The Road to Elmira Volume 1 (2011) is Rich Kendall's remembrance about what he learned from attending classes of Jane Roberts—the 'channel' for the transcendental communicator known as 'Seth'—during the 1970s. The previous decade was the time of Vietnam war protests and "the Hippie revolution that had sought to make the world over into a Mecca of peace and love." Rich commented:
Rich was 19 years old in 1969 and acknowledged: "By the time of my Bar Mitzvah (at thirteen years old) I had little interest in religion anymore. Yet religious impressions made upon the young mind have a way of maintaining a presence throughout one's life."
On January 4, 1972 Richard Kendall attended his first class session conducted by Jane Roberts and 'Seth.' Rich was among a group of spiritual wisdom seekers known as the 'Boys from New York,' who regularly drove 240 miles from New York City via Route 17 to Elmira, a town in central New York. After attending a class that usually lasted between three and four hours, the 'Boys' would drive back home. Rich recalled his thoughts during that first class when "in walked Jane and placed herself in the handsome Kennedy rocking chair I had seen pictures of in The Seth Material, one of the first books Jane had published."
. . . within a few years yesterday's hippies would become today's lawyers, doctors, and Wall Street brokers. For some, this transition was relatively easy. For me, thoughts of finding a steady job, settling down; focusing on making money—all these goals were anathema to the hippie spirit that still lived within me.
As I held tight to my counterculture stance I knew I risked being left behind. But how to find a place for myself in the world I had railed against was a dilemma I did not know how to solve. So as the decade drew to a close, uncertainties hung in the air all around me.
There was only one thing I felt for certain: I needed some answers before I could move on with my life, answers to a few simple, basic questions. Questions such as Why am I here? Is there a God? What happens to us when we die? Have I lived before? Why is there so much suffering in the world?
Rich was 19 years old in 1969 and acknowledged: "By the time of my Bar Mitzvah (at thirteen years old) I had little interest in religion anymore. Yet religious impressions made upon the young mind have a way of maintaining a presence throughout one's life."
On January 4, 1972 Richard Kendall attended his first class session conducted by Jane Roberts and 'Seth.' Rich was among a group of spiritual wisdom seekers known as the 'Boys from New York,' who regularly drove 240 miles from New York City via Route 17 to Elmira, a town in central New York. After attending a class that usually lasted between three and four hours, the 'Boys' would drive back home. Rich recalled his thoughts during that first class when "in walked Jane and placed herself in the handsome Kennedy rocking chair I had seen pictures of in The Seth Material, one of the first books Jane had published."
Related Articles
Casually dressed with jeans a loose fitting long-sleeved top, Jane lit up a cigarette and poured herself a glass of wine. She then started talking about some recent developments involving something called Sumari. Sumari was described as a psychic family or guild of consciousness whose members worked together through the centuries to help mankind. There was also a Sumari "language," although not a language in the usual sense since it had never been verbally spoken by any group of people in our history. Despite the nature of this "non-language," Jane had recently begun singing as well as conversing in Sumari.
As class continued to speculate about the meaning of Sumari, Jane suddenly took off her glasses, placed them on the nearby coffee table, and began speaking in a loud, deep masculine voice. Along with the voice change, her facial muscles also changed.
This other personality, who was known as Seth, was speaking now about the Sumari and how they were gathering together from near and far.
Then, as quickly and easily as Jane had gone into trance, she now came out of trance. She put her glasses back on, took a sip of wine, and asked class what Seth had said. After class members gave Jane a brief description of Seth's comments, she went back into trance, but instead of Seth coming through, Jane started singing. The words Jane sang did not correspond to any language I was familiar with, so I assumed this must be the Sumari language that the class has been discussing. And although I say Jane was singing, the personality that was now looking out through Jane's eyes and doing the singing was neither Jane nor Seth.
Whatever this new personality was (or wasn't), the vocal gymnastics that were operating were quite impressive, as low notes and high notes were executed with perfect pitch. As the song continued I could feel the sounds bouncing off the walls, and at times it felt like the walls themselves were doing the singing.
At one point during the class, another student noticed that Rich was responding with hostility whenever a classmate named Ray spoke. The student asked aloud, "Why is Ray on trial?"; and then asked Rich why he was feeling anger toward Ray.
. . . Jane went back into trance and started singing in that Sumari "language" again. While still in trance she motioned for Ray and me to walk over to her and stand on either side of her rocker. She took Ray's hands and my hands and clasped them together. As the Sumari song continued I could feel my anger toward Ray beginning to fade. I then smiled at him as if to say, "Okay, all my anger for you is now gone." Secretly however (or so I thought), I was still hanging on to some of that anger. Jane then vigorously shook Ray's hands and my hands which were still intertwined, and with that gesture all of my anger toward Ray truly did dissipate. Ray and I laughed, released our hands, and Jane ended the song.
Before we barely had time to blink, Seth came through, looked at me, and emphatically stated, Let that be a lesson to you! He did not say this in a mean-spirited manner (no pun intended), and I didn't feel put down or demeaned in any way. I walked back to my seat by the bay windows, not really sure what had just transpired.
A few of the class members then said that as they were listening to the Sumari song, they had images of a trial, with me being the judge and Ray being accused of some form of sexually immoral act. Jane said she was receiving similar images. As this judge, it seems I cut Ray no slack for his misdeeds and meted out a very severe sentence, which in effect relegated him to the role of outcast in society's eyes. I later learned that one of the purposes of the Sumari songs was to conjure up memories of events from past lives.
Continuing to make the long drive to attend class sessions in the following weeks and months, Rich found himself contemplating such lessons as the importance of listening to the voice of the inner self and the realization that one's present reality could influence occurrences of past and future incarnations. Rich quoted Seth: "If you want to understand what reincarnation is, then examine this instant of your being. From this moment, as you understand it, all realities flow and are created."
One night when the instruction related to people's secrets, Jane said: "There is someone in this room who has a secret that if told will help someone else in the room." Rich wrote: ". . . I knew the secret Jane was referring to was my having been raped, which I had mentioned a few days earlier . . ."
After I finished speaking, one of the women in the class started to cry softly. She then told of how she was sexually abused by her father as a child. Suddenly, it was as if some kind of invisible floodgate opened up, and what came pouring out was a veritable potpourri of sexual secrets, as people began to share details about sexual experiences that had occurred in their lives of which they had never spoken before. As this deluge of repressed memories continued to inundate the room (in some cases these memories had been buried for decades) one of my friends spontaneously announced that he was gay.
As for me, I was relieved to have finally released a secret I had harbored for a very long time.Some people say let sleeping dogs lie. Yet sometimes, the simple act of sharing something that you have never been able to talk about before can be a very freeing experience. Perhaps in sharing the details of what happened to me, someone else may feel inclined to share an event in their own life (of whatever nature) that until now they have never been able to disclose.
Rich's rape had occurred when he was 15 and afterwards brought him feelings of intense anger and anguish that "were being driven in large part by a deep sense of shame for what had happened to me." He reflected:
Perhaps if I had gone to some counselor trained in such things they would have pointed that out to me from the beginning, but until that Friday night get-together at Jane's, and then in class a few days later, I wasn't able to reveal to anyone what had happened to me. Looking back at the event from the standpoint of my present consciousness, I am able to recognize (and acknowledge) the part I played in its creation. This is not to say that I consciously knew exactly the way things were going to unfold, but to feign total innocence would be a lie. At that time in my life I was feeling conflicted about my sexuality. While I was for the most part drawn to women, there was a part of me that wanted to experience sex with a man. I wouldn't admit it to myself on a conscious level, much less bring myself to willingly seek such an encounter. So my "solution" was to create a situation where I would be forced into having such an experience—a poor solution for sure.
A discussion involving 'military duty' in Vietnam resulted with Seth commenting: "There is no way to insure peace but for every man, EVERY man, to lay down his arms." Rich imagined a worldwide program that could be called 'Worldwide Military Disarmament.'
Rereading Seth's statement about every man laying down his arms, I began to imagine soldiers from every country banding together in a conspiracy to create a worldwide divestment of weapons.
Events begin within the mind and within the imagination. As long as we imagine that violence can act as an agent to bring about peace, then young men and young women will continue to spill each other's blood as they have done for centuries. What is there to lose by imagine an army of young people from all corners of the globe joining together to rock the world with peace?
Seth could be very direct when making suggestions to Rich about how to overcome obstacles that were holding him back. At a time when he was unemployed, Rich conveyed the gist of Seth's advice: "Get out! Go into the world! Seek your own sustenance. A nine-to-five job is not going to destroy you; how fragile that you must think that you are! . . . When you work with your beliefs, you will find that you have inhibited yourself and your natural curiosity about the world, out of fear that you are inferior and you are not ready."
Rich also recalled Seth's response to a statement Rich had made to Jane about wanting to feel "part of a meaningful universe" —
Unexpectedly, off came Jane's glasses and Seth came through with the following words: "You are not so much part of a meaningful universe, as the universe in part. That is the next step for you to joyfully follow."
Rich's expanded spiritual awareness is affirmed with a comment about the state of mind that today is sometimes expressed as 'living in the moment':
We are not bound by historic events, be they fact or fiction. What we choose to focus on NOW is what matters, for what we focus on NOW reaches out to all realities, whether we think of them as past, present or future.
This post first appeared on Interesting Articles, Links And Other Media, please read the originial post: here
