“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It was no accident, Jane and I often said, that we were so quickly attracted to each other. Not only because of our simple love for one another and our mutual interests—but even then, I came to understand, because we could intuitively sense the fine creative adventure in consciousness that was to become the Seth material. (We didn’t give a thought, however, to anything like reincarnation, let alone to such connections involving us.) Even now, 18 years after Jane’s death in l984, I’m as committed to our work as ever. I have no reasons or motivations to present myself as being really cautious or asking my wife to be careful as she began to unleash the great flow of creativity that was to follow. I welcomed it after my first hesitance at accepting her themes in Idea Construction, and as it created its many-faceted path through our lives. On November 26, 1963, when Jane and I received those first incoherent “messages” on a borrowed Ouija board, our world views began to change, to enlarge. And more and more the Seth material became as deeply intertwined with my visual art as it did with Jane’s written art.

Then a strange little challenge began to develop. There were two cars lined up in the driveway. Without intending to, Laurel and Debbie became separated from the rest of us as they stood in back of the car nearest the road, while Winter, Jim, Theresa and I were clustered near the front of the other car as it was pointed toward the house. The four of us were so busy talking that we actually missed the little drama that followed: Laurel briefly mentioned it to me right after it took place—telling me that a very large bird, a hawk or an eagle, had flown from low over the house seemingly right toward her and Debbie before zooming back up to perch high in a tree in the backyard of the house across the road. Amid the other conversations going on I didn’t really appreciate what the two women had experienced until Laurel went into detail about it the next day. By then we were back in Sayre by ourselves as we sought to understand the meaning or message that was involved.

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...?