“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This evening after supper, while busy with other material, Jane received the thought that it was time to begin work on Book One of The Seth Material, a project we had discussed sometime before vacation. She thought the title should be The Physical Universe as Idea Construction. She came to the studio to tell me this, and that she also received the thought, evidently from Seth, that Donald Wollheim, her editor at Ace Books, could or would write the introduction for Book One.

(Jane said she thought she might be able to have a session. I did not encourage her, not knowing whether it was a good idea. In a few moments she returned and asked me to bring my notebook to the living room when I finished cleaning up, which would take a few minutes.

The basic idea of the material should be stressed, however, and strongly, since it is from this that our other concepts emerge. The mechanisms by which psychic energy or consciousness forms matter should also be included, and naturally the concept that matter does not have duration.

When man realizes that he creates his own image now, he will not find it so startling to believe that he creates other images in other times. Only after such a basis will the idea of reincarnation achieve its natural validity, and only when it is understood that the subconscious, certain layers of it, is a link between the present personality and past ones, will the theory of reincarnation be accepted as fact.

I cannot clear your way. I can only help you. You will understand the reasons for this at a later time but it is necessary, I will not say unfortunately, that you work, and that you give much to this material and to these ideas.

This material will take its place in the conceptual and emotional life of Western civilization, and finally will make its way throughout the world. New ideas are not accepted easily. When they take fire however, they literally sweep through the universe.

I am not reprimanding either of you in any manner, nevertheless your failure to take the house represented a lack of what we may call faith, and your work with the material will require faith in the ideas here presented.

You can afford to be more freely committed. However faith in an idea is frowned upon in scientific circles, but no new concept or idea, or discovery, ever came unless there was first faith that it indeed existed.

Now. Faith and belief in an idea implies some commitment. Commitment is dependent upon expectation. He who does not have expectations along certain lines will not commit himself, and will not achieve; in the particular instance he will not give enough of himself, and he will not receive, except in proportion to what he gives.

I am concerned with your welfare. I am concerned with a book that will spread these ideas. While I have Ruburt in such an excellent state of passivity, I will add another point that he has blocked in the past.

I have not, apparently, made as much headway with you as I thought. Ruburt is indeed correct, and I am concerned for you both, in that by now you should be able to put this material to practical ends—that is, by now these basic ideas should make your practical existence improve.

He was, and is, afraid of commitment to his own work, much less mine. You can be of great assistance to him, to yourself and to me. His energy, Joseph, and his ability to project ideas into material construction, is truly astounding; and with your help we must tap it.