Knocking on the Door of Self: An Interview with Rose - Part I
by Joanne Helfrich

When John asked me if I’d like to write an article about my experiences channeling Rose, at first I was daunted because my experiences have been so intense that I wasn’t sure where to begin. Since the experience is also so new, I haven’t had a chance to sort it out much myself.

I was reminded of a passage from The Rose Agenda in which she said “… the beautiful thing about Essence [is] that all you need to do is to knock on the door and we will answer.” Rose went on to say “be aware that while you will be connecting with Essence…. you will incorporate many modes of learning in order to do so. She [Joanne] has connected a great deal with the Integral Institute’s program of Integral Life Practices...”

I realized that Rose could help with this article, to help me process my experiences while sharing them with others. The conversational question-answer format is much like the way we converse in my mind and through autotyping, so you’ll see a bit of our process, too.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rose, what do you mean by “knock on the door”? Is this something that everyone does?

That was a good question! We suggest we have been knocking on your door to ask this question, so you may conclude that the knocking goes both ways.

I suppose you mean that essence tries to connect with us in objective awareness as much we try to connect with essence, right?

Your essences are in need of speaking with you directly, and they continually try to interrupt your thinking thinking thinking so as to interest you in more direct experiences with their essence selves. We suggest you are aware of this at times, you just tend to push them away.

How do we know when they’re trying to get our attention?

You are weaning yourself of your need to continually be looking at unauthorized information so as to invite your essences in, so to speak. The way we mean unauthorized information is that the information you are reading is, in some ways, too much information about ways to connect with essence. We suggest you may not know what we mean. We will explain.

You tend to overworry the way you may connect with essence. We suggest essence was not intended in every way to come through your words. We suggest that essence comes through your deeds in every single way. We suggest you pay attention to what you are doing and allow yourselves to notice how you do intend to connect with essence but also don’t intend to because you are afraid. The way you know the difference is to appreciate that essence is continually working for your fulfillment, you just don’t always acknowledge it.

So you’re saying that essence tries to get our attention in many ways, but we distract ourselves by reading about how essence tries to get our attention.

Exactly. The way you know you are distracting yourselves would be to notice how you feel when you are reading. Do you feel connected with your essence? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. The point is that you don’t always feel connecting and the way you may, in some ways, connect more is to put down your books and papers. That will be a good first step. We are not saying to not read interesting or informative things, we are only saying that in practice you will find ways to implement what you’ve learned.

Right, I was involved in studying many types of information, and the way I was able to access you was to finally put the information aside and get it more directly.

Exactly. We suggest that was as important as the information, and you may note that you did not avail yourself of your information, in your terms, while you were connecting with Rose initially. The information was knowing yourself, not reading yourself. There was an initial informative inspiration, and you did find this extremely valuable, but there came a time you needed to put it aside.

Yes, I felt like I’d incorporated whatever I needed to. I felt like there was something, too, that I wanted to contribute to the body of information that was missing.

That was an excellent statement. You did want to contribute, and many people feel the same way. They are in many ways swirling, and your desire to help them stop swirling was a large part of your knocking on our door. We suggest you provide a little background on how this happened.

Okay. People who are interested in reading the details can do so, but basically I felt there was a gap in the information I’d been exposed to, and that people inside and outside the conscious creation community would benefit from the typologies that Seth and Elias had presented. Continuing to acknowledge channeling as an integral part of the integral map would also allow others to help legitimize the phenomenon in ways that allow it to take its place in the world of ideas (see Integral Conscious Creation: Rocket Science for the Soul). So there were a lot of pieces that fit together in my mind, including this need area, and this was something I did in order to stop my own swirl and help other people stop theirs.

I amended my Ouija board to include the families of consciousness (provided by Seth and developed further by Elias) and Elias’s orientations to divine these for others, therefore helping people connect with their intent and passion, and contributing to the overall map. I’ve been interested in what I consider a critical need for people to connect with their intent and passions for many years. So I stuck colored dots on the Ouija board thinking that while I’d had little success with the board in the past, I might be able to eek out a few hits on a few dots. After incorporating a daily practice, eventually I did, then decided to try letters, and quite naturally progressed to autotyping and voice channeling. It was funny that in the process I realized that the intent name I’d given myself years ago, in doing Elias’ intent name exercise, was “Brings Colors.” At the time I didn’t know exactly what it meant, so when I had success with the colored dots, I felt I was on the right track.

That was an excellent summary. We suggest you continue.

There were other clues that, when I look back on them, were so perfect. It’s like I always knew they somehow fit, but didn’t know how until the channeling experience happened, and I began to view my life as having this symmetry that I’d never fully realized objectively. There are just tons and tons of things that I realize go back to my childhood that were little signs all pointing in this direction.

We expect you will continue to be finding interesting images that you will be making yourself objectively aware of. These images and sensations were always there, you just weren’t aware of them.

And this is true for everyone.

Yes, they will be continuing to connect with essence in ways that make the symbolism of their lives into a poetry of your trust in self. That was, in a way, a description of how you do encourage others to incorporate their essence objectively by showing yourself as an example of how this can be done. As we said in our Rose Agenda: if you can do this, anyone can.

Thanks, Rose… I know you mean that in a nice way, ha!

You are correct, we do mean it in the nicest way possible, for this is your intent, to help others connect with theirs. We suggest that once you realized this and took action, you opened the door. We are aware you do know you did this, so we will allow you to share your experiences as to what that was like.

It felt extremely strange and extremely familiar at the same time. There was a period of disbelief, which continues today… sometimes I think, my god! I’m channeling a nonphysical entity! The reason it felt so odd, I think, is that while I was prepared for channeling—reading channeled works, knowing channelers, promoting the work—I still didn’t expect it. Looking back, I’d been knocking on that door years without really being aware of it, in my admiration for Jane, Mary, Serge, and Emmy, in my wanting to channel my historical novels to help me with my research, and so on. I had a lot of limiting beliefs about that not being possible for me, that evidently I was able to work through by sitting in front of that lifeless Ouija board for hours and hours.

Yes, you did an excellent job of pushing, in your terms, through your fears. We suggest that your first attempts were very frustrating, but worth it once you were able to get some interest, in your terms, from us. For you know we are always interested in you, but you don’t realize that we do get frustrated with you as well so we do hold back when we sense that you really don’t want to speak with us.

That sounds like a test… are you challenging my beliefs about connecting with essence?

Yes, that was a good impression! Of course essence will always wish to speak with you. We suggest that the readers would like to know that we nuns in this state of your channeling do test you very often so as to allow you to respond in ways that are discerning. The way we do this is intended to teach you about yourself so as to identify your limiting beliefs. We will speak about this more at a later time. We suggest you continue.

I’m glad you did that so readers can see what a challenge this has been for me personally. It’s been a bed of roses… complete with very prickly thorns! It’s been a unique experience, even for a channeling one, as most individuals performing an energy exchange like mine don’t typically interact with their energy personality essences this way. The intimacy of our experience has been the most interesting part, in that I can’t hide anything from you. This took a lot of getting used to, but I’m a pretty honest person so this has helped a lot. So I imagine everyone’s channeling experience is a little different, each experience as unique as the individual.

That is correct. Your experience was, in your terms, extremely strange to you, even though you were prepared in many ways. We suggest that while yours was in some ways strange, that others will not have this experience. They will incorporate a more gradual interest in their channeling, and in many ways are, in your terms, channeling already. We are aware you are interested in how this will be done, so we will continue. Your mode of channeling sounds like a very unique one, and it is in some ways, and in other ways it sounds like a very scary, interesting way, and in some ways it is, but there was a point where you felt as if the experience was “meant to be,” correct?

Totally. I felt, as I do now, that everything in my life was an invitation to allow the experience to happen.

That’s correct. We suggest you were knocking on the door since before you were born, and this was in some ways what you came here for. We don’t wish to provide information that would seem to encourage you to be producing, in your terms, a worry-free life, as that is not our intention. But you do see that your worries were always about how you would be intending to be fulfilling your intent.

We suggest that there is a partial truth inherent in the word “destiny,” although the term is in itself flawed: you do not have one destiny that you are so involved in finding, because in some ways everything you could possibly do is your destiny. We are saying, in your terms, that you do each have an intent and a purpose in life and we suggest you each find it. We suggest you continue to interest yourselves in your Seth, Elias, and Brahm/Kris information to continue your incredible journey of self. We will speak in your terms, later, so as to provide you more guidance on how you may continue to be knocking on your doors and we will be answering. We trust you will.

That will be all for now. We will continue in essence to be connecting with you good readers of Sethnet Journal and look forward to future interactions of the cosmic reading kind!

Love, Rose [Session #73 ~ Monday, June 18, 2007]

Thank you, Rose, and readers. Anyone wishing to get more information on the Rose phenomenon can visit www.essence-of-rose.com.

New Beginning
by Serge Joseph Grandbois

Deep in my being there is a new beginning;
first step, first words,
sights never before seen.

A gesture of hope,
a sign of life,
undiscovered countries,
virgin lands, secret valleys.

Exploring a new world,
unknown species beckoning,
scents, colors and patterns
all freshly created.

Firmly cradled in your arms,
safely couched in your heart,
a new dawn rises.

The Road To Elmira: Chapter One
by Richard Kendall

I was nineteen years old in 1969, and changes in the mass consciousness of this country were beginning to bubble up, and in some cases, the bubble just outright burst. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and in November of 1969 approximately two hundred fifty thousand people marched on Washington, D.C. in opposition to a war that had divided the country into warring factions of its own.

In that same year, Woodstock, billed as “3 Days of Peace and Music”, attracted close to five hundred thousand folks. I was one of them, and while there was music a plenty, the peace part of the equation was very scarce. The movie Easy Rider made its way to the wide screen that year as Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper traveled by motorcycle in a horizontal direction in search of the real America. Neil Armstrong took a vertical route, and became the first man to walk on the moon. By the end of the decade the ideology of the 1960’s had reached its crescendo, and within a few years, yesterday’s hippies would become today’s lawyers, doctors, and Wall Street brokers, with their well manicured haircuts and neatly pressed suits and ties.

For some, this transition was relatively easy, for others, it was a struggle. 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. So I held on to my counter-culture stance, and as a result, found myself increasingly on the outside; suspended between a world that was disappearing very quickly, and a new world that I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to become a part of.

As the decade drew to a close, uncertainties hung in the air all around me, and there was only one thing I felt certain about: I needed some answers before I could move on with my life; answers to just a few simple, basic questions. Questions such as: Why am I here; is there a God; what happens when we die; have I lived before; are we alone in the universe; are all events predestined, why is there so much suffering in the world. Like I said, just a few simple, basic questions.

I had tried plenty of drugs in my search for answers, but the insights I received during those seemingly heightened states of awareness had a nasty way of fading into so much pulp in the morning, as the drug’s effects would begin to wear off. Ultimately, I used drugs not to seek knowledge, but to numb the pain that was coursing through me like a burning river; pain born from confusion, from fear, and from an endless procession of unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions that kept exploding inside my brain.

But at best, such indulgences only brought temporary relief, and while those transient moments of peace were certainly pleasurable, in the end, the use of drugs was not an answer, and moreover, spawned a fresh set of new problems, which was the last thing I needed. Turning to organized religion was never really an option, for the explanations they offered I had rejected long ago. Perhaps a nice brisk walk on the moon might provide some insights, but I was way behind in my astronaut training at this point. The need for me to find answers became more than just an important issue, it became an imperative.

Right around this time, a friend of mine who was also interested in spiritual matters, told me about these metaphysical classes he started attending in response to an ad he saw in the newspaper. These classes were taught by a fellow named Francois, who claimed to be a master of occult knowledge, privy to the secrets of the gods themselves. If you studied under him and followed his directions without question, (all of this according to Francois of course) you had a shot at reaching levels of enlightenment that very few ever achieve.

It was understood that you would never reach his level of enlightenment, but at this juncture in my life, any light would have been a welcomed sight. When you’re stranded on an island feeling alone and helpless, and a ship approaches, you don’t ask what flag it’s flying, you just hop aboard without a moment’s hesitation. So with hope tucked under my sleeve, off I went to meet Francois, thinking that perhaps he just might be the one to lead me out of the darkness.

Francois was a tall, black, charismatic figure. His voice rang out with confidence. He let you know in no uncertain terms that he had mastered many levels of reality, and had access to secret and hidden knowledge. This knowledge, he emphasized, should not be shared with others until they were properly prepared to receive it; for otherwise, doing so could be very dangerous for the recipient.

He attracted mostly young people and looking back I can honestly say he was a master; a master at exploiting the insecurities and fears that lived within others. Feelings of hopelessness combined with little belief in one’s own worth were a perfect recipe for Francoise, and he knew just how to mix the ingredients. His intentions were to open a school, create an elite army of metaphysical mentors, who in turn would descend upon the ignorant masses to help save their miserable souls. But not all the students who were studying under him would be chosen to become part of this army. Those who weren’t chosen could still study his teachings, but would be outside of the inner circle he was in the process of forming. Rumors began to circulate as to who the chosen ones would be, and one day I heard through the grapevine that I was not going to be one of the privileged few.

When I was in the sixth grade, an announcement was made that classes were going to be divided in a new way. Special classes were being created called SP, for those whose intelligence ranked above the norm. No tests were given to determine the criterion for this ranking, and no explanations offered. Your parents simply received a letter indicating your status as accepted or rejected. Everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for that letter. I remember how terrible I felt when my parents informed me that I was not one of those who had been accepted. I didn’t feel much better when two weeks later they sent my parents another letter, this one stating that they had decided to accept me after all. Even at that young age I knew there was more to this than met the eye, and figured there was probably some problem in filling up some of the classes, hence my new found intelligence miraculously rising to the surface.

Trying out for a school team or school play, and not making the cut, or not being picked for some special program, can be a difficult pill to swallow. But being denied a place in Francois’s school was too much to bear without at least finding out why. So I gathered all my courage and decided to call Francois and find out if the rumor was true. His voice on the other end of the line sounded like it was right inside my brain. He proceeded to tell me in a calm and imperious manner that I could not be admitted to his school for the following reason:

I was in the grips of a demoniacal thing. Let me tell you, this felt a lot worse than not qualifying for SP classes. He spoke to me my very worst fears about myself, that maybe there really was something fundamentally wrong with me, that somehow I was not put together quite right, and that I had better keep a very short leash on myself, lest all hell break loose and god knows what damage I might do. As I look back upon this after all these years I feel bad for that nineteen year old self who was so willing to accept Francois’s proclamation as truth. But demoniacal thing or not, life goes on, and Francoise was willing to throw me a bone.

He told me I could continue studying his philosophy from outside the school, and if I read certain books in the order he told me to, I could find some measure of enlightenment. Well, some measure of enlightenment sounded a lot better than continuing to wander in the dark, so I was determined to follow the path he set out before me. And then, in the latter part of 1970 the winds began to shift.

One of the girls who had been selected for Francois’s school came across a book called The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts. Though this book was not on Francoise’s required reading list, she was excited by this book and started telling fellow students about it. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that word of mouth is one of the most powerful forces on earth, so word spread quickly, and in short time Francoise was dutifully asked if we could add this title to his required reading list.

He agreed to this request, never telling us that he had already contacted Jane Roberts by phone numerous times, a fact I was to find out about much later. Another fact I was to find out about much later was that Francoise drove Jane Roberts up a wall, had wanted to visit her, but she was having no part of it. She saw him not as a kindred spirit, but as a self-deluded individual. Furthermore, his brand of esoteric knowledge was saturated with ideas that were diametrically opposed to Jane’s teachings.

So while allowing us to read this book, Francois went out of his way to let us know that Ms. Roberts was not very evolved spiritually, and was not someone to be taken seriously. He did however decree that Seth was more in line with the level of metaphysical expertise that Francoise had attained.

I can’t tell you the exact date in 1970 I first picked up The Seth Material, but I can tell you that from page one bells began to ring. As I continued to read this book the bells began to chime louder, and it felt like a part of me woke up that had been sleeping for centuries. I wanted to go to one of those classes Jane Roberts wrote about, and wanted to hear and see Seth speak.

At the same time my attention was still riveted on Francois and his teachings. I decided to write Jane a letter in the summer of 1971, asking if one day I could attend one of her classes. She wrote back saying that if I was going to be in the area there was no problem with me joining her class for the evening. She only asked that I let her know beforehand. Sounded like a fair deal to me, and I proceeded to tell Francois about my letter and Jane’s response. I asked him if attending one of Jane’s classes would be alright with him, and he said yes.

Summer and Fall passed quickly that year, and by the beginning of December, bitter winds were enveloping New York City. Snow covered streets soon followed, as cars, buses, and taxi cabs battled the elements, and the early morning ritual of standing out in the cold to scrape off the ice from the car windows was in full swing. When temperatures really began to plummet, people bundled up in such a way that the only visible part of them were their eyes, this being the only evidence that the creature walking toward you was of the human kind.

On one of those winter evenings I was sitting in my kitchen enjoying a hot bowl of pea soup, (one of my favorites) when the phone rang. The news that reached my ears stunned my brain, and for a few moments I felt my consciousness wobble. The caller informed me that Francois had dropped dead on the street earlier that day, and that was all they knew at this point. This just didn’t seem possible! Tall, strong, filled with energy, in league with the gods themselves, how could this be? But it was. Francois had dropped dead on one of those cold and snowy New York City streets, the causes being unknown. Like so many things in life, this was another mystery with its own set of questions that begged for answers.

As often happens when any kind of leader dies, others rush in to fill the void. Occasionally, the right kind of person is able to keep things going, but this would not be one of those occasions. No one was going to fill Francois’s shoes, and the glue that had held the school together quickly came apart. The fledgling army of enlightened soldiers who were going to help Francoise build his school and liberate mankind went their separate ways, and before too long melted into the anonymous masses whose ignorant souls they were one day going to save. As for me, I didn’t like the idea of my spiritual quest ending barely after it had begun. Despite Francois’s comments about Jane Roberts, I wrote her another letter, and she agreed to let me attend one of her classes in Elmira, New York, during the first week of January, 1972.

Life has a funny way of opening doors for us when we least expect it, and while there was nothing funny about the death of Francois, doors were being opened. There was just one pressing question that had to be answered sooner rather than later: where the heck was Elmira anyway?

MAGIC LESSON #1
by John J. McNally


Each breath, each wink of an eye
Is magic
A beautiful illusion, created by what we call our senses
To reinforce the reality of being

In the beginning, we needed to believe we were real
Solid forms, solid bodies, solid furniture
Reality was a brick we could fast hold onto,
Fearing that we would cease to exist, the minute we let go

"What if.....?"
The question echoed through everyone's mind at one point or another.
And some loosened their grip, just a bit, and saw for the first time...

That the brick wasn't real.

Scary thought! Many clung to it even harder, pounding it with their fear
chanting over and over "The brick is real!"

But some were not as frightened, and as they gazed at the illusion of
the brick for the first time, the asked "What is real?"
And the answer came back....

"You are."

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WHAT A COINCIDENCE Understanding Synchronicity In Everyday Life
by Susan M Watkins

Overview:

What if all those seemingly insignificant little What a coincidence! moments you've experienced were actually connected, were part of a larger, more complex coincidence story?

What if they were hinting at something very personal and important about yourself—and about the workings of human consciousness?

Would you listen?

Susan Watkins does. For more than 35 years she's been documenting and studying the coincidences that have happened in her life. What she's discovered is that seemingly simple coincidences—thinking of an old friend and their calling seconds later, for example—are often pieces of larger, more complex and meaningful "coincidence clusters."

A former newspaper reporter and the author of five books, Watkins has always been intrigued by coincidences—what they mean in our everyday lives, and in the grander scheme of things. What, she asks, do these coincidence clusters say about human consciousness and human connection? In What a Coincidence! she presents coincidence clusters that are utterly astounding. What they reveal is life- altering.

What a Coincidence! is an exciting, groundbreaking journey. Along the way Watkins offers profound insights as well as practical pointers on how to become aware of the coincidence clusters in our own lives. She also shows us how to document coincidences so that we, too, can reap their valuable rewards. We'll never brush off those What a Coincidence! moments again.

Conscious Creation Links – Conscious Creation Publishers, Book Stores, Websites, Journals, Newsletters, Mailing Lists, Message Boards, and more.

The Elias forum - website by Paul & Joanne Helfrich contains an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Mary Ennis.

What if the Seth material was a foundation to be expanded later by other channeled sources? Can any perennial source ever be considered complete AND infallible?

Seth readers will want to check out:
Introduction & Overview
A Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!)
Digest: Seth, Jane Roberts

The Kris Chronicles - an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Serge Grandbois.

A Kris, Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!) - a preliminary comparison of core concepts in the Seth material, information offered by Elias, and Kris Chronicles

Otherfocus.com the personal website of Donald R. Johnson

Explore the creative worlds of John McNally and Kristen Fox Cofounders of the Conscious Creation Website and Email group John and Kristen share interests in writing, art, photography and cooking which they explore on a variety of websites:

John and Kristen's new Green blog: It Should Be Easy Being Green
Intuitive Astrology site: Psychic Weather
Writing: Mind Altering Fiction
Photography: Telepathicfrog
Cooking: Food Follies
Shop: Telepathic Frog Designs
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Kristen's weblog: FoxVox
Art & Photo Gallery: Art of FoxVox
Art & Photo Prints: Deviant Art
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