“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Before I speak about some of my students’ dreams, I want to give some further samples of my own, showing how precognition in dreams can give us pertinent information about events in which we have deep emotional interest. This particular book is a case in point: even before it existed in its present form, I was kept informed of publisher’s decisions toward it. In a long series of dreams, over a three-year period, I foresaw the answers to my letters and inquiries.

In the meantime, my book, How To Develop Your ESP Power was released. In 1967, I finished the dream book manuscript, and did much more on the Seth Material. I wasn’t pleased with how I was handling that book, however, so I filed it away to look at later. It wasn’t until February 1, 1968 that I sent the dream manuscript out to a publisher. On February 17, I dreamed that it was returned and that the person to whom I had addressed it no longer worked there. On February 23, the manuscript was returned. The letter was dated the day before my dream and written by a different editor than the one to whom I’d written.

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.

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.

On May 14, I dreamed that I was doing something wrong about the prospectus. The dream bothered me so much that I called Prentice and learned that I’d misinterpreted Tam’s letter. All I needed was a simple prospectus and outline. Except for the dream, I would have spent considerable time gathering data long before it was needed. I felt much better and mailed the whole package off on May 17.

Ten days passed without word. Then I had another dream that upset me considerably. In it, Rob had gone downstairs to get the mail. There was a letter from Prentice. Rob opened it, and began to read.

“For heaven’s sake,” I said, “Hurry. I think this is a dream, and you have to tell me what the letter says before I wake up.”

“No, I’m dreaming. Don’t tease! Give me the letter or read it,” I said, growing frantic.

“You mean its a real letter? It’s not a precognitive symbol? Even if I do wake up, I can still read 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.

Each day I watched the mail. There were no letters, no calls. On May 30, I had a brief dream in which I was talking on the phone to a woman about the projected book. I had no idea what that meant. I had always dealt with Tam — who is a man.

Then again, nothing. On June 23, I dreamed that the publisher of my first book called, giving me all kinds of information about sales. On June 29, Tam wrote me an encouraging letter asking me for the sales figures on my first book.

A friend, Jim Lord, realizes how helpful dreams can be, because one literally saved his life. Jim had only just begun dream recall experiments when he was sent to Vietnam. Just as I started working on this chapter, I received a letter from him:

According to the rest of Jim’s letter, if he’d been on the beach as usual that morning, only a miracle could have saved him from death. In this case, he had been given information of the greatest value — and he acted on it.