“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Now that idea, I thought as I went into the kitchen to get Jane some wine for the session, made sense—it could account for the perpetuation of her symptoms on a daily, present-life basis, and made a lot more sense than thinking she was suffering now because of something that happened to her when she was perhaps eight years old or whatever. In other words, I said, we’d been approaching the problem backwards: Jane wasn’t sick so much because of her past as she was because of what we were doing every day in present reality—reinforcing and/or perpetuating the symptoms because they served a number of beliefs about present-day reality. [...] I thought I was onto something from a fresh viewpoint, and at the same time was afraid that we’d heard it all before and that the idea meant little. It was also difficult to visualize clearly enough so that it was not merely a repetition of old ideas, but a new slant on those old ideas. [...]

[...] There was something new here, though, I thought, when one postulated that Seth as we knew him was acceptable because of the symptoms. [...] Dealing with our personal situations was taking up more and more of our time. Strange, I thought, if it turned out that personal work would be one of the most creative of all the uses to which the Seth material could be put, rather than grandiose pronouncements coming down from on high, dispensed by one who was in a position of superiority.

[...] I didn’t have time to really think about what I’d been saying myself, but I hoped there was something to it, and that discussing it would offer her some help in the form of improved health. For some time now I’d thought, often, that it could be that she wanted to be sick —that that was the role she’d chosen for this life, that in many ways all of our efforts to get out from under the symptoms were really beside the point. My latest insight, that the symptoms offered legitimacy to the Seth material, was, I hoped, itself legitimate. [...]

(Jane said that the reasons she didn’t have a session for Tom and friends were that her own feelings were against her doing so even though she’d had the spontaneous urge, and that she was also tired because of her symptoms and sitting on the couch for so long. She also was afraid I’d get mad if she did such a thing. [...] She said she was also afraid that she’d keep the group here at the house for hours if she let herself go and did what she wanted to do, on the spur of the moment. [...]

—was thought to be the disloyal member. He denied it; but when they decided that another innocent man was the culprit, a man whom he knew to be innocent, then to save his own life he let them think the innocent man was the betrayer.

Saturday afternoon he was five, not six, and for unforeseen reasons left alone for a mere ten minutes in a large house, circumstances being such that only for a brief time no one was present. He played with a large ball, and the actual incident was so simple and uncomplicated that under ordinary circumstances it would have resulted in no such results.

[...] A portion of a stove had been left on; and though there was no danger of fire, the child was afraid of fire. But this was not the cause of his sudden terror.

[...] It was getting late, we had already put in an active day traveling and visiting, and I for one was not sure of how effective such a session might be. [...]

Tonight Ruburt also desired to know the time, but he was sleeping. The information was delivered to him tonight in exactly the same manner that it was delivered last night. However he was asleep at the time, was not aware except for a glimmering of what had happened; and nevertheless he awoke because of the information that he had received. [...]

[...] Ruburt was quite capable as far as ability was concerned, to know what time it was without the addition of the vision of the clock. This was secondary. [...]

[...] Upon awakening, while still in a drowsy state with her eyes closed, she wondered what time it was. [...] She lay dozing for a few minutes, then asked me what time it was. I said it was 7:00 PM. [...]

Ruburt’s experience last night was along these lines. [...] But in this instance the vision was much better, you must admit, than it is with ordinary eyesight, since the clock that Ruburt saw well enough to tell the time was not even in the same room.

[...] Ruburt said that he used to like his class money because it was tangible, and you understood. But you also told him that the money for books, that came in a check, was just as good, and that there was more of it. [...]

[...] (Louder:) The Protestants have always thought that artists were decadent, that contemplation was dangerous, and that leisure was a crime. (With continuing amusement:) To enjoy your work was suspect—and if you enjoy unconventionality of mind, some leisure in which to contemplate the world about you, then it is about time that you dismissed such parochial concepts, and realized that there is no moral rectitude given them. [...]

[...] Seth was still around, she told me. [...] Her energy was still up. Even sitting in bed, she remarked that she was picking up more of that generalized material from Seth.

(“Twenty minutes later I’m sitting at the front living room table, feeling relaxy and good about things, when I catch an odd brief but lovely experience; something happened momentarily; I felt as if I was seeing with all of me, instead of just with my eyes.... [...] Physically my vision was the same, I think.... but there was a fuller visual appreciation or fullness difficult to verbalize....”

[...] It was soon time to turn her on her left side for a massage with Oil of Olay. For a moment I thought she was dozing—but she was merely lying quietly while her “body tried to calm down a bit” from the exercises. [...] She was also quite warm, although both windows in 330 were wide open. [...]

[...] Without being specific, I said that generally she was doing better in all departments. [...] He wanted to know how the ulcer on Jane’s knee was coming along, and I said very well. Fred stressed that it was important that Jane drink as much liquid as she can. [...]

(After my nap, she ate well for supper, and said she was getting used to the teeth more. Her speaking was much improved. In fact, while she was eating I forgot that she had the new teeth, so well did she do. [...]

[...] I was ready for it at any time, I told Jane. I suppose my readiness was at least partially founded upon the idea that it would be a good thing for Jane to speak through Seth about other matters occasionally than her symptoms and related topics. [...]

[...] “Well, no; but a couple of times I felt that I was right on the verge of accomplishing more with it, but I couldn’t quite bridge the gap to bring it about. The first thing I thought of was Jane’s father, though—I didn’t actually see him, but I was telling Jane that at times I thought I did see the shape of the back of the head —I did associate that with his head.”)

[...] Besides that, my recording of the Sumari personality was poor and I had to stop at Fred and Pete’s [class members] to get their tape, and I didn’t arrive at Jane & Rob’s until 9 PM. We played the two tapes—Jane was especially interested in the chant that preceded the Sumari’s short speech—until 9:20. [...]

Now, the energy here last night was strong enough so that it could be picked up very easily, but you perceived its approach. [...] Before it was here, in your terms, you were aware of its approach and began to prepare yourself to perceive it in whatever fashion you could.

[...] So that the vision that you received, while it was microscopic, was still brilliant, and radiated strong energy.

[...] What was the change in my voice? [...] The reading this time was not as striking as the first time, but still there was certainly something definitely going on.

(I was so angry that I did the whole thing over again. Lepanto is a four-page poem. This time the performance was about like the second one, already recorded. [...] I wasn’t conscious of breathing any differently than usual, but if this was a subconscious production that wouldn’t make any difference. [...]

(The volume and male inflection Jane achieved during her various readings was quite amazing. I noticed that toward the end of each verse of the Lepanto she would reach a crescendo of volume and emotion that was indeed thrilling. [...] For other periods, during what seemed to be letdowns, I would know the voice was hers. [...]

[...] Jane was not as deeply dissociated as she has been recently. [...] Looking back at the Father Trainor episode, she said she was somewhat frightened in retrospect, and would not conduct such a lengthy experiment again.

[...] It was Catherine Murdock from social services. [...] It seemed further that there might be a chance that a bed there was opening up. The thought was broached that Jane could be moved—nothing definite. This was the last thing I wanted to hear. Catherine said names could be moved up and down the Infirmary’s list—evidently Jane’s had been shifted several times when it was determined she was too ill to be moved. There was something about having a private nurse for 16 hours a day, if the staff there couldn’t take care of my wife. I said that was pointless and that we couldn’t afford it. [...]

[...] Without our saying anything, she remarked on how well Jane’s ulcers were healing, and how much better she was. [...] Her Seth voice was quite good. The day was dry but overcast, and the light was already starting to wane.)

(I was already thinking that we didn’t want to move in any direction until the insurance matter was cleared up, lest it appear that we were running scared. [...] But actually, this latest twist was a result of our trying to get somewhere, and might actually work to our benefit with the insurance company, once they were told that my wife couldn’t be moved. That was the message I want to get across to them, with Pete’s help. [...]

[...] And maybe that stand was a good one, I thought, since it was definite. [...] I told Jane I thought the whole thing was one more piece of the puzzle falling into place—that above all I didn’t want her to worry, to just forget it. [...]

The strength of this second civilization lay mainly in the areas now known as Africa and Australia, although at that time not only was the climate entirely different, but the land areas. There was a different attraction of land mass having to do with the altered position of the poles. Relatively speaking, however, the civilization was concentrated in area; it did not attempt to expand. It was highly ingrown and dwelled upon the planet simultaneously with a large, unorganized, dispersed, primitive culture.

(10:33.) The vitality of the civilization was therefore weak — not because violence did not exist, but because freedom of energy and expression was automatically blocked along specific lines, and from outside physically. [...] Free will in this respect was discarded.

Sound was utilized far more effectively, not only for healing and in wars, but also to power vehicles of locomotion, and to bring about the movement of physical matter. Sound was a conveyor of weight and mass.

The physical alteration was a strain on the entire system. The creative function and basis that has been distorted into the idea of aggression — the urge to act — was not understood. [...]

One of the reasons why he did not understand that the spontaneous intuitive self was the deeply creative and therefore deeply stable self, was that he identified it with his idea of femininity as he unfortunately misunderstood it. It was therefore second best, undependable, and could lead to byways that were not respectable. [...]

[...] For while you were adventurous, you also to some extent feared the spontaneous nature that was so a part of your wife, in those terms. A small somewhat amusing note: whenever, throughout your marriage, you commented adversely when Ruburt was about to throw a scarf about his neck, or perhaps wear an extra chain with others, he interpreted this, and quite correctly, as a hint of caution on your part that he was giving too much prevalence to the feminine love of ornamentation.

He was afraid that as once he felt he dragged you all over the country, you would fear that he was now dragging you all over the inner universe. [...]

You gave him quite a lecture, but it was nothing like the lecture he gave himself, and it rearoused old fears of giving in spontaneously to impressions or psychic data. [...] He began to watch out that such episodes would nor reoccur, and this was reflected in muscular tenseness.

(In the dream, all of which was in brilliant color, I’d combined many elements, which I described in more detail to Jane than I’ll give here. [...] Then I was working for Jake Ruppenthal, my old boss at Artistic Card Company, when he was art director. [...] In the dream I was drawing foot-high oval letters in black ink, but was worried about doing a good job because my hand was shaky. [...]

(The temperature was only 5 above when I got up at 6:30 this morning, but was up to 25 degrees when I left for 330.

(Jane was good, had been back from hydro since 11:00 again. [...] She thought it was as terrible — as cheap and sensationalized — as I did. [...]

[...] One was what does the staff, the people we see every day at the hospital, think of us? The other was Seth’s comments on a very vivid and long dream I’d had last night.

Then, re-reading some material I was struck by the massive intellect behind it, the real beauty of the material, and sad that I did not really let myself realize it before; indeed that I had allowed myself to be affected by the lesser writings of others; even to the extent that in some late sessions it affected the material. Told my class last night the whole bit, and said that from now on classes were to be focused about the material; we were going to study it from scratch; this was my life work, my direction, what I was meant to do. Realized yesterday also, going over old notes, that my original ‘cosmic consciousness’ (borrowed phrases again) experience was with The Physical Universe as Idea Construction which turned into and developed into the sessions and Seth Material; the natural, intuitive, and logical development; which to a large extent I relegated to the background and sometimes even distrusted. [...]

Believe this all has to do with the above, plus with a strange session held the night before last, in which through me the voice said it was sort of ‘beyond Seth’; the message coming from a higher portion of that personality; tremendous energy seemed to flow through me and the definite, thank God, certainty, that this came from beyond me, and was automatically translated into words at my end. Subjectively I feel this was as significant a development—almost—as the original Seth session. [...] The feeling I really was in contact with some… all encompassing reality.

[...] I was sort of appalled at the lost work in the Dream manuscript but realized Rob has been right along; and the editor was right. The Seth Material is my unique source and a literally fabulous one; that I really did not truly appreciate and to which I was not really directed. [...]

(Reading the 3rd session, of December 6/63, John noticed that Frank Watts, Jane and I had all lived together in Mesopotamia in the 4th century B.C. In that life I was a woman, Frank Watts was my sister, and Jane was a brother to us, and named Seth. [...] Now John wondered if the Seth mentioned in the 3rd session, page 18, was the same Seth who is now giving us the material.

[...] By now Jane was already nervous, especially so after her very short sessions last week. Her wry neck was much abated, but she had lost her mental connection with the steady flow of the material and was wondering how she would do when it came to resuming dictation.

[...] The prefix extral was not listed, nor was extralvalue; but extralimitary, meaning outside the limit or boundary, was. [...]

(In spite of her nervousness Jane began dictating on time in a rather husky voice that was somewhat stronger than normal; her pace was average, her eyes dark as usual. [...]

[...] There was a lighted candle on the coffee table before the group, and as Seth was speaking the flame increased noticeably in height. [...] All windows were closed since it was a chilly evening, and the air was quite still. [...] The flare-up of the candle flame was sudden, not gradual.

(The same effect took place during the 182nd session, which was witnessed by the Gallaghers. Seth stated then, as he did last Friday, that he was at times able to produce such effects when Jane, or Ruburt, was not alert and consequently on guard.

(The session was held in our back room and was quiet. [...] Her voice was quiet, her pace fairly good, although with pauses.)

(Jane feels the voice John heard within can have one of three explanations: It was Seth; it was a subconscious creation on John’s part; it was a telepathic communication, on a subconscious level, from Jane to John.)

I was totally alert and critical at the time, focused at a high point of concentration, though, in that all of my attention was pivoted expectantly. The experience was fascinating and increasingly enjoyable. [...] Now the half-full glass was beside me. [...] A strong sense of exhilaration was present, as was the feeling of great energy. There was no feeling that any particular personality was giving me the information, yet there was the certainity that the words were being delivered from somewhere or someone outside my own reality. [...]

[...] I was surprised that he didn’t know without being told, as he usually does, that something was going on, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. [...] It took great effort for me to withdraw that much energy away from what I was doing. [...]

[...] Initial instructions were given, though only preliminary, but I was ready to follow them. Now the speaker was addressing me, where the earlier monologue had been impersonal. [...] I was really disappointed, but shook my consciousness to set it back to daily things, and with only a moment of reorientation attended to my guests.

[...] It was a rectangular object that reminded me of a gadget shown to us once by Jim Beal from NASA that reacted to light and another that reacted to pressure. [...] It was supposed to represent the moment as we perceive it. The center section of the rectangle was most opaque and the ends most transparent. [...]

[...] When she began speaking the voice was high and distant, with little inflection, and as usual ended on a peculiar upbeat so that at times it was hard to detect the ending of a sentence, etc, Jane moved very little as she spoke; her glasses remained on. There was no greeting.)

(At 9:16 Jane said she was waiting to see what developed, that she was getting a hint of the pyramid feeling; which usually means that Seth’s entity will speak in place of Seth. [...]

(At no time during the session was there much of a pyramid effect. Jane said that as she left trance last time she got the feeling that “this personality felt that he was able to use some of my processes, that we were clicking together better, to get his ideas across.”

(At 10:20 Jane said she got a few bits and pieces of things, then said she thought the session was over—she “slid down.” She could say but little about what she had picked up: Since consciousness creates reality, reality is not independent of consciousness; but there was more here.

[...] The spontaneous self was the first to break away, and forcibly. It was at the time strong and powerful enough to have its way, and it did not have experience enough behind it. Now a whole new uniting principle has been realized by the spontaneous self, but little attempt was made to enlarge the definitions of good on the part of the overly conscientious self.

Ruburt liked jobs where he was outside and free. [...] The overly conscientious self demanded that this was not work enough. [...] This, combined with your attitude that he take a normal job, almost literally paralyzed him, for your voice was added, in his mind you see, reinforcing the rigid attitude of the overly conscientious self. [...]

[...] The word God embarrasses it beyond measure, simply because the word no longer means what the overly conscientious self was taught to believe what it meant. It was not the Catholic God. [...]

[...] The overly conscientious self tried to call a halt to pleasure until the issue was settled. [...] Both sides brought to bear emotional issues from the past that served to illustrate or strengthen their own position, so that Ruburt was pulled willy-nilly.

(There follows from her dream notebook Jane’s account of one of the dreams she had on Tuesday, May 10,1966: “This whole dream was in images. [...] It was a revelation type dream, except that now I can’t remember anymore about it. Perhaps someone else was showing me all this; not sure though.”

[...] (A long pause; Jane was very restless.) The dream, I believe, was a part of a series of three dreams, the other two yet to come. He was also involved in some astral travel. [...]

[...] It was during this year that her recurring playground dream was strong and vivid. She was 11 years old. [...]

[...] Jane believes it refers to her recurring playground dream, and the fact that her school was directly across the street from the site of her dream. [...] Although the building was directly across the street from the playground there was no access between the two. [...]

[...] Your mood was very poor, and he felt that you were angry and resentful at him because of its publication. You were not yet in the throes of your illness, and he felt that this represented the last straw to you—that it was not that good a book, not art as you thought your paintings to be, and yet it was published.

[...] Part of this was a projection of other problems however, rather than specifically your attitude toward the book. Your attitude however was very negative. [...] He knew the book was not art also, and felt guilty.

In the past this was done completely at an unconscious level, with no conscious knowledge. [...] On the other hand he was afraid of it for the reasons given earlier, having to do with yourself.

The slowdown was physically expressed, both as an expression of the slowdown on the company’s part after the initial burst of activity, representing here disappointment and anger. This also represented a cautionary slowdown however to reassure you that he was not going to take over, overshadow you, since you have worked so hard at your own art without any such recognition.

(Tonight she was so far out of it after supper that I thought there was no chance at all for a session. I reminded her that I was available should she want to try for one. [...] Her head was bothering her. [...]

(Saturday afternoon it was Fred Conyers from Denver, CO. [See the attached copy.] Sunday afternoon it was Gene Lang from NYC. This afternoon it was Mr. Lewis from Honolulu. [...]

[...] He was more frightened when he encountered it than he realized. [...] At the same time, when he returned home he was afraid he could not handle events, and might fall toward a constant medical surveillance. It he could not “do it” in the medical manner, and if he could not “do it” on his own, then where was he? [...]

[...] I hadn’t expected anything, but her Seth voice was surprisingly good and strong in spite of everything.)