“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We could have presented Dreams as is, or at least have avoided mentioning certain less-than-advantageous circumstances surrounding its production by Jane and by Seth, the “energy personality essence” she speaks for while in a trance or dissociated state. The facts are, though, that Jane’s already impaired physical condition grew steadily worse while she was working on the book. Shortly after finishing it, she went into the hospital. Since we’ve always wanted to make sure that our “psychic work” is given within the context of our daily living, I’ve undertaken to present in these essays intensely personal material relevant to the creation of Dreams. (The mechanics of Jane’s still-fascinating trance phenomenon have been described in some detail in the six previous Seth books she’s produced—with my help—and they’ll also be referred to, if briefly, in Dreams.)

I worked on the essays in succession, just as they’re given here, although I found myself adding to the earlier ones as I moved into the later ones. In terms of length alone, it soon became obviously impossible to write all of the material for any piece on the date given. Even by going back over them, however, I couldn’t discuss everything I wanted to: The essays could have easily grown into a book of their own. This weaving things together to make them “fit” is only natural for one of my temperament, but I didn’t alter any of my original copy—that I’d have refused to do—and I kept intact those first spontaneous descriptions of the events attendant to Jane’s physical difficulties, as well as our deep-seated, sometimes wrenching feelings connected to them. I did not look at Seth-Jane’s Dreams itself while writing the essays, in order to avoid having them overly influenced by work in the book. Instead, we want all of this preliminary material to show how we live daily—regardless of how well we may or may not do—with a generalized knowledge of, and belief in, the Seth material.

Seth, then, has finished his work on Dreams. I wrote the original version of the notes for each book session as he delivered it through Jane, and also began collecting other notes and reference material that might be used. Since I’ve completed the essays, all I have to do now is “refine” the session notes (and addenda) as I type the finished manuscript. Jane will help as much as she can. We expect to have the book ready for our editors, Tam Mossman and Lynne Lumsden, by the end of the year.

That basic impetus toward survival came to take precedence over everything else. Indeed, for several weeks following the initiation of the challenges I relate in the essays, supposedly creative activities like writing books and painting pictures often faded into insignificance by comparison. And for me, Jane’s condition came to stand for everything we don’t know in our particular joint, chosen, probable earthly reality.

(Long pause at 7:40.) In the meantime, Rob and I often thought that this very book would never be completed. [...] The book is finished. [...]

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.

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

[...] I just want to make sure that my own experience keeps coming back to the book, ‘cause that’s what it’s for. [...]

And as for books, early in August I returned to our publisher, Prentice-Hall, the page proofs Jane had corrected for her book of poetry: If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love. Ordinarily that event would have delighted us, since it meant that before the year was out she’d have another work published. [...] At this time, Prentice-Hall sent us the first published copies of If We Live Again, but as proud as Jane and I are of that book, its appearance didn’t help her. At our small, annual Christmas Eve party we gave autographed copies of the book to close friends—the best presents we could offer. [...]

We might have inserted some of this introductory material into that large gap in Dreams, since very important portions of it were acquired during that time, but we didn’t want to interrupt the sessions for the book with different subject matter. [...] Rob also wants this material presented as a unit so that it can serve as a foundation for future books we’re already discussing, and I agree with his decision.

At the end of May and early in June 1981 we published two books involving years of effort: Seth-Jane’s The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, and Jane’s The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto. I was positive that those volumes contained much excellent work. [...] On the surface at least, it was as though some powerful portion of her psyche were exacting a grim compensation for the books’ appearance in the marketplace. [...]

So, one thing I know: I’m a far different person now as I write this Introduction than I was when Seth dictated the book. [...]

[...] The company that published my books, Prentice-Hall, was changing its structure and policy. [...]

After all, if he does come through others—or can if he wants to—why hasn’t Seth himself simply said so, and repeatedly, in the books as we’ve published them over the years? [...]

[...] In Chapter 20 of her book, see Session 876 for August 27, 1979. [...]

[...] A book could automatically develop out of the investigation—even, I joked with Jane, a “world-view” book.

[...] (Not that I haven’t presented excerpts from a few of those sessions in other Seth books.)

Jane’s book would be called The World View of Jane Roberts, of course. [...]

The morning after showing her this material, I asked Jane what she thought about such a book. [...]

Early in this essay (which I began on May 7, 1982), I mentioned the series of sessions Seth gave in 1980 on his magical approach to reality, and the different approaches Jane and I took toward doing books on the subject. [...] For many months she considered doing a book on the magical approach (with my encouragement), and collected much information of her own for it. In other words, she viewed the book as helping herself as much as anyone else. [...]

Aside from any books that he may produce himself (and on whatever subjects), I’ve already made plans to put together a short volume featuring Seth’s discussions on the magical approach to reality. [...] She may also contribute an introduction to the book, showing how Seth’s and her own sinful-self information are related to the magical approach.

[...] I’ve noted in other books that she seldom talks about it. [...] This is very evident in her second and latest book of poetry, If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love, which was published in December of last year (1981). [...]

[...] The books and magazines dealing with reincarnation—and the tapes, too, these days—swarm with tales of journeys to past lives, and some of those accounts are most spectacular. [...]

[...] I only saw that she could use the rest, since she obviously didn’t feel well generally—but I also thought she was waiting for one of her characteristic surges of creative energy before digging into her next book (of which she always has several going). [...]

Seth uses the term “value fulfillment,” as in the title of this book, to imply life’s greater values and characteristics—that is, we are alive not only to continue, to insure life’s existence, but to add to the very quality of life itself.

In our other books I’d mentioned my physical symptoms now and then. [...]

[...] “So many different kinds of people read the books—”

Some of our readers, sending us recent books and copies of articles written by scientists working on these subjects, have noted that it must be nice for Jane and me to have concepts that Seth has been discussing for years “corroborated” by the establishment (often we already had the material on file, by the way). [...]

[...] Any discussion of this in our books is strictly my own doing, my own speculation: I think it fun to play creatively with a theory that is, after all, there for anyone to consider, from whatever standpoint. [...]

Some of our other books contain more information on how Jane grew up fatherless, and with a Marie who soon became bedridden and embittered. [...]

(I believe that current medical thinking about the immune system and arthritis will be much enlarged upon by the time this book is published, though I haven’t given that much thought to just what new information may be acquired. [...]

[...] In this book, Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, for example, Seth portrays us as a vibrant, well-intended species—a physically attuned kind of consciousness beautifully tailored by our own cosmic ingredients to live lives of productivity, of spiritual and physical enjoyments, with each individual life in charge of its own fate and adding to the potentials of all other life as well.

[...] “If you don’t want it in the book, okay. [...]