“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

These eight to ten volumes are meant to show Jane’s and my growth—in the most literal way—but always that of my wife, above all else. From the start we felt that if our “psychic” work had value it should be presented as is, within all of its human connotations; not only its great successes, but with its gropings and mistakes, its questions and learnings along the way. Not edited or prettied up, but as is. Real. I still feel that way. These 510 sessions, then, are exact copies from the verbatim transcripts I made in my homemade shorthand while Jane spoke for Seth; I added notes and comments while typing the material after each session. Over half a dozen years we filed the typed sessions in 44 three-ring binders. The sessions in one of the volumes published by Rick are accompanied by my drawings of the objects used in the series of “envelope tests” we conducted, both for ourselves and long-range with a well-known scientist, over some 11 months.

The Early Sessions are also very important for the sheer preservation and distribution of the Seth material. Many have asked about this, and I’m always conscious of it. The set is one more way to bypass the fragility of a lifework that’s so vulnerable on its brittle dimestore paper in those old binders. The Seth material is a long way from being on computer—if that ever happens—and relatively few readers will make the journey to Yale University Library, to study the collection of Jane’s and my papers that’s available there for anyone to see.

(Usually we keep the records of her ESP class in a separate set of three-ring binders, but Jane wanted to insert this one as part of Session 393 in our “regular” sessions: She wanted to show Seth discussing a subject that was emotionally very important to a class member—Audrey Shepherd—whose adopted son had died by drowning last summer.)

[...] The 15 three-ring binders containing her poems, all neatly typed, for example; her essays and journals; other blocks of unpublished Seth material, one of which I mentioned in the Introduction; an unfinished autobiography that perhaps I could put into publishable shape; likewise, passages from an unfinished fourth Oversoul Seven novel, in which Jane dealt with Seven’s childhood; a book of her paintings, with commentary; several early novels that I still believe merit publishing. [...]

[...] From the more than 64 three-ring binders, or volumes, as we call them, that hold the typed transcripts of our sessions, I picked out the second binder. [...]

The material, the Seth material, will now serve as a cohesive binder in Ruburt’s classes. [...]

[...] Fred has it wrapped in brown paper and so much yellow string that at first I thought he’d used a rope like a clothesline as a binder. [...]

(“Did Jane know about the death of Otto Binder’s daughter?”)

[...] Jane and I felt reasonably sure here that this referred to the boss of the studio at which both Wendell and I worked in 1941-3. His name is Jack Binder, and he is in his 60’s now—perhaps twenty years older than the crew of artists he had working for him. [...]

(This is a good description of my main job in Jack Binder’s studio in 1941-3. I do not recall now whether I had ever described it to Jane in this manner, but may have.)

[...] I want it specifically noted then that sound can be used as a binder or as a separator of elements. [...]

(As I type each session from my notes, I file it in one of two series of numbered three-ring binders. [...]

[...] The object was a homemade pattern made on light-colored paper, with hand-ground gray brown earth color for pigment and polymer medium for binder. [...]

[...] Telepathy is one of the main binders in the world of constructions. [...]

[...] It contained an article by our friend Otto Binder, entitled “UFO’s Own Earth and All Mankind” This article touched upon many ideas we are interested in, and quoted astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, among others, re the ownership of the race idea. [...]

(We keep our typewritten transcripts of the sessions in a series of three-ring binders. [...]

[...] The archives contain a complete copy of my original typed pages of the Seth material in its 46 three-ring binders; many editions of the Seth books and Jane’s “own” books in English and in translations; her published and unpublished novels; her journals and poetry; her notes and papers, and mine; various published Seth journals; treatises and websites on the Internet (some nice, some not so nice); plus other relevant, indeed very evocative material like the reader correspondence from this country and abroad. [...]