“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

When you publish a paperback of ours, this is like publishing a new book for the first time. I am speaking of our books only—not, for example, of novels or other “occult” tracts.

If you remember, it took a while for The Seth Material, with Prentice, to do well. It was distributed to bookstores and areas specifically involved with the conventional occult field. Even though such people are familiar with the general area of our work, still the book did not fit into a general mold. It took a while, then—though not too long— before the book began to sell well. The other books quickly followed with, to that degree, a now built-in sales advantage.

The general public, however, has been obviously largely ignorant of the books. Publishing them in paperback presents a different picture. Again, they do not fit into the overall occult picture as even the general public understands it. There is no position, no God from the mountain top, and no dumb or docile medium to be taken advantage of by the spirits or otherwise. The work is not simplistic.

The paperbacks are important, regardless of sales values, because they appear in the ordinary marketplace, out of esoteric cubbyholes. You have a loyal core of readers who were already acquainted generally with “occult” books—but to a larger overall extent, that is a steady but dead-end road. It can be counted upon, may grow slightly, but will not affect the overall culture to any considerable degree.

[...] 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. [...]

[...] In his enthusiastic feeling for the book, the best he could do with his lack of training was to think of it in terms of the best in the occult market.

[...] Now I can get rid of my symptoms because I’m getting out of the occult field. [...]

[...] He too has agreed to do all advertising for Jane’s books in the regular trade-book field, rather than the occult.)

[...] There is a so-called occult climate, yet we do not fall precisely into that category for them, the publishers, either; and Ruburt refuses to take advantage of “the trappings.” At least then they could say they had an occult personality who played the new part. [...]

[...] If you were, or if Ruburt was, a conventional Philip Roth, a novelist, safely within that framework, or if he were willing to set himself up as an “occult” mistress of the spirit, then you would have publicity galore.

Occult spring
With its apport of flowers
Casts its spell
Upon the land…

(She said the “buried” material about Christ and mainline Christian thought had to do with occult [meaning hidden] teachings and the Essenes, who were one of the four major Jewish sects known to exist in the Holy Land early in the first century, A.D. [see chapters 21 and 22 in Seth Speaks.]

Jane added that she might have read speculative matter involving Christ, the occult, and the Essenes; and probably, we thought many “secret teachings” have been attributed to Christ.

I do not want you to think that the answers to your questions lie prepackaged in the dream state, either, relatively inaccessible except to those (long pause) who possess unique talents or some secretive knowledge of the world of the occult. [...]

[...] The so-called occult groups would also, with their Gnostic brotherhoods. [...]

[...] He would not have to deal with so-called skeptics on the one hand, nor would he allow himself to be set up as an occult priestess on the other. [...]

[...] There are many books written about occult knowledge, or magical knowledge. [...]

[...] (Pause.) There has been a dabbling in occult matters and some chicanery. [...]

[...] “Pagan” practices, giving far more leeway to sexual identification and expression, continued well into the 16th century, and the so-called occult underground heretical teachings tried to encourage the development of personal intuition.

[...] I talked about the doctor reporting that Jane’s books were kept in the occult section of the bookstore, thus causing her to lose readers; I used the incident as an example of how stereotyped ideas can limit something becoming better known—breaking out of its specialized field to reach a much wider audience, as I think Jane’s work deserves. [...]

[...] I am not speaking here of a one-sided expansion, in which so-called occult tendencies are emphasized at all, but in an overall reeducation of consciousness, in which the operational self becomes aware of areas that have been considered taboo.

[...] (Pause.) There has been dabbling in occult matters, and some chicanery. [...]

[...] I must go against the authority, not only of the so-called straight system, but against the authority of the conventionalized occult in its multitudinous variations.

Now, so-called occult knowledge dealt with secret knowledge, and it is secret to the extent that every man must discover it for himself and that is the end of the secrecy. [...]

There has been in past existences, in your terms, some experience with what is termed occult knowledge, though it is not my term. [...]

Many of your resurrected occult schools speak of a recommended death of desire, the annihilation of the ego, for the transmutation of physical elements to finer levels. [...]

Strangely enough, it can be knocked down most easily, if you can think of me in terms in no way occult or mysterious, but simply as a personality engaged in an endeavor which science will soon come to accept, as simply one of the many facts of existence of which they have previously known but little.

[...] We hope that eventually our “fan mail” will serve as the foundation for a study concerning the ways in which society reacts to new ideas, through the viewpoints, say, of science, philosophy and psychology, religion, the “occult,” skepticism, generalized deep curiosity, and mental illness. [...]