“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book. See the notes at the end of Seth’s Preface, which we received as the 609th session on April 10, 1972.

(Just before 9:45 Jane told me I could have material from Seth on the glasses idea, or on his book. [...]

[...] Jane’s Seth voice was rather quiet, however.)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(I picked the symbol above because Seth had dealt with a version of this in the 68th, 75th, 83rd and 84th sessions, in connection with Bill Macdonnel’s trip to Provincetown, MA, last summer. Seth insisted that Bill had seen a symbol similar to this on a rowboat at Provincetown, although Bill did not recall it. Other data Seth gave us about Bill’s trip was verified. [...] My idea was that using such a design as a test would summon up a little more emotional involvement, since Bill was included along with Seth, Jane and me.

(I was puzzled as to why Seth, or Jane, was so definite about the envelope containing a license or some sort of similar document, when Jane revealed that at last break she had thought the envelopes did contain a license. [...] It will be remembered that Seth/Jane paused before delivering the last line of information concerning the envelopes. [...]

(I can say that when Seth/Jane paused before delivering this last line, I had the feeling that some kind of inner shift in control had taken place; that Seth rather than Jane was responsible for the last line of material. [...]

(Jane said that Seth himself was definite about another male being involved with the contents of the envelope. Her own thought, as she spoke, was that a female was involved; but Seth, she said, would not allow her to say a female was involved. [...]

[...] Yet, although Seth has said very little to date about ghosts, hauntings, and possession [we link them together], it doesn’t seem that Jane’s early family experiences have led her to set up any blocks against such topics. “Seth just hasn’t gotten around to them yet,” she said. [...]

Every so often Jane hears from a female reader who wants to know why Seth often uses the male gender in his books, especially in passages like those in tonight’s 696th session. [...] We also don’t want to become involved with rewriting Seth’s material: We’re sure that when he produces passages cast in the male gender, his intentions are anything but prejudiced in favor of that sex.

“Using that language, however, Seth’s intent is also clear: Individual identity comes before sexual affiliation. [...] Through all of Seth’s books runs one common thread: Our sexual prejudice is the result of certain aspects of consciousness that we as a species long ago began stressing over others.”

[...] While we waited for Seth to come through, she talked about the deaths of her parents.¹ Her father, Delmer, died on November 16, 1971, when he was 68; her mother, Marie, died on May 10, 1972, at the same age.

[...] Seth’s predictions, and Jane’s own data, given at break, were borne out very well. Seth talked about two men connected with me in the past in various ways; I would meet these men at the party. I did meet two such men, and they were together, also as Seth predicted. [...]

(Within the last two weeks Jane delivered the final version of her book, The Seth Material, to Prentice-Hall. They have asked her to do a book on Seth, dreams, and reincarnation.

[...] She said she knew from the beginning of the session that Seth was “putting me out deeper.” She knew Seth was talking about his own projected book, and avoided blocking, etc. [...]

(This is the first regular session held since November 24, 1969, although Seth has spoken in ESP class occasionally since then.

(The first point I would like to make is that Seth told us enough of the clairvoyant material involving Dr. Instream is valid; this will keep up the doctor’s interest. The second point concerns the main subject matter of the session, which evolved from a question I asked Seth about the Gallagher’s cottage on Seneca Lake. Bill was inspired to ask Seth whether it would be possible to locate Indian artifacts on the lake bottom; he had long been curious about this.

(Seth promised to keep his voice quiet, which he did throughout the session. [...] Specifically Seth asked that none of us take notes, and I was happy to agree. [...]

[...] Seth surprised us by telling us this was quite possible. [...] Suffice it to say that Seth made no error in using the word bronze. [...]

[...] Both he and Peggy verified Seth’s information about the changes in silting on the lake bottom; Jane was highly gratified to learn that Seth was correct. [...]

(As in Frederick Fell’s office that morning, Jane now announced that Seth was about and that she was capable of holding a session. [...] Jane then said she thought she might be able to give Seth’s data in a different way than she usually did. She felt Seth’s presence “just below consciousness”, she said, and thought she might be able to speak for him in a natural manner without attracting the attention of others. [...]

(There are no verbatim quotes here from Seth, since Jane obtained her information from him in a different way. The session began after we had had some time for an informative, get-acquainted talk, on parapsychology in general, methods of conducting tests, personalities, Seth’s particular philosophy, etc. [...]

[...] Seth told Jane to tell him that the venture should be a successful one. [...] Then Jane, speaking for Seth, gave the initials W C, as those of a person very involved in Ray Van Over’s publishing venture.

[...] Note also that Seth didn’t make his presence felt, nor was he asked to, until a convivial atmosphere had been established between the three of us present. [...]

(Before what we expected to be our regular session for Monday evening, Jane told me that she’d awakened in the middle of the previous night with insights about two practice elements¹ Seth would discuss — but we didn’t hear from Seth even though she felt him “around” as we prepared for the session.

[...] 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. [...]

[...] We were also quite aware of the humorous aspects of the situation, since Jane does speak for at least one of the “dead”: Seth. And of course, as we sat for tonight’s session we wondered if Seth would discuss what had happened Monday night.

(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. [...]

[...] “Ruburt,” Seth commented, “is just beginning his own dream endeavors, which could not seriously start until he learned to have faith in his own being.” [Appendix 11 contains excerpts from The Wonderworks, the paper Jane wrote almost two weeks ago on Seth, dreams, and the creation of our reality. In my notes for The Wonderworks I described her own recent dream series — which still continues, by the way.] And: “In our case,” Seth said a bit later, “Ruburt almost ‘becomes’ the material he receives from me. [...] For Jane has never met Seth, face to face, you might say, in a dream. [...]

(Nor is the biologist’s chaos the same thing as Seth’s “unpredictability.” As Seth tells us in the 681st session in Section 1: “Science likes to think that it deals with predictable action. [...] In connection with this, we suggest the reader study especially Seth’s material from 10:00 to 10:36 in the 681st session.)

[...] I have to get into it in a certain deliberate way that I didn’t have to for the others [Seth Speaks and Personal Reality].” Jane snapped her fingers several times. “In ESP class Seth comes through trigger fast, like he did all those times last night. [...]

4. Chapters 9 and 10 in Seth Speaks contain much information on dreams. [...] And from Seth in the 536th session: “… I had spent many lifetimes acting as [such] a guide under the tutorship of another in my daily sleep states.”

Reading these private sessions, one can legitimately ask: “Well, if Jane Roberts was so smart and Seth was so great with all of that personal stuff, why did she come down with the symptoms to begin with? Why couldn’t he cure her, or at least help her?” My answer right here is that those questions were and still are answered to the best of the abilities of Jane, Seth, and myself in these private sessions, even while I keep in mind Frank Watts’s references to Jane’s “Timidity has roots of rage.” [...] Part of the answer, as I’ve already noted, is that because of her strong fears from early childhood on, Jane did not allow Seth to tell us all he could have. [...] But again and again I felt, I knew, that reincarnational factors were involved, concerning not only Jane, Seth, and me, but a number of other “past” personalities and influences from any of the three of us, and in various camouflage time frames. And what about that influence from the “future,” since Seth maintained that all is now? [...]

Jane and I were very surprised at the initial reception of The Seth Material, then Seth Speaks and Personal Reality (our shortened terminology for those first two Seth-dictated books.) Since we had no experience with “fan mail,” for example, we had no expectations, but as the Seth titles and Jane’s own books were published she came to spend many a weekend answering that most welcome mail. [...] Time travels for sure; travels not only through the psyche but through time—even if Seth did call that quality we were so used to “camouflage time!”

When he spoke through Jane for the first time in Session 4 on December 8, 1964, Seth not only gave us his own entity name—Seth, of course—but those for Jane and me: Ruburt and Joseph. [...] Yet Ruburt and Seth met on certain common grounds that were to be developed in depth over the years. [...] I’m sure that Jane and Seth, those two parts of our triumvirate, are relatively involved in their afterdeath challenges, each from her and his nonphysical viewpoint. [...]

[...] Seth was way ahead of me. [...] So even if Seth did help, still Jane chose to live her own life within the face and force of her own very creative present personality. Seth did offer insights, excellent ones of certain very creative depths that we more than welcomed, while all the time being quite aware, I think, that the beautiful young woman through whom he spoke—who let him speak—had her own agenda at the same time. And even though we agreed with Seth’s reincarnational material involving the three of us, and our families, still it was also intensely personal for my wife in this life that she go her own way.

[...] In them Seth briefly explained how Jane had created her symptoms as protection against the spontaneous self going too far: this fear was the real reason for the symptoms—not, as we usually thought, her fear that she would do other things besides work if she had normal mobility. [...] And to me, as I began to put all of this together, it meant that although she did the Seth books, which we think so highly of, she also drags her feet in resistance with each one—hence the long intervals of non-work that crop up during the production of each one. Again, without checking, I think that an examination of our records would show that her symptoms flared up, indeed worsened, as she worked on each Seth book, and that behind her labors on each book there lay this fear that she was going too far with each one she produced. This fear may be based on outmoded ideas—as Seth has mentioned at various times—it may make no sense, or whatever, yet as long as it exists it must be dealt with. This present session represents, then, our latest attempt to come to terms with all of our personal, public, and creative aspects involved with the Seth material—not just those we’d chosen to deal with in past years.

[...] I reminded her that I was the one who first suggested we start publishing the Seth material, and that she’d had reservations about doing that. [...] I said that she would have probably used her psychic gifts in some fashion in her writing, but that the Seth books might very well have not come into existence except for my own interest—hence my mental insight this morning that Jane did the Seth books to please me. I know things aren’t that simple, but I do feel that the fact of public exposure represented by the Seth books has always bothered Jane. [...]

(I also learned during the discussion that Jane didn’t like the Seth book material being tied too closely to current events, as witness Mass Events and Jonestown and Three Mile Island. She reminded me also that even the title of Mass Events, when Seth had given it, had alarmed her, or at least aroused some sort of defensive mechanism in her—something I’d forgotten. On the other hand, I’d taken it for granted that the way Seth had used current events in Mass Events had been quite natural and extremely informative, offering a much broader view of human affairs. This little dilemma also pointed up some of Jane’s other reactions to remarks I would make, innocently enough, I thought, to the effect that Seth could do a great book on any number of current events—the latest being the whole hostage question. [...]

(Jane’s sessions have been very irregular also, and she hasn’t worked on Seth’s latest book for some months now. [...] In each Seth book there have been layoffs, so to speak—long or longish periods in between certain sessions, while, usually, we held personal sessions in the interim; these were usually devoted to trying to get at the root causes of Jane’s symptoms. This pattern was most pronounced while Seth was producing Mass Events, but without checking at the moment we remember similar if shorter layoffs while the previous books were being produced. [...]

[...] We saw one reason why Seth could have chosen to insert it here in the envelope data, and Seth confirms our speculation later. Our idea was that Seth sought to use the idea of a relative connection with the object. [...]

[...] Seth now went into something new as far as the envelope data is concerned. The Wilburs and I agreed later that Seth evidently decided to insert the following material just on his own, and because the time, and Jane’s trance state, seemed right to him. [...]

(Seth was in an excellent and humorous mood, and spoke for a while longer. [...] Seth spoke to the Wilburs and me about the implications behind the death of the young robin, among other things, and verified that the Loren data in the envelope experiment was also intended to use the relative idea to tie it to the envelope object and my cousin Ruth.

(Seth called it a night, presumably, at 11:30, but then returned, still in a fine and smiling mood. [...] In the past on various occasions Seth has said he usually sees witnesses, and myself, as a composite electromagnetic image that embodies our past, present and future, as well as these attributes in whatever other lives we might have had. [...]

(Seth helped us out with our interpretations after break, as sometimes happens. [...] Our purpose in conducting these experiments in this manner is to see what Jane, or Seth, can pick up about a concealed object that bears some kind of emotional charge related to us personally. To this end, envelope objects are often deliberately chosen by me with emotional involvement in mind, since Seth has said many times that his abilities have an emotional basis; this primary emotional basis is then disciplined and given shape by the intellect.

(There follows the interpretations Jane and I made, at break, of Seth’s envelope data. It is noted where Seth agrees with us, after break. As stated, Seth’s comments regarding the data after break definitely help.

(Seth will occasionally comment about the lack of emotional impetus surrounding an object if I pick one that happens to bear little charge. I cannot be sure that I am choosing an object that carries little charge, however, for Seth’s data will often shoot off at an angle entirely unexpected by me. [...]

[...] Seth comes even closer with this data. [...] In the past Seth, or Jane, has used lettering, typing, writing and printing interchangeably. [...]

[...] Seth came through before I thought to remind Gramacy that he could record Seth, if Seth came through. But somehow in my mind at least, not recording that session added to it’s magical quality … the spontaneous psychological or psychic transformation came and went … We were sitting at the living-room table with the lamplight clear on my face; Gramacy could follow Seth’s psychological passage; see my features change, taking on ever so subtly those other contours. And Seth’s voice was jovial, booming, you didn’t have to strain to hear those words. [...] We hadn’t known that Gramacy was a scientist until he told us that night, and it was as a magician rather than as a scientist that Seth addressed him, telling him to trust his dramatic and imaginative flair.

[...] “Like the New York Times ad test with Seth you two did and wrote up in The Seth Material. [...]

[...] And in a twinkling I’d changed into Seth. [...] Smiling, hearty, Seth talked about magic and cause and effect, but at the same time he demonstrated a magic that is beyond the clever manipulation of appearances. [...]

“That’s why we don’t bother with effects that can be duplicated,” Seth suddenly said, “but with this performance and our books, which cannot be duplicated. [...]

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

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.

[...] Already this morning I’d typed from my notes last night’s very encouraging private Seth session: “—and know that you have taken, both of you, important new strides.” [...]

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

[...] Jane listed Seth’s families of consciousness last month in Session 732, but wound up the evening’s work thinking that several years ago, soon after she’d initiated the Sumari breakthrough, Sue had psychically tuned in on the name of a second family of consciousness — one that Seth didn’t give in the 732nd session. Jane thought the family name was similar to the “Gramada” that Seth had described; at session’s end I wrote that I intended to check our records for the missing name, and to ask Seth about it — but I neglected to do either of those things. [...]

[...] When Seth came through Sue had time for but one question: Was Grunaargh connected to any of the families of consciousness Seth had named in the 732nd session? “It is indeed,” Seth answered “It is related to one already given.”

(Before tonight’s session Jane told me that she felt the Grunaargh represented a variation of Seth’s Gramada family of consciousness. [...] Then she reminded me that several times during the past week she’d felt that Borledim, the next family of consciousness on Seth’s list, is strongly concerned with parenthood and related roles.)

[...] The rejection didn’t completely close out our interest here — or Seth’s either — but it did help us put the whole matter in better perspective. [...] [At 12:06 this evening Seth also refers to Jane’s auditory intuition.]

[...] “You know,” she said, “I thought this book was going to go longer, but I’ve got the funny nostalgic feeling that Seth’s going to end it real soon. [...] I felt the same way about Seth Speaks; the end always shocks me.” I told her that I thought Seth would close out the book tonight. [...]

(A note pertaining to the material given just before break: In Chapter Nineteen Seth deals with reincarnation in a general sense, but he’s said little in this book about his psychic “connections” with Jane and me. There are references to such ties scattered through The Seth Material and Seth Speaks [see the 595th session in the Appendix of the latter] and we have a modest amount of unpublished information. [...]

[...] She was both surprised — as she remarked several times — and a bit disconsolate now that Seth’s part of the long project was through. [...] She had no feeling any more that Seth would do an Appendix, as we’d speculated about occasionally.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

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.”)

My own imperfect recollection following Tam’s request that I look for it was that Seth, Dreams … was an unfinished collection of records, ideas, and chapters that Jane had struggled with for several years, without selling it. [...] What emerged as Laurel Davies and I searched Jane’s and my records, including early Seth sessions, was a long story of our doubts and gropings in an area in which we had no guidance except for our own explorations. Seth, Dreams … was rejected by three major publishers while Jane worked on it during 1966-67. [...] We were still operating alone, then, even though Jane had been speaking for Seth for about three years. [...]

[...] This effect symbolizes Jane and me at the bottom or base of the pyramid, with Seth in the middle and Seth’s entity, represented by the new voice, at the top or peak.

(Here Seth refers to the suicide of a woman last Wednesday, May 22. A few weeks ago Seth gave a recorded session for the woman at the request of a member of Jane’s ESP class. [...]

[...] Jane left trance easily, saying that she still had a trace of the pyramid effect even while Seth spoke—and at the end of the session. Seth had been his usual energetic self, in marked contrast to the cool and distant voice of his entity, so called.)

You can ask your (smile) fond Seth questions concerning that episode. [...]

Seth began talking about dreams and related subjects from the time these sessions began over 11 years ago. [...] See, for example, chapters 4 and 5 in The Coming of Seth, and Chapter 14 in The Seth Material. Actually, Seth and Jane dream data run through all of the books those two have produced so far, either singly or together.

[...] At 9:15, as we sat waiting, she had her first intimation from Seth that a session would actually take place. “And it’ll be on the book … I’m not used to being so relaxed beforehand, though …” What developed was a very short session, and contrary to her expectations, Seth devoted half of it to Jane herself. [...]

[...] As stated, Seth returned after break with a discussion of the reasons for Jane’s excellent state of relaxation. [...] In the personal part of this session, then, Seth explained how her very beneficial state of ease “now began in a dream state last night, was further accelerated this morning, and further so in the relaxation just before the session…. [...]

[...] On Friday, however, while in an altered state of consciousness, she tuned into some material on Seth, dreams, and other species of consciousness; she calls it The Wonderworks, and excerpts from it are presented as Appendix 11.

(Jane had been much surprised at hearing her voice, as Seth, as it was taped Monday, July 19, for Dr. Instream. [...] She also was uneasy in that she felt Seth was too harsh at times; she worried about the reception Dr. Instream would give the tape, since Seth spoke in no uncertain terms. I thought that Dr. Instream’s reception would be perfectly fine, and that in this tape Seth, and Jane, had made their points just as they wanted to.

[...] She said Seth enjoyed the little session. Jane also said she retained a general idea of what Seth had said. [...]

(“Good night, Seth.”

(On July 20, Jane and I received a letter from Dr. Instream, in which he mentioned the possibility of a session with another doctor at Oswego State University College; the other doctor also wanted to consider the study, within limits Seth may feel advisable.