“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Early in September—magically appearing as though from another reality, for we’d quite forgotten about the situation—we received through Prentice-Hall six copies of the reprinted Dutch-language edition of Seth Speaks. This time the publisher in the Netherlands, Ankh-Hermes, had not cut Seth Spreekt.⁷

Right after that Sue Watkins called from her home in upstate New York to tell us that she’d just received from Prentice-Hall her first printed copy of Volume 2 of Conversations With Seth. She’s to send us an autographed copy after more reach her. Both Jane and I congratulated her on producing a fine pair of books. Even though we could hardly be called impartial, we knew that in her long account of much that had taken place in Jane’s ESP classes, Sue had produced superior work both for herself and for us, through her viewpoint offering new dimensions and insights concerning what all three of us—four, counting Seth!—had been, and still are, trying to do. Our copy of Conversations did arrive from Sue early in October. Seeing it cheered Jane—yet my wife continued to hassle [as she put it] her efforts on Magical Approach, asking herself again and again whether she really wanted to do that book. Her intuitions always affirmed that she did. It was often difficult going for her, though: Magical Approach still wasn’t flowing the way she wanted it to.

7. In Chapter 2 of Dreams, in Volume 1, see Note 1 for Session 885, which we held on October 24, 1979. Through a series of misunderstandings, the people at Ankh-Hermes had published an abridged translation of Seth Speaks without having permission for the cutting from Jane and me. We still feel regret that the company had to go to all of that extra expense in order to publish a second edition of the book. I also wrote that “all concerned must wait for at least another year before a full-length version of Seth Speaks will be published in the Dutch language.” Actually, almost two years passed before we received our copies of the new edition.

We always liked the idea, however, that others were recording class events and were keeping tapes for us if and when we wanted them; we also liked the idea that it was safer to have the tapes scattered about instead of being kept in one place. In class Jane might have listened to portions of a tape as it was being made, or immediately after class was over, but seldom would I hear her playing the same tape later—if we had a copy of it, that is. She’s fascinated to hear herself speak as Seth, and sing in Sumari, but she always wants to move on. I simply have never devoted myself to collecting tapes. I don’t want to overstate the issue, but neither does Jane pay that much attention to a book once it has been published. She does reread various private sessions, usually those in which Seth discusses matters relating to her symptoms. Until this year (1981) she would occasionally replay one of the few tapes we’d made together, or use our recorder when writing poetry. She gradually gave up working that way, however, as it became more and more difficult for her to exert enough finger pressure on the recorder’s keys.