“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] We have now obtained a written detailed report on Peggy Gallagher’s trip to Washington, as compared to Seth’s material on Peggy in the last two sessions. Seth scored many hits—Jane’s best effort in these tests by far. The material will be incorporated in a very early session, along with the material on the Gallagher’s Puerto Rico vacation of last October. [...] She states that the material at the beginning of the Dr. Instream test data, on page 113, applies to a cocktail party she attended in Washington on Monday, December 6. Peggy states Seth’s description here of the cocktail party is quite correct, even to the fact that a woman was the main hostess, and that a man, her husband, was present with her. [...]

[...] If this information was misplaced in the earlier Gallagher material, then what accounts for it? It appeared in the Gallagher material before the envelope test was held, and of course Jane could not know what the envelope test object was beforehand, by ordinary means. Seth has stated that such terms as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, etc., are of but relative usefulness; perhaps this instance is but an example of the ability of part of the mind to dissolve the time barrier.

(Seth dwelt on the taxicab symbol, and as he did so I found myself hoping that Peggy would notice it. We have wondered before about Seth making statements concerning something that might be in the presence of the subject for the test, only to have the subject fail to notice it. [...] Seth described a certain rowboat with initials and a symbol on its bow; but since Bill failed to notice rowboats in general, we were at a loss as to the accuracy of Seth’s information. Seth did insist that this particular boat had been in Bill’s close vicinity.

[...] If so it is an example of the “bleeding” of test material from one test to another during the same session. Seth has told us this is a possibility. [...]

[...] See, therefore, Seth’s material on reincarnation in Chapter 4 (among others) of Seth Speaks; then see his material on probable selves in Chapter 16 of that book, and in Session 680 for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality.

Later, we were to learn about the distortions that could happen as Jane relayed some of Seth’s material; given the open-ended nature of time, and considering the idea of probable realities, we came to realize that simultaneously we could and could not be Seth’s “first lesson class.” [...] In the 15th session Seth told Jane and me: “I am giving you what may be considered a broad outline to be filled in.”

4. Jane’s declaration of the “super-real” aspects of her ecstatic state, that “The world is so much more solid right now,” soon had me hunting for relevant material I remembered Seth giving, but couldn’t place. I found two sources in Seth Speaks. In Chapter 7, see the 530th session for May 20, 1970, at 10:02: “There are realities that are ‘relatively more valid’ than your own … your physical table [for example] would appear as shadowy in contrast … You would have a sort of “supertable” in those terms. [...]

(Seth discussed another matter involving Jane; after delivering about a page of material he ended the session at 11:19 P.M.)

5. See Seth’s material in Personal Reality on reprogramming the past sessions 654 and 657 in chapters 14 and 15, respectively. Some of his earlier information on the fetus can be found in sessions 503–4 in the Appendix of The Seth Material.

2. A note added later: Seth does add to his material on cellular precognition in a number of later sessions in The “Unknown” Reality. Among others in Volume 1, see sessions 690–91 in Section 2.

3. In Note 1 for Session 681 I dealt very briefly with fluctuations of consciousness, or reality, and referred the reader to the 567th session in Chapter 16 of Seth Speaks. For additional material on the same subject in the same book, also see the 535th session in Chapter 9 and the 576th in Chapter 19.

[...] She was 30 years old, and her development of the Seth material lay five years in the future.

[...] Mr. Fell also asked to see the manuscript on the Seth material,and told Jane some of the plans he had for publicizing her ESP book, due to be published this May. [...] Summing up, the publisher told Jane that once the ESP book is on the market and her name begins to be known through publicity, it will help the sales of future books considerably—namely the Seth material.

(Note that Seth’s idea of our time is quite different from our own at times. [...] At various times Seth has told us his idea of time may not coincide with ours. Without going into details I recall a prediction of his that was to materialize “soon.” It did materialize, but six months later.

(For the record: In the 227th and 228th sessions Seth discussed the book of poetry Jane produced so quickly by using suggestions for abundant energy, and told us the book would be published. Jane had also finished the first third of her book on the Seth material itself, and felt it ready to send out.

(Seth began talking about pulsations in the very early sessions, the 12th among others. He added more material on such frequencies along with the data on the inner senses, by the 50th session; then elaborated further in the material on the electrical universe, given in the sessions from 122 on. [...]

There were other reasons, in that the paperback Seth Material is meant to be read first, and lead readers into Seth Speaks. [...]

[...] The same applies to what you could do in marketing the Seth material from manuscript.

(Before the session I’d asked Jane if Seth could comment upon the reported drop in sales of Seth Speaks recently as reported by Tam Mossman at Prentice-Hall. [...]

(The following material is from the 667th session for May 30, 1973.

(Last night in the mail I found Carol Steiner’s Ph.D. thesis on the Seth material, which she’d promised in November. [...] Quite interesting, but as I told Jane, it reminded me of just what a task it is to start at the beginning and present an explanation of the Seth material. [...]

[...] I told her that Seth didn’t go into our questions about his material in yesterday’s session, concerning changing the past from the present, nor did he comment on Carol Steiner’s Ph.D. thesis on the Seth material. [...]

[...] Seth has mentioned this acclimatization of the eye muscles. [...]

(I did remind Jane that in yesterday’s session Seth hadn’t addressed the question I’d mentioned to her at lunch time — why were we such extremists in our behavior, considering the severity of the symptoms, and so forth? [...]

[...] (Long pause.) My communications are dependent upon Seth’s permission as well as Ruburt’s. The material should still be called the Seth material, for I am an aspect of Seth that you did not know, and in the past I helped him deliver material though I did not directly attend sessions. [...]

[...] On that day Jane received a letter from Prentice-Hall, outlining plans for publishing the Seth material. [...]

[...] (Smile.) This portion was never physically materialized. [...] This last sentence referred I believe to Seth’s entity itself, from inflections given.) In one way I am a whole that is more than the sum of its parts, while I am also a part of more than I am. [...]

[...] None did, but she received brief notes from Seth: “You don’t have to worry about me drinking too much. [...] I drank too much and I can’t let Seth speak in his own voice, to answer my questions.” [...]

Jane and I placed no particular emphasis upon this information when Seth came through with it, but in retrospect we realized that it contains two significant points: Seth’s reference to “another book,” which we think is “Unknown” Reality, and his use of the word “counterparts.” In its ordinary dictionary sense, the term has appeared a few times in the sessions, but Seth’s use of it in the passage quoted above has a special implication, I think; one that Jane and I missed at the time of its reception. For in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, Seth’s concept of counterparts certainly takes on its own unique meaning within his study of personhood. (Although not bringing up his ideas of reincarnation or points of power in the 683rd session, Seth implied both of those qualities in many parts of that material.)

2. In connection with Seth’s discussion of animals and men here, see his excellent material in Chapter 12 of Personal Reality. Summarizing parts of that chapter very simply: In Session 647 Seth goes into the challenges early man faced as he contended with his own burgeoning consciousness. [...]

3. A note added later: I found most of the material Seth had delivered since 10:11, but especially at this point, to be strongly reminiscent of a passage in the 657th session in Chapter 15 of Personal Reality. I’ve put together these excerpts from that session: “Each of your reincarnational selves has its own ‘points of power,’ or successive moments, in which it materializes daily existence in a linear manner from all the probabilities available to it. [...]

As I write this note, I’m struck by a curious connection I feel but find almost impossible to explain in words, let alone simply — that while Seth’s mention of “another book” in Session 657 may refer to “Unknown” Reality, it’s also echoed in the first question I asked Jane at break in tonight’s session. [...] Such odd connections have arisen before in the Seth material. [...]

1. See the picture section in Prentice-Hall’s editions of The Seth Material for a cropped, black-and-white reproduction of my oil portrait of Seth, “in the form in which he chose to appear to Rob,” as Jane wrote in Chapter 8 of that book. Seth first announced his presence by name in the 4th session for December 8, 1963; I painted him in 1966.

(“Then in the eyes of this Seth there are two little Seths looking out. [...] Now they climb out of the eyes; with their bodies they make a garland around the big Seth’s head; they sit on it back-to-back like a pair of bookends.” [...] “Wow — a whole bunch of these little Seths climb up on top of the giant head — but in perfect poses. [...] And Seth will explain it,” Jane abruptly said, evidently quite surprised. “The little images face in all directions around the head of the big Seth. [...]

There are, of course, close relationships concerning this delivery of Seth’s for the 740th session, the material in this note, and the musical analogies Seth presented in the 735th session, when he discoursed upon the inaudible variations inherent in the compositions played by the young classical guitarist who’d visited us over the weekend of February 2. (I’ve been saving this reference for this particular note.) At 9:45, for instance, in that 735th session: “An infinite number of other ‘alternate’ compositions were also latent within the [first] note, however … They were quite as legitimate as the compositions that were played … and … added silent structure and pacing to the physically actualized music.”

12. Seth’s ideas in this paragraph and the one just preceding it are consistent with his material in a number of sessions for Volume 1. In sessions 681 and 684, for instance, he discussed the on-off fluctuations of our physical universe and everything within it, moment points, probabilities, Jane’s sensations of massiveness, the basic unpredictable motion of any wave or atom, and much more. [...] Then in Volume 2, Seth likened his own identity to that of a wave formation; see the excerpts from the 775th session in Appendix 18, with Note 35.

[...] In this appendix I’ve put together some material on mysticism from Jane, Seth, and myself. [...] As events worked out, Seth was halfway through Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality before I realized that these supplementary notes would work well as the first appendix in the first volume. The notes may have their own kind of order, but unlike most appendix material aren’t presented in a chronological sequence. [...]

(Since Jane began delivering the Seth material, I’ve become more and more interested in questions about the origins of creative [meaning artistic] endeavors. [...] But, paradoxically, the origins aren’t to be found there, either, or grasped in regular terms, for according to Seth they’d lie outside the reach of physical life. Without going into Seth’s ideas that time is simultaneous, or that any endeavor is creative, the kinds of origins I’m discussing here wouldn’t have any beginning or end. [...]

(“In fact,” she continued, “I’m embarrassed that Seth called me a mystic — a great one, I mean — like that. No matter whether it’s natural or not …” Rather reluctantly, she agreed to let me present that personal material here; but only, I think, because she understood my desire to give what I consider to be pertinent background material for the Seth books. [...]

(To initiate the material [in the 14th session] I asked Seth: “Jane has been very curious to learn something about her grandfather. Can you help her with this?” Seth replied:)

[...] See Chapter 21 of Seth Speaks for more on the Christ entity. According to history, Christ was crucified, and the other two members of Seth’s Christ entity, John the Baptist and St. Paul, were beheaded. Seth hasn’t mentioned India before in connection with any of the three, so that information would be new. [...] As I told Jane after the session, Seth’s Christ material tonight reminded me of the idea of the Christ book, which Seth mentioned in Personal Reality.)

(Seth’s material here on the use of the will came about, I think, as a result of some older material I gave Jane to read this afternoon. [...]

I always have to couch my material for you personally, just ahead (emphatically) of where you are at any given time. Overall, however, the main thrust of the material of course has always been way ahead of where you are, practically speaking, at any given time.

[...] She thought Seth would discuss such relationships this evening.)

After she’d grappled with her reception of some long-sound material last night, Jane spoke a few words for Seth. It was then that we began to glimpse what we could call a “source” of the long material — for Jane told class that from our physical viewpoint “Seth’s true reality had sounded like a mountain” to her. [...] By making a strong effort she’d speeded up her reception of him so that he came through sounding like the familiar Seth. Thus she gained new insights into Seth and his home environment. And from that much larger, more encompassing reality, Seth could follow a consciousness in our camouflage world through all of its forms “within the flicker of an eye.”

Now for the unfortunate results I mentioned near the beginning of this note: Of the two cassette tape recorders that had been operated by class members last night, one malfunctioned throughout the evening, unknown to its owner, and so recorded no class material at all. The other recorder’s tape snapped just before Jane finally succeeded in consistently uniting Seth’s slow, or long, reality with the accelerated version we ordinarily hear. For a few minutes, then, she was able to speak for Seth about his home environment — but since the information wasn’t recorded I have nothing to quote here. [...] I don’t want to try reconstructing Seth from memory, but will note that his material took off from some of that in the 612th session (see Appendix 19).

[...] Now Jane came through with several pages of material for herself. Some of it was quite personal, but one part consisted of Seth’s response to an assessment she’d written after supper tonight, wherein she examined her progress since the inauguration of her psychic abilities late in 1963. Seth, here, adds to our understanding of Jane’s reactions to some of the challenges she took up 11 years ago. His material is also an extension of much that he gave in the 679th session for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, when he discussed the early background of the probable Jane who chose to live in this physical reality, and how that Jane began to contend with her strongly mystical nature. [...]

[...] I made a verbatim record of her first encounter with slow, or long, sound in the 612th session for September 6, 1972, just about a year after she’d finished Seth Speaks. Since the material in that session wasn’t covered in Personal Reality or Adventures, we’re publishing most of it as an appendix for this volume.* Not only will it illuminate these notes; it will also link, if loosely, Seth’s reality, Seth Two, and some other “rapid” effects. [...]

[...] On the one hand there was the Seth material itself, and Seth’s performance in his books.

I now read to her the last two pages of material Seth had given us last night. [...]

Certainly our lives and the lives of others have been strongly influenced by the Seth material, changed for the better. [...]

Value fulfillment is the largest issue here, both with Seth’s book and my own experience, and if I really understood what Seth was saying in this book, I would not have needed to undergo such an uncomfortable drama in my daily life.

1. With a little reflection it becomes obvious, but I think it important to note that Jane’s expression of the Seth material is certainly the result of her direct cognition. Because she has to deliver it linearly in words, which take “time,” she cannot produce her material almost at once, as the mathematical prodigy can his or her answers, but in their own way her communications with Seth are as psychologically clear and direct as the calculator’s objective products are with numbers, or the musician’s are with notes. From the very beginning of the sessions, in late 1963, I appreciated the speed with which Jane delivered the Seth material, and began recording the times involved throughout each session. [...] And when Jane speaks extemporaneously for Seth, her delivery is even more rapid. [...]

[...] It’s of one of my imaginary male heads, and I began it a week ago, following Seth’s material on art for me in the private session for April 9. [See Note 1 for the last session.] I explained to Jane that even while it’s incomplete, the painting contains improvements that I can already tell will be developed further in the next one. [...] I asked that Seth comment upon the painting tonight if he cared to.

[...] She’d begun to tune into Seth’s material on idiot savants just before the session. [...]

[...] Words, however, can be very elusive tools, and vary from language to language, although intrinsically through the Seth material Jane conveys depths of meaning that continue to develop within whatever language others may cast it. [...]

[...] (See the material she wrote for the 594th session, in the Appendix of Seth Speaks. She also appears in Chapter 5 of Jane’s Adventures.) In the opening notes for this session I mentioned a multiple dream experience of Sue’s, and promised to present something here from her description of it. Rather than material on the dreams themselves, I chose the first paragraphs in which Sue outlines the subjective framework of the whole dream event:

I wrote in the Introductory Notes that I thought Jane’s speed in producing the Seth material was “a close physical approach to, or translation of, Seth’s idea that basically all exists at once — that really there is no time …” I’ll add here that the phenomenon of double dreaming can be another way of approximating the idea of simultaneous time (or lives), about which we as physical creatures always have so many questions.

5. Seth’s first use of “species of consciousness” came after 11:38 in the last session. And added later: He comes up with another evocative phrase, “civilizations of the psyche,” in the 715th session in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality. Much of that session can be taken as an extension of his material here on the qualities of consciousness that have existed on the earth. In the 715th session, Seth also lets fall some rather humorous comments on Jane’s own mixed reactions when she first encountered such hints of the “multidimensionality of your beings.”

(On Wednesday, March 27, we received from Jane’s publisher the page proofs for Seth’s second book, The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book.¹ No session was held that night. [...] Ordinarily Seth would have used those sessions to deliver work on “Unknown” Reality. We disliked interrupting our creative rhythms in that fashion, although in the meantime Jane kept ESP class going as usual, coming through as Seth and as Sumari within that context. And we told ourselves that Seth was perfectly capable of resuming work on “Unknown” Reality whenever we were ready to do so, whether the time lapse involved one week or six months.

Jane began dictating Seth Speaks in January 1970. In March, Tam signed her to a contract for Seth, Dreams … on behalf of Prentice-Hall. The Seth Material was published. [...] She kept changing and adding to the portions of Seth, Dreams … that she hadn’t used in The Seth Material, while at the same time her new work kept crowding it out. Finally, in 1971 Tam converted her contract for Seth, Dreams … into one for Seth Speaks. Jane didn’t keep on trying to sell Seth, Dreams … Neither did I, and somehow that perfectly good book ended up packed away. [...] When at his request I rediscovered Seth, Dreams … three months ago, and examined it, I couldn’t believe that that finished manuscript had never been published. [...]

How Seth, Dreams … eventually came to be issued by Stillpoint Publishing, how it can even be thought of as a “lost manuscript,” makes a most interesting account that I’ll just outline here. First, though, I remind the reader that Jane spoke in a trance or dissociated state for a discarnate personality who calls himself Seth; by his own definition he’s an “energy personality essence,” no longer focused within physical reality. [...] That manuscript is Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness. As soon as he’d reviewed it back then, Tam had asked Jane to do a book on Seth himself. [...] The Seth Material, for which Jane signed a contract in December 1968. The book came out in 1970; and in it she had used certain portions of Seth, Dreams …

(But first this note, In Appendix 19 for Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, I offer material from Jane and from Seth about that atonal, very distant-sounding Seth Two. I quote myself as writing 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.”)

[...] And Laurel Lee Davies, the young lady who’s now helping me carry on my publishing activities, at once intuitively picked out from my files the one right photograph of Jane to us for Seth, Dreams … Jane’s father, Delmer Roberts, took the snapshot when she was on vacation with him in Baja, California in 1951. [...] That little picture, then, was taken some twelve years before she began “coming through” with the Seth material. [...]

[...] At 8:55, moving closer to that familiar dissociated state, approaching that psychological bridge which serves as a common meeting ground for Seth and herself she announced that she felt “a rather generalized idea of what Seth will say on the book stuff.” Less clear were some data about herself but she thought Seth would cover all of that along with his material on “Unknown” Reality. [...]

(In his material above, concerning Jane’s search for newer, larger frameworks of belief once she began to dispense with her old “comforting” ideas, Seth very lucidly dealt with certain aspects of the role she’s chosen for this life. [...] To some degree I’ve been involved in many changes of belief also, but I’m a participator in the development of the Seth Material, not its originator; the pressures and challenges weren’t — aren’t — as demanding. [...]

10. This material immediately reminded me that before the session tonight Jane and I had discussed Seth’s promise to answer the two questions I’d posed for him before sessions 698–99, in Volume 1. The question of interest here (I summarized them both in the notes following the 699th session) had to do with my inability to comprehend an “unconscious” species state. Not that I thought Seth was going out of his way to deal with such concepts tonight, but by the time he was through with his material on the sleepwalkers, I thought he’d considered at least one possible facet of my inquiry.

(I haven’t read “Unknown” Reality since I finished typing the last session for it over three months ago; Jane had reviewed all of Seth’s material on the book last week yet still had to remind herself today of the contents of that [707th] session. [...]

(Sometimes when I make notes I don’t have enough time to consider the material being received. [...] I somewhat misinterpreted what Seth had said concerning projections. [...]

[...] (Pause; smile.)He will be working on it through some stages of the Seth material, also. [...]

[...] She knew what she had said about the book, under consideration at Ace Books, where Don Wollheim is editor-in-chief, and was at once concerned about distorting material, etc. “I wish I hadn’t said it,” she commented wryly, after I remarked that we hadn’t pushed for any answers from Seth; or even asked any questions about the dream book specifically, before the session.

(Don was delighted to learn about the sale of the Seth material to Prentice-Hall, and urged Jane to stress this sale to the dream book editor, Evelyn Grippo, in the letter he suggested Jane write.

[...] Seth returned — and stayed longer, probably, than she’d anticipated he would. His material was for Jane, and grew out of the paper she wrote this afternoon on Eastern religious thought [see Appendix 15]. The more personal parts of Seth’s delivery aren’t given here, yet enough remains to show Jane’s main challenges some 11 years after she began speaking for him.

3. In Chapter 14 of The Seth Material, Jane and Seth gave a humorous-serious account of her out-of-body encounter with a demon, or “black thing,” of her own creation.

[...] Seth briefly mentions it in the excerpted material at the end of tonight’s session, with a promise to say more later.

[...] See my passage on naïve realism in Appendix 12, along with Seth’s own material on the question in Note 13 for that appendix.

[...] I remarked that it was going to be a busy session, what with the material on the Gallaghers and Dr. Instream, a possible envelope test, and the chance that Seth might discuss two very long, vivid, and complicated dreams Jane had while taking a short nap last Friday morning. [...] She believes that at least one of these dreams is a therapeutic dream, resulting from suggestions she gave herself following Seth’s material on therapeutic dreams in the last session.

But he tries again, and in the dream he discovers another radio on your bookcase, Joseph , where our material is kept. The connection is obvious, for he knows that the Seth material comes from the same system as the voices. [...] The shock is his knowledge that our material would cease were he to shut off his abilities in such a manner. [...]

[...] Each week we send Dr. Instream Seth’s material for him.)

(This evening’s session will see the first of three scheduled attempts for Seth to clairvoyantly tune in on our friends, Bill and Peggy Gallagher, who arrived in Puerto Rico on vacation yesterday, Sunday. We hope that at 9:30 this evening, on Wednesday October 20, and Monday October 25, Seth will be able to pick up something of the activities and/or surroundings of Bill and Peg. [...]