“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(One might say that Mass Events had its origins two Seth books ago — way back in Volume I of “Unknown” Reality, which Seth finished dictating in June 1974. At 10:14 in the 697th session for that work, he made this statement: “I will have more to say concerning illnesses, epidemics, and mass disorders in this book.”

(It wasn’t until I was checking the page [or printer’s] proofs for Volume 1 last week that I realized Seth hadn’t followed through on his promise. I’d also forgotten to remind him to do so. I asked Jane if Seth could devote the next session to that subject matter so that I could insert it in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality as a note or an appendix, since I had plenty of work to do yet for that second volume. She agreed; we thought some very interesting material would result. We also thought it was a good time to pose questions for Seth — for just two weeks ago, in the 800th session, he’d finished dictating his own fifth book, The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression.²

(We gave up our regularly scheduled sessions last week, and spent a great deal of time correcting the proofs for Volume 1 of “Unknown.”³ In fact, I didn’t finish my part of the job until midnight Sunday; then early this morning I mailed the whole thing to Tam Mossman, Jane’s editor at Prentice-Hall. By now both of us were bleary from all of those days and nights of concentrated labor, but still we wanted to hold the session. I sat opposite Jane in our quiet, softly-lit living room, working on these notes while I waited for her to take off her glasses and go easily into trance. I felt a familiar sense of anticipation as I thought of recording the excellent session to come. And that’s when Seth surprised us.)

(“Now just who in the heck is up to what?” I asked her. We laughed. “How can I use this material as an appendix or note in ‘Unknown’ if it belongs in a new book? I thought you and your boy were up to something not long after the session started.”

(“Well,” I told Jane as we went to bed, “right now my idea is that we’ll have only short notes and no appendixes. Doing things that way will speed up the publication date.” I’m all too conscious of the great amount of physical time I’m spending on the two volumes of “Unknown” Reality; I often feel responsible for holding up publication of Volume 2 especially, since Seth finished dictating it almost exactly two years ago. See the chronology of our activities in Note 2.)

1. In the order of their publication the five previous Seth books are: Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul; The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book; Volumes 1 and 2 of the “Unknown” Reality: A Seth Book; and The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression. All of Jane’s books, whether produced with or without Seth, are listed in the frontmatter of Mass Events, with publication dates.

Note that even though Seth finished dictating Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality almost three years ago (in June 1974), and I completed my own notes and appendixes for it six months ago, we’re just now coming to the end of the long, complicated process involved in following the manuscript through the editorial and production stages necessary to get the book out into the marketplace. Checking the page proofs is the last stage we go through before publication, and Volume 1 is due to be marketed this summer — probably in July.

Another purpose is involved in presenting Mass Events in context, though: I plan to use current professional and personal events from our lives as a sort of background or framework for the book as Jane delivers it for Seth. But right now, here’s a chronological list of our activities from June 17, 1974, when Seth finished his share of the work on Volume I of “Unknown Reality” to April 18, 1977 (today) when I mailed the corrected page proofs for that volume to Jane’s publisher.

Beginning in June 1974, then, while writing notes and appendixes for Volume 1 of “Unknown”, and taking Seth’s dictation for Volume 2, I spent eight months producing the art work for Jane’s Adventures in Consciousness and for her book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time; I finished all of those drawings in January 1975. In the meantime Jane completed Adventures in August 1974, and started Psychic Politics that October. In March 1975 we took time out to move from the apartment house in downtown Elmira to our “hill house” just outside the city. Jane finished dictating Volume 2 of “Unknown” for Seth in April 1975, and I started my notes and appendixes for it. In July 1975 Seth began The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression, and in December of that year Jane initiated work on her own The World View of Paul Cézanne: A Psychic Interpretation. She finished Politics in February 1976, and Cézanne in September; Politics was published that September also. I completed my own writing for Volume 1 of “Unknown” in October. Our 16-year-old cat, Willy, died early in November, and two days later we obtained a kitten, Willy Two (or Billy, as we soon came to call him), from an area humane society. I finished typing the manuscript for Volume 1 late in November, spent December checking it, and mailed it to Prentice-Hall early in January 1977.

In January we obtained an unlisted telephone number, because we could no longer handle the 600-or-so calls a month that were coming in. Later in the month, Jane started writing James. In February 1977 we received from Prentice-Hall the copyedited manuscript for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality. (Copyediting is one of the earlier editorial stages a book goes through on its way to publication, and is meant to study all of the work that Jane and I and her editor, Tam Mossman, have already done on the manuscript: Before it’s set into type, a reader who works independently of the publishing firm carefully checks the manuscript for grammar, contradictions, facts, consistency, and so forth, and makes suggestions for whatever changes he or she thinks are desirable. Jane and I are free, of course, to reject any alterations we don’t agree with.) In March we checked the copyedited manuscript for Cézanne. Seth finished dictating Psyche early in April. A few days later we began correcting page proofs for Volume 1 of “Unknown.”

At this time, I’m still working on the notes and appendixes for Volume 2 of “Unknown,” even while Seth has begun Mass Events. Jane and I have already planned our approach to Psyche (which Seth has just finished), and it’s to be published shortly after Volume 2 is. To top off our activities of the moment, we’re having the front porch of the hill house rebuilt — with a new raised floor and screening all around, so that Jane can write there in the summertime. The workmen swarming around all day, and the noise involved, are both exciting and distracting. But I have a feeling that the front porch affair isn’t the end of our construction odyssey: Jane has a certain speculative look when she notes that we have but one car — she doesn’t drive — to occupy the large two-car garage attached to the rear of the house. What better idea than to convert half of the garage into a writing room, with sliding glass doors, and add a screened-in porch there also? After all, she commented recently, the porch would protect our back door, too, especially from all of that winter weather….

He’s commented before in his books on our medical practices and technology, of course. In Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, for instance, see Session 703, which was held on June 12, 1974. At 10:36, in part: “People will die when they are ready to, following inner dictates and dynamics. A person ready to die will, despite any medication. A person who wants to live will seize upon the tiniest hope, and respond. The dynamics of health have nothing to do with inoculations. They reside in the consciousness of each being.”

5. Seth referred to evolution in both volumes of “Unknown” Reality. As it happens, I’ve just finished writing a rather long dissertation on the subject for Volume 2. It will be presented as Appendix 12.