“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] The session was held in our back room, and was a quiet one. [...] Her pace was quite slow in the beginning, but by first break was up to its usual rather fast state.)

(The 18th envelope test was held during the session. [...] I made the drawing for this evening’s test on white paper; the paper was thin and the heavy black ink struck through the paper rather clearly. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. Her voice was average, her pace also. [...]

(It was now time for the 21st Dr. Instream test. [...] Her pace was not very slow, however, although she took a few long pauses. [...]

[...] She was out-of- body often, she said, and on at least one occasion was aware of my own astral presence with her. [...] Jane said she was aware of wanting to contact John’s wife Peg during these travels, without the experience being “unpleasant” for either of them...

There was a reason, of which he may or may not be consciously aware. When he began to cut them down it was because of mistakes he had made: an overemphasis, a concern, so that he was watching himself too closely.

(No session was held on Wednesday, May 14. John Bradley was a visitor.

[...] She told me she “could sort of see” a bureau drawer while Seth was giving the related data. She now added that although Seth hadn’t said so, the dresser was against the south wall of their place, “like the south wall of our apartment here, to my left,” Jane said.

It was a tool of your art. It was also a part of your talent. It added to the dimension of your work, but to some degree it was also adopted as a protective mechanism, to give you some feeling of separation. [...]

[...] Again Jane was well dissociated. [...] She was even at break still very much aware of Seth’s presence and energy, which seemed to flow through her. When she resumed her voice was quieter at 10:52.)

[...] Now this too-much-too-soon attitude was reflected last evening in his class. Working with the table was sufficient, you see. [...]

[...] Jane was well dissociated. Once again, she felt as she used to when the voice was very loud—inside it, so to speak.)

[...] This was an existence in which you were the mother of five, as I have told you. The existence however was some time ago, BC, hence you see the clothing itself does not apply. Now this was a Near East life. [...]

(The session was also witnessed by Diane Sorino, a friend of Rich’s. Jane and I sat for the session by 8:45, to see if one would be held, etc. Rich had not seen a session before, although he was somewhat cognizant of what would take place.

[...] You lived to an old age, and this was fairly unusual. One of your children was a leader of a tribe. [...]

[...] But with Seth returning several times to speak to Rich and Diane, it was close to midnight before the affair was wound up.

(When Seth came through Jane’s Seth voice was the best I’ve heard it yet. It had a strong undertone, was deeper, and definitely gave me the feeling that there was a lot of potential power there that she wasn’t releasing because of the hospital environment.)

[...] She was through with it by 3:22, and five minutes later her feet began moving a bit. [...] Temperature was 97.1.

[...] It was a tiny part of “life.” I was sure I knew how the chipmunk had gotten caught: He’d squeezed under the back porch screened-in door looking for food. [...]

[...] She said that when she was alone in hydro this morning she felt her right foot [of the broken leg] lift up spontaneously at the toes. [...]

(I said I was most curious that Seth comment, since what the movie showed was so at odds with his material on early man in Dreams. [...] It had to be wrong — for all it depicted was savagery, on the parts of animals, apes, dogs, man, cannibals, and so forth. [...] There was no compassion, no intuition; little understanding revealed by the characters in the movie other than the emotions of bloodlust, survival of the fittest, and selfishness. [...]

(With Carla’s help, Jane called me at 9:47 p.m., just as I was finishing typing this session. I told her the temperature was already down to zero. [...]

(Last night had been very cold — it was still 5 below when I got up at 6:30 a.m. After breakfast I ran the car to do several errands, getting the budget bills ready to mail, and so forth. [...]

[...] Jane announced she was ready for the session at 4:10. [...]

(Once again the day was quite warm — 40 degrees by the time I left for 330. Jane was on her back. [...]

[...] It was only much later that this information was written down, and by then, of course, much had been forgotten. [...]

[...] For Adam was the first man, at least according to the Bible. [...]

[...] TV was on, advertisements for movies, and I asked her why our literature is made up of the bad in life — murder, mayhem, thievery, bribery, robbery, and so forth. [...]

(November 24, Tuesday, 12:00 PM: Before falling asleep, I saw a page of a Time magazine and was reading it. [...] I then saw what I think was the cover. It was in big red block type, but blurred.

[...] The rejection slip was not accompanied by a letter and this made her angry. [...] I was talking to her at the time but she did not mention the incident to me.

Earlier I mentioned fire, which was intellectually grasped by man and therefore materialized in the world of matter. [...] Man was not able to see fire earlier in terms of beneficial warmth or comfort. [...]

[...] She was well dissociated, she said, and had indeed been in a good state all evening. My writing hand was tiring, otherwise I would not have taken the break.

(The 40th envelope experiment was held during the session. [...] The envelope object was a dried holly leaf. [...] It was sealed in the usual double envelope, between two pieces of Bristol. [...]

(The session was held in our front room. [...] Her pace was again slow, with many pauses of varying length. [...]

[...] We believe the grave data was to refer to Ezra, who worked at Artistic before he died, and that this in turn was to lead Jane to identify Artistic as the source of the envelope object.

The initial grave association was meant to lead Ruburt to your place of work, since in another experiment the test item was connected with a man who had died.

[...] Jane was fully dissociated—way, way out as she put it. [...] It was not as though she was not herself while dissociated, she said, but that she was more herself. She was almost annoyed because Seth suggested the break.

(Jane was up from her nap at 8:45 PM. [...] All was quiet, no witnesses appearing. Jane was nervous as usual before the session began. [...]

[...] Jane was again fully dissociated for a first break. [...] I was aware that we had run past first break, since my hand was beginning to get weary; Jane’s delivery had also speeded up.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] Jane’s voice was hoarse, her hands still a little fat. For my part, my right hand was quite cramped but I had no sense of enlargement.

[...] In any case, on the one hand each individual was to be equal with each other person. [...] The development of transportation opened up the country, so that an individual was no longer bound to his or her native town or region. All of this meant that man’s conscious mind was about to expand its strengths, its abilities, and its reach. The country was — and still is — brimming with idealism.

There was some hope, at least, in looking for better living conditions personally. There was some hope in forgetting one’s doubts in whatever exterior distractions could be found. [...] And it seemed in the beginning that science delivered, for the world was changed from candlelight to electric light to neon in the flicker of an eye, and a man could travel in hours distances that to his father or grandfather took days on end.

[...] There was, however, no doubt about it: Exterior conditions had improved (underlined), yet the individual did not seem any happier. By this time it was apparent that the discoveries of science could also have a darker side. Life’s exterior conveniences would hardly matter if science’s knowledge was used to undermine the very foundations of life itself.

[...] He began to feel that social action itself was of little value, for if man’s evil were built-in, for whatever reasons, then where was there any hope?

[...] It was one that Nebene knew of and respected, where the Roman soldier scoffed at what even then he considered the old ways. A lifetime, of whatever length, seemed longer then than it does now, for it was psychologically lengthened by that rich extension into both the future and the past. [...]

(10:09.) The entire structure was beginning to topple, however, and the poverty was overtaking the damned. [...]

(Once again it was obvious that Jane didn’t feel well before the session began, although her delivery turned out to be quite steady and sometimes forceful. [...]

[...] Those Italian villages exemplified really a kind of consciousness, or an orientation of consciousness, that existed before modern psychology and Darwinian belief: a framework of consciousness and experience that was overall similar in the recent past and in the time of the Romans—one, in other words, that existed up into the present. [...]

[...] I was especially concerned by their bloodshot, protruding appearance. [...] She agreed that we should get all the information on them that was possible.

[...] Before there was no trouble. That was all the eyes did, relatively speaking. [...]

(A storm was building up as we sat for the session. [...]

[...] Their swelling was much decreased, with a corresponding increase in mobility. [...]

[...] Nor did we know she was about to have a child. We didn’t know she was pregnant, not having seen Dick and Ida for over a year, or exchanged letters or calls. Nor, in the dream, do I recall learning Teresa was going to give birth, even though I didn’t see her in it. [...]

[...] Jane felt that “in between” what Seth was and said “was a whole lot of stuff I just couldn’t get through. I felt like I was a door tonight, and that through that came a lot of energy we’ll get hold of later. [...]

[...] Was the monk Nebene—me when I was a very strict teacher of the children of rich Romans in first-century A.D. Italy? [...]

[...] She didn’t think it was very good: “The psyche turns itself to atone, and in the earth’s service is it pressed.” She added that the first word of the next line was “Distilled.”

Now: you had of course other problems that he was not experienced enough to see, and at the time the sessions began you were both at a low point. The release of psychic energy involved, regardless of me, was literally a new birth, bringing forth an impetus for change and creative activity. [...] He was naturally meant to go in areas that would confound his earlier upbringing.

[...] The main one, the breakthrough session as I think of it, was the 367th for October 1, 1967. I read it over just before tonight’s session began, and was able to reaffirm my opinion that it’s still one of the best; at the same time it aroused questions, for it deals with causes in the past. [...]

[...] I was surprised at the early ending of the session. “I probably had more,” Jane said, “but I was feeling so sickly by then that I just quit....” [...]

(In the last session Seth promised to begin dictation on his latest book after a long layoff, but as things turned out the book was not begun anew. [...]

[...] Jane was more than a little surprised at the quick end of the session. [...] “I also felt like I was getting into the Guyana thing, without mentioning it by name. At least I thought I was.” [...]

(“Well, I was going to read Jane the page I wrote just before the session started, but I can do it next time.”)

That is what I meant when I said the material was valid. [...]

Ruburt was terrified because his early efforts seemed to have left you nowhere. You seemed to have no initiative to make a physical move on your own, and he was afraid of making another false suggestion. [...]

[...] He has always thought that you were used, mainly by your mother, but he was afraid that his statements would be misinterpreted because of his own relationship with his parents.

[...] He felt you blamed him for this, and thought it was an undisciplined action on his part, forcing you to make changes you did not want to make.

All of the material given concerning Ruburt’s background and motives is highly legitimate, but it shows clearly why he was willing to take on this role. [...]

[...] He felt as if he had been on a long journey — and he was, though it was not a conscious one in the terms you recognize. The training that connects your visual and verbal culture prevents full translation, but Ruburt was putting together, with my help, information not usually available. There are gaps in your awareness that are actually filled with data, and Ruburt was letting these pool up, so to speak. [...]

(11:25 P.M. “I just feel funny,” Jane said, “as if I’ve been where it was too smooth for my consciousness to get a grip on anything.” [...] “Yet I feel as though I’ve been doing things there — perceiving in a different way while Seth was giving the session.” [...]

A man, wondering what a tree was like, became one, and let his own consciousness flow into the tree. [...]

[...] In using the animal’s flesh, then, the hunter believed that he was giving the animal a new focus of existence. [...]

Ruburt provided himself with a background in which a parent (Jane’s mother) was steadily, chronically ill,³² and in which the medical profession with its beliefs was in constant sight. His mother was not medically neglected. His background included far more than sickness and the medical profession, however, but Ruburt knew that the conventional medical framework was not the answer to human ills. As you became more and more incapacitated, the trigger was set to find another solution. [...]

(Jane was particularly bothered by people’s attitudes about Seth, for they often considered him as a “spirit guide” in conventional spiritualistic terms. [...] Jane believed Seth when he told us he was an “energy personality essence, no longer focused in physical reality” — she just wanted to know more about what he meant by that statement. She was certain, she wrote, that far more than Seth’s being a spirit guide was involved, that “in larger terms the abilities of living personality are connected with … other facets of creative consciousness.”

25. Jane held her first ESP class on the evening of September 12, 1967, although she didn’t let Seth come through within that format until the following December, so cautious was she in taking that psychic step. She had no personal experience or other precedent to go by; her How to Develop Your ESP Power had been published in 1966, but she was still experimenting with her own abilities (even as she is now). It could also be said that at issue was the whole question of firsthand public interaction with, and acceptance or rejection of, Seth and his material. [...] After The Seth Material was published in 1970, class became well known enough to start attracting visitors from various parts of the country. [...]

By then I’d lost many months from my job as a commercial artist, which was work I’d returned to several years earlier to help ease our financial pressures. I was 44 years old — and, as I recognized after the sessions began, at a point in life where I greatly needed more penetrating insights into the meaning of existence. So did Jane, even though she was almost 10 years younger. As the sessions became part of our joint reality, we gradually came to understand that the illness I struggled with was a disguised expression of rebellion for both of us. [...]

(When she began speaking for Seth her voice was stronger than it had been, and had a different monotone-like quality that was quite unusual. I took it to mean that more effort was required for the session, or at least that her current physical situation resulted in a changed delivery. [...]

(Tonight, then, I was quite surprised when Jane roused herself enough to tell me that she wanted to have a session, no matter how brief it was. [...]

(I left work in the writing room at about 8:45 to see how Jane was doing at the card table in the living room. [...]

[...] This was all new to us. [...]