“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Crowder, you think, left a large moneyed estate—far more than either you or Ruburt possess. At the same time, you are more than a little contemptuous of what we may gently call the mental culture of Bill Crowder’s life and mind. A part of you even thinks “Ma is that what you wanted me to be?”

(During last week Jane told me she’d picked up that my troubles had been set off by the death of Bill Crowder on October 2. Betts didn’t write us about the death until we received her letter of the 25th on the 26th—which date being the day before I became ill. I hadn’t paid more than normal attention to Bill’s death, I thought, beyond feeling sympathy, and speculating with Jane about the money he must have left. Not that we wanted any of it. I hadn’t thought his death could bother me that much, for certainly I hadn’t dwelled upon it consciously at all.

The latest episode was indeed triggered by Bill Crowder’s death—triggered.

As she was in life, she would not have understood in any case unless the money definitely came from a recognizable, socially accepted output on your part. To some extent, the affair of Crowder’s death made you look at yourself through what you thought were your mother’s eyes. You were judging yourself, and have, with some regularity, according to those standards. This is at an emotional level, of which of course you do not intellectually approve.

(Yesterday, Saturday, September 30, Jane and I visited my parents and the Crowders, up from Norfolk, Virginia. Since the old Ford—1955—was in the garage with gas tank trouble over the weekend, we were given a ride to Sayre and back from Elmira by the Crowders in their Cadillac. Vivian, Mrs. Crowder, is my mother’s niece.)

The Crowders representing money, you see, appall him. [...]

His mother’s letter (received last week, and containing an old picture of her), followed by the weekend visit (with the Crowders and my parents), was the trigger point this time. [...]

The uterus (pause) impression had to do with Vivian (Crowder) I believe (pause), and Ruburt picked it up from your mother, who is not consciously aware of the knowledge. [...]

You “were” right, then, when you worked on the book before your bout, and during that time you trusted yourself—but then your ideas of the comparative nature of your ideas intruded, triggered at that time by (news of) Crowder’s death, and the ensuing beliefs about the male role in society, and as that applied to your own talents. [...]

[...] Jane evidently had in mind my mother, and Vivian and Bill Crowder, relatives from Virginia whom we saw this weekend. [...]