“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

INTRODUCTION

September 20, 2002. How strange, I found myself thinking as I prepared to write this introduction, that 37 years would pass before I’d start publishing this series of personal sessions and excerpts that had been dictated by my wife, Jane Roberts, for Seth, the “energy personality essence” she spoke for while in a trance state.

In reviewing them, I’m very pleased to discover that these sessions are as fresh, as creative and perceptive, as they ever were. Talk about the elasticity of “time,” as Seth often did! How much do we consciously know, or think we know, about that ultimately mysterious quality within which we construct our universe, our planet, the most minute portion of each one of us, mental or physical, during each moment of our lives? That ineluctable universe within which we swim so beautifully day and night, one that, according to Seth, we also create—and all at once, no less! As Seth told us in Session 20, on January 23, 1964: “Time and space, dear friends, are both camouflage patterns, therefore the fact that the inner senses can conquer time and space is not, after all, so surprising. To the mind with its subconscious, and to the inner senses, there is no time or space....” If only we could really grasp consciously those innate qualities that we value so highly, yet take for granted! I think that my writing this introduction, then, is basically timeless behavior.

Obviously, this introduction will be incomplete. It will also be rather unorthodox—more like a series of conscious and unconscious reminiscences and free associations, moving back and forth in time as I approach sets of ideas from various angles while seeking to learn more about my wife even now, 18 years after her death. Jane’s death may have been physical, yet she still lives, still offers insights, still makes me reach to understand and grow as I mourn her passing. She died at the age of 55. What more could she have accomplished in our camouflage reality had she chosen to live physically for, say, even another decade? Wonderfully penetrating things, I’m sure—and I believe that she is indeed doing so, “where she is now.”

I’m sure that Seth and Jane, whether or not they’re together, per se, have each been more than a little amused to watch me at my labors here—but also compassionate and sharing from “where they are now.” I’m pleased to believe that they have psychically joined me as I write this introduction, and that they know I have tried to be objective. I also feel that they will be with me as I enter into this account’s final episode, one involving Laurel’s and my most interesting meeting with a group of visitors.

Finally, then: I was working on this introduction late in October 2002 when Laurel and I were visited by five members of the Houston, Texas, Seth group: Winter Calvert, Theresa Smith, Jim and Debbie Serra, and Yvette Silva. I had corresponded with a few members of the group, and Jim and his wife had visited me some time ago. The five were accompanied by Richie Kendall; he’s an old friend from the days of Jane’s ESP class—one of the New York City boys, as Jane used to fondly refer to that group. Richie had also visited Laurel and me twice last summer with Mary Dillman from his new residence in Westport, Connecticut.

Early in this introduction I wrote that late in November 1963 Jane had had an out-of-body experience while writing her essay, The Physical Universe as Idea Construction—that she had looked in at herself from the porch roof outside our windows. That had been the porch she referred to. Long gone.

At the hill house Jane and I used to see such birds, but soaring and circling high above, perhaps with their superb vision searching for small birds and animals. We never saw one behave as Laurel described. A sign of a message from the universe, she said! I thought of trying to paint a portrait of a hawk or an eagle. I thought of its enormous beauty and energy, the creative energy that sustains us all, in whatever form we choose to create and to live by and with. Thank you, Laurel and Jane and 458 and 1730 and our guests, for reminding me of that as I bring this introduction to The Personal Sessions to an end—even while I feel its persistent challenge to grow into a book of its own. Maybe someday...?