“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As soon as I realized that Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment was going to be so long that it would require publication in two volumes, I began to think about how I was going to summarize here all of the material that Jane, Seth, and I had contributed to Volume 1. I developed the hilarious notion that if I did the job the way I really wanted to, this introduction would be as long as that first volume is itself! [...]

[...] However, I can help initiate that process by presenting short blocks of material from Seth-Jane and myself. [...]

First, Seth’s headings for the six chapters of Volume 1 give a broad outline of his material in that book:

[...] But in my opinion they’re vital for understanding what the Seth material is all about.

[...] In this appendix I’ve put together some material on mysticism from Jane, Seth, and myself. [...] As events worked out, Seth was halfway through Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality before I realized that these supplementary notes would work well as the first appendix in the first volume. The notes may have their own kind of order, but unlike most appendix material aren’t presented in a chronological sequence. [...]

(Since Jane began delivering the Seth material, I’ve become more and more interested in questions about the origins of creative [meaning artistic] endeavors. [...] But, paradoxically, the origins aren’t to be found there, either, or grasped in regular terms, for according to Seth they’d lie outside the reach of physical life. Without going into Seth’s ideas that time is simultaneous, or that any endeavor is creative, the kinds of origins I’m discussing here wouldn’t have any beginning or end. [...]

(“In fact,” she continued, “I’m embarrassed that Seth called me a mystic — a great one, I mean — like that. No matter whether it’s natural or not …” Rather reluctantly, she agreed to let me present that personal material here; but only, I think, because she understood my desire to give what I consider to be pertinent background material for the Seth books. [...]

(To initiate the material [in the 14th session] I asked Seth: “Jane has been very curious to learn something about her grandfather. Can you help her with this?” Seth replied:)

[...] See, therefore, Seth’s material on reincarnation in Chapter 4 (among others) of Seth Speaks; then see his material on probable selves in Chapter 16 of that book, and in Session 680 for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality.

Later, we were to learn about the distortions that could happen as Jane relayed some of Seth’s material; given the open-ended nature of time, and considering the idea of probable realities, we came to realize that simultaneously we could and could not be Seth’s “first lesson class.” [...] In the 15th session Seth told Jane and me: “I am giving you what may be considered a broad outline to be filled in.”

4. Jane’s declaration of the “super-real” aspects of her ecstatic state, that “The world is so much more solid right now,” soon had me hunting for relevant material I remembered Seth giving, but couldn’t place. I found two sources in Seth Speaks. In Chapter 7, see the 530th session for May 20, 1970, at 10:02: “There are realities that are ‘relatively more valid’ than your own … your physical table [for example] would appear as shadowy in contrast … You would have a sort of “supertable” in those terms. [...]

(Seth discussed another matter involving Jane; after delivering about a page of material he ended the session at 11:19 P.M.)

[...] Since in all of these experiments Seth was helping us through actual suggestions and explanations as to how we perceive such information, I simply couldn’t minimize his importance just to get the ESP book published. To us, Seth and the Seth Material was making everything else possible.

While I hesitated trying the experiment, Rob sent Dr. Osis some more of the material. Dr. Osis wrote that he wasn’t interested in the material itself, since it didn’t fall within his field of empirical psychology. [...] Even though he expressed interest in “testing” Seth for ESP, and suggested again that we try the clairvoyant experiment, I was put off by the letter. So I sulked: If he didn’t express interest in the material, which I thought was terrific, then he could just go find someone else to go looking through his walls!

[...] By the time this first change happened in my trance states, I’d already had my first out-of-body experience, and following Seth’s instructions I was having clairvoyant experiences during daily exercise periods. But I felt in control of these, while Seth was in control of sessions, and to me this made a difference. [...] The trance was a deeper one, though, and the material launched into more complicated subjects. It was also during this time that Seth started removing my glasses just before he began to speak.

[...] As a result, I played around with the idea of publishing some of Seth’s ideas as my own and hiding their origin. [...] Besides, I felt that the very fact of the sessions was psychologically fascinating, and brought up questions that were answered in the material itself. [...]

[...] I did not base my decision concerning working hours on the Seth material, although the information Jane and I have received on expectations played a part; it has done much to increase our confidence in various fields of endeavor other than our arts.

[...] However, by the time we left York Beach, I had tried to suggest to my subconscious, in line with the material we have obtained to date on the value of expectation, that the car would consume less oil than on the outward journey. [...] Again, if tonight’s session developed, I thought I would ask Seth whether I was correct, or merely the victim of some overoptimistic wishes.

(It will be recalled also that in the 63rd session, Seth gave a date of Aug. [...] Seth did not specify the meaning of this latest date for her, and Jane and I saw Miss Callahan the day after our return from vacation, looking quite well. [...]

[...] 18, while we were dancing at the Driftwood Lounge at York Beach, which is the hotel bar where we saw our projected fragments, described by Seth in the 9th session [in Volume 1], page 43.

When I asked him in the same session about his evocative use of “fragment,” Seth replied: “That is an original term with me, as far as I know.” Within another couple of sessions, however, he began to let “fragment” semantically yield to other terminology as he continued developing his material in ever-deepening discussions of personalities and entities, reincarnation, time, dreams, and other related subjects. [...] I’ve designed this note to supplement Jane’s writing on fragments in The Seth Material, which Prentice-Hall published in 1970.

Then as we sat for the session Jane told me that after supper tonight she’d picked up material from Seth “that I wasn’t sure of because I didn’t understand what he meant….” [...] I thought it obvious that her two latest intuitions from Seth were directly related—and that certain creative portions of her psyche never stopped “working.” [...]

[...] We’re up to Volume 77 for the “regular” and book sessions, and Volume 22 for the private or “deleted” material. Here’s the note Jane wrote this morning and inserted in Volume 77, where I’m keeping a few sheets of paper to record the next session: “Something from Seth over the weekend—only got a little—something about earth’s grid of perception being so constructed that…. [...]

[...] Neither of us could remember Seth stating flat out in any of his material that animals reincarnate, although he may have done so. [...]

[...] Jane had begun delivering the Seth material late in 1963, and soon afterwards Seth started developing his ideas on probabilities.¹ Many times while looking at the snapshots since then I’d found myself speculating about the probable realities surrounding their two young subjects. [...] Maybe I just wanted Seth to comment on probabilities in a more personal way. [And added later: At the time, I had no idea that my questioning would trigger a new Seth book.²]

Idea Construction did serve as a psychic trigger, however; it led Jane to her outline for How to Develop Your ESP Power (see Note 2 for Seth’s Preface in this book), then to the beginning of the Seth sessions two months later. “Enough energy was generated in that evening to change the direction of my life and my husband’s,” she wrote in Chapter 1 of The Seth Material. [...] In Seth Speaks, see her Introduction and Session 596 in the Appendix for further references to that original manuscript.

2. Indeed, Jane was to hold several sessions before we realized that Seth had begun a new book — see the 683rd session in this section. Seth had finished Personal Reality over six months ago. [...] She also gave a number of private Seth sessions for the two of us on a variety of subjects. We ended up calling a portion of one of those the 678th session and added it to our records, since the material, which Jane received at my request, concerned probabilities and Jerusalem. [...]

Seth, in his material on probable systems in Chapter 16 of Seth Speaks, says: “The soul can be described for that matter as a multidimensional, infinite act, each minute probability being brought somewhere into actuality and existence; an infinite creative act that creates for itself infinite dimensions in which fulfillment is possible.”

(It will be remembered that in the unscheduled 184th session Seth said that Cosmopolitan Magazine would be interested in an excerpt from Jane’s ESP book, but that nothing would happen right away. [...] The material was returned today with a plain rejection slip. Seth had stated that Cosmo would return the material, but with a letter expressing interest.

(I believe the book of Jane’s that Seth refers to here is her new project, dealing with the Seth material itself. Jane has been casting about for a good way to present the material, and has about decided upon her approach. [...]

[...] Blanche knows about Seth, but little about the material itself.

[...] If Seth’s prediction, made in the last session, to the effect that Dr. Instream will help us out in the matter of copying the material, works out, then perhaps other arrangements will be made.)

(Now for two concluding paragraphs of commentary and reference: Jane’s statement that the four-fronted counterpart self persists outside of space and time implies a contradiction, of course — but this situation is one that we, as physical creatures, will in some manner always have to contend with when we encounter certain of Jane’s and Seth’s concepts [including that of the four-fronted counterpart self]. Seth’s own idea of “simultaneous time,” that “all exists at once, yet is not completed,” has run throughout his material since its inception over a decade ago. [...] Yet Seth’s simultaneous time isn’t an absolute, for, as he also told us in that session: “While I am not affected by time on your plane, I am affected by something resembling time on my plane … To me time can be manipulated, used at leisure and examined. [...]

(1. While asleep she’d been aware of many insights about receiving Seth material in that mode — some of it “at a preliminary stage, before it’s ready.” But all of it came through in a peculiar way, Jane continued, “as if I were equipped with mental earphones … This material is somehow being transmitted directly on to my brain waves; automatically; yet in a wild way without disturbing my own thinking. [...]

5. Jane used an imaginary musical analogy in describing her sleep-state experience with “mental earphones” — but here are two psychic events of hers that can serve as real-life analogies: 1. Her reception 10 months ago, while asleep, of multidimensional data from Seth, which she followed the next day with her own material on neurological pulses; see Appendix 4 in Volume 1. 2. Her hearing Seth’s thunderous voice in her sleep two months ago, as described in the opening notes for the 710th session.

[...] See Appendix 22 for my own material on the event, plus Seth’s comments about it in ESP class last night, plus a quite unusual “confirmation” offered by class member Sue Watkins. [...]

(Last night in the mail I found Carol Steiner’s Ph.D. thesis on the Seth material, which she’d promised in November. [...] Quite interesting, but as I told Jane, it reminded me of just what a task it is to start at the beginning and present an explanation of the Seth material. [...]

[...] I told her that Seth didn’t go into our questions about his material in yesterday’s session, concerning changing the past from the present, nor did he comment on Carol Steiner’s Ph.D. thesis on the Seth material. [...]

[...] Seth has mentioned this acclimatization of the eye muscles. [...]

(I did remind Jane that in yesterday’s session Seth hadn’t addressed the question I’d mentioned to her at lunch time — why were we such extremists in our behavior, considering the severity of the symptoms, and so forth? [...]

[...] To some small extent I have begun to explain this in the Seth Material. [...] The methods are given in the material. But you cannot utilize the material until you understand it.

[...] The material is not for those who would deceive themselves with pretty, packaged, ribboned truths that are parceled out and cut apart so that you can digest them. That sort of material serves a need, but our material demands that you intellectually and intuitively expand.”

In a recent class session, Seth said: “If you would momentarily put aside the selves you take for granted, you could experience your own multidimensional reality. [...]

“The material itself is—if you’ll forgive the term—cleverly executed; so that as you grapple to understand it, you are already beginning to use abilities beyond those that you take for granted.

[...] At 8:55, moving closer to that familiar dissociated state, approaching that psychological bridge which serves as a common meeting ground for Seth and herself she announced that she felt “a rather generalized idea of what Seth will say on the book stuff.” Less clear were some data about herself but she thought Seth would cover all of that along with his material on “Unknown” Reality. [...]

(In his material above, concerning Jane’s search for newer, larger frameworks of belief once she began to dispense with her old “comforting” ideas, Seth very lucidly dealt with certain aspects of the role she’s chosen for this life. [...] To some degree I’ve been involved in many changes of belief also, but I’m a participator in the development of the Seth Material, not its originator; the pressures and challenges weren’t — aren’t — as demanding. [...]

10. This material immediately reminded me that before the session tonight Jane and I had discussed Seth’s promise to answer the two questions I’d posed for him before sessions 698–99, in Volume 1. The question of interest here (I summarized them both in the notes following the 699th session) had to do with my inability to comprehend an “unconscious” species state. Not that I thought Seth was going out of his way to deal with such concepts tonight, but by the time he was through with his material on the sleepwalkers, I thought he’d considered at least one possible facet of my inquiry.

(I haven’t read “Unknown” Reality since I finished typing the last session for it over three months ago; Jane had reviewed all of Seth’s material on the book last week yet still had to remind herself today of the contents of that [707th] session. [...]

5. See Seth’s material in Personal Reality on reprogramming the past sessions 654 and 657 in chapters 14 and 15, respectively. Some of his earlier information on the fetus can be found in sessions 503–4 in the Appendix of The Seth Material.

2. A note added later: Seth does add to his material on cellular precognition in a number of later sessions in The “Unknown” Reality. Among others in Volume 1, see sessions 690–91 in Section 2.

3. In Note 1 for Session 681 I dealt very briefly with fluctuations of consciousness, or reality, and referred the reader to the 567th session in Chapter 16 of Seth Speaks. For additional material on the same subject in the same book, also see the 535th session in Chapter 9 and the 576th in Chapter 19.

[...] She was 30 years old, and her development of the Seth material lay five years in the future.

(The other morning in a burst of inspiration Jane wrote out a full outline, including chapter breakdown, of the book she intends to write after she finishes the first book on the Seth Material, and the book on dreams that she now has well under way.

(Many sessions ago, I believe within the first 50, Seth told us we should one day be aware of our dreams while fully conscious. At the time we did not have enough background material to see how this would be possible. [...]

(We wondered whether Seth would be able to come through with the Wyoming location also, in respect to the data given in the last session. [...] According to Seth they have well-developed abilities. [...]

[...] Through watching them, you see, you can observe the effect that our material has on their daily lives. This is the material in its functional working dimensions, and that is very important.

Last month, in the opening notes for Session 931, in Chapter 9, I recorded that on July 8 Jane spontaneously wrote “a complete outline for a book on Seth’s magical approach to reality.” Actually, we’ve been quite aware of the potential of such an idea ever since Seth began that material a year ago.³ After supper this evening we went over the loose-leaf notebook of information Jane has accumulated for The Magical Approach to Reality: A Seth Book, and discussed how she could follow her outline in putting all of that material—on our dreams, psychic events and insights, her poetry and our essays—together with Seth’s private sessions on the magical approach. [...] Such a book would involve the publication of much Seth material that could either lie in our files for a long time, or never be published. [...]

1. Recently I asked Jane if Seth could give us some information on the consciousness connected with nuclear energy—a fascinating question I’ve often speculated about—and she promised me that he’d discuss it soon. I think his material will certainly include many original insights into the whole subject of consciousness-and-energy in general, as well as into the role of consciousness in events like the accident at Three Mile Island. I reminded Jane that some time ago Seth had remarked that as physical creatures we human beings cannot bear to directly confront the basic, vast, unimaginably awesome and creative consciousness of All That Is. [...]

[...] In essence my memory had been fairly accurate—yet rereading Seth’s material was like a revelation to me. [...] Through Seth she expressed the heart of her mystical knowledge:

As he’d hinted in his greeting this evening, Seth did have some material for us—regardless of my wife’s announced disinterest—and that information contained some surprises. [...]

[...] I remarked that it was going to be a busy session, what with the material on the Gallaghers and Dr. Instream, a possible envelope test, and the chance that Seth might discuss two very long, vivid, and complicated dreams Jane had while taking a short nap last Friday morning. [...] She believes that at least one of these dreams is a therapeutic dream, resulting from suggestions she gave herself following Seth’s material on therapeutic dreams in the last session.

But he tries again, and in the dream he discovers another radio on your bookcase, Joseph , where our material is kept. The connection is obvious, for he knows that the Seth material comes from the same system as the voices. [...] The shock is his knowledge that our material would cease were he to shut off his abilities in such a manner. [...]

[...] Each week we send Dr. Instream Seth’s material for him.)

(This evening’s session will see the first of three scheduled attempts for Seth to clairvoyantly tune in on our friends, Bill and Peggy Gallagher, who arrived in Puerto Rico on vacation yesterday, Sunday. We hope that at 9:30 this evening, on Wednesday October 20, and Monday October 25, Seth will be able to pick up something of the activities and/or surroundings of Bill and Peg. [...]

[...] One of the experiments she listed in the book for the reader to try led, of course, to the development of the Seth material in her own case. Thus the material will be an integral part of the ESP book.

(In the 92nd session, of September 28, 1964, Seth predicted the sale of this specific book by name. [...] This material can be shortly checked out. [...]

(Seth has predicted sale of the ESP book, and of the material itself many times. [...]

[...] She wondered when, if ever, Seth would allow her to resume. [...] Jane then received the information, she believes from Seth, to the effect that she might soon be allowed to resume psy-time, but only for fifteen-minute periods, and during the evening when I would be home with her.

(Except for a few instances in which I eliminated repetitive phrases, all of the material Jane gave after 10:47 is unchanged here. At times, because her delivery had become so steady, even precise, I’d wondered if she had entered into a Seth trance, but one without Seth’s usual voice effects. [...] Nor had she spoken for Seth, I realized by the time she finished. [...]

[...] During the session Seth discussed inner sound in connection with Jane’s own physical symptoms. (In Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, see the 679th session before 10:31, and Note 8. The quotations below are also related to the material on inner sound, light, and electromagnetic values in Chapter 5 of Personal Reality.) Seth, at 11:07 P.M.:

2. In Appendix 19, see the 612th session for material on both Seth Two and Jane’s feelings of massiveness.

But see Note 1 (with its references) for Session 697 in Volume 1; it contains some of Seth’s material on the consciousness connected with any information.

2. I didn’t finish this little note until June, 1973: Seth discusses probabilities in Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen, and reincarnation in Chapter Nineteen, although both subjects are mentioned elsewhere in the book. Also see The Seth Material and Seth Speaks.

(We’ve been especially interested in such material since Seth referred to the “deaths” of atoms and molecules in the 625th session in Chapter Five, but we haven’t asked for more detail because the subject matter is somewhat outside the scope of this book. [...] When Seth finishes Personal Reality we plan to ask him to reconcile such data from our world with the root assumptions, or basic agreements, in his own reality.

(Those who care to might see Seth’s discussion of internal electromagnetic sound and light values in the 625th session referred to earlier, as well as his material on EE [electromagnetic energy] units in Chapter Twenty of Seth Speaks.)

[...] Although we had a few shorter sessions on different matters during the holiday season, this is the first material Seth has given on his book since December 18 — and as he resumed dictation on Chapter Seven so easily, we were reminded that he’s impervious to our ideas of time.

[...] She helped me proofread Seth, Dreams, and Projection of Consciousness for Stillpoint Publishing. Later, she helped me proofread the new editions of Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality that Amber-Allen/New World Library has published. She’s worked as a researcher of Jane’s material for The Magical Approach — the book she has “most dreamed of working on.” Laurel has been Seth’s “metaphysical apprentice,” as she recently put it, for fourteen years now. [...]

[...] At the same time, I wondered often if it was of any use to try publishing Seth books, old or new — why do so, if sales were falling? Maybe people were tired of the Seth material. [...]

In 1993, I saw the culmination of three ventures that I’d been involved in for varying periods of time: Lynda Dahl and Stan Ulkowski, of Seth Network International, published the first quarterly issue of the newly expanded Seth-oriented magazine, Reality Change. (RC, as everyone calls it, was founded by Maude Cardwell in June 1980; she began it as a two-page mimeographed newsletter.) Richard Roberts, of Vernal Equinox Press, published A Seth Reader, a volume consisting of excerpts from six of the Seth books. And Bob Terrio, of Bob Terrio Productions, marketed a video, The Seth Phenomena, in which I discuss Jane’s and my work.

[...] He included Seth material in many issues. [...]