“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] My question concerned a hypothetical experiment in which, say, a hundred such writers would be hypnotized without being told what the purpose of the experiment was; once under, they would be queried about past-life memories. I wondered what percentage of them would recall any, and if such a test might furnish good evidence for reincarnation.

(2. What procedures are available to the nonphysical personality when it decides to incarnate physically for the first time? What is the initial life like? [...]

[...] Generally speaking, there is an optimum point of focus in physical reality, a period of intensification that has nothing to do with duration. It can last for a week or thirty years, and from then onward it begins to dwindle, and imperceptibly begins to shift to other layers of reality.

(Just before the session tonight I wondered aloud what the present Chapter Thirteen would have been like if Jane hadn’t begun to read, early this month, the anthology containing the long section by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst. [...]

Then you can reach out, you can feel the reality of other personalities. [...] You cannot communicate with your fellows unless you know who and what you are, and unless you can make a bridge from yourself to others.

[...] Ruburt is a teacher in this level of reality, as I am a teacher in another level of reality... [...]

[...] But your thoughts also have a reality that you do not know. They have a reality that you do not perceive. [...]

[...] Rich had not seen a session before, although he was somewhat cognizant of what would take place.

It is not quite as simple a matter as just deciding what events you want to materialize as reality, since you have, in your terms, a body of probabilities of one kind or another already established as the raw materials for the coming year. [...]

[...] The hostage situation (now in day 53) is a materialized mass dream, meant to be important and vital on political and religious platforms of reality, meant to dramatize a conflict of beliefs, and to project that conflict outward into the realm of public knowledge. [...] What will the world do with it?

[...] Great expectations are built upon a faith in the nature of reality, a faith in nature itself, a faith in the life you are given, whatever its degree—and all children, for example, are born with those expectations. [...]

The true power is in the imagination which dares to speculate upon that which is not yet (intently). The imagination, backed by great expectations, can bring about almost any reality within the range of probabilities. [...]

[...] He chose those feelings however so that he could view the world and reality in a certain light. That light enabled him to do what he wanted to but could not fake: paint the world through that particular unique vision.

[...] But you must also have faith in what you have done, for it was all done in faithful rendering of your view of reality (in quotes) “at any given time.” [...]

[...] It forces upon you a sense of responsibility to use what you have, while instead it should mean simply being what you are, and being what you are (underlined) will automatically produce excellent paintings.

Forget the idea of man’s work and what your paintings should (underlined) provide, and the idea of fame or success. Let yourself go with the joy of painting what you want to; but forgetting also, again, the idea that your paintings are working out problems, technical or not.

(“I thought of the photo connection when I first bought the album, and told Jane what I had in mind. [...] I never got a clear idea of what bothered me. [...]

Now: you (to me) have been wondering whether or not to use family photographs in “Unknown” Reality. [...]

You understand that private experience, imperfect but creative, underlies the points in “Unknown” Reality. [...]

[...] Otherwise, regardless of what you say you thought, your mother would take my explanation as given.

[...] What effect does it have upon myself or others? [...] Why do I feel that I have an eternal reality, when it is obvious that I was physically born and will physically die?”

[...] It has meaning, coherence and order not only because of those realities that are obvious to you, and that appear, but also because of those inner realities that are “unspoken,” or hidden. I am not speaking merely of hidden variables, in scientific terms, nor am I saying that the universe is an illusion, but a psychological reality in which “objectivity” is the result of psychological creativity.

(Pause.) In your realm of reality, there is no real freedom but the freedom of ideas, and there is no real bondage except for the bondage of ideas (intently), for your ideas form your private and mass reality. [...] All of the time, the psychological reality is the primary one, that forms all of your events.

[...] As he wondered, I very briefly responded to the effect that since we come from such different perspectives, it is actually quite difficult to give your scientist what I would consider a full response. [...]

Ruburt sensed this quite clearly, and as usual feels twinges, wondering what I am going to write about, and what kind of a book it will be. [...]

[...] SETH’S PREFACE:
“THE MANUFACTURE OF PERSONAL REALITY”
APRIL 5, 1972 9:29 PM WEDNESDAY

[...] Each portion of the inner self creates its own reality, and perceives the structure of matter to which it is attuned.

[...] While you are creating the physical reality and time that you know, other portions of the self are therefore creating their own times and places. [...]

Such religious dramas focus, direct, and, hopefully, clarify aspects of inner reality that need to be physically represented. [...] Many are also projected into other systems of reality. Religion per se, however, is always the external facade of inner reality. [...]

The dramas themselves do express certain inner realities, and they serve as surface reminders to those who do not trust direct experience with the inner self. They will take the symbols as reality. [...]

What I have said, of course, applies as much to Buddha as it does to Christ: Both accepted the inner projections and then tried to physically represent these. [...] Love and kinship were secondary to what indeed amounted to baptism and communion through violence and blood.

[...] To do this he concentrated less and less upon inner reality, and therefore began the process of inner reality only as it was projected outward into the physical world.

Now in your dream, you were quite clearly seeing the threshold between physical reality and the magical dimension in which that physical reality has its source. [...] What I am getting at is the introduction of the concepts of a different kind of work — very valuable, vital work that is performed at another level and in a different fashion.

[...] Such abilities appear to be unpredictable, discontinuous, only because you are so relatively unaware of what is actually quite constant psychological behavior. [...] You are aware of what seem to be isolated hints of odd characteristics.

[...] It can handle several (pause) main world views at once, realizing that they are each methods of perceiving and approaching reality. [...] Certain approaches worked in one area, and others worked in the inner reality.

[...] There were separate assumptions that applied to different realities. [...] Science perceived the spectacular complexity of exterior reality, but turned its sights completely away from any recognition — any at all — until it regarded subjectivity itself as a mere throw-away product, accidentally formed by a mindless matter.

[...] This couple also represented a sort of time projection, for quite literally you could have become what they were. [...] Because the past, present and future exist simultaneously however, there is no reason why you cannot react to an event whether or not it happens to fall within the small field of reality which you usually observe and participate in.

The past exists as a series of electromagnetic connections, held in the physical brain on the one hand, but it also consists of the same sort of realities retained in the nonphysical mind. [...] The present exists as a series of electromagnetic connections in both the brain and the mind, and this is the only reality which you are justified in giving to your present.

[...] The past was seldom what you remember it to be, for you have already rearranged it from the instant of any given occurrence.

[...] Once more, the only reality that can be assigned to the past is that granted to the symbols and associations and memory images that exist electromagnetically both within the physical brain and within the mind.

[...] (The noise from the fireplace was now quite loud.) Your very ideas of the nature of reality change. [...] At the same time you search for greater evidence of a vastly different kind of reality. (Long pause.) The larger facts about psychological reality, for example, cannot be fitted to the world’s definitions. [...]

[...] Indeed, the entirety of your own identities does not usually appear to you in your lifetimes, because that reality is too complicated, too multidimensional, to fit into your accepted picture of personhood. [...] There would be no way for you to perceive them from within (underlined) your system of reality. [...]

[...] I don’t know what it is, so I’ve tried to ignore it.”

[...] We don’t know exactly what should be done about the situation, if anything. [...]

The spacious present is much more a vivid reality to those outside of your system. [...] When these are known for what they are, when the personality can change form at will, such quote “timing” is meaningless.

Your ego gains assurance from what seems to be the memory of its immediate past. [...]

The point is that as something that comes and goes and passes, that brings into existence and destroys, has no such reality outside of your own system. [...]

[...] I merely understand its reality for you. [...]

Or it may be used as a step leading to an adjacent level of consciousness; two steps away, therefore, on the same level from normal reality. In this case it will lead you not into a deeper examination and perception of the present moment, but instead into an awareness and recognition of what I will call alternate present moments.

These probabilities are realities, regardless of which decision you make. [...] Having made it the present is changed, and quite clearly you perceive exactly the way it is changed and what actions and events will flow from the change into the future that belongs to that particular alternate present.

You can perceive the moment’s reality as it exists for your intestine, or your hand; and experience, with practice, the present inner peace and commotion that exist simultaneously within your physical body. [...]

You can request that the thought content of your mind be translated into an intense image, symbolically representing individual thoughts and the overall mental landscape, then take out what you do not like and replace it with more positive images. [...]

[...] The nuclear reality is instead a practical example of what can happen when the elements of the intellect do not understand their secure basis in nature, but see themselves as apart from it —alienated. [...]

[...] As I told Jane after the session, I realized that Prentice-Hall’s treatment of our books reflects our own ambiguous attitudes-—we want her books to be well known, but don’t want to get involved in the process personally—but, perversely, that doesn’t stop me from getting mad at Prentice-Hall, even if they are doing what we want them to. I suppose what bothers me about the whole thing is a sneaking feeling I have that Prentice-Hall’s attitude would be the same no matter what we thought; that they aren’t on the ball in that department.

The book will stand along with Ruburt’s own Aspect Psychology, serving to give demonstrations in the operation of the psyche itself as different parts of it view the reality that you know, and an inner reality that is sometimes so much more difficult for you to perceive.

I told you when Tam was here (last week) that the books would change the nature of physical reality, and they will—to whatever degree as they alter beliefs and lead others into new experiences. [...]

[...] I use the term purposefully, for it confounds the dictates of your adult reasoning, and perhaps by so confounding what you think of as reason, I may manage to arouse within you a hint of what I refer to as the higher intellect.

[...] Actually the two merge, of course, for your Framework 1 existence is immersed in Framework 2. Again, your body itself is constantly replenished in Framework 1 because of its simultaneous reality in Framework 2. Framework 2 is ever exteriorizing itself, appearing in your experience as Framework 1. You concentrate so thoroughly upon exterior reality, however, that you often ignore the quite apparent deeper sources of your own physical existence. [...]

(Happily refreshed by a few days’ rest, I’m back working on my notes and appendixes for Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality. [...]

[...] “Maybe I got tired this afternoon, working on the Intro for ‘Unknown.’ I’ve had messages from Seth the last few days about the book stuff for the session tonight, but what we got doesn’t fit any of them…. [...]

[...] Basically, what you call time does not exist. I am trying to tell you what does exist instead. [...]

[...] It projects limitations upon other systems of reality that do not exist. We must use it for our explanations, but nontime comes far closest to the reality.

[...] What would correspond, in any case, to your idea of duration within the spacious present; it is a matter of intensities however. [...]

[...] They move through the value climate of psychological reality as freely as atoms move through your time.

That (Camp) is a relative of yours and the two of you (Sue and Bette) are connected, but not in this reality in a probable reality; and for a woman that this Camp might have married but did not. [...] Now the relationship that did not take place in this reality took place in another and in that reality the two of you are connected and this accounts for the feelings that you have had toward our friend here (Sue). [...]

[...] You want to be cautious, yet you want to find out what there is about the nature of reality and in this implied bargain you are the one who will make the inroads or seem to go ahead to have the freedom and spontaneity to do so. [...]

[...] You will have a dream, for example, that emphasizes what you will find if you leave this institutionalized framework. [...]

[...] Now I am used to speaking to the whole Northeast, this is what you get here in the living room. [...]

You can intellectually understand what I am telling you, but the brain (shaking head) cannot experience reality directly. [...] I want it understood that camouflage physical reality is indeed a reality, even while it is a distortion of something else.

[...] As I said earlier, sense data does have a reality, but this reality does not reside in an object. The object represents your interpretation of the basic reality. [...] In other words, the prime energy within physical reality resides precisely in those intangibles which do not, because of their nature, appear within physical frameworks. They give life and reality to the physical framework.

The inner senses can and do perceive this reality in an undistorted fashion. [...] It can only translate and perceive what seems to be the evidence of the physical senses. [...]

[...] There is something within that exists independently, and whose reality you perceive in a highly distorted fashion, through the use of the outer senses.

(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 …

(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:)

[...] I need you to coach me, to ask, ‘What’s happening now?’ to keep me focused on one channel…. [...]

In that respect you cannot rip apart your events to find the reality behind them, for that reality is not so much a glue that holds events together, but is invisibly entwined within your own psychological being. There are obvious differences between what you think of as waking and dream events. [...]

[...] Practically speaking, however, the species accepts certain portions of dream reality as its so-called real events at any particular time, and about those specialized events it forms its “current” civilizations. [...] The psychic and biological mechanisms were there, permitting the species to know, particularly in time of stress or danger, what normally unperceived events might threaten survival. [...]

[...] As you live in an obvious physical universe, sharing in its reality, so each of you exists in a far vaster psychological or psychic universe — surrounded by, supported by, and part of psychic or psychological entities (long pause) infinite in their variety. Your smallest action affects their reality, as theirs does yours. [...] Psychological realities cannot be compared in terms of size, or bigger or smaller, for the validity and brilliance of each existence carries a personalized intensity so unique that it overshadows any such considerations.

When people profess an interest in the nature of dreams, they usually have certain set questions in mind, such as: “How real are dream events?” “What do dreams mean?” “How do they affect daily life?” Each person is aware of the astonishingly intimate nature of dreams. [...]