“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I began thinking about and working upon this Introduction for Seth, Dreams … late in October 1985. As I reread the book I learned that Jane devotes considerable portions of several chapters to material involving our friend, Sue Watkins — her adventures with dreams, projections, and probable realities — and also refers to her in other chapters. Sue published her two-volume work, Conversations With Seth, in 1980-81; her father died two years later. I’ve already referred to Laurel Lee Davies, the young lady who now works with me (and is helping especially with proofreading and answering mail). Ever since she arrived from the West Coast in August, Laurel had wanted to meet Sue, who lives in upstate New York. The three of us finally did meet — a few days after Sue’s mother had died on October 19. Two nights earlier, Sue had had a very strong precognitive dream concerning her mother’s death; she plans to discuss that event in the book she’s writing. Laurel made a card for Sue when we heard about the demise of her mother, and left room inside it for me to write a note. Here’s what I spontaneously produced.

After Jane’s death I became extremely busy. I had to cope with my grief, and one way I chose was to immediately begin keeping elaborate records in and writing essays for a series of “grief notebooks.” I told no one about the notebooks, or the three drawings I had made of Jane as she lay in her bed right after her death. I was obligated to spend many months finishing a Seth book — Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment — that we had started way back in September 1979, long before she went into the hospital; as I had planned to, I resumed work on that project the day after she died. (Jane was cremated the next day, in a process we had agreed upon several years ago.) I also worked upon two other books we collaborated upon after she had been hospitalized. There were many legal matters to attend to, much mail to answer, and more to keep up with.

As soon as I took Jim Young up on his word that I could make whatever statement I want to about Jane’s work, I knew that this Preface would contain relatively little about Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness itself, and I wrote to Jim about this. The book stands perfectly well on its own. These notes, then, will contain material not only about Jane, but my own involvement with her, her work, and her death. I trust that even though physically she’s no longer with me, my wife agrees with my choices, for she helped me learn that the one truly unique thing I have to offer the world is my own creation of it.

‘I went back to work on a long-overdue Seth book the next day, but don’t let my determination to carry on Jane’s work fool you. A cave has opened up inside me, and I can only trust that the wound would heal itself. I still cry for my wife several times a day, fifty-seven days after her death. From watching Jane for 504 consecutive days in the hospital, I learned that human beings have tremendous, often unsuspected reserves of strength and power, yet I still don’t understand how I can feel such pain and live.’

[...] None of us suspected that Seth would give Mark detailed information about the inner organization for which he worked, or help him understand personal problems, or delight in telling him what had gone on at sales conferences that Mark had already attended — or with a great rush of humor tell him the exact amount of a new raise he had just been given. [...]

[...] As I worked at the gallery or at my book or did my house chores, the last session kept coming to mind. [...]

Ruburt’s “Idea Construction” let me know that we could work together. [...]

[...] I always worked at my table in front of the windows. [...]

[...] She grew up with an aunt and older brother, married at eighteen and worked in a dress or textile plant in Decatur, South Dakota. [...]

[...] While her husband worked in the factory, he also owned a farm outside of Decatur, and after marriage the couple moved there. [...]

[...] She told us that she worked in the factory for only a few months. [...]

[...] As you’ll see, we were shortly to put his methods to work. [...]

[...] Seth didn’t really announce himself until we had worked with the Ouija board four times. [...]

“This thing will never work,” I said.
“We must be out of our minds,”
But we weren’t, at least not yet.
The cat smiled but didn’t say anything.

[...] I didn’t take this very seriously at first, but he also said that he knew an elderly woman who worked with me at the local art gallery where I had a part-time job. [...]

[...] After supper, I did the dishes and worked on my poetry for an hour, and then Rob got out the board. [...]

[...] She told Rob that our work with Seth was a lifetime project, that we would publish his manuscripts, and help spread his ideas. [...]

[...] They have not excelled, neither have they ‘failed.’ They are working out problems of their own. [...]

[...] The freely working subconscious — or the inner you — is completely capable of taking care of all practical considerations and will use the ego as a tool to do so.

[...] Its transference is automatic and instantaneous on Ruburt’s part, and is performed through the inner workings of the mind, the inner senses and the brain.

[...] Working inward, you could understand the outward more clearly.

[...] The friends present had no idea we were involved in any psychic work, and the subject never came up in our conversation. [...]

While writing out this statement, I’m reminded that I experienced a milder version of the same sensation last month, while I was working at my part-time job in the art department of a local greeting card company. [...]

The next night, Rob and I purchased a tape recorder, hoping that we might be able to lighten his work load. [...]

[...] It was much easier and quicker to work from his own handwritten notes.

[...] That afternoon it was difficult to keep my mind on my work. [...]

[...] But these dream images work for the entity as a whole and serve as a means for the various personalities to communicate; that is, in many cases, the previous personalities communicate with the present one. [...]