“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Since the sections themselves are of unequal length, for a while I contemplated trying a four-and-two division; but as Jane commented, “Three sections in one book are enough of a bite for the reader.” We do think most people will find it more convenient to have “Unknown” Reality presented, with indexes, in two shorter works, whether or not they’re of equal length. Volume 2 will be published a year or so after the first printing of Volume 1. After that initial waiting period, the two can always be read together.

Once we’d decided to publish in two volumes, Jane, Tam, and I agreed that we didn’t want to move all of the supplementary data to the back of each book, as is often done in such cases. Not only would the reader be constantly involved in looking up specific items, but we felt that the shorter notes especially would be too far removed from their intimate positions within the sessions; we wanted these to enhance individual sessions directly without getting in the way, so I worked out a compromise which offers some sort of orderly presentation without being too rigid.

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.

In the notes I’ve tried to say exactly what I mean, no more and no less, and to watch out for unwitting implications. Things can get complicated, though, and at times while preparing these volumes I found myself wondering just how to make clear certain points of reference without leaving the reader confused by dates, session numbers, or other matter. Although I think my system of presentation has a kind of order, still it’ll take study at times, and I can only ask the reader to patiently go along. I don’t believe such instances are too many.

We want those references to help the reader place each one in a time sequence, regardless of when any particular book might have been first published. For the more time passes, the less important the date of publication becomes. When I note, for example, that Psychic Politics “is to be published this Fall (in 1976),” I know, of course, that by the time the first volume of Seth’s work is in print in the spring of 1977, Politics will actually have been on sale for several months. Yet, as I see it, that’s the most accurate way to present that bit of information in this Volume 1.

I think it important to periodically remind the reader of certain of Seth’s basic ideas throughout both volumes of “Unknown” Reality. As an example, I’ll continue with the subject of time — but Seth’s time now — and couple it with his notions of a durability that is at the same time spontaneous and simultaneous, as he’s explained to us more than once. The durability is achieved through constant expansion in terms of value fulfillment. Part of my paragraph of commentary following the 724th session, in Volume 2, fits in here: “As he [Seth] quite humorously commented in the 14th session for January 8, 1964, ‘… for you have no idea of the difficulties involved in explaining time to someone who must take time to understand the explanation.’ Yet Seth’s simultaneous time isn’t an absolute, for, as he also told us in that session: ‘While I am not affected by time on your plane, I am affected by something resembling time on my plane … To me time can be manipulated, used at leisure and examined. To me your time is a vehicle, one of several by which I can enter your awareness. It is therefore still a reality of some kind to me [my emphasis]. Otherwise I could not utilize it in any way whatsoever.’”

I feel extremely cheered by the idea that Jane, simply by using her chosen physical apparatus and nonphysical mind, is consistently demonstrating abilities human beings are not supposed to possess. We aren’t satisfied with the answers to our questions that our social orders, whether Eastern or Western, give us. So, we say, each reader can make his or her own sense out of what the Seth material has to offer on such questions as the meaning of life, its depths and mysteries, its infinite possibilities.