Library » Black Sheep of the Universe
Compiled by Paul M. Helfrich
The following is an exchange from an ESP class held by Jane Roberts in her small apartment on Water Street in Elmira, NY in 1973. Recounted by Susan Watkins in her book Conversations With Seth, it deals with many themes, including the roles of gender and sexual preference, the intent of those who stir the pot and reform the status quo, and the search for personal truth through trusting our own spontaneous nature and creativity.
This particular session is entitled “the Halloween Transvestite class - October 30, 1973” in Conversations. Class members had been challenged the previous week by Jane to come this class dressed in a costume of the opposite sex. Already, the imagination races at the potentials for a hilarious and challenging event all mediated by Jane, Seth, and class members!
Jane was dressed in, “green pants and a paisley shirt with a denim vest. A black beret tilted jauntily on her dark hair, and all was topped of by a heavily drawn-on Vandyke beard that gave her the all-around appearance of a rakish Frenchman-a more angular version of the little French character on the old Hogan’s Heroes sitcom.”
Sue goes on to say that, “Jane’s costume was raked over the coals last. We decided that she was definitely a disreputable Left Bank character, probably writing poetry in an attic room overlooking the Seine. Jane loved it. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve said about me in years!’ she said with a terrible imitation-French accent. And that, of course, was the perfect line for Seth’s appearance.
“You are all the black sheep of the universe, and I have told you that before!’ Seth began, to a chorus of cheers. ‘You are all black sheep of the universe, and I will give you some hints tonight, because tonight— here, Seth doffed Jane’s beret, ‘I am such a young man!’
Sue continues saying, “We all prepared ourselves for a blistering commentary on our chosen costumes for the evening, with personal analysis of what we had or hadn’t done. Instead, Seth’s voice went low and intimate, “There was once a god who was not a god-who was not a god, for you are dealing with legends.
“There was a god in ancient Egypt, and his name was Seth, and he was disreputable. And he threw aside establishments, and whenever other gods rose up and said, ‘We are the truth, we are pure and we are holy,’ this disreputable god stood up, and with a voice like thunder, said: ‘You are nincompoops!’
“And the other gods did not like him, and whenever they set up their altars, he came like thunder, but playfully, and tossed the altars asunder, and he said, ‘Storms are natural, and good, and a part of the earth, even as placid skies are. Winds are good. Questions are good. Males and females are good. Even gods and demons are good, if you must believe in demons. But, structures are limited!’
“And so this god, who was not a god, called Seth, went about kicking apart the structures, and he gathered about him others who kicked apart the structures. And they were themselves, whether they were male or female. Whether they thought of themselves as good or bad, or summer or winter, or as old or as young, they were creators. They were questioners.
“And whenever another personality set itself up and said, ‘I am the god before you, and my word is law,’ then Seth went about saying, ‘You are a nincompoop,’ and began again to kick apart the structures.
“And so you are yourselves, in your way, all Seths, for you kick apart the structures, and you are the black sheep of the religions and the black sheep of the scientists, and the black sheep of the physicians, and the black sheep of your mothers and your fathers, and your sisters an your brothers.
“And yet, the mothers and the fathers and the sisters and the brothers listen, for they do not have the courage to be the black sheep, and they quail in the voice of the thunder that is so playful, though they do not understand it because they equate loudness with violence, and they think that female is passive, and the male is aggressive; and that war and violence must then erupt from the reality of mankind.
“And so you are, indeed, all black sheep of the universe, and Sethites have always been the black sheep of the universe!
“Now, to be a Sethite, you do not have to follow this Seth, you simply follow the Seth in yourself, and that Seth in yourself is a questioner, and an explorer, and a creator. And the Seth in yourself knows when to passively flow with the wind that blows through the window above a summer town, and when to go against the force of your environment. You were Sethites before you met me, and there was a Seth before I was Seth, and the spirit follows through the ages as you know them.
“You are being given-and you are giving yourselves-your own lesson this evening about your own beliefs. See that each of you follow through with your own private questions! And I return you to your own disreputable class!’
Sue mulls, “Black sheep, eh? We laughed and hollered and congratulated ourselves. You could say this was a disreputable class, all right-certainly disreputable enough anyway to do what we had done in this outlandish experiment. (However, Seth would later deflate any budding black sheep cult with the observation that ‘my analogy should serve you well …but a sheep is a sheep! I am not saying that there is anything wrong with a good sheep, black, white, orange, or purple ...a sheep who follows is an excellent sheep. He is a perfect sheep-becoming what only a sheep can be. He knows what to follow. He has a sense of his own integrity. He does not follow asses, for example. [But] realize that I am speaking on many levels. For no ass tries to follow sheep either!”’