“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I started the first rough draft for these notes on April 16, 1975. Although they bear my name, before I was finished with them I’d had plenty of help from my wife, Jane Roberts, and from Seth, the nonphysical entity who speaks through her while she’s in trance. In fact, Jane and Seth are the ones who so beautifully bring these notes to their conclusion; and in that order — Jane with some excellent material about her relationship with Seth, and Seth himself with his new letter to correspondents. Yet Jane isn’t particularly turned on by dates, session numbers, information about footnotes, and some of the other material I’ll be discussing here.

Seth began dictating The “Unknown” Reality: A Seth Book, in the 679th session for February 4, 1974, and finished it with the 744th session for April 23, 1975. In the beginning we anticipated another intriguing Seth book, the successor to Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality. We thought the new work would probably be a long one, but we hardly expected that it would require publication in two volumes.

We’d intended to publish Volume 1 before Politics, but since Jane finished her book before I could complete the notes for the two Seth books (I found it necessary to do many of the notes for both volumes together), we decided to publish Politics first instead. Our move to the hill house also cost me considerable working time on the manuscripts. So it’s obvious, then, that Politics jumps ahead of “Unknown” Reality as far as a strictly correct publishing chronology is concerned.

Here’s Seth from the 750th session, held on June 25, 1975, two months after he finished Volume 2. In it he not only sums up his motives in producing “Unknown” Reality, but comments on another one of his basic ideas that I think it important to stress every so often; this time, perception is involved. “The ‘Unknown’ Reality was written to give … individuals glimpses into alternate patterns of reality. It was meant to serve as a map that would lead, not into another objectified universe per se, but into inner roads of consciousness. These inner roads or strands of consciousness bring elements into play so that it becomes possible to realize that the content of a given objectified universe may actually be perceived quite differently. You are part of what you perceive. When you alter the focus of your perception you automatically change the objectified world. It is not simply that you perceive it differently while it remains the same, regardless of your experience. The act of perception itself helps form the perceived event and is a part of it.”

“The trance state is characterized by a feeling of inexhaustible energy, emotional wholeness, and subjective freedom. At times Seth’s voice is very loud and powerful. Even in trance I’m aware of this, and I’m swept along in its energy. In the first years of my mediumship Seth’s voice and accent seemed very odd to me, whether I heard myself speaking for him during sessions or listened to tapes. But in the trance, what is known is known. Returning to my usual condition, the words that I’ve just spoken as Seth vanish in dreamlike fashion. Although I’ve read “Unknown” Reality since it was finished, and had looked portions of it over during the time of its production, it seems alien to me in the strangest fashion.

And, finally, what of our efforts to handle the steadily increasing volume of mail that’s resulted from the publication of Jane’s books? (Incidentally, we have on file most of the letters and cards we’ve received over the years.) Our latest attempt to cope here consists of three pieces we’ve prepared for correspondents: a short form letter from Jane and me; a longer one dictated by Seth in April, 1975, soon after he finished Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality; and a list of all editions of Jane’s books. (We prepared such a list in answer to many requests, and it’s being continually updated, of course.) Yet the form letters aren’t really a satisfactory answer for the correspondent who’d like a personal response from Jane and/or Seth; given our characteristics, they merely represent the best we can do within the time we have available. Jane handles most of the mail herself these days, and tries to add a few individual lines to each reply. With this system she acknowledges more letters than ever before, yet it’s ironic that there are still more to answer simply because of the greater number received.