“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

My own role in the physical production of Dreams is far from over, however. In notes at the end of this session I’ll briefly consider the latest expressions of large-scale consciousnesses concerning Three Mile Island¹ and the countries of the Middle East,² and then will unify those discussions by explaining how I think those great events of consciousness have counterpart relationships, just as “living” entities do.³ I’ll also refer to our country’s space-shuttle program.⁴ Next, I have to put into final form the complicated notes I began for a number of sessions for Dreams as Jane delivered them. After that will come the job of typing the finished manuscript for this massive two-volume work; I do not know when I’ll have it ready for our publisher. And therein lies another reason for our somber moods: Our dear friend and editor, Tam Mossman, almost certainly will not see Dreams through the publishing process. Tam has grown restless; he needs a change; he plans to leave Prentice-Hall.⁵

In Volume 1 of Dreams, see the first session in the Preface. Well over two and a half years ago, I wrote in the opening notes for that session that Jane had “some 17 chapters in fairly good shape for her third Seven novel, Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time.” She had laid it aside to begin work on God of Jane. Although she considered resuming work on Seven Three at various times while she was producing Dreams with Seth, she never did; the status of that novel remains the same. Recently, however, she’s talked about finishing it, and I expect that she will.⁷

In a way our joint world came crashing down upon us on February 26, yet we continue to live amid the welter of our beliefs. Again and again in the notes for Dreams I’ve indicated how Jane and I tried to understand the probable reality we’ve created. With the hospital experience, I’m telling myself that if I can write about the storms of consciousness involving whole nations, I can certainly describe and reflect upon our own storms of consciousness. Jane and I must still have an unbelievable amount to learn, even though I think that in more basic terms certain portions of each individual’s reality are consciously unknowable. As Seth said three years ago: “Consciousness attempts to grow toward its own ideal development, which also promotes the ideal development of all organizations in which it takes part.⁹

Now—and I borrow the greeting of a certain energy personality essence: I can note some three and a half years later, shortly before Dreams goes to press, that copies of many items from our estate have been transferred to Yale University Library. These include the thousands of pages of the Seth material, regular and deleted [or private]; Jane’s and my own journals and other miscellaneous manuscripts, written records, and notes; ESP class tapes; some of Jane’s poetry and art, and some photographs of each of us. I have also sent to the library the originals of many thousands of letters from readers. And the transfer continues.)

I last discussed the cleanup at Three Mile Island, and nuclear power challenges in general, including safety and costs, in the opening notes for the 936th session, with its Note 2. That was almost three months ago, in November 1981; see Chapter 11. Lesser accidents, or “events,” as they are called within the nuclear-power industry, have continued to happen within the context of that primary accident at TMI—the loss of coolant for the nuclear reactor of Unit No. 2. I call the whole series of accidents “events of consciousness,” and think of them as unfolding in an orderly way from that initial large-scale event of consciousness, which took place on March 28, 1979. Early in January of this year (1982), for example, decontamination workers in a pair of buildings located between the plant’s two reactors triggered alarms when they inadvertently blew radioactive dust into the buildings from a drain filled with contaminated particles. The “unusual event” was not serious, although a small amount of radiation was released into the atmosphere through a ventilating system.

In Note 2 for the 936th session, I also described how the NRC had asked the operators of certain nuclear power plants to check for cracks in the vessel walls of their pressurized-water reactors, which are the kind installed at TMI. Now problems with corrosion are being announced. The reactor for Unit No. 1 at TMI is undamaged; it had been shut down for maintenance and refueling at the time of the accident to its twin, nearly three years ago, and a series of delays has kept it idle ever since. In February, again, company officials revealed the discovery of extensive corrosion in the bundles of small-diameter tubes in the two steam generators powered by Unit No. 1, which will delay any restarting of the unit for another six months to a year. The tubes circulate hot radioactive water from the reactor throughout the steam generators. Replacement of at least several thousand such tubes will cost millions of dollars; if engineers simply plug the damaged tubes, the reactor will operate well below capacity. (Steam generators at some other plants have a new problem: the accumulation of a corrosive sludge at their bases.)

Yet from the very day of the accident, this question has existed along with each step of the cleanup process, and will continue to do so: What to do with Three Mile Island, that enormously complicated human creation that now has its own consciousness, and that has in its own way exerted the force of that consciousness throughout our civilized world? To dismantle TMI seemingly would solve the “problem”—but only partially, for once born its consciousness will (like all others) continue to live. I repeat, however, that in this country no public citizen has been either seriously injured or killed in an accident at a commercial nuclear facility (as have a few workers).

2. “The killing in Iran continues—and hardly just because of that country’s war with Iraq,” I wrote in the opening notes for Session 936, in Chapter 11 of Dreams. Some three months later the killing goes on, and with even more ramifications of violence, intrigue, and power politics—involving not only Iran but that unhappy country’s neighbors in the Middle East.

4. The troubled, brief second flight of our country’s shuttle spacecraft, Columbia, took place three months ago, and I described it in the opening notes for Session 936, in Chapter 11 of Dreams. However, Seth-Jane finished this book before the third flight, which probably will be launched early in April, could begin. A fourth flight could go in June.

5. Jane has worked with Tam ever since he encouraged her to write The Seth Material 13 years ago; that book was published a year later, in 1970. One of Tam’s many generous acts was his initiating our contact with officials at Yale University Library just over three years ago. As a result, Jane and I have arranged that upon our deaths our estate—including the Seth material—goes to the Manuscripts and Archives division of the Library. My plan in the meantime has been to transfer copies of as much of our work as possible to Manuscripts and Archives, so that the material can be indexed and made available to researchers and to the public. I have yet to begin the work of copying, however, although I hope to start it soon now that I can see an end to my involvement with Dreams. In Chapter 2 of Dreams, in Volume 1, see Note 1 for Session 887, which Jane delivered in December 1979.

7. I last quoted Jane about Seven Three in the opening notes for Session 920. I also referred to the very slow-moving production of a motion picture based upon Jane’s first Seven novel: The Education of Oversoul Seven.