“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

One can also say that the Seth books are a step farther removed than Jane’s are from the immediacy of life as we conceive of it. Even with the elimination of the Seth element from them, Jane’s own books would still represent a remarkable overall achievement, and had she never given expression to the Seth material I’m sure she would have developed her abilities in ways quite unknown to us now. Within her basic creativity lies the source of Seth as we are to understand him in our temporal reality. Her expression of Seth is an adjunct to that creativity, as he is the first to acknowledge.

If we had been appalled when Seth began giving his version of the beliefs her sinful self held, we were even more so when that self began to express itself “personally.” [...] Then Seth came through with another session on the same subject while Jane’s sinful self was in the midst of its own revelations! But she simply had to get that final, direct message from that portion of herself by herself; except for that one session, she even made Seth figuratively stand aside while she did so. But Seth himself was delighted with her breakthrough.¹⁶

That the Seth books outdo Jane’s other works has always puzzled us. Each one of her books, whether produced by herself or with Seth, is an equally valid and intimate expression of her basic creativity. Seth doesn’t come from some separate, more exalted portion of Jane’s psyche that’s off limits to her when she’s writing her own books. As he’s often said himself, he isn’t omnipotent: Like Jane, he shrinks from being a guru—and I stress that Seth doesn’t hold that attitude just because Jane does. [...]

[...] I think the Seth material contains some penetrating insights into such questions, but those ideas aren’t nearly well-enough known to help on a national scale. Seth didn’t comment upon the shooting, It wasn’t that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t—but that Jane herself is basically so innocent, so repelled by the violence involved in such episodes, that she often chooses not to go into the subject. I thought she might later in connection with other material, however; this had been the case when Seth discussed the mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978.¹¹

[...] That same day, Seth agreed that her new book idea was a good one. [...] During this time, we had been often rereading Seth’s information on the sinful self as he’d given it on March 11. [...] The result was that on April 14, the day Columbia landed, Seth initiated a long series of sessions on both Jane’s own sinful self, and that quality in general. [...]

[...] My anger, Seth told me, was just the way not to react, and even amid the welter of my emotions I had to agree. [...] “The idea is in no way to accuse the sinful self,” Seth said on April 28. [...] See Note 13, in which I quoted Seth’s material on her search for value fulfillment—how, without the psychic breakthrough of the sessions, “Ruburt would have felt unable to continue the particular brand of his existence.”

It developed, however, that Jane’s reincarnational adventure might end up doing double duty: Not only had it given her insights concerning her sinful self, but now she picked up from Seth that his remarks about it could result in dictation for Dreams. [...] She asked if I’d mind work on Dreams this evening, and I said of course not—that she and Seth have the absolute freedom to talk about anything at all. If Seth did discuss her experience, Jane replied, it would be in connection with “time overlays.” [...]

[...] My eye troubles started the same spring that Seth started dictating it [in 1977]; I was doing [my world-view book on William] James; and those people were picketing Prentice-Hall’s offices in New York City because of the Seth material. The fact had escaped me earlier that Mass Events represented Seth’s and my direct attack on official dictums—or so it seemed to me. [...]

[...] I’ve rejected all that kind of hash projected onto Seth’s books by others or myself—the assumptions that Seth must prove himself as a problem-solver—or the importance of functionalism over art. The larger view is that art, by being itself, is bigger than life while springing from it; that Seth’s and my books go beyond that simply by being themselves. [...]

[...] I felt a distinct start of surprise when I came across this passage of Seth’s, for I’d completely forgotten it: “Jane, for example, entered the fetus when it was about three months old, and accepted this as a new life. [...] I didn’t remember Jane ever referring to that bit of information; certainly she’d never asked Seth to elaborate. [...] (That was one of the few times when Seth had called her Jane instead of Ruburt, by the way.)