APPENDIX D
JANE’S CHALLENGES WITH HER SCOPE OF IDENTITY VS. THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY

As her psychic abilities began to rapidly grow, following her initiation of the Seth material late in 1963, Jane couldn’t help but become more and more concerned about consciously enlarging her “scope of identity.” It became obvious to us later, of course, that even her first doubts and questions about things psychic made it inevitable that she would confront such a basic issue. As was characteristic of us, also, we worked by ourselves for a long time as we attempted to learn more about what we were doing. But naive creatures that we were, when we did begin to reach out we were quite unprepared for the skepticism we would meet from the learned “establishment.” In large part, that rejection was to continue. Very understandable, then, that Jane, both for herself and for Seth, would write so eloquently about the disparity between her psychic abilities and “the currently scientifically-oriented blend of rationalism,” as Seth describes that quality earlier in this Session Six for The Magical Approach.

Ever since she began studying Jane’s work fourteen years ago, my companion, Laurel Lee Davies, has been very conscious of the conflict between the rationalistic dominance so common in our culture, and the potential for greater development that she sensed within herself. As she researched Jane’s published and unpublished notes, journals, and books for The Magical Approach, Laurel learned that my wife had originally intended to call this book The Magical Approach: A Jane/Seth Book, and wrote of it as being “a psychic-naturalistic journal.” If Jane had planned to add to Seth’s original sessions, what might she have included? We found several of her relevant essays, and have presented them in these appendices and in her Introduction. Laurel pointed out a number of forceful passages Jane wrote on cultural acceptance in The God of Jane in 1980 — the same year in which she dictated The Magical Approach for Seth. (Prentice-Hall published The God of Jane in 1981.)

For example, in Chapter 12 of her own book, Jane began an impassioned four-page discussion of the subject by quoting her own notes:

Inspired by Jane’s ideas, Laurel wrote on September 27, 1994:

Jane Roberts and Robert Butts have had letters from scientists of all kinds, many of them academics. In some ways the Seth material has been given credit by the establishment; being taught as university course work, for example. But often readers have been afraid to admit publicly that they have found truth in metaphysical sources. They have been trapped by the boundaries of what science has so far accepted into its family: an ethnocentrically perfect “set” of beliefs, with metaphysical mysteries denied, avoided, or written out.

It is an honor for me to have worked as a research and editorial assistant for this book. I have absolute faith that Seth and Jane Roberts, as well as Rob, know how I mean that with all my heart.