“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I was disappointed, naturally, but again I sent the dream manuscript out; this time to Prentice-Hall, on April 2, 1968. On April 12, as I did psy-time, I received a strong impression that Prentice would give me a contract if I revised the book rather drastically. On April 19, I received a letter from Assistant Editor Tam Mossman, stating that the house might be interested in a book on Seth, utilizing parts of the dream book manuscript. I wrote back to see exactly what they had in mind.

A few weeks went by, and I heard nothing. On April 29, I lay down, telling myself I would have a dream giving me some information, letting me know whether or not a contract would be signed. It was 8:00 A.M. and I set the alarm for 9:00. I fell asleep instantly.

There were several normal dreams. Then I saw a letter about my book from Prentice. It was on normal typing paper and requested, first, some further work on the book — either an outline of a projected book to include portions of the dream manuscript, but stressing Seth, or some sample chapters — before a contract would be signed. One sentence read, “Or better, send on some notes from the original Seth material, and maybe we can consider that as advance work for a contract.”

On May 5, I received a letter asking for a prospectus stating Seth’s views on various topics and strongly suggesting that this would be considered a basis for contract. From the letter I took it for granted that I’d have to go through the forty or so notebooks of Seth Material that we had then, and find sections dealing with various topics. This involved work that I really didn’t want to do, until the proposed book was begun. The next day, though, I started to work on it.

Again Rob assured me that I wasn’t dreaming, but now I was sure that I was and afraid that I was about to awaken. Rob handed me the letter. Hurriedly, I grabbed it. Later I forgot much of what I read, but I knew that a contract would not be given yet — there would be a lag. Some obstacle had arisen, but there was still hope. There was also something about my being fired from a job because I was notorious as a writer.

From this, I went into a long dream sequence that involved the death of a young Italian man who was somehow connected with our landlord and another about the death of someone close to a student, Lanna Crosby. When I awakened, and wrote the dreams down, I wasn’t too happy. I’d hoped that my prospectus would be followed quickly by a contract; and the other portions of the dreams weren’t too cheerful either.