Together let's create a strong international Seth network!
Hello Seth/Jane Roberts Friends,
I’m Lynda Dahl. In 1992 my life partner, Stan Ulkowski, and I formed the original Seth Network International in Eugene, Oregon. Its purpose was to bring global Seth and Jane Roberts/Rob Butts readers together to share insights and experiences, and to create new ones. When Stan died in 1999, I closed Seth Network and moved home to California.
But what a ride it had been! Over time we’d signed more than 1,000 members; subscribed several thousand people from 30 countries to our quarterly magazine, Reality Change: The Global Seth Journal; held conferences (Rob and his wife Laurel were our guests at two of them, in Elmira); offered Seth workshops around the country; doggedly pushed for the republication of the Jane Roberts and Seth books (most of which were out of print when we formed SNI); published some of Jane and Sue Watkins' books; started one of the first chat rooms (on CompuServe in 1995); launched one of the first web mail lists (SethNet, in 1998, and within months membership was 1,000). And we were able to do it all because of one significant reason: the enormous contribution of time, effort and money by so very many Seth and Jane Roberts readers – all our partners, without equivocation.
The Emerging Vision of a New Seth Network International
The goal for this emerging vision of a new Seth Network started forming when I learned something interesting. Our original website from the ‘90s had sat dormant for 10 years, but the domain name had not been canceled (thank you, Michael Steffen!) and the hosting company kept us live, without charge (thank you, Rob and Rose Jenkins!). Therefore, because of several factors, web searches for Seth and Jane Roberts inevitably found us on the first page of entries. And for a completely inactive site, we still drew nearly 24,000 first-page hits a year and were consistently ranked the #1 site receiving visitors to the Seth Ring from the WebRing.
What to do with that potential exposure became the question. Discussions with Seth and Jane Roberts friends ensued, and it was finally decided to do what the Internet allows us to do best: become a portal to Seth activity internationally. That is, we want to help bring maximum exposure to all things Sethian: Seth workshops and conferences, the Seth books, Jane Roberts' books, Seth groups, online discussion groups and blogs, Sethian guest speakers, the Seth material in general, etc. We also very much want to help build attendance at in-person events - like Seth groups and Seth workshops - because from long experience we know the benefit to our own lives of being face-to-face with other Seth/Jane Roberts/Rob Butts readers and the close friendships that develop. And we also know from experience that those kinds of events need all the help they can get.
To clarify how Seth Network will be positioned, consider us a touchstone for what is or will be happening in the world around the Seth material. All Seth groups, speakers, articles, Seth workshops, businesses, the sellers of Seth books, etc., are invited to have links to their points of information or purchase here, and all we ask is that a reciprocal link be placed on any website whose information is on ours - but only if appropriate. (Mainstream site owners, please see Add Listing for clarification.)
The Youth and Seth/Jane Roberts
But there’s a second desire of Seth Network, one those of you who have attended Seth workshops and conferences and Seth groups have commented on consistently. Where are the youthful Seth/Jane Roberts readers? Perhaps we need to reach their places and technologies of interest in order to tell them we're here. Therefore we’ve invited SethSpace, the social networking site brainstormed by our own Jeff Kiefer (see below), to become an affiliate of Seth Network, not a part of SNI but a click away, because Jeff has set up SethSpace links on Facebook and will on other sites where young people congregate. His technology appeals to them, and is easy for us older Seth folks to use and enjoy, too.
Your Friends at SNI
And who are we? Michael Steffen and I have partnered and formed the new Seth Network International. (Michael and wife Mary Rouen were on the Seth Network Board of Directors as well as actively involved in many other facets of SNI life.) Judy Ewing, owner of web design company Five Cats Marketing and co-producer of the 2009 Maine Seth Conference along with husband Tom, did the initial creative work on our site design and was crucial to the establishment of an email database. And Jeff Kiefer, owner of Kiefer Systems (a web development company) and designer of the California Seth Conference site and his own SethSpace, volunteered his technical and creative talents to bring our Seth Network site to the eyes and minds of the Sethian world, and keep us there.
Along with this core team were the folks who helped us formulate our initial ideas for the new Seth Network. One in particular bears noting, because he brought us so much web/technical and friend-to-friend advice in our very early stages. Masa Nishio, creator of Seth Network Japan - both the organization and the website - was invaluable in helping us forge a course forward.
Into the Future with Seth
So that is what the new Seth Network International is all about – at least for the moment. We’ll see where we go over time, what new ideas will emerge for implementation. But meanwhile we’d really appreciate it if you’d let your Seth friends know of our existence and the email list we’re gathering in order to announce and promote various activities. And don’t forget to post your own information in your directory category of choice. All of this would certainly be deeply appreciated, not only by SNI but by the many Seth/Jane Roberts readers who will gather here over time.