“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The firm decision to do this was made when we were visited by Jane’s editor at Prentice-Hall, Tam Mossman, and a business colleague who accompanied him. By then it was obvious that in a couple of weeks Seth would be through with “Unknown” Reality, as we’d taken to calling it. For some time all of us present had been aware that as a single volume this new work would be more massive than we wanted it to be. Jane and I were really pleased, then, to get the official word. Not only would the expanded format be something out of the ordinary in itself, but it meant that with two volumes I’d have the room I needed for notes and references; excerpts from Jane’s ESP class sessions, as well as from “regular” sessions dated before and after the production time of “Unknown” Reality; a little of Jane’s poetry; and appendixes — all of which I thought would add extra dimensions of consciousness to the books. (And, of course, I couldn’t begin these notes until such a decision had been made.)

As in Seth Speaks and Personal Reality, the usual notes are presented at break times, but I’ve indicated the points of origin of what would ordinarily be footnotes by using consecutive (superscription) numbers within the text of each session; then I’ve grouped the actual notes at the end of the session for quick reference. For consistency’s sake, these notes are printed in the same smaller type throughout both volumes. Footnotes will be found “in place” only when they refer to a specific appendix in the same book. So for the most part, these approaches keep the body of each session free of interruptions between breaks.

The appendix idea worked well in both The Seth Material and Seth Speaks. Here in “Unknown” Reality the individual excerpt or session in an appendix, with whatever notes it may have, is usually pretty complete in itself. These pieces can be read at any time, but I prefer that the reader go over each one when it’s first mentioned in a footnote, just as he or she ought to check out all other reference material in order throughout both volumes.

Without carrying the idea too far, I designed the notes and appendixes so that to some extent they reinforce each other, as the sessions themselves do. In Volume 1, I refer to certain sessions — the 681st, for instance — every so often because in them Seth comes through with key concepts that should be stressed.

And Jane’s intent and mine, too. Jane’s books are records of her use of certain abilities that we think are very creative; the questions she raises present us with larger fields to investigate. Ordinarily we don’t think of those questions — and challenges — as being mystical in origin, not from our Western social viewpoint. Seth discusses Jane’s early religious background, her “deeply mystical nature,” in the first session of this volume (the 679th), and I add some material on mysticism in an appendix to that session. That information is related to these introductory notes, yet it should be separate.

I’m more inclined to agree with what Seth told us in the 590th session in Chapter 22 of Seth Speaks: “You are not fated to dissolve into All That Is. The aspects of your personality as you presently understand them will be retained. All That Is is the creator of individuality, not the means of its destruction.” And whenever I read about conventional Eastern conceptions of a supreme spirit, I remember what Seth had to say in the 596th session in the Appendix of Seth Speaks: “I have used the term ‘expansion of consciousness’ here rather than the more frequently used ‘cosmic consciousness’ because the latter implies an experience of proportions not available to mankind at this time. Intense expansions of consciousness by contrast to your normal state may appear to be cosmic in nature, but they barely hint at those possibilities of consciousness that are available to you now, much less begin to approach a true cosmic awareness.”