“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt’s almost instant reaction following the G.I. notice was, here, excellent. [...] His seeking out of his friend, your landlady, was beneficial, since in harmless talk and chatter much aggressive energy was harmlessly constructed.

(Last Thursday, 7/30, Jane and I were notified by the Veteran’s Administration that our application for a G.I. loan to purchase the Birch house was denied; the reason given was the steep dirt road leading up to the place.

(Of course we could still have obtained the house through a bank loan, which was offered to us, but we declined, feeling our ideas had changed in some way as yet unclear to us; yet we felt it was tied up with the material, meager as yet, that Seth has been giving us concerning the power of expectation.

The almost immediate bustling about in the apartment was even better. He was already geared for action and physical activity. [...]

[...] Ruburt is working with the nature of impulses, and old ideas about impulses, spontaneity and discipline rose to mind, for the family situation of your brother and his wife almost typifies the kind of situation that Ruburt was determined to avoid. And he thought, what was the entire affair, really, for it seemed to lack any kind of discipline. [...]

They did what they believed was expected of them. [...] In his own family he made sure that the male domain, the study, was separate from the family rooms, not to be shared. [...]

Ruburt wrote a poem yesterday morning (Thursday), considering it afterward briefly, wondering whether it was really good enough to type as it was, throwing off in an odd moment a thought, a concept that would represent the highest revelation to Ida, if she could understand what it means.

[...] All of this caused muscular tensions, but he was appalled at what he considered Dick and Ida’s laxness in so many areas, and it seemed that that was the natural human condition, so that you must exert great discipline to keep yourself aloft from it. [...]

The visit however was for the best in the overall. It was quite necessary that you see the situation as it was, and be able to judge any future events. [...]

(While Jane and I were on vacation in Florida in July, I rather severely sunburned my feet; I had trouble walking for several days, but was able to drive home on schedule. [...] I thought it most peculiar that only my feet burned when the rest of my body was equally exposed. [...]

[...] This was also the reason that neither of you used your abilities in fighting the malady. [...] You used suggestion to control it, so that it was severe enough to suit your purposes, and yet not so severe that you could not make it home when you wanted to.

[...] I was very tired a few minutes ago, doing that filing...”

[...] Whether or not the spark was to be lit was up to you. It was lit, though Ruburt fearfully tried to close it down. [...]

[...] In fiction and poetry he allowed himself this intuitive freedom, but he was afraid to apply it to the real physical universe. This is why his most effective and publishable fiction was in the form of fantasy.

[...] Now, Ruburt’s whole personality had to assimilate the knowledge that he was receiving, but this automatically changed the personality from what it was.

(Jane asked me if I noticed any physical changes in her face toward the last, since she was so strongly aware of Seth. [...] I think it quite possible that Jane’s emotional appreciation of the Seth personality accounted for the changes as she was involved in delivering the material.)

(Jane was speaking so rapidly here that I could not keep up, and I asked Seth to wait. [...] It was obvious Jane’s trance was a very deep one.)

Dimly, through what you would call a history, hardly remembered, there was such a state. It was a state of agony in which the powers of creativity and existence were known, but the ways to produce them were not known.

[...] Pretend then that you possessed within yourself the knowledge, the sight, of all the world’s masterpieces in sculpture and art, that they throbbed and pulsed as realities within you, but that you had no physical apparatus, no knowledge of how to achieve it; that there was neither rock, nor pigment, nor source of any of these, and you ached with the yearning to produce them—and this, on an infinitesimally small scale, will perhaps give you, as an artist, some idea of the agony and the impetus that was felt.

(It was fifteen minutes before she could open her eyes. It was difficult for her to snap loose, though at no time did she exhibit any worry or concern. [...]

(In addition the child knew it was not wanted, but had insisted upon being born. Knowing it was not wanted, it paid back its parents. It was destructive, and psychically older than they —Seth confirming my suspicion here. The child was to cause its parents much trouble, but they were strong enough to cope with it.

(Toward the end of the session as Seth, Jane and I sat talking alone, after the departure of the Gallaghers, Seth volunteered the information that Scotty was a greedy child. He belonged to an entity that was strongly attached to physical life on our plane, Seth said; the entity having experienced many physical lives, and still refusing to leave earth as we know it.

(By now Jane was dictating steadily, almost as she does when speaking for Seth.) “Now everything I just said came in a flash while I was waiting for you to write down what you just wrote; but what I got originally was like a ball of string, so that as I explained it the string unraveled into the words …

“I had all kinds of sudden flashes about this when I was doing the dishes (less than half an hour ago) — about Seth’s book, and that in a strange way it was difficult for me to get this book material. It was new, maybe; it would involve concepts that by themselves went against the grain of usual conscious thought, which wants to go consecutively. [...]

(9:10 P.M. Jane began her own dictation before tonight’s session by saying that as she’d typed her statements yesterday [for Appendix 4] she would “get glimpses” of some of the concepts Seth was going to talk about in “Unknown” Reality — yet they would immediately vanish from her consciousness, so that all she had left was the knowledge that she’d experienced the insight.

[...] But from here on I was able to take notes on most of what she said, so the following is pretty close to a verbatim report:)

[...] Her Seth voice was both strained and strong, I thought, although she had no trouble with the words. Her voice was different, though, and the rhythm was distinctly different than usual; she paused every few words.)

(I asked Jane if she thought the sessions served as a balance to those sinful-self, very restrictive ideas — that when she gave up on the sessions that other self was free to exert its power and beliefs. [...] I added that the whole bit put me on the spot, and always had, because I was never sure whether to insist that she have the sessions, or forget them. [...]

(She was so much in pain that I ended up giving her at least ten minutes of what I thought were good suggestions. [...]

[...] I don’t know — I couldn’t tell whether it was a hello or a goodbye …”

[...] Jane was coughing enough so that she remarked that she hoped she could get through the session. The window was closed by now and the heat was on. [...]

[...] “I thought that session was the one that’s resulted in all the upsets since then,” I added. I noted that it was now conceded by both Jane and Seth that she did have a cold, as I’d asked her yesterday.

(When I read this session to her, I was struck again by Seth’s use of the word “blindness,” and Jane admitted that she’d been worrying about losing her sight because of her eye difficulty. I laughed, but out of incredulity, not humor, for the other day she’d feared she was getting pneumonia. [...]

[...] The day was again warm — 44 degrees — when I went to 330. [...]

(Jane replied that her condition bespoke a generalized relaxation—which was beneficial, of course. [...] Her head kept dipping down and I kept calling her, and she kept telling me that every time I did so I interrupted her when she was “getting something.” To me it looked as though she was falling asleep each time. [...]

[...] I said I was hoping she’d be able to continue for at least a little while. [...] She was still smoking. [...]

[...] “Had quite a time there, didn’t you?” It was amazing, how much better I felt now than when I’d written the notes for yesterday’s session [Sunday, the 7th]. [...]

[...] But that was it. [...]

Now the plain was empty. [...] The plain was empty because it was the repository of ideas. [...]

[...] The original problem was far different. A way was needed to teach these personalities to focus long enough, in your terms, intensely enough, within any given reality.

Subconsciously Ruburt knew that the dream was important. He did not know it was the first of the seven.

[...] (Jane learned forward, quite intent.) It was safer where he was, and he hesitated to take that first step. [...]

[...] He spoke, incidentally to his Father Trainor, and Lizzie Roohan together, while he was in the second form. He was then led by me into a further dimension of reality in which his third form was used. [...]

[...] She thought projection was involved, along with other kinds of information, and was quite vexed at her failure to recall them. [...]

[...] Ruburt was definitely given information in several projections from the dream state early this morning.

[...] I was his guide. [...]

Oftentimes he was not sure what his next book would be, but overall he never doubted there would be a next book. [...] At times he might think of writing in one area or another, but his imagination did not set up barriers: it was always receptive to new ideas, casting about for new experiences, consciously involved in the process of creativity.

In Ruburt’s dream last night, he was dancing. [...] Other dreams of Ruburt’s health did not materialize because their creativity was blocked by an insistence upon following, in that regard, the most limiting of Framework 1’s premises.

[...] So everything I am saying, in a manner of speaking, was made possible in that experience. [...] My personality could not be “defined” or contained within that initial experience either—so you see, strung out through the years, what in other terms I “said,” or “was,” at the time of Ruburt’s idea construction experience.

[...] Jane felt there was much more to come on Frameworks 1 and 2, etc.)

[...] His abilities would not confine themselves to such a limited form, and he was always trying to bring them into line. He grew up at a time when it was considered somewhat dangerous to be different from others. In the home, the Catholic asylum, he was often punished for noncomformity. [...]

(Billy, of course, was highly intrigued by the change his nose told him had taken place in his sister. Indeed, our only problem was keeping him from constantly nosing after Mitzi, since she usually ran away from him each time he tried to investigate what must have been changed bodily odors of hers. [...]

[...] Ruburt’s main problem was that he tried too hard to protect himself because he believed it was necessary. [...]

[...] But Ruburt was correct: There was nothing defective about the genes mentioned in your article (in the National Enquirer), in which individuals were born girls, and turned into boys. [...]

[...] At the same time, for many reasons, he had the idea that he was expected to be not merely a well-adapted natural person, but a kind of superself, solving other people’s problems, being a public personality, a psychic performer, and so forth. There was a vast gulf between those two extremes—one that was bound to cause strain and effort and misunderstandings. [...]

To some extent Ruburt’s panic is also the result of trying to live up to an impossible image, while forgetting his own personal background, and by expecting himself to behave as if that background was unimportant. (Long pause.) He was a person taught to believe that expression was somehow wrong. [...]

[...] She was also reminded by Tam that Pocket Books has bought the paperback rights to the second Seven, which we had quite forgotten about. The advance was cut considerably from that given for the first Seven also. [...]

[...] “It’s important, though,” I said to her when Debbie was out of the room for a moment. Jane agreed, saying DJ was ready to leave, and we held the session after all.)

(My viewpoint was that it was impossible for me not to have strong feelings about the situation, even though—as I said—I agreed that her paper was a highly creative piece of work, that it augured well for the future, and that it was so far easily the best material we’d gotten on the symptom affair. [...] My question, above, was an outgrowth of my own feelings and questionings. I read it to her as we sat for tonight’s session, and she agreed it was a good one.)

(The evening was quite warm and very pleasant. 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.)

[...] Jane said several times that she understood my feelings, but that at the same time I was misunderstanding what she’d written that day [Friday]. I could see that she was disappointed in my reactions to her day’s work, and she said as much. [...]

[...] In retrospect I believe this question was triggered by remarks Jane made about insights she’d achieved through her manifesto from the Sinful Self. [...]

[...] In the eras of the great artists, civilization was united by a series of revelations, ideas and also distortions. The artist was an important part of his society.

(I was very facile—so much so that a large part of my early work consisted of finishing off the work of others so that it would reproduce well. In the comic trade I was an “inker,” and had more work available than I could handle. [...]

The psychic developments are also interbound in your own work, because you doubted yourself the preparation time was extended by you. The final period was and is to be one in which your energies are directed to your work without the outside job, for finally you began to feel that you were not doing what you should do; this itself inhibited your trust in yourself further, and therefore the development of your work.

[...] In your terms the initial statement was a physical reminder of a covenant already made before spirit was made flesh.

3. After this session, I was rather surprised when Jane told me that the Jonestown tragedy was an emotionally charged subject for her, and that Seth knew it. [...] She explained that it was disturbing for her “because the whole thing is an example of how a mad visionary can lead his people to destruction in the name of religion.” Involved in her feelings, of course, are her own youthful conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church; these led to her abandoning organized religion by the time she was 18. [...]

[...] There was no physical virus that spread through the multitude. There was no clothing to decorate the mechanisms of events. Those people succumbed to an epidemic of beliefs, to an environment [that was] closed mentally and physically. [...]

[...] It was not a cure-all. [...] The suggestion was far from a bit of fluff, however, for it could serve — and it did — as a framework about which new beliefs could rally.

1. Seth cited the same famous autosuggestion from the work of the French psychotherapist, Emile Coué (1857–1926), in Chapter 4 of Personal Reality, and then as now, he was correct except for the first two words. [...] In a note for Personal Reality I wrote that “Coué was a pioneer in the study of suggestion, and wrote a book on the subject in the 1920s. [...]

(Jane was so relaxed yesterday and last night—as she has been often lately—that we held no session. [...] Even though she was again very relaxed today, she was also active writing. [...]

[...] You did not know that there was a deeper, older, or richer tradition—a more ancient heritage, to which you belonged, because you found no hint of it in your society. It seemed at different times since our sessions began that there were disruptive conflicts, for example: was Ruburt a writer or was he a psychic? [...]

[...] The true artist in those terms was always primarily—in your terms again—a psychic or a mystic. His specific art (pause) was both his method of understanding his own creativity, and a way of exploring the vast creativity of the universe—and also served as a container or showcase that displayed his knowledge as best he could. [...]

[...] When she went in trance, Jane’s delivery was very active and energetic—in marked contrast to her near bleary-eyed state before Seth came through. [...]

(The house was noisy temporarily: A carpenter in a downstairs apartment was using an electric saw at frequent intervals as he repaired some of the damage caused by last June’s massive flood. Jane’s Seth voice was rather quiet, however.)

(No session was held last Monday night.

[...] She proved to be correct, but at the moment she was unable to elaborate.

[...] Coué was a pioneer in the study of suggestion, and wrote a book on the subject in the 1920’s. His ideas were well received in Europe at the time, but weren’t in this country to any large degree. [...]