“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause at 7:40.) In the meantime, Rob and I often thought that this very book would never be completed. [...] The book is finished. [...]

Value fulfillment is the largest issue here, both with Seth’s book and my own experience, and if I really understood what Seth was saying in this book, I would not have needed to undergo such an uncomfortable drama in my daily life.

[...] On the one hand there was the Seth material itself, and Seth’s performance in his books.

[...] I just want to make sure that my own experience keeps coming back to the book, ‘cause that’s what it’s for. [...]

[...] In the meantime she’s occupied with her own latest book, The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto, which she started last May under the Heroics title [see the opening notes for the 854th session]. She’s written the first drafts for many of the chapters of the book by now, and has planned most of the rest of them — although she may change any of her work at any time. [...] Jane’s editor, Tam Mossman, hasn’t seen any of her new book yet, although he’s well acquainted with it through a series of lengthy telephone exchanges. [...]

[...] My own long-range goal in working with the Seth books is one that I’ve found very difficult to achieve: I want to catch up on the backlog of work involved with the books so that I can devote most of my efforts to whatever the current Seth book is — while Seth is still producing it. [...]

(Since holding last Wednesday’s 872nd book session, Jane has given two more sessions. [...]

None of the unfortunate situations discussed in this book have any power over you, however, if you understand that events do not exist by themselves. [...]

(Naturally the book has been endorsed by all the right scientists and organizations and reviewers. [...] Actually, the beasts and birds and fishes pictured in the book all seemed to be regressive, rather than to show what true progress in evolution might be like. [...] There’s a section on that in the book, full of words like perhaps, maybe, must have, some, probably, could have, and so forth. [...]

[...] At first Jane and I wondered why Sue would give us such a book, knowing our views on evolution. [...]

[...] “Would you comment on the book we were looking at?”)

[...] The author is basically too unsure of himself to call the book either fiction or nonfiction—thus he saves himself from answering many intelligent questions by saying this is conjecture, even while he takes shelter under the name of science. [...]

(Pause.) Your mail presents you with glimpses of the people who read our books, from all walks of life, in all circumstances. You cannot follow their lives through from beginning to ending as you can in a book. You cannot write their “books” of life for them. [...] The true interchange comes as those people themselves read our books, of course, and where our ideas intersect with their lives. [...]

[...] The ideas in the books go out into the world, where they will be worked upon, worked with, in numberless fashions, in ways that you may never know. You do know where the book begins or ends, more or less, in your creative lives, however, and you have the satisfaction of that creative activity. [...]

[...] I did mention one good point, I thought: If she must be involved with ideas of responsibility, then let her think that she has already fulfilled her responsibility to help others, through the work/books she’s already done. [...]

Now: when you write a book, you see it through to completion. [...]

As you read this book, now and then look about you at the room in which you sit. [...] By the end of our book, however, I hope you will realize the eternal validity of your own consciousness, and the impermanence of those physical aspects of your environment, and of your universe, that now seem so secure. [...]

[...] Later in the book I will explain various methods that will allow you to change your environment beneficially and drastically.

[...] He made such requests often while dictating this book.)

[...] Before this book is done I hope to show you precisely how you create each minute of your experience so that you can begin to exert your true creative responsibility on a conscious level — or nearly so.

In the end, I combined portions of the dream book manuscript into a new book called The Seth Material, which was published by Prentice-Hall in September, 1970. That book was one project, then, that seemed to be two entirely different ones. [...] In a series of dreams, I also knew that the unused portions of the original dream manuscript would appear in another book — and they are — in this book you are now reading.

At the time, I had just begun two books — an initial draft outlining the ideas in the Seth Material and a manuscript on dreams that I thought of as my “dream book.” [...] They were definitely two books, each with its own identity, and covering different subjects.

In the meantime, my book, How To Develop Your ESP Power was released. In 1967, I finished the dream book manuscript, and did much more on the Seth Material. I wasn’t pleased with how I was handling that book, however, so I filed it away to look at later. [...]

[...] On April 12, as I did psy-time, I received a strong impression that Prentice would give me a contract if I revised the book rather drastically. On April 19, I received a letter from Assistant Editor Tam Mossman, stating that the house might be interested in a book on Seth, utilizing parts of the dream book manuscript. [...]

(4:56 p.m. Jane said that as soon as she gave the last sentence from Seth she thought the title of the book would be The Way Toward Health. [...] And I told her that her statement reminded me that the same thought had come to me a couple of times previously after I’d been pretty sure that Seth was giving book work.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK, AND
SOME IMPORTANT COMMENTS ABOUT
EXUBERANCE AND HEALTH

[...] Others of our books are being translated also.

[...] As you know, or have suspected, I am indeed adding book dictation — at our own pace, considering the circumstances. [...]

(“When will Jane’s book on idea construction be finished?”)

(“What do you think of the content of the book?”)

(“Why did Jane get this flash of intuition about the book just when she did?”)

[...] She began the book on idea construction with an obvious burst of intuition on Sept. [...]

[...] 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. [...] Other references to both books can be found in Note 1 for Session 714.

(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. [...] For instance: Whose world view was Jane tuning in to for the health book? [...]

(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. [...]

[...] 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.

There is a development involving our books in the offing, not yet apparent, that will even further help your financial condition. (Books have sold very well since November. [...]

[...] I was rather upset at the way my notes were running so long in some of the book sessions, and wanted Seth’s comment. [...]

(11:12.) Ruburt is learning about the unknown reality, and in his own way he is making such a journey as the one suggested in this book. [...]

[...] “The material doesn’t seem like a book, but when I started getting stuff in my sleep after the last two sessions, I did wonder …” I had to laugh: She hadn’t mentioned her own suspicions to me. At the same time I thought she might be putting up barriers to the idea of another Seth book so soon, since we still have editorial work to do for the last one, Personal Reality [see Note I for the 682nd session]. [...] “I love them, though — but another book? [...]

It is two things: A book of mine, and a source book for you. [...]

(“It sure doesn’t start out like a book to me,” Jane said. [...] “Are you ready to start a new book, Rob?”

(“If it’s a source book for me, it can be for others, too.” I added that I didn’t care how “tough” or difficult a book it might be — if such was needed to get Seth’s ideas across, then okay. [...]

[...] The dream book should be finished. The resentment was not connected with the book per se, and in fact hampered the book’s development.

[...] The ESP book brought this out; that is, did not cause the resentment—the resentment was there—but allowed the resentment release. [...] He did feel that Wollheim did, and had no resentment toward Wollheim, though he did not publish the book. [...]

[...] (F. Fell published the ESP book.)

He projected his resentment into the future, and against all other publishers for awhile, anticipating the same sort of response as he felt the ESP book had received. [...]

To do that, I have to drop those old feelings of responsibility as a primary focus (to get the ideas out quickly so they can help people, etc.) because those feelings strain the Seth-book framework particularly when I demand that in each book Seth answers all questions and so forth. [...]

I’ve rejected all that kind of hash projected onto Seth’s books by others or myself—the assumptions that Seth must prove himself as a problem solver— or the importance of functionalism over art. [...]

The larger view is that art by being itself, is bigger than life, while springing from it; that Seth and my books go beyond that simply by being themselves. [...]

[...] I’ve hampered my own psychic development and possible new books by such focuses which generate their own paranoiac-like fears. [...]

Last night, as I began typing Monday’s 915th session, I asked Jane why Seth hadn’t just called his “invisible particles” CU’s, or units of consciousness, as he’d done earlier in Dreams,² and as he’d always done in his other books. [...] In order to help Jane feel better, I speculated that he must have had his reasons for doing this, and that of course a certain amount of repetition is necessary in each book in a series: The restatements not only furnish a foundation for new material, but enable each book to be complete in itself. [...]

I estimate that it’ll take me five or six weeks to type the final manuscript of the book for our publisher. Then I’ll need another week to go over the manuscript, with colored pens marking instructions of each page as to what copy we want set in roman [upright] type, and in italics; while doing that I’ll also check spelling, punctuation, references, dates, times—all of those mundane details so necessary in helping our publisher produce a finished, good-looking book for the marketplace.¹

[...] All of Jane’s books, as well as my own notes for her Seth books, obviously contain repetitious material, and/or material based upon variations of certain basic concepts. [...]

[...] In the Preliminary Notes for the session I wrote that Seth had finished dictating Mass Events a month ago [in the 873rd session for August 15, to be exact], and that a week later I began finishing my own notes for the book. [...]

[...] The facts are, though, that Jane’s already impaired physical condition grew steadily worse while she was working on the book. [...] Since we’ve always wanted to make sure that our “psychic work” is given within the context of our daily living, I’ve undertaken to present in these essays intensely personal material relevant to the creation of Dreams. (The mechanics of Jane’s still-fascinating trance phenomenon have been described in some detail in the six previous Seth books she’s produced—with my help—and they’ll also be referred to, if briefly, in Dreams.)

[...] Even by going back over them, however, I couldn’t discuss everything I wanted to: The essays could have easily grown into a book of their own. [...] I did not look at Seth-Jane’s Dreams itself while writing the essays, in order to avoid having them overly influenced by work in the book. [...]

Seth, then, has finished his work on Dreams. I wrote the original version of the notes for each book session as he delivered it through Jane, and also began collecting other notes and reference material that might be used. [...] We expect to have the book ready for our editors, Tam Mossman and Lynne Lumsden, by the end of the year.

[...] Indeed, for several weeks following the initiation of the challenges I relate in the essays, supposedly creative activities like writing books and painting pictures often faded into insignificance by comparison. [...]

People may have some glimmerings of their own reincarnational existences, but they are patterned according to current beliefs—fleshed out by ideas from movies or history books. [...] They do not have access to the history books of the future in the same way. [...] The history books of the past, for that matter, are mainly fabrications.

[...] When he is beginning a book, however, he does not think “This is a probable book.” It becomes his book, period. [...]

[...] To avoid its getting lost or forgotten, I plan to insert a note calling attention to it in the next regular session we have, which would be a book session on mass reality. [...]

[...] When Ruburt is writing, and has a good page, he does not think “This is fine and good, but the next page will likely be lousy, and I will never have a book.”

[...] I added that we expected the Dutch translation of the same book to be published later this year, but that we didn’t know just when this would happen — so Jane and I were understandably surprised last Thursday to receive a letter from a reader in Holland, informing us that he’d just purchased a copy of the Dutch edition of Seth Speaks! Usually we’re notified well in advance of a book’s publication, but not this time — if the event has actually taken place. [...]

(For the last five weeks Jane has been intrigued by ideas about Seth’s next book, which, she said, would concern “the therapy of value fulfillment.” Seth has also used the phrase in connection with a next work.⁴ Now it appears that he’s settled upon a formal title for his book — one that Jane has received from him several times lately: Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment.)

(Even though Seth didn’t call last Monday’s 867th session book dictation, then, Jane and I presented it because his material on viruses, disease, health, and biological experimentation obviously complemented his themes for Mass Events. [...]

[...] Some early chapters in our latest book (Mass Events)¹ throw light on reasons other than biological ones, for such circumstances.

[...] Tam told her recently the book would be out in May. [...] But we’re still uneasy over the whole Mass Events affair —the disclaimer question, Jane’s reaction to the book itself since Seth started giving it, etc.—and any delay only serves to make us more suspicious, I’m afraid. I guess I never saw a book being looked forward to less than that one.

Some of your psychological growth is obvious through the books, of course—obvious to others if often not to yourselves. The books make a psychological impact difficult to describe—one of course that overall presents a kind of multidimensional portrait, highly difficult to assess. [...] You are planting seeds, and with the books you are planting seeds, only the results are not immediately before your eyes—a good point to remember. [...]

[...] She’d done some excellent notes for her third essay for her book of poetry today, though she hadn’t worked at it as much as in other recent days. [...]

The books themselves show that he is more than fulfilling his promise as a writer, both in scope and artistry. [...]

He should work on the dream book each day, whenever possible, but not all day. The spontaneous self dislikes the spelling chores and the bare typing, and the overly conscientious self fears the books success. [...] The book will be finished, but not too many demands will be made of either portion of the self on a daily basis.

Each book is an individual book. [...] The spiritualistic books however he will manage to misinterpret at this time. [...]

(“Do you think he should continue with the book he’s reading?”—a self-help book on auto-analysis.)

(“How about similar books in the future?”)

No one from any psychological threshold, however vast, can write a book that defines the psyche, but only present hints and clues, words and symbols. The words and ideas in this book all stand for other inner realities — that is, they are like piano keys striking other chords; chords that, hopefully, will be activated within the psyche of each reader.

(Jane’s writing on William James also developed into a book: The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher. So during Seth’s dictation of this present manuscript, she produced on her own the Cézanne and James books. [...]

[...] If the ideas in this book were thoroughly understood, then each individual would be able to assess his or her own reality realistically. [...]

[...] End of book. [...]