“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.

Jane appreciates that the dates I’m always giving merely furnish a convenient framework for our material, but she’s hardly enamored of such precise methodology; she understands that it’s my way of doing things, realizes it’s very useful, and goes on from there. I use a similar system in presenting all of the published Seth material. It has the great attribute of allowing for quick reference timewise (if not always by subject matter) to any of the more than 1,500 regular, private or deleted, and “ESP class” sessions Jane has given over the past 19 years—until July 1982, that is, when I began work on these passages.

(9:43.) I felt that my work was being contaminated, and more, I was annoyed and disappointed by those readers who could apparently be so taken in by those other Seths. [...] And it is indeed that contract between him and me that always assures you of the authenticity of Seth’s work.

Concerning Jane’s understandable desire to protect her work, long ago she published some very clear statements about that. In Chapter Nine of The Seth Material (1970) she wrote: “Several people have told me that Seth communicated with them through automatic writing, but Seth denies any such contacts, saying that his communications will be limited to his work with me, in order that the integrity of the Seth Material be preserved.” [...]

(9:03 A.M. Last night Jane had pronounced her work finished on the introductory material for Dreams. [...]

In fact, all of those topics were so much on Jane’s mind that for the second time in three days she went to “work” right after breakfast. [...]

[...] As related to Jane’s physical symptoms, they have remained largely unconscious phenomena: We knew all along that we were often having “symptom dreams,” but didn’t recall them consistently enough to be able to do much conscious work with them. [...] Obviously, we made our choices in that respect long ago: As far as the deeply charged subject of Jane’s illness was concerned, we decided to keep most of our dream work on intuitive and unconscious levels. [...]

[...] While at work in my own writing room I occasionally hear her talking to herself as she sits at her card table in the living room, just down the hall: I’ve learned that on such occasions, she’s asleep and often dreaming aloud, solving the psychological equations continually arising among the levels of her psyche as she pursues her chosen learning processes. [...] While I spend all of this time working on these essays for Dreams, I’m always afraid I’m leaving her alone too much. [...]

[...] Since I can no longer work for hours at a time on the Seth books, or with the Seth material, I’m training myself to “put out” copy in concentrated bursts of energy that are usually of an hour’s duration, say. I work around these creative outpourings by ministering to my wife, running our house and the many errands connected with our daily living, handling our publishing affairs, seeing visitors—expected and unexpected—and trying to answer at least some of the mail, which is threatening to accumulate beyond control. [...]

But that simple statement also means that our dream work relative to Jane’s challenges has often been powerfully abetted by Seth in many of the 347 completely private and 159 partially private sessions he’s given us since November 1965. [...]

(7:30 P.M. After supper I told Jane I was going to work on the essays for Dreams. [...]

[...] Jane was nodding in her chair as I finished, and I thought she wouldn’t be doing any work this evening after all. [...]

[...] And if spontaneous order was such a vital ingredient in the workings of the universe, then what was I doing trying to shut it down in my own daily life?

All of that work—and more—accounts for the long delay in the completion of Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment. Actually, with the exception of one session held in November 1980, I let my work on the book go for over 13 months, from early June 1980 to mid-July 1981.

[...] Seth resumed work on Dreams during that July, but each day I seemed to work less and less. [...]

[...] Ruburt can work with the self-image he has now. [...]

[...] At first she tried to do it as best she could through writing: Painfully, holding her pen awkwardly, she spent over an hour recording the first four paragraphs—even then, after checking our records, I added to her work material about dates and sequences.)

[...] We were becoming so harried by her worsening physical symptoms when that material started to come through that she gave up working on Dreams and concentrated on those private sessions instead. [...] Jane didn’t return to work on Dreams until July 1981, when the two blocks of sinful-self material had run their courses. [...]

[...] 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. [...]

[...] Whether or not reincarnation has been proven objectively, the belief structures surrounding that concept, or even the idea of it, have served very well as a forum within which certain present-life challenges have been worked out, through the therapists’ use of hypnosis, allegory, association, symbolism, and other very respectable methods.

[...] Think of the fun a person could have who decided at an early age—or even before physical birth—to experience a life unencumbered by other psychic relationships; wherein it had little or nothing to “work out.” [...]

[...] Very few were familiar with my work (although a few local fans—strangers—eventually found their way to my hospital room). [...] I learned to joke even as my backside swung perilously above the commode, while I hoped that its aim was true in the hands of the nurses and orderlies—and again I felt that long-forgotten camaraderie with people, and a growth within myself apart from my work, or what I did. [...]

[...] I accepted her reactions, and could only wait in some frustration as I began work on other parts of this essay.

[...] For now, though, I present what I have to work with from the saddest, most mournful Sumari song she’s ever created and sung. [...]

[...] For Jane’s own work, however, I note times, occasional pauses, and any other information in italics, just as I do for Seth’s dictation.

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). [...]

[...] Mother and child were supported by welfare, and assisted over the years by a series of itinerant housekeepers—a number of these were prostitutes who, according to Jane, were periodically thrown out of “work” when town officials would shut down the “houses,” try to clean up gambling, and so forth. [...]

[...] When did the two of us make our own pacts in Framework 2 (or other frameworks), and how will they work out in Framework 1? [...]

[...] It happened to mark the end of my day’s work, which I’d showed to her after supper. [...]

[...] With a more painful heart I yearned for my wife to walk to me, hips innocently and joyfully swaying, as she used to do years ago, when she’d meet me every day as I left the printing company where I worked as a commercial artist. [...]

Our week just past had been filled with a desperate energy as we struggled to get settled so that we could return to “work”—to our arts—on some sort of a regular basis. [...]

[...] As I listened to the doctor talk, poor hearing or no, I could almost feel medical science starting up all of its gears, ready to go to work on my behalf—and I wasn’t ready to make any such decision right then. [...]

[...] (One can always claim that being able to walk for even four years is a lot better than not walking at all!) Jane and I also read that through experiments with animals medical designers are working to perfect an artificial knee joint with porous surfaces, to promote better bonding of bone to metal; it could last 15 years or more. [...]