“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] It was on normal typing paper and requested, first, some further work on the book — either an outline of a projected book to include portions of the dream manuscript, but stressing Seth, or some sample chapters — before a contract would be signed. One sentence read, “Or better, send on some notes from the original Seth material, and maybe we can consider that as advance work for a contract.”

On May 5, I received a letter asking for a prospectus stating Seth’s views on various topics and strongly suggesting that this would be considered a basis for contract. From the letter I took it for granted that I’d have to go through the forty or so notebooks of Seth Material that we had then, and find sections dealing with various topics. [...]

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. [...] Seth’s interpretation of that first dream, some three years ago, had been correct. [...]

[...] Seth says no — that time is being changed at each point. [...] The following two chapters on probabilities and dreams contain some of the most intriguing material Seth has given us — and precognition must be seen against this larger perspective. [...]

(Going back to the end of our stay-at-home vacation, on June 25 Seth-Jane began delivering a series of 10 sessions that we held on Monday and Saturday evenings for a change, instead of following our usual Monday-Wednesday routine. [...] Some of that material is intensely personal, and some only generally so. [...] What if they’re related in oblique ways, yet Seth doesn’t call them book dictation? I may not realize I should ask him about this at the time, or only later begin to speculate about using certain material. We know that Seth will specify a given number of sessions for this book, for instance, yet we keep the freedom to consider adding other material.

1. Sue Watkins has been mentioned, and at times quoted, in a number of Jane’s books: The Seth Material, Seth Speaks, Adventures in Consciousness, Psychic Politics, and both volumes of “Unknown” Reality. [...]

[...] Strictly speaking, it isn’t dictation for Mass Events, but Jane and I are presenting portions of it here because Seth discussed events and memory with a different emphasis, and touched upon aspects of reincarnation² — all subjects that spring out of that ineffable, really undefinable quality he calls simultaneous time. I ask the reader to always keep in mind that no matter what subject he’s discussing, or from what viewpoint, Seth’s kind of “time” underlies all that our present physical senses translate into linear, concrete experience and history. For clarification, I also keep this in mind: Seth isn’t physical, as he defines himself, and that “energy personality essence” seemingly isn’t all that focused on the passage of time — as we are — yet way back in the 14th session for January 8, 1964, he told us that time “is therefore still a reality of some kind to me.” [...]

[...] This made us feel good indeed, for it signaled the first publication of a Seth book in three years [since Personal Reality came out in 1974]. [...]

[...] Jane and I wondered what role Billy’s illness might play in our affair with David—surely a way of thinking that would have been quite alien to us before the advent of the Seth material.

Jane knew, however, that provided she held the session Seth’s material would be dictation for Dreams. [...]

[...] “That was my fault, though—that was charged material, he would have said more. [...] Then I said to myself, ‘Seth, just go into it, that’s all.’ So why didn’t he say the cat’s going to be all right?”

“I wouldn’t mind getting something from Seth on why Billy got sick,” I said to Jane after supper. [...]

(Supplementing Seth’s mention of the inner senses during the last delivery: He’s told us about nine of these so far, and a list of them can be found in Chapter Nineteen of The Seth Material. [...]

(Seth had something to say about this last thought not long ago. The following quotes are extracted from some deleted material: “Generally speaking, it is better if book dictation is done alone, or with those with whom you are well acquainted and easy. [...]

[...] Seth returned with other material, though, and the session lasted until 11:45 p.m.)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

[...] This is indeed still the Seth material.

(“Good night, Seth. [...] Jane left trance easily, saying Seth left an emotional feeling behind him. [...] Jane had forgotten Seth’s data but remembered it when I mentioned it.)

Seth gave him the information in a dream. He was afraid of Seth but not of the information.

He is forced in one way to reach further into inner reality, for I do not come as immediately to you as Seth as you knew him did. [...] Seth is always there between us to help in this procedure.

[...] They were very interested in talking about Jane’s book, The Seth Material. They also gave me several questions for Seth to answer in his own book, if he chose to do so. [...]

[...] M.H. asked, then: “Are these faster-than-light particles the same as, or like, the electromagnetic energy or EE units Seth discusses in the Appendix of The Seth Material?”)

[...] This was the end of the material on Seth’s book for the evening. [...]

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(It might be added here that on my daily trip downtown, taking Jane to work at the gallery, I mailed the first 38 sessions of the Seth material to the American Society for Psychical Research. [...]

(Seth made this session very brief, since Jane and I were quite tired by the time it began. [...]

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

I had planned to go into some material concerning this particular portrait, as a camouflage construction, but here for now I will merely mention this in passing and go into it at our next session.

(Readers of The Seth Material had asked Seth to elaborate upon data of the three Christs given in Chapter Eighteen, “The God Concept,” of that book. [...]

(Of course, we hadn’t known just how Seth was going to present his material in the chapter on religion on the third Christ and related data. [...]

(In the 586th session, earlier in this chapter, Seth stated that by the year 2075 the third Christ — Paul or Saul — would have enacted the Second Coming, exerting of course a profound effect upon religion and world history. [...] She wanted me to ask Seth if she had distorted this data while delivering it.

(I was finding Seth’s information intensely interesting. It was unavoidable in many cases, but Jane said she much preferred not to know anything about the historical period Seth would be discussing. [...]

I am glad to see the progress that is being made on the book dealing with the Seth material.

(Jane had no idea of the material for the session before it began. She sat once again in the Kennedy rocker, across from my writing table, and dictated the material with her eyes closed. [...]

(See sessions 86 and 87 for material on mental enclosures, and Session 87 also for material on capsule comprehension.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

[...] I told her that I got mad this morning because I felt that the Seth material wasn’t — and wouldn’t — get the hearing it deserved in our society. I asked why the material, if it was inherent within human beings, was so much ignored. [...]

(First is my dream of the night before, which I described to Jane in case she had a session and Seth wanted to comment. [...]

[...] The woman who sent it wanted Jane to write the founder of a Seth group in Syracuse; the lady is dying of cancer. [...]

(Jane’s Seth voice was a bit stronger today.)

(Yesterday we received from Prentice-Hall the Dutch edition of Seth Speaks [Seth Spreekt], published by Ankh-Hermes. We saw at once that the book had been rather drastically cut—not only my own notes, which contain excerpts from Seth material at times—but Seth’s material itself. This is particularly obvious in the appendix, where only a few pages are left of all of that material. [...]

[...] (Loudly and amused:) Seth, it seems, speaks a bit more briefly in Dutch than he does in English —but the material is there, and if the Dutch have cut it, or your notes, it is, in the most basic of terms, now, their loss. [...]

(Day before yesterday we received from Tam a copy of his memo to J. Nelson, P. Grenquist, and A. Freemyer; he’s checked the Dutch contract for Seth Speaks, and learned that it contained a clause prohibiting cutting. [...] At the same time I’ll be checking what portions of Seth Speaks were cut, and listing them. [...]

(We didn’t ask that Seth discuss the Prentice-Hall affair this evening, but....)

[...] The material says I have cancer too.” Meaning the Seth material, of course. [...]

[...] Jane was once again far-out, losing track of the content of the material. We had barely begun to discuss the dream material when she abruptly began dictating again while sitting across from me at the table. [...]

[...] In the dream Ruburt said the material told him that he had cancer, because in a previous life he did have clairvoyant knowledge, through his psychic ability, of his future disease; and since his psychic ability has only lately come to light with this material, you can see the connection.

[...] Jane’s friend Dee Masters, who had once been director at the gallery where Jane works, and who has been dealt with by Seth at various times, was doing something at an agitator-type washing machine. [...]

[...] Tam Mossman, Jane’s editor at Prentice Hall, called this morning to say that the first copies of her book, The Seth Material, have arrived at Prentice Hall from the printer. [...]

[...] As Seth, Jane pointed to my portrait of Seth; it hung on the wall behind me, so that she faced it as she sat in her rocker.)

(This in turn led me to wonder if tonight’s session contradicted one held several years ago, in which Seth stated that I had lived to an old age in the Denmark life. [...] Seth goes into more detail on this in the 595th session, in the Appendix.

(In Chapter Eight, Seth had said this was my way of trying to see models for my paintings. [...]

[...] But these sessions, dealing with Jane’s improvements, validate the Seth material as it’s come to us over the years. [...] [Others, I’ve often speculated, couldn’t realize the depth of Jane’s challenges.] As we talked, Jane laughed and said she picked up from Seth that “the best books are yet to come.”)

A note added 14 years after Jane/Seth delivered the magical-approach material: Miss Bowman died in 1994, at the age of 96. [...]

[...] Right now I don’t feel Seth around, though, but we’ll see … My spine’s got all kinds of feelings in it that I’m not used to, but they’re good ones. How does Seth sit? [...]

(“Thanks, Seth,” I said mentally to those kind words. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual, and also quite relieved at Seth’s explanation. She had begun using her old typewriter for first drafts of her writings since leaving the gallery a few weeks ago, with the idea that since we do all the Seth material work on this machine, which is the best of the three we own, some wear and tear might be saved on it.

[...] Seth had not yet mentioned the nodule on her wrist, and we agreed that he was probably waiting until she attained a deeper state before he dealt with personal material of this sort.

(The last few paragraphs of the above material we thought to be an elaboration of Seth’s rather cryptic statement in the 97th session, page 72, to the effect that in some respects all planes or fields of existence are indeed by-products of others.

(Jane said she was “really out” while Seth gave the material on her wrist. [...]

[...] Seth came through briefly several times, and very humorously, to handle certain questions himself. Among other things, he said that “there is no place for the Seth material to be kept,” that “you have to make a place for it, for it is unique.” [...] Seth did express his own willingness to have the material available to the public, but Jane and I are much less sure of that.

(In the last three days I’ve learned a number of interesting things about my continuing physical upsets—and will list some of my pendulum material should any portion of this session refer to them. [...] My own insights through the pendulum tell me, for example, why Seth in that last private session said I have a “nervous stomach,” but nothing about the other hassles like, say, the side or groin. [...]

[...] I believed Jane-Seth’s material about my being on a “body vacation.” [...]

(Last night April 23, Monday, Rob suddenly got super-relaxed and really floppy before our scheduled Seth session. In the meantime though as I went into the john, I started to pick up some of the things Seth was going to discuss, and after Rob began his odd relaxation, I got more. [...]

[...] We discussed with Jim Tennant our reasons for our very cautious approach to and with the Seth material, stressing our feeling that it was best to be on the very conservative side as far as claims, etc., went. We invited him to attend future sessions; and it was becoming more and more apparent that we would have to make some kind of arrangement for others to be able to read the material, without letting it out of our hands. [...]

[...] Beneath personal subconscious material you will find data, free, dealing with racial memories which will be of great benefit to psychologists and sociologists. Beneath this you will find material that is concerned with the beginnings of the species as a whole; and beneath this, and connected to it by the emotions, you will come to the boundaries of the inner self.

[...] The material must be read. The experiments in the material must be tried.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

3. A note added five months later: For some of Seth’s early remarks about time, see the excerpts from the 14th session (for January 8, 1964) in Chapter 4 of The Seth Material. I quoted a few lines from the same session midway through the Introductory Notes for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality (as well as after the 724th session in Volume 2), and considered some thoughts about our attempts to grasp Seth’s concept of simultaneous time. The notes introducing this first volume also contain other applicable material having to do with Jane’s trance production times for the Seth books.

The inner senses, as described by Seth, are listed in Chapter 19 of The Seth Material.

[...] With hardly a pause, Seth-Jane switched over to some material for me; the session ended at 11:16 P.M. Jane’s trances had been excellent throughout the evening.)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(A note pertaining to the material given just before break: In Chapter Nineteen Seth deals with reincarnation in a general sense, but he’s said little in this book about his psychic “connections” with Jane and me. There are references to such ties scattered through The Seth Material and Seth Speaks [see the 595th session in the Appendix of the latter] and we have a modest amount of unpublished information. [...]

[...] It was born out of her writings on Adventures in Consciousness, as mentioned in Chapter Twenty-one of Seth Speaks, and incorporates that material.)

[...] “You know,” she said, “I thought this book was going to go longer, but I’ve got the funny nostalgic feeling that Seth’s going to end it real soon. [...] I felt the same way about Seth Speaks; the end always shocks me.” I told her that I thought Seth would close out the book tonight. [...]

[...] She was both surprised — as she remarked several times — and a bit disconsolate now that Seth’s part of the long project was through. [...] She had no feeling any more that Seth would do an Appendix, as we’d speculated about occasionally.

[...] He had arrived yesterday to spend the weekend with us and to discuss the book Jane is doing on the Seth material. [...]

[...] Tam Mossman said: “Seth was certainly into my imaginative life; also, he has me pegged psychologically.” Tam said Seth’s data about his inner life was “especially true.” He also cited similarities between his doodles and the crest decoration Seth described.

[...] She was very relaxed at break, and told us that Seth was keeping her half under so as to make her resumption as Seth easier; she could reach trance depth quicker.

(Seth did speak briefly the next evening however. [...] Seth greeted us, gave a few voice effects which were controlled because of the hour and the proximity of other tenants, and expressed his willingness and capability to continue until six in the morning. [...]