“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I first heard from my unseen correspondent, Valerie Wood, not long after Jane had died thirteen months ago. I sent her one of the cards I’d had printed, giving a few details about Jane’s death and stating my determination to carry on with our work. Valerie responded with some poetry relative to Jane’s passing, and my reactions to her death, that I interpreted at once as being very evocative of Jane and me. At the time I didn’t know what to believe about the source of the material, even while I found it reinforcing my own contacts with Jane. Were Valerie’s messages from her own subconscious? From Jane’s world view? From Jane herself?

I don’t care for the term “channeling,” since I think it too all-inclusive and already trite. However, I liked both Jim’s ideas of my doing the Preface for Jane’s book, and of publishing a photo of her. And Laurel Lee Davies, the young lady who’s now helping me carry on my publishing activities, at once intuitively picked out from my files the one right photograph of Jane to us for Seth, Dreams … Jane’s father, Delmer Roberts, took the snapshot when she was on vacation with him in Baja, California in 1951. She was twenty-two years old. Jane and I didn’t meet until 1954. That little picture, then, was taken some twelve years before she began “coming through” with the Seth material. Yet, I find in it all of the ingredients that made up the Jane I knew — her great beauty, personality and creativity, her love of manipulating within her physical environment; I see her “steering herself” toward extraordinary accomplishments.

In more specific terms, I’m organizing this rather short exploration of Jane’s death around these items; a loose chronology surrounding her writing of Seth, Dreams … in 1966-67, and our unsuccessful attempts to sell the book; my acceptance of the survival of the personality after physical death; a waking experience involving my sensing Jane very soon after she had died; a metaphor I created for her death; a dream in which I not only contacted her but gave myself relevant information; another metaphor for Jane’s death; my speculations about communication among entities, whether they’re physical or nonphysical; a letter that could be from the discarnate Jane — one that was sent to me by its recipient, a caring correspondent whom I’ll call Valerie Wood; a note I wrote to Sue Watkins about the death of her mother; some quotations from a published letter of mine; Jane’s notes concerning the relationship we had; and, finally, the poem in which she refers to her nonphysical journeys to come.

My own imperfect recollection following Tam’s request that I look for it was that Seth, Dreams … was an unfinished collection of records, ideas, and chapters that Jane had struggled with for several years, without selling it. Instead, what I found in a box in the basement was, to my amazement, a completed manuscript — a full book ready to go, one as fresh as it had ever been, and my wife had struggled with it. What emerged as Laurel Davies and I searched Jane’s and my records, including early Seth sessions, was a long story of our doubts and gropings in an area in which we had no guidance except for our own explorations. Seth, Dreams … was rejected by three major publishers while Jane worked on it during 1966-67. She was still an unknown in the field; by mid-1966 she’d had only one small psychic book, How to Develop Your ESP Power, published. Our subject of interest itself was largely denied validity by the social, psychological, and scientific establishments. We were still operating alone, then, even though Jane had been speaking for Seth for about three years. In spite of all of her questions, however, her strong creative vitality — her intuitive insistence upon using her most unusual abilities — kept her focusing ahead, and I helped her as much as I could. I’m still astonished when I think of what Jane was to accomplish in the next few years.

(As we sat speaking with Mark, Jane finally told me that Seth wanted to have a session since we had missed last night’s regular one. [...] I also thought Jane would be too tired, after the exhausting time she’d had last night. [...]

(Rob’s notes: I had to ask Jane to repeat the last few words of the above paragraph. [...] Jane-Seth began to talk in a very loud and exceptionally vibrant voice, as if an extra charge of energy was suddenly made available. [...]

(This statement, Jane told me, made Seth angry. [...]

There is nothing like a witness to convince our darling Ruburt that I am I, and not her, [meaning Jane] or like a good evening of telepathy, as in the case of this evening.

[...] So Jane concentrates while I give her the messages, even though it is not the ego which is concentrating. [...] The cat is doing the same thing, in his way, that Jane is. [...]

[...] Jane and I were both surprised at the amount of material delivered in forty-five minutes; the time seemed to fly. During break, I mentioned to Jane that I would like to ask Seth to say something about flying saucers. [...]

[...] Although we took the first few answers through the board, from the beginning Jane received them mentally also. [...]

(Jane said later that this smart remark referred to her.)

[...] Almost at once, Jane began to hear Seth mentally. [...]

As to Jane’s feeling about the tree having a certain consciousness, of course this is the case. [...]

[...] Jane said that she had stage fright this evening. [...]

[...] Was that Seth, or Jane-playing-Seth? [...]

[...] Why not, say, automatic writing on Jane’s part?”

“Seth,” Rob said, “Jane had several confused dreams in which she seemed to be getting or giving instructions in life readings.”

There followed a very confusing and, to me, upsetting several hours during which Jane and Don tried to make arrangements with Miss C’s doctor, relatives and a hospital. [...] Miss C’s family (nieces and nephews) finally said they would take the patient to the emergency room at the hospital; her doctor told Jane he would be waiting for her there. [...] Jane finally contacted another doctor who arrived at midnight and authorized Miss C’s hospitalization.

As the regular hour for our session came and went, Jane began to get ‘nibbles’ from Seth. [...] I had not been helping Jane and felt guilty about it and was angry at Miss C’s relatives. [...]

Coming in and out of Miss Cunningham’s apartment, Jane would tell me the snatches of thought she received from Seth. I was in no condition to cooperate, so Jane wrote the words down. [...]

Later, after our company left, the sensation came back yet again as I stood in the kitchen talking to Jane. [...]

[...] I wrote the notes immediately after the session, then Jane and I went over them.

Consider, then, a network of wires somewhat like, though different from, Jane’s conception of “Idea Construction” — a maze of interlocking wires endlessly constructed, so that looking through them there would seem to be no beginning or end. [...]