“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:03 A.M. Last night Jane had pronounced her work finished on the introductory material for Dreams. I hadn’t said so, but I’d suspected that she had more to say. Then as we went to bed she brought up two additional subjects to discuss, for those who would wonder: why we hadn’t more actively sought medical help in the past for her physical condition; and the many private, or deleted, sessions Seth himself has given for her over the years.

A third point came up this morning, one we’ve talked about often lately. It concerned the other “Seths” who are revealing themselves around the country these days. Later tonight I want to offer a little more about this overall development—but people speak for their Seths entirely without Jane’s permission. Jane is most concerned that she and I protect the integrity of the Seth material in its unique and original form.

In fact, all of those topics were so much on Jane’s mind that for the second time in three days she went to “work” right after breakfast. In a firmer voice, then, and following a quick look at the Sunday-morning paper:)

Since the later 1960s, when my own troubles began, I stubbornly resisted medical assistance. If I had broken a leg I would have gone to a doctor to get it set. I felt that I could handle my particular kind of difficulty alone. (Long pause.) The symptoms were obvious enough: stiffness, slowing down of motion, and general lack of mobility. I could keep track easily enough, I thought, of my own progress as I worked directly with my body, without drugs to confuse the issue, and with no one else between me and the reality I had so cunningly created. How else could I really learn anything? The more middlemen that I entertained between my physical condition and my personal beliefs, the more confused I thought I’d be.

(Long pause at 9:35.) By last year, as my symptoms worsened, I began to feel that life’s frustrations outweighed its pleasures. Other annoying events were occurring in our private lives. The company that published my books, Prentice-Hall, was changing its structure and policy. My longtime friend and editor there, Tam Mossman, was considering leaving to work for another publishing firm. And—very troublesome to me—came the repeated news that various people were “speaking for Seth” publicly, and charging hefty-enough fees.

(9:43.) I felt that my work was being contaminated, and more, I was annoyed and disappointed by those readers who could apparently be so taken in by those other Seths. As he has said so many times, Seth speaks only through me, to protect the integrity of the material. And it is indeed that contract between him and me that always assures you of the authenticity of Seth’s work.

(9:49 A.M. “Well, I guess that’s it,” Jane said. “This stuff goes with last night’s work.”

“Actually,” she continued much more emphatically now, as we discussed her rather mild comments about the other Seths, “I’m deeply outraged that some people who considered themselves ‘followers’ of mine or Seth can so easily fool themselves when they claim to be speaking for Seth—be so blind to their own motives, or not recognize the fact that they’re taking advantage of people. They’re also using my work to validate their own….”)

Concerning Jane’s understandable desire to protect her work, long ago she published some very clear statements about that. In Chapter Nine of The Seth Material (1970) she wrote: “Several people have told me that Seth communicated with them through automatic writing, but Seth denies any such contacts, saying that his communications will be limited to his work with me, in order that the integrity of the Seth Material be preserved.” And in her introduction to Seth Speaks (1972), she quoted Seth from the 510th session for January 19, 1970: “While my communications will come exclusively through Ruburt (Jane) at all times, to protect the integrity of the material, I will invite the reader to become aware of me as a personality….”