Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to Lessons from The Helpful Dead, where you'll learn the world is not what it seems, and you are much more than you think you are. Here. You'll learn about positive and reassuring messages from supposedly dead people whose main purpose is to help us find out what happens after we die, why we're here, how we got here, where we're going, and discover that you are really a powerful, eternal spirit. I'm Dan Mcny. At the end of the last session, I said I was going to change the format and I was going to start choosing through the thousands of pages of, uh, Seth material, uh, interesting concepts and talk about them and then let you do some thinking about them. Uh, I'm going to do that, but uh, in the meantime, I decided since we're going to rely so heavily on Seth for future discussions, that, uh, anyone listening really deserves to know a little bit more about the intellect and the, uh, quality of the, and the character of the person who spoke of, uh, for Seth.
Speaker 1 00:01:17 In other words, Seth spoke through Jane Roberts. Right? So, um, just to give you an idea of the very high caliber of individual that Jane was, uh, I will, uh, read the introduction that she gave to a book that was published in 1981, the God of Jane, uh, a Psychic Manifesto. I'll, I'll read the introduction. It's about five pages because it gives you a clear idea, uh, of the kind of, uh, intellect and the kind of person. Uh, she was a, a high caliber individual in my estimation, and you can make up your own mind. I'll just read those, uh, five pages or so. Now, actually, what I'm reading, reading from was not termed a an introduction, but rather chapter one. And as I say, this was probably dictated in, uh, 77, 78, around there. She started dictating in 1963. So by this time, she'd, uh, been doing this for 14, 15 years or whatever the book itself was published in, uh, in 1981.
Speaker 1 00:02:31 So here is Jane in, uh, chapter one of that book. Since late 1963, I've clocked approximately 4,000 hours of trans time during which the Seth Sessions have been held twice weekly for eight of those years. While I conducted my E S P classes, though there were three sessions a week averaging from two to three hours. This estimate of trance time doesn't include other altered states of consciousness with which I've experimented, but represents only my regular schedule of speaking for Seth, my trans personality. Through the years, the tally constantly rises, of course, as Seth continues to dictate his books and other material so that now I have one amounts to a reliable, steady, alternate framework of perception and experience a trans life. This framework presents its own body of data, its own hypotheses and its own evidence, even as my normal state of consciousness does what I learned at the trans level is transmitted through Seth's dictation so that it becomes part of my ordinary knowledge, though how much of it I may put into practical use at any given time is something else.
Speaker 1 00:03:49 Again, and the matter I'll return to shortly. My trans time is more concentrated than regular time. I'm not unconscious, but conscious in a different way, at another level with a greater capacity for attention. Trans time presents its own rich blend of consciousness, a blend in which my own altered awareness is only one of the psychological ingredients. This state of perception has nothing to do with classical pathological dissociation and its products says five books display a highly developed intellect at work and give evidence of a special kind of creativity in those trans hours. I quote, turn into someone else, at least I'm not myself to myself, I become Seth or a part of what Seth is. I don't feel possessed or invaded during sessions. I don't feel that some super Spirit has taken over my body. Instead, it's as if I'm practicing some precise psychological art, one that is ancient and poorly understood in our culture, or as if I'm learning a psychological science that helps me map, map m a p, map the contours of consciousness itself, not that I'm doing as well as I could at this endeavor, but after all this time, I'm finally examining the trans view of reality and comparing it to the official views of science and religion to say the least.
Speaker 1 00:05:23 Th those views don't agree. My own trance experience shows me that normal consciousness is just one focus of many alternate and natural ways of perceiving reality. For example, usually we use our consciousness much as we use an automobile going along at ground level, past blocks of hours, traveling along a rich but cluttered highway of sense perceptions where the scenery is more or less shared by ev everyone else on the same road, and I operate at that level much of the time. In a Seth trance though, it's as if the automobile turns into an airplane or sometimes a rocket lifting off, rising above the normal roots of perception, leaving the runway and mind sailing in my nd mind, sailing above the highways with their traffic jams, detours, and other obstructions. This takes practice. That is, it does. If you want a steady rise and a dependable vehicle, then you can afford to look around and view the usual landscape from a higher perspective.
Speaker 1 00:06:31 You can put your airplane on automatic pilot, turn your attention to the atmosphere through which you're traveling, and try to identify and understand the mental phenomena that appear in the skyscape of the mind. We aren't really talking about physical vehicles, vehicles of course, but about consciousness and its motion. No normal automobile turns into an airplane, for example, we have to get out of the car first and then into the airplane, and I get out of my usual mode of consciousness and into another. This is almost always an exhilarating experience, like riding some perfect gigantic ninth wave of energy, knowing exactly how and when to jump in and feeling absolutely safe and supported even when embarked upon such a strange psychological flight. But the energy and power of this wave carries me above and below usual reality, sweeping me into contrasts that are microscopic and macroscopic by turns.
Speaker 1 00:07:31 In this analogy, Seth is that ninth wave of energy, an energy that is aware, unique, individualistic, and yet endowed with all of the general characteristics of energy itself, as if his consciousness rises like some super real mental creature from the tidal waves of a primal ocean of energy so that he is himself and yet a part of a greater reality. And by prearrangement, I wait by the shores of my own private mind until I sense the approach of that psychological surge, then throwing off the clothes of my usual consciousness. I mentally jump in striking that wave at a certain point and making an intersection with it. That results in the phenomenon of Seth as he appears in our sessions. Now, such a trance is private, but it's hardly lonely. I sense all kinds of action I mix with, collide with and glide through psychological events, almost impossible to describe.
Speaker 1 00:08:32 I'm not talking about encounters with other entities or with the denisons of some shadowy underworld, but of events that seem to involve an exploration of the hidden contours of consciousness. Riding that wave of personified energy, I sense where currents from other realities enter our own world, how our consciousnesses circle around probable events, probable events like fish deciding which morsels to nibble upon, and mostly I sense the Eddies and underground caves within our minds where our ideas mix and merge yours and mine. Then sometimes that ninth wave of energy seems to carry me higher than I think possible. Cracking whitely past the mo most distant peaks that my own consciousness has ever known. Then pausing, poised, waiting for something that almost happens but hasn't so far while I rest in a place that's like the calm eye of a storm times and places seem to swirl around me with explosive force.
Speaker 1 00:09:35 Yet where I am, it's peaceful. I can usually feel that energy returning me home gently with no psychological or psychic bumps. Almost always I'm refreshed and invigorated. My eyes have been wide open while I've been in trance, and as Seth I've been speaking for the entire time. I'm not sure when his expression recedes from my features and mine returns, but this happens very quickly. Then I look out of my own eyes as usual, seeing my husband Rob on the couch on the other side of the coffee table. Usually he's still writing down Seth's last words. Actually, Rob's written the equivalent of several large books himself through the years as he faithfully transcribes, Seth's words, adds notes about the sessions or events connected with him, includes notes about the subjects that Seth discusses and generally provides the framework that connects the session with everyday reality. That's the reality I return to.
Speaker 1 00:10:36 Of course, mostly though Seth has left our world alone in his dictated books, not commenting on current events unless we specifically asked him to in his latest book, the Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. However, he turned his attention to the arena of national and World Affairs explaining how our private beliefs and impulses are connected to mass experience. He looked at our institutions and beliefs and explained how conventional Darwinian, Freudian, and religious concepts have hampered our imaginations, our creativity and psychological development. Actually, when Seth announced the title of that book in the spring of 1977, I was a trifle upset by it. I knew that his material would be pertinent and I was intrigued, but I didn't particularly, particularly want to be reminded of the world at large with all of its problems. They were with us constantly. I reasoned no one could escape them.
Speaker 1 00:11:39 So why did they have to invade my trans time? I forgot that my questions about that same world back in 1963 were partially responsible for the beginning of the Seth Sessions. For certainly, they answered my need to find a greater framework from which to understand a world that seemed to glory in chaos, and the Sessions did provide such a framework from the start. Seth's idea is about the nature of reality where the most convincing that Rob and I had ever encountered. For some time, though I considered them as fascinating theories or evocative alternate hypotheses. As long as I did that I didn't have to come face to face with the many sharp differences between Seth's views and those of the official world. For one thing, I felt that it was my responsibility to keep a certain distance between myself and Seth's material to ensure my own objectivity and mental independence.
Speaker 1 00:12:41 No one evaluated his material more critically than I did and still do. As time went on though, it became obvious that my own growing experience with altered states of consciousness and Seth's accumulated material were adding up to an entirely different picture of the world in which we all spend most of our time. What is that picture like? As most of our readers know by now, Seth states that each of us forms our own reality according to our beliefs about ourselves and others. Through all of his books, Seth stresses that point and emphasizes the importance of the spontaneous self in the individual and the nature of mass events. Seth carries these ideas further clarifying and refining them. In fact, he carries his concepts an important step further, stating that our impulses come from the deepest sources of our beings and are meant to promote our own fulfillment, and also to ensure the most beneficial developments possible for mankind and for all other species as well.
Speaker 1 00:13:53 According to Seth, our impulses are our most natural aids. To help us quote, find our way in physical reality. In mass events, he describes our impulses as emerging from an innate profound knowledge of the probable shape of events for the entire planet. Though we aren't consciously aware of those implications, Seth states that we are quote, impulsively aware of the best possible future events, and our impulses are meant to lead us toward those areas of development best suited to our individual and collective good. Actually, Seth began to explain these ideas in some private sessions when he introduced framework one and framework two just after he began mass events. Framework one is the usual reality we're used to, and framework two is the creative framework from which the ordinary world emerges. In a fascinating series of private sessions, Seth described how the two frameworks operate and how we can all draw help from framework two in order to increase the quality of our lives in framework one.
Speaker 1 00:15:07 Then later he introduced this material to his readers in mass events. How do we actually change the events of our lives for the better? How can our impulses serve as reliable inner directives? Seth discusses these subjects thoroughly, and I'm including some excerpts from the unpublished material in the following chapter. When Seth first began delivering this material, I didn't realize that it would lead me into beginning what amounted to an accelerated course in higher education, forcing me to look into my own beliefs as never before, or that it would inspire me to write this book, which is my most personal one thus far. Actually, this manuscript is the story of my efforts to put Seth's latest material to work in daily life, to free myself from many hampering cultural beliefs and most of all to encounter and understand the nature of impulses in general, and mine in particular, Seth's material on impulses did in fact lead me to an impulsive psychological journey of my own.
Speaker 1 00:16:19 But I learned long ago that such journeys, while mine are also taken on behalf of others, this particular pilgrimage into the realm of personal beliefs and impulses must be taken by each of us in one way or another. I believe if we are to, to rid ourselves of the many limiting concepts that are backed up by the official establishments of science and religion, there are some exciting alternate views of reality, though, as I hope to show in this book. Well, that's the end of, uh, Jane's first chapter. Really an introduction, and I hope it has given you an idea of the quality of this person, of course, but also the objectivity she had and her skepticism about the material and how she thought about it and examined it for a long time. She just didn't, didn't accept it right away. Uh, so because of her intellect, her objectivity, and the fact that she was a very normal person, as was her husband Rob, who contributed greatly to the, to the Seth Books, uh, because of that, uh, to me, the material itself besides appealing to me in terms of what it told us, it, uh, it has kind of an added credibility and I hope it will for you too, as in subsequent sessions, I choose from this pile of books over a foot high and I jump around and pick different concepts that I think are interesting, discuss them and then, uh, let you decide for yourself how you think about them.
Speaker 1 00:18:00 Okay? Uh, that's the end of, of this session, and once again, I'm Dan McEnany, bringing you lessons from a helpful dead.
