“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I read the last part of Wednesday’s session to Jane from my notes. “I’ve got the nostalgic, uneasy feeling that he’s going to wind up the book soon,” she said, “especially after listening to that material just before the Atlantis stuff: I didn’t feel that way when I had the session, but I do now. I’ve said it before, I know, but this book started when we were thinking of moving, and now we’re settled in a new place, so that makes a good time to end it.”

(Jane paused. She still habitually referred to “Unknown” Reality as a one-volume work — even as Seth himself did in the session this evening — despite the decision made 10 days ago to publish it in two volumes. “I feel sort of sorry,” she continued, “because here the sessions will stop again just after we got back into them. You’ll need time to finish the notes and do all that typing….”¹)

(10:23. As Seth, Jane paused during an intent delivery.)

(Still in trance, Jane took a sip of wine and lit a cigarette.)

(10:50. Jane was soon out of trance — but she had a very, very long face.

(For the moment, though, we ate cookies and indulged in small talk. I could see that Jane was not only sad that the long project was finished for her, but uneasy, too; she was suddenly set loose, released from a framework that had come to be very familiar over the last 14½ months. Not that her new freedom hadn’t been expected. But she’s so creative that as soon as she is through with one undertaking she’s ready to launch into another; and this applies even though she’s been working on Psychic Politics outside of the Seth framework. That’s her focus in life [and mine, too]: the full commitment to artistic production. I’d often heard her comment about being in a kind of limbo between works. Her abilities demand use and release.

(As Jane moved about, I wrote out my two questions for Seth — while thinking of a third:

(“2. In our terms of time: What were some of your other activities, in other realities, while you were giving ‘Unknown’ Reality through Jane for well over a year?

(“3. I suppose it’s quite evident why you finished ‘Unknown’ Reality right after we moved into our ‘new’ house, but will you reassure Jane by commenting on this, and on future works?”

(When Jane sat down again I read the questions to her. Our cat, Willy, jumped up into her lap. “I’m still appalled,” she said dejectedly. “Here my part in the thing is done, but you’ve got to live with it for a long time yet while you do the notes and typing. I wish there was some way each book could be turned into print instantly, so that we could go on to the next one … I can’t help it — every time Seth finishes a book I feel like crying.”

(“And why not? It’s a perfectly natural reaction,” I said. But an interesting point came out as we talked: Jane doesn’t experience that strong nostalgia when she finishes one of her “own” books.

(Which was Seth’s way of leading us into other than book material. For a little while he discussed Jane’s Politics, our relationship with others through the mail and by telephone, and a different kind of “inner listening” that we’d become involved in. Then he wound up the evening’s work with a remark that I took to be a reference to my third question:)

1. A note added four months later: Jane needn’t have worried. The sessions didn’t come to a halt after all. With the arrival of warmer weather we did take an occasional break from psychic work, but for the most part the sessions were held regularly even though Seth was through with “Unknown” Reality. Some of them were private, but Seth also covered a number of interesting topics of a more general nature — material we’d like to see published eventually. (His comments in the 750th session as to why “Unknown” Reality was written, are quoted in the Introductory Notes for Volume 1.)

We finally rested from the sessions for most of July, although Jane continued working on her Psychic Politics, among other projects. Then, in the 752nd session for July 28, 1975, Seth plunged into his next book: The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression. He’s well into it at this writing, and as Jane and I have planned things, the notes for it will be very short. It should be published a few months after this present volume is issued.