The Futurians, Jane Roberts "The Witch" and a Mystery

[Deb]

I'm about to share something about Jane that I find very interesting—it seems Jane's ability to go into trance didn't start with Seth. I'm putting this here since it's somewhat related to the research project.

I remember Jane saying in the Village Voice Interview (Part 5), how hard it was for her, as a woman, to be successful in the science fiction genre. It was like a well-established, exclusive "gentlemen's club." She mentioned going to a convention of sorts and she was the only woman.

At the same time, I was doing straight novels as an apprentice novelist and sent those out. Then I went to a science fiction convention¹⁹ and I was about 28, I guess. All the writers were much older than I or quite a bit older, and all men but me, and they were all bitching about the science fiction field and all this stuff, and I came home and burned my science fiction. Nope, I'm gonna be, get my straight novels published and that's it....
           
Then when that out-of-body thing happened and the thing came it was, I'm sure, a creative acceleration, where you work so hard and you struggle to understand and all of a sudden, boom, there's a new level for you to work in. To that extent, I think you struggle to create a certain kind of reality, and half of you consciously didn't know what you were looking for....

¹⁹ Jane attended the Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference in New Milford, PA on August 5, 1956. Damon Knight, along with James Blish, set up this annual writers' workshop in 1956.

I can't tell if she's referring to what happened at the conference, or something else (such as her Idea Construct trance experience). Your sense?

Here is something that took place at the First Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference. I found this in an old blog post on the internet, regarding a book The Futurians, by Damon Knight (1977). https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/tag/the-futurians/ and it's about Jane.

I've ordered the book, it should be here next week. Some tidbits and comments from the book regarding Jane:

They called her "the witch" since she had the capacity to fall spontaneously into a trance like state....

Also in attendance was Cyril Kornbluth, who brought along a young woman, Jane Roberts, whom Knight describes as "slender and dark, thin to the point of emaciation," with "enormous dark eyes." During the conference, Kornbluth invited Knight, James Blish, and Algis Budrys to join him in Roberts's hotel room. Here's how Knight, in his book The Futurians, describes what occurred:

I have often wished I had asked Cyril what he really had in mind and what he expected to happen. My memories of what did happen are fragmentary. I remember that after a while Jane was sitting on a straight chair with the rest of us grouped together, and that she went into a trance and prophesied. I have forgotten every word of what she said. Still later we were grouped in a tight circle with our arms around each other; all the lights had been turned out except one dim one; it may have been a candle. Cyril was expressing his misery, and I began to sob, feeling as I did so that I was crying as his surrogate. We left the meeting with a feeling of closeness that went beyond friendship.

Two years later, Kornbluth was dead of a heart attack, while Budrys subsequently denied that the incident had ever taken place. As for Jane Roberts, she later became famous for channeling "an energy personality" that received widespread attention in a series of books published in the early seventies. The personality called itself Seth—which is also the name of the Egyptian god who was the sworn enemy of Horus.

And a letter:

September 11, 1975

Dear Jane,

Do you remember the evening at Milford nine years ago when you went spontaneously into trance and told us things about the future? I have often wished I had made some record of what you said, but I didn't, and it is all gone now. I'm working on a book about the Futurians, including Cyril [Kornbluth], for Crowell , and it would be of the greatest help to me if I could recover what was said that evening, in and out of trance. (I have often wished I had asked Cyril later what he had in mind when he got us together, but that opportunity is gone too.) Is that possible – could you recall that evening in trance and get it on tape? I would be happy to pay for tapes, postage, and time and trouble. I know this is an imposition, and I apologize for asking, but it would be so great if you would.

as ever,  Damon

If the incident took place in 1956, then Damon was mistaken about it being 9 years ago. I couldn't find any mention of Damon's letter in Mary's files.

The Seth search engine turned up this quote, where Jane uses the term "Futurians."

"Could one return to that 12th-century life, even as an observer, what would the traveler find? An individual—and one not about to surrender his or her identity to anyone, or have it thought of simply as a manifestation of some "future" self! I think that when they blithely talk about having lived other lives people forget that those living before were—are—fully independent creatures, even if they are psychically related to others. The traveler could hardly move in on one of his or her own personalities! Interesting question: How would our 20th-century individual react when told by a visitor from the year 2355 (for example) that he or she represented one of our futurian's "past" lives?"
—DEaVF1 Essay 7: Friday, May 7, 1982

[LarryH]

It is really interesting that Jane may have been doing trance work before Seth appeared. If she was actually prophesying, that certainly does not sound like Seth. One possibility as to the timing is that she may have gone to the Science Fiction Writers' Conference 10 years later in 1966 (in addition to the 1956 conference), which would make Damon Knight's letter accurate and place Jane's trance work that he mentions in a timeframe consistent with our understanding up to now.

Regarding the comments about women and science fiction, that was certainly true then and probably still is. Interestingly, Jane was just a few months older than Ursula K. Le Guin, who was highly regarded as a science fiction writer as well as in other genres. But her intro to science fiction came a little later than Jane's. Ironically, Le Guin was attracted to science fiction  because she felt that it was more marketable than her earlier works. I was reading her in my teens, and my PhD daughter is a huge fan.

[jbseth]

Then when that out-of-body thing happened and the thing came it was, I'm sure, a creative acceleration, where you work so hard and you struggle to understand and all of a sudden, boom, there's a new level for you to work in. To that extent, I think you struggle to create a certain kind of reality, and half of you consciously didn't know what you were looking for....

Hi Deb, Hi All, 

As I'm sitting here reading this, here's what I "recall" just now and some of my recollection could definitely be flawed.  I recall that Jane was invited / did attend some sort of science fiction club meeting sometime in the mid to late 1950's where all the other members were men. 

It seems to me that somewhere Jane did mention that during this meeting something did happen to her. Something like a spontaneous Seth session, but she didn't know what it was and didn't seem to be aware of what she said or did during this event. To be honest, I'm kind of iffy on this part of my recollection. I think Jane did have some sort of spontaneous psychic Seth type event, but I'm not positive.

It also seems to me that somewhere along the line, Jane mentioned that for a while afterward, the members of this group, did regularly send letters back and forth to each other having to do with new thoughts that they were thinking and wanted to share these thoughts with each other.  I don't recall how long this went on.

Then again, and this one is really quite iffy to me, it seems to me that "maybe", Jane and some members of this SF group may have met more than once, with some time (months, years) occurring between the two meetings.



Now, along with this, it is my recollection that Jane and Rob actually started using the Ouija board in late (Nov or December) 1963.  But there major work and the "Seth" sessions didn't actually take place until very early in 1964. I think that first few sessions in late 1963 were the "Frank Watts" sessions.

Again, as I recall, Janes "Idea Construction" experience, happened sometime within a year of the time (but before) that her and Rob started using the Ouija board. Part of me thinks that this "Idea Construction" event occurred in the spring or summer of 1963 and part of me thinks it may have occurred later like in the fall of 1963.


Along with all of this, I seem to recall that Jane published a small book, or maybe it was a short story in a magazine and it was called something like, "The Rebellers". I also seem to recall, that this was one of her last works and maybe was published sometime in the early 1960's. This might help us quantify, when she "threw in the towel" so to speak, on her SF writing.



In regards to your question about what is Jane was referring to when she said,

"Then when that out-of-body thing happened and the thing came it was,...."

I'm not really sure, what to make of that statement. I don't know if she's talking about the event that occurred during her SF club meeting (assuming I'm correct about this) and I don't know, if instead, she might be talking about her "Idea Construction" experience.

It also occurs to me that maybe here we have two completely different issues. There's the Village Voice Interview comments made by Jane and then there's Damon's letter of 1975. Maybe Damon's dates here weren't wrong in his letter of September 1975. Maybe sometime in 1966 Jane held a private Seth session for Damon and some of the members of this SF group where she told them things about the future. Or, it could be, as you've pointed out, that maybe Damon got the date wrong by about 10 years. Somehow that seems a little harder to believe, to me, but then maybe by 1975, Damon was getting older and having memory issues.


The thought has also occurred to me that "maybe" Jane, in her Village Voice Interview may have been referring to something else entirely. That is, maybe she was referring to something completely separate from either the SF club Seth type event or the Idea Construction event.  Maybe during that same general time period, she had one or more other psychic events and she never talked about it, and never wrote about it (maybe she thought she was becoming psychotic) and as a result, we never heard about it. Jane was somewhat of a private person.


It seems to me that over the years, in reading many of the Seth books, Jane's books, the TES books, the TPS books and the Sue Watkins books, a lot of Jane's personal type of information was really scattered in little bits and pieces, here and there, all over the place. This makes it kind of difficult to locate and pull up something specific like this.

It seems like some of it is in places like Janes books, like in "The Seth Material", "Adventures in Consciousness, "Psychic Politics", "The God of Jane" , etc. where she sometimes talked about her past experiences.  Some of it is in the notes within TES1 to TES9 books. Some of it is in Rob's background information on him and Jane in TPS1. Some of it (the Idea Construction background) is in the book "Seth, Sleep and Consciousness". Some of it is in the book, WTH, and some of it may also be in Sue Watkins book "Speaking of Jane Roberts".

Then in addition to this, some of it may also be in TPS1-7 (I've only read TPS1).


I do have many of these books (though not all of them) and so I'll poke around in them and see what I can dig up on this issue.



- jbseth

[Deb]

I just spent more than an hour going down the rabbit hole, and found a LOT of references to Jane and the conference from various sources. Cyril Kornbluth was the person who brought Jane to the conference, and I finally got the bright idea (doh) to put his name into the search engine. And came up with the first paragraph below. I got the second paragraph out of the SS book. I'll go through the other stuff I found, not sure if it makes sense to share it all because this quote sums it up.

"(Long pause at 11:01. In 1957, after Jane had sold her first few short stories, she was invited to a conference of science fiction writers at Milford, Pennsylvania. I couldn't go because of my own work, so Jane attended the conference with Cyril Kornbluth [now deceased], a friend and a well-known writer who lived near our home in Sayre, Pennsylvania.

"(Jane went into a trance one evening during a discussion. Out of this episode—which we did not understand was a trance for several years afterward—evolved a group of writers, Jane among them, who called themselves "The Five." Long and involved letters were exchanged among the members of The Five by a round robin technique. The four other writers in the group were much better known than Jane was.)"

—SS Chapter 3: Session 518, March 18, 1970

From all the information I found, I don't think anyone remembered exactly what Jane said that night. I don't think anyone wrote anything down, or recorded it. But I found Rob's note reassuring in that he mentioned the incident, and they didn't seem to know what had happened.

Well, I'll also add this because I thought it was interesting:

http://galacticjourney.org/tag/second-sex/  [JUNE 28, 1961] THE SECOND SEX IN SFF, PART IV

"Jane Roberts: Ms. Roberts popped on the scene in '56, writing for F&SF, and she was a regular for the next several years.  The only woman invited for the first science-fiction writer's conference in Milford, PA (also in 1956), her work is beautiful and haunting.  She hasn't published anything in the genre since the '59 piece Impasse, which is really too bad.  I hope she comes back soon."

This was from an interview of A.J. Budrys, one of the members of the Futurians and an editor of Playboy:

"Years later, over the years I'd hear from Jane once in a while. When I was an editor at Playboy, she submitted a short story. In those days, for instance, Playboy was publishing stories by Ursula K. LeGuinn under the byline U.K. LeGuinn. And Kate Wilhelm could have sold them a story if she'd been willing to change her byline."

It seems a lot of woman writers, even in the 1950s and maybe 60s, were still using pseudonyms to disguise their gender. Budry said the majority of the best scifi writers were women writing under pseudonyms.

[LarryH]

In those days, for instance, Playboy was publishing stories by Ursula K. LeGuinn under the byline U.K. LeGuinn.

Interesting that her name pops up again after I first mentioned her above. I wonder if LeGuinn and Jane ever met? It's possible that their eras of involvement in writing science fiction did not overlap, but I think they would have liked one another.

[jbseth]

Also in attendance was Cyril Kornbluth, who brought along a young woman, Jane Roberts, whom Knight describes as "slender and dark, thin to the point of emaciation," with "enormous dark eyes." During the conference, Kornbluth invited Knight, James Blish, and Algis Budrys to join him in Roberts's hotel room. Here's how Knight, in his book The Futurians, describes what occurred:

I have often wished I had asked Cyril what he really had in mind and what he expected to happen. My memories of what did happen are fragmentary. I remember that after a while Jane was sitting on a straight chair with the rest of us grouped together, and that she went into a trance and prophesied. I have forgotten every word of what she said. Still later we were grouped in a tight circle with our arms around each other; all the lights had been turned out except one dim one; it may have been a candle. Cyril was expressing his misery, and I began to sob, feeling as I did so that I was crying as his surrogate. We left the meeting with a feeling of closeness that went beyond friendship.

Two years later, Kornbluth was dead of a heart attack, while Budrys subsequently denied that the incident had ever taken place. As for Jane Roberts, she later became famous for channeling "an energy personality" that received widespread attention in a series of books published in the early seventies. The personality called itself Seth—which is also the name of the Egyptian god who was the sworn enemy of Horus.

Hi Deb, Hi LarryH, Hi All,

In 2001, Susan Watkins, wrote a book titled "Speaking of Jane Roberts" and this book has a pretty good accounting of this "the Five" meeting.

In Chapter 2 of this book (page 19 and 20 of my paperback version of this book) she goes into really good detail about Jane and her early stories that she sold. In 1956 she sold a story, "The Red Wagon" which was a SF story about a child's fading awareness of past lives.  Then on page 21 of this same chapter, we find footnote 8, which has to do with the SF group, "the Five".

In the Endnotes of this book, for Chapter 2, footnote 8 (pages 192 – 194) we get a detailed account of what took place during this initial group of "the Five" meeting. This account comes from a 1977 interview of A. J. Budrys for KPFA Radio, Berkeley, California.

What Mr. Budrys says here sounds pretty similar to what you (Deb) captured in your initial post here by Damon Knight from his book "The Futurians" only it contains more detail. Following this, in this same endnote, footnote we get a very short paragraph about Damon Knights recounting of this episode from his book "The Futurians"

Given what it says here, it doesn't appear to me that Mr. Budrys denied what happened as reported by Damon Knight.

-jbseth

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi LarryH, Hi All,

I also found the following information in Susan Watkins book, "Speaking of Jane Roberts" in Chapter 2 (pages 19 and 20).  This has to do with Jane's last SF book, "The Rebellers" and why she threw in the towel with SF writing.


"The Rebellers, which like The Chestnut Beads and Bundu is about social destruction and psychic redemption, was published by Ace in 1963."


Then a little further down in this chapter we find the following.


"But the publication of The Rebellers shattered Jane's enthusiasm for the science-fiction genre. It was an Ace double paperback, cheaply done, combined with another novel in tandem reverse. "When I laid eyes on that, I burst into tears," Jane said later. "All these people were congratulating me, and all I could think of was what a crappy job [the published book] was."


-jbseth

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi LarryH, Hi All,

I went back and took a quick look at what Seth was talking about in SS, Ch 3, S518, where he talked about this group of SF writers. In this session, Seth was talking about teaching and how he does this. Here in this session he uses Jane as an example of some of the issues that he has to deal with. Seth was such an interesting teacher.

Sorry but you must log in to view spoiler contents.

-jbseth

[Deb]

Wow, you have really good recall jbseth.

Along with all of this, I seem to recall that Jane published a small book, or maybe it was a short story in a magazine and it was called something like, "The Rebellers". I also seem to recall, that this was one of her last works and maybe was published sometime in the early 1960's. This might help us quantify, when she "threw in the towel" so to speak, on her SF writing.

I have a copy of The Rebellers, copyright 1963. Poor Jane had to share the book with another author, John Bruner, Listen! The Stars!. The Rebellers is 155 pages, and then you flip the book vertically and horizontally, and there's John's book of 96 pages.

The Universe as Idea Construction incident also happened in 1963. A big year for Jane.

Interesting that her name pops up again after I first mentioned her above. I wonder if LeGuinn and Jane ever met? It's possible that their eras of involvement in writing science fiction did not overlap, but I think they would have liked one another.

That's why I left that in the quote, I thought it was interesting too. I did search through all of Mary's files and LeGuinn's name did not come up, but that doesn't mean anything, they could have met and she could have even inspired Jane.

Given what it says here, it doesn't appear to me that Mr. Budrys denied what happened as reported by Damon Knight.

The incident being mentioned by Rob makes me think that it did happen the way Damon said, except for saying it had been nine years in his letter to Jane, which has me perplexed. Should have been nineteen years, so maybe a typo. Just another number with a 9 in it. Or he had a faulty memory. In the interview of Budrys, he said a few times that Jane was from Erie PA where he should have said Elmira NY. Just another town that begins with E and again faulty memory. It's like that old game of whispering a sentence around a circle of kids, you never know what you're going to end up with.

I got the Futurians book yesterday, skimmed until I found the bit about Jane. I'll scan the pages, there are 3, and share them when they're done.

[Deb]

Well there were actually only two pages, so I iPhoned them and sent the book back since most of it was not of interest. Sorry for the distortion, it's not easy photographing a page without breaking the binding.

[strangerthings]

I love this!  Awesome awesome blossom!

Thank you so very much for sharing this!

Amazing, a woman comes along and blows their mind and refer to her a witch. So typical lol (from long ago days gone by)

Turns out she was quite seemingly admired and sought after for cool cool cool conversations. I would love to be a fly on wall for the exchange of "The Five''s" letters!

[strangerthings]

Well there were actually only two pages, so I iPhoned them and sent the book back since most of it was not of interest. Sorry for the distortion, it's not easy photographing a page without breaking the binding.

Your sentence made me giggle because how true that is. You need a Torchwood alien book scanner 😆

(Torchwood is a tv show spun from Doctor Who)

[brighteningdark]

As an avid SF fan, especially of this period in the 50's that saw the genre's first really mature works of depth and complexity, much of it due to The Five(!!), and other writers mentioned, this blows my mind! Such unguessed connections... I would love to know if any of them had read the Seth Material and what they had made of it... I will say, UKL's novel, "The Lathe of Heaven", has some very Sethian elements, maybe coincidence, or not. Great book, like all of her work.