“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane was quite upset before the session this evening, and I’m the one who was responsible for her state. Somehow, after supper, we got on the subject of Seth doing a “quick book” about Jonestown and Three Mile Island, something that could be offered to the public very soon, instead of material that would show up in a regular Seth book a couple of years from now. We already had the perfect title for the book, one we’d jokingly originated following last Monday night’s session: Seth on Jonestown and Three Mile Island: Religious and Scientific Cults.

(I didn’t get carried away by the idea this evening, but I was certainly taken with it as we talked. Yet I could see that I confused Jane, for to make such a venture possible we’d have to change certain beliefs and values that are deeply rooted within us; especially those about personal privacy and our reluctance to “go public” with such topical, immediate material, instead of trusting that the Seth material will exert a meaningful influence in society over the long run. Also involved would be the instant criticisms we’d encounter. But I think the main portion of my enthusiasm stemmed from the frustration I often feel because much of Seth’s material will go unpublished at this time. This year alone, for instance, he’s already given a good amount of excellent information upon a number of nonbook topics — among them the interpretation of dreams; human, animal, and plant consciousness, and the interactions among them; human sexuality; viruses and inoculation; other realities he himself inhabits, and so forth. We’re sorry to think that such material will be shelved indefinitely, but there’s no room for most of it in Mass Events, and there probably won’t be in future books either. I do try to give hints and clues to some of it in this book, though, as I’ve done recently in sessions 841 and 844–45.

(At the same time, I told Jane tonight, I wasn’t asking that she try for a fast book because I didn’t think she was ready for it, even though I knew that she — and Seth — could do it. “I wish I had your confidence in me,” she remarked at one point. “What would happen to Mass Events in the meantime?”

(“Nothing,” I said. “It would just wait until the Jonestown–Three Mile Island thing was done. Maybe we’d have sessions almost every night for a few weeks, or whatever it took. Anyhow, we’d have to check to see whether our publisher is set up to market a book that quickly, or would even want to.”

(I sought to reassure her, but later when I went into her study to ask about something else, I found her looking quite distressed as she sat at her typewriter. My words had had more of an impact than I’d intended. I apologized. But Jane had written some chapter headings, which were very good, and half a page of commentary for Seth’s hypothetical book. Once again I insisted that I wasn’t suggesting she try for the project. Jane believed me, finally, and in the course of the conversation I learned that she’s also been worrying about which of Seth’s recent sessions should be presented in Mass Events. She agreed with the decisions I’d made in that area, but she also wanted Seth “to get back to the book per se, and call his sessions dictation.

One remark: As far as your participation as of now in our books, it might be better, Joseph (as Seth calls me), if you do not think in terms of notes so much, but instead in terms of your writing contribution. Do you follow me?

(Pause.) The Jonestown disaster happened (in November 1978) long after we began this book (in April 1977). Just lately another event occurred — a breakdown and near disaster at a nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Now in my other books I have rarely commented upon public events of any nature. This manuscript, however, is devoted to the interplay that occurs between individual and mass experience, and so we must deal with your national dreams and fears, and their materializations in private and public life.