“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) I am a part of your unknown reality, and you are a part of mine. To some extent in these pages our realities meet. To the extent that you do not know yourself, you do not know your world. To the extent that you do not know yourself, you do not know your husband, or wife, or mother and father. To the extent that you do not know yourself, you do not know what God is. To the extent that you do not know yourself, you do not know what nature is. The unknown reality exists to the extent that you do not travel joyfully through the intimate lands of the psyche, to the extent that you do not directly experience your life as original (forcefully), but accept labels put on it by others. The unknown reality exists as a challenge, an exciting endeavor, as each individual becomes consciously aware of intimate subjective feeling. Do not overlay the personal daily aspects of your life with preconceived ideas about who you are, what you are, where you are, why you are. Become aware of the original nature of any given moment as it exists for you.

Give us a moment … This book itself, because of the method of its production, is an excellent example of the unknown reality becoming, if not “known,” then recognized. Do not look for neat answers or tidy solutions, for when you do your explanations and theories will always be too small. There is always an unknown reality to some extent, for the miracle of your being works outside of the kind of explanations that you so often seem to require.

(Long pause.) The unknown reality, dash — Many of you, I know, would like to find in this book answers pertaining to Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, UFO’s³, and many other such questions. Those matters certainly seem pertinent in the framework of your experience and beliefs. You already have a great variety of explanations offered: Writers in many fields have produced books about such topics. By far the greater questions, however, are those pertaining to the unknown reality of the psyche, and those that relate to the kind of being who perceives in one way or another an Atlantis, a Bermuda Triangle, a UFO — for in greater terms, until you ask deeper questions about yourselves, these other experiences will remain mysterious. You cannot understand perceived events unless you understand who perceives them. You must learn more about the slant of your own consciousness before you are in a position to ask truly pertinent questions about the reality that you perceive.

1. A note added four months later: Jane needn’t have worried. The sessions didn’t come to a halt after all. With the arrival of warmer weather we did take an occasional break from psychic work, but for the most part the sessions were held regularly even though Seth was through with “Unknown” Reality. Some of them were private, but Seth also covered a number of interesting topics of a more general nature — material we’d like to see published eventually. (His comments in the 750th session as to why “Unknown” Reality was written, are quoted in the Introductory Notes for Volume 1.)

The two volumes making up The “Unknown” Reality: A Seth Book, were dictated by my wife, Jane Roberts, in cooperation with Seth, the nonphysical “energy personality essence” for whom she speaks when she’s in trance. I wrote in the Introductory Notes for Volume 1 that Jane began delivering “Unknown” Reality (as we soon came to call it) in the 679th session for February 4, 1974, and finished it with the 744th session for April 23, 1975. [...]

[...] Here, I wish to make it clear that [“Unknown” Reality] will initiate a journey in which it may seem that the familiar is left far behind. Yet when I am finished, I hope you will discover that the known reality is even more precious, more ‘real,’ because you will find it illuminated both within and without by the rich fabric of an ‘unknown’ reality now seen emerging from the most intimate portions of daily life…. [...]

[...] In ‘Unknown’ Reality I went further, showing how the experiences of the psyche splash outward into the daylight, so to speak. [...] ‘Unknown’ Reality required much more work on Joseph’s part, and that additional effort in itself was a demonstration that the psyche’s events are very difficult to pin down in time. [...]

The appendix idea worked out well in The Seth Material and in Seth Speaks, and in both volumes of “Unknown” Reality each excerpt or session in an appendix, with whatever notes it might carry, is usually fairly complete in itself. [...] I think it especially informative to compare Jane’s Psychic Politics with Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, for she produced large sections of both works concurrently; there are many interesting exchanges of viewpoint between the two.

(11:11.) The unknown reality, however, is unknown enough to usual reaches of the most flexible consciousness, in your terms, that it can only be approached by a personality as couched in it as I am. [...] One of my purposes then has been to make this unknown reality consciously known.

Now: Preface: There is an “unknown” reality, in quotes as given. [...]

[...] Each individual is a part of the unknown reality. [...]

[...] They give notice of psychic bridges connecting the known and “unknown” realities in which you dwell.

The two volumes of “Unknown” Reality hardly tie truth up in neat packages, though, so that after completing them the reader can claim to know all of the answers. [...] In a sense, they are incomplete and complicated at times, with new terms, for the unknown reality they attempt to describe will, I fear, always elude us to some extent, and new terms are needed as old ones become stereotyped and worn.

Long before I finished my part of “Unknown” Reality, Seth and Jane had started their next book: The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression. I recorded those sessions, of course, while keeping up with my own work. [...] Yet none of those “outside” events were fully removed from “Unknown” Reality. They found their way into the pages, the sessions, somehow, even if only by feel or inference. [...]

[...] It should be obvious that the two volumes of “Unknown” Reality are further ramifications of that thesis, for here Seth shows us the usually invisible psychological dimensions that underlie the known world. [...]

Seth told us ahead of time, of course, that “Unknown” Reality would follow an intuitive and inner organization rather than a linear one, and that this writing method would itself arouse the creative, revelatory characteristics of the psyche. [...]

[...] By then it was obvious that in a couple of weeks Seth would be through with “Unknown” Reality, as we’d taken to calling it. [...] Not only would the expanded format be something out of the ordinary in itself, but it meant that with two volumes I’d have the room I needed for notes and references; excerpts from Jane’s ESP class sessions, as well as from “regular” sessions dated before and after the production time of “Unknown” Reality; a little of Jane’s poetry; and appendixes — all of which I thought would add extra dimensions of consciousness to the books. [...]

As “Unknown” Reality progresses into Volume 2, it’s natural that I use notes more and more often to call attention to earlier sessions. [...] At the same time, in an effort to build some mental bridges between the two parts of “Unknown” Reality, I’ve made it a point occasionally to lift something out of one volume for inclusion in the other, or at least to include that kind of reference.

As I note in the Epilogue for this volume, Section 6 in Volume 2 contains the story of how we moved into our “hill house,” just outside Elmira, N.Y., a month before Seth completed that section — and his part in “Unknown” Reality as a whole — in April, 1975. [...] Politics is also mentioned in the Epilogue to Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, and my first session notes on it show up in Section 4, in the second volume.

[...] For she completed the two volumes of “Unknown” Reality in a total trance time of 90:35 hours, or a total trance-plus-break time of 131:30 hours (sums which translate roughly into times of 45 hours and 65 hours per book). [...] So either hourly total is most remarkable for the involved creative accomplishment of “Unknown” Reality, regardless of the larger context in which those hours were really expended. [...]

So by now Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality is well along toward completion. [...] Those who are interested in the more detailed mechanics of Seth-Jane’s production of “Unknown” Reality, especially where qualities of time are involved, should review my Introductory Notes. [...]

Section 5: How to Journey Into the “Unknown” Reality: Tiny Steps and Giant Steps. [...]

[...] But as Jane enthusiastically put it when we were discussing where to divide the six sections of “Unknown” Reality, Volume One, provides the general background and information upon which the exercises and methods in Volume 2 depend.” [...]

[...] The reader is invited to experience his or her own “unknown reality” through the study of dreams and practice elements, and to try for psychic travel into other realities. [...]

In your reality, the “Unknown” Reality we have just finished is the only version of that manuscript. [...] So we have been working on a probable “Unknown” Reality — in fact, on many probable “Unknown” Realities. Not mere versions, but variations.

[...] Not all of his material tonight is given over to questions, however; much of the rest of it, covering matters other than those relating to “Unknown” Reality, is deleted.)

Now: In a way, it is quite difficult to tell you what I have been doing with my time (humorously emphatic) while I have been involved in the production of “Unknown” Reality — and therefore, to some extent at least, inclined toward your time.²

In a way, Ruburt’s book (Psychic Politics) will continue our material from another viewpoint while you are preparing our “Unknown” Reality.

[...] And what does it have to do with the unknown reality? [...] The private oracle is the voice of the inner multidimensional self — the part of each person not fully contained in his or her personhood, the part of the unknown self-structure out of which personhood, with its physical alliance, springs. [...]

(With many pauses:) Dictation … The unknown reality, probable man, dreams, the spin of electrons, the blueprints for reality — all of these are intimately related.

[...] The unknown reality is the source for the known one. [...]

[...] The dream-art scientist, the true mental physicist, the complete physician — such designations represent the kinds of training that could allow you to understand the unknown, and therefore the known reality, and so become aware of the blueprints that exist behind the physical universe. [...]

[...] The “unknown” reality is unknown only because you have not looked for its aspects in yourself. [...]

Any discussion of the unknown reality must necessarily involve certain usually dismissed hypotheses about the characteristics of consciousness itself. [...]

[...] In order to study the “unknown” reality, however, you must try to see what else your consciousness can do. [...]

Much of the remainder of “Unknown” Reality, then, will deal with an inside look at the nature of reality, and with some exercises that will allow you to see yourself and your world from another perspective. [...]

The unknown reality and the psyche’s greater existence cannot be separated from the intimate knowledge of the flesh, however, for the life of the flesh takes place within that framework. [...]

[...] The people who have journeyed into the unknown reality have always been adventurous. [...]

So you take a psychic guided tour into other realities; the unknown seems known, so that you are not an explorer after all, but a tourist, taking with you the paraphernalia of your own civilization, and beliefs that are quite conventional.

Ruburt has thus far insisted upon his private vision and his unique expression of the unknown reality as he experiences it, and so he brings back bulletins that do not agree with the conventional psychic line.

The concepts in “Unknown” Reality will help expand the consciousness of each of its readers, and the work itself is presented in such a manner that it automatically pulls your awareness out of its usual grooves, so that it bounces back and forth between the standardized version of the world you accept, and the unofficial⁷ versions that are sensed but generally unknown to you.

Clear understanding or effective exploration of the unknown reality can be achieved only when you are able to leave behind you many “facts” that you have accepted as criteria of experience. “Unknown” Reality is also written in such a way that it will, I hope, bring many of your cherished beliefs about existence into question. [...]

2. In Chapter 2 for Psychic Politics Jane presents not only her library material, but quotations from the 715th session for “Unknown” Reality itself. [...] We already knew that she would initiate some transposition of material from Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality into Politics, since she was so intimately and enthusiastically involved in producing both works at the same time: I first wrote about such an exchange in Note 3 for Session 714 (when indicating that she’d used portions of that session in Chapter 1 of Politics).

[...] This book⁶ deals with the unknown reality, and Ruburt began a different excursion into other dimensions last week.

[...] So far the blueprints for reality have been largely unknown. Your methods make them invisible, so here I am suggesting ways in which the unknown reality can become a known one. [...]

The “unknown” reality. Unknown or not, it is what you are working with.

[...] While delivering the material she’d had an overall glimpse of the plan of “Unknown” Reality, but lost it as soon as break came. [...]

(Once again now, Jane wondered why the “more elaborate or complicated qualities” of her trances [she couldn’t really explain what she meant here] were necessary in order for her to deliver this book, as opposed to the “easier” ones she’d experienced for Personal Reality. I suggested she forget such comparisons and think that “Unknown” Reality simply required a different approach, for whatever subjective reasons, and that perhaps her constant questioning would be taken care of as her work on it progressed.⁵

2. Did I go overboard on “Unknown” Reality? Why did I choose to do notes for it —let alone publish it in 2 volumes? [...]

5. On our decision—R. finishes “Unknown” Reality—and later Psyche, maybe with my help?

[...] That episode had taken place just before she delivered the 686th session for this volume of “Unknown” Reality, and is described in Appendix 5.

[...] We’re presenting the statement below, and a few examples from the outline, in order to show some of her other activities while producing “Unknown” Reality. [...]

[...] I do believe it possible for Jane to deliver “Unknown” Reality and The Way Toward Health concurrently through Seth, and to carry on her “regular” writing, for I think we have yet to learn the limits of her abilities [although as she continues to develop them she increases our knowledge of human potential]. [...]

[...] Rob wondered if it’s part of “Unknown” Reality, but I don’t think so.”

Beginning in June 1974, then, while writing notes and appendixes for Volume 1 of “Unknown”, and taking Seth’s dictation for Volume 2, I spent eight months producing the art work for Jane’s Adventures in Consciousness and for her book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time; I finished all of those drawings in January 1975. [...] Jane finished dictating Volume 2 of “Unknown” for Seth in April 1975, and I started my notes and appendixes for it. [...] I completed my own writing for Volume 1 of “Unknown” in October. [...]

[...] In February 1977 we received from Prentice-Hall the copyedited manuscript for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality. [...] A few days later we began correcting page proofs for Volume 1 of “Unknown.”

(One might say that Mass Events had its origins two Seth books ago — way back in Volume I of “Unknown” Reality, which Seth finished dictating in June 1974. [...]

[...] I asked Jane if Seth could devote the next session to that subject matter so that I could insert it in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality as a note or an appendix, since I had plenty of work to do yet for that second volume. [...]

Now: you (to me) have been wondering whether or not to use family photographs in “Unknown” Reality. [...]

You understand that private experience, imperfect but creative, underlies the points in “Unknown” Reality. [...]

[...] When Seth asked if I had more questions, finally, I said no, that I’d have to think it over, and that perhaps we’d decide not to use photographs after all in “Unknown” Reality.

[...] Through understanding your own unknown reality, therefore, you can learn much about the unknown reality of the species.

[...] It came about because we’d been discussing our deceased parents and probabilities, in connection with the first two sessions [679–80] of “Unknown” Reality. [...]

[...] I continued that I was somewhat concerned because the notes for Unknown” Reality were running considerably longer than they had for either Seth Speaks or Personal Reality. [...]

[...] “I don’t know where that came from,” she said, laughing, “but anything you want to know, just ask …” At this time we’re content to keep a record of such instances while “Unknown” Reality grows. [...]

Seth tells us, of course, that prehuman communication and human language and speech have originated in rhythmic patterns again and again, since in the far past our planet has seen the development of a number of presently unknown civilizations. See, for example, his material on reincarnational civilizations and the Lumanians in Chapter 15 of Seth Speaks. In Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, see his discussion on ancient man in the 702nd session, as well as Jane’s own material on the “innumerable species of man-in-the-making” in Appendix 6.

[...] You can, in other words, take advantage of the unknown reality by letting it add to your home station.

Give us a moment … To some extent language does make the unknown known and recognizable. [...]

Part of the unknown reality, then, is hidden beneath language and the enforced pattern of accustomed words — so, for an exercise, look about your environment. [...]

[...] I don’t care whether we get stuff on “Unknown” Reality, or personal material, or what. [...]

[...] Class may have to wait until Seth finishes his work on “Unknown” Reality.

[...] One result of our meeting [as I wrote at the beginning of the Introductory Notes for Volume 1], was the decision to publish this long manuscript for “Unknown” Reality in two volumes.⁵

[...] Speaking as Seth, she began to very comfortably and easily deliver the next session for “Unknown” Reality.)

Now: (Louder and deeper:) “The ‘Unknown’ Reality (colon): A Seth Book.” And put “Unknown” in quotes.

[...] Maybe this time he’s going to go ahead and do it his own way … I can honestly say that the title was completely unknown to me.” She smiled at her unwitting pun on “Unknown” Reality. [...]

Jane and I placed no particular emphasis upon this information when Seth came through with it, but in retrospect we realized that it contains two significant points: Seth’s reference to “another book,” which we think is “Unknown” Reality, and his use of the word “counterparts.” [...] For in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, Seth’s concept of counterparts certainly takes on its own unique meaning within his study of personhood. [...]

[...] 11:50 P.M. Then a minute later, as we talked about “Unknown” Reality, Jane briefly dipped back into trance:)