“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I thought I had a few ideas to jot down, now I’ve nearly forgotten what they were. Something about my personal purposes—what I’m trying to do.... reconcile a seemingly impersonal cosmos with man’s intimate nature? Trying to find where man and cosmos merge? Trying to find man’s personal path as a species in the cosmos, rather than just as a species on the earth; this presupposes that I find my own personal path within that cosmos; and where I’ve been bold in certain respects—with Rob’s help it also seems to me that I’ve been supercautious; in perhaps too many instances. This MAY result in spurts of fairly great rhythm of such things. I’d say that I could use my abilities far more fully even in those areas already being explored—Seth, the library, Sumari, etc., even if I wanted to leave other areas alone (seances, etc.). A greater boldness might also be therapeutic—and I certainly know I can count on Rob. His suggestion I try to go into the library—(yesterday) probably was responsible for the Seth-in-library thing tonight. This was I think the first time I’ve seen Seth’s image that clearly; though once in a session I think I did.

A great crazy pre-dawn—snowing like the dickens, wind blowing—and its thundering at the same time. Willy’s hiding under the blue chair or rather, just his head—his rear end is sticking out. Its gone from 36 to 34 degrees according to the radio in the two hours I’ve been up—I’d think it was too warm to snow.

(Last April 18 Seth gave a private session for me that for the past several months I’ve been rereading almost daily. It contains some excellent material, and it seems that just recently, especially with all the fuss about foreign publishers, I’ve just begin to really put it to fruitful use. In the session Seth postulates two men, both portions of myself, who represents the conflicting sets of beliefs I’ve carried for years. [...]

(With all of the recent hassles involving family visits, publishers, and so forth, I’ve begun keeping that session in mind often. [...] This means that I sidetrack —but not try to repress—those cultural and learned beliefs I’ve let rule my life in large measure, instead of following the natural, creative dictates of my first, or primary man. [...]

(Anyhow, as I’ve explained to Jane lately, the method seems to be working fairly well, and I expect more success with it once I become accustomed to dealing with it. [...]

(My own activities, then, have aroused in Jane the urge to try the same approach, and I’ve suggested she think of her own women numbers 1 and 2. It seems that she confronts the same basic challenges I do, I told her, so she could delineate the two opposing portions of her personality well enough to understand that many of her cultural beliefs have been imposed upon her natural, spontaneous, free, creative self, and to such an extent that the acquired beliefs have turned into detriments rather than aids, that she envisioned as helping her obtain what she wants in life. [...]

(For the past few days I’ve done little “creative” work, beyond working on my watercolor portrait of Mrs. Johnson, the subject of my dream of last November, for an hour or two in the mornings; then in the afternoons I’ve typed these sessions and written the required notes for the record. I’ve done a lot of yard work—it seems to be a very therapeutic activity at this time—and worked on filing. [...] I’ve also taken to using mental imagery in this field, and will continue to do so for some time; I think there’s no reason why that can’t be effective also. It’s something I’ve largely neglected in past periods of discomfort. [...]

(“No, you’ve covered the questions I had in mind.” [...]

[...] That realization had to come before anything else could be done, of course—so tonight’s session and the questions we’ve been asking lately about the symptoms certainly seem to have come about at the right time.)

Already we’ve given up many old living patterns since Jane came home from the hospital, and in a strange way we now have the freedom to focus daily upon just a few main things. We’ve been reminded anew—more accurately, we’ve taught ourselves—that physical life itself is a wondrous medium of expression, and terrifically varied in that respect.

[...] Yet I like lines like: “Let the dirge be heard, sweeping all things before it,” and: “I’ve developed a sense of death, when someone takes a few steps off the known path almost unknowing,” and: “I breathed in the public air and it became private.” [...] I’ve been careful to collect for our own records the prose, sketches, poetry, and Sumari she’s produced during this time of healing and testing.

[...] The answer is that we’ve held 13 more sessions—4 of them given by Jane “herself,” and 9 by Seth speaking through her. [...] For those that do concern us I’ve written lengthy notes, often recording the minutiae of our daily lives for our own reference.

Apropos of the material I’ve been covering in these pages, I want to close this essay with quotations from two sessions that I’ve always thought are among the best Seth has given. [...]

[...] “And you’ve had the whole hospital experience to use in the years ahead in your work,” I said. [...] You’ve learned a lot about another way of life, met a lot of people: you’ve got a much wider base now from which to work....” [...]

[...] I thought that was perfectly natural, but extending those feelings for the next 30 years would seem to be too much in nature’s scheme—as I’ve said before, it doesn’t seem to me that nature necessarily wants things to work that way, while making perfectly possible the fact that they can, if one chooses. This may be a case of things being redeemed on a “higher” level, I suppose—reminding me of material I’ve been dealing with recently in the intro for Seth/Jane’s Dreams.

[...] “And I wish I’d written down all I’ve just told you,” I said. [...]

[...] Her feelings about it are both ambiguous and funny: “You’ve got to watch those guys,” she said more than once, meaning the creationists, “or they’ll lead you right where they want you to go. You’ve got to keep thinking. [...] Adding to the humor of the situation is the fact that we’ve had people write or say the same thing about the Seth material. [...]

[...] “Yeah, I’ve got sentences about it in my head. [...]

2. “Rob wanted me to do a paragraph or so about my reactions to the book on scientific creationism that I’ve just finished reading,” Jane wrote, “so here goes. [...]

[...] I get a spooky feeling that I’ve had before, thinking that here we are, alive and conscious, technologically accomplished, and we really haven’t the slightest idea of where the universe came from or why we’re alive, though as a species we’re gifted with both intellect and intuition. [...]

In these last few pages (since I began discussing my beliefs about Jane’s early psychological conditioning), I’ve indicated the only kind of thinking by which I can personally make sense out of our world these days. Particularly when I consider the “news” on the typical front page of the typical daily newspaper: All too accurately the “stories” of war, pollution, corruption, and poverty and crime show just how little we human beings know or understand ourselves at this time—and how far we have to go, individually and en masse. As the years have passed, I’ve come to trust more and more my own insights into our behavior as a species within the framework of a nature that I believe our kind has co-created with every other species on the planet (to confine my theme to just our immediate environment for the moment). It all seems very complicated, certainly, but as I manipulate in everyday life I don’t consciously dwell upon all of the ramifications I’ve mentioned in these essays. [...]

I’ve written these passages knowing, of course, that many of Seth’s points and our own are at best theories, if very intriguing ones. [...] (Except for a few early instances when we inadvertently lost some of our correspondence, we’ve saved all of it. [...]

It should be obvious by now that in a large measure all of the selves and approaches I’ve delineated in these essays simply represent Seth playing around semantically, as he tries to get various portions of his ideas through our heads at certain times. [...]

[...] Traditionally we’ve cast that feeling or knowledge in religious terms, for want of a better framework, but I think that more and more now the search is also on within science for a theory—even a hypothesis—that will lock up our often subjective variables into what might be called a more human equivalent of the still-sought-for unified theory in physics. [...]

[...] I love every letter we’ve ever received, even the ones that are not so nice. In my opinion, friendships with those we’ve never met physically are rare things to know and experience. [...]

[...] Except for a few missives that may have escaped us in the very beginning, I’ve saved them all.

[...] Much other material is there also: I’ve spent several years assembling it. [...]

[...] Where are they all and now I work alone?" I almost chanted this, and more that I’ve forgotten. [...] You’ve made things worse. [...]

[...] I say something about poetry and she says, well you’d better talk fast because I’ve just about decided to stop writing poetry. [...]

[...] “I’m afraid I’ve gotten in so deep I can’t get out.” [...] I’ve had the same fear many times. “But I’ve decided that enough is enough,” Jane said, after I’d speculated about why her psyche hadn’t put the brakes on her symptoms before this. [...]

[...] It’s a thought we’ve had before — but it seems that each thing we’ve accomplished has been in the face of, or in spite of, a barrage of negative thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

(“I’ve never felt just this way before — like I’ve been programmed in advance. [...]

[...] It’s like I’ve got three channels from Seth going at once….

(“I’ve even got directions.” [...]

[...] And why I felt that way, but you didn’t. Hey, I’ve even got a bunch of history about that, all ready to deliver — a lot of material on each idea…. [...]

(Yesterday marked the beginning of Jane’s third week home from the hospital, and lately I’ve been trying to gently encourage her to begin a series of private sessions in an effort to learn what we can about the whole hospital-health-establishment belief system, and our part in it through and with the Seth material. I was eager to get Jane started on a program of self-therapy through the Seth material in order to help her counter—or at least supplement—the standard rigid medical framework we’ve been encountering for the last month, or since she went into the hospital on February 26, 1982. [...]

[...] Therefore, actually producing the physical work for the publisher was going to be up to me, and I was anxious to begin work on this once we’ve established some sort of viable daily routine revolving around Jane’s nursing care, sleeping schedule, medication, etc.

[...] Just as I was about to give up for this evening, Jane came awake again and said rather firmly, “I’ve passed a certain point, Bob, and now I can do it....” [...]

[...] Since returning to the house, though, I’ve had absolutely no time at all for the mail, and have stopped answering it except for business and an occasional exceptional letter, or a request for a visit, etc. [...]

[...] I’ve felt that I should “push” the material, go on television or whatever to demonstrate and promote it, but that is the “wrong” level for me.... [...] I’ve hampered my own psychic development and possible new books by such focuses which generate their own paranoiac-like fears. [...]

I’ve rejected all that kind of hash projected onto Seth’s books by others or myself—the assumptions that Seth must prove himself as a problem solver— or the importance of functionalism over art. [...]

[...] It shows how you’ve got to get those feelings out. [...]

(When she finally asked me what I thought of the session, I had trouble expressing any hope, versus those negative feelings I’ve been aware of for so long now. [...]

[...] I’ve even thought of dying to let you go free.”

(“Believe me,” I said, “I’ve had the thought. [...]

As in Seth Speaks and Personal Reality, the usual notes are presented at break times, but I’ve indicated the points of origin of what would ordinarily be footnotes by using consecutive (superscription) numbers within the text of each session; then I’ve grouped the actual notes at the end of the session for quick reference. [...]

I’ve noted the time every so often during each session to show how long it takes Jane to deliver a particular passage (and shortly I’ll explore further the time elements involved with the production of “Unknown” Reality). For obvious reasons I’ve deleted most of Seth’s instructions for punctuating his material, beyond leaving a few examples in place at the start of his Preface, or in an occasional session. [...]

In the Seth books we’ve deliberately refrained from commenting upon the similarities that exist between Seth’s ideas and those of various religious, philosophical, and mystical doctrines from the Near, Middle, or Far East. [...] Jane and I know that such correlations exist — indeed, we’d only be surprised if they didn’t. Others have often mentioned them to us, and we’ve done a little reading on Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, and Taoism, for example, not to mention subjects like shamanism, voodooism, and obeah. [...]

[...] Returning to my usual condition, the words that I’ve just spoken as Seth vanish in dreamlike fashion. Although I’ve read “Unknown” Reality since it was finished, and had looked portions of it over during the time of its production, it seems alien to me in the strangest fashion.

[...] I’ve thought about it often since last Thursday, then: Is Jane going to have to make known to herself consciously every bit of information about her symptoms before she recovers? I had the question partly because of something she’d said herself before the last session—and which I’ve now forgotten—and partly because I didn’t believe that most people were able to deal with such procedures in their daily lives. [...]

(The swollen condition of her feet still concerned me, although I’ve kept in mind Seth’s material on that situation and feel better about it. I’ve managed to turn my thoughts away from such worries rather successfully lately, yet when they do return they can’t but help cause concern, so conditioned are we toward anything unusual about the body’s behavior representing a state of illness or unease. [...]

(We had a discussion about my questions, and I expressed pretty definitely the emotional charge I’ve accumulated over the years about the whole affair. [...]

[...] The back porch door was wide open in the gathering dusk; even though we’ve passed the longest day of the year now, it was still not dark.)

[...] But then, Seth said Jane doesn’t have arthritis—so that’s what we’ve been going by. [...] In short, I wanted something from Seth about whether it was worth it, or even necessary, that Jane try this diet—which, after all, would be the latest in the series of schemes I’ve come across in efforts to help her. [...]

[...] I’ve been feeling good, enthusiastic, about what we’ve been doing, and it seems to be getting results. [...]

“I’ve got lots of cupcakes

I know you’ve got a trick

[...] I said our craving for such “entertainment” must reflect our basic social beliefs beneath our veneer of respectability — the conscious, negative fears of the unknown, meaning that we’ve created such a division in ourselves by shutting out our conscious awareness of our own true selves. We’ve now reached the point where our subjective lives are largely hidden, but continuously striving to show themselves against all pressures …

[...] We’ve met only by telephone. [...] A most humbling suggestion for my wife and me — we’ve always prided ourselves on making our own way.

I’ve always felt
that I’ve always known you,
yet you surprise me daily
with new versions
of your personhood
that then I remember.

I clap my mental hands
and say, “Of course,”
and you change again
into a new version
that I’ve always known before!

This private probability
isn’t half bad
when you consider
the public worlds
we had to travel
to get here:
molecules waiting
in the wings,
looking for
the precise
time-space
to leap into,
tiny strands of
consciousness
reuniting
after centuries,
sorting out ourselves
from a million
other forms
we’ve taken part in—
reassembling
just those we wanted
to call Rob and Jane.