Events » Past Events » A Brief, Probable History of Sethnet
Compiled by Paul M. Helfrich
Miss Blake pondered:
> and the other oldies here. Just for the record, what is the History
> of this group? Claim and counter claim seem to be winging round
> faster than the speed of thought. So just what / who did birth
> this group and why?
Sethnet has an interesting lineage that goes all the way back to Dr. Maude Cardwell (1927-1992), the original Reality Change, and the Austin Seth Center. So Sethnet actually reaches all the way back to the late 1970s when Maude formed her Seth study group. (1)
Maude eventually moved into a house ("a lovely old mansion") she inherited from her former husband near the University of Texas in Austin. This became the headquarters for The Austin Seth Center and Reality Change magazine, a legal entity in the state of Texas. Maude began holding Seth Conferences in 1982, and according to Helen Walker founder of The Rocky Mountain Seth Conferences, it was the first American conference devoted to exploring the Seth material. (2) Also, the tradition of a costume party began during this era (we've had several dream parties on Sethnet, and costumes are required!).
Maude later created the first version of a Seth Store by publishing Path to the Stars. It featured Seth-related articles and promoted books, tapes, pictures, and notes to supplement the study of the Seth material. (3) In 1992, Maude was sick with cancer and attended the Rocky Mountain Seth Conference to find someone to take over the reigns of the ASC and Reality Change, and promise to keep it dedicated to the Seth Material. Lynda Dahl and Stan Ulkowski stepped up to the plate, and decided along with Maude, to move the operation to Eugene, Oregon where they were based. The Austin Seth Center then became Seth Network International to embody the growing vision that Lynda and Stan brought to the mix. Reality Change expanded into a larger slicker magazine, with a paid production staff.
Lynda and Stan's dedication to Jane and Rob's work kept Maude's vision alive as she passed onto the next chapter of her life later in 1992. The premier issue of SNI's Reality Change was published in Spring 1993. The first SNI conference was in April, 1994 in Seaside, Oregon. Lynda and Stan formed Windsong Publishing to publish her three books. During this time, Janet Mills, of what would become Amber-Allen, began to republish Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality. Lynda and Stan eventually got the rights to reprint Jane's Aspect Psychology Trilogy: Adventures in Consciousness, Psychic Politics, and The God of Jane. The 1990s saw a renaissance of interest in the Seth material!
Joanne and I began subscribing to Reality Change in 1993. We attended our first SNI conference in New Haven in October 1996. Many old and new friends were in attendance, including Vicki Pendley and Ron Churchman who displayed a tape of a then unknown channeler named Mary Ennis who spoke for Elias. However, we didn't meet them at that time! It would be seven months later at the June 1997 Elmira, NY conference -- a "destiny meeting" where over 400 paid attendees and dozens of others gathered at the Holiday Inn. It may have been the largest gathering of Seth enthusiasts up to that time. There was a full moon, the summer solstice, Rob's 78th birthday, and much more in the span of four days!
I gave my first Seth related presentation the following Spring at the April 1998 Seaside, OR conference. By this time, Jo and I were becoming fast friends with SNI regulars like Sheri LoBello, Mary Dillman, Kat Newcomb, Mary Rouen (who managed the SNI Brassring Bookstore), Michael Steffen, Betty Kielty, Nancy Walker, Stan, and Lynda and many others. I wrote music for Stan's Considerations radio show. And, since I had spent the four years of my science museum career using the Internet and web-based technologies, I volunteered to moderate an SNI email list. There were other Seth-related email lists at the time, but Lynda and Stan wanted SNI to have its own. So in October 1998, we opened Sethnet online.
Sadly, Stan Ulkowski passed away unexpectedly in February 1999. And Lynda Dahl soldiered on with the June, 1999 Elmira conference. During that time she announced that in Stan's absence she lost interest in running SNI. The last issue of SNI's Reality Change became the Fall 1998 issue. SNI formally closed it's doors and books in the end of 1999. Legally the Austin Seth Center came to a close at that time.
Lynda officially turned over Sethnet to my care in late 1999 as she was closing out SNI and various publishing companies created to promote her, Jane's, and Norm Friedman's books. So in 1999, I became the legal owner of the Sethnet email list. However, the name "Sethnet" is still owned by Lynda Dahl.
Jay and Kerin Foley would step up and volunteer to host the S2K Conference in New Haven, CT in 2000 to keep the conferences going. It was well attended, but they decided not to continue. It's a big job!
Backing up to December 1998, Jo and I were in negotiations to create NewWorldView as a next generation online venture with Stan, Lynda, Michael Steffen, and Mary Rouen. The idea with NewWorldView was to use the Seth material as a foundation, but begin to expand into other areas and reach a broader audience. With this charter, we founded a new company whose legal headquarters are still in Eugene, Oregon. We held two conferences in 2001, and an author tour to promote Lynda Dahl's Fallacies, and Dr. Fred Alan Wolf's Mind Into Matter books.
However, with Stan's passing, and other factors, Lynda backed out of NWV, as did Mary Rouen (to focus on The Brassring Bookstore, which was now a separate legal entity). NWV went into hibernation in 2002 in terms of conferences, store, and author tours. However, the Community Forums and content libraries are kept up to date with new articles and information to this day.
Coming full circle, Sethnet remains in the NewWorldView orbit, which has expanded to embrace other conscious creation sources like Elias and Kris, as well as Ken Wilber's Integral Spirituality. Sethnet was originally hosted on a fledgling service called Onelist.com, which was bought by eGroups, which in turn was finally gobbled up by Yahoo! Groups, where it remains presently.
In 2004, Sethnet has over 1,100 subscribers and is more vital than ever! NewWorldView continues to host new Community Forums and post free content. The idea, like John McNally and Kristen Fox's Conscious Creation list, is to discuss multiple sources and cross reference.
All in all, Maude's conscious creation vision has expanded and morphed into different forms. Sethnet plays its role in the bigger picture. There are many email lists, groups, and people still very interested in the work of Jane, Rob, and Seth. For example, Rick Stack's New Awareness Network publishes The Early Sessions, The Personal Sessions, ESP class CDs, and out of print Jane books, Mary Rouen runs Brassring Books, and Mary Dillman lives near the Jane Roberts archives at Yale University in New Haven, CT. The Rocky Mountain Seth conferences morphed into the Colorado Seth Conference hosted by Carol and Jim Funk and others. Madelon Rose Logue publishes The Black Sheep Fanzine.
Finally, Reality Change was resurrected by Serge Grandbois and Mark Bukator in August 2003 as The Seth Journal. Volume 1 was dedicated to Maude's memory. If she were with us today, I'd like to think she'd be delighted at how the seeds she planted continue to blossom and bear fruit within the larger community of folks who treasure the Seth material.
Endnotes:
(1) Eileen Glover, Dedicated to the Memory of Maude Cardwell, Ph.D., The Seth Journal, Vol. 1, no. 1, August 2003, Avion Rising Inc.
(2) Helen Walker, Ibid.
(3) Helen Walker, Ibid.