“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

July 6, 2000. It’s with much feeling indeed that I try to write briefly about the 16 private or “deleted” Seth sessions, ranging from numbers 367 to 387, that aren’t included in this Volume 8 of The Early Sessions. This is the first group of full-length sessions to be omitted in all of the volumes of The Early Sessions so far. Jane held only five “regular” or public sessions while delivering this large group, and those five are presented in Volume 8.

As the personal material began to unfold we started calling it the “deleted” material because we kept it separate from the more general “regular” or public sessions. After all, in the conventional sense what was one to do with personal material from whatever source but keep it personal? As the years passed after 1963 we acquired two sets of Seth material, then, one public, one private. It wasn’t until after Jane’s death in 1984 that I took the “time” to understand that Jane’s Seth material—her great passionate body of work—really didn’t need to be categorized as public or private—that all of it was simply one multifaceted creative entity.

“Now,” I mentally said to my departed loved one in all sincerity, “if we had the chance to do it all over again, I’d suggest that we dispense with all divisions—that we regard the Seth material as a great whole, any part of which, public or private or in between, has the creative power to help not only us but many others. Let all of it be available to all.” I think that my wife would agree—after first disagreeing!

Anyhow, the deleted material from the very beginning is now due to be published. As soon as Rick Stack finishes publishing The Early Sessions (probably with Volume 9, it seems at this time), we plan to launch the Personal Sessions series. Actual title and number of volumes unknown at present. I’m proud to be involved in this work with Rick and his wife, Anne Marie O’Farrell, who is my literary agent. Their long-term commitment is all important.

For some years Jane and I devoted much work to learning the processes detailed in all of those early unpublished sessions, which were followed by her series of published books like The Seth Material, Seth Speaks, The Nature of Personal Reality, and so on. My wife’s later deleted material even contains a complete and unpublished book that she delivered just for me, about the artist Rembrandt van Rijn. Page by page, Jane presented her gift to me during the last year of her life, when she was hospitalized. I’m going to be most interested in the responses of others to Seth’s book about that highly creative and world-famous individual. I already know that it’s good!

How long would it take to publish all of those categories? I don’t know who would have the patience to read them, but I’d really like to see all of them out there, on the record. Part of the Collection, as I call it, is already available at the Yale University Library, but how many have the time to visit there? Of course, I can always indulge my secret desire and write my own book about Jane and me. All I’d need is the “time” to do that while overseeing the projects already listed. The book would include Jane’s simplistically beautiful and brilliantly colored art; also my own quite different art—especially those drawings and paintings of and from my dreams that began to blossom as Seth discussed his dream material. Some of his work is presented in The Early Sessions. In all modesty, I think that my art and its subject matter are unique; that for each one of us dreams are an original and unending source of inspiration and knowledge.

But also, in my own book I’d want to write about my second marriage. Laurel Lee Davies, a native of Iowa, wrote to me from California after Jane’s death in September 1984, She was 29, I was 65. After months of letters and telephone calls we met in Elmira, and kept on developing the intuitive and loving relationship we had already begun. With our strong beliefs in the Seth material our ages and temperamental differences don’t seem to matter all that much. Laurel has been a marvelous help to me for all of the years we’ve been together, just as I’ve tried to help her. I’ve often thought, and hesitantly told her, that I think she saved me after Jane’s passing. And I add that Laurel and I were married at our home on Pinnacle Road in Elmira at 9:30 PM on December 31, 1999 - just in time for the new millennium.

In the meantime, I thank each reader for caring. Now if only I can catch up, once again, on answering the fan mail! I’m most fortunate that people continue to write, for it shows that Jane’s work still lives. I welcome each letter and package, just as I know Jane does, and I save them all. Oh-oh: Now there’s another idea for a book—one built around the fan mail, with permissions, of course. Hmmm…