“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(On Monday, November 4, I mailed to Jane’s publisher all of the art due for her Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology: the 16 diagrams I’d just finished, plus two older pieces of work. All are in “line,” or pen-and-ink. I thought it interesting that as I was completing work for Jane’s first book on aspect psychology, she was starting Psychic Politics, the second one in the series. But now I can return to my longer project — the 40 line drawings for Jane’s book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time. Adventures and Dialogues are to be published by Prentice-Hall in the spring and fall, respectively, of 1975. Other references to both books can be found in Note 1 for Session 714.

(It seems that a combination of factors led to those oddly disturbing yet challenging events in the 717th session. One is probably just the state of Jane’s recent exceptional psychic receptivity. Another is my own longtime interest in the American psychologist and philosopher, William James [1842–1910]; he wrote the classic The Varieties of Religious Experience.³ A third is a letter received last week from a Jungian psychologist who had been inspired by Seth’s material on the Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, Carl Jung [1875–1961], in Chapter 13 of Seth Speaks. And a fourth factor would be a most evocative experience Jane had Monday afternoon, in which she found herself experiencing consciousness as an ordinary housefly⁴: From that minute but enthralling viewpoint she knew “herself” crawling up a giant-sized blade of grass. She was exploring the “world view” of a fly. This adventure was certainly a preparation for developments in the 717th session.

Quite rightly, he did not interpret the event in conventional terms, and Joseph did not suppose that James himself was communicating in the way usually imagined (but see the opening notes for this session). Joseph did recognize the excellence of the material. James was not aware of the situation. For that matter, James himself is embarked upon other adventures. Ruburt picked up on James’s world view, however, as in your terms at least it “existed” perhaps 10 years ago.⁶ Then, in his mind, James playfully thought of a book that he would write were he “living,” called The Varieties of Religious States — an altered version of a book he wrote in life.

For example, Jane began Politics by describing how impatient she was, how “disconnected” she felt, because she hadn’t been inspired since finishing Adventures two months previously. Indeed, she was very upset over this, and quite serious in her feeling, as she later wrote in her new book, of being abandoned by her inner self. In Volume 2, now, the reader can note the many events Jane was actually involved in before she began Politics (on October 23), and see just how objective her perception of her activities was — or see, really, the demanding standards of creativity against which she constantly judges herself