“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Just before she took a nap this noon, Jane received a letter from a man who explained that he’d married a woman with genetic deformities of her hands. A daughter just born to the couple carries the same “flaws.” The writer has obviously learned much from reading the Seth material, and revealed insight as to why he and his lady had chosen to marry to begin with. Yet he still expressed sorrow, and asked: “Why?” He’s troubled by the challenges of one who has to live with a so-called deformed wife—and now a child—each day. Jane plans to inform him that he and his family are doing much better than they know.

We held the session in the living room, as usual. Jane was very relaxed as she sat in her rocker. “I’m having it just because I want to,” she said, “But I don’t know how far I’ll get. I’m really out of it….” In back of her and off to her right, our cats, Billy and Mitzi, were crouching in the light cast on the rug by one of our homemade lamps from its position on a low bookcase: An insect, seemingly mesmerized by the illumination, was flying round and round inside the bright cone of the lampshade. The cats had been fascinated by this phenomenon for several minutes; just as Jane went into trance they lost patience and started to leap up at the insect. And although she began the session slowly, Jane proceeded right along with it.)

Those experiences are usual. They have been reported by peoples of all kinds and in all ages, and they represent a common-sense kind of knowledge that is frowned upon by the men of learned universities. Throughout this book we will often be talking about experiences that are encountered in one way or another by most people, but are not given credence to on the part of the established fields of knowledge. Therefore, dreams will be considered throughout the book in various capacities as they are related through genetics, reincarnation, culture, and private life. We will also be considering the matter of free will and its role in individual value fulfillment.

When I began putting together Seth’s dictation for Dreams, and adding Jane’s and my own notes, plus excerpts from other relevant sessions, it soon became obvious that the entire work was going to be too long for one volume. There would be publishing difficulties having to do with sheer bulk—with the cost of typesetting, with binding such a thick book, with marketing and price, and so forth. So with the help of our editor, Tam Mossman, and others at Prentice-Hall, the decision was made to publish Dreams in two volumes. At first I was sorry for the reader’s sake to think of Dreams being interrupted, yet glad for myself, for in addition to presenting Seth’s book dictation I was given the space in which to develop those other personal and secular themes of Seth’s, Jane’s, and my own that I think add even more dimensions of meaning to Dreams.