“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Looking back, it is obvious that I had unknowingly reached a crisis of development — a crisis that comes to each of us in our early adulthood. The rest of our lives depends upon what happens. Either we grow to a new understanding of the meaningfulness of existence, or we lose much of the force and purpose with which our youth automatically endows us.

Time and time again, the inner centers of our being come to our aid through subjective promptings — either in waking, dream or trance states. [...] Dreams, inspirations, experiences in mystic consciousness — all, I believe, have their prime source outside of our usual consciousness and mode of activity.

This book is concerned mainly with dreams, but it will also stress the true mobility of our consciousness which makes possible dreaming (and astral projections) and those unconscious abilities that are so vital to our functioning.

One and one makes nothing.
Arithmetic destroys us all.
Subtraction is the answer
To our hypothesis.

Ruburt has been intellectually involved in a strong manner with our whole relationship and experience, as he studied the galleys for his book. This is not particularly conducive to his intuitional activities, so I did not give him a break before our tests, but let the trance state continue. This worked to our advantage. This period just passing, of comparative rest on his part, from psychic activities, makes one point at least plain: our results, all in all during this period, have been good.

[...] Neither of us have heard of this, nor can we find a reference to it in our books.

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

Our friend of the manuscript thinks of himself as a liberal-minded man, but he will not take any giant steps away from the lines of academiclike safety.

(I want to add here that our real challenge in knowing our own species, and others, may lie in our cultivating the ability to understand the interacting consciousnesses involved, rather than to search only for physical relationships supposedly created through evolutionary processes. [...] The consciousnesses of numerous other species may be so different from ours that we only approximately grasp the meanings inherent in some of them, and miss the essences of others entirely. [...] Yet those entities are quite immune to our notions of evolution, and they explore time contexts in ways far beyond our current human comprehension. [...]

(My position after writing this appendix is that in scientific and religious terms we know little about our world [and universe], its origins, and its amazing variety of forms, both “living” and “nonliving.” Our own limitations may have something to do with our attitudes here, yet Jane and I have become very careful about believing science or religion when either one tells us it can explain our world, for each of those disciplines ignores too much. No matter what the source of this camouflage reality may be, our conscious lack of knowledge and understanding as we manipulate within it, through naïve realism or any other system of belief or perception, ought to make us humble indeed; all arrogance should be transcended as we become more and more aware of the limitless beauty, complexity, and mystery that surrounds us, and of which we are part. [...]

[...] It could, however, be considered at just about any time, since its proponents believe that it’s unconsciously involved in practically all of our daily activities. Simply put, naïve realism teaches that our visual and bodily senses reveal to us an external world as it really is — that we “see” actual physical objects, for instance. Disbelievers say that neurological evidence contradicts this theory; that from the neurological standpoint the events in our lives and within our bodies depend upon interpretation by the brain, that we can know nothing directly, but only experience transmitted through — and so “colored” by — the central nervous system. [...]

(I continue my projections by writing that to a molecule of DNA the conventional notion of evolution — could such an entity grasp that idea, or even want to — might be hilarious indeed, given its own enhanced time scheme.¹⁷ Actually it would be more to the point if perhaps with the aid of hypnosis and/or visualization, we tried from our giant-sized viewpoints to touch such minute consciousnesses with our own,¹⁸ and so extend our knowledge in unexpected ways. Some probable realities might be reached — potential conscious achievements that I think are already within the reach of certain gifted individuals, Jane among them.¹⁹ Jane and I would rather say that the variability among humans [or the members of any other species] at the molecular level is a reflection of Seth’s statement that we each create our own reality, with all that that implies.

However, if given a choice, Jane and I now would forgo the “benefits” stemming from animal experimentation, even if our own future welfares were to suffer because of a subsequent lack of knowledge—and providing that at a time of crisis we didn’t weaken in our joint resolve! Following such a course would actually be most difficult, so pervasive in our society are the results flowing from animal research: I even think it might be necessary to live as a hermit in the wild to get away from them. [...] I see the passive, thinking and unthinking tolerance of animal experimentation as a classical case of a society using ends to justify means—yet in the United States, at least, we carefully teach each generation of our species that such rationalizations aren’t morally acceptable….

[...] But Jane and I don’t try to bend others to our way of thinking; the reality that our species is creating is too big and varied for that; we believe only that we’ll have to explore questions like those involving genetics and consciousness in our own ways, and with Seth’s help.

Nor do I think that establishment science will soon be interested in Seth’s ideas that exchanges take place involving our genetic systems, the environment, and cultural events like politics and economics; or that our genetic systems react to our thoughts and emotions—let alone that there’s any genetic planning for future probabilities! [...]

[...] The men have low sperm counts and may not be able to sire children in the normal manner, yet Jane and I think that this rare group event—the only one of its kind on record—fits in with Seth’s material about the millions of variations contained within our species’ vast genetic pool. For whatever mysterious reasons, then, our overall consciousness wants and needs this particular “genetic culture.” [...]

Yet Buddhist belief, for instance, maintains that our perception of the world is not fundamental, but an illusion; our “ignorance” of this basic undifferentiated “suchness” then results in the division of reality into objects and ideas. But why call our generalized awareness an illusion, instead of regarding it as one of the innumerable manifestations that reality takes? [...] Would a widespread use of Eastern religious doctrines be more practical on our earth today, or the kind of self-knowledge Seth advocates? [...]

For ourselves, and even considering Seth’s concept of “camouflage” (in Volume 1, see Note 3 for Appendix 11), Jane and I certainly believe that our physical existences and mental experiences are quite “real” in themselves. We could easily take a book to present the reasons for our particular beliefs, examining them in connection with both Eastern and Western religious philosophies. A good general question, we think, and one we’d like to see discussed with our own ideas of the inviolate nature of the individual in mind, has to do with the prevalence of ordinary, daily, conscious-mind thinking and perception throughout much of the world. [...]

[...] During the many centuries of our remembered history, those conflicts in themselves have been — and are — surely serving at least one of consciousness’s overall purposes, within our limits of understanding: to know itself more fully in those particular, differentiated ways.

[...] Obviously, in those terms of linear time, Jane and I each feel that we chose our present environments.

[...] The warm-blooded creatures that you know are seeded by our consciousness. They are the children of our dreams and so, also, do you seed other realities and other systems. [...] Consciousness releases its abilities in ways that you do not understand and yet from your own mind, springing from your own dreams, other systems of reality emerge as you have emerged from our dreams. Your system can be likened to a probability system that was latent always within our own capabilities but was not actualized within our experience. [...]

Now the time has come for you to outgrow parables, but this will take considerable stretching of consciousness on your part, and considerable work on our part. [...] Whenever I say “in your terms” the phrase is a loaded one, so be prepared and remember it when you read our sessions. [...]

Good evening to you all and welcome to our new friends. [...]

Now I have said this before, that one of our most extensive travelers is completely unaware of her nightly adventures, and again I will not look at anyone in particular because I would not embarrass you. [...]

Now, in the winter time our poor idiotic flower seems, indeed, to be dead. [...] Our seed, however, who does not have this fine intellect that sits so nicely beneath your hair and within your skull, our seed without the intellect, rests joyfully within the earth knowing it is in the midst of creativity and that from within it, again, another flower will spring. [...]

I am shortly going to end our session, but I have a word for our dean(Theodore), over there behind the vine. I answered one of your questions in our ordinary sessions, so Ruburt should have it for you. [...]

(To Brad.) I have a few remarks to our friend with the sideburns over there, and the changed image in the orange shirt, and it is this. [...]

[...] For the scientist, if he would heed the call and if he would take a spade and dig in the middle of February perhaps down into the earth to find our seed, would find simply a shell. [...]

And welcome as always to our friend, our cocky friend. [...]

[...] It is quite easy to touch one’s fingertips to the tabletop, and thus verify that no strong physical pressure is being exerted thereon, even subconsciously; especially when the touch is light enough so that the fingertips slide about, as ours did. We constantly checked each other, also watching our feet. [...]

Do not tell her of our sessions as yet. [...]

The young woman of whom our friend (John Bradley) speaks. [...]

I would suggest that our friend with the ulcer read our last two previous sessions, for this will bring home to him the fact that he does indeed, literally, consider his ulcer as much a part of himself as an arm or a leg. [...]

We will for the purposes of our discussion ignore, for now, certain aspects in Philip’s personality, such as a deep secrecy which is indeed based on fear, because this characteristic and others will not help us progress in our particular subject matter. [...]

[...] John knocked on our door during the session, but since we had not yet begun having witnesses, we asked him to return later. As soon as the door closed behind John, Seth went into a rather lengthy rundown on him, much to our surprise. [...]

[...] After our next break I will give you what additional information I have. You may take a break, or we will continue with our session.

[...] So while classes are formally suspended I want each of you to read our class sessions. [...] And the absence of our friends is a practical absence and yet it is also a symbolic absence. [...] Why you will follow our Lady of Florence when she gets up and says we are going to make a circle, or why you would be kissed by our friend here, the cousin of Richelieu. [...]

[...] Now that is an important symbol, and were our friend here writing it down in the book I would say underline, for our book is full of such directions as underline, put that in quotes, and semi-colon. [...]

[...] And all of you have only to relax and let yourselves realize what you know and follow the Sumari development when our friends here are not physically with you. [...]

[...] You did not even tell Ruburt that that went on, so let’s see to it that someone tells him and then how far along with it you were able to go and I think we should start with our fine late Sumarian over there in the corner (to Rachel). [...]

I often think—like every day—that from “where she is now” in her larger reality, Jane must watch our all-too-human manipulations in this “physical” reality with great compassion and understanding, and probably with some amusement, too, as in our frantic days of living we try to get everything done. To do what we’re supposed to do as well as what we want to do, to finally get it all just right for our individual purposes.

[...] My wife was—and is, I know, for I’m sure that she still lives—the most creative person I’ve ever met, and through her extraordinary abilities she’s left a body of work that I regard as a legacy of inquiry about our understanding of ourselves and our reality. [...]

[...] Our work is really dedicated to one and all, then. [...] Eventually they’re added to the collection of our papers at Yale University Library, while not being open to the public for privacy’s sake.

[...] From the start we felt that if our “psychic” work had value it should be presented as is, within all of its human connotations; not only its great successes, but with its gropings and mistakes, its questions and learnings along the way. [...]

[...] The difference between consciousness of self as a result of our second dilemma, and ego consciousness as a result of our third dilemma, should be made very clear.

It is true, then, that another dimension has been added to our sessions, and I hope to instruct Ruburt along these lines of more direct perception as our sessions continue. [...]

(Once again we held the session in our back bedroom, and found it very peaceful and quiet behind closed doors. [...]

We will continue this evening in our discussion of identities and action.

(We finally held our first “new” Seth session last Monday evening, on April 12. [...] We were pleased to get it for, as I told Jane, if ever we’re to understand all of the events in our lives that led to the hospital experience, we must call upon every ability at our service. [...]

Actually, I was amazed at the opacity of my perception: It seemed that once again I was just beginning to understand that Jane had chosen to embark upon a journey in which she would explore herself and the world in intensely physical and emotional terms—in contrast to the more intellectual ways by which she and I have usually conducted our searches, through the Seth material and our own inquiring minds…. [...] And why, I wondered, did most of us, most of the time, buy our new experience and knowledge at such high prices?)

Our explorations involved no secondhand evidence handed down by others, but the direct personal encounter of our consciousness and being with the vast elements of the unknown—a meeting of the self (human and vulnerable) with the psychological realms of gods and eternities; giant realms of mind that our nature felt attracted to … and [was] uniquely equipped to perceive.

[...] How could I be sure that our sight wasn’t also distorted; that our “sin” was in not accepting sin as a value? Perhaps sin itself contained some value that escaped beyond our calculations, still undiscovered.

[...] We humans, for instance, have 46 chromosomes and an estimated 100,000 genes in each cell, and our genes provide the blueprints for the synthesis of some 50,000 proteins. I’m sure that our wonder at the vast organization of nature will continue to grow as our scientists plunge ever deeper into the complexities of genetic research. [...] Just how much real freedom do we have, if all is programmed by our genetic heritage? [...]

[...] I’m also presenting it because it shows how an event on one day of our lives—a television program—influenced Jane’s delivery of one session of the Seth material. [...]

[...] (Pause, then quietly:) We have been trying to form some kind of a neurological bridge in order to convey some particularly pertinent material for our book. [...]

He did pick up our next chapter heading (six): “Genetic Heritage and Reincarnational Predilections,” and I am trying to give him this other material at different levels. [...]

For the benefit of our visitor, let me say that action is the vitality of the universe from which all realties spring. This will make our discussion simpler. [...] Therefore, when our visitor hesitates between his two doors, he is not motionless, but uses as much energy in indecision as should be expended in purposeful direction.

[...] In whichever direction we focus our abilities and energies, we seem to see new action, but it is merely our focus which has changed; and in changing, has formed new action.

[...] The present personality of our visitor was aware of the sessions before Philip mentioned them. [...] The number fifteen is an important one to our visitor.

[...] We will at our next session truly get down again to business, as far as our discussions on action are concerned.

[...] The magical orientation might be in direct conflict with our training in this and most present cultures. But it would be part of our natural way of looking at the world — a way that has been overlaid by our belief in the “rational” way of doing things. [...]

[...] We were both caught up in the same events as most other people were during that June and July — the hotter-than-usual nights and days, the drought in parts of New York State that touched our area lightly, the TV news drama as the political parties argued and planned for their conventions. Some nights the (singing) bugs in the small back woods were louder than the sound of our television set. [...]

Twice a week when evening comes (as most of my readers know) while our neighbors go to movies, or shopping plazas, or just have friends in to watch television, I go into a trance,¹ “become” Seth, and take on a kind of a second life, or a life within a life. [...]

In our case though, Rob and I usually have no direct audience (not that we can see anyhow), and those few hours spent in trance have an impact on my husband and me — and upon the world — out of context with the actual time expended.

In my notes introducing Volume 1, I wrote about placing the basic “artistic ideas” embodied in the Seth material at our conscious, aesthetic, and practical service in daily life. [...] Such an endeavor essentially involves the pursuit of an ideal, and represents our attempts to give physical and mental shape to the great inner, creative commotion of the universe that each person intuitively feels. Of course Jane and I want Seth’s ideas and our own to touch responsive reflexes within others; then each individual can use the material in his or her own expression of that useful ideal, letting it serve to stimulate inner perceptions.

As Seth continued dictation I was fired by his purpose to make the unknown elements of human life at least partially visible — an audacious goal, I thought — and I tried to do my part in recording all such disclosures as they appeared in our lives and were reflected in the experiences of our friends and students.

[...] This meant that our readers could have access to part of the manuscript while I was preparing the rest. Seth agreed with our decision.

The first volume, like this one, defies easy description, then, since it leaps over many definitions we usually take for granted; and with its lack of chapter divisions it even confounds our ideas of what a book is. Yet it certainly contains a most intriguing, multidimensional view of the nature of probabilities, a view in which our ideas of a “simple, single event” must vanish; at least we can never again look at any event as being concrete, finished, or absolute. [...]

(At the same time, Jane and I are extremely grateful that we have the opportunity to study ideas about consciousness with Seth, and this opening up of our individual realities is something we couldn’t have conceived of before 1963. Our appreciation of life has expanded greatly — and if the Seth material did nothing but help us grow in that respect, it would perform a very valuable service. [...] Jane has also been helped a great deal.] So our aim with the Seth books is to let Seth have his say, to add some thoughts of our own, and to trust that the feelings and meanings in all of this will evoke beneficial responses in each reader. [...]

[...] Jane and I have already planned our approach to Psyche (which Seth has just finished), and it’s to be published shortly after Volume 2 is. To top off our activities of the moment, we’re having the front porch of the hill house rebuilt — with a new raised floor and screening all around, so that Jane can write there in the summertime. [...] But I have a feeling that the front porch affair isn’t the end of our construction odyssey: Jane has a certain speculative look when she notes that we have but one car — she doesn’t drive — to occupy the large two-car garage attached to the rear of the house. [...] After all, she commented recently, the porch would protect our back door, too, especially from all of that winter weather….

[...] According to him, these “entity names” mean only that in our present lives we identify more with the male aspects of our entities, or whole selves — which in themselves are neither male or female, but contain within them a number of other selves [of both sexes] to whom we’re related, or a part of, reincarnationally and otherwise.

(For now, let’s postulate that Jane and I think we understand better than we used to that our consciousnesses have no limitations except those we’ve imposed upon them through our individual perceptions and understandings. [...]

(It’s been further suggested that this vanishing matter can show up elsewhere, either in our universe or others, through “white holes.” There would be a flow of matter in our universe and also between universes, keeping things in balance.)

(A note: The second law of thermodynamics tells us that while the total energy in a closed system such as our universe remains constant, the amount of energy available for useful work is constantly decreasing. [...] Seth has insisted from the very beginning of our sessions that the law of entropy doesn’t apply, and that there are no closed systems.)

(Jane said that while speaking for Seth, she knew the two lines she was indicating met in the west-by-south corner of our room. [...] It was just inside the wall, between two of our bay windows and in back of an old-fashioned, exposed steam pipe. [...]

[...] This is not our book (humorously), this is the Appendix to our book.

Considering Rob’s and my relationship — the challenges, joys, hopes, strains and our own personality characteristics. Maybe the whole thing is — reacting to ourselves individually and to the other person — experiencing our own personal reactions and then reacting to them — then reacting to the other person who experiences the same processes in himself. We … creatively keep altering ourselves and our mates. [...] There’s bound to be some lopsidedness to our growth, as we form psychological ‘art’ throughout our entire lives — or learn to live … artistically. [...]

[...] I mentioned how worthwhile it would be to throughly study the continuous global healing processes that I believe constitute one of the earth’s major forces, so that we could consciously use them to “help our species lead itself into new areas of thought and feeling.” [...] I think that eventually we’ll regard all life upon our planet — or upon any other — in such terms, that we’ll be led to do so by our own needs and creative curiosity. Beyond that will lie our exploring, as Jane did, the more basic nonphysical nature of reality.

[...] What emerged as Laurel Davies and I searched Jane’s and my records, including early Seth sessions, was a long story of our doubts and gropings in an area in which we had no guidance except for our own explorations. [...] Our subject of interest itself was largely denied validity by the social, psychological, and scientific establishments. [...]

[...] I think it quite psychologically and psychically limiting to believe otherwise, for such beliefs can only impede or postpone our further conscious understanding of the individual and mass realities — the overall “nature” — we’re creating. I think that all of us seek answers, and that our searches are expressed in our very lives.