[...] When you are dealing with “Unknown” Reality and your work on it, you perceive the overall completed book in flashes of perception—a circular kind of communication and comprehension. When you work on individual notes, however, you are back in the more normal necessary method of procedure, where you must know what you have said in time, consecutively. [...] You sense the overall shape of the book, often clearly, but because of the workings of functional consciousness, when you must focus upon a particular passage, that focus necessarily precludes the overall vision at the same time.

When you are involved in such work, it is handy to idly switch back and forth with no particular passage in mind, then often the first passage your eyes fall upon will be precisely seen, and yet its part in the whole also instantly apparent, so that the two visions merge.

This course however will work, and is working. [...]

We are working through some material here. [...] His literally tremendous energy, given spontaneity through his confidence in you, is to some degree then turned over to you, and can be used in your work.

[...] Working with the charged environment in this manner can cause various flare-ups, which however disappear immediately as the changes continue.

When Ruburt’s work is done in the bathroom and bedroom there will be another marked improvement, and a new plateau of recovery, from which he will climb still further. [...]

Seth also presented the entire work in such a way that the events of our daily lives were intimately connected with his material, serving as personal examples of how his theories actually work in everyday experience. [...]

I used that information of Seth’s many times while working with “Unknown” Reality. Even so, I learned that on such a long-term project it’s easy to lose that acute sense of what one really wants to do and show — but I also learned how to constantly renew my focus. This presented me with what seemed like an endless series of challenges, yet I discovered again and again that I enjoyed them: Each time I sat down to work, whether on the most routine short note or the most complicated appendix, I searched for that particular, personal sense of intense concentration on the matter at hand. [...]

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.

Let me quickly recap a few more facts about the production of this work. [...]

[...] You felt you could not afford free creative work. Ruburt felt that creative work could pay. Because of your ideas about time and creative work you felt that painting could not pay. [...] You do not feel the world deserves creative work. [...]

In no way should that tending take away from your creative work, but add to it in ways that defy conventional ideas of time. With that understanding, such work would vastly enrich your painting, your writing, and the tenor of your life. With that understanding you can have help without conflict, or do the work yourself without conflict.

[...] You work long hours, you both overinsist, so people will not think you lazy—or, worse, imagine that you are having fun or enjoying your situation. [...] You are often working longer hours for the same reason, and enjoying it less, as the saying goes.

[...] It would apply to you alone whenever Ruburt works at night instead. [...] Be at your respective places —Ruburt at his desk, you in your studio—by 9:30, and work clearly, without interruptions, for three hours.

[...] I always thought that my work made up for the lack of success in obtaining a dwelling we liked. I counted on the success of the work, so when the work seemed to be failing also I was caught.)

Now you are both creatures of habit, wanting feelings of security in which to work. [...] Because you have no family you do respond with and to your environment strongly, and that response colors your health and your work.

[...] Most of your contacts are professional; you both work at home. The environment therefore becomes highly important, as the living medium in which you work. [...]

[...] It was thought of in terms of social transition, or your place in society, and transition in terms of your work, particularly here on Ruburt’s side—on his part. [...]

(Late yesterday afternoon my pendulum told me that Jane’s symptoms stemmed from her feeling that she had failed to become a successful “straight” writer—a novelist, poet, essayist, et al.; that she felt she had failed as the serious writer she had always dreamed of becoming, that the psychic work represented a turning down a wrong path; that actually, basically, the psychic work represented failure to her rather than success. [...]

[...] He felt (long pause at 9 PM) that he had no right to try to do “creative” (in quotes) work that might not pay. He felt also that you were jealous of his own writing, but not of the psychic work, this being further in the past.

His own work was not focused upon as it should have been, to his way of seeing things. [...] What he means is the production of a work of his own in those terms that he considers art, an accomplishment whether or not it brings financial success.

[...] The mobility, the point of mobility, represented moving ahead in his work, or not moving ahead. [...]

Now embarked upon our work, which is also your work, wholeheartedly, your painting abilities and writing abilities will be fully used and developed, and so will Ruburt’s abilities. Working wholeheartedly together, you will and can achieve a unity in spirit and body that few can match, and be led toward achievements that will and must also fulfill your personhood.

Viewing you as he viewed himself, using the same logic, he was afraid however that basically you felt our work a detriment to your own, and that its success, while pleasing you on the one hand, might prevent you from success as an artist because you would not have the time, and that you would basically resent it. You always encouraged him in our work, and he knew this. [...]

[...] But in his own way, and no matter how misguided, he was trying to pace himself and his temperament with yours, to play up those mental writing abilities that would help his career, and in which you took such pride—and while doing that, play down qualities that might distract you from your own work, by encouraging physical activities—parties, vacations, travelings, that would further take up your time, when you were already taking time away from your art to help him in psychic work.

Some of Ruburt’s students would receive great feelings of creative endeavor if you allowed them the simple pleasure of making out envelopes for your (new) letter (to correspondents), but you are afraid of sharing that work, menial as it is. [...] You are embarked upon a work that you are determined to embark upon. [...]

[...] I am aware of that — and yet the destructive storms worked by mankind ultimately cannot be said to be any more evil than the earthquake. While man’s works may often certainly appear destructive, you must not blame man’s intent, nor must you ever make the error of confusing man with his works. For many well-intentioned artists, with the best of intentions, produce at times shoddy works of art, all the more disappointing and deplorable to them because of the initial goodness of their intent.

(10:20.) Now: Make a distinction in your mind between man and man’s works. Argue all you want against his works, as you read in your newspapers of errors, stupidities, treachery or war. [...]

[...] I do not personally know why anyone would collect the worst works of any artist, and get pleasure in ripping them apart. Man has produced some fine works: The high level of verbal communication, the multitudinous varieties of emotional interactions and of cultural exchange, the facility with exteriorization of ideas and concepts, the reaches of the imagination — all of these, and many others, are unique in the universe.

[...] His works are flawed — but they are the flawed apprentice works of a genius artist in the making, whose failures are indeed momentous and grotesque only in the light of his sensed genius, which ever leads him and directs him onward.

(9:20.) In the world of official thought, work does indeed seem to imply responsibility. It seems to many that left alone people would not want to work at all, and that people’s pleasures would lead them into frivolous behavior. In actuality, of course, people’s pleasure, if it were understood and pursued, would lead to far more fulfilling and productive work, or working lives, since individuals would automatically know how to choose productive activities that brought them pleasure, and that were then pursued for their own sakes. [...]

To some extent you convinced yourselves that such creative activity was indeed in some respects more work certainly than play. In your own art you worked relatively slowly, measured out your pleasure in a fashion, even thinking sometimes in the past that your talent required (underlined) periods of indecision and difficulty. [...]

Years ago, Ruburt picked up that idea of work, applying it to creativity in his (underlined) own ways. You made it clear to others that while they be free, free on weekends or holidays, you yourselves were still involved with “work” (underlined)—all of this to show that you were responsible persons. [...]

[...] Things have been hectic here today, interfering with my painting: Frank Longwell and his brother started work today on the front porch, which is to be glassed in so that Jane can have more room. [...]

[...] Beside the personality differences, however, work was also involved. Spontaneous love-making for example would cut into the work schedule that both of you had evolved.

Now: Ruburt’s work therefore became more and more important. [...] For a while at least he felt you met only in your work, and in the sessions.

We will begin with the material that is pertinent, and work through it to other data still more pertinent. [...]

[...] He felt that his obvious femininity was almost a threat to both of your works, that he had no right to look sexy and tempt you both when spontaneous love play, for example, would not occur. [...]

[...] You were rather repressed at that period, frightened about your own work, and sometimes you would ignore Ruburt’s occasional sexual advances when you happened to be in your studio. [...] Or worse—supposing your repressed sexuality was repressed because of your joint work, and supposing you fell in love with someone else, and became sexually aroused for another?

[...] 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. [...]

[...] Again, Freudian beliefs that filled the books and movies led you both in your own ways to fear that your energies could be “swallowed” by sexuality—that to some extent you had so much energy, and that most of it must go into creative work.

[...] While you happily worked and caroused quite innocently, you also began half unconsciously to further question the nature, not necessarily of society, but of the individual lives you met within it. [...]

When you worked in an art department, even though you knew you were doing “commercial work,” society referred to you as an artist. [...] When Ruburt needed jobs he worked in a factory, or he was a sales clerk or a door-to-door sales person—jobs he felt that gave him no prestige. He was afraid, however, of such jobs—prestigious ones—for fear the need for money would lead him to neglect his work. [...]

[...] It is silly in painting to say “Why did I at first choose that color, which did not work, instead of the final completed hue?” You have in art underpainting. In life you work with many “underpaintings” at once—and while it may seem at any given level that one underpainting lacks or is weak, later it will be seen as an important part of the whole.

[...] Rather than avail yourselves of its great refreshment, you thought of the time taken from your work, each of you; beside this Ruburt feared pregnancy, seeing a child not as any kind of fulfillment, but as an artistic and economic disaster.

(9:54.) You tried to separate emotions from work—an impossibility. [...]

[...] She is doing invaluable work as a research and editorial assistant; studying Jane’s notebooks, journals, and poetry, and putting together material from those sources to be included in this book. She has also been working with and choosing the published and unpublished Seth sessions for The Magical Approach. [...] Laurel has been involved with Jane’s, Seth’s, and my work since November of 1979, when she was 24 years old. [...]

[...] I’m back working on the chronology for Seth’s latest book, Dreams, and have been doing some paintings involving my own dreams. Jane has done excellent work interpreting the dreams; some of my nighttime excursions have resulted from these sessions on the magical approach.

[...] They may also, however, have quit their jobs, ignored impulses to find other work, or to take any rational approaches, and rely upon, say, the magical approach alone. This does not work either, of course.

When the intellect is used properly, it thinks of a goal and automatically sets the body in motion toward it, and automatically arouses the other levels of communication unknown to it, so that all forces work together toward the achievement. [...]

Now, in my work as a teacher I travel into many dimensions of existence, even as a traveling professor might give lectures in various states or countries. Here, however, the resemblance ends, largely, since before I can begin to work I must set up preliminary psychological structures and learn to know my pupils before teaching can even begin.

[...] As a part of my work, therefore, I have been coaching the young woman in one way or another since her childhood — and all of this as a preliminary to the serious work that began with our sessions.

[...] It is highly diversified work, for the personality structures vary. While within the systems in which I work there are certain basic similarities, in some dimensions I would not be equipped to be a teacher simply because the basic concepts of experience would be alien to my nature, and the learning processes themselves outside of my own experience.

MY WORK AND THOSE DIMENSIONS OF
REALITY INTO WHICH IT TAKES ME

[...] The idea was to avoid chores, time taken from work, ordinary mixing with neighbors. You never felt a responsibility to go out, but a responsibility to stay home and work.

[...] Both of you often try to hide in your work from normal daily intercourse with others, and to make your work carry the burden of your humanity. [...]

Now we will have a relatively brief session, but I would like to give you some important immediate points to work on—not (humorously) that I did not give you enough the other evening.

Loving encouragement will work. [...]

When the two of you could work together, he thought, all that would change. You would have time to work and play. [...] His work would bear more and more the burden of his needs, and take up the emotional slack that was now apparent. [...] The more you two communicate in the way I mentioned, the less the pressure is in the work area.

[...] When he worked at home the differences in your temperaments became more noticeable. He was also extremely concerned that he learn to discipline himself—now that he had an entire day, and to prove to you his appreciation of the fact that you were still working out.

[...] Yet he found that these people wanted his psychic work most of all. And that while they appreciated his other work, his main value in their eyes lay precisely in the field that he thought would mean nothing to them.

Now as usual with this kind of session, we will work into what we want to say. [...]

[...] I bitterly resent the cutting in the first place, and the time that will be spent away from Mass Events, now, as I do all the work necessary to make our points. [...] We definitely know we’ve been taken advantage of, but basically feel it is Prentice-Hall’s fault for not checking the work in progress.

The entire body is really being worked upon, with resulting looseness of tensions that become more apparent at certain points. Both of you try—try (whispering) to disconnect your creative work from the practical considerations of contracts, and have Ruburt play with his own book. [...]

(The upshot of all of this at the moment is that Jane will not be signing any contracts at this time, and that we’ll be informing Prentice-Hall that we won’t be contracting for any work for them until our questions and assurances are amply demonstrated. [...]

You have, in the dream’s meaning, your father who wants to be left alone, who likes to work in solitude, and who is quite uncomfortable with the expression of emotion. [...]

[...] As a result of our work with the pendulum this morning, Jane was so relaxed by session time that she didn’t know whether she could manage a session. [...] Tonight’s session was excellent, and should of course be studied in connection with the material we’ve already accumulated through pendulum work.)

[...] On various occasions, when the suggestions in his papers worked—you follow me—they worked because at the same time Ruburt was writing down his feelings: his aggressions and his fears.

[...] This means working with the pendulum, suggestion, selfhypnosis, whatever’s needed, to get at the root of her troubles. [...]

(No session was held last Wednesday while Jane worked on the James galleys. [...]

Now on his part it was precisely that conflict that got him into difficulty, and that brought about the ideas of “work.” He became angry, and still is, when you show normal criticism of Prentice and their dealings with our books, or his, because he feels that you do not really understand how difficult it is to market creative work, and since you do not sell your paintings you should not criticize his admittedly worrisome efforts. [...]

[...] “Slow down because you are going too fast,” (was) told him in his youth; he reactivated those ideas, interpreting them to mean that he must slow down in order to produce mature work. Naturally, left alone, his body and his mind both work fast, and there is nothing dangerous in that. [...]

He will not brook interference from anyone, including Richard Bach, in terms of dealing directly with the publisher of his own works. [...]

[...] Concentration should not be on “work,” but on aspects, poetry, his ideas. [...]

[...] But she’s so creative that as soon as she is through with one undertaking she’s ready to launch into another; and this applies even though she’s been working on Psychic Politics outside of the Seth framework. [...] I’d often heard her comment about being in a kind of limbo between works. [...]

[...] She still habitually referred to “Unknown” Reality as a one-volume work — even as Seth himself did in the session this evening — despite the decision made 10 days ago to publish it in two volumes. [...]

[...] If this book “works,” then many old questions will be seen as relatively meaningless, formed not after any intimate encounter with basic issues, but in response to old dogmas.

[...] 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.