“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] This was to be our first session since June 7, 1982. [...] I’ve just reread the last session, as has Jane, and will merely note here that I agree with much of it, especially with what I said in the notes —yet, rereading them, I can see how our attitudes brought about that material and its consequences. [...]

[...] As I said to Jane this morning during our long discussion, I still want to know why one portion of the personality would want to drive all of the rest before it, even to the point of destruction, and perhaps even beyond. [...]

[...] We agreed that from now on the sessions, and Jane’s own sessions, will have to come first in our lives, even before books or deadlines, so we take it from there. [...]

[...] I thought that situation analogous to ours, for I can think of nothing left to rely upon except ourselves. [...]

[...] Jane said that she never thinks of mysticism, herself, yet I think such factors could operate easily enough in our world. [...]

[...] She hasn’t walked a great deal lately, but our emphasis is now on trusting the body’s own wisdom as to when it wants to perform, and what it wants to do. [...]

[...] The entire issue, however, involving both questions, I would like to save for our next session. [...]

Your own ideas suited your temperament, but many of them did not particularly suit Ruburt’s. Again, I will elaborate on all of this at our next session.

I will first discuss our own particular circumstances, and then proceed to a more general discussion. [...] In our case a gestalt personality or a psychological bridge

(The session was held in our front room. [...]

[...] There are indeed psychological frameworks that operate in communications such as ours, and I shall attempt to explain their function and composition.

I am interested mainly in education, and with Ruburt’s training by me through our present methods, the processes themselves are more clearly seen and understood. [...]

(Jane and I decided to remain behind when, finally, last minute requests to evacuate our section of Elmira were made before dawn. Our decision, of course, contained deeply symbolic meanings for us that we still only partially understand. The Chemung River passes less than a block from our apartment house on its way through the center of the city, but since we lived on the second floor we thought we’d be secure. [...]

[...] We’d lost our car, but we had a place to live and had all of our paintings, manuscripts and records, including the fifty-three volumes of the Seth material, intact. [...] Our days became a routine of actions devoted to survival, although Jane finished Oversoul 7 early in July, and resumed her classes. [...]

[...] We sipped wine and used light self-hypnosis to take the edge off our tension, but as we watched the water crawl up the side of the old red-brick house next door, our new reality threatened to turn into a terrifying one indeed. [...]

[...] I suggested that Jane “tune in” psychically to see what she could learn about our situation. [...] She told me that the water would reach its highest level late that afternoon; incredibly, it would become almost ten feet deep in the yard and reach halfway up the first-floor windows of the house next to ours. [...]

Imagine a man in an automobile who passes our man at the corner. Now when our man in the automobile reaches the tree he is further ahead, so to speak, in distance. [...]

[...] Let us pretend this state of events, and let us compare the physical objects between our man and his tree to points somewhat corresponding to them in the inner world. It would be as if instead of seeing the various houses or whatever, our man instead felt them. [...]

[...] In your camouflage pattern you must adapt yourself to the effects of heat and cold, but our man in the inner world would not be under any such obligation. I am speaking now only of our first inner sense.

This difference in immediacy is rather important for our consideration of the inner senses. [...]

Do not fear that many sessions will pass before we return to our own material. Our last session was indeed an important one. [...]

[...] It was held in our quiet back room. [...]

I knew what I was doing in our last session. [...]

(A close friend, one who used to attend Jane’s ESP class, had called our unlisted number to ask one of us some psychic questions. [...] After I hung up we wondered why our friend, who knows our usual routine so well, hadn’t realized that we’d probably be having a session at this time on a Monday evening.

1. These excerpts from the session for April 9 (which we hadn’t requested, by the way) indicate Seth’s response to discussions Jane and I had been having about our personal functions as artists, as well as the use of art generally in our chosen probable reality. [...]

I want to add that even with ideas of religious determinism—that man cannot know God’s will, for instance, or is quite dependent upon that divine grace—we’re still creating our conscious ideas of what God is, in those terms. So once again we have a determinism that operates within our sensual and intellectual boundaries: another framework within which we ceaselessly attempt to understand “the meaning of life.”

Even in modern terms, our psychological and medical knowledge of mind and brain have added more complications to the doctrine of free will, yet it survives and grows. And all the while I worked on this note, I felt strong connections involving free will, determinism, and probable realities—connections largely unexpressed and unexplored in our world’s societies.

Now, our friend seldom attempts to block during a session as he did in the past. [...] This is why we did not have our last session. [...]

Our friend is finally learning to take his concentration away from his symptoms, and he is losing them. [...] Now, to show our friend that I can also make concessions, we will close the session.

Now we can do no more with our friend this evening. [...]

(During sessions now, Jane sits in our rocker across from my writing table. She usually faces our big bay window. [...]

[...] We freeze them, so to speak, in order that we might hold them within our grasp, but we cannot, nor is there a time, as such, when they will be completed or finished.

[...] Jane had thought Seth would continue the interruption as our first break, but shortly she announced he wanted to continue. [...]

[...] You remember our discussion concerning density of intensities. [...]

[...] But Seth seems to lay to rest our concerns here this evening. [...]

[...] I remarked to Jane today, then, that what we need is more insight into the phenomenon of such thinking itself—for after all, that approach to life’s challenges has led to our problems, it seems to me. [...]

Now: generally speaking, Ruburt enjoys our sessions, and considers them with a natural zest. [...]

[...] Such feelings can then for a while override his natural inclinations and his natural enjoyment and his natural excitement with which he otherwise views our sessions. [...]

(Jane and I do have colds—full-blown ones, evidently picked up from one of our visitors last Saturday evening. We didn’t hold our regularly scheduled session last night because we felt so miserable. [...]

This afternoon Jane said she’d learned from Seth that we’d come down with those indispositions because we wanted to use our bodies’ immune systems; those structures needed the workouts, in other words. I’d had a vaguely similar thought this morning, and it had reminded me of my feelings on Saturday night—that our friend’s continual sneezing amid the group was actually a prolonged act of aggression.

Tonight’s session isn’t book dictation, but the large portions of it I’m presenting convey useful insights into our social behavior and social health—and as I show in Note 1, those states can include our interactions with animals.

1. Seth first mentioned viruses in the 17th session for January 26, 1964, when I asked him to comment upon the recent deaths of our dog, Mischa, at the age of 11, and of a pair of kittens Jane had obtained from the janitor of the art gallery where she worked part time. (The kittens had the same mother, but had come from successive litters.) I was 44 and Jane was 34, and in conventional terms both of us were still struggling—not only to learn about ourselves and the world, but to find our creative ways in that world. [...]

In our own sessions I have explained something that I haven’t mentioned in class, and it is this: For every moment of time that you seem to exist in this universe, you do not exist in it. [...]

[...] Now, I am speaking to our friend over here (Art O., an engineer) because he may perhaps have a comprehension of what I am trying to explain, because of his background.

(Art O.: “Are these pulses extremely fast in our terms?”)

(Jim H.: “Would a noninterval be a positive interval to another aspect of our existence?”)

[...] Jane and I have started our own list for Wednesday night’s session, instead. It can hardly be a coincidence that this “opportunity” materialized shortly after we began our new program suggested by Seth, and what we’ve learned about our attitudes toward publicity, scorn and criticism, and go forth. Perhaps our handling of the affair will show just where we’re at, as they say. [...]

[...] Jane gave him our unlisted phone number. [...]

(Jim Poett said that we would see the article before it’s printed, at our insistence; I’d find it strange indeed to cooperate with a venture that would end up taking us apart in ways we didn’t approve of. [...]

[...] We had most of our windows and both doors wide open, but since all seemed rather sheltered from the wind anyhow, I decided to see if we could ride out the storm without shutting up the house.)

[...] I then suggested we go shopping and run our other errands earlier in the day than usual, thinking the physical activity would help.

[...] Once again we held the session in our small back room, and Jane spoke sitting down and with her eyes closed. [...]

I did indeed contemplate putting off our session for this reason. [...]

[...] Our next session will cover much material, and I presume that Ruburt will be in much better condition to hold it.

[...] She is a retired, unmarried school teacher, 74 years old, who for the last fifteen years has lived in the front apartment on the second floor of our apartment house. [...] Our doors are perhaps fifteen feet apart. Miss Callahan’s apartment faces West Water St., on the south; our place faces the west.

(This was our second consecutive session without the board, though I had it out simply to use as a handy writing board on my lap. [...]

[...] 21—two days after our last session, the 27th, on Wednesday Feb. [...]

The exasperation comes because your good psychiatrist almost undermined the confidence that I managed to give Ruburt in our session with your friend Philip.

We will then close our session, but I will begin to take up the matters discussed this evening at our next session. [...]

[...] Our relationship will be a steady and enduring one. [...]

[...] We will almost immediately resume our basic material. [...]

[...] A couple of weeks after our return from New York City, Fred wrote Jane a glowing letter.)

You paint because you want to paint, and you set aside certain hours for your painting to insure that you will have sufficient time to do what you want to do; and this should be the reason for the regularity of our sessions.

[...] Our sessions have also had their basis in spontaneity and creative energy, and the spontaneous nature always shows itself. [...]

[...] I know him, and hence I have suggested the periods mentioned in our last session, with weeks set aside for sessions, and time off from them. [...]

Our material will flow clearly now along those lines that are most important. [...]

(I told the women that Jane and I were getting tired of such activities going on behind our backs, and that now I wouldn’t make a move without legal advice. [...] Above all, I said, we’re not going to do anything that will compromise our case against the insurance claim. [...]

(Our scheduled meeting with Kim Evans, director of social services at the Chemung County Infirmary, and Connie Lido, head nurse there, took place at about 1:40 This afternoon. [...]

[...] She seemed receptive when I explained our need for privacy, that it was vital therapy, and talked of moving Jane directly into a private room. [...]

[...] Again, our sessions set up additional frameworks, in which healing takes place, and the improvements will show also in your joint living conditions—so set your minds at rest. [...]

(I suppose the two-part article marks the end of our involvement with the media, though this opinion may change. [...] Unfortunately, I suppose, this also means that we set ourselves outside the mainstream of activity in the field, and that our readership is likely to be pretty much confined to the “average” individual. [...]

Some of the reasons for such activities are sketched in our new book. [...]

[...] When we return to our ordinary schedule I will more than keep you busy—but the unknown reality applies in such cases, so that unknown motives can become known and dealt with.

Ruburt does not need to feel that he would naturally, left alone, go out into the world, into the arena, and convince the world of our ideas, or think that with his energy unimpeded that would be part of his natural mission. [...]

[...] I enjoy the great vitality and exuberance of your reality, and our city will have joy and exuberance. Now joy sounds quite acceptable, but (with amusement) our city will also have fun — which in many spiritual circles is not so acceptable!

[...] And so our city will be full of them. [...]

[...] And so our city will have its own kind of tricky walks! [...]

And so our city will simply have alternate sidewalks, and they will be beloved traps, set by each self.