of it, as I’ve done following my three previous perceptions of the light of the universe this year — on February 9 and 10, and on June 16. And it’s obvious that in tonight’s little adventure I had once again cleverly protected myself from confronting the full creative blast of the light of the universe by allowing myself just a peek at it, and a careful one at that, at the top of a door. [...]

Do your painting of your light experience² — and of course continue with your [other] painting.

Ruburt is anxious that Prentice present our books in the best light in the world. [...]

Tell our friend however that when he is light-hearted he is light-limbed and moves lightly. [...]

[...] And the point, buried somewhat in the past, came to light of consciousness, for within intuitively the necessary connections had already been made.

[...] He was in a dream state, and in the dream I appeared to him in the form of a pyramid of lights. [...]

[...] The lights were my thoughts (pause), in their electromagnetic form. [...]

In Note 1 for Session 709 I wrote that “Tachyons … are supposed faster-than-light particles that are thought to be possible within Einstein’s special theory of relativity.” (In the session itself Seth makes some intriguing references to related possibilities: “In out-of-body states, consciousness can travel faster than light — often, in fact, instantaneously.” Also see Note 2.) In the 682nd session for Volume 1, while discussing his CU’s, or units of consciousness, Seth told us: “Of course they move faster than light.” [...]

Interestingly enough, several very distant quasars have been linked to certain observed faster-than-light effects, thus contradicting current physical theory that nothing can exceed the speed of light. [...] The faster-than-light effects may be the results of observations that are simply not understood in some as-yet-unexplained way….

[...] (Jane shook her head, her eyes closed.) As they fall backward through themselves — I’m getting this — I don’t know how to say it — the faster-than-light particles collapse in on top. The dead hole seems to swallow itself, with the real fast particles like a lid that gradually diminishes … From our point of view the hole is closed, say, once the faster-than-light particles follow the slower core backward into beginnings.”

[...] When it emerges in another universe, the faster-than-light particles have slowed down, and the core becomes faster than light. [...]

At a certain point you will feel alert and conscious but very light. Within your mind you may see bright lights. [...]

You may, instead, just lie quietly and concentrate on a dark screen until images or lights appear on it. [...]

[...] Step lightly. [...] They are light. They are light in weight and in illumination. [...]

Now, although I admit I usually come to you with a voice like a musical thunder, with a voice that seems to weigh a thousand pounds, that seems to plop into the room, yet I can also come lightly as a leaf and be here when you do not know. [...]

[...] Walk lightly. [...]

[...] The light will not blind your eyes but open new eyes you do not know you possess, give you freedom you do not know... [...]

[...] There are particles that move faster than light. There are portions of your consciousness that move faster than light also—but while you conceive of your consciousnesses as a kind of psychological particle, then your experience of it becomes limited to the world of matter in which you believe it must exist.

[...] There is no such thing as true psychological invisibility, and basically consciousness can perceive without light in physical terms. [...]

You do not simply have, say, one past self, or one future self, but many— for your consciousness shoots out, so to speak, in all directions “faster than the speed of light.”

[...] Basically, then, your consciousness and your perceptions operate faster than light. [...]

I was particularly aware of my lower astral legs, hovering above the physical ones, and took great pleasure in wiggling them about, enjoying the marvelous sense of freedom and lightness they possessed. [...] I could see that they were light-colored, translucent from the knees down — this without my sitting up in my astral form to see them.

All the while, I was very conscious of the white light that was beginning to bother me. [...] A funny whooshing sound inside my head also distracted me and my head itself began to feel fantastically light. [...]

Ignoring the light, I willed myself to go to the house of the Linden family, across town. [...] It was dark, with no lights on in the house, and I decided to go inside.

At this point the pulsations of the white light inside my head quickened and grew very powerful. [...] I kept “testing” the strength of the light during the whole experience, and each time decided to continue despite it. [...]

[...] The quality called light on this plane could just as well appear as sound in another, and for that matter even on this plane light can be changed into sound and sound into light.

[...] Darkness or very dim red light will produce the best results for beginners. Rob asked if it would be possible for me to continue in full light. Malba said light would not bother her, but might bother me. [...]

[...] I tried to put myself into light trance. [...] We had no idea of what effects we might get, and because of the poor light Rob did not take notes during the experiment. [...]

(This morning at breakfast I had announced that light was also a mental enzyme, to Jane’s surprise and somewhat to my own. [...]

Pretend that you are very tiny, and moving slowly about the tree so that you see only one light at a time. It appears that one light exists before the other, then, and each one is so brilliant to your focus that it blots out the lights before and after it. You may have a dim memory of the light you “saw” before, however, and so you think: “Aha, the bulb I see is my life, but I’m sure that long ago I had a different life — and perhaps another one lies ahead of me.” But unless you step far back from the tree you will not realize that the entire string of lights exists at once. Nor will you understand that when one light goes out in a strand it appears somewhere else on the tree in another strand.

Imagine a string of different-colored Christmas tree lights, all glowing on a given tree. In this series of lights, any one light can go out while the others continue to shine. [...]

However, in our imaginary assortment there are many such strings, and when a light goes out on one string “it” almost automatically appears on another string. Now generally speaking the lights are all lit at once on any given string, except for those that now and then go out.

A tree could be wired with lights, with each one having its own particular series [of waves]. The people who put up the tree might experience one Christmas Eve, while other consciousnesses, tuned in to the different series, could experience endless generations¹³ — and their perceptions would be quite as legitimate as those of the light-watchers who had erected the tree.

Now I can tell you what the light is, but when I do that, I am a poor teacher, for a good teacher knows how to let others discover meanings for themselves, and that is a part of your experience. Otherwise you would not be working with the light. The question is not, what is the nature of the light? [...]

[...] Edgar hypnotizes Maria and she, by scanning lights which she sees in the patient’s chest, can read the symptoms. [...]

[...] You need to grow beyond the concern for the nature of the light. [...]

[...] Maria remarked there was no change or fluctuation in the lights while Seth was speaking than she had seen in Jane the previous evening.)