Jane Roberts - The Seth Material

by
JANE ROBERTS

NEW AWARENESS NETWORK INC., Manhasset, NY

1970 by Jane Roberts and Robert Butts
2001 by Robert Butts
2011 by Laurel Davies-Butts

Published by New Awareness Network Inc.

New Awareness Network Inc.
P.O. Box 192
Manhasset, New York 11030

Opinions and statements on health and medical matters expressed in this book are those of the author and are not necessarily those of or endorsed by the publisher. Those opinions and statements should not be taken as a substitute for consultation with a duly licensed physician.

Cover Design: Michael Goode

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roberts, Jane 1929-1984

The Seth Material

/ by Jane Roberts

p. cm.

ISBN 0-9711198-0-5

1. Spirit writings. 2. Self-Miscellanea

I. Roberts, Jane 1929-1984. II. Butts, Robert F. III. Title

IV. Series: Seth (Spirit), 1929-1984 Seth book.

ISBN 0-9711198-0-5
Printed in U.S.A. on acid-free paper

This book is dedicated to Seth,
and to Rob, my husband

The Early Sessions consist of the first 510 sessions dictated by Seth through Jane Roberts. There are 9 books in The Early Session series.

The Personal Sessions, often referred to as the deleted sessions, are Seth sessions that Jane Roberts and Rob Butts considered to be of a highly personal nature and were therefore kept in separate notebooks from the main body of the Seth material. The Personal Sessions are expected to be published in 6 to 9 volumes.

The great value I see now in the many deleted or private sessions is that they have the potential to help others, just as they helped Jane and me over the years. I feel that its very important to have these sessions added to Janes fine creative body of work for all to see.Rob Butts

Rare recordings of Seth speaking through Jane Roberts are available on audiocassette and CD. For a complete description of The Seth Audio Collection and other works by Jane Roberts, request our free catalogue. (Further information is supplied at the back of this book.)

For information on expected publication dates and how to order, write to New Awareness Network at the following address and request the latest catalogue. Also, you can visit us on the internet at www.sethcenter.com

New Awareness Network Inc.
P.O. BOX 192
Manhasset, N.Y. 11030
www.sethcenter.com

Mediumship is a fascinating and provocative subject for it touches upon essential questions about the mind of man, the nature of his consciousness, and even his ultimate destiny. A medium is normally defined as a person supposed to be susceptible to supernormal agencies and able to impart knowledge derived from them, or to perform actions impossible without their aid. Most people picture a medium as a lady bedecked in exotic clothing, skulking in dark corners, waiting to bilk her clients of their hard-earned money. While I have no doubt that such mediums still do existand have even run across somethis is hardly a complete picture.

It was just before the turn of the century that mediumship became popular and Spiritualism developed as its religion. Seances were then held in semidarkness in a small, well-designed room, often resembling a small theater whose set was a chapel or had some other religious overtones. The sitters, usually emotionally overwrought by some recent tragedy in their family, were further brought to a point of hysteria by hymn singing and organ music. It was, overall, a well-staged production. The medium went into a trance and through the help of her spirit control, communicated messages from departed loved ones in the spirit world. Most often these messages were trivial and even foolish, but the bereaved went home comforted that their loved ones still existed somewhere and were happy.

Sometimes the medium exhibited knowledge that appeared to be some form of extrasensory perception. It was this aspect of mediumship that gave rise to parapsychology, or the controlled, scientific investigation of ESP. There is no doubt that mediumship and Spiritualism were, and still are, excessively open to fraud. In the subtler realms of perception, objective evidence is hard to come by and almost impossible to place under effectively controlled conditions. In most such investigations, facts are often accepted not on evidence, of which there is little, but on faith, of which there is always an abundance. Perhaps the well-known psychical researcher Harry Price put it best when he observed that Spiritualism is, at its best, a religion; at its worst, a racket.

But since investigation of mediumistic trances began, it has become clear that they are a complex experience and part of a larger phenomenon now designated as altered states of consciousness. Pathological conditions often predominate among the other types of trance states such as comas, catalepsy, syncope, and suspended animation. All these are associated with unconsciousness, as are a number of other states resulting from certain drugs or the effects of disease upon the body chemistry; and these are all more intense than other altered states such as normal sleep, hypnosis, or somnambulism.

Of the many types of altered states of consciousness, mediumship is among the most valuable, for it is in mediumship that the subjective realm of mans mind may be investigated most conveniently. Many who have studied mediumship have written that in effect it is a method for expanding awareness. British physicist Raynor Johnson has observed that there are many states in which consciousness is withdrawn from the normal waking levelwhich collectively we may call trance states. Some can be created by hypnosis by drugs like mescaline or by anaesthetics, and others can be entered by certain yogic practices. A medium, or a sensitive, can pass voluntarily into one of these states, in which consciousness is withdrawn to an interim level of the self, and can at the same time maintain a communication line to the external world. Because it is the self-induction of a trance state and is relatively free of pathological conditions, mediumship affords a greater element of control over the experience, just as in the case of hypnosis.

Jane Roberts shares a unique characteristic with a few other outstanding mediums such as Eileen Garrett and Mrs. Osborne Leonard. Many mediums react to their own trance material with an almost religious credulity, and indeed religious convictions frequently grow out of their mediumistic experience. But in spite of their fascination with the subliminal world they have made contact with, some mediums resist the temptation to believe immediately and to depend upon the communications of a trance personality. Mrs. Garrett, for instance, has dedicated her life to investigating the meaning of mediumship, her own unconscious world, and parapsychological phenomena in general. Mrs. Leonard also dedicated herself to probing the questions of her own mediumship, and allowed herself to be the subject of numerous tests.

Great mediums are as rare as great musicians or great artists. Their characteristics include a peculiar mixture of susceptibility to trance states and a strong personality that is at once curious, objective, and honestly self-critical. Of course, many earmarks of the exceptional mediums character cannot be so easily characterized, but it seems clear to me that Jane Roberts is an exceptional medium.