“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As the personal material began to unfold we started calling it the “deleted” material because we kept it separate from the more general “regular” or public sessions. After all, in the conventional sense what was one to do with personal material from whatever source but keep it personal? As the years passed after 1963 we acquired two sets of Seth material, then, one public, one private. It wasn’t until after Jane’s death in 1984 that I took the “time” to understand that Jane’s Seth material—her great passionate body of work—really didn’t need to be categorized as public or private—that all of it was simply one multifaceted creative entity.

Seth’s personal material was startling in its unexpected clarity, although always quite brief. We didn’t push for details. How could we? We didn’t know enough to do so, for in ordinary terms we had no way to anticipate the breadth, the depth, of the material Jane and Seth were to produce. Sometimes in those early sessions Seth would mention a current relative or friend of one or the other of us—or both of us—as being involved in our personal material. Sometimes he mentioned reincarnational relationships or heritages—again, briefly.

And so the unification of more facets of the Seth material continues. I trust that I’m offering enough intriguing hints in this essay to keep readers interested in pursuing Jane’s and Seth’s and my loving work. Apropos of that statement, what’s left after publishing the deleted sessions? Well, how about the transcripts in book form of the ESP classes Jane conducted from 1967 to 1978? Rick Stack was one of her students, with friends often making the weekly 400-mile-plus round trip from New York City to our apartment in upstate Elmira, NY. (And the members of that group had to be back in the city to go to work the next day! Jane and I used to marvel at their endurance.) Rick recorded and has produced many audio tapes of Jane and Seth speaking in those classes; at this time he’s also producing an additional group of tapes. Then there’s Jane’s business and personal correspondence; much of her poetry; her journals; her unfinished autobiography; several novels she wrote before publishing the three Oversoul Seven books; the later essays she dictated to me, while in the hospital, about Seven’s childhood; her family history as far back as it can be researched; an objective biography of her physical and creative lives including her two marriages, and Jane’s and my struggles to survive before the advent of the Seth material. And there could be more; there always seems to be more, I’m glad to note.

For some years Jane and I devoted much work to learning the processes detailed in all of those early unpublished sessions, which were followed by her series of published books like The Seth Material, Seth Speaks, The Nature of Personal Reality, and so on. My wife’s later deleted material even contains a complete and unpublished book that she delivered just for me, about the artist Rembrandt van Rijn. Page by page, Jane presented her gift to me during the last year of her life, when she was hospitalized. I’m going to be most interested in the responses of others to Seth’s book about that highly creative and world-famous individual. I already know that it’s good!

[...] In Chapter Nine of The Seth Material (1970) she wrote: “Several people have told me that Seth communicated with them through automatic writing, but Seth denies any such contacts, saying that his communications will be limited to his work with me, in order that the integrity of the Seth Material be preserved.” And in her introduction to Seth Speaks (1972), she quoted Seth from the 510th session for January 19, 1970: “While my communications will come exclusively through Ruburt (Jane) at all times, to protect the integrity of the material, I will invite the reader to become aware of me as a personality….”

I have no idea, of course, what physical state I’d be in if the Seth phenomenon hadn’t appeared in my life (in late 1963), or if I hadn’t had those sessions to rely upon. And even in the most private-type sessions Seth always wound his material into more public areas, so that we have reams of unpublished (and very controversial) material dealing with the connections between one’s illness and other members of the family, community relationships, and with the very belief systems that underlie all of human activity. [...] That is certainly one of Seth’s clearest messages. [...]

This whole miniature tempest is almost enough to make one wonder: How come those other people made their “Seths” known after Jane began to speak for her Seth, and to publish the Jane-Seth material? [...] But to claim to speak for Jane’s Seth per se, as a means of expression, is quite another thing….

[...] It concerned the other “Seths” who are revealing themselves around the country these days. Later tonight I want to offer a little more about this overall development—but people speak for their Seths entirely without Jane’s permission. Jane is most concerned that she and I protect the integrity of the Seth material in its unique and original form.

(Now I’ll refer the reader to Chapter 20 of Jane’s The Seth Material. She called the chapter “Personal Evaluations — Who or What is Seth?” In it she made a number of excellent points concerning her relationship with Seth and Seth Two; for example: “If physical life evolves [in ordinary terms], why not consciousness itself?” The questions we had at the time can be found throughout the chapter. [...] Seth discussed the psychological bridge Jane and he have created between themselves for purposes of communication; yet most of his material came through in response to my question about his availability to us. “We [Rob and I] both know that some sessions seem more ‘immediate’ than others, and now as Seth continued we saw why,” Jane wrote in Chapter 20. Seth, briefly, from the 458th session:)

(I finally decided that the best way to present the variety of material desired, whether from Seth, Jane, or myself, was in chronological order, letting a composite picture emerge as the work progresses. [...] Since the excerpts are still more representative than complete, however, due to the accumulated mass of information available, my own choices enter in: ESP class data are quoted a number of times; included is material summarizing Jane’s own theories about the Seth phenomena, as she worked them out in her recently completed Adventures in Consciousness; but reincarnation, while mentioned often, isn’t stressed in terms of particulars — that is, I refer to Seth’s statements that he, Jane and I led closely involved lives in Denmark in the 1600’s, but those lives aren’t studied per se. Within our ordinary context of linear time I think of reincarnation, even though in Seth’s terms it’s really a simultaneous phenomenon, as being further away, or more removed, from us physical creatures than the more “immediate” psychic connections and mechanics I want to show as linking Seth, Jane, and myself. And also because of that sense of removal, Seth Two¹ is hardly mentioned at all.

Class Seth material and other events can be found in all of the books by Jane and/or Seth, of course. See, for example, Chapter 13 of The Seth Material, the Appendix of Seth Speaks, and several chapters in Part One of Adventures in Consciousness.

[...] He is nevertheless an extension and materialization of the Seth that I was at one time. [...] You cannot stop them in time … I am Seth today. [...] Ruburt was myself, Seth, many centuries ago, but he grew, evolved, and expanded in terms of a particular personal set of value fulfillments. He is now a personality that was one of the probable personalities¹⁴ into which Seth could grow. [...]

(It turned out that the wife claimed her husband was not trying to capitalize on Seth, that they both respected highly the Seth material, and that as we had suspected he had written Jane several years ago telling her about his Seth. Jane had told him then that he wasn’t speaking for her Seth. Jane told Carole that it was okay to use the Seth name as long as claims weren’t made that the two Seths were one and the same, especially the Seth who was producing the Seth books. [...]

[...] When Jane called him the lawyer told Jane that his client was a 27-year-old schizophrenic who’d confessed to killing a certain woman he’d met in a Seth class both attended some years ago. [...] Jane didn’t ask for details on the case, but instead explained to the lawyer something of Seth’s ideas so that the attorney could use that material in his defense, making it clear that above all Seth was not for violence, even though the prosecuting attorney was evidently trying to make the defendant sound as though it was okay to kill because reincarnation was a fact: Since we all lived other lives, no one could really kill anyone. [...] Interestingly, in the small town of Roseburg he’d been able to buy James and Cézanne and ESP Power, but no other Seth books. [...]

[...] We did agree that there must be a least unconscious cheating going on, on the medium’s part, else why keep the Seth name all these years and speak so cleverly in imitation of Seth, who has garnered at least some sort of reputation, thus making the road easier for any other Seth? See the attached material. Jane plans to call Tam tomorrow to tell him what she’s learned, and to ask him to return the first material concerning the Massaris. [...]

(The other event concerned a medium in Hollywood, California, who claims to be speaking for Seth, and who gave a well-advertised seminar at a Holiday Inn there. He’s been doing such speaking in trance since the early 1970’s. The literature a fan sent us last week made it seem that the medium claimed to be speaking for Jane’s Seth. More arrived today from the same fan—and the quotes given seemed like copycat material of Seth’s, down to calling himself an “energy-essence,” and so forth. [...]

[...] Again, as far as I am concerned, and I am Seth, the Seth material begins with the Seth material.

(Over the weekend I had devoted some time to trying to sort out the contradictory Frank Watts material given by FW in the first two sessions. I had meant to try this for some time, knowing part of it was contradictory, before asking Seth to straighten it out. Jane and I had been talking about trying to check out some of this material, since presumably records concerning Frank Watts would exist locally; and possibly people who knew him, other than Miss Callahan, and a co-worker of Jane’s at the gallery when the sessions began, Mrs. Borst, might be found who would help us verify any data Seth gave. [...]

[...] The Seth material begins with the Seth material. [...]

(Just before the session was due, Jane remarked that she hoped Seth would discuss the Frank Watts material, thus saving me the trouble of asking the question during the session. She had no idea beforehand of the material the session would cover. [...]

She quotes Seth on dreams in Chapter 14 of The Seth Material, and to some extent he discusses them directly in Seth Speaks and Personal Reality. However, we’ve accumulated quite a bit of unpublished Seth material on dreams, and I’ll start looking for chances to insert some of those data in the rest of “Unknown” Reality.

For material on mental and psychic expansions in old age, and the hemispheres of the brain, see the 650th session in Chapter 13 of Personal Reality. And in Chapter 21 of Seth Speaks, Seth briefly mentions the eventual activation of “new areas” in the brain to “physically take care of” past-life memories. [...]

[...] But this time, she thought, she’d been alert: When she realized that the material was “running through her,” as she often puts it [meaning she isn’t aware of Seth’s presence], she sat up, turned on a night light, and began to record the data on the pad she keeps on her bedside table. [...]

1. Seth’s material here about dream solutions reminded me of a few lines just about all that were saved — from a poem Jane wrote when she was 17 years old:

(With Seth’s help Jane first encountered the idea of Seth Two in the 406th session for April 22, 1968. That important development in her abilities took place four and a half years after she began to speak for Seth, and once it opened up Seth Two came through in the next seven twice-weekly sessions. Most of that material hasn’t been published, although in Chapter 17 of The Seth Material Jane described Seth Two to some extent, including “his, hers, or its” intimate connections with Seth: the subjective pyramid or cone effects she experiences just above her head when contacting Seth Two; and the great energy she feels at such times. In Chapter 17 she quoted Seth Two from sessions 406–7, and from a couple of others that were held later in the year. The excerpts show not only something of Seth’s connections on the “other side” of Jane, but in one case her violent reactions of surprise and panic when she attempted to translate something of Seth Two’s reality in terms of our own camouflage world: She found herself deeply involved in an unexpected experience with “massiveness” — one of the subjects I want to refer to in these preliminary notes. And Seth Two — or our imperfect grasp of what such an energy gestalt can mean or represent — comprises at least one of the sources of the Seth material itself.

(Seth Two wasn’t dealt with in Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality. In Note 1 for Appendix 18, I wrote that I wanted to at least briefly discuss Seth Two in another appendix for this Volume 2, “the idea being that that material can be taken as an extension of the Jane-Ruburt-Seth study presented here.” The few references to Seth Two in Appendix 18 were all meant to be resolved below, including my note that “Seth Two exists in relation to Seth in somewhat the same manner that Seth does to Jane, although that analogy shouldn’t be carried very far.”

(I’ve already cited Jane’s experience, as given in Chapter 17 of The Seth Material, showing that on rare occasions Seth Two and her feelings of massiveness can go together; but she can also be in an altered, massive state of consciousness without having a session, or she can be speaking for Seth. Seth or Seth Two — obviously, when either of those qualities combine with her massive perceptions, then Jane knows a multifaceted trance state. In Volume 1, Seth devoted much of the 681st session to a discussion of probabilities, or, in sum, All That Is, and interwound Jane’s psychic and physical experiences with that material: “The cellular consciousness experiences itself as eternal … Part of Ruburt’s feeling of massiveness² comes from the mass [life-to-death] experience of the body, existing all at once. [...]

(The first delivery for this session,⁴ running until break at 9:47, is deleted here since it contains much personal material. During it Jane spoke for Seth as usual. [...] In the session itself she came through with material about herself on her “own,” without Seth, but in an altered state of consciousness in which she experienced many vivid subjective images, coupled with strong feelings of massiveness. [...]

The purpose of this book is to introduce you to Seth and the Seth Material. Though Seth has appeared only once in a physical materialization, Rob has seen him clearly enough to paint a portrait of him that hangs in our living room (see the illustrated section). Through me, Seth has produced a continuing manuscript that runs well over five thousand double-spaced typewritten pages, in not quite five years’ time. [...] Seth certainly hasn’t “stolen” any of my own creative energy for his own purposes.

To me it was tantamount to intellectual suicide to even admit the possibility that Seth actually was a personality who had survived death. Nowhere in my first book did I say that I thought Seth was exactly what he said he was: “an energy personality essence no longer focused in physical reality.” [...] Nowhere did I find an explanation as logical and consistent as that given in the Seth Material itself.

Rob and I are both convinced that the Seth Material springs from sources beyond my self, and that it is much less distorted by pat, conventionalized symbolism than are other paranormal scripts we have encountered. Seth says this material has been given by himself and others in other times and places, but that it is given again, in new ways, for each succeeding generation through the centuries. [...]

The bulk of the book will deal with Seth’s ideas on various subjects, such as life after death, reincarnation, health, the nature of physical reality, the God concept, dreams, time, identity, and perception. I’m sure that these excerpts from the material itself and some sample reincarnational readings will give most readers greater insights into their own personalities and the situations in which they find themselves. I hope that Seth’s theories on health will benefit all my readers, and that the material on personality will help each discover for himself the multidimensional reality that is his heritage.

Every so often I’ve thought of averaging Jane’s dictation time for Seth Speaks and Personal Reality in the same way, but haven’t done so. I’m somewhat puzzled to note, however, that her very short working times for the Seth books seem to be either ignored or taken for granted by practically everyone — or, perhaps, those factors just aren’t understood in terms of ordinary linear time. Maybe I’m alone in my interest here, for even Jane doesn’t express any great curiosity about the time she has invested in the Seth material; she just delivers it. But given her abilities, I think her speed of production is a close physical approach to, or translation of, Seth’s idea that basically all exists at once — that really there is no time, and that the Seth books, for example, are “there” to be had in final form for just the tuning in. (In Section 3 of this volume, Note 2 for Session 692 contains information on another way by which we can move closer to Seth’s idea of simultaneity from our physical reality, but that method grows out of material not discussed here.)

It’s plain that many arguments can be brought against all I’ve written in the last four paragraphs, I suppose, yet the material in them briefly approximates the ways Jane and I look at the Seth material these days in relation to other philosophies. [...] That is, our idea of real testing consists in watching to see how the Seth material can assist in practical, everyday living. Other kinds of tests, more “formal” ones that we carried out in 1965–66, are detailed in Chapter 8 of The Seth Material; it’s easy for us to forget now that those early tests were quite successful, and could be resumed at any time. [...]

[...] Although they bear my name, before I was finished with them I’d had plenty of help from my wife, Jane Roberts, and from Seth, the nonphysical entity who speaks through her while she’s in trance. In fact, Jane and Seth are the ones who so beautifully bring these notes to their conclusion; and in that order — Jane with some excellent material about her relationship with Seth, and Seth himself with his new letter to correspondents. Yet Jane isn’t particularly turned on by dates, session numbers, information about footnotes, and some of the other material I’ll be discussing here.

[...] The question must be hypothetical, but I’m sure she could as far as having Seth’s material available is concerned; she’d need only the necessary physical strength. Even now, while speaking for Seth she can easily outtalk my writing capacity by many hours. The information from Seth would be there. [...] Seth wouldn’t have our current daily activities to draw upon for some of his analogies, for instance, but in such cases I think he’d either call upon similar episodes from our pasts, or cast his material in different ways — which would yield the same results.

For Seth to comment on our world is okay, but for me to somehow insist that his material offer solutions to all of men’s problems is not— instead it limits the sessions creative thrust. The Seth material is supposed to put us in a different psychic position where the problems are solved automatically or are at least diminished or do not apply.... Only not concentrating on the problems brings in the needed extra material to solve them. [...]

[...] But to discuss Seth or Seth’s ideas primarily from the true-or-false framework is the same thing as considering the Mona Lisa only from the validity of the physical properties of paint and canvas; very, very limiting. To “just” say that Seth’s ideas are true is to limit him and us.... [...]

I’ve rejected all that kind of hash projected onto Seth’s books by others or myself—the assumptions that Seth must prove himself as a problem solver— or the importance of functionalism over art. [...]

To do that, I have to drop those old feelings of responsibility as a primary focus (to get the ideas out quickly so they can help people, etc.) because those feelings strain the Seth-book framework particularly when I demand that in each book Seth answers all questions and so forth. [...]

(At the end of the 852nd session I mentioned a letter Jane had received last month from a professor of physics, and that in a recent nonbook session Seth had come through with a partial answer to some of the professor’s questions. This afternoon Jane reread the letter, and wondered if Seth might give more material in reply; as she worked on Heroics she did get a line or two from Seth, commenting on that possibility. My main reason for presenting the excerpts that follow is the same as it’s been on other occasions: Seth’s material fits into Mass Events very well. [...] In general, then, tonight Seth discusses questions many correspondents have asked; but specifically, his material is a continuation of an answer to some of the professor’s questions. I know that eventually I’ll mail to that gentleman whatever insights Seth gives us.

(In closing out the last session, Seth told us that he’d “cover everything that needs to be covered” in his books, and I wrote that sometimes I’d still choose to insert other particularly apropos material of his into whatever book he might be producing at the time. [...] So inserting this material puts off by one — at least — Seth’s first session for Chapter 8 of Mass Events.

(Last Thursday, Jane and I received from Prentice-Hall our first copies of the German translation of Seth Speaks. [...] This occasion signals the first appearance of the Seth material in another language, and we’re happy to note that the translator, with whom Jane exchanged just a couple of letters, did an excellent, painstaking job. [...]

(In addition, we expect that later this year the Dutch translation of Seth Speaks will be published — but again, we don’t know just when this will happen. We hope these two editions will lead to the publication of Seth’s material in other languages.

Seth also presented the entire work in such a way that the events of our daily lives were intimately connected with his material, serving as personal examples of how his theories actually work in everyday experience. He hadn’t been delivering “Unknown” Reality for long, then, before I realized that I’d have to devise a system of presentation that would handle his material, my own notes (which I could see were going to be considerably longer than they are in Seth’s other books, Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality), excerpts from Jane’s ESP classes, appendixes, and anything else that might be included.

In my notes introducing Volume 1, I wrote about placing the basic “artistic ideas” embodied in the Seth material at our conscious, aesthetic, and practical service in daily life. That’s really what Seth’s work is all about, in my opinion. [...] Of course Jane and I want Seth’s ideas and our own to touch responsive reflexes within others; then each individual can use the material in his or her own expression of that useful ideal, letting it serve to stimulate inner perceptions.

Certainly Seth is saying that Jane’s books (and his) represent her acknowledgment of and search for an ideal. [...] (See Seth’s material on “ideals set in the heart of man” in sessions 696–97 for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality.) Apropos of such concepts, I’ll close these introductory notes by quoting from a personal session Seth gave for Jane and me, in which he reiterates the importance of the individual and the pursuit of the ideal. Seth initiated the following passages by talking to me about “the safe universe” that each person can create, and live within. [...]

Seth often advances his ideas by weaving together several themes into a complex pattern in any given session, or throughout a body of material. This process can also result in a similar approach on my part when I discuss his dictation, so I’ll initiate a summary of Volume 1 by using four sources presented by Seth himself: a key passage from his Preface; the headings he gave for the three sections that comprise Volume 1, along with a few elaborations of my own; a brief description of the appendixes which I assembled over a period of time; and a passage from the 762nd session, in which, eight months after he’d finished “Unknown” Reality, Seth speaks further about his purposes in producing it.

Last Thursday a letter from Prentice-Hall, suggesting that the Dream Manuscript be converted, sort of, into a book dealing with The Seth Material. Editor expressing really terrific interest in The Material. [...] The Seth Material is my unique source and a literally fabulous one; that I really did not truly appreciate and to which I was not really directed. [...] In a session that night, Seth emphasized the new direction I should follow.

Then, re-reading some material I was struck by the massive intellect behind it, the real beauty of the material, and sad that I did not really let myself realize it before; indeed that I had allowed myself to be affected by the lesser writings of others; even to the extent that in some late sessions it affected the material. Told my class last night the whole bit, and said that from now on classes were to be focused about the material; we were going to study it from scratch; this was my life work, my direction, what I was meant to do. Realized yesterday also, going over old notes, that my original ‘cosmic consciousness’ (borrowed phrases again) experience was with The Physical Universe as Idea Construction which turned into and developed into the sessions and Seth Material; the natural, intuitive, and logical development; which to a large extent I relegated to the background and sometimes even distrusted. [...]

Believe this all has to do with the above, plus with a strange session held the night before last, in which through me the voice said it was sort of ‘beyond Seth’; the message coming from a higher portion of that personality; tremendous energy seemed to flow through me and the definite, thank God, certainty, that this came from beyond me, and was automatically translated into words at my end. Subjectively I feel this was as significant a development—almost—as the original Seth session. [...]

[...] The book on the Seth material is not yet an actuality, but the Seth material is, and it is upon the Seth material that the book will be based. Such a visit therefore will allow an examination of the material, if a brief one. [...]

[...] Dr. Instream will give a statement I believe, as to Robert and Jane’s character, the quality of the Seth material itself, and the fact that no fraud of any kind is involved.

(For the benefit of T. Mossman and Miss Carr: Had I interrupted this data to ask questions, Seth could have explained in detail any of the above general statements. Material of this nature is often gone into deeply in succeeding sessions.)

(Before the session tonight Jane and I discovered during our conversation that each of us had toyed with the idea of asking Seth to answer the letter. [...] Still, we didn’t make any formal request that Seth write such a letter. [...]

The messages seemed to begin where Idea Construction left off, and later Seth said that my expansion of consciousness experience had represented his first attempt at contact. Since then, Seth has delivered a continuing manuscript that now totals over six thousand typewritten pages. We call it the Seth material, and it deals with such topics as the nature of physical matter, time, and reality, the god concept, probable universes, health, and reincarnation. From the beginning, the obvious quality of the material intrigued us, and it was for this reason that we continued.

It’s not unusual that students should dream of Seth, of course, or that they should dream of me. But certainly Seth has achieved independent status in their eyes and has become a vehicle of instruction even in the dream state. In other words, besides producing the continuing Seth material and this book, Seth has entered the minds and consciousness of many people.

[...] In some cases, material not a part of the book was included if it seemed relevant, cast sidelights on the method of presentation, or gave insights into Seth himself. As Rob’s notes also show, Seth began dictating the Appendix as soon as the book was finished. Rather amusingly, I didn’t realize that Seth had already begun the Appendix, and I spent several days wondering just who was supposed to take care of it — and if Seth was, when he would begin.

In The Seth Material, published in 1970, I explained these events and gave Seth’s views on a variety of subjects with excerpts from the sessions. [...] The tests we conducted to verify Seth’s clairvoyant abilities were also described. [...]

[...] When Seth returned, he delivered half a page of material for Jane and me, including this passage: “He [Ruburt] has made an extraordinary leap into his [psychic] library, and it is freeing him physically. [...] Seth finished his personal material at 12:10 A.M., and we thought the session was over. [...]

[...] Another is my own longtime interest in the American psychologist and philosopher, William James [1842–1910]; he wrote the classic The Varieties of Religious Experience.³ A third is a letter received last week from a Jungian psychologist who had been inspired by Seth’s material on the Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, Carl Jung [1875–1961], in Chapter 13 of Seth Speaks. [...]

(I’d just begun typing the “James and Jung” material, so from my original notes I read the rest of it to Jane as we waited for Seth to come through. [...] She’d already done some writing yesterday, for Psychic Politics, leading toward this view⁵; so whatever we learned through Seth this evening, we already felt reasonably sure that in usual trite terms Jane hadn’t been communicating directly with two such famous personalities. [...]

2. A note added several months later: I see now that I should enlarge upon Note 2 for the 715th session, in which I wrote that Jane “would initiate the transposition of material from Volume 2 of ‘Unknown’ Reality into Politics, since she was so intimately and enthusiastically involved in producing both books at the same time.” For her to work this way is entirely in keeping with her spontaneous nature; she intuitively seeks to use whatever sources of information — including Seth himself — she has at hand for whatever project she may be engaged in. In the early chapters of Politics especially, then, she both quotes and paraphrases material from Volume 2, beginning with the 714th session, which contains her account of her original inspiration for that work.

(Before the session tonight Jane and I discussed the excellent manner in which Seth was able to relate to the various people who have witnessed sessions. This ability escaped us for some time, until we finally realized the various approaches used by Seth to make the material given meaningful to the very different personalities involved.)

(Before the session I told Jane, half jokingly, that she should publish a Seth Reader, said volume to contain Seth material on many subjects, presented in a rather more simplified way.)

[...] For them the material will not be watered down, and has not been. [...] You need not worry about a Seth Reader. [...]

(The phone rang at 9:35 and interrupted Seth’s delivery. [...] The call nicely pointed up the material for the session given above, re making it known to others, etc; the call was from a prospective ESP class member.

(Before this evening’s session I had said that publication of the Seth material could help many more people than Jane [called Ruburt by Seth] could help personally in her ESP classes, and that too much energy expended in the classes took away from that available for the theoretical material available to us in our regular twice-weekly sessions. I had also said that now that her ESP students were quite used to Seth speaking during classes, the absence of this would be resented by them.)

In our sessions and in the Seth material I utilize—I must—the best that he as a personality has to offer, and that is considerable. [...] But he must use for a standard the Seth material itself. [...]

[...] (Pause.) I am trying to give you some undistorted material here. He thinks, Fell thinks, he is interested in the Seth material. [...]

[...] An editor rejected the book but wrote a very encouraging letter concerning the publication of the Seth material. [...]

Yet we think now that such extensive notes have served their purposes for Seth’s material, at least for some time, so those books-in-the-works will carry minimum notes — as they do, say, in Seth Speaks. For one thing, as I write this Epilogue, Seth has finished The Nature of the Psyche, and has already begun still another book. Psyche, as Jane and I call it, contains some excellent new material, such as Seth’s first discussions of sex — including lesbianism, homosexuality, and bisexuality — as well as other related subjects that we know, from our correspondence, to be of intense general concern. [...]

Whatever or whoever Seth is, or whatever the nature of the Seth-Jane relationship, we long ago decided that we could learn from it. No need to dogmatically insist upon reincarnation as being a “fact,” or upon the existence of Seth’s counterparts or the families of consciousness. In the material as a whole there are bound to be significant clues as to the nature of the human animal: creative clues that can’t help but enlighten us in many — and sometimes unexpected — ways. I deal with some of the material we’ve acquired about the Seth-Jane relationship in Appendix 18 for Session 711, in Section 4; but here I want to stress our overall interest in knowledge, whatever that knowledge may be, and wherever it may lead us.

In vital ways, Seth’s material itself is timeless, yet its production, of course, is tied to the events of our lives. I hope my notes provide that “living story” — the narrative that gives the material its flesh in our time. The material itself can stand on its own, though, and we trust it will continue to do so when Jane and I are through with this particular joint physical adventure. Then Seth’s work will fall back upon the timeless quality that always illuminates it.

[...] Lots of those people will never hear of the Seth material — nor, as Seth himself has said, will they ever need to — but then, Jane and I know that some will, and so we proffer what we can.

(I also think that Seth himself could have some pretty funny things to say here to Jane and me — some day I’ll ask him — words with which he’d humorously caution us not to take the whole affair too seriously, to leave room in our daily lives for the simple, uninhibited joy of creative expression and living even while we study his unending outpouring of material. [...] Seth has already offered Jane encouragement twice since he finished his part of the work for Mass Events in August 1979. He came through with the following quotations when Jane began to express a renewed concern about her responsibility for his material, and for the reactions of others to it. Her feelings had arisen in large part because of the ever-increasing mail response the Seth books have generated. Interesting, then, the way the Seth portion of Jane’s personality structure [whatever Seth’s reality may be] reinforces those other portions that are meeting all of the challenges embodied in her current mental and physical existence — and we are continually seeking to learn more about how Seth is able to do this. In these excerpts Seth also touches upon certain other points that we think of often.

(Jane had started doing some typing on the final manuscript for Seth’s The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression a couple of days ago. [...] Yet I thought she needed the stimulus of Seth having something underway. There was more than a little irony in the situation, for I was the one who’d told her flat out, back in July 1975, that she was going to start Psyche, just so that she’d have a Seth book to play with. [I’d also wanted to see what she and Seth would come up with on demand.] But this time Seth fooled me and started Mass Events only a couple of weeks after finishing Psyche. [...] It’s always a pleasure to work on a Seth book, to explore with him his unique view of reality, and to try to put at least a few of his ideas to use in our everyday, “practical” world. I repeated my thought that it didn’t matter how many Seth books she piled up ahead of contract, or publication: That was certainly a more creative and exciting position to be in than if one didn’t have anything ahead. Jane agreed, while still worrying about what we were going to do with all of the material as it accumulated year after year. [...]

(By his own definition Seth is no longer a physical being, although he’s told us he’s lived a number of previous lives; thus, ideas of reincarnation enter into his material. Mass Events is the sixth¹ book that Seth has produced — all of them with Jane’s active cooperation, obviously, as well as my own, since I write down his material verbatim, then add my own notes. Often Jane has little memory of the information she delivers as, or for, Seth. [...] At times her Seth voice can be very powerful indeed, with an accent I have yet to succeed in describing. [...] Seth calls Jane “Ruburt” and me “Joseph.” [...]

(At the same time, Jane and I are extremely grateful that we have the opportunity to study ideas about consciousness with Seth, and this opening up of our individual realities is something we couldn’t have conceived of before 1963. Our appreciation of life has expanded greatly — and if the Seth material did nothing but help us grow in that respect, it would perform a very valuable service. We hope others feel they’ve gained something from the material too. [...] Jane has also been helped a great deal.] So our aim with the Seth books is to let Seth have his say, to add some thoughts of our own, and to trust that the feelings and meanings in all of this will evoke beneficial responses in each reader. [...]