“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Where do the events of our lives begin or end? Where do we fit into them, individually and as members of the species? These questions, with Seth’s explanations, are the heart of Volume 1. Because “Unknown” Reality is organized along intuitive rather than consecutive lines, though, it’s difficult to provide a brief résumé. Jane probably described Volume 1 as simply as possible, however, when she said: “Volume 1 provides the general background and information upon which the exercises and methods in Volume 2 depend.” I quoted that statement in Volume 1’s Epilogue, and now, after finishing my own work on the entire manuscript, I realize how truly apropos it is.

To me, some of the most important material in Volume 1 is Jane’s information on her sensing of other neurological pulses as they’re connected with probable events, and how she picked up those pulses by bypassing her direct, or ordinary neurological impact. See her work in appendixes 4 and 5. Seth also discussed such neurological changeovers in Session 685, among others. I think this kind of material offers a rich source for future scientific investigation.

This present book, Volume 2, goes on from there as Seth creates an intriguing thematic framework, and then invites us to “play along,” to join in and to discover the unknown reality for ourselves through a series of exercises geared to illuminate the inner structures upon which our exterior ones depend.

“In Seth Speaks I tried to describe certain extensions of your own reality in terms that my readers could understand. In The Nature of Personal Reality, I tried to extend the boundaries of individual existence as it is usually experienced … to give the reader hints that would increase practical, spiritual and physical enjoyment and fulfillment in daily life. Those books were dictated by me in a more or less straight narrative style. In ‘Unknown’ Reality I went further, showing how the experiences of the psyche splash outward into the daylight, so to speak. I hope that [in those two books] through my dictation and through Ruburt’s and Joseph’s experiences, the reader can see the greater dimensions that touch ordinary living, and sense the psyche’s greater magic. ‘Unknown’ Reality required much more work on Joseph’s part, and that additional effort in itself was a demonstration that the psyche’s events are very difficult to pin down in time. Seemingly its action goes out in all directions…. As Joseph did his notes, it became apparent that some events … seemed to have no beginning or end.”

Jane insisted that the notes were important, as a constant reminder to the reader that psychic or inner events happen in the context of daily life. Sometimes I thought she was simply being kind in so reassuring me. Seth too agreed that the notes, appendixes, and other additions were pertinent. He also stressed that our plan to divide the work was intuitively correct, and based on legitimate inner knowledge. This cheered me considerably, of course. (However, the decision to publish in two volumes, made when “Unknown” Reality was almost finished, caused me to rewrite most of my original notes for it with that new presentation in mind.)

“The model for them and your notes already exists within your mind. Scan any paragraph of your notes, then turn your mind gently a half notch aside. As you do so you will be able to sense your own completed version, and any word that does not fit will be instantly sensed, while another will at once slip to mind.

I used that information of Seth’s many times while working with “Unknown” Reality. Even so, I learned that on such a long-term project it’s easy to lose that acute sense of what one really wants to do and show — but I also learned how to constantly renew my focus. This presented me with what seemed like an endless series of challenges, yet I discovered again and again that I enjoyed them: Each time I sat down to work, whether on the most routine short note or the most complicated appendix, I searched for that particular, personal sense of intense concentration on the matter at hand. And each time I achieved it I experienced once more that complete inner and outer, mental and physical, involvement in which time was often significantly negated. These were actual, felt episodes during which I rose above those frustrations mentioned earlier. (I’ve often wondered how much one’s ordinary bodily aging processes are either slowed or superseded during such periods of great focus.)

In my notes introducing Volume 1, I wrote about placing the basic “artistic ideas” embodied in the Seth material at our conscious, aesthetic, and practical service in daily life. That’s really what Seth’s work is all about, in my opinion. Such an endeavor essentially involves the pursuit of an ideal, and represents our attempts to give physical and mental shape to the great inner, creative commotion of the universe that each person intuitively feels. Of course Jane and I want Seth’s ideas and our own to touch responsive reflexes within others; then each individual can use the material in his or her own expression of that useful ideal, letting it serve to stimulate inner perceptions.

In Jane’s case, at least, the role of the “medium” (or of the investigator or initiator) is extremely challenging. It’s also arduous: In our Western societies it’s much more comforting to grapple with chemistry, say, or farming or salesmanship, or with any of numerous other “practical” jobs or disciplines, than it is to confront the inner senses.

But some others, according to Seth, are uneasy with Jane’s mental independence. In a personal session given for us in 1977, he said: “Some [people] do not want my authority questioned. (Humorously:) They think that if they had their own Supersoul, they would have far better sense than Ruburt; and they would use me as if I were a magic genie. They are afraid that Ruburt might question me out of existence….” He went on to say that such individuals didn’t understand that Jane’s questioning nature fired the sessions’ onset to begin with, and is somewhat responsible for the production of his work and books, as well as her own.

To be truly reckless in the sense of Seth’s definition — how daring! I’d say that attaining such a state represents quite an achievement. For most of us, including myself, it means shedding many encrusted and limiting personal beliefs. I do get glimpses of that condition of inner and outer freedom; just enough to understand some of the many practical benefits that can flow from it. I can’t think of a better goal.