“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

And some of these dream projections did yield evidence that was convincing to me. One night while experimenting in the dream state, for example, I found myself standing in a room about the size of our bedroom, but it was obviously being used as a closet. [...] Clothing was hung on hangers by wall brackets all about. Everything was very vivid. [...] I knew I was in someone’s house, and that my body was in bed. But where was I? [...]

[...] In the back of my mind all night was the resolution to make sure I recorded my dreams. Here, I was sure I was awake. I wrote the dreams down in my notebook which was on the bedside table, and then, to make sure, I awakened Rob and told him the dreams also. [...] Again, I was positive I was awake.

The room was dark, normal in every way, lit to some degree by the streetlights outside. At first I thought that Miss C. was sleepwalking and was worried about awakening her. [...] I heard very dim jazz music and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Miss C. was hardly the type to carry a small transistor radio in her robe pocket.

[...] No one was there. It was 12:30 P.M. I sat down and wrote down the experience and the earlier dreams. [...] It was coming from the apartment upstairs, and it was exactly the same kind I’d heard earlier. [...] It was quiet and still there. [...]

He told you he thought you both needed help in getting him into the car, which would necessitate motions quite difficult for him at that point in time—but he went along with your opinion, feeling again that negative suggestion alone was responsible for his own feelings. [...] What was not said was as important as what was said as far as the interview itself was concerned, for implied there was always the authoritative picture of the progress of certain symptoms, ending in the most dire pictures. [...]

(Jane’s Seth voice was good this evening, almost free of tremor, and often more emphatic than it has been. It was obvious that this was because as Seth she was dealing with more charged material.)

(The “blue” middle finger on Jane’s left hand was better, and has been slowly improving a bit each day, yet the visit to see Dr. Sobel was a disaster as far as Jane was concerned. [...]

[...] He called a colleague of his who was in Ithaca, and described Jane’s finger condition to him, but if memory serves he received ambiguous information again. Again, I thought the visit at least preserved the status quo for us, since I could see that more and more Jane was turning against the idea of preventative drug treatment for vasculitis, say, or anything else. She was convinced the finger would mend itself, and it appeared to be doing so in its own way. [...]

He felt that it was inevitable, or should be, for you at one time to devote yourself to your painting, that you knew this, that is was always ahead of you, and that it was being unnecessarily put off.

He was afraid that you would grow more deeply to resent this, and that you would not rouse yourself in time to do what you must do. In the beginning he was afraid of taking the chance, but not taking the chance became finally unbearable. He was afraid you would not do it. [...]

[...] I encouraged her to talk about what was on her mind even though her supper got cold, etc., and was sure Seth would cover the subject this evening.

It was you who always said you wanted to put all of your energy into your work. [...] But he was more than willing to try if given the chance.

(Bill Macdonnel was present but I was working in my studio. [...] She was also not quite sure of how sympathetic Bill was to the attempt. [...]

(Jane said she felt that Seth was trying to come through with material on the Gallagher object, and that she was trying not to block it. She had the feeling Seth wanted to say it was rock; the other day Jane had the conscious impression that it was tin or galvanized metal, of the sort Bill Gallagher uses in fashioning some of his modern sculpture.

(It will be remembered that it was at York Beach, in August 1963, that Jane and I saw the fragments we had ourselves created, according to Seth, in the dancing establishment called the Driftwood Lounge. This was some months before the sessions began. The snapshot was taken on the beach perhaps 200 yards from the Driftwood. [...]

[...] Ruburt was simply not confident enough in the Father Trainor episode last evening to adequately perform the inner manipulations necessary, without your presence. The first occasion was completely spontaneous, and his ego was not aroused.

[...] Jane didn’t feel well while Debbie was there. An aide took Jane’s temperature during the visit, and it was normal at 8:30. My wife’s temperature was checked again around 11:00 p.m. and it was 101. The next time, after 3:00 a.m., it was 102. But after breakfast this morning Jane’s temperature was down to 95.5. This was after she’d been given a pill to lower her temperature artificially. [...]

(“But Seth was right,” she told me. “The body was trying to get rid of things — the mucous — that it didn’t want.” [...] Only now there was no swelling. [...]

[...] Jane’s blood pressure was normal, her temperature was 97, pulse good. She let me know when she was ready for the session. [...]

[...] Jane was ready to be turned early — most unusual. [...] He seemed generally satisfied, although he said Jane’s urine was “too concentrated.” [...]

He had healthy enough body concepts that had to be minimized to give him the symptoms, and this was done by reactivating beliefs he had “grown out of” before his symptoms. His mother gave him the idea that he was not graceful, for example, and this idea was reactivated. He was not allowed to take physical education because he was “not strong enough, and too high strung” when he was in high school. He was told not to run, but walk, to slow down because it was too dangerous to go fast, because he was too nervous. [...]

Ruburt’s (very relaxed) condition today was the result of Friday’s news (about the very good sales of all of Jane’s books), and the body was ridding itself of a tension. [...] That is, he took on the symptoms because he believed that physical restraint was the best way to insure his concentration. [...]

[...] He thought previously that Eleanor and Dick would be a means, and there was a period from the time when you met them, until now, when for him everything was critical. The carrot was out before the horse. [...]

[...] It was not really great wealth, but some acceptable framework of financial security he was after, and some assurance that his books would bring him this, along with the freedom of creativity as he understood it.

The dilemma was, here now, between truth—a literal translation of ancient records—or a creative approach which could lead to falsification, so he was highly suspicious of the creativity in himself. [...] He was therefore very severe in dealing with originality on the part of his students, considering it, again, a threat. He was indeed a taskmaster.

[...] He was a man of the strongest purpose, high dedication, a severe perfectionist who drove himself and his students. He was a mystic, but a mystic given to great discipline, denial, restraint. He inhibited many of his strongest drives in order to focus them upon his search and the work to which he was committed.

In dealing with these records he was suspicious of creativity, for he feared it could lead to original alterations where instead a literal interpretation was important. He was also however a creative man so there were personality conflicts, and he literally forced the creativity to take a weak secondary position.

Therefore there was little consistent attempt made to reassure Ruburt’s emotional nature, or reach it on an emotional or physical level. [...] Secondly, the conflict over sessions: Ruburt himself felt he was wasting time on the one hand, and on the other was refusing to be coerced.

[...] It seems to you that the female always tended to the offspring, for example, nursing them, that she was forced to remain close to home while the male fought off enemies or hunted for food. [...] There was instead a different kind of situation. [...] The family of the caveman was a far more “democratic” group than you suppose — men and women working side by side, children learning to hunt with both parents, women stopping to nurse a child along the way, the species standing apart from others because it was not ritualized in sexual behavior.

There was always more land. [...] If he came to a desert, he still knew that fertile lands were somewhere available, even if it was a matter of finding them. [...] It was literally a limitless world in a way most difficult for you to understand; for to you, the world has shrunk.

[...] Man was acquainted with death, and many children were stillborn, or were naturally aborted. This also, however, was in the natural order of things, and was done far more easily then than now. [...]

The vitality of the species in fact was assured because it did not overspecialize in terms of sexuality. There was no fixed mating period, for example. [...]

[...] I was in a very deep trance the night of the session, which deepened as the session continued. [...] I was in no condition to offer or indeed to make any critical judgement at the time, and Seth was fully focused in delivering the statement to the students, however. I had thought when the session was over of suggesting we do this, but I was exhausted even though I knew I was having trouble snapping out of the trance.

[...] While the voice was not as unique—as low in pitch or as resounding, as it has been on some occasions—it was definitely apparent at times during the session and sometimes it was quite startling. [...]

(While the voice boomed out toward the end, I was in that classroom, certainly not in our living room. The emotional projection at the very least was very strong—speaking out to those students—but some kind of out-of-body projection also occurred. This simply was: I could not critically comment on it at the time. [...]

(The session was particularly interesting from several standpoints as far as I was concerned.

He was also however symbolic of evil to Ruburt, and to some extent then conquered simply through the natural passage of events. With the death of Ruburt’s mother Rooney’s purpose was done as far as Ruburt was concerned; and Rooney did a final service, for through his death Ruburt faced the nature of pain and creaturehood that his mother’s life had so frightened him of.

The cat was aware in its terms of this. [...] It was fixed. [...]

The cat was male, called originally Katherine however, and identified as female. [...] He was willing however to trade these for several years of additional physical life, in which he also learned for the first time to relate to gentleness; even to be on terms with another cat, and Willy in his way served as a mentor.

[...] He was not a passive receptor however, the cat, and he even learned from his encounters with Jack Wall. [...] (Very important.) Rooney however is free of a distrust that he had carried with him, having to do with his background in that house, this time, across the way, and was grateful for those additional years you gave him.

The first “object” was an almost unendurable mass, though it had no weight, and it exploded, instantaneously beginning processes that formed the universe—but no time was involved. [...] In your terms this was a physical explosion—but in the terms of the consciousnesses involved in that breakthrough, this was experienced as a triumphant “first” inspirational frenzy, a breakthrough into another kind of being (most intently).

[...] The evening was a great success. [...] My voice was gone by the end of the meeting [and the next day it was still very hoarse]. [...]

This evening it was obvious that Jane really wanted to have the session, because she told me she was ready for it early. [...] She was turned on in trance, wound up, her pace considerably faster than it’s been lately.)

But in your terms this was still largely a dream world, though it was fully fashioned. [...] But individualized consciousness was not quite all that bold. [...]

But, as often happens when I try to second-guess Seth, I was really wrong. [...] I just found myself hovering in midair, looking down on a particular neighborhood that was obviously someplace in Southern California. Back in the living room, Seth was describing what I was seeing, but I was only distantly aware of his voice. [...]

I had no idea how to tell Rob that I was out of my body, as Seth was carrying on as usual. [...] In the meantime I floated in the air, quite high, looking down on the location Seth was describing. I was able to move about, changing my position to get a better view. [...] Seth was saying:

All of this was highly interesting to Phil, who had no idea where the woman lived, and knew nothing about her except her name and probable age. Since he was to be in town the next day, Phil went back to the bar and started asking questions. He found out the woman’s address from the bartender and drove down the street to discover that Seth knew what he was talking about. [...] She was Catholic and had a child and a male friend who was a car salesman rather than a mechanic.

[...] How could he record my perceptions when my consciousness was across the continent? I was more intellectually intrigued than I can say. One thing I knew: He was pretty tricky—sending me “out” without my prior conscious knowledge of what he was planning. [...]

[...] This time I was a dinosaur. I mean, I WAS one. [...] There was a similarity between the eagle and the dinosaur in that body armor or whatever, that strange toughness … these were all stages that I had been through — or at least that some of the cells in my body remembered — but the immediacy was very vivid on my part….

[...] For now I was touching up my nails — I’d worn off all the new polish on their edges from typing my Speaker poetry all day. And inside God or not, here I was, quite capable of thinking in such mundane terms. As I went into the living room to prepare it for guests, that room was also an inside that was an inside….”

(“As I sat at my desk the next morning, April 2, I was suddenly filled with the strongest, most vivid kind of inspiration I think I’ve ever had. I was swept along by it all day long, writing in a fever, agitated yet exultant. The result was a nine-page poem called Dialogues of the Speakers, which may or may not continue into a book. [...]

[...] With my inner sight I felt that one of those forms, sturdy and impossibly massive, might bend down and with his gigantic face peek into my kitchen window … though I was also aware that all of this was my interpretation of what I was receiving.

(Then for the first time after supper, after I’d read the prayer with Jane and was getting ready to leave, she said she felt that her body wanted to move some more. [...] I said that was an excellent sign, for it showed the body was starting to move out of its safe schedule of doing movements at just one time of the day. It was branching out. “I suppose such a move was inevitable,” I said, “and we should be damned glad of it....” [...] Once again I was cheered.)

[...] The car was ready. [...] I turned Jane on her left side before I left, shortly after 5:00, but I was back with the car within 15 minutes. [...] It was very beneficial, my dehypnosis process. [...] I was quite encouraged. [...]

[...] Jane was doing well on her side, and as I turned her. [...] Fred Kardon must have seen the stone, Jane said, since the word was relayed through him that that’s what it was—a bladder stone. [...]

[...] “That was the whole body using itself,” I said when she finally rested. [...] “I couldn’t tell what was going on.” [...]

Jewish shepherds represented the placenta that was meant to be discarded, for it was Jewish tradition that nourished the new religion in its early stages before its birth. Christ, as you know, was a common name, so when I say that there was a man named Christ involved in those events (see Seth Speaks), I do not mean to say that he was the biblical Christ. His life was one of those lives that were finally used to compose the composite image of the biblical Christ.

The mass psyche was seeking for a change, an impetus, a flowering, a new organization. The idea of a redeemer was hardly new, but ancient in many traditions. As I stated before, that part of the world was filled with would-be messiahs, self-proclaimed prophets, and so forth, and in those terms it was only a matter of time before man’s great spiritual and psychic desires illuminated and filled up that psychological landscape, filling the prepared psychological patterns with a new urgency and intent. [...] (musically) filled the psychic bill, but who were unfitted for other reasons: They were of the wrong race, or their timing was off. [...]

(Pause.) Now in the facts of history, there was no crucifixion, resurrection, or ascension. In the terms of history there was no biblical Christ (pause), whose life followed the details given. [...] Nor can it be disputed that Christianity was based upon great religious and psychic vision. [...]

[...] For I was embroiled in trying to produce a note relative to a passage of Seth’s in Mass Events about Christ’s resurrection and ascension. [...] And the last thing I’d expected of Jane tonight was any material on religion from Seth. [...]

(Leaning back on the couch, eyes closed:) When Ruburt was a church member, however, the church itself was there, easily identified. To some extent later, even when it was a worthy opponent, Ruburt could see where his own ideas fit in or did not. There was only so much leeway granted, so much questioning allowed—for beyond a certain point of course the entire dogmatic structure would fall apart. [...]

[...] He was far from any scientist, of course. He did poorly in science in college, for that matter, for if his mind was too scientific for religious dogma, it was too creative and emotional for conventional scientific thought. [...]

(Long pause.) “The church” was not a hypothetical entity, but was encountered through Ruburt’s experience with the priests who visited, their effect upon his life and his poetry, and with the entire fabric of a young intense daily life. If the church became upset with what Ruburt wrote or read, then Father Ryan burned one of his books, or argued with his poetry, for example, so all of that was living emotional content. [...]

[...] At the same time she “knew my body was trying out some new positions in bed, like it used to before all this happened. I also knew I was working out some conflicts, and I wasn’t worried. [...]

(Yesterday I’d told Jane that I knew her “body was up to something.” [...] I said I wanted information on whether she wanted to live or die — or whether she was trying to die her own natural death, in line with that excellent information in Mass Events. I wanted to know what her sinful self thought about what it was doing to her body, if it cared, if it even understood that it’s protective actions threatened its own existence. Or was her death the ultimate goal of the sinful self? [...] I felt I was onto something here, but wasn’t quite sure what — something close to the more basic human condition that is little understood. [...]

[...] Jane was a bit better, yet still uncomfortable. She could keep some medications down, but was very careful about food. [...] Georgia had told her Jeff had called me, and her version of the call was pessimistic indeed. [...]

(We also discussed Jane’s fears that she’d done all she could in this life, and thus was ready to bow out of physical existence. [...] And all the time we talked I couldn’t help but just miss, just fail to understand exactly why she was doing what she was doing. [...]

[...] I felt sad for Jane and what was happening to both of us. [...] When Jeff called I was reading the last portion of the first session in Jane’s book, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events — for April 18, 1977, in connection with a note I’m doing for Dreams. [...]

[...] The closed door was in deep shadow, but I knew I was before it. [...] I didn’t realize that I was projecting at first — I didn’t have the presence of mind, say, to order myself to burst through the door into the living room. But that I was out of my body, and in this very pleasant weightless state, did slowly make itself known to me. [...]

[...] My astral body was in the same approximate position, perhaps six inches above. My state was remarkably steady and pleasant: I felt awake, aware of what I was up to, and quite free and weightless. [...] I was very pleased.

[...] The projection, small as it was, had seemed so easy and natural that I wondered why it wasn’t a commonplace. I knew all the while that much more was possible than I was able to accomplish — that just beyond my abilities of the moment lay wonderful possibilities if I could just break that… barrier. [...]

(Last night, Tuesday, I went to bed while Jane was holding ESP class in the living room. It was about 11:30. [...]

By then, however, Ruburt began to fear that he was headed for trouble—that he was too impetuous, headstrong and impulsive. Leaving Walt for you on a moment’s notice, so to speak, was not extremist behavior either, for he had spent three years in that relationship, and gave it indeed all the trial period it deserved. [...] In not wanting children, a good amount of discipline was used by both of you—the kind of discipline that simply would not be possible for people “driven” by impulsive desires. [...] It is easy enough to say that that was extreme, but many women have hysterectomies for the same purpose.

When the psychic development began, Ruburt was triumphant, for his abilities were flowering, and intuitively he sensed that direction, but the part of him that also dealt with the world was somewhat appalled, for again, such behavior was not conventional, and it was not particularly “the way to make friends and influence people.”

The dream was meant to do two things: point out the fears that were still present, and to show you that though present, they were groundless. The car, which was the vehicle of expression, would not crash. It was not going backward. [...]

[...] “You can’t say I wasn’t spontaneous,” she added, “or that I was cowardly or wishy-washy....” [...] Oversoul Seven is also involved in some fashion, especially the movie aspects —for when Jane called Eleanor Friede to offer her Emir, Eleanor told Jane she was about to call her about Seven, the call having to do with possible motion picture connotations, through a well-known screenwriter; that is the kind of event intertwined with the whole affair; nor have Jane and Eleanor contacted each other for probably a couple of years.

[...] Bill has told us very little about her, other than that she was an arthritic cripple like Jane’s mother is. [...] Seth stated that his mother “was fascinated by numbers,” loved the color blue, and was inordinately fond of flowers. After the session Bill Gallagher told us his mother had been a bookkeeper, was buried wearing a blue dress—blue was her favorite color—and that she was indeed very fond of flowers.)

[...] Jane was well dissociated. It was one of those instances, she said, where she was “totally involved” with the material she was delivering. She felt as though she was inside the material. [...]

The man was an acquaintance of yours in a life many centuries ago. [...] He was a teacher, and is one now. He was a relative when Ruburt was Seth. He knows of our relationship, and was curious.

[...] He could not give us this information earlier, he said, because we would have leaped to the conclusion that he was Ruburt’s [Jane’s] subconscious mind; this is not so. [...] To quote Seth: “Ruburt is not myself now, in his present life; he is nevertheless an extension and materialization of the Seth that I was at one time... [...] He is now an actual gestalt, a personality that was one of the probable personalities into which Seth could grow. [...]