The first two paragraphs of this excerpt from Jane Roberts' The Seth Material came from an Introduction by the parapsychologist, Raymond Van Over. In the other two, Roberts summarizes key ideas from the trance channeled material from the entity Seth. Added emphasis appears in red, and my reactions are enclosed in a box: (Note 149)

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 medium's character cannot be so easily characterized, but it seems clear to me that Jane Roberts is an exceptional medium. To experiment boldly with one's own subjective experience - to examine the sources of inspiration, imagination or creativity - has always been characteristic of the exceptional personality. . . .

As I allowed more intuitive flow into my life to counterbalance an overemphasis on the rational mode, subjective experience was more relevant in my awareness. There was a sense in which I became a medium for myself revealing patterns from the subconscious mind that were not obvious to my conscious ego.

The best trance material shows good psychological insight communicated through a compassionate, strong personality; and the Seth material conveys all of these qualities. Seth, however, adds one ingredient that most trance material lacks: clarity of thought and presentation. Most trance material, from ancient as well as modern mediumistic controls, couches itself not only in jumbled syntax but confused thought; however, Seth, I believe, has a great talent for introducing complex and often difficult subjects simply and clearly. . . .

Generally I did not feel comfortable with the clarity and simplicity of ideas I presented to students and clients in classes and workshops. If anything, I went overboard with elaborate justifications of basic ideas. This stemmed in part from the defensive stance my rational mind took to the intuitive material I presented.

This was a simple session. Seth addressed himself to the students for the first time, yet he touched upon several issues that appear often in the Seth Material: The personality is multidimensional. The individual is basically free of space and time. The fate of each of us is in our own hands. Problems not faced in this life will be faced in another. We cannot blame God, society, or our parents for misfortunes, since before this physical life we chose the circumstances into which we would be born and the challenges that could best bring about our development. . . .

When I first read Roberts' books, I had already explored Eastern thought in some depth especially Buddhism and Hinduism. The ideas I encountered in the Seth material were consistent with what I had learned from those ancient traditions. They were certainly more compatible with an Eastern world view than the contemporary Western model of reality.

I'm dealing with this subject, the nature of physical matter, first, because it is basic to any understanding of Seth's theories. Seth says that we form the physical universe as unselfconsciously as we breathe. We aren't to think of it as a prison from which we will one day escape, or as an execution chamber from which all escape is impossible. Instead we form matter in order to operate in three dimensional reality, develop our abilities and help others. . . . Without realizing it we project our ideas outward to form physical reality. Our bodies are the materialization of what we think we are. We are all creators, then, and this world is our joint creation.

Occasionally I imagined humanity as part of an elaborate experiment orchestrated by the divine from on high. This world had been created as a stage on which we played out our parts in the grand drama. As That art Thou infused its way into consciousness, I imagined we created this drama to observe and chuckle at how we worked things out and learned our lessions. I was enrolled in kindergarten in training for a higher realm of being.

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