“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This is Jane’s first “regular” session in four months. It’s a nonbook one, and I’ll comment later on why I’m presenting it in Dreams. Right now, I just want to note that since she gave the last session for this book, the 919th on June 9, Jane has come through with a series of 15 private, or deleted, sessions—13 of them on what Seth calls “the magical approach to reality.”

Jane doesn’t often refer to such world events in her notes and journals, but we often talk about them. In fact, she made no notes of any kind in her 1980 journal from the middle of June to July 20, for a span of five weeks, but those two months were busy times for us professionally. In June, I started experimenting with paintings of my dream images, for use in a possible book—and this endeavor, I discovered, presented me with a whole set of challenges all by itself. I mailed the finished manuscripts for Mass Events and God of Jane to our publisher on July 2 and 18 respectively. During those times, however, I was extremely sorry to note that Jane’s physical symptoms—her difficulties “walking” and performing other routine tasks—were obviously becoming much worse.

I was delighted when Jane began to show physical improvements almost at once during those early August days, and so was she. It’s not contradictory to note that during August and September, following his regular schedule of twice-weekly sessions, Seth methodically presented some very exciting concepts. So closely do those 13 sessions fit together that it’s most difficult to give excerpts.⁵ Seth’s magical-approach material represents one of his best efforts to help us, as well as others. Jane’s difficulties certainly inspired them, but their creativity also goes beyond our own needs. And as soon as I realized she was going to continue the series for a while, I jokingly asked her what was going on: “What do you think you’re up to, hon? Are you doing a book within a book, or what?” My wife didn’t answer yes or no, but I could see that she was pleased, and that she was thinking about it. The title of the new book would be automatic: The Magical Approach to Reality: A Seth Book.

In the meantime, early in August Jane had laid Seven Three aside once more and returned to the book of poetry she’d had in progress for a year.⁶ And on August 15 she happily announced that she’d come up with the complete title she had been searching for all that time: If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love. Her editor, Tam Mossman, enthusiastically agreed with her choice. Two days later, Jane began writing the first of the three essays she had planned for the book: “Poetry and the Magical Approach to Life.” Her choice of subject matter there was quite natural: She’d given her third session in that series two days earlier.

Besides enabling Jane to help herself physically, Seth’s magical-approach material had other beneficial aspects for her. Some of those lay in her poetry, both for her book and outside of it. On August 25, for example, on the day she delivered the sixth session for Seth on his new theme, Jane wrote the following untitled poem. I urged her to give it a title and include it in If We Live Again. Within its deceptive simplicity her poem carries profound meaning; I haven’t seen that meaning expressed any better elsewhere. If she were to sum up the results of her life’s work so far in a few lines, this poem would do the job the best of all:

See Note 7, in which I used Jane’s poem as a focus around which to offer certain pieces. Indeed, more and more as I worked on these notes for Chapter 9 of Dreams, I saw how necessary it was that I write an Introduction for the book itself—to create a framework for the presentation of all of the material in it from our private and professional lives. Of course, I couldn’t yet know everything that such a project ought to contain. Jane had mentioned a number of times that she’d help me with it. And she was playing around with the idea of a Seth book on the magical approach.

1. I don’t mean to imply that it was particularly easy to assemble these notes. It took me days. Sometimes over the years, in my frustration at being unable to find a certain line or passage in a session, or in something Jane or I have written, I’ve ended up thinking that I merely imagined its being: “It doesn’t really exist at all,” I’ve told myself, “so why am I wasting my time looking for it?” Yet once I start hunting, it’s difficult to stop until I’ve exhausted all reasonable chances of finding what I want. Even a thorough indexing of every paper we have in the house, including each page of the Seth material, often wouldn’t locate the kinds of references I need. To suit me, I’ve told Jane more than once, the index would have to be practically as long as our lifework itself. I’ve gone through those episodes a number of times. (So have others, according to their letters, even though the books are indexed.)

(I was curious as to why Seth had devoted two other private sessions in late September to different subjects. When I asked Jane about this tonight, at first she rather matter-of-factly said that she didn’t know. Then: “Well, I don’t tell you everything, but for some time now I’ve known that Seth gives what I call fill-in sessions. I’ve labeled them that way in my mind. They cover floating material—stuff he could give any time. They aren’t book sessions or really personal ones. They keep the sessions going over periods of time—usually by discussing past material—connecting it to the present, while not necessarily adding new stuff. And not specifically given on one subject. Originally I think the Christ sessions got started that way.”

“You never asked me.” Jane’s reply had a familiar sound. Checking later, I learned that she’d given me the same answer about Seth’s material on Jonestown. We used that information in Mass Events. [When that book is published, see Note 3 for Session 835, dated February 7, 1979.]

“I think the fill-in sessions happen between book sessions, for a change of pace—where the material doesn’t have to fit a more concentrated overall book focus,” Jane added. She agreed to write a short account of what she’d just told me, for the record.)

“First of all, however, a note primarily to Ruburt: I often quite purposefully (with amusement) break off book dictation to discuss other matters that come into your experience. This allows me to cover material from several different viewpoints, and to organize it in different fashions. Actually, however, there are several self-formed books in your material already. Do you follow me?”

“He need not feel that all sessions must be book dictation, nor feel that he is in any way negatively responsible, as he sometimes does.”