“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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

I now read to her the last two pages of material Seth had given us last night. [...]

Certainly our lives and the lives of others have been strongly influenced by the Seth material, changed for the better. [...]

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.

[...] (See the material she wrote for the 594th session, in the Appendix of Seth Speaks. She also appears in Chapter 5 of Jane’s Adventures.) In the opening notes for this session I mentioned a multiple dream experience of Sue’s, and promised to present something here from her description of it. Rather than material on the dreams themselves, I chose the first paragraphs in which Sue outlines the subjective framework of the whole dream event:

I wrote in the Introductory Notes that I thought Jane’s speed in producing the Seth material was “a close physical approach to, or translation of, Seth’s idea that basically all exists at once — that really there is no time …” I’ll add here that the phenomenon of double dreaming can be another way of approximating the idea of simultaneous time (or lives), about which we as physical creatures always have so many questions.

5. Seth’s first use of “species of consciousness” came after 11:38 in the last session. And added later: He comes up with another evocative phrase, “civilizations of the psyche,” in the 715th session in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality. Much of that session can be taken as an extension of his material here on the qualities of consciousness that have existed on the earth. In the 715th session, Seth also lets fall some rather humorous comments on Jane’s own mixed reactions when she first encountered such hints of the “multidimensionality of your beings.”

(On Wednesday, March 27, we received from Jane’s publisher the page proofs for Seth’s second book, The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book.¹ No session was held that night. [...] Ordinarily Seth would have used those sessions to deliver work on “Unknown” Reality. We disliked interrupting our creative rhythms in that fashion, although in the meantime Jane kept ESP class going as usual, coming through as Seth and as Sumari within that context. And we told ourselves that Seth was perfectly capable of resuming work on “Unknown” Reality whenever we were ready to do so, whether the time lapse involved one week or six months.

Jane began dictating Seth Speaks in January 1970. In March, Tam signed her to a contract for Seth, Dreams … on behalf of Prentice-Hall. The Seth Material was published. [...] She kept changing and adding to the portions of Seth, Dreams … that she hadn’t used in The Seth Material, while at the same time her new work kept crowding it out. Finally, in 1971 Tam converted her contract for Seth, Dreams … into one for Seth Speaks. Jane didn’t keep on trying to sell Seth, Dreams … Neither did I, and somehow that perfectly good book ended up packed away. [...] When at his request I rediscovered Seth, Dreams … three months ago, and examined it, I couldn’t believe that that finished manuscript had never been published. [...]

How Seth, Dreams … eventually came to be issued by Stillpoint Publishing, how it can even be thought of as a “lost manuscript,” makes a most interesting account that I’ll just outline here. First, though, I remind the reader that Jane spoke in a trance or dissociated state for a discarnate personality who calls himself Seth; by his own definition he’s an “energy personality essence,” no longer focused within physical reality. [...] That manuscript is Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness. As soon as he’d reviewed it back then, Tam had asked Jane to do a book on Seth himself. [...] The Seth Material, for which Jane signed a contract in December 1968. The book came out in 1970; and in it she had used certain portions of Seth, Dreams …

(But first this note, In Appendix 19 for Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, I offer material from Jane and from Seth about that atonal, very distant-sounding Seth Two. I quote myself as writing that “Seth Two exists in relation to Seth in somewhat the same manner that Seth does to Jane, although that analogy shouldn’t be carried very far.”)

[...] And Laurel Lee Davies, the young lady who’s now helping me carry on my publishing activities, at once intuitively picked out from my files the one right photograph of Jane to us for Seth, Dreams … Jane’s father, Delmer Roberts, took the snapshot when she was on vacation with him in Baja, California in 1951. [...] That little picture, then, was taken some twelve years before she began “coming through” with the Seth material. [...]

[...] Yet I could see that I confused Jane, for to make such a venture possible we’d have to change certain beliefs and values that are deeply rooted within us; especially those about personal privacy and our reluctance to “go public” with such topical, immediate material, instead of trusting that the Seth material will exert a meaningful influence in society over the long run. [...] But I think the main portion of my enthusiasm stemmed from the frustration I often feel because much of Seth’s material will go unpublished at this time. [...] We’re sorry to think that such material will be shelved indefinitely, but there’s no room for most of it in Mass Events, and there probably won’t be in future books either. [...]

[...] Somehow, after supper, we got on the subject of Seth doing a “quick book” about Jonestown and Three Mile Island, something that could be offered to the public very soon, instead of material that would show up in a regular Seth book a couple of years from now. We already had the perfect title for the book, one we’d jokingly originated following last Monday night’s session: Seth on Jonestown and Three Mile Island: Religious and Scientific Cults.

[...] I’ll describe the latest of the many courses of action we’ve found ourselves considering over the years as we work with the Seth material, while trying to keep a balance between the realities we’ve created for ourselves and the possibilities we constantly encounter in the “outside” world.

[...] But Jane had written some chapter headings, which were very good, and half a page of commentary for Seth’s hypothetical book. [...] Jane believed me, finally, and in the course of the conversation I learned that she’s also been worrying about which of Seth’s recent sessions should be presented in Mass Events. She agreed with the decisions I’d made in that area, but she also wanted Seth “to get back to the book per se, and call his sessions dictation.

[...] Already those at Ankh-Hermes have been asked to withdraw from sale their shortened version of Seth Spreekt, and to publish a full-length one instead—a very expensive proposition indeed. [...] We’re caught between the economic realities of the situation as far as Ankh-Hermes is concerned, and our own intense desires that translations of the Seth books match the original versions as closely as possible. We fully agree with Seth that changes and distortions are inevitable as the Seth material is moved from English into other languages; we just want those alterations kept to a minimum. [...] And all concerned must wait at least another year before a full-length version of Seth Speaks will be published in the Dutch language.

[...] Considering the eagerness with which we’ve looked forward to having the Seth material published in other languages, and the long waiting periods involved, this situation is frustrating indeed. Many of my notes, some of which contain excerpts of Seth material, have been eliminated. [...] The Appendix in Seth Spreekt is only 11 pages long, chopped down from 67 pages.

During this session hiatus I’ve been spending much time upon a series of letters to the publishers of Seth Speaks in Switzerland and in the Netherlands, as well as to those in charge at Prentice-Hall.¹ Last Saturday night we had a very interesting meeting with a psychologist from New York City. Our visitor taped Seth’s copious material, and is to send us a transcript of it.

Obviously, Seth didn’t follow through on the statement he’d made near the end of the last book session, which we held much earlier this month: “Remind me, for our next session, to wind in a discussion of those subjective entities as they learned how to translate themselves into physical individuals.” However, I didn’t ask him for the material tonight, either. [...] The information in question will be most interesting when Seth does come through with it.)

(Sometime after 9 PM Jane and I sat to see if Seth would come through. I told Jane she needn’t have a session, but she was willing enough if Seth decided to. She has been working long hours on her book for Prentice-Hall, The Seth Material, and has but a couple of chapters to rewrite. [...]

(Jane has had two recent, excellent and long sessions for her ESP class however, featuring both Seth and Seth II, and including new material.)

[...] She said she could feel Seth pushing at her to get her to let the material through as clearly as possible, “without distorting it out of all recognition.”

(After we had talked a bit I deduced that Seth/Jane had been trying for the word Stonehenge—meaning the ancient Druidic stone monoliths, arranged in a circle in England, etc. Jane then said this was the word Seth had been trying to get her to say. [...]

Then on October 23 Jane’s creative contentions led to her “attend” material—in which she picked up from Seth that her only responsibility in life is to herself: “Attend to what is directly before you.” Seth told her that she bore no onus to save the world. In relief, Jane wrote a short poem to accompany Seth’s message, then wrote further that she “realized that like many I’d become afraid of faith itself.” I’ve presented this cluster of material in the frontmatter for Volume 1 of Dreams. [...]

(Three months ago, way back on August 13, following the outline she’d written on July 8 for The Magical Approach to Reality: A Seth Book,¹ Jane began work on the first draft for Chapter 1 of that project. [...] Seth reassured her in both sessions. In the first of the two he remarked that “Ruburt is still dealing with spin-off material following or resulting from his sinful-self data….” [...]

“Ruburt is still dealing with spinoff material following or resulting from his sinful-self data,” Seth said, “and this material generally follows the lines of development that are fairly obvious in the poems and notes [he has written] since that time.

Jane smiled after Seth had left us. [...] She knew what material Seth wanted her to type. [...]

[...] Our experiments in what Seth calls “Psychological Time” helped us develop our own psychic abilities. The quality and scope of the Seth Material constantly grew, and we were to make some contacts with others in the field of parapsychology. We were shortly to discover that Seth was indeed clairvoyant, and that my own training as a medium had only begun.

I was unhappy with the reincarnational material simply because I still didn’t want to accept the idea—it just seemed too far out. I didn’t exactly encourage Rob to ask Seth to enlarge on this information or to fill in on the details he’d given. But it was a part of the material—I could hardly deny that.

We quickly learned that Seth regarded physical symptoms as the outward materialization of inner dis-ease. [...] In later sessions he would give some excellent material on maintaining good health. [...]

I’ve devoted some time and space to the early Seth sessions so that the reader could become acquainted with part of the material as it was given to us. [...]

[...] In one session, Seth discusses Jung’s concept of the unconscious. In another, he presents some new material on the “original planetary system,” and in answer to a friend’s question, he begins an explanation of the perception of a fetus. These discussions show the current direction the Seth Material is taking as it constantly unfolds.

In the foregoing chapters, I have taken excerpts from many sessions in order to present Seth’s views on various topics. This appendix is included for those readers who would like a more complete look at individual sessions, and a clearer idea of the way in which the material was originally given.

[...] This presentation shows Seth’s way of weaving one subject through another as he inserts new discussions and information while building on past sessions, and points up his method of using Rob’s and my own daily experiences as a launching pad for his own material.

Except for punctuation, the Seth Material in this appendix is unedited, and Rob’s notes have been included.

1. With a little reflection it becomes obvious, but I think it important to note that Jane’s expression of the Seth material is certainly the result of her direct cognition. Because she has to deliver it linearly in words, which take “time,” she cannot produce her material almost at once, as the mathematical prodigy can his or her answers, but in their own way her communications with Seth are as psychologically clear and direct as the calculator’s objective products are with numbers, or the musician’s are with notes. From the very beginning of the sessions, in late 1963, I appreciated the speed with which Jane delivered the Seth material, and began recording the times involved throughout each session. [...] And when Jane speaks extemporaneously for Seth, her delivery is even more rapid. [...]

[...] It’s of one of my imaginary male heads, and I began it a week ago, following Seth’s material on art for me in the private session for April 9. [See Note 1 for the last session.] I explained to Jane that even while it’s incomplete, the painting contains improvements that I can already tell will be developed further in the next one. [...] I asked that Seth comment upon the painting tonight if he cared to.

[...] She’d begun to tune into Seth’s material on idiot savants just before the session. [...]

[...] Words, however, can be very elusive tools, and vary from language to language, although intrinsically through the Seth material Jane conveys depths of meaning that continue to develop within whatever language others may cast it. [...]

There were other reasons, in that the paperback Seth Material is meant to be read first, and lead readers into Seth Speaks. [...]

[...] The same applies to what you could do in marketing the Seth material from manuscript.

(Before the session I’d asked Jane if Seth could comment upon the reported drop in sales of Seth Speaks recently as reported by Tam Mossman at Prentice-Hall. [...]

(The following material is from the 667th session for May 30, 1973.

She’s been most intrigued by Seth’s referrals to the concept of “master events” ever since he gave them in the final session for Chapter 8—preparations, she hoped, for his material this evening. She came to play her own conscious part in those preparations, too: Yesterday she’d received many insights from Seth on “master overlays,” and made notes. She typed some of her information after supper tonight, and I’m presenting this in Note 1, just to show how closely at times the body of the Seth material lies to her “ordinary” consciousness.)

3. I think that Seth’s insight here—regarding “the far more dependable behavior of the other species”—is excellent indeed. [...] I like to keep such penetrating remarks before me, and wish the reader would too, for I often fear they’ll become lost from conscious view within his material. (As an example, I doubt if this one will be referred to in the index for Dreams.) But I also think that intuitively we know the truth Seth so briefly expressed here, and that it never has been or ever will be really lost.

2. This paragraph of Seth’s at once reminded me of some of his most evocative earlier material on animal consciousness. [...]

Neither of us had counted the sessions we have for Dreams, but when I made a quick check the next day I was surprised to discover that Jane’s estimate is only two short of the 32 sessions Seth has called book dictation. I’m still busy typing the final manuscript for Mass Events, but we’ve already planned that I’ll be adding several “nonbook” sessions, and excerpts from others, to Dreams when finally I get to concentrate on the production work for it And my own opinion, I explained to Jane, is that Seth is considerably more than halfway through this book, even if we add more extra sessions to it.)

Seth agreed, and devoted one entire class to the session. [...] In a way, it is not the kind of in-depth discussion Seth would give in one of our private sessions, but it contains an excellent thumbnail description of his theories on personality, for those who have no previous knowledge of the Seth Material. [...]

That night Seth was just beginning his material on personality as action. The ideas he presented are basic to his overall theories of identity, and since he deals with some of the characteristics of consciousness, they are also a basis for later material on the God concept.

[...] Seth was at his best: smiling, often breaking up serious material with a few light jokes or comments. [...]

Seth ended this discussion by outlining various ways to develop awareness of the inner self. This material will be given in a later chapter. [...]

[...] She said she knew what blocking Seth was referring to; she felt herself “come up” just before break. The material Seth wanted to discuss was about Jane and Ruburt and Jane’s writing. Jane believed it was an extension of the arrangement Seth mentioned briefly on page 124, when he talked about Jane accepting inspiration and ideas from Ruburt without realizing it.

(Tam Mossman, editor at Prentice-Hall; they are considering publishing the Seth material. [...] Therein Seth stated that Jane would receive “rather unexpected word concerning a book.”

[...] The other two personalities (Ruburt and Seth’s entity) have been involved at my request, for purposes having to do with our material and purposes.

[...] Not in connection with the book (on the Seth material) but with his own experiences. [...]

(Sometimes when I make notes I don’t have enough time to consider the material being received. [...] I somewhat misinterpreted what Seth had said concerning projections. [...]

[...] (Pause; smile.)He will be working on it through some stages of the Seth material, also. [...]

[...] She knew what she had said about the book, under consideration at Ace Books, where Don Wollheim is editor-in-chief, and was at once concerned about distorting material, etc. “I wish I hadn’t said it,” she commented wryly, after I remarked that we hadn’t pushed for any answers from Seth; or even asked any questions about the dream book specifically, before the session.

(Don was delighted to learn about the sale of the Seth material to Prentice-Hall, and urged Jane to stress this sale to the dream book editor, Evelyn Grippo, in the letter he suggested Jane write.

Seth explains exactly how we translate thoughts into physical reality. To our knowledge, this explanation is original with the Seth Material To say the least, the supposition that we actually create matter gives rise to all kinds of questions, and Rob and I have considered many of them at one time or another. Was Seth saying that we created tables and chairs as well as events? [...]

Seth answers these questions and many we hadn’t even considered. [...] Seth was describing the intimate connection between expectation and perception—what we see and observe—to Bill Macdonnel, when the incident took place. [...] Before I give you the high points of that episode, however, here are a few excerpts from immediately previous material:

This material was given while we were still having the Instream tests. Later, when we had dispensed with these, Seth had more time to answer our questions. Rob wanted to know what other parts of the body were responsible for this creation of material—if any. [...]

When the session resumed, as Seth I picked up Bill’s second sketch and said, “This picture represents an outward transformation as Mark attempted to construct an accurate replica of material that he sensed with the Inner Senses, and as such it is a reconstruction of what I am.

3. For material and references concerning my Nebene life in the first century A.D., see Session 721, with notes 9 and 12. Seth’s remark here, that “Ruburt was indeed the ‘prostitute’ priestess,” concerns unpublished material we plan to eventually study in depth.

[...] Then Seth uses what I get in the material … Okay: I guess I’m about ready.” [...]

[...] I added that I didn’t think she need worry about readers following Seth’s material — that certainly many others are just as curious as we are about where “Unknown” Reality is going.

(The Seth material to come is presented for these reasons:

1. See the picture section in Prentice-Hall’s editions of The Seth Material for a cropped, black-and-white reproduction of my oil portrait of Seth, “in the form in which he chose to appear to Rob,” as Jane wrote in Chapter 8 of that book. Seth first announced his presence by name in the 4th session for December 8, 1963; I painted him in 1966.

There are, of course, close relationships concerning this delivery of Seth’s for the 740th session, the material in this note, and the musical analogies Seth presented in the 735th session, when he discoursed upon the inaudible variations inherent in the compositions played by the young classical guitarist who’d visited us over the weekend of February 2. (I’ve been saving this reference for this particular note.) At 9:45, for instance, in that 735th session: “An infinite number of other ‘alternate’ compositions were also latent within the [first] note, however … They were quite as legitimate as the compositions that were played … and … added silent structure and pacing to the physically actualized music.”

12. Seth’s ideas in this paragraph and the one just preceding it are consistent with his material in a number of sessions for Volume 1. In sessions 681 and 684, for instance, he discussed the on-off fluctuations of our physical universe and everything within it, moment points, probabilities, Jane’s sensations of massiveness, the basic unpredictable motion of any wave or atom, and much more. [...] Then in Volume 2, Seth likened his own identity to that of a wave formation; see the excerpts from the 775th session in Appendix 18, with Note 35.

(“Then in the eyes of this Seth there are two little Seths looking out. [...] Now they climb out of the eyes; with their bodies they make a garland around the big Seth’s head; they sit on it back-to-back like a pair of bookends.” [...] And Seth will explain it,” Jane abruptly said, evidently quite surprised. “The little images face in all directions around the head of the big Seth. [...]

9. A note added two months later: In retrospect it’s easy to see that while discussing his ideas of counterparts here, Seth was also preparing us for the families-of-consciousness material he was to start giving in January 1975. [...] In that session Seth was quickly at pains to say that belonging to a certain family of consciousness did not come first in our reality: “Your individuality comes first.”

[...] Someone had made considerable noise while cleaning the halls of the apartment house, also — “… all while Seth wanted me to get that material just right,” Jane said a bit ruefully. [...]

[...] Once we were caught up I’d read her the Seth material received each week on the succeeding Saturday or Sunday until I got back to the twice-weekly routine of transcribing, early next year; I expect to do the last of the Dialogues illustrations late in January 1975.)

2. For some background information on Seth’s basic units of consciousness (CU’s), cells, probabilities, time structures and other material in connection with his delivery here, I suggest reviewing these sessions in Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality: 682–84, 688, and 694.

(Although Seth has given us relatively little on the fifth dimension, he has made many references to this one session. [...] Notice also that this material was obtained 60 sessions ago; and as far as my memory serves, Seth has not contradicted himself on this fifth dimensional material in any sessions that have taken place since then.)

[...] She said she could feel Seth abruptly leave when he reached the end of the session. [...] She is of the opinion that Seth likes to deliver his material in batches, whether they be long or short.

[...] Nor did we get to ask about the Hubbell Roberts material included at the beginning of this session. Jane said Seth chose not to bother with it tonight.)

[...] She did not tell the Pipers, but she had the whole name in mind by the time the pointer had moved to the letter F. She was quite surprised, and has never had the experience before, although it has been some months since either of us watched others working the board—indeed, since the Seth material began to flow. [...]