“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(In the opening notes for the 711th session, I referred to Seth’s deliveries in ESP class on the previous evening, October 8, 1974. When Jane and I received the transcript of his material at next week’s class, we saw that it ran to five single-spaced typewritten pages. Seth talked about many things, but his remarks here, as I’ve put them together, mainly concerned a subject he’d first discussed with members of class just a week ago [on October 1]¹ — the “city” they could start building in their individual and collective dream states:)

There is much I have not told you about your city, for you will have to discover it for yourselves. I am merely encouraging you to focus your joint energies in that direction … You will be dealing with symbols, yet you will learn that symbols are reality, for you are symbols of yourselves that live and speak. You do not think of yourselves as symbols [but] there is no symbol that does not have its individual life.

I speak to you of other theoretical realities. I challenge you now to be as creative in another reality as you are in this one. And if it seems to you, because of your beliefs, that you are limited here, then I joyfully challenge each of you to create a city, an environment, and perhaps a world, in which no such limitations occur. What kind of world would you create?

For some of you the city will have a theater. For some of you it will not. For those of you who like theater, it will be like none you have ever seen. In it the actors and actresses will take the parts of beliefs — of fleshed beliefs — and the morality play, so to speak, will deal with the nature of beliefs and how they are enacted through the centuries as well as through the hours. That theater then will serve many purposes, even as each of you are exquisite performers, and have chosen the roles and beliefs that you have taken….

Now there are books programming out-of-body activity; millions of you are told that when you leave your body you will meet this demon or that demon, or this or that angry god. So, instead, we will form a free city to which those travelers can come, and where those who enter can read books about Buddhism if they prefer, or play at being Catholic. There will also be certain beloved traps set about the city, that will be of an enlightening nature … Now listen: You think there is nothing intrinsically impossible about building a platform in [your] space … I am suggesting, then, a platform in inner reality. It is as valid — far more valid — as an orbiting city in the sky, in physical terms, and it challenges your creative abilities much more. You need a good challenge — it is fun! Not because you should do it, but because you desire it … It is a great creative challenge that you can throw down to yourselves from your future selves.

(In answer to a question from a student:) A beloved trap is one that you set for yourself. And so our city will be full of them. When you are tired of playing a Catholic priest, for example, you will fall into your own trap — in which your beliefs [as such a one] are suddenly worked out to their logical perfection, and you see what they mean.

Now when children walk down streets, they count the cracks in the sidewalks. And so our city will have its own kind of tricky walks! There will be sidewalks within, and above and below sidewalks. But it is for each individual to decide which one he or she will follow. When Ruburt (as Seth calls Jane) was a young girl he wrote a poem in which he declares:

And so our city will simply have alternate sidewalks, and they will be beloved traps, set by each self.

I feel no great responsibility for any of your beings. [If I did] then I would be denying you your own power, and therefore seemingly building my own … I am here because I enjoy it. I am a teacher, and because I am a teacher I love to teach. A person who loves to teach needs people who love to learn. That is why I am here and why you are here … My view of reality is different from your own, and that is fine, and so I can teach. A true teacher allows you to learn from yourself. I enjoy the great vitality and exuberance of your reality, and our city will have joy and exuberance. Now joy sounds quite acceptable, but (with amusement) our city will also have fun — which in many spiritual circles is not so acceptable!

(In that class session Seth had much more to say about the dream city. Because of the individual freedom of creation implied in the city’s very existence, and in Jane’s early poem in Note 2, I’ll close this appendix with another of her verses. This one is from an even earlier poem, Lorrylo, written when she was but 15 years old:)

1. “You can colonize an entire inner level of reality,” Seth told that October 1st class. “To do so, you must give your best with dedication and joyful creativity. This will not be an imaginary city. It will have a greater reality than any physical city that you know, and it can, in its own way, shine with brighter lights in inner reality than any nighttime city displays. There, I hope, you will work at developing skills, in terms of the dream-art scientist (for instance; see Session 700 in Volume 1 of ‘Unknown’ Reality), and learn other professions than the ones you now know.”