Jane Roberts

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Photographs of Jane Roberts on the cover of her biography by Susan Watkins

Jane Roberts (1929-1984) was an American author who was known primarily as a psychic and trance medium or spirit medium who "channeled" a personality named Seth. She also purportedly channeled other personalities, including the deceased philosopher William James and the deceased painter Paul Cézanne. The publication of the Seth texts established her as one of the preeminent figures in the world of paranormal phenomena. In addition to metaphysical texts, she was an author of short stories, novels, children's literature, and various philosophical and/or religious texts.

Roberts was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she attended Skidmore College.

1 The Seth Material
- 1.1 Tenets of the Seth Material
2 Non-Seth books
3 Footnotes
4 Selected writings
5 External links

[edit] The Seth Material

In late 1963, Jane Roberts and her husband, Robert Butts, experimented with a Ouija board as part of Roberts' research for a book on extra-sensory perception. According to Roberts and Butts, on December 2, 1963 they began to receive coherent messages from a male personality who eventually identified himself as Seth. Soon after, Roberts reported that she was hearing the messages in her head. She began to dictate the messages instead of utilizing the Ouija board, and the board was eventually abandoned. For 21 years until Roberts' death in 1984 (with a one-year hiatus due to her final illness), Roberts held regular sessions in which she went into a trance and purportedly channeled messages from Seth (hereinafter referred to as "the Seth personality" or simply "Seth"). Butts served as stenographer, taking the messages down in homemade shorthand, although some sessions were recorded. These messages from the Seth personality, consisting mostly of monologues on a wide variety of topics, are collectively known as "the Seth Material" (sometimes referred to herein as "the Material"). The Material through 1969 was published in summary form in The Seth Material, which was written by Roberts with substantial excerpts from the Seth personality. Beginning with the 511th session in January, 1970, the Seth personality began to dictate his own books. Roberts claimed no authorship of these books beyond her role as medium, and according to Roberts and Butts, these "channelled" books were published verbatim with only minor editorial corrections. This series of "Seth books" eventually totalled ten volumes, although the last two books appear to be incomplete due to Roberts' illness. The list of titles includes Seth Speaks; The Nature of Personal Reality; The Nature of the Psyche, Its Human Expression; The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events; The Unknown Reality; and Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment. Robert Butts contributed notes and comments to all the Seth books, and thus was a co-author on all of them.

The Seth personality described himself as an "energy personality essence no longer focused in physical form" who was independent of Roberts' subconscious, although Roberts herself expressed skepticism as to Seth's origins. The Seth personality said that he had completed his earthly reincarnations and that he was speaking from an adjacent plane of existence (or "system of reality" or "universe", all terms which Seth used). He described himself as an educator whose task was to impart the Material to the current generation of human beings. The Seth personality's demeanor was notably different from Roberts', as reported by witnesses who included Robert Butts, friends, acquaintances and students. He was at times stern, jovial or professorial, and he frequently assumed a distinct accent which was not identifiable. Unlike the psychic Edgar Cayce, whose syntax when speaking in trance was antiquated and convoluted, Roberts' syntax and sentence structures were modern and clear when speaking as Seth.

Sessions were held at regular intervals, usually three per week lasting two or three hours. Roberts asserted that she maintained control of the sessions and was not coerced by Seth. With the exception of a weekly ESP class in which the Seth personality spoke to class members, Roberts gave few readings to the public and was mostly focused on publishing the Material in printed form.

[edit] Tenets of the Seth Material

The Seth Material covers a wide variety of topics, including the nature of physical reality, the origins of the universe, the theory of evolution, the Christ story, the nature of God, and the purpose of life. The Seth personality made the following assertions, among many others:

The physical universe is one of a multitude of universes (or "systems of reality"), some physical in nature and some mental or spiritual, each with its own natural laws, and each as valid as any other. As in the "many worlds hypothesis", the physical universe has multiple "probable" versions. Any event or action which is likely to occur in one probable version will be actualized in that or another probable version. There are, as examples given by Seth, versions of our universe in which the dinosaurs are still alive, and versions in which Christianity did not develop. Events or actions which are not highly probable may be actualized in the dream universe. Each individual has many counterparts within the probable versions of the universe, not all of which have the same name, occupation or personal relationships. All systems of reality are, to some extent, camouflages since all beings have an existence which is independent of any system. The number of universes is infinite since new universes come into existence constantly.

Reincarnation is the rule, although many misconceptions abound. For example, human beings never reincarnate as animals; cause-and-effect does not operate from one life to the next; and reincarnation does not end in a state of nirvana. Each individual must experience fatherhood, motherhood and childhood, and thus must incarnate at least twice; the maximum number varies greatly, depending on the temperament and needs of the individual.^[1] There is a period of rest between incarnations. When an individual's reincarnational cycle is over, the individual moves on to other systems of reality.^[2] There is no heaven or hell, only continued existence.

Each self has many layers, most notably an "outer ego", which interacts with physical reality, and an "inner ego" or "inner self", which is concerned with the mechanics of constructing and maintaining the outer ego's physical world, and which existed prior to any incarnations. A new outer ego is born with each incarnation, thus paralleling the Christian concept that the human soul is conceived at inception. The entire self (which Seth referred to as an "entity") is actually a gestalt consisting of the inner self plus all the outer egos or reincarnational selves, including all probable selves in all probable versions of the universe. According to Seth, human beings are generally unaware of the inner ego, although it comes through as intuition and the "inner voice" that many people believe they hear. The inner self is aware of all reincarnational selves.

Each incarnated self exists in four universes simultaneously: the physical universe, which is the result of coordinated mass mental projections on the part of its inhabitants; a dream universe, which is created in the same way but has less rigid natural laws; an adjacent electrical universe, where the inner self resides and all mental activity occurs; and an anti-matter universe of which Seth said very little. All portions of the self contribute to dreams, which continue when the outer ego is awake.^[3]

Time and space are illusions, and both the past and future coexist with the present in what Seth referred to as a "spacious present"; therefore, a person's incarnations in different time periods are actually lived simultaneously, as opposed to consecutively. Time appears to exist in a linear form because of limitations inherent in the physical brain.

All individuals create their own circumstances and experiences within the shared earthly environment, similar to the doctrine of responsibility assumption. The inner self is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the individual's physical body and immediate physical environment; events, however, unfold according to the outer ego's beliefs and attitudes. Both productive and unproductive attitudes are translated into reality, and thus one of the tasks of the individual is to learn how to direct his or her thoughts in positive directions. In a private session given to a friend of Jane Roberts, the Seth personality said:

"You must watch the pictures that you paint with your imagination, for you allow your imagination too full a reign. If you read our early material, you will see that your environment and the conditions of your life at any given time are the direct result of your own inner expectations. You form physical materializations of these realities within your own mind.

"If you imagine dire circumstances, ill health, or desperate loneliness, these will be automatically materialized, for these thoughts themselves bring about the conditions that will give them reality in physical terms. If you would have good health, then you must imagine this as vividly as in fear you imagine the opposite.

"You create your own difficulties. This is true for each individual. The inner psychological state is projected outward, gaining physical reality -- and this regardless of the nature of the psychological state. ... The rules apply to everyone. You can use them for your own benefit and change your own conditions once you realize what they are.

"You cannot escape your own attitudes, for they will form the nature of what you see. Quite literally you see what you want to see; and you see your own thoughts and emotional attitudes materialized in physical form. If changes are to occur, they must be mental and psychic changes. These will be reflected in your environment. Negative, distrustful, fearful, or degrading attitudes toward anyone work against the self."^[4]

There is a God, whom Seth referred to as "All That Is". God is composed of self-replicating and inexhaustible mental energy, and God contains all of Creation within it. God, therefore, is a gestalt of all life, as in Pantheism and Panentheism. However, the individuals that exist within God have free will. The mental energy of God is the composite substance of all things, including all beings, all universes, and all events and phenomena. For this reason, God's consciousness extents into all things and is omnipresent. Also for this reason, all things in existence, including physical matter, have life and consciousness. If there is reality outside of God, the Seth personality was not aware of it.^[5]

Creation is constant and ongoing. Most Creation occurs, not as a direct command from God, but as a result of the activities of the individuals who exist within God. God's consciousness extends into all new creations. Since God is a gestalt of all things, God is constantly in a state of change and transformation.

Christ, who still exists, is a highly evolved entity who has existence in many systems of reality. However, Christ has the same relationship to God that all other individuals do -- i.e., he is part of God.

At the time of Christ, the Christ entity incarnated as three individuals -- John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, and Paul or Saul of Tarsus -- and each was to some degree aware of his role in founding a new religion (although Paul/Saul was not aware of his role until after his conversion to Christianity). Seth said that Jesus was not crucified, and that it is not in the nature of enlightened individuals to sacrifice themselves. Rather, a willing and deluded surrogate, who believed himself to be the Messiah, was substituted in Jesus' place, and it was this surrogate whom Judas betrayed (and who was then crucified). Jesus was then able to be "resurrected" because he had not actually died. Seth said that the crucifixion of Jesus did occur as a shared psychic event, but it did not occur as a physical event.

Paul/Saul will reincarnate in the 21st century to correct mistakes that he made that set Christianity on the wrong course, and a period of spiritual awareness will ensue. Paul/Saul will not identify himself as Christ, and some will view him as the anti-Christ since his appearance will hasten the decline of traditional Christianity, along with other organized religions. Paul/Saul will be known as a psychic; he will strive "to straighten out Christianity, which will be in shambles at the time of His arrival", and he will form "a new system of thought when the world is sorely in need of one". The events surrounding the return of Paul/Saul will substantially be complete by the year 2075, but the ensuing changes to society will take a century to unfold.^[6]

Jane Roberts died in 1984 at the age of 55 after a long battle with what appeared to be an autoimmune disease. In 1996, sessions 1 through 510 (the "early sessions" which preceded the dictation of the Seth books) were published posthumously by Robert Butts in nine volumes, along with six volumes of previously unpublished personal messages which accompanied the later sessions. Roberts' and Butts' manuscripts, notes and recordings were donated to the Yale Library. Butts currently lives in Sayre, Pennsylvania.

[edit] Non-Seth books

Roberts wrote a number of books that she did not attribute to dictation by Seth, which discuss the same ideas and how they affected her life. These are, among others, Adventures in Consciousness, Psychic Politics, The God of Jane, The Education of Oversoul Seven, The Further Education of Oversoul Seven, and Oversoul Seven and the Museum of Time.

Roberts also wrote poetry, short stories and novels.

[edit] Footnotes

^ Chapter 12, The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts (1970).
^ Chapter 12, The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts (1970).
^ Session 188, The Early Sessions; Book 4 of the Seth Material, by Jane Roberts (1998).
^ Chapter 13, The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts (1970).
^ Chapter 18, Roberts, Jane. The Seth Material (1970) (pg. 241 in the original Prentice Hall paperback edition).
^ Chapter 21, Sessions 586 & 588, Roberts, Jane. Seth Speaks (1972). ISBN 1-878424-07-6

[edit] Selected writings

Roberts, Jane (1974). The Nature of Personal Reality. Amber-Allen Publishing. ISBN 1-878424-06-8
Roberts, Jane (1981). The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. Amber-Allen Publishing. ISBN 1-878424-21-1
Roberts, Jane and Robert F. Butts (1994). Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. Amber-Allen Publishing. ISBN 1-878424-07-6

Seth-related works from other authors:

Watkins, Susan M. (2005 and 2006). Conversations with Seth 25th Anniversary Edition, in two volumes. Moment Point Press. ISBN 1-930491-05-0 and ISBN 1-930491-09-3
Dahl, Lynda Madden (1995). Ten Thousand Whispers. Moment Point Press. ISBN 1-889964-06-9
Stack, Rick (1988). Out-Of-Body Adventures. McGraw-Hill Companies. ISBN 0-8092-4560-4
Watkins, Susan M., (November 1, 2000) , Speaking of Jane Roberts, Remembering the author of the Seth material, Moment Point Press ISBN 0-9661327-7-7