“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The collection will include our family trees; my father’s journals and photographs; Jane’s and my own grade-school, high-school, college, and family data; our youthful creative efforts in writing and painting; the comic books and other commercial artwork I produced; our early published and unpublished short stories; my original notes for the sessions; session transcripts, whether published or unpublished, “regular,” private, or from ESP class; tapes, including those made in class of Jane speaking for Seth and/or singing in Sumari; our notes, dream records, journals, and manuscripts; our sketches and paintings; Jane’s extensive poetry; our business correspondence; books, contracts, and files; newsletters about the Seth material, published in the United States and abroad (independently of Jane and me); the greater number of letters from readers—in short, a mass of material showing how our separate beginnings flowed together and resulted in the production of a joint lifework.

At first we thought of keeping the collection closed until after our deaths, as donors usually request to be done, but we’ve decided to make everything accessible as soon as we can, both for scholarship and for study by the public. To make this possible, we’ll be transferring copies of many of our papers and tapes to the library while keeping the originals with us to work with during our lifetimes. This decision is especially apropos where we have but one copy of the material in question: We like knowing that “security copies” will be on file elsewhere—as with Jane’s journals, for example, and many of my own notes.

[...] As she researched Jane’s published and unpublished notes, journals, and books for The Magical Approach, Laurel learned that my wife had originally intended to call this book The Magical Approach: A Jane/Seth Book, and wrote of it as being “a psychic-naturalistic journal.” [...]

[...] Writing in his journal daily with his notations of present programs always represents a conscious intent that serves a beneficial natural hypnotic suggestion of accomplishment. [...]

[...] Just now, reading a letter from the editor of an occult journal I found myself mentally responding in James vein, saying: I am somewhat judicious, and therefore waited before responding”—and suddenly I saw—that I WAS SOMEWHAT JUDICIOUS—I AM SOMEWHAT JUDICIOUS and in my mind I’ve thought that I was if anything overly spontaneous and therefore to be watched lest my spontaneity contradict my “reason” as if on my own I had no “judiciousness”—and not seeing in fact that the symptoms were the result of —over-judiciousness. [...]

I am not speaking strictly of political parties or political newspapers, or of any specialized journals or magazines, but of the overall pattern displayed by all of your mass communications. You can see easily, however, the highly specialized, intensified view of the world that is apparent in scientific journals. These are in sharp conflict with, for example, religious journals. [...]

[...] The write-up will be in the International Journal of Parapsychology.

(As she enthusiastically noted in her journal recently, Jane has had “loosenings all over” of her physical symptoms. [...]

[...] She finished Chapter 17 today, and wrote in her journal after supper: “Very very very good on Chapter 17—oodles of new insights! Pleased!” She envisions at least another half dozen chapters for the book, but at the same time she’s leaving final decisions up to her creative self. [...]

Jane doesn’t often refer to such world events in her notes and journals, but we often talk about them. In fact, she made no notes of any kind in her 1980 journal from the middle of June to July 20, for a span of five weeks, but those two months were busy times for us professionally. [...]

[...] Some of it I took from Jane’s daily journal for 1980, some from my own notes and files, and some from private sessions. [...]

[...] Then she wrote in her journal on the 24th: “I was looking over Seven Three for the first time in 14 months when sub rights called about the movie contract for the first Seven—so that’s no coincidence! [...]

A. From Jane’s journal for 1975. [...]

[...] Ruburt needs time to give himself a few suggestions in the morning, to start up his journal again, even to paint if he wants in a framework in which he allows himself that much freedom. [...]

[...] The 15 three-ring binders containing her poems, all neatly typed, for example; her essays and journals; other blocks of unpublished Seth material, one of which I mentioned in the Introduction; an unfinished autobiography that perhaps I could put into publishable shape; likewise, passages from an unfinished fourth Oversoul Seven novel, in which Jane dealt with Seven’s childhood; a book of her paintings, with commentary; several early novels that I still believe merit publishing. [...]

[...] In one way they’re like casual jottings that she left half finished and unseen in her journals, until I found them when I began searching for fresh material for the frontmatter of this Volume 2 of Dreams. [...]

Now: Ruburt has been looking through some old papers, and it became obvious that over a period of time his journals show two main concerns—or, rather, main interests and goals: his writing and his attempts “to get better.”

Before, earlier, there was a third concern—a financial one, but he did not come across those journals this evening. [...]

[...] I also plan to excerpt several of those sessions for notes, and to quote a number of times from Jane’s personal journals for 1980 and 1981. [...]

[...] Early in February she wrote an essay on Seth as a “master event.”⁴ That piece was inspired by her material in an old journal; Jane elaborated upon it in an effort to fit events from our own lives into our national consciousness. [...]

“I plan to begin typing my poetry book final draft shortly,” she wrote in her journal on February 11. [...]

Amid her incessant questioning as to who or what Seth is—even if he is a master event!—and amid her concerns about leading others astray, Jane added to her journal four days later: “The worst explanation for Seth that I can imagine is that he is the part of me that I can’t express otherwise—making a psychological statement. [...]

[...] Jane has stacks of journals, poetry notebooks, manuscripts, and loose notes of all kinds, but neither of us could dig out what we wanted. [...]

3. See the passages following Jane’s entry for March 31, 1977, in Chapter 10 of her The After Death Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James.

[...] It worked great, want to start up journal, want to start project… want to get sessions started up again too or tell myself so anyhow. [...]

That note is Jane’s last entry in her journal for the year, and she did not date it. [...]

Over two weeks passed after the holiday season before Jane finally hand-lettered the first formal entry for her 1982 journal:

[...]

(R. Van Over also told us that Elaine Garrett wrote the review of Jane’s ESP book, which appeared under a pseudonym in The Journal of Parapsychology.)

[...] Let alone the bulk of Jane’s other work: her poetry, novels both published and unpublished, her other published books, an unfinished autobiography, the records of her ESP class sessions, her journals and paintings, her singing in musical trance language, Sumari, her never-ending correspondence. [...]

[...] Some years ago, just before you took on the second apartment, Ruburt complained in his journal that it seems as if the day was gray, or that color had fled the world. [...]

[...] Beginning with the Spring 1985 issue, Tam published his very interesting quarterly, Metapsychology: The Journal of Discarnate Intelligence, for several years. [...]

[...] I suggest that the session be placed in front of his old journal notebook, and that the list of material written by you also be read by him every day before work. [...]