“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

If you remember, it took a while for The Seth Material, with Prentice, to do well. It was distributed to bookstores and areas specifically involved with the conventional occult field. Even though such people are familiar with the general area of our work, still the book did not fit into a general mold. It took a while, then—though not too long— before the book began to sell well. The other books quickly followed with, to that degree, a now built-in sales advantage.

As you mentioned, you are outside, not fitting into any acceptable mold. The general public, moreover, in those terms does not know how to respond. Many, picking up those paperbacks, do so on impulse, and are unfamiliar with any such books. They cannot laugh the matter off. The books require personal questioning. Some people are frightened. They are also intrigued. But many put off spending more money, say, for a hardcover book, because this would involve a commitment involving the ideas themselves.

The books are immediate in a way, for example, that the Castaneda books are not. Castaneda speaks of what is really exotic behavior from your cultural viewpoint. We are saying that changes can be made from within the culture. You do not have to be an Indian guru, or appear and disappear at will, so the books invite instant challenge. People do not feel silly buying such a paperback, but many of these people, in the general public now, have to make certain mental adjustments before they will spend more. Spending more means that they consider the ideas to be worthwhile.

Now: This book will be a good advertisement for the later book that I will do — and if you insert what I have told you in the book I am doing now, people will already begin to look forward to your book.

[...] At 9:25 she abruptly told me that she’d just “received” the title of a book I am to write: Through My Eyes. She was very surprised — and so was I. At first, Jane said, she interpreted her information [from Seth?] to mean that I would be writing a chapter with that title for one of her own books. [...]

Now: The book title should be: “Through My Eyes,” and it should be your own book, covering in your own way many important areas. [...]

I’m personally intrigued, of course, that this book was written through me, without my conscious mind there at every point, anxiously checking, organizing, and criticizing, as it does in my own work. [...] Yet this book was not written “by itself,” in the same way that some poems seem to be. Often a writer will say that a certain book “wrote itself,” and I know what that means. In this case, however, the book came from a specific source, not just from “out there,” and it is colored by the author’s personality, which is not mine.

Seth began dictating the book in our next Session 511, January 21, 1970, and finished it in Session 591, August 11, 1971. The intervening sessions did not all involve book dictation, however. Some were devoted to personal matters, some given for specific people who needed help, and some were in answer to philosophical questions not connected with the book. [...]

[...] Whatever else is involved in Seth’s book, certainly some kind of unconscious activity is operating at high gear. It was only natural, then, that I found myself comparing my own conscious creative experience with the trance procedure involved in Seth’s book. I wanted to discover why I felt that Seth’s book was his, as divorced from mine. [...]

Our books are in the regular trade department. [...] You have almost what you could call a schizophrenic relationship, existing, say, between Parker Books and Prentice’s trade-book division. The textbook division represents the workings of the intellect in the usual terms of rational thought, and in those books the qualities of the imagination, of the psyche, of poetry, of creativity, are quite lacking. [...]

The legal department knows how to deal with the Parker books. (Tam told Jane it’s putting disclaimers in all Parker books.) It knows how to deal with fiction. It knows how to deal with conventional textbooks — but in a fashion our books combine all of those elements, and transcend them. If Prentice were as conventional at heart as its legal department, it would not publish books at all, except perhaps for the textbooks.

Under Prentice’s auspices, however, you also have Parker Books — books that are devoted to quite anti-establishment ideas and concepts — to all brands of psychic, scientific, or religious eccentricities, given to matters that contradict the establishment and challenge it at every point. And there, too, you have a concentration upon education, in that the books are written to instruct.

This book had no chapters [in order] to further disrupt your accepted notions of what a book should be. There are different kinds of organizations present, however, and in any given section of the book, several levels of consciousness are appealed to at once. [...]

[...] “I’ve got the nostalgic, uneasy feeling that he’s going to wind up the book soon,” she said, “especially after listening to that material just before the Atlantis stuff: I didn’t feel that way when I had the session, but I do now. I’ve said it before, I know, but this book started when we were thinking of moving, and now we’re settled in a new place, so that makes a good time to end it.”

I am well aware that the book raises many more questions than it presents answers for, and this has been my intent. [...] If this book “works,” then many old questions will be seen as relatively meaningless, formed not after any intimate encounter with basic issues, but in response to old dogmas.

“I have all the material for a new book, suddenly, after breakfast. [...] Then while doing dishes this morning I had the feeling a whole book on health is there or here. Went to my study, got chapter headings and outline, more or less, but I don’t know yet how to get the rest of it; I feel almost that it’s a Seth book, that I need him to bring it in. But Seth’s doing a book! I know this new book has application to me most practically, too, giving methods of breaking out of my own patterns.² Could feel the bulk and immediacy of the book, but also frustrated that what I’ve got down is so little and sketchy — WHEN IT’S ALREADY HERE. [...] I feel caught between relaxation — want to lie down — and ambition, that if I just sit here the book will somehow clearly burst out in one way or another. [...]

[...] Then on the morning of March 10 — the Sunday before last — we learned that we may have to rethink the idea of Seth-Jane producing more than one major work at a time; for on that day Jane received the outline for another book, along with the knowledge that she’d need Seth’s help in producing it. The book’s title is The Way Toward Health. Jane wrote at the time, then told me, that she almost felt “the book could be Personal Reality Number Two.” [...]

[...] No, she hadn’t heard Seth, or sensed his presence while this was going on; she’d just realized that his help would be necessary if she decided to do the book. [...] “I wrote down what I could snatch from the whole book,” she said, “but I knew that what I got was nothing compared to what was there. [...] While I was in the altered state, I sensed not only the physical bulk of the book, but the actual contents within it. [...]

Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, The Speakers, and some Sumari poetry are being combined into a book that will be published soon by Prentice-Hall. I consider it a companion book to this one. It shows what was happening in my personal reality while Seth was writing his book on the subject, and reveals how the creative impetus splashes out into all areas of the personality. [...]

I’m proud to publish this book under my own name, though I don’t fully understand the mechanics of its production or the nature of the personality I assume in delivering it. I had no conscious work to do on the book at all. [...]

I consider the book “mine” in that I don’t believe it could have been written without me and my particular abilities. [...] I had to read the manuscript to find out what was in it, for example; and to that extent the book doesn’t seem mine. [...]

(The next day, January 28, after some debate, Jane called Ace in an effort to learn the status of the dream book. [...] The editor in charge of psychic books was not available; her assistant told Jane a report on the book hadn’t been delivered yet. If Jane’s experience this morning does include the sale of the dream book, the event can be called precognitive to some degree.

[...] 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.

(The dream book, which is now at Ace for consideration, was involved. [...] The gist of these seemed to be that the dream book, its struggles in creation, etc., was involved, and that it was to be accepted, finally, by Ace. [...]

This could reflect in the book itself. [...] On the other hand the important thing here is that the book be completed with full psychic and creative powers, without distraction. The book will be an important one, and in the overall the money difference will not be great enough to tip the scales. [...]

It is to his advantage that the earlier publisher did not take the book. It is the subject matter of the book that intrigued both publishers, plus Ruburt’s belief in the book. [...]

[...] This would work out very well both for him and the book. His natural energies will carry him along here, and these energies will be reflected and caught in the book itself.

(1st Question: What’s that connection about a book? “It seems as to be an old book. [...] The side of pages when the book is closed seem dusky in color, like old gold color. The book having a connection with a desk, and another location.” [...] Jane said that here she confused old paintings and old gilded frames, such as the Kecks worked with at the Arnot, with old books. Quite possibly the book is Louis Pomerantz’s modern one, as described. The cover of this book is a rusty red. [...]

(Pause.) It seems to be an old book. [...] The side of pages when the book is closed seem dusky in color, like old gold color. The book having a connection with a desk, and another location.

(The equalization, Jane believes, refers to the book by Louis Pomerantz, that along with the object and the mimeographed list were mailed to her by Caroline Keck from Brooklyn, NY, in August 1964. [...] The title page of Louis Pomerantz’s book shows that it was published by A Chicago Chapter Artists Equity Publication, 332 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago 4, Illinois. Artists Equity Association is dealt with in the book’s forward also.

(Seth mentioned Powers of Mind here, I think, because I got mad just before the session when I found a full-page ad for it in yesterday’s [Sunday’s] New York Times Book Section. The book has just come out and we’ve seen reviews for it in many publications; the contrast between the reception accorded the book, and Jane’s, reminded me of my poor opinion of Prentice-Hall’s handling of Jane’s books. As I told Jane after the session, I realized that Prentice-Hall’s treatment of our books reflects our own ambiguous attitudes-—we want her books to be well known, but don’t want to get involved in the process personally—but, perversely, that doesn’t stop me from getting mad at Prentice-Hall, even if they are doing what we want them to. [...]

[...] Bantam and Pocket Books were interested in acquiring the first Seven. Today Tam notified Jane that Pocket Books had won the bidding—acquiring the rights to the three Sevens for $75,000.)

[...] So is the man who wrote the book (Powers of Mind)—Adam Smith—interpreting in the only way he could for others who will later be led to read other books—that is, he helps awaken hunger.

The ESP book was meant to be a book—one book. [...]

[...] Tam wanted another psychic book. Ruburt objected enough to refuse to do a series like the Cayce books, but tried to compromise with the Dream/Seth book, which also involved him with the typing of records. [...]

He tried to do a narrative, and use for example descriptive abilities—a valiant attempt to do two different things in one book. Before all of this, as the very first symptoms began, before the ESP book, he was already deeply frightened by the novel rejections, the Playboy rejections after they raised his hopes, the poetry book acceptance that fell through with Continental, and what he felt to be your joint deteriorating relationship.

(Before the session, Jane said she felt rather nervous; she thought Seth would start his own book this evening. [...] I offered reassurances, telling her to forget the whole thing and let the book come out in its own way.)

I am writing this book to assure you that this is not the case. [...] Personalities who do not exist do not write books. [...]

[...] She said she was glad Seth had begun work on his book. “For ages in the past,” she said, “whenever I thought Seth wanted to start the book, I was afraid to let him do it.”

[...] We have two books coming out this year; when they earn back their advances there will be income from them. Many of Jane’s other books also produce a yearly royalty income in the meantime. She may do other books than on matters psychic, and these will earn money also. If our income dropped because we committed ourselves to no new books, the royalty and the interest on our savings would be much more than adequate to live on, for then state and federal taxes would melt away. [...] Jane’s poetry book is due in 1981; she’s started a “Seven.” [...]

(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. [...] It did make for some tricky work writing notes for Mass Events, say, to explain these long periods in between certain sessions in the book.

[...] 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 desire, coupled with Seth’s seemingly endless creativity, led us to a decision: From now on, the Seth books will carry far fewer notes. In the two volumes of The “Unknown” Reality, Rob tried to correlate Seth’s views on various subjects, tracing them backward to his earlier books (and often to unpublished material), showing the context in which the books were written. Now we will include usual session notes, but the reader will have to keep track of the development of the theories or correlate them with previous Seth books at his or her leisure.

[...] During the period that Seth was dictating this book, Rob was typing the two volumes of Seth’s previous work, The “Unknown” Reality, and adding innumerable notes that correlated Seth’s material with that of his earlier books. I knew that on session nights, Rob “lost” his work time on that project, and he still had to type up the latest book session on the following day, while all I had to do was … what? [...]

As I write this Introduction, I’ve already forgotten those many anonymous nights during which Seth, my trance personality, dictated this book. Only the session notes taken by my husband, Robert Butts, tell me what particular daily events we were engaged in during the time of the book’s production. [...]

In my book therefore I will show the personality from the inside out, so to speak. I am simply waiting while Ruburt gets himself settled in the book he is beginning. Within at the latest a few weeks I will have my own book begun.

The book will not require any additional work on Ruburt’s part, taken from his own, except for the final putting together, which will be simply a matter, I suppose, of typing. [...] (Long pause.) This book however, written by me, will therefore be entirely Seth material. Ruburt may make minor corrections if he feels them necessary, but the I in the book will be my own so interpretation will not be needed.

In my own book I will describe the makeup of personality from another viewpoint indeed. [...]

Now: We want to publish the book—and I will here continue, for our purposes, dealing with a book’s production rather than a painting’s. Still, however, we will keep the idea of a painting for a different reason. Now think of the book’s production and everything connected with it as being part of the same kind of creative activity, but in an arena where events as you think of them become the medium. It is as if—forgive the crossing analogies—the production of the book (pause) is transferred to another level. A living peoplescape in which each person who plays a part in that book’s production now joins the creative act at this secondary level as far as you are concerned. [...]

[...] (Pause.) The main, driving, clear, emotional intent in such a project is the author’s. The book is his baby. Remember, we are dealing with emotional intensities—and it is because of emotional intensities that our books are in so many homes. [...]

[...] You do not have to contact them one by one in Framework 2. The book itself is like a magnet—any book. [...]

[...] We’d been wondering if Prentice-Hall was going to stick to its schedule in bringing the book out early in June, and lo the book arrived without any fanfare at all. I told Jane I think it’s her best book yet. [...]

Ruburt himself recognized the book’s deficiencies, and he and Tam together hit upon the idea of switching my book, Seth Speaks, which was not yet contracted for, instead of Dreams. (Long pause.) Ruburt was therefore impressed to the ears with the necessity of getting a book to market, and of the importance of a decent working relationship with an editor, particularly in the uncertainties of even usual free-lancing writing were taken into consideration. [...]

[...] (Long pause.) When Frederick Fell took the ESP book he was delighted. [...] On the other hand, Fell did not go for the next projects that he either offered or had in mind—nor did Ace Books, who fell into the same category. [...]

(At lunch today I suggested to Jane that she put together a short book on the Frameworks 1 and 2 material Seth has given us since he introduced that concept in a private session last September 17, 1977. [...] I thought Jane might consider such a book project along with her other work. In a way the suggestion was my idea of trying to do something about Seth producing books within books, as I discussed in my opening notes for the 814th session; but Seth is so prolific that it seems we’ll never get all of his material published at this time.

Each of our books adds to the others. That includes Ruburt’s as well — and that also includes of course books not yet written, in your terms, so that the future books also influence what you think of as the past ones. Again, while appearing in your time, the contents of the books come from outside of your time.

To some extent the material on Frameworks 1 and 2 is of course an example of the entire idea, for you receive a good deal of information in sessions not given to book dictation — simply because, while our books are extremely free, still they must be colored by your ideas of what books are.

(Seth finished dictating his last book, The “Unknown” Reality: A Seth Book, three months ago, in the 744th session for April 23. Jane finally admitted earlier today that she’s had only seven sessions since then because she didn’t want to make too much extra work for me while I’m busy with the complicated notes for that book. [...]

(I told her that I didn’t care if the book was short, medium, or long — or whether it took six months to produce, or a year, or five years: If she held one or two sessions a week, or one a month, it would still give her a book in the works, and she would have that comforting knowledge. [...]

[...] And I’m not ready for either of the books Seth has mentioned doing — the Christ book, or the one he talked about last month, on cultural reality. [...]