“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

My wife, Jane Roberts, dictated The Magical Approach for Seth, the “energy personality essence” she spoke for in a trance state, in 1980—but the pressures of Jane’s illness, and of our producing other books, kept us from publishing it quickly. Then Jane died in 1984, at the age of 55. I was 65. Looking back from my position within the framework of simultaneous time, I’m amazed to see that another ten years passed before the publication of this little book by Amber-Allen/New World Library. Why the delay? What happened? Janet Mills, the publisher and editor for the new editions of Jane’s books, suggested that I write a bit about the situation. Many others have asked over the years, and I’m very grateful for every one of those caring questions.

Jane and I had corresponded with Laurel Lee Davies for several years. Five months after my wife’s death, I called Laurel, who was an administrative assistant at a center for the arts and humanities in Los Angeles, California, for the first time. As the many hours of our calls quickly accumulated, Laurel and I came to understand through dreams that we had shared reincarnational relationships. In August of that year — 1985 — she moved to Elmira to work with me in a number of ways. She helped me carry on the massive project of continuing the work that Debbie Harris had begun: copying many more of the thousands of pages of Jane’s and my work for the archives of the library at Yale. She answered mail, and put together a mailing list. She helped me proofread Seth, Dreams, and Projection of Consciousness for Stillpoint Publishing. Later, she helped me proofread the new editions of Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality that Amber-Allen/New World Library has published. She’s worked as a researcher of Jane’s material for The Magical Approach — the book she has “most dreamed of working on.” Laurel has been Seth’s “metaphysical apprentice,” as she recently put it, for fourteen years now. Even with our differences, our supportive and complicated relationship continues. Yet even so, as the years passed I began to better see that recovery from Jane’s death was going to take the rest of my life; and that within the framework of simultaneous time uncounted millions of others had experienced that truth, were doing so now, and would be doing so. Maybe some day I’ll write in detail about Jane’s and my lives — but not now!

Other than a few close friends — Sue Watkins among them — I saw few people. Sue is mentioned in The Magical Approach. So is Tam Mossman, Jane’s editor at Prentice-Hall. Tam was a great help in a number of ways. Beginning with the Spring 1985 issue, Tam published his very interesting quarterly, Metapsychology: The Journal of Discarnate Intelligence, for several years. He included Seth material in many issues. In the meantime I’d gone back to painting, which I’d given up for the last two years of Jane’s life. I painted portraits of her as I met her in my dreams. I did no writing except for the “grief notebooks” that I composed about Jane’s passing and my reactions to that event. Deliberate therapy, some of that.

Our beloved books began to go out of print, one by one, as sales slowly declined. I thought the letters from readers would also slack off. They did to some extent — but to my surprise and pleasure they continued to arrive at that slower but steady pace. I tried hard to answer each one of them. (I still do, although at this writing I’m far behind. I’ve let answering any but immediate business mail go while Laurel and I worked on the manuscript for The Magical Approach.)