“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.)

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.

Already we’ve given up many old living patterns since Jane came home from the hospital, and in a strange way we now have the freedom to focus daily upon just a few main things. We’ve been reminded anew—more accurately, we’ve taught ourselves—that physical life itself is a wondrous medium of expression, and terrifically varied in that respect.

[...] Yet I like lines like: “Let the dirge be heard, sweeping all things before it,” and: “I’ve developed a sense of death, when someone takes a few steps off the known path almost unknowing,” and: “I breathed in the public air and it became private.” [...] I’ve been careful to collect for our own records the prose, sketches, poetry, and Sumari she’s produced during this time of healing and testing.

[...] The answer is that we’ve held 13 more sessions—4 of them given by Jane “herself,” and 9 by Seth speaking through her. [...] For those that do concern us I’ve written lengthy notes, often recording the minutiae of our daily lives for our own reference.

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. [...]

In these last few pages (since I began discussing my beliefs about Jane’s early psychological conditioning), I’ve indicated the only kind of thinking by which I can personally make sense out of our world these days. Particularly when I consider the “news” on the typical front page of the typical daily newspaper: All too accurately the “stories” of war, pollution, corruption, and poverty and crime show just how little we human beings know or understand ourselves at this time—and how far we have to go, individually and en masse. As the years have passed, I’ve come to trust more and more my own insights into our behavior as a species within the framework of a nature that I believe our kind has co-created with every other species on the planet (to confine my theme to just our immediate environment for the moment). It all seems very complicated, certainly, but as I manipulate in everyday life I don’t consciously dwell upon all of the ramifications I’ve mentioned in these essays. [...]

I’ve written these passages knowing, of course, that many of Seth’s points and our own are at best theories, if very intriguing ones. [...] (Except for a few early instances when we inadvertently lost some of our correspondence, we’ve saved all of it. [...]

It should be obvious by now that in a large measure all of the selves and approaches I’ve delineated in these essays simply represent Seth playing around semantically, as he tries to get various portions of his ideas through our heads at certain times. [...]

[...] Traditionally we’ve cast that feeling or knowledge in religious terms, for want of a better framework, but I think that more and more now the search is also on within science for a theory—even a hypothesis—that will lock up our often subjective variables into what might be called a more human equivalent of the still-sought-for unified theory in physics. [...]

[...] I’ve often speculated that clues to oncoming lives must exist within the hundreds of dreams I’ve recorded.

“I’ve had several new experiences with altered states of consciousness,” she wrote in labored script, “and these are quite different than anything I’ve done before. [...]

[...] During our work on these pieces Jane and I have automatically been led back to earlier material again and again, but each time we’ve tried to plunge deeper into the topic under discussion, to uncover new layers of meaning and insight. [...]

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. [...]

[...] But more than that, I’ve seen in my own life the steady accumulation of physical symptoms.

As far as I can see, I’ve been living with two sets of “facts” for some years. [...]

We’ve had no Seth sessions yet, either regular or private. [...]

[...] Yet she roused herself: “I’ve got the first sentence, I guess.” [...]

[...] The chimes had been sent to us as a gift by fans we’ve never met.)

A third point came up this morning, one we’ve talked about often lately. [...]

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? [...]

[...] I’ve certainly found her particular combination of attributes to be unique, and I don’t think she’d be able to express the Seth material as she does without them. [...]

[...] (That had been my somewhat amused speculation to begin with.) We’ve gotten a flurry—a small blizzard—of bills from doctors during the last few days.

[...] Decubitus ulcers: one of the first terms we’d added to our rapidly growing medical vocabulary—and one of the more stubborn afflictions for a human being to get rid of once they’ve become established. [...]

Short of outright failure, however, some of the articles I’ve collected contain the information that a conventional artificial joint replacement—for a knee, say—usually lasts only from four to seven years before loosening. [...]

[...] Jane went into trance as easily as ever, but her Seth voice contained the same underlying tremor I’ve noticed on a number of occasions since she’s returned home. [...]