“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Instead a development took place that left us puzzled, intrigued, and more than a little upset. Yet at this writing [immediately following the 718th session], I can note that we’ve been somewhat relieved by subsequent events. Now, in fact, I’m veering toward the idea that Monday night’s session marked a distinct step in the further development of Jane’s abilities. She may also use some of that new material in Politics.²

(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.

(The letter from the Jungian psychologist evidently provided the immediate impetus for the fly episode and for Monday evening’s events, though. The author requested additional material from Seth on Jung or his works. I hardly think it accidental now that such an inquiry came just when Jane’s abilities seemed about to ripen in the particular way they did that night.

(The events to come didn’t help matters any, either. No sooner had Jane finished with the lengthy James material than she promptly began to get impressions from “Carl Jung.” This time she was almost apologetic. We decided to go ahead, though Jane didn’t see a book or have any visual data. The words just came to her along with strong emotional feelings that she connected with Jung.

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

In my own notes, of course, I described those events dealt with by Jane and Seth from my own perspective, as I watched them happen. “In ‘Unknown’ Reality the reader should focus upon the material from Seth’s viewpoint,” Jane said. “Yet it might be fun now and then to look at the daily events in our lives first, as recorded in Rob’s notes — and see the dictation in the sessions as emerging from those humble sources. What I’ve said in Psychic Politics should certainly add a lot of insight there.”