“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As I write this Introduction, I’ve already forgotten those many anonymous nights during which Seth, my trance personality, dictated this book. Only the session notes taken by my husband, Robert Butts, tell me what particular daily events we were engaged in during the time of the book’s production. One thing is certain: On session nights I went into trance and, as Seth, dictated these chapters. The triumphs and defeats of any given day have more or less vanished, but those nightly hours are somehow contained in these pages, and to that extent they endure.

I know very well that there were evenings when I “should” have held our regular Seth session, but didn’t, for reasons also forgotten. Perhaps I didn’t feel up to par, or sat at my desk, involved in my own writing. Perhaps an unbidden guest dropped by, or holidays intruded. Actually, I was quite concerned with the quick passage of time, and the pressure to prepare manuscripts for publication. During the period that Seth was dictating this book, Rob was typing the two volumes of Seth’s previous work, The “Unknown” Reality, and adding innumerable notes that correlated Seth’s material with that of his earlier books. I knew that on session nights, Rob “lost” his work time on that project, and he still had to type up the latest book session on the following day, while all I had to do was … what? Turn into Seth.

Rob typed Seth’s other books, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, The Nature of Personal Reality, and the two volumes of The “Unknown” Reality, added his own notes, and did almost all the work of preparing them for publication. He was still working on The “Unknown” Reality when Seth finished this present book. Then almost immediately Seth began another, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events.

I’d been producing my own books during this time, and getting them ready for publication, so surely Seth wasn’t taking up any creative slack of my own. Still, I stared at Psyche when Seth finished it, wishing that he could type, too! I thought back to all of those unremembered trance hours, looking at them from a different standpoint — and almost startled by a simple thought that just hadn’t occurred to me in quite that way before: Those trance hours were productive. They yielded results in the world of time. That trance consciousness, by whatever name, knew what it was doing. And I wondered: What must I look like to Rob as I leaned forward as Seth, smiling, (my glasses off, Seth’s eyes darker than mine), joking as Seth, gesturing, waiting while Rob got me (Jane), a beer? I’m sure there is a kind of trance memory, but my ordinary memory records very little of those trance hours.

Yet I can’t remember offhand what happened in my normal daily life during those past days, either. So “real” time and trance time have each vanished: And this week I’ll go into trance, and again Seth will dictate part of another book that Rob will be typing up for publication a year or so from now. Then, this today will also be part of the past. In our terms.

While Seth dictated this book, devoted to the potentials of the psyche and its reception of inner information, my own experiences — as usual — seemed to serve as object lessons backing up his thesis. Seth had barely begun Psyche, for instance, when I suddenly became the psychic recipient of a book on art philosophy and techniques. It purported to come from the “world view” of Paul Cézanne, the famous French artist who died at the start of this century.

Actually, while getting the book, I felt like a secretary taking mental dictation. But what dictation! For this manuscript not only presented a fascinating picture of a genius at work, but gave specialized knowledge of a field — art — in which I am at best an amateur. Seth himself did the Introduction, first dictating his own material on Psyche, then switching over to the Cézanne Introduction during the same sessions.

That book, The World View of Paul Cézanne, was published by Prentice-Hall in 1977. No sooner had I finished it, than another, similar experience happened, just as Seth was completing Psyche. The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James came the same way, like mental dictation; only where the Cézanne world view had specialized in art, the James world view was more comprehensive. It commented in depth upon our world since James’s death, and covered American history as it was related to spiritualism, psychology, and democracy.

According to Seth any of us can tune in to such “extra” information, but we would receive it in accordance with our own desires and intents. My own interest in art and Rob’s appreciation of Cézanne’s works helped trigger the Cézanne book, for example; and my own curiosity about William James and Rob’s appreciation of his work helped bring about the James manuscript.

As Seth makes clear, however, this book is not a dry treatise about “the psyche,” but is constructed in such a way that it will put each reader in more direct contact with his or her individual psyche. It includes many exercises to acquaint each person with that deeper portion of the self, and invites the reader to search into his or her ideas and experiences on many levels.

We were most eager to get this particular material to the public, since many correspondents write requesting Seth’s views on sexuality. This desire, coupled with Seth’s seemingly endless creativity, led us to a decision: From now on, the Seth books will carry far fewer notes. In the two volumes of The “Unknown” Reality, Rob tried to correlate Seth’s views on various subjects, tracing them backward to his earlier books (and often to unpublished material), showing the context in which the books were written. Now we will include usual session notes, but the reader will have to keep track of the development of the theories or correlate them with previous Seth books at his or her leisure.

At this writing, Seth is nearly halfway through The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, which will show where and how private beliefs become public events. I’ve finished for publication Emir’s Education in the Proper Use of Magical Powers (the entire first chapter came in a dream), and The Further Education of Oversoul Seven. All of this, Seth’s books and my own, surely gives evidence of the psyche’s vast creativity, and of its abilities to perceive and use information that comes from the inner, as well as from the exterior environment.

Books are my specialty. For others, this creativity may show itself in family relationships and emotional comprehensions, in the other arts, in the sciences, in sports, or simply in lifting the quality of living to a newer, richer level.