“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now I want you all to know, and it will please you no end, that you have an authority present, for I was a pope in 300 AD. I was not a very good pope.

(To Brady.) And you will be a guest, if you do not mind cavorting with past popes. I know it is against your principles, but then it is against my own (laughter). A past pope is better than a present one.

(During break, a discussion of Seth’s life as a pope.)

Now. For a while I was not in Rome, but held my religious call elsewhere. I wrote two Church laws. It should all go to show you that some good ends up from everything. I died of trouble with my stomach because I was such a glutton. My name was not Clement (to Theodore), though Clement is a lovely name. I was originally called Protonius. Now give me a moment. The last name is not nearly so clear, and this is not my papal name, but my, if you will forgive the term, common name. Meglemanius. The third. From a small village. Unless I summon the self that I was at that time, the memories for details are not that clear. But as I now recall them, without directly checking on our friend the pope, who has, you must understand, gone his own way, I am coming as close as I can. We did not have as many guards at that time, but we had many stolen paintings and jewels of great merit. Now some of these jewels, as well as the money, went for expeditions that you do not realize were adopted at that time, having to do with commerce and ships sent through Africa, and this interest had to do with my later life when I was involved with the oregano. My sniffing goes back for centuries.

(“… for I was a pope in A.D. 300. I was not a very good pope.

[...] And there were days in other centuries that I walked the same streets that I had walked as Pope. I touched these streets lightly as Pope; but as a peasant I walked with a heavy foot and great weight, until I learned the lessons that I had to learn, as all of you will also learn your own lessons.”

(At this writing we do not know which pope Seth referred to. [...] The Encyclopaedia Britannica lists eleven popes and two antipopes between A.D. 296 and 401. [...]

[...] Much later in your terms I would end up as a minor pope in the third century, meeting again some of those I had known — and, if you will forgive a humorous note, once more familiar with the sound of bells.

(At the supper table this evening we had been speculating about the times Seth had given in connection with his life as a pope, both in the ESP class session for May 25, 1971, and the 588th session in this chapter. [...]

The records would show one reign of one pope; but one, two, or even three different men may have filled the position. [...]

[...] (Pause at 10:11.) There were also men called “Little Popes,” those in training of an ambitious nature, and catered to. [...]

(A check of the dictionary shows there have been 12 Popes, but our source does not list most by date. Pius the VII was Pope from 1800-23, Pius the IX was Pope from 1846-78, etc. [...]

[...] And in your mind the Pope represents that organization and he paid tribute. [...]

[...] It is a good point of housewifery prudence and spiritual prudence as well, but you would not have given had not this authority figure of the Pope done so ahead of you which means that presently you are looking for direction and hoping to find it and also that you are not going to give to any red-hooded beggars who knock at your side door. [...]

[...] When the Pope is at the side door, then what will you do? [...]

(3. On his life as a minor pope in the fourth century A.D.: “I was a petty, religious politician.” And: “… our dear, politically minded, crooked old Pope….” [...]

(4. Seth also said that it would be “not practical” and “boring” for him to relive his life as a pope, then added: “In those terms, many people do choose to reexperience what you would think of as a past existence in order to change it as they go along.” [...]

It is indeed, but I never was able to do so and at one time when I was pope I used to try very hard, and it always sounded terrible and even the altar boys drowned me out. [...]

[...] This contradiction was reinforced in 1972, when Pope Paul VI declared before several thousand people that the devil is a distinct, actual being.)

The royal family had many offspring, and there is a connection with a pope, and a bible with gold covers, and a crest. [...]

[...] (Amused:) With my nearly forgotten experience as a minor pope, I can say I would trust a crooked politician far better than a holy but fanatic religious leader.

[...] He played church and state against each other, made an ass of the Pope whenever he could, and was deeply involved in the social, political, and religious fervor of those days. [...]

([Gert:] “How then, does the Catholic church come to say that the Pope is the Church instituted by Jesus Christ and it is, therefore, it?”)

[...] The pope became God the Father personified, but that god had indeed changed from the old Jewish Jehovah. [...]

(No doubt Seth’s amusement at the Vatican holding doctored records stems from his own brief tenure as Pope in one of his lives.

[...] Poor people saw lesser versions of religious paintings in their own simple churches, done by local artists of far lesser merit than those [who] painted for the popes.

[...] On Monday and Wednesday evenings he furnished material on this book, plus some personal material for us; discoursed at length Tuesday night in ESP class; spoke briefly Friday afternoon to a visiting editor from Time magazine — subject, Freudian psychology; and on Saturday evening talked informally to a group of our friends about daily life in Italy during the time he had been a minor pope in the fourth century a.d. [Reincarnation-wise, Seth had first mentioned his papal experience in an ESP class session in May, 1971. [...]

[...] The article then states: The date happens to coincide with 50th anniversary celebrations at Fatima, when the Pope may possibly preside.