“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I’m tremendously pleased that Rick Stack, the proprietor of New Awareness Network Inc., is publishing the eight-to-ten-volume set of The Early Sessions. These books consist of the first 510 “sessions” that my wife, Jane Roberts, delivered for that well-known “energy personality essence”, Seth, after she began speaking in a trance or dissociated state in December 1963. They cover a six-year period between November 20,1963 and January 19,1970.

Having this set published for the record is something I’ve long wanted to see take place, and Rick’s dedicated interest and time make it possible. (I told him more than once along the way that he’d better think twice—and more!— before taking on the job of publishing eight-to-ten books.) Jane died on September 5,1984, at the age of 55. When she was close to death she asked me to publish all of her work. In my grief and shock I agreed, without understanding what a challenge that labor of love was to entail. I’m still working at it 12 years later!

These eight to ten volumes are meant to show Jane’s and my growth—in the most literal way—but always that of my wife, above all else. From the start we felt that if our “psychic” work had value it should be presented as is, within all of its human connotations; not only its great successes, but with its gropings and mistakes, its questions and learnings along the way. Not edited or prettied up, but as is. Real. I still feel that way. These 510 sessions, then, are exact copies from the verbatim transcripts I made in my homemade shorthand while Jane spoke for Seth; I added notes and comments while typing the material after each session. Over half a dozen years we filed the typed sessions in 44 three-ring binders. The sessions in one of the volumes published by Rick are accompanied by my drawings of the objects used in the series of “envelope tests” we conducted, both for ourselves and long-range with a well-known scientist, over some 11 months.

[...] In any case it is much more bracing and efficient to have the physical body active rather than inactive for, say, eight to ten hours.

[...] Six to eight hours of sleep in all would be sufficient with the nap patterns outlined. [...]

[...] But again, the efficiency of sleep is lessened and disadvantages set in after six to eight hours of physical inactivity.

[...] I want to make it plain, however, that anything over a six- to eight-hour continuous sleeping period works against you, and a ten-hour period for example can be quite disadvantageous. [...]

[...] A “trip” can last for five to eight hours, or even longer. [...]

[...] I get the numbers one eight eight eight, in connection with this.

(“I get the numbers one eight eight eight, in connection with this.” [...]

[...] Tuesday at eight. [...]

Three seven eight. [...]

[...] Oh—leave me eight bucks, will you? [...]

(I didn’t ask my wife who the eight dollars were for. [...]

[...] Now, pretend that you have eight channels on this fantastic machine. Now, the whole self is composed, to use this analogy, of the entire eight channels. [...] The whole self, however, is aware of the entire eight channels and is able to keep track of them. [...]

(“Eight.” Eight is one of the page numbers enclosed in the circle in the upper right hand corner of the object, but we don’t know if this is what Seth meant.

Eight. [...]

[...] We believe the framework mentioned by Seth is a reference to the wooden window frames, and that the thin lines like poles refers to the narrow wooden frames holding the glass panes; eight small panes make up each of the five windows.

[...] At break I asked if Seth would title the first eight chapters of his book, as he began doing from Chapter Nine on. [...]

(Pause.) Do not worry about the [first eight] chapter headings — we will get to them. [...]

(2. This note was added eight days later. [...]

[...] Last night when I helped her off it onto the bed, we discovered that she had soaked the cushion under her bottom for an area eight inches or so around—something she hadn’t done before. [...]

[...] (See the 532nd session in Chapter Eight of that book.) They are neatly divided, with little effort really made to relate the two. [...]

[...] Generally speaking, eight-hour sleep periods, or longer ones, are not beneficial, nor in larger terms are they natural for the race.

(Apropos of this question, in ESP class eight days later Seth had this to say about Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution:

(“Number twenty-eight: Have I painted any portraits of Speakers?”)

[...] That cannot be compared in any way with the amount of work done by someone in a normal eight-hour day. Someone could work at a poem for eight hours, and have nothing. [...]

Eight-fifteen, again by water, but this time in a more Spanish sort of environment. [...]

[...] Sixteen eight three. [...]

[...] With the Gentamicin every eight hours, this makes seven medications Jane gets every 24 hours. [...]

[...] He resumed dictation on Chapter Eight of his own book after a break at 10:10.

Her consistency of attitude was strongly reinforced for me when, as I put together the notes for this session, I came across two rough, untitled poems that she’d produced on March 19, 1977—four years and eight months ago. [...]

Jane, then, wrote those two poems 16 days before she dictated the last session for Seth’s The Nature of the Psyche on April 4, 1977; one month before she began dictating Mass Events on April 18, 1977; two years and two months before she began God of Jane on May 6, 1979; two years and six months before she began dictating the Preface for Dreams on September 25, 1979; two years and eight months before she came up with the idea for If We Live Again on November 15, 1979; three years and five months before she began dictating Seth’s material on the magical approach to reality in Dreams on August 6, 1980; four years before she began dictating Seth’s sinful-self material in that book on March 11, 1981; four years and three months before she began coming through with her own sinful-self information on June 17, 1981; and four years and five months before, on August 26, 1981, she wrote the poem in Note 6 for Session 936 of Dreams: “Something in me / ebbs and tides, / as if I let myself / for a while / be washed away / out to sea / while leaving / some spidery shell / upon the shore /….”

[...] Truly, they fit in with Seth’s reference to “bungling and bureaucracy” back in the session for December 3, eight days ago. [...]

(Note that I was able to ask eight questions. [...]

[...] These are either stone or concrete; Jane and I cannot be sure, not having been there for perhaps eight or nine years. [...]