“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane’s sessions have been very irregular also, and she hasn’t worked on Seth’s latest book for some months now. Therein lay one of those clues that was right in front of us, yet invisible at the same time. In each Seth book there have been layoffs, so to speak—long or longish periods in between certain sessions, while, usually, we held personal sessions in the interim; these were usually devoted to trying to get at the root causes of Jane’s symptoms. This pattern was most pronounced while Seth was producing Mass Events, but without checking at the moment we remember similar if shorter layoffs while the previous books were being produced. This has always bothered me to some extent, but I usually told myself that was Jane’s way of working, and to forget it. It did make for some tricky work writing notes for Mass Events, say, to explain these long periods in between certain sessions in the book.

(I didn’t fully grasp the significance of these interludes while working on Mass Events, not until I reread the other night Jane’s paper of December 27, 1980. She’d written that treatise at my request following some remarks she’d made. I’d read it, but it hadn’t penetrated sufficiently at the time. In it she tied her eye trouble and other symptoms with her fears about public reactions to her Seth work—her fears of its rejection, etc., and that she might—indeed, has—found herself outside the accepted realms of science, religion, etc., because of her psychic work.

(Like class, Jane has often been threatened by the mail, only more overtly, as well as by personal visitors who sought us out. Another example of this occurred at noon, when we were visited by two beautiful young ladies—who, unfortunately, were using the Seth material in ways we wouldn’t have. All such incidents, I told Jane, reinforce individual actions on the part of readers that would be quite rejected by the establishment: further signs of how far outside accepted thought Jane has found herself over the years. I explained here that I thought this has always bothered her deeply. No reviews in accepted journals, no welcome in the universities by academia, as she herself wrote in God of Jane. And of course the whole lengthy disclaimer bit for Mass Events beautifully sums up the situations: Even our own publisher seeks to protect itself from possible legal action because of the material within the Seth books. Jane sees this as a threat, although she doesn’t say much about it. And I for one wonder about disclaimers for future books—or even having them added to past works.

(Even today’s mail, which we read after finishing our discussion, contained several beautiful examples of points I’ve described above. This brought up another matter—our being confronted with the work we have published, as well as by Mass Events and God of Jane. No way to get away from those fifteen books of the past, I said, so to that extent we have to live with the results they engender. I too wondered about dispensing with answering the mail, while being very reluctant to do so, since many of the letters are openly laudatory, and we save them for reference [although we haven’t actually used any for such purposes]. But therein lies trouble, too, I said, because they would reflect Jane’s concern about public exposure, her fears about leading people astray.

(I also learned during the discussion that Jane didn’t like the Seth book material being tied too closely to current events, as witness Mass Events and Jonestown and Three Mile Island. She reminded me also that even the title of Mass Events, when Seth had given it, had alarmed her, or at least aroused some sort of defensive mechanism in her—something I’d forgotten. On the other hand, I’d taken it for granted that the way Seth had used current events in Mass Events had been quite natural and extremely informative, offering a much broader view of human affairs. This little dilemma also pointed up some of Jane’s other reactions to remarks I would make, innocently enough, I thought, to the effect that Seth could do a great book on any number of current events—the latest being the whole hostage question. She hadn’t really been in favor of such endeavors, then, even when she discussed them with me.

(Jane’s dream about Oswego reminded me of a little episode that I think of every so often, and that I’ve referred to in a note in one of the books, I think—probably Mass Events: When I’d asked her once years ago what she wanted to do more than anything else in life, she’d answered quickly, “Change the world.” Her conflict can be easily seen, then, manifesting between that idea and her deep-seated need for protection.

(That topic ties in with my idea that I mentioned to her this afternoon, about it hardly being a coincidence that many events in our lives are coming to a head at the same time: Our deep upset about Jane’s condition; the trouble with the disclaimer idea for Mass Events; Prentice-Hall’s reorganization into the General Publishing Division, in which all of their narrative books will be phased out, thus eliminating any real need for Tam and his job; indeed, Tam is looking at other job offers even now. [It’s been my position for some time now that Tam will end up leaving Prentice-Hall, or will be let go.] If and when he does go, we will be without our friend there, and will have to make decisions based on that departure. But we may be in the process of making such decisions even now, I suspect. I doubt if we would follow Tam helter-skelter to another publishing house if he left Prentice-Hall tomorrow—especially in light of our decision to hold off on Dreams. And the irony of the situation is that, even though we detest the idea of the disclaimer for Mass Events, we see it as another means of protection in the public arena....

(I remarked to Jane today that if I’d known what I think I know now, today, a month ago we could have withdrawn Mass Events from Prentice-Hall, using the disclaimer dispute as an excuse, and delayed its publication for as long as we wanted to. I added that although we’d talked about doing so—and had even mentioned doing so in our letter to the legal department last December—I’d also felt that she wouldn’t stand for such an action. Now, it seems that we will have to deal with the public as far as Mass Events goes. All of these kinds of reasons apply to God of Jane also, as far as I can tell, though probably to a lesser degree.