“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We both wondered right then if Jane was going off in too many directions at once. She’d always refused to try to “reach the dead” in this way before. Both of us were more than a little troubled — but as usual, we were intrigued even as we questioned our own reactions. We were also quite aware of the humorous aspects of the situation, since Jane does speak for at least one of the “dead”: Seth. And of course, as we sat for tonight’s session we wondered if Seth would discuss what had happened Monday night.

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.

(“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.