“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The reincarnating personality enters the new fetus according to its own inclinations, desires, and characteristics, with some built-in safeguards. However there is no rule, then, saying that the reincarnating personality must take over the new form prepared for it either at the point of conception, in the very earliest months of the fetus’s growth, or even at the point of birth.

(Pause at 9:32.) Various methods of entry are adopted. If there is a strong relationship between the parents and the child-to-be, then the personality may enter at the point of conception if he is extremely anxious to rejoin them. Even here, however, large portions of self-awareness continue to operate in the between-life dimension.

In these circumstances, when the personality attaches itself at conception, there is almost without exception strong past-life connections between parents and child, or there is an unceasing and almost obsessional desire to return to the earthly situation — either for a specific purpose, or because the reincarnating personality is presently obsessed with earthly existence. This is not necessarily detrimental. The personality can simply realize that it takes to physical experience well, is presently earth-oriented, and finds earthly atmosphere a rich dimension for the growth of its own abilities.

Now: In all cases the decisions have been made ahead of time, as I told you. The reincarnating personality is aware, therefore, when the conception for which it has been waiting takes place. And while it may or may not choose to enter at that point, it is drawn irresistibly to that time and point in space and flesh.

On occasion, long before conception takes place, the personality who will end up as the future child will visit that environment of both parents-to-be, drawn again. This is quite natural.

You do not have completely empty shells of matter about to be filled, in that the new personality hovers in and about, particularly after conception and with greater frequency and intensity thereafter. The shock of birth has several consequences, however, that usually draw the personality full blast, so to speak, into physical reality. Before this, the conditions are fairly uniform. The body consciousness is nurtured almost automatically, reacting strongly but under highly controlled conditions.

At birth, all of this is suddenly over, and [new] stimuli [are] introduced with a rapidity that the body consciousness has never to that point experienced.

(10:10.) It greatly needs a stabilizing factor. Previously the body consciousness has been enriched and supported by deep biological and telepathic identification with the mother. The communication of the living cells is far more profound than you imagine. The identification is almost complete before birth as far as body consciousness alone is concerned.

Until the new personality enters, the fetus regards itself as a part of the organism of the mother. This support is suddenly denied at birth. If the new personality has not entered earlier to any full extent, it usually does so at birth, in order to stabilize the new organism. It comforts the new organism, in other words. The new personality, therefore, will experience birth to varying degrees according to when it has entered this dimension.

When it enters at the point of birth, it is fairly independent, not yet identified with the form it has entered, and acting in a supportive role. If the personality entered at conception or sometime before birth, then it has to some extent identified with the body consciousness, with the fetus. It has already begun to direct perception — though perception has begun whether or not it is so directed — and it will experience the shock of birth in immediate, direct terms.

(10:19.) There will be no distance between the personality and the experience of birth, then. The newly entered personality, as a consciousness, flickers, in that there is a while before stabilization takes place. When the child, particularly the young child, is sleeping, for example, the personality often simply vacates the body. Gradually the identification with the between-life situation dwindles until nearly full focus resides in the physical body.

The hold of the personality over the body is tenuous in the early years, and grows stronger. The personality, for its own reasons, may decide upon choosing a body that is not aesthetically pleasing. He may never relate to it, and while the existence will serve what purposes he had in mind, there will always be a basic sensed distance between the body and the personality within it.

As a rule, now, those who do not enter your plane of existence until the point of birth are less able manipulators in those particular terms. They are the mean, if such a term can be used, the mean or average.

Now there are some who resist the new existence, even though they chose it, as long as possible. To some extent they must be present at birth, but they can still escape any full identification with the born infant. They hover within and about the form, but half reluctantly. There are many reasons for such behavior. Some personalities simply prefer in-between-life existence and are much more concerned with the theoretical solving of problems than the practical application necessarily involved. Others have discovered that physical existence does not meet their needs as well as they thought it would, and they will progress much better in other fields of reality and existence.

You may have already decided for example, now, upon the circumstances for your next incarnation. Although in your terms your new parents may be infants now, or in your scale of time not even born, the arrangements may still be made.