“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Not long ago I reached an impasse with both the Introductory Notes and the Epilogue for Volume 2, as I tried to give order to the mass of notes, excerpts, and jotted-down ideas that I’ve assembled for them since finishing work on Volume 1 in September 1976. That was some 18 months ago, but actually to one degree or another I’ve been involved with “Unknown” Reality for four years now; I think that temporarily I’ve simply grown tired and overly concerned about the whole project, even while I still have a considerable way to go to finish certain notes and appendixes for Volume 2. Not that I haven’t worked on a number of other things at the same time, of course — but my labors on those two books represent the prolonged, intense focus I always search for in my creative life, and without which I feel incomplete. Jane knows all too well what I mean, for her own attitudes here follow mine very closely.

(Long pause.) [Each of] you, with your beliefs and intents, tell the inner ego which of an infinite number of probable events you want to encounter. In the dream state events from both frameworks are processed. The dream state involves not only a state of consciousness that exists between the two frameworks of reality, but also involves, in those terms, a connecting reality of its own. Here I would like to emphasize that to one degree or another all species of plant and animal life “dream.” The same applies to the “psychological activity” of atoms and molecules, and any “particle.”² Period.

2. For those who are interested: As soon as Seth mentioned the “psychological activity” of atoms and molecules, I was intuitively and strongly aware of connections between his statement and at least two principles of modern physics. Yet I hesitated. “I know my feelings are right,” I told Jane, “but how do I explain them in a few words and make any sense?” I was also constrained by the limits of my own knowledge. Especially, though, I sensed relationships between Seth’s idea on the one hand, and both the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics and the principle of complementarity on the other.

The uncertainty principle, or the principle of indeterminacy (advanced by Heisenberg in 1927, and part of the theory of quantum mechanics), sets definite limits to the accuracy possible in measuring both the motion and position of atoms and elementary particles simultaneously; more importantly to my mind, for the purposes of this note, the uncertainty principle maintains that there is an interaction between the observer (with his instruments) and the object or quality being measured.

The complementarity principle (stated by Bohr in 1928) resolves the seeming paradox posed by contradictory experiments that show how light, for example, can be regarded as consisting of either waves or particles. Both experiments and conclusions are right — and mutually exclusive; whichever result is obtained is due to the nature of the particular experiment.