“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As Jane wrote in Chapter 1 of The World View of Paul Cézanne: A Psychic Interpretation (1977): “Seth maintains that each of us forms a psychic world view, composed of our own ideas, feelings, and beliefs, as we encounter our private corner of reality.” The world view of every creature that has ever lived continues to exist, and can be tuned into under certain conditions. So can the psychic patterns of those now living, and even of those not yet born. Yet none of this means that contact will be made directly with the creator of the world view in question—only the bank of experiences originated through that individual’s unique version of reality. And since world views are far from being static, interactions and combinations involving all time periods take place among them constantly.

The morning after showing her this material, I asked Jane what she thought about such a book. “I don’t like to talk about it,” she said, “but I’ve been potting around with the idea—getting some thoughts about something like that. But I’d rather not discuss it.”

For Jane’s situation continues to be a time of testing. Writing with her right hand is still quite difficult for her. She’s made no effort to learn to write with her better-functioning left hand, as I suggested she do a couple of months ago, so I’ve dropped that idea. “But I could start another book tomorrow,” she said, “only I don’t know what good it would do….”

Even if those sessions can’t be quoted in these essays because of the obvious space limitations, I can note that Jane and Seth each continued to develop the themes already laid down in the sessions that have been presented. What they really signify for the long term is (as I wrote in the essay for April 16) a continuing program of intense study for Jane and me—and yes, for Seth, too—as we seek to better understand our chosen commitments in our present physical lives. Our questions reflect those that everyone has, whether consciously or unconsciously—and among them is that eternally human “Why?” behind each event that we know. The material in the sessions is exhilarating, painful, enlightening, perceptive, frustrating, and maddening by turn—and sometimes, it seems, all of those things at once. We’d like to publish much of it, even though it’s hardly all flattering, and even though some of it, because of our ordinary human limitations, may not be very useful in everyday life. For if the information arouses such mixed emotions in Jane and me, surely it will do so in others too, serving as an impetus or goad to learn more even while it highlights one’s strengths and weaknesses. You create your own reality. The anger I’d felt at Jane and myself when she began recording her sinful-self material (see the essay for April 16) has long since dissipated. I won’t claim that residues of it may not be buried within my psyche (and within Jane’s), but it’s very difficult to stay mad when one agrees with the simple but most basic and profound idea that you do create your own reality.

I also believe that these kinds of challenges—involving decisions about whether to continue physical life—have always existed for every creature on earth (just as they have for the earth itself as a living entity). Jane and I have no idea of how our personal story is going to work out, but we do want to tell it.

Apropos of the material I’ve been covering in these pages, I want to close this essay with quotations from two sessions that I’ve always thought are among the best Seth has given. These sessions still live, and in them he reinforces the idea that each of us does create our own reality. Both can be found in Chapter 1 of Personal Reality.