Dorothy Jane Roberts (May 8, 1929 – September 5, 1984) was an American author and poet, who claimed to be psychic and a spirit medium channeling a personality who called himself "Seth."

With her only child, the young Marie then returned to her own parents, and the home that the family had rented for a number of years: half of a double dwelling in a poor neighborhood.

Eventually, Roberts' grandfather, Joseph Burdo, with whom she shared a deep mystical identification, was unable to support two extra people, and the family had to rely upon public assistance.

By then Marie was partially incapacitated, and the Welfare Department began to furnish mother and daughter with occasional and often unreliable domestic help.

For most of 1940 and half of 1941, Jane was in a strictly-run Catholic orphanage in Troy, New York while her mother was hospitalized in another city for treatment of her arthritis.

Jane then married Walt and continued to write while taking a variety of other jobs, including society editor for the Saratoga newspaper, and as a supervisor in a radio factory.

It was then in February 1954 while "cutting up, dancing, and raisin' hell at a party," that Jane first met the former commercial artist Robert Fabian Butts, Jr.

[11][12] Roberts wrote in a variety of genres: poetry, short stories, children's literature, nonfiction, science fiction, and fantasy, and novels.

The couple moved to Elmira, New York, in 1960, to find steady part-time work – Rob in the local greeting card company, Jane in an art gallery.

It was as if the physical world were really tissue-paper-thin, hiding infinite dimensions of reality, and I was flung through the tissue paper with a huge ripping sound."

Their curiosity piqued, the couple decided to investigate further, and she managed to land a contract with a New York publisher for a do-it-yourself book on extra-sensory perception.

[13] 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.

[16] On January 17, 1964, Roberts channeled an allegedly recently deceased woman who told Butts that his and his wife's work with Seth was a life-time project, that they would publish his manuscripts, and help spread his ideas.

Two days afterward they heard from a psychologist interested in reincarnation to whom they had written three weeks earlier with some session copies enclosed.

"[19] Roberts also purportedly channeled the world views of several other people,[1] including the philosopher William James,[20] Rembrandt, and the Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne,[1][21] through a process she described as using a typewriter to write "automatically.

Outside of the ESP class structure, Roberts gave many personal Seth sessions to various individuals who had written her, asking for help.

These additions describe what was going on in Roberts' and his life at the time of the various sessions, annotated in light of contemporary beliefs and materials he and Roberts were reading, described excerpts from some fan mail and letters from professionals commenting on Seth's material about their fields, and, especially later, provided insight as to the many steps of production of multiple books with the publisher.

[44] In early 1982 Roberts spent a month in the hospital for severely underactive thyroid gland, protruding eyes and double vision, an almost total hearing loss, a slight anemia, budding bedsores, and a hospital-caused staph infection.

[46] (Butts believed for some 15 years that in Roberts' case, at least, the young girl's psychological conditioning was far more important—far more damaging, in those terms—than any physical tendency to inherit the disease.

Butts remarried, and his second wife, Laurel Lee Davies, supported his work during the more than 20 years they were together and helped answer mail and proofread manuscripts.

The title jacket of "The Nature of Personal Reality, A Seth Book," republished in 1994 (Amber-Allen/New World Library), contains testimonials from some of the most notable thinkers and writers within the movement.

Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Shakti Gawain, Dan Millman, Louise Hay, Richard Bach, and others express the effect the Seth Material had upon their own awakening.

Catherine L. Albanese, professor of religious history at the University of Chicago, stated that in the 1970s the Seth Material "launched an era of nationwide awareness" of the channeling trend.

"[55] John P. Newport, in his study of the impact of New Age beliefs on contemporary culture, described the central focus of the Seth material as the idea that for each individual: "you create your own reality."

"[58] Some writers noted, "Husband Robert Butts stated that similarities exist between Seth's ideas and those of various religious, philosophical, and mystical doctrines from the Near, Middle, or Far East… and we've done a little reading on Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, and Taoism, for example, not to mention subjects like shamanism, voodooism, and obeah.

[5] Yale University's collection entitled "Jane Roberts papers" occupies 164.08 linear feet of shelf space and is contained in 498 boxes.

She advises scientists to look beyond evolution with the ideal "the cells precognate," and she asks troubled people to cure themselves by believing that "the point of power is in the present" and "beliefs create reality."

The poet Charles Upton, in his collection of essays titled The System of Antichrist, posited that Roberts multiplied the self due to a fear of death.

[63] Professor of psychology and noted critic of parapsychology James E. Alcock opined, "In light of all this, the Seth materials must surely be viewed as less than ordinary.

[64] John MacArthur, host of a syndicated Christian talk show, considers The Seth Material to be "a book entirely written by a demon.