Printed in the Conscious Creation Journal
June-July 2000, Issue 12
Channelings Du Jour
Excerpts from the “Jane” (Roberts) Ongoing Channelings…
A few years ago (at least) many avid readers of the Seth material, channeled by the now deceased Jane Roberts, began to develop their own channeling skills. Since many Seth readers feel a real affinity towards Jane Roberts and the experiences she went through, it follows that they would draw her essence to them as they reached for information from the “nonphysical” – some of these efforts are offered below. Remember that each channeler presents “Jane” through their own unique perspectives or “filters”, and, as always, use your own discretion. (The unfamiliar names referred to in these sessions usually refer to the channeler’s entity/oversoul or another nonphysical entity with whom they are acquainted.)
Jane Channeled 04-09-00 by Maine John
<John> This wasn’t what I set out to do, but Jane felt very close and strong just now. So … (Is it “really” Jane? I don’t know. It was different from Jaqq, Tomm, or Miriam, though.)
<John> Hi, Jane.
Hi. I believe that you’ve been avoiding me.
<John> I have. Why are you coming through so strongly now?
Because you are now treading in territory that I know very well. I studied the rigidity of belief in some depth while I was alive. You are dealing with some of those same issues now.
<John> Do you have something that you particularly want to say? Is there something that you’d really like to have channeled now?
Not in the way that you are thinking. I learned a lot in my life, and I’ve grown in understanding since my death. I believe that my distinctive voice might be helpful to those who are struggling with the Seth books. I believe that there are things that I could make clearer than he did, because the audience is now ready for more depth. But that is not why you are aware of me lately. That is because of where you are now in your growth.
<John> Ok, then, what can you tell me about “rigidity of beliefs”?
Oh, I can tell you a lot, believe me. More than you’ll want to hear, I think. You know, since you channel, some of the problems in bringing information through your filters. You have also felt a strong anxiety at channeling personal information about someone’s health. You are afraid that you might “get it wrong” and do damage. When I was channeling Seth, I had this feeling about almost everything that he said. Everything that he said was upsetting the conventional reality. Everything he said was telling us to look at other ways of doing things. And I felt a terrible responsibility to “get it right.” I did not want to be responsible for someone taking it literally and quitting their job, quitting their doctor, quitting whatever they were doing and moving on into these untested waters. I was so terribly torn – I was in such conflict, that I literally paralyzed myself. What if I was wrong? What if somebody died because of something that I had channeled? And yet, I couldn’t NOT do it. If I had not let Seth speak through me, I would have died many years earlier – and I knew that, deep inside. So it was death to repress, and terror of a fate worse than death – responsibility for another’s harm – if I allowed. From my present perspective, I am amazed at how much and how well I actually did.
<John> What would you tell us now, then? Do you have some helpful advice?
I can not tell you anything that you don’t get from your other sources, but I can give you a different perspective. I have been there. I have been in the position of gradually strangling myself. I knew it, and yet I didn’t know it. I felt the conflict, I knew what drove it, and yet I didn’t see my part in setting up this conflict. I didn’t see that it was a choice. You’ve heard that word before, I know. Choice. Everything is choice. You hear it, you say to yourself, “That sounds nice but … but … “, and the “but…” takes precedence. Jaqq told you not to use that word. You said, “BUT … ” Do you remember that? If you would say to yourself, regularly, “It is all choice, and I am choosing exactly what I want”, and NOT then whisper to yourself, “but…”, you would find that it becomes true. BUT … can you hear me laugh? … but this isn’t what I would like to talk about. I want to show you something about rigidity. What is rigidity? What does it mean? What does it do to you? Rigidity is the fear of making a mistake. You become more and more rigid, the more you fear making a wrong move. I was afraid that the Seth material would cause harm. I was not so afraid of repercussions to myself or Rob, but I was afraid that I would be RESPONSIBLE for harm to another. Do you see how arrogant that was? I didn’t. I thought that “responsibility” was a good thing. Even though Seth himself had said that it wasn’t, I ignored him. I knew that it was good to be a “responsible” person. My mistake, and yours, too, was that there are two kinds of responsibility. You can be responsible for yourself .. in fact, you MUST be. Nobody but you has responsibility for your choices. You can NOT be responsible for another. It is not possible, and even if it were, it would be a terrible thing. To be responsible for another person, you would have to control that person. And you cannot. You cannot control another person. Ah, I see we have hit another sore spot! You have difficulty with control, do you not?
<John> Yeah.
You see that you cannot control others, don’t you?
<John> Well, mostly I see it I think.
Jaqq would be proud of you. All those weasel words in a single sentence. So, whom does that leave you to control? Yourself, of course. You believe that if you can only control yourself sufficiently rigidly (!), you will be able to … to … to what? Do you see? You don’t think past that point, do you? I never did. I just knew that it was vitally important to keep myself under control. And the way to do that is to control every aspect of myself. I had to watch myself like a hawk. I had to watch my thoughts so that they didn’t lead me into places where I didn’t belong. And so, of course, I immobilized myself. It wasn’t deliberate. It wasn’t as though I had decided that immobility was necessary. It was a “side-effect”, as it were, of my choice to control myself. And I was so bound up in my fear of leading someone astray that I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself. Every time that Seth told me what I was doing, I said to myself that it was more important to be responsible than to be free. Of course, the responsibility that I tried to take was illusion, and the freedom that I didn’t take was real, but I couldn’t see that then. You are doing better in that regard. You are listening – not as well as you might, but you ARE listening – to what you are getting from Jaqq and Tomm and all of the other sources of information that are available to you. I’m not trying to make excuses, but I didn’t have as many resources available. I didn’t look for them, either. But you do have more opportunities available, and it is good that you are taking advantage of them.
<John> Do you have anything else for me now, Jane?
I know that you have to go. Yes, I have a great deal more. Do not feel obligated to channel me, though. I know that you are very reluctant to do so, and I understand. There are probabilities in which I can be as creative as I wish, in whatever ways I wish. You have no “responsibility” to me, or to anyone else. If it is fun, do it. If it isn’t, then don’t. You enjoyed this. Perhaps you would enjoy it again. Perhaps not. It doesn’t matter. I will be here if you want.
<John> Thank you, Jane.
You are welcome. It was my pleasure.
Jane channeled 04-12-00 by Maine John
<John> Good evening, Jane.
Good evening. Now. Chapter 1. [Laughter.] Relax, I’m only joking. I would not push you into something you don’t want to do, even if I could – and of course, I cannot. You have a question you want to ask, yes?
<John> Yes. I was wondering why you stayed in your body so long. Your dying seems to me, at least, to have been very protracted and painful.
That is an excellent question. Why did I not release sooner? After all those years of association with Seth, I had no fear of death. None at all. Do you believe that? I did. I believed it until I saw death looking me in the face. Then I hung on to life with every fiber of my being. It’s so easy to be unafraid when the topic is intellectual. It’s not so easy when you feel it in your gut.
<John> I wondered if it wasn’t because you were doing it for Rob.
Only partly. There was some of that, of course – I did feel some responsibility towards Rob, and did not want to be the cause of pain for him. But there was also my own fear. In some ways, I was a very insecure person. I was afraid that by dying, I would lose Rob’s love. And I felt that he would be fully justified in withdrawing it and placing it elsewhere. After all, I was causing him great suffering and grief, and I would be leaving him behind. And I always had problems with feeling that I deserved to be loved. So it was at least as much fear of my own losses that kept me hanging on.
<John> It seems like a very difficult death, though. Could it not have been easier?
Of course. You have to realize that I was not at all clear in myself what I was doing. I had decided, quite consciously, that I did not want to live the way I had been any longer. We talked before about how I felt responsibility for the Seth material, and how I felt a great fear of causing harm. The more the Seth material seemed to be accepted, the more frightened I became of causing harm. And the more frightened I was, of course, the more rigid and restricted I became. It got to the point where I couldn’t tolerate it any longer, and I decided that it was enough. I wanted out. And with that decision, I set in motion my fatal illness. Now, not all of this was conscious, of course, but in effect, that was what I did. I had not expected the suffering that I went through, though. That was difficult. Seth kept telling me that it was my choice. He kept telling me that I could recover if I wanted to. He also told me that I could simply let go and die, if I wished. Obviously, I didn’t allow that to be channeled to Rob. And I was in a dilemma. One part of me was more than ready to die. One part of me was afraid to die. And the parts fought. Seth told me, over and over, that I was getting better. He was telling me the truth – I WAS getting better at those times. And then the other part would win out, and I would get worse. It’s like straddling a fence. Whichever way you fall will hurt, but it’s intolerable to stay where you are.
<John> So you finally did let go. Was it a relief?
You’ve read the books. When I died, the weight lifted and I was free. Not hardly. I did realize that I had died, but I was still in pain, and I still couldn’t move. It wasn’t my body that made me stiff – it was my beliefs. And I still had them. They went with me. Seth was there. He told me, over and over, to release my pain. He told me, over and over, to stand straight … to straighten my bent arms and legs and back. And, gradually, I did. Time doesn’t mean anything, really, but it did seem to take quite a long “time” before I was able to let go of the limitations that I had built so well in my life. Now, in some ways, beliefs are easier to handle after you die, because you can see their effects more directly … but you DO have to face them and deal with them.
<John> I’m surprised that you weren’t able to accept what Seth taught more easily.
You are not, and that is a rhetorical statement. You know full well that Jaqq has told you that all you need do to have those psychic phenomena that you want is to relax and allow them. You don’t need to DO anything – they are already there. You only have to stop keeping them out. Jaqq and Tomm have told you this over and over. They have told you that you will lose nothing. And you believe them. Don’t you? Well, at least, you THINK that you believe them. Yet, you don’t seem to be able to “allow”, do you? It was that way with Seth and me. I thought that I believed him. But when push came to shove, well, maybe I’d better do what I’ve always done. It doesn’t work, but at least I know what I’m doing. [Laughs.]
<John> Yeah, I know. I used to think that it would be wonderful to have somebody close to me who could channel and get the answers to all my questions. I never thought I would do it myself. And it really doesn’t work the way I thought it would. Somehow, the answers I get always seem to require something from ME. And I never seem to get any pat “do this and it will all work” answers. They always seem to generate even more questions.
Exactly. Seth never told us what to do, either. He would sometimes give us suggestions, and as often as not, we ignored them. They were good suggestions, too.
<John> So, how long did it take from when you died until you reached the awareness you have now?
Well, how long has it been? I’m not being flippant. It was quite a gradual process. I didn’t suddenly become enlightened, to use a word which has been the topic of some discussion on your list. It was very gradual. I had to work through my limiting beliefs, the same as you do, the same as anybody else does. There are advantages to doing it while you live. The fewer limiting beliefs you have, the more fun it is to be alive. And being alive was great fun, even with the beliefs that I had. There is a joy to physical existence that you will not be able to appreciate until you leave it. Even a life of apparent suffering has great joy to it. But that is a more philosophical question than I think you want to look at now.
<John> Yeah. Jane, I have one more question for now. Are you really “the” Jane?
[Laughs.] I cannot answer that in any way that will help your doubts, my doubting friend. The Jane that you think of is a part of me, but I am much more, now. The personality of Jane is a bridge that I use .. that WE use, in order to communicate. In the sense that you mean it, yes, I AM Jane. But I am also many other Janes,
too. Janes from other probabilities. And I am also Seth, in a way, although the Seth that you met in the books has gone on to other endeavors. It is a question that you have to ask, and it is a question that cannot be answered to your satisfaction now. You have reached out towards a particular personality. You have contacted a personality that fits what you expected. I can give you no more of an answer than that.
<John> Thank you, Jane.
It was my pleasure.
Jane channeled by Sharon Webb, with a preliminary comment (the “posting” comments refer to an email discussion list named “Pulse”*:
Hi,
I wasn’t going to post the Jane channeling I got. I think the reasons are probably obvious. In a small way, over the years people did to Jane what people did to Jesus, and Abe Lincoln, and Elvis Presley, and Princess Diana. We turned her, at least partly, into myth. And the myth has elements of super-being. We simply lost sight of the real person who gave rise to that myth, I think.
So by posting channeling which attempts to tap into the real person, John and I really stuck our neck out. He is more courageous about this than I. I read what he channeled yesterday and it started the chain of events which led to my channeling. I sent it to him with this statement:
John,
Well you certainly opened the can and let the worms out,
didn’t you? sigh. Below is what it led to.
He wrote back saying that he was going to post his this morning and that I could post mine then, too. If he hadn’t done this, then I wouldn’t have either.
So…again, we are both sticking our necks out. But you know, maybe sticking necks out help us to limber up. If it does, then that’s not a bad thing, is it? 🙂
Sigh…
Sharon
sharwebb@alltel.net
www.fractalus.com/sharon
3:35 PM 04/12/2000
Q: Ok, Jane…you are definitely around. I know you have things to say, but I have a question first. You seem to be zeroing in on the people in Pulse lately. I’d like to ask, why Pulse? True, we are all Sethies, but there are a lot of Seth lists around… and many have been around longer than we have. Also…what happened to those other people who were channeling you? Why not speak to them?
A: I have to laugh at that last. What you mean is, “Why not speak to them and leave me alone?” Let me remind you of something—a dream you had many years ago. In that dream you and I were wrestling like two Sumo wrestlers. It was a standoff. You couldn’t get the advantage and you weren’t about to give up. Do you remember what you did then? You created a furry frog-like creature who hopped up to us and you said, “Look at that!” And the situation was defused and we ended up laughing.
In other words, you created a diversion. That’s what you are doing with your question. In order to see this better, let’s look at your dream symbolism. You were wrestling not only with Seth’s ideas, but with me as a channeler. From the beginning you believed in my honesty as a channeler because my struggles mirrored your own. Yet, you were struggling with the idea of channeling to begin with. At that time it just wasn’t socially acceptable. And although that’s changed a lot, there are still plenty of derogatory remarks made about the process now. Although you now think it is “ok” to channel others, within the confines of your group at least, you want to run like mad when it comes to channeling me or Seth.
Diversion or not, I will try to answer your question as best I can. First, why Pulse? Pulse is rapidly becoming a list of channelers. It is a rich ground for anyone in my position who has something to say. Further, most of the people who channeled me before are on this list. And I DO speak to them. I speak to them often. For reasons of their own they are choosing not to listen at this time. And those reasons are much like your own. You consider channeling me to be somewhat arrogant on your part, and not quite ‘couth.’ Your reasons are not unique.
I thought about this quite a bit before I spoke. It even occurred to me that I could disguise myself, give another name, and slip in the back door, so to speak. I did not make that choice. I chose to be honest instead. If you will also choose to be honest, you will look at the reasons why channeling me makes you uncomfortable.
Q: OK. For the reasons you said. But also, when you started all this some time ago, you spoke of a book. Now I have written and published books, and this whole book idea bothered me a lot. To write a book with you as channel struck me as riding your coattails to publication and that didn’t sit too well with me. It bothered me because of the baggage such a book would carry, which is considerable. And it bothered me, too, because I have enough of a writer’s ego to think that I don’t need your name or your words to carry any book I might care to write. And also, I quit writing because I got fed up with the New York Publishing scene…and so, btw, did your editor Tam.
A: All these are valid points…from your perspective. Here’s mine: If I approached channelers unfamiliar with Seth I would have to reinvent the wheel. If I approached people who did not channel, I would have to create that wheel from scratch. There is another reservation that you didn’t mention. You are afraid that if you, and the others, ALLOW these talks of mine, then you will be COERSCED into doing something you don’t want to do; ie., write a book.
There is no coersion here, believe me. I have learned enough to know that there is no way I could influence any of you in that way, even if I wanted to. Free choice, remember?
But I am still human enough—in thought, if not in form—that I would like to be heard once in awhile. If enough hear and write it down, there may one day be a book, or there may not. That doesn’t matter in the slightest. What matters is the communication. Any communication that you have in this way leads to more communication, more growth, more knowing. Is that bad?
Q: Well, no. But I need to say “but” here… But what if it DID lead to a book? What then?
A: Well, what if it did? I will not engage in the probabilities game. I’ll only say that if that time comes, you—all of you—will be able to take it in stride, just as you take much more momentous occurrences in stride.
Q: OK. I’ll accept that. BUT…now I want to ask you another question. When you said any communication leads to more communication, more growth and more knowing, does this apply to you as well?
A: Of course it does. Think of that nourishing entity “soup” that Tomm talked about. Communication is a component. And just because a person dies, that doesn’t mean that their contribution to the pot stops then. Not at all.
Q: Well, thanks for helping to clear this up a bit for me. I think I will have more questions later though. Do you have more to say right now?
A: I have loads of things to say. But I will practice moderation and not try to wear you out—or down. I promise. We can talk of other things later.
Q: Thank you, Jane.
A: It was my pleasure.
Each channeler holds their piece in copyright. Published in the June-July 2000 issue of the Conscious Creation Journal. (Feel free to copy this for personal use only. Please include this copyright notice.) http://www.consciouscreation.com