“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.

I also felt that the chronology of presentation for both Seth’s and Jane’s books was being distorted: Because I was so slow in finishing my work on Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, Jane published her Psychic Politics first, for example, when the reverse order should have prevailed. After all, I told myself innumerable times, these were Seth’s and Jane’s books, not mine. I wasn’t hesitant about recognizing my own role in helping Jane’s psychic abilities show themselves in a consistent way (as, say, in intuitively devising the session format for the presentation of the Seth material). But that recognition didn’t make me feel any better.

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.)

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.