The Oversoul Seven Trilogy

Jane Roberts

Cover

BOOKS BY JANE ROBERTS

The Rebellers

The Coming of Seth (How to Develop Your ESP Power)

The Seth Material

Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, A Seth Book

The Oversoul Seven Trilogy

The Nature of Personal Reality, A Seth Book

Adventures in Consciousness

Dialogues of The Soul and Mortal Self in Time

Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book

The World View of Paul Cézanne: A Psychic Interpretation

The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James

The “Unknown” Reality, A Seth Book in Two Volumes

Emir’s Education in the Proper Use of Magical Powers

The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression, A Seth Book

The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, A Seth Book

The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto

If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, A Seth Book in Two Volumes

Seth, Dreams, and Projection of Consciousness

The Magical Approach, A Seth Book

The Way Toward Health, A Seth Book

Title Page

Copyright

The Education of Oversoul Seven, Copyright © 1973 Jane Roberts
The Further Education of Oversoul Seven, Copyright © 1979 Jane Roberts
Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time, Copyright © 1984 Jane Roberts

Published by Amber-Allen Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 6657
San Rafael, CA 94903

Editorial: Janet Mills
Cover Art: Robert F. Butts
Cover Design: Beth Hansen

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Steve Bing for his vision and faith in these books.

Printed Book: ISBN 978-1-878424-17-4
E-Book: ISBN 978-1-934408-27-8

Book One - The Education of Oversoul Seven

Dedication

Dedicated to The Speakers in all “Times”
and to Those Who Recognize
the Sumari Songs

Chapter One

Oversoul Seven’s Examination and Josef’s Dream

Oversoul Seven grimaced at Cyprus and began the examination. “Let’s see,” he said. “In Earth terms, using an analogy, I’m a man on Wednesday and Friday, a woman on Sunday and Thursday, and I have the rest of the time off for independent study.

“Actually, because of their time concepts this is somewhat more complicated,” he said. “Each life is lived in a different, uh, area of time to which various designations are given.” Cyprus smiled, and Seven continued. “As Lydia I’m in the twentieth century, as Josef in the seventeenth, as Ma-ah in 35,000 B.C., and as Proteus in the 23rd century, A.D. Then there’s the further background in space, uh, different locations called countries. Then there’s the ages of the personalities.

“I’m partial to Josef and Lydia, though I suppose I shouldn’t be. Still, they show so much vitality and seem to enjoy themselves. Ma-ah cries a lot, and Proteus is always looking back to the good old days—”

Cyprus had been silent. Now she said, “You’re wandering and not organizing your thoughts very well. Pretend that I know nothing about all this, and you’re trying to explain it. You just told me that you had personalities in all those times, for example. So why should Proteus look back to the good old days?”

“Oh, I see. Sorry,” Oversoul Seven said. “Proteus doesn’t know that. He doesn’t take anything for granted. He doesn’t even take me for granted, or himself, for that matter. That is, he doesn’t realize that he is a soul, much less that both of us are one. Certainly he doesn’t know that other portions of us live in other times. I get lonely for him now and then, but there it is. In fact, sometimes I think we Oversouls aren’t appreciated at all. We work and strive—”

Seven was suddenly struck by such a sense of desolation that he dematerialized his hallucinatory pencil. He brought it back as quickly as he could, but Cyprus shook her head at the lapse and said sharply, “Now, none of that. Dropping your hallucination loses you five points, you know. Suppose you were, say, Lydia on Earth, and she did something like that? Physical matter wouldn’t be a dependable framework at all. One slip, that’s all it takes! How would you like to be responsible for such a massive reaction? Then everyone would have to start over with a new … Oh, Seven, you just can’t make errors like that. Pencils disappearing in mid-air!”

Oversoul Seven nodded, then suddenly, almost despite himself, he started to laugh. “Actually, Josef is almost on the edge of knowing. Once he forgot to materialize one of his painting brushes—he was in the throes of creativity—and bongo, the brush was just gone. Josef almost went out of his mind.” Seven’s eyes glowed with parental-like pride.

Cyprus said sternly, “None of your personalities are ready to understand that mind forms matter, and you know it. I hope you remedied the situation.”

“I hallucinated the brush back at once,” Oversoul Seven said. “But tell me, don’t you find the affair even a little bit funny?”

“Not at all,” Cyprus said, concealing a smile. “But now let’s get back to your examination.”

“Gladly,” Oversoul Seven said. “But when I reach your position, I hope I retain my sense of humor.”

Cyprus laughed. She laughed so hard that Seven got uncomfortable. Finally she said: “Your sense of humor includes only a small part of my sense of humor. There’s so much you don’t see. This examination of yours, for example—oh bless me—and having to maintain Earth-type conditions for it. Now that’s funny. By the way, look around this room. There’s something else that quite escapes you. Your visual is awful—”

Oversoul Seven looked around cautiously. He’d been secretly quite pleased with the environment he’d chosen and created. The classroom was authentic twentieth-century, like the one Lydia knew as a child. There were rows of desks, blackboards, windows, everything right down to stacks of paper—all individual new sheets—and an automatic pencil sharpener.

Then he blushed, all over his nice new cheeks and right up to the roots of the thick brown hair that sprang up from his forehead.

“Nice effect,” Cyprus said, watching. “I meant to congratulate you on your form, very good fourteen-year-old male type, Caucasian, I believe. But for the other—”

“I found it, the error! There!” The wastepaper basket had been in the corner, complete with girth and thickness, exactly two feet high and as many around, but he’d forgotten to materialize it visually. Now he made it red, and with a flourish added scallops around the upper edge.

“But there’s still another error,” Cyprus said, looking nowhere in particular. Just at that moment a young man wearing a toga appeared. He looked around with a rather wild air, then shouted out at Seven: “Ah, there you are! I knew I’d find you again. Just the same, all this has to stop.” He looked half mad, and yelled in tones of deepest outrage.

Cyprus raised her eyebrows at Oversoul Seven, who coughed several times and tried to look the other way.

“Well?” shouted the young man.

“How did you get here?” Seven asked. Then he whispered urgently to Cyprus. “That’s Josef. He must be in a dreaming state, and sleeping on Earth.”

“How did I get here? You tell me,” Josef cried angrily. “Next time I’m going to memorize the route. I see you in my dreams too often for comfort. Dreams aren’t supposed to work that way.” He broke off, frowning: “I am dreaming, aren’t I? I must be. What a crazy place. What on Earth is that?” He was staring at the automatic pencil sharpener.

“Don’t touch it! It’s not on Earth. That’s the point,” Seven cried. But Josef was fascinated.

“It’s authentic twentieth-century,” Seven said, giving in. “Works by electricity.”

Cyprus moaned. “I believe that Josef is your seventeenth-century personality,” she said. “Electricity isn’t utilized there.”

Oversoul Seven blushed and dematerialized the pencil sharpener. “Just forget you saw it. Forget the whole thing,” he said to Josef.

“Where did it go?” Josef stood staring.

“Listen, you aren’t supposed to be here. Not here, of all places. I get demerits for this,” Oversoul Seven said. “Go home. Go back to your body where you belong.”

“What do you mean, go back to my body?” Josef demanded. He rose to his full stature and adjusted his toga with a dramatic gesture. “This is my dream, and nobody is going to put me out of it.”

“Why are you wearing a toga?” Cyprus asked gently.

Josef looked down at himself with some amazement. “I don’t know. I didn’t realize that I had one on. I like to paint models in togas, though. You can do so much with the folds—” He broke off, angry again. “You aren’t answering my questions at all. What’s happening? How is it that I meet you in my dreams?” He paused and shook his head. “You look like a boy now, but most of the time you look like an old man. You can’t fool me, though. You’re the same one.”

“I’ve told you before, but you never remember,” Seven said. “I’m something like your mother and something like your father, but neither. We’re closer than sister and brother, mother and daughter, or father and son. That’s all I can tell you now. You have to learn some things for yourself. You are learning fast, but you wandered in where you shouldn’t be. I know you had a reason, though: You never look for me unless you’re in trouble.”

Seven caught the rebuke in his own voice and added quickly: “That’s all right. I understand. But what’s bothering you?” He looked around to see if Cyprus approved of the way he was handling the situation, but Cyprus had sympathetically dematerialized.

Josef never noticed. He said mournfully: “I’m twenty-four and I don’t have any discipline. I can’t keep myself at my easel two hours at a time, yet painting is what I want to do more than anything else in the world. If I don’t learn some discipline, I’m afraid I’ll lose what talent I have—and God knows how much that is, to begin with. On top of that I haven’t felt any real inspiration for a year.”

Seven shook his head. Before his eyes, Josef was turning into a big unhappy bear, his dark moustache transformed into fur, his eyes belligerent and sad at the same time, his toga changing into a blanket. Josef looked down at himself, hysterically. “I’m a circus bear; something for people to laugh at. Oh, what a dream. It’s got to be a dream.” Then the bear growled threateningly.

“Come on now,” Seven said, and patted its head. “Turn back into yourself. In the dream state you take different forms as your feelings and thoughts change. You felt like a bear, so you look like one.”

“Really?” Josef was himself again. Immediately he forgot what had happened. “If I don’t do something, I’m going to ruin my life,” he said.

“Oh, you can’t do that,” Oversoul Seven said. “You aren’t aware of your real problem yet. It’s one of my jobs to help you, so I’ll get back to you shortly. In the meantime I’ll do some little thing to tide you over.”

As he spoke, Oversoul Seven created in his mind an excellent art studio, made to Josef’s personal requirements. On the easel was a painting of the precise farmhouse in which Josef was staying on earth. The painting was signed in the corner: Josef Landsdatter, 1615. “Now I’ve made this dream for you,” Seven said. “Look at the painting well. You’ll begin work on it tomorrow. You’ll be so filled with inspiration that you’ll paint all day.” He transmitted the dream to Josef telepathically, then said: “When you get all you want out of the dream, then wake up in your bedroom.”

Josef nodded and dutifully disappeared.

“What did you think of him?” Seven asked.

Cyprus laughed richly, then returned visually. “Well, I see the similarity between the two of you,” she said.

“Stop joking. He has a serious problem.”

“That’s something else about you, Seven,” Cyprus said. “Your sense of humor doesn’t extend to yourself or your personalities. By the time you reach Oversoul Eight stage, you’ll know better. You did handle the situation well, however.”

“I worry about Josef,” Seven said. “He’s so impetuous.”

“As you are,” Cyprus said. “Remember, your various personalities, while independent, also reflect qualities of your own. You can’t create without giving of yourself.

“Now technically you do get three demerits,” she said. “You should have been aware of Josef’s approach and waylaid him. But rules are also flexible, and his achievement is noteworthy, regardless of the circumstances. So I’ll note that in your files.

“The schoolroom environment was also well done, though I’m waiting for you to discover your one other error. Your appearance as the fourteen-year-old male was symbolically valid. You’ve demonstrated that you have an excellent understanding of Earth’s conventions. Let’s dispense with them now, though, and get down to the more serious aspects of your examination.”

As Cyprus spoke, the room disappeared, and the trees outside the windows. Last to go was the wastepaper basket with the scalloped edges. A lovely touch, Seven thought, feeling a bit of dismay as it vanished….

Now Oversoul Seven and Cyprus were two brilliant points of consciousness, without form. Oversoul Seven felt himself expand mentally, psychically. He breathed a symbolic sigh of relief. He and Cyprus communicated telepathically through the use of mental images that changed with each alteration of meaning, and were instantly perceived and understood. In Earth terms, it boiled down to this conversation:

“Creating yourself physically certainly is demanding,” Seven said. “But even now, when I’m not Earth-oriented, I can appreciate Josef and all the rest, and feel the splendid growth of their vitality.”

“I know how you want to handle this part of the examination,” Cyprus said. “But remember, you can’t contact any of your people. If they contact you, that’s all right. But you can’t correct any of their errors. I want to see how they’re progressing, so this part of the exam involves you only as a bystander. Knowing how impetuous you are, let me emphasize that point. Later, of course, how well you communicate with your personalities will be an important factor.”

All at once Oversoul Seven felt apprehensive. He heard the voice before Cyprus did, because it was directed to him.

“Tweety! Tweety!”

“That’s a human voice,” Cyprus said. “How can that be? No humans should be able to reach us here.”

“Maybe it’s a mistake,” Seven said weakly. But already it was too late.

“Is it time yet?” asked the voice.

“Go back where you came from,” Seven said desperately. “No it’s not time yet, and for all I know it may never be.”

“But I’m all ready,” said the voice.

“No you aren’t. That’s just the trouble,” Seven said. “If you were, you’d have better sense. This is my superior, by the way.”

“Oh, Tweety!” cried the voice, desolate.

“Tweety?” Cyprus asked.

“Uh. We’re old friends. It’s Daga. Whenever Daga’s a female she calls me Tweety. Right now she’s a female and helping me with my independent study. At least we think she’s female. When I am, I call her Tweety.” In confusion, Seven took on the fourteen-year-old form again. “Earth language doesn’t have any words for what we really are, no, uh, pronouns for beings that are male and female at once, so it makes explanations difficult.”

“We aren’t ready to go into your independent study yet,” Cyprus said. “But I must admit that I’m curious. And I must note that you seem to have some difficulty in keeping track of your various projects.”

“See?” Oversoul Seven said. “Daga, please go away.”

“If you insist,” the voice said. “But I’ve got my birth date planned, and—”

“Go away!” Seven cried, in consternation.

Cyprus pretended not to hear. She said: “I presume that you’ll have a good explanation for this later on. Now if you don’t mind, let’s get down to the scheduled phases of your examination.”

Oversoul Seven tried not to be nervous. “All right,” he said. “Let’s look in on Lydia. I certainly hope that she’s having a good day. First, there’s a few things I’d like to explain about her. She—”

“Sorry. From now on I must see for myself,” Cyprus said.

Seven sighed. He thought of Lydia, lovingly brought her image into his awareness until it filled him, taking precedence over all the other memories of his many selves. Together he and Cyprus blinked off and on, rode piggy-back on a million molecules, and emerged.

Chapter Two

Part One of the Examination — A Quick Peek at Lydia, Proteus, Ma-ah, and Josef

THE PRESENT (MORE OR LESS)

Lydia felt nervous, as if someone was watching her, beside Lawrence. It was a thunderstormy morning, eleven o’clock, with great dashes of rain pounding against the windows. She was seventy-three, and angrier than usual about it on dark days.

Lawrence sat on the blue couch. “Well, what do you say? I do wish you’d quit prowling around and give me some kind of an answer,” he said.

She frowned and put down her rye and ginger. “My kids won’t like it much, not that it makes any difference. God, they’re hitting fifty, and Anna in particular is pretty pompous. But I just might do it, Larry. The aged poetess on her last binge! I like college-age people, too. They haven’t got into the establishment yet and we’re out of it, thank heaven. My kids would okay the idea of a tour, of course. But you and me traveling around the country together in a trailer, unmarried—well, you know how conventional they are. But they can hardly call you a dirty old man, since I’m older than you are! So to hell with it. I’ll go.”

He was so excited that he almost dropped his pipe. “We’ll fill the camper with books and food and liquor—”

“And two of my cats. Tuckie and Greenacre have to go, and Mr. George, my goldfish.”

He groaned. “The two cats, and Mr. George.”

She wanted to cry but she wouldn’t. Defiance rose up so that she thrust her head backward in an old gesture that had been startlingly dramatic when she was young. “I’ll make out papers before we leave, giving the house to my children. I don’t imagine really that we’ll be coming back.”

“We will. Goddammit, we will.” He stood up, but knowing how she was, he didn’t put his arms around her. He only said, again, “We’ll both come back.”

“Oh, to hell with it. If you say we will, we will. After all, what difference does it make? Forget it. You know, I meant to tell you—not to change the subject—that those dreams of mine are getting nuttier all the time. Last night none of them made sense. Yet right now, talking to you, it almost seems as if they did, if only I could remember them.”

Lawrence said: “When you talk like that, then I’m sure that we’ve known each other before—before we met, I mean. You are, after all, what? Fifteen years older than I am? But in some odd manner it always seems to me that you’re younger.”

“My dear love,” she said flippantly. “In the world’s eyes we make one hell of a funny pair. The thing is, no one ever thinks they’ll really grow old. It always comes as a surprise, and the world sort of hates you for it. Growing old, gracefully or not, just isn’t the polite or tasteful thing to do. And you can’t blame the young either, because when we were young we felt the same way. Too bad, because in one way I feel freer than I ever did before—”

“You look ten years younger than you are,” he said.

“Don’t be trite. Telling a woman that she looks sixty-three instead of seventy-three isn’t likely to win her favor. You’d be smarter to say nothing. For some reason that I’ve never understood, growing old is considered bad enough for a man, but an unforgivable crime for a woman. But best I don’t get on that subject.”

She took another sip of her drink. “It’s true, I suppose, in good light and if I bothered to wear makeup, I could look near your age—maybe. But as it is I look like a scrawny boy grown suddenly old, with white hair and gaunt face and quite incredulous about how it all happened. As I am, of course. Yet what I am, I am. I can’t see dying my hair, for example. In a way it’s pretty damn lucky to be seventy-three years old, and get white, to begin with.”

He was silent. Then he said: “If the doctors are right, and my heart does go suddenly—”

“Then I’ll follow our plan,” she said. “For that matter, I don’t know how long I’ll hold out. I’m quite aware that the first stages of my … condition have already come upon me. My memory should be all right, generally, for a while, though. But you can never tell. If not, then you follow our plan. When I can’t recite my own poetry right, then I suppose I’ll know that something’s wrong.”

And suddenly it seemed really funny, beautifully hilarious to each of them. He said, “We’ll beat their hospitals, their rest homes and final asylums.” Exuberance flashed through his thin nervous frame.

She laughed with him, then stopped. “My electric pencil sharpener,” she said. “I just remembered. I dreamed of my old eighth-grade classroom. Only my electric pencil sharpener was in it, which is ridiculous, of course. They didn’t have them then. Now I wonder what that means?”

“A bleed-through from one dream state to another,” Oversoul Seven said to Cyprus. They were suspended in two green leaves that rustled in the wind outside the windows.

“You heard what she said about the pencil sharpener? That was the error you missed,” Cyprus said, and Seven grinned.

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