“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Seth also presented the entire work in such a way that the events of our daily lives were intimately connected with his material, serving as personal examples of how his theories actually work in everyday experience. He hadn’t been delivering “Unknown” Reality for long, then, before I realized that I’d have to devise a system of presentation that would handle his material, my own notes (which I could see were going to be considerably longer than they are in Seth’s other books, Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality), excerpts from Jane’s ESP classes, appendixes, and anything else that might be included.

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.

The first volume, like this one, defies easy description, then, since it leaps over many definitions we usually take for granted; and with its lack of chapter divisions it even confounds our ideas of what a book is. Yet it certainly contains a most intriguing, multidimensional view of the nature of probabilities, a view in which our ideas of a “simple, single event” must vanish; at least we can never again look at any event as being concrete, finished, or absolute. Seth stresses the importance of probabilities as they exist in relationship to a thought, an ordinary physical event, or the mass event of Homo sapiens as a species, and emphasizes the existence of probable realities as the understructure of free will.

Section 1: “You and the ‘Unknown’ Reality” — Nine sessions describing how probabilities merge with the events of our private lives.

Section 3: “The Private Probable Man, the Private Probable Woman, the Species in Probabilities, and Blueprints for Realities” — Nine sessions devoted to the importance of dreams in the creation of “concrete” events from probable ones. This section also includes discussions on the True Dream-Art Scientist, the True Mental Physicist, and the Complete Physician, as well as material on subatomic particles and the spin of electrons in relationship to perceived reality.

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.

“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.”

Later in these notes I plan to return to Seth’s point about the psyche’s events and time. In any case, I finished preparing Volume 1 for publication in January 1977, and it appeared in print later that year. We were delighted that the public could take advantage of part of the material while I made the second volume ready. The days and weeks I spent working on my notes for Volume 2 began to pile up into months, however, and I became more and more concerned.

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.)