“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The cobbler was an old man. He had something to do with being the sexton of a church. It was a small church, not Catholic. It was a Church of England. The cobbler used to ring the bells. His wife was 53, she was named Anna. She wore glasses and had grayish white hair, she was stout and messy.

(The descendants of the invaders lived in the village too. There was the Laverne family, and De Nauge, and the Breims. They slept on hay. It was so damp it wasn’t healthy, it was too foggy. The hay was never dry. There were many children around. Families that could had a cow. Were the people happy? That’s a silly question. They were as happy as anybody else. They didn’t like their babies dying, though, but they just thought it was life. They drank a lot—ale. No school, they couldn’t read. Well, the sexton, he read some but not much, nobody else could. They didn’t think it was necessary. They didn’t have books, so what good did it do to be able to read?

(The name of the village was Levonshire. It had less than 300 people. It was very rocky there. It was on the northeast coast of England. The people there used to get food also from another village farther north. For some reason the land was better there. What did they grow? Yes, I see tomatoes. But as I say it I remember reading that they didn’t eat tomatoes in those days. But yes, the people in the smaller villages ate them. And there was wheat and barley. They had nice cows.

(They had windows in the front room, though—and benches and a stone floor. It was a stone house with a fireplace in it. It was September, damp and foggy in the afternoon, about four o’clock. Sarah Wellington was blond—she had stringy hair, she wasn’t pretty, but bony. She was 17.

Then suddenly, I was back again, seeing the later time. [...] One lung was bad. It was a bad place to live. [...] The land was so rocky … and they would build a house on a slab of rock, and it was always damp. … Sarah’s dress was dirty. It was woolen, a brown natural color because it wasn’t dyed. [...]

“The cobbler was comparatively well off, though not wealthy. He was fifty-three when he died. The boy, Albert, was too young to take over the shop, and for a couple of years the village had no cobbler, and the boy was a fisherman. [...] His wife’s name was also Sarah. She was a cousin of Sarah Wellington’s. Most of the people in the village were related in one way or another; they had no other place to go.”

[...] There was fishing all year long. [...] The water was warm in the winter. That’s why it was so foggy. They didn’t farm too much because the ground was poor and rocky, very hilly; so they depended on fish.”

“The cobbler was an old man. He was also the sexton of a small church, the Church of England. [...] His wife was fifty-three, Anna. She wore glasses and had grayish white hair and was very stout and messy.

(The trance was the deepest I have been in. Again I saw nothing; no images; but I was oddly unprotected; the emotional state was not a bit pleasant as I was screaming over this episode, apparently a past one of Barb’s. With Seth, for example, I feel nothing. [...] He tried to help me break the trance, which was rather difficult. “I” was taken over by the emotional mood so that it was difficult to snap back. [...]

[...] Saw no images at all, and had no idea whether anything made sense to her or was just subconscious fabrication on my part. [...] I mentioned Greenwich, Connecticut; I didn’t even know there was a Greenwich, in Connecticut, though I am familiar with Greenwich, NY, and it seems to me I thought there was one in Vermont. [...] The first initial was “G”, however. She told us his first name was really George; of course we were surprised, and had no idea of this. [...]

(At the last I was frightened enough to yell for help when I got the chance; and Rob came to my assistance. Perhaps—most certainly in fact—the thing would just have ended itself but the emotional situation could have gotten worse first; if I was reliving an emotional state I could have gone through the whole thing, granted there was more to it. [Just now, writing this, when I was on the floor sobbing, I did feel that I was on a bed, crying.]

(Unfortunately it was a display; at least this is our way of looking at it and certainly our way of looking at it must be the most important one and our attitudes must guide our actions; no one else’s attitudes. The information in the first part was excellent, to my way of seeing it; but it was gained at the cost of this…. [...] The way it was used the other night does frighten me to some degree surely. [...] Looking back, I see that the situation actually was strictly supervised; if not I do not think I would have done anything. [...]

(Then she was running across a field looking for help. She did not realize she was dead. She didn’t know why she was in the field; she went back to the house and saw herself lying on the floor. [...] The daughter was gone—had “run off somewheres.”

[...] While talking she laughed rather often, and this was much different than her usual laugh. Malba’s voice on the whole was not as strong as Jane’s, and more petulant. One had the feeling that behind it was a rather mediocre intelligence; one that did not try very hard to concentrate and whose interests were, and had been, rather ordinary and at times shallow.

[...] Everything included here was definitely remembered by one or the other; nothing was added. If we were hazy in recollection or at all doubtful about anything, it was left out.

(Malba met her husband Bronson there; he was a foreman in the factory or plant. [...] He was not English himself, but had English relatives and was visiting them. [...]

Last night’s dream was a communication from the Helen who was the friend of Ruburt’s mother. The message was directed to Ruburt. [...] The envelope, the black envelope, was obviously a symbol, but it did enable Ruburt to see the name of the woman who was sending the message. And the import of the dream was clear to him merely in the perception of that simple data, the black envelope, with the return name in the left hand corner, and though he does not recall it, his name on the envelope as the person to whom the communication was sent.

[...] Her voice was now quiet, and she paused often. [...] I was prepared to end the session at once if I thought intuitively that it was necessary. Jane’s face was drawn, her eyes very dark beneath. [...]

The relief he felt after deciding that he had safely tricked himself, he thought in the morning, was due to the fact that the future death was not his mother’s or his own, but one involving a relative at least somewhat distant. The relief of course was the result of his partial success in distorting the information, but despite distortions the sender came through, and the sex of the person whose death was unfortunately perceived.

Even in his dream he was stunned, afraid that the death was his own. This is why he could not remember that the envelope was addressed to him. [...]

Now I was really frightened. Was I a ghost? The warm sunlight was everywhere on the lawns, and the shadows were real. There was no doubt that this was the physical world. [...] Maybe I was delirious? But I was thinking rationally.

I wasn’t used to any messages from Seth when I was out of the house, and I’d been in the habit of discouraging any when I wasn’t having a session. The whole affair was disturbing. I was glad to get back out in the spring night air. There was little need to stay, and again, it was a session night.

She’d almost tear the apartment apart looking for the threatening letter that she was sure had come in the mail. She was so persuasive that the first two times this happened, I wondered if she was getting threatening mail, as unlikely as this seemed. [...] So, for a while it was touch and go. I was very worried about her.

[...] Consciousness was independent of the body — Seth was right — and if that was true, then there was no reason why he couldn’t be what he said he was: an independent personality, out of the flesh. [...]

First I found myself in the studio and Rob was there. [...] I was surprised he was home, knowing it was Friday when he was out of his body also, and so was I. I told Rob and we discussed it, plus our amazement over out-of-body love-making. [...]

I was having trouble getting away from the couch and walking properly. All through this, I was afraid that my body might not be as deeply asleep as I’d earlier supposed, but all of my consciousness was with me in my astral form. [...] I shook my head to clear it and saw to my dismay that the entire living room wall was lying flat on the floor, face up, closed door and all. This told me at once that I was hallucinating and if I didn’t watch it, I could fall into a dreaming state. [...]

[...] The night was foggy and dark, as it was in Elmira. My sight was operating perfectly, but it took a while before my hearing worked. [...] I hadn’t been in that park for years and was consciously delighted. [...] So far everything was the same.

[...] The news film showed the food cans exploding — or rather, the newscaster explained this was what happened. The plate glass windows blew out, and all of this was in the news. I got up at 6:30 A.M. so I don’t know if the experience was a projection at the time of the fire or a clairvoyant viewing of it. A drugstore next to the market was undamaged.

The items were enclosed in one sealed envelope between two layers of lightproof bristol cardboard, and then the whole thing was placed in another envelope, which was also sealed. [...] I was always in trance, and usually my eyes were closed. (In any case, the test item was enclosed within the two pieces of cardboard and two envelopes, and was quite opaque.) Sometimes I held the envelope to my forehead while delivering impressions. [...]

He didn’t mention my sensations when I was thrown into the corner of the cab, though. Was this because he didn’t feel them? Or because I was certain to remember these myself? [...] The session was held on Monday, October 25, 1965, but the incident happened to the Gallaghers one week earlier, on Monday, October 17. [...]

Suddenly, without transition, I found myself descending through the air to land on a long narrow porch that was surrounded by a low railing. I knew that my body was in bed, but lost all contact with it. Regardless of where it was, I was someplace else entirely. [...]

The building was raised up from the ground in a manner different from the usual. Over the railing, a small body of water was visible, and beyond this there was a much larger body of water, an ocean, I thought. Was this Puerto Rico? [...]

[...] The first was that she was momentarily disoriented when she came out of trance because the chair she was sitting in was not where she thought it was while speaking for Seth.

(Jane felt the concentration of energy was stronger when it was directed toward me from the rocker at the start of this episode. When Seth spoke of my hands, Jane saw my astral hands upraised—as I was really writing at the time, with the palms outward, toward her. She said energy was particularly directed at the 4th and 5th fingers of my left hand, although energy was going to both hands. [...]

(Jane was really “fooled” when she opened her eyes and saw her position. She thought the chair was several feet to her own right, closer to our wall-to-ceiling bookcase. “I thought that me, the whole bit where I’m sitting, and me, it seemed to me that I was over there,” she said, pointing to her right side. [...]

(Jane felt that part of her was in back of me, that it was some kind of projection, yet she also “saw” this spot from her seat in the rocker, with her eyes closed... At one time, very dimly, Jane felt something was behind her, also, directing energy toward her.

[...] Here I started to feel the microscopic nature of our planet, comparatively speaking; a shrinking a momentary sense of desolation that was my own, I think; there was no attempt to deny integrity or uniqueness of physical life; but only to express... [...] If the room was going to shrink and all of us with it—as it had grown massive, I just wasn’t ready for the experience. [...] Through all of this, I use the word I, yet these things were happening and “I” was a part of the action so a part, that it was difficult to separate me from it. [...] Earlier I thought of just yelling out to the personality, look forget it; but couldn’t find vocal chords or something; the personality was using them. So this time “I” found myself, pulled myself together, briefly found voice while personality was silent and just as I was seeing the giant face peer down over me, at pyramid top, at me, and room. [...]

[...] John Bradley was here. The session began as usual; Seth said that the other personality was also involved. After first break, before session was to resume, I felt the pyramid effect that usually signals the other personality. The effect wasn’t very strong, though; I wasn’t sure when to “plunge in”, wondered if the time was right, etc. [...] For a moment I wondered again if trance depth was sufficient as sounds in room bothered me. [...]

[...] It seemed as if the room now was almost huge enough to take up all of Elmira; but I didn’t feel as if; I felt as if this were actually happening. [...] Only moments afterward, memory of the thing was beginning to vanish, and words hardly express the subjective sensations. The meaning of the experience is stated in the final part of the session, so there is no need to go into it here; suffice it to say that the experience had a meaning, was not random but highly selective, and would be listed in our classification as “experiencing a concept.” Everything in the room, from smallest to largest, was expanding in proportion; that is, keeping the relative proportion between various objects intact. [...] Very vivid; frightening to me simply because I was not prepared for anything like this, it had never happened before; etc.

[...] Don’t believe personality understood experience was unpleasant; or for that matter that such terms had any particular meaning for it. Information or knowledge was being given in certain terms. Period; as far as it was concerned. I don’t even know if it was aware of my reaction! [...]

(It was of a young girl in a type of flaring and belted, blue party dress. She had long yellow hair; her back was to me. [...] And she was in the act of stomping down, repeatedly, upon a small white and brown dog, with her right foot. [...] Her arms lifted like wings, her hair was very pretty. The belt around her waist was about two inches wide.

(This bald head just about filled the screen from top to bottom, although I was aware of a rather thin neck. I was not aware of any clothing. The man was in his later forties perhaps, or older. [...] There was something of an Oriental feeling about the features and the composition, though I do not believe the person was an Oriental.

His present mother was a wife to him when he was overly aggressive, and he chose to be born as her son in this existence in order to pay an old debt. He was unkind to her when she was a wife to him, and here we run into another case where the subconscious knows what it knows.

[...] Later, while I was living in my hometown of Sayre, PA, I received a phone call from Ed inviting me to work with him on a project in Saratoga Springs, NY. This time it was a syndicated comic strip. [...] Then for some time we did not see Ed; the last time was during an overnight stopover in New Paltz, when Jane and I were on our way to York Beach, Maine, on vacation. It will be recalled that it was in the dance hall at York Beach that Jane and I saw the projected fragments of our own personalities, that Seth dealt with so extensively in the 9th session, of December 18, 1963. [...]

[...] The whole world, more or less, was experimenting with the use of brutal force as an accepted method of enforcing ideas. Anything else was the exception. There are other connections with this life, in which Ruburt chose a woman for his mother who was helpless. Not only could he not attack her, but he was in a position where he must serve her.

The connection between the two was securely made. [...] The acceptance from another writer, simply on that level alone, was important: But the meeting with someone who also shared psychic and writing ability was vital.

This was when he was a male in Turkey, as the country has been called, and you were his cohort, as in the dream he had. [...] He was a great leader, driven by the desire for power, and by a sense of purpose, in the Ottoman Empire. [...]

[...] In your terms he was—in your terms from this standpoint—he was a fanatic against the Christians for religious, political and economic reasons. [...] It was no coincidence that Father Traynor used to read Don Juan of Austria (in the Catholic Church the young Jane attended), for they knew each other at that time.

[...] Jane said as she came out of trance: “That was hard for me to get into. [...] One thing that happened was that I was standing an inch or so higher, and I was walking pretty fast—but I was still bent way over, like I was still in my body like that first time this happened. I was real pleased, though.” [...]

As I stated before, Ruburt was not responsible for his mother’s illness, the break-up of her marriage, the deaths of his grandmother and housekeeper (long pause), and had he had brothers or sisters, for example, they would have reacted in their own fashions to Marie’s behavior. [...] There was no distinction made: to be sinful was of course to be a sinner, and in that home there was no time to foster any kind of independence—the children had to follow strict schedules, toe the mark. [...]

He was made to feel often that he was at least strongly responsible for his mother’s illness. It was also true that on other occasions his mother apologized for such statements—but the statements of course were highly charged and emotional, while the apologies were relatively prosaic. [...]

[...] If he looked into a mirror and was caught at it, he was then caught in the sin of pride. When he wet the bed in the fourth grade night after night, the act was characterized as dirty. [...]

(At 11:05 Jane said she was not Evelyn; she remembered calling out for Evelyn. Evelyn was the person “I was so concerned about. She was in the car with me before the accident. I was a woman, but not Evelyn. But I was in the driver’s seat. Whoever sat next to me, or was supposed to, was gone—not there—or hurt or thrown free...”

(Jane now recalled that the car’s right door was open. Wherever the car was, it was off the road and down a bank, with grass and brush or bushes. Jane said she doesn’t know what streets are like in the city [although she was in New York City last year with me]—if the road in the experience was a superhighway in the city, there was still the slope, not level, going down from the road.

(Was the girl who was driving, and whom Jane entered or replaced injured? [...] Jane couldn’t tell whether the girl’s eyes were open, and she didn’t know if Bill M. was there. Jane said she was Maisie, worried about Evelyn.

(Jane said it was “like following a psychic focus around the room,” which I thought an apt phrase. It was a feeling “almost like something could form.” [...] Jane spoke aloud, requesting that if anybody was around they let us see them or become aware of them somehow. [...]

(On Tuesday, before the dream, I remember thinking casually about Fate Magazine, and that perhaps a new issue was out. The thought was quite brief and without emphasis. [...] I was alone when I had it; I was therefore a little surprised to see that she had bought the magazine the next day, Wednesday, but the surprise was not connected with my recalling my dream. [...]

(My friend was now either a miniature man, or very far away; actually I am quite sure he was miniature size. [...] The landing was very rough and I cried out in dismay as my friend bounced and skidded around. I believe he was about four inches tall, and I saw his skis twisted over each other as he fell.

(Now I was in a shack in the tropics, again at night, with the rest of the group. [...] I was going to operate, or somehow bring my friend back to full size. [...] The shack was lit by glowing kerosene lanterns, or some kind of such yellow light. I think it was quite dirty.

On Ruburt’s part we had a definite manipulation of consciousness that was directed to some extent. You projected once into the past, and I was one of your friends. This episode was the less distorted. One episode involved a small future projection, and was intermixed with ordinary dream elements. [...]

Behind the shop was another room that served as a kitchen and, you might say, parlor. In any case it was the family’s social room. Behind this was a storeroom with earthen floor, and a shed. [...] One actually lived to be 18 and was born when Lessie was very young. [...]

Throckmorton resented the fact that his eldest was a daughter, and it was for this reason that she was allowed to make the journey to France. She was 23 and unmarried. Since her parents had not married her off, and as she was somewhat of a strain on the family income, Throckmorton gave her a cash settlement. [...]

Much love was bestowed upon the boy, Dick, and at his death Throckmorton was all the more bitter against this eldest child. Nor was there any love lost on the young woman’s part. She was temperamentally different from the other members of the family. The house was filled with mourning when Dick died. [...]

[...] There was also a smaller bed in which a maid slept. The family was not rich by any means. The maid was a relative of Throckmorton’s. In the beginning she worked for the family to save a decent dowry. However she was no beauty, and Throckmorton never really managed to pay her much above food and lodging.

[...] Instead, my efforts showed what a crazy state I was in. [...] Hardly any pressure was exerted on the pen. The writing was wavery, small and grew progressively smaller. The prose expression was nothing like mine; it was very childish. [...]

One episode in particular is funny in retrospect — looking back it was certainly undisciplined — but at least it was not overshadowed by superstitious fears about demons; and it led to the episode with which I will close the first portion of this book. The event was a deep trance experience into which I blundered. A second experience convinced me of the high validity of dream existence, for in it a dream was split open while I watched.

I could tell that I was heading into a very deep trance state. On the one hand, I was tempted to go along with it, since I was supposed to be experimenting. Along the way I was able to maintain my present state, without going deeper, but I didn’t know how to snap out of the present state.

[...] If this was the case, then my consciousness possessed these potentials, and I was determined to discover their nature and extent. [...] On the other hand, it never occurred to me that there was any other way to study consciousness except by studying my own — a journey into subjectivity seemed, and still seems, as valid as a journey into objectivity.

(During this time I was watching Jane in an attempt to determine whether we should call a halt to the session. It was apparent that her control with this new method was somewhat unsure; she paused often while speaking, and appeared to have to make quite an effort to maintain just the right balance between being herself while allowing Seth to hover just below, or within her range of consciousness, so that she could pass along his data. [...] She did not want to, however, in our location, and just as I was on the point of suggesting that she end the session, she called a halt to it herself. In a few moments she was out of the trance.

(Jane was also encouraged when Ray Van Over told her that many mediums operated in the fashion she contemplated. This new departure was not particularly easy for Jane, and none of us wanted her to overdo it, but it was quite successful. Note also that Seth didn’t make his presence felt, nor was he asked to, until a convivial atmosphere had been established between the three of us present. [...]

(As in Frederick Fell’s office that morning, Jane now announced that Seth was about and that she was capable of holding a session. [...] There was a constant stream of people passing our table in the coffee shop, but no one paid us any attention.

[...] He was naturally concerned about the success of this venture, in which he was involved with others. [...] There was some related data here that I did not make notes on. [...]

[...] To some extent she was, since she had been honest with him. Then when she discovered that he was not willing or able to go either way, or pay either price, she was enraged and embittered, and did not think of him as a man. So she hated this sister of his and thought: was this, this squalor, what he wanted? And she looked at Jay and was envious, and hated him for being the sort of man she wanted and did not get.

[...] Her vanity, however, was not a characteristic woman’s vanity. Her vanity was perhaps the one characteristic that she shared with other members of the family. She felt she was set apart, but also that she was set apart because she could not tolerate violence. [...]

For part of him was determined to gain worldly success, and he was always caught between wanting freedom, but he would not pay the price, or wanting worldly success for which he was not willing to pay the price. So that part of him that wanted success was attracted to your mother, who also wanted the same thing, and he spoke to her with that part of himself only. [...]

[...] Ella was greatly attached to her, I believe, and the two women spent some time together in the same rest home. Alice was a missionary in Korea for many years. She left the home where Ella was staying a year before Ella’s death. At the funeral Sunday we heard that Alice, at 80-odd years, was still alive, traveling about the country at the moment in connection with the sale of some property.)

(10:11.) While I was not literate, I was shrewd and lively of mind. [...] While I was a Roman and a citizen, my citizenship meant little except for providing me with minimal safety as I went about my daily way, and in my business I encountered as many Jews as Romans. I was not too far above them socially. (This was Seth’s first bit of humor in the chapter.)

— who was, as clearly as I could figure out at the time, a “sacred” assassin. He was drunk the night I spoke to him in a stinking stall outside of Jerusalem. It was he who told me about the symbol of the eye. He also told me that the man, Christ, was kidnapped by the Essenes. [...] Nor at the time he told me did I know who Christ was.

In the historical time of Christ, I was a man called Millenius, in Rome. In that life my main occupation was that of a merchant, but I was a highly curious gentleman, and my travels gave me access to many different groups of people.

[...] I was later one of these, and because of my nationality was never trusted. My part in that drama was simply to acquaint myself with its physical foundation; to be a participant, however small, in that era. [...]