“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.

I know what happened, and yet consciously I’ll never grasp all of the psychic ramifications involved. The day after Jane died I went back to work, finishing the last two Seth books to meet long-overdue publishing deadlines. Jane’s and my dear friend, Debbie Harris, began making copies of all of the Seth sessions, plus the transcripts of Jane’s ESP classes, for the “collection” of Jane’s and my work in the archives of Yale University Library. But while I kept myself busy, and presented a smiling face to the world, I was numb inside. I cried for my wife several times a day for a year. Even though it’s simultaneous, according to Seth, I needed “time” for my long journey of recovery.

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!

I’m very fortunate that the help of all of those I’ve mentioned, and of others, too, is enabling me to keep the promise I made to Jane on her deathbed ten years ago, when she asked me to publish all of her work. I know that my wife lives within me now, as I do within her “where she is now” — just as we shared ourselves with each other throughout the nearly twenty-nine years of our marriage. That simultaneous time passed with unbelievable depth and swiftness.