“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Jane and I were saddened Monday morning to discover that our black cat, Rooney, had died unexpectedly during the night. [...]

(Because of his particular disposition, Rooney had furnished ideal companionship for our other cat, Willy, who is several years older, and Jane and I had often speculated about the special relationship between the two. [...]

[...] Our visitor is to send us transcripts of the tapes he made. [...]

[...] I gave the information [in this chapter] purposely when I did, knowing that our visitor from the psychiatric clinic would be here.

(“Will our abilities grow as we practice contacting you?”)

(“Why is it that in our readings on psychic phenomena we have never come across the word fragment used in just the way you employ it. [...]

(“Why is Jane rather reserved about our contacts with you? [...]

(“What was the image our friend Bill Macdonnel saw in the rocking chair, in his bedroom in Niagara Falls, in December of 1961?”)

[...] I am going to tie in this material with our discussion on our electromagnetic energy units, as there is a close connection.

(During our break I wondered aloud if Jung had changed his ideas since his physical death.)

[...] We will continue with this discussion at our next session.

[...] Now we will end our session, unless you have questions.

(Since Jane began dictating Mass Events 11 months ago, I’ve mentioned our checking the printer’s page proofs for two of her other books: Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, and Cézanne. [...] So now we’re spending much of our working time checking — and double-checking — the proofs against our carbon copy of the copyedited James manuscript. Our scrutiny will include spelling, punctuation, and all of the other indicia that people take for granted when they read the finished work. [...]

[...] Indeed, our books follow their own rhythms, and this one is in a way a further elaboration upon The Nature of Personal Reality.¹

(His delivery just above, about accepting the responsibility for one’s actions, reminded us of the personal challenges that have accompanied the roles we’ve chosen in our own physical lives. [...]

Before we have our first break, I will now welcome our guests, although I regret that so much of the material will not be clear, since so much of it rests upon previous discussions with which they are not familiar.

I am going to give you some more material concerning our discussion of matter, but first I would like to make one comment.

(From my seat at the living room table next to the windows, I happened to look out in time to see the Pipers turn the corner and move down the street toward our house. [...]

We will again use this chair, this time to explain our point. [...]

[...] In our sessions I have explained something that I have not 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 (to Arnold Pearson, a scientist,) because he may, perhaps, have a dim comprehension of what I am trying to explain, because of his background, that many of you may not have. [...]

([Arnold:] “Are these pulses extremely fast in our terms of time?”)

([Joel:] “Would a noninterval be a positive interval to another aspect of our existence?”)

Now, my welcome to those who came for the evening, and I have a few remarks to make to our regular class members. [...]

[...] And know that you will return to the room, that the physical image is still within it, but allow yourself the freedom to travel between dimensions, to accept what comes to you gladly, even our Lady of Florence over there in the corner; to open up joyfully and follow, (to Florence) and you close your eyes. [...]

Now, our regular members will find themselves having more group class dreams, and when you do not have group class dreams, there is a reason for it. [...]

(To Dee G.) And I would like our friend over here, the Lady of the Initials, invited in, on these dream adventures. [...]

Then we were all going back to our apartment, Rob’s and mine. [...] We stood blocks away but could see the houses where ours was, it was night now, the bright colors of the houses showing clearly, though. I couldn’t pick out our place from where we stood, couldn’t find it, but realized I had to get up or wake up, and did. [...]

[...] Our friend Ruburt is giving me more freedom now, and I shall visit with you more often in our classes. [...]

I regret that due to our method of communication that my voice does not sound as genial. [...]

[...] Then elaborately:) Let us return to our tale of origins.

For the purposes of our discussion, I must necessarily couch this book to some degree in the framework of time. [...]

(Pause.) We will nevertheless call our next chapter “In the Beginning,” laying certain events out for you in serial form. [...]

These mental enzymes, to go back to them, are solidified feeling, but not in the terms that you usually use … I have said that our imaginary wires that seem to permeate our model universe are alive; and now if you bear with me, I will say that they are mental enzymes or solidified feelings, always in motion, and yet permanent enough to form a more or less consistent framework. [...]

[...] I guess you can’t win them all, as they say,” and I plunked myself down in our wooden rocker. [...] In this way, our attitude towards the events at the time becomes obvious.

Rob laughed at the remark about my subconscious, but instead of giving us our rest period, Seth went on for a moment:

Here, we took our break. [...]

(Here Seth surprised us by referring to one of our little efforts of last Monday evening, after the session. [...] Our objective was to focus our psychic energies together and move the ring until it struck or touched the ashtray. [...]

[...] Jane said it was our car, though I was sure she could not see it, actually, well enough to know for sure. But it was our car, ready for us. [...]

[...] [Our car is an ancient, rusted-out Ford station wagon.]

I am insistent that Ruburt have a vacation, at least to some degree, and will not go deeply into these matters until our next session. [...]

[...] Within a more reasonable context the technique will take its place in our medical systems, but in each case what we learn will surely point up the need to understand our individual inner realities; i.e., what caused the high blood pressure, or whatever, in the first place?

[...] The author explains the various theories for the origin of our observable universe of planets, galaxies, quasars, and so forth, presenting the evidence for and against each theory. Yet when the question arises as to what prevailed before the advent of our universe (or of whether it has existed “forever”), we are told that science doesn’t deal with ultimate origins and endings; we are referred to the realms of theology and/or philosophy for whatever answers are available.

(Last Tuesday afternoon, in our living room, Jane and I participated in a filmed television interview that is to be aired by a New York City station. [...]

[...] But the pressures of work, plus our own conservative attitudes about personal publicity, have led us to pass by other such opportunities.

to decorate our kingdom walls.

and keep them for our own.”

(Seth told us the Brotzanin II had followed a warm current and that her voyage took 22 days to “our first port, where we added some supplies.... [...] 62 days then to our destination. [...]

[...] Seth has dealt with our Denmark lives in a few early sessions without going into much detail, and has occasionally referred to them in later sessions. In the second session, while still speaking to us through the personality of Frank Watts, Seth told us he had been a merchant who dealt in spices. [...]

[...] These contacts will grow out of our seeing the following people: Don Wollheim, an editor Jane has previously published with; her present publisher, Frederick Fell; Eileen Garrett; and Dick Roberts, a senior editor at Dell Books with whom Jane has published. [...]

(In the 221st session Seth suggested we postpone our series of object tests with the Gallaghers. [...]

Our work has given you additional purpose in life. Our work should also show you how to enjoy your life. [...]

Your good reverend was far more impressed after his visit, and he will speak about our work to many others. [...]

The ramifications of our work will be far greater than either of you usually imagine. [...]

Let him remember that when he is entirely engrossed in discussing our work or explaining it, he hardly knows he has any symptoms at all—this even when his attitudes may not be of the best at any given time.

[...] Our nine-month involvement under those conditions revealed both our naïveté at the time and our stubbornness in trying to learn. But learn we did, if not always as we’d expected to; for besides gaining valuable insights into Seth-Jane’s abilities through our own envelope tests, we discovered much through our dealings with at least some kinds of “authority.” [...]

(Jane stopped holding ESP class on a regular basis early in 1975; the rhythm of those weekly gatherings was broken when we gave up apartment living to move into our own house in March of that year. In spite of our good intentions class in the old sense was never resumed, as we became more and more involved with producing Seth’s and Jane’s books, painting, correspondence, and all of the other events that make up our daily lives. [...]

By then I’d lost many months from my job as a commercial artist, which was work I’d returned to several years earlier to help ease our financial pressures. [...] As the sessions became part of our joint reality, we gradually came to understand that the illness I struggled with was a disguised expression of rebellion for both of us. We were very dissatisfied with our status quo: After years of work, Jane had managed to publish but a few poems and a few pieces of science fantasy (several short stories and two brief novels), and in my own view I wasn’t making it as the kind of artist I wanted to be. [...]

[...] All that work can’t be described here, but we accomplished our main goal: exploring from new angles the relationships involving Jane, Seth, and our physical [camouflage] reality.

[...] Those “new” abilities offered creative possibilities so apparent that, given our natures, we had little desire to do otherwise; beneath our doubts and questions we intuitively felt the rightness of our decisions. [...] And to have at least some of our deepest desires and motivations brought so clearly to conscious awareness, through psychic means or any other way, was more than we’d thought possible in previous years. [...]

[...] I told Jane now that I understood the course of action each of us had chosen to make physical, or “real” in our terms. But what of all the other paths our probable selves had embarked upon since those pictures had been taken? By now, did those photographs actually depict the immature images of us, the Jane and Rob we knew and had always been, or from our standpoint did they show a probable Jane, a probable Rob — two individuals who long ago had set out upon their own journeys through other realities? [...]

[...] We suspended our regular sessions after that, yet were as busy as ever. [...] For some months we’d known her death was coming, and so had arranged our affairs around that irrevocable event; I spent weeks preparing the final manuscript of Personal Reality for the publisher; Jane conducted her ESP class whenever she could, and worked on her two books, Adventures in Consciousness and Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time. [...] We ended up calling a portion of one of those the 678th session and added it to our records, since the material, which Jane received at my request, concerned probabilities and Jerusalem. [...]

The three of us got along well as children, although our natures and interests varied considerably. All of us went through grade school and high school in Sayre, a railroad town in northeastern Pennsylvania: Our father settled his family there in 1923 when he opened an auto-repair and battery shop. The separations in the family began to happen after Linden and I graduated from high school, left Sayre, and started to work our respective ways through college and an art school. [...]

(I was in my studio at the back of our apartment, putting the notes for this session away, when Seth came through again briefly as Jane and John talked in the front room. [...] It was to the effect that within three years Jane and I would have our own house.

(Seth came through with this, we believe, because he had expressed a wish that we had our recorder going this evening, and because he evidently wanted to sound out strong and loud and could not do so in an apartment house. Seth told John our house would have privacy.

(The session was held in our front room, and was free of interruptions or distractions. [...]

My particular welcome this evening to our friend Philip. [...]

(Jane now turned off the brightest of our two lights, then opened the blinds as Seth requested. She stood at the window, looking out at our busy intersection one house away as she talked. [...]

[...] Because of our past alliances the three of us are closely bound together. [...]

[...] Surely after our pleasant chat the other evening you should know nothing of this sort would offend me, and I would much prefer more broken-up sessions, if they are necessary, than sessions in which I see myself as a torture master.

[...] We will go into this thoroughly when we return to our discussion of time.