“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(To me:) Your mother did not simply choose to believe, in her old age, in a different past than the one that was accepted by the family—she effectively changed probabilities. She was not deluded or obsessed. Her memory in that regard, now, was not defective: It was the memory of the probable woman that she became.²

(No session was held last Monday evening, Christmas Eve. [...] After the party was over Jane and I gave each other our own presents. My high point was receiving the little book of poems and sketches she’d made for me. [...]

[...] She thought this was strange, since during the last couple of days she’d picked up quite a few insights from Seth on various subjects. [...]

[...] All of the probable versions of 1980 spin off their own probable pasts as well as their own probable futures, and any consciousness that exists in 1980 was (again in those terms) a part of what you think of as the beginning of the world.

One of those steps in Jane’s self-directed search for understanding is referred to in Note 5 for Session 681 (in Volume 1), which contains three lines from her poem, More Than Men. She wrote it in 1954, when she was 25 years old. That was the year we married. The Seth material’s inception lay nine years ahead of us; neither of us knew what mediumship was. Yet, as Jane said recently: “It was there in the poetry all the time, only I didn’t understand.” [...]

Jane and I certainly don’t think the fact that Frank and Mrs. Miller know Louise Akins was the reason the Millers moved next door to us, yet it is one factor to be considered among a myriad of others — money, availability, and so forth. [...] Why was Frank Corio assigned the task of selling the house next door to us? Why did the Millers encounter him at just that particular time, and why was he, of all the real estate agents in Elmira, the one who succeeded in selling them the house they bought?

[...] “Boy,” she said, “I was getting stuff toward the end that neither of us — Seth or me — could verbalize. [...] I vaguely felt it, but it was pretty alien to my psychological experience.” [...]

[...] Her delivery was so subdued at first that I wondered if she was using her Seth voice. [...]

[...] The dream was quite long and involved but I can describe here only one small portion. I was the proprietor of a gas station on Keystone Avenue, up near the skating-rink section, and on the other side of the highway from the Acme Market location. [...] It was summertime and I wore shorts, cut-off blue denim jeans.

[...] He kept trying to make something useful out this affair, and the more he tried the more obvious it became that he was trying to wrap himself in a blue-and-white Turkish towel in lieu of shorts. [...]

(My dream Seth referred to took place yesterday morning, and was so vivid I lay awake for an hour after having it. [...] Because is was so vivid, it would make a great series of paintings. [...] I was naked, saying, “I’ve lost my way,” to a girl, possibly a nurse, seated at a desk in a cavernous, vacant, rust-red old room. [...]

[...] It was not, for example, precognitive, but it did inform you — using images and feelings — of the picture that was sometimes painted in different terms by your conscious thoughts. [...]

[...] I felt somewhat discouraged also, and agreed there was little else we could do at this time, since nothing else seemed to be working. [...]

[...] Such a child will often be quite conscious of the reason for the affair: he or she may openly admit the fact that the injured part was purposefully chosen so that a dreaded test at school could be missed, and the child might well think that the injury was little enough to pay for the desired effect that it produced.

(She also thought of a chapter in Seth’s new book, one that was titled “Food and You” — then found herself stewing about saying something wrong in the book and leading people astray — more signs of old habits. [...]

(When the nurse took Jane’s temperature it was 98.8. “My God,” I joked, “that’s almost perfect.”

[...] She said that she was doing well — obviously — then added that when she spoke a sentence for Seth she also sensed the other sentences to come, or those around the spoken one. [...]

[...] It was okay. [...] She didn’t show up while I was there. [...]

(The lunch tray was already in room 330 when I got there. [...]

(Jane was okay on her side. [...]

[...] Now her right foot was definitely moving, the best yet. [...]

[...] It was another unusually warm night; we had a window open, and were aware of traffic noise. Jane’s delivery was comparatively fast to begin with.)

(Monday evening’s session concerned the use of hallucinogenic drugs, including LSD, as therapy; no book dictation was involved. [...]

(Even so, her use of energy in ESP class Tuesday night was remarkable once again; she alternated between Seth and singing in Sumari throughout the evening.

(Pause at 9:35.) Your time was not sidetracked the other evening. [...]

(By now Jane’s pace was slower and quieter. She was quite tired. [...] Jane was amazed to find that Seth was “still fresh as a daisy” and could easily go on for another hour, when she was so tired.)

[...] He left at break, as he was tired. Jane’s pace was fast, her voice deeper and louder than usual.

Now, Ruburt was aware of this evening’s gathering this afternoon. [...]

[...] Such peoples, building up the human stock, intuitively knew that the population would be increased if relations were restricted to periods when conception was most likely to occur. The blood was an obvious sign that the woman at her period was relatively “barren.” Her abundance was gone. It seemed to their minds that she was indeed “cursed” during that time (emphatically).

[...] Therefore the natural source was most flagrant, observable, and undeniable. [...] In “subduing” its own female elements, the species tried to gain some psychological distance from the great natural source from which it was, for its own reasons, trying to emerge.

[...] Included in it was a discussion of his relationship with us, and the place of his books in our lives. [...]

(“I was suddenly caught up by swift joy,” Jane wrote the next morning. [...] This was the first time I’d had such an experience outside, walking; I found my body moving faster, easier, freer. It was an instant thing. It was so joyful I couldn’t sleep for a while. [...]

[...] It was for her, from a woman friend who lives in New York City. [...]

(I was somewhat surprised, since it was getting late, and I was getting a snack ready before going to bed. [...]

[...] I asked her if the new motions were a sign of the greater freedom of motion she would soon be showing, according to Seth in last night’s session [on the 28th], but she was noncommittal. [...]

(Once again Seth came through before I finished writing these notes, and once again Jane’s voice was strong, as it had been during the last session.)

[...] The Sinful Self was taught to distrust its own nature and expression, believing that that nature, by virtue of original sin, was flawed—but in a tragic fashion—literally damned by God, of course, because of the sins of the forefathers. [...]

[...] It is instead to understand it, its needs and motives, and to communicate the idea that it was sold a bad bill of goods in childhood—scared out of its wits, maligned. [...]

The idea is to show it that those beliefs no longer apply, that the framework in which they were learned was highly faulty. [...]

[...] Ruburt will probably begin to experience the refreshment I mentioned, and relaxation, more and more, but it was also important that he be aware of the subjective state that had been causing the difficulty. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. She said my sneezing did not bother her, that Seth was willing to wait; but also that Seth probably called the break early because of my continued sneezing.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. My writing hand was tired.)

[...] Her pacing was average, her eyes dark as usual. [...]

[...] It was good for Ruburt’s confidence to hold a session away from home, and before people who though far from strangers, are nevertheless not closely associated in daily life.

(11:00 P.M. Jane was out of trance quickly. [...] She said she was glad Seth had begun work on his book. “For ages in the past,” she said, “whenever I thought Seth wanted to start the book, I was afraid to let him do it.”

[...] She was quite surprised that so much time had passed. She was also much relieved that Seth had started the book, while keeping her well under. [...]

[...] Seth once humorously commented that his way of speaking was actually due to his own “cosmopolitan background,” acquired through many lifetimes. [...]

[...] This is our first experience in writing a complete book in trance, and Ruburt was somewhat nervous before the session began. [...]

[...] Until a very few years ago it was medical dogma that the immune system was entirely independent of any “outside” influence. [...] Over and over Marie told Jane that she was no good, that the daughter’s birth had caused the mother’s illness. Well before she was 10 years old Jane had developed persistent symptoms of colitis, an inflammation of the large intestine/bowel that is often associated with emotional stress. [...] Marie—and others—told her that she would burn herself out and die before she was 20 years old. Her vision was poor; she required very strong glasses (which she seldom wore). [...]

[...] They were divorced in 1931, when Jane was two years old. (Jane didn’t see her father again—he came from a broken home himself—until she was 21.) By the time Jane was three years old, her mother was having serious problems with rheumatoid arthritis. [...]

[...] Marie was a brilliant, angry woman who lived in near-constant pain, and who regularly abused her daughter through behavior that, if not psychotic, was certainly close to it. [...] Her father died in 1971, when he was 68. [...]

[...] (As closely as we can determine, Marie was about 26 years old at their onset. Jane was 35; she’ll be 53 tomorrow.)

[...] Jane was well dissociated as usual. While she was delivering the material our cat, Willy, jumped up on her lap and began to playfully pull and tug at her wool sweater. [...] She said she was aware of him as she spoke, but that was all. [...]

[...] In other words, though the ego was adopted originally by the inner self, and was a product of physical heredity and environment, it does not die; but its existence is changed from physical reality into electrical reality. [...]

(John Bradley, who has witnessed several sessions, was a visitor this afternoon but not a witness this evening.

[...] Her voice was normal for the most part, her glasses off.)

[...] The sensation was your own reaction to the psychological presence of your friend Ferd. [...] But in another way he was their cause, since you interpreted his existence in that particular manner. [...]

There was some distortion in your picture. [...]

(Recently our friend in Boston, Pat Norelli, had visited a female medium who told her that she was under the influence of an evil eye, and would never have a happy day as long as she lived. [...]

([Pete:] “My mind’s a blank… My sister was thinking of a possible trip to Australia for Christmas.”)

[...] The comment was that while it was not loud, it was stronger than usual. [...]

(Again, during the break the point that “the answers are within us” was being discussed and the further point that these answers were evolved emotionally rather than wholly rationally. Seth had said that this was true only as long as we give up our misconceptions. [...]

(The validity of Dr. [Gilbert] Holloway’s advice for Brad was being discussed when Seth interjected the following. [...]

(What Seth said was repeated to Jane—ending with the fact that he would be here for a “social time.”)

[...] The acquaintance was a heavy smoker. [...]

[...] Jane was a woman medium in Boston a century or so ago, according to Seth, and possessed clairvoyant knowledge of her own death, at 82 or 83, from cancer.

(Jane’s pause was again very long. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated about as usual, she said, for a first delivery. [...]

The dream was simply a small scenario. [...] He was in a fashion frightened of the ideas of masculinity he grew up with—ideas he felt he did not embody, and he projected those upon his sons so that in a fashion they overawed him, or put him to shame. [...]

[...] If you were your father’s son, you were somewhere your father’s daughter, and it was at that point of reference that you encountered the dream situation. [...]

(Pause.) Your father’s sentence—the paper-bag reference—was one he actually made in his own mind, in the life that you actually knew him in, and he considered that sons rather than daughters represented his one physical triumph —that is, he believed sons preferable, and they alone compensated for a working man’s life—a life he felt did not befit him. [...]

[...] From my understanding of it, there was no other significance to the age orientation, except that the two of you were adults, and thus would have had a long shared background behind you. [...]