“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

(At one of our breaks Jane said that she had picked up the title of the James book from which she’d been “reading”: The Varieties of Religious States — with only States differing from Experience in the name of James’s book in our physical reality. She’d also felt Seth around, like a supervisor, perhaps. She added: “I felt as if the James stuff was coming from a person who was very intent about trying to say something.”

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.

He felt that the soul chooses states of emotion as you would choose, say, a state to live in. He felt that the chosen emotional state was then used as a framework through which to view experience. He began to see a conglomeration of what he loosely called religious states, each different and yet each serving to unify experience in the light of its particular “natural features.” These natural features would appear as the ordinary temperaments and inclinations of the soul.

(“I felt out of the James thing until you read it to me before the session,” she said, “then a lot of aspects about it came back. We won’t bother doing that book of his, I know, but I could get it — the whole thing. It’s right there in the library….” We talked about what an interesting product The Varieties of Religious States would be, and the many implications involved, without intending to do anything more about such a work.

(We also discussed the parallels — and differences — revolving around Jane’s perception of the James book this week and her development eight months ago of the outline and chapter headings for the possible book The Way Toward Health. Two months later, in May, she produced the summary for The Wonderworks, which would be a shorter dissertation on her own dreams, Seth, and the dream-formation of the universe as we know it. [See appendixes 7 and 11 in Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality.] Jane hasn’t taken the time to concentrate upon either of those projects, interesting as they are, although she would if one — or both — of them “caught fire” for her. Neither Jane nor Seth had delivered their respective world-view ideas when she came through with Health and Wonderworks, so another significant aspect of her abilities has since become conscious. Once more questions arise. For instance: Whose world view was Jane tuning in to for the health book? Her own? In turn, of course, all three potential endeavors — Religious States, Health, and Wonderworks — must have origins that are closely related to the source of information behind the “psychic library” Jane tells of visiting in Politics.