“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Yesterday we received from Prentice-Hall the Dutch edition of Seth Speaks [Seth Spreekt], published by Ankh-Hermes. We saw at once that the book had been rather drastically cut—not only my own notes, which contain excerpts from Seth material at times—but Seth’s material itself. This is particularly obvious in the appendix, where only a few pages are left of all of that material. No greetings or responses are included except in isolated instances, nor any good-evenings and closing notes. Times are also left out, and no words are underlined. I suspect also that throughout the book, without my having checked yet, portions of the sessions have been cut whenever they were dependent upon notes that were cut. Some of the sessions, then, are only a page and a half, or two, long.

(Day before yesterday we received from Tam a copy of his memo to J. Nelson, P. Grenquist, and A. Freemyer; he’s checked the Dutch contract for Seth Speaks, and learned that it contained a clause prohibiting cutting. I’m using the memo as a basis for the letter I intend to start writing Grenquist tomorrow. At the same time I’ll be checking what portions of Seth Speaks were cut, and listing them.

(We didn’t ask that Seth discuss the Prentice-Hall affair this evening, but....)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

The dream of course involved your conflicts over Seth Speaks in the Dutch edition, and your feeling on the one hand that you must speak out to Prentice, while at the same time resenting the loss of your peace of mind.

My own position cannot be as immediate as your own. I respect your emotional reactions whatever they are, and your right to them. (Loudly and amused:) Seth, it seems, speaks a bit more briefly in Dutch than he does in English —but the material is there, and if the Dutch have cut it, or your notes, it is, in the most basic of terms, now, their loss.

(But not from me, I told Jane the other night. I think that here Seth referred to Jane’s and my upset over the small amount of her royalty check this fall, and the way Prentice-Hall has taken to withholding certain percentages of profits against returns.)

(Is Seth saying here that Jane and I actually created, or wanted, the foul up with the Dutch edition? I should have asked, but Jane’s delivery was rather fast; nor did I particularly think of it, let alone not being in the mood.)

(“Thank you, Seth.”