“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“You walked?” I was incredulous. That would be fifteen miles or so. In this weather, without a coat? I wasn’t thinking too clearly yet, but that would be feat par excellence for anyone—let alone lugging two bags along. From the attaché case Fred took the handwritten manuscript of The Rules of Love. “Please. I am Seth. Show this book to Jane and have her read it while I wait here, then you tell me, Robert, what she thinks of it....” This, after Fred comprehended that I had no intention of letting him in the house. Jane could not deal with him, I thought, although he showed no signs of violence. “Please, Fred is getting cold.... If you won’t take the whole manuscript, take just this one chapter—Fifteen—and show that to her. Let her read it. Then you come out and tell Fred what Jane thinks of it. I can help her. She’s going to die soon.”

“Oh, I mean you no harm,” he said. “Fred doesn’t. But he’s awfully cold....” When I asked him again what he would do if he didn’t get into our place, he said, “Why, I think Fred will die. It doesn’t matter. He’ll just die. I am Seth; I know he’ll be all right.” And with that Fred sat down in the wood chips beside the stump that Frank Longwell had placed for us when he’d built the back porch for us. Fred did this very calmly.

By now I was shivering also. I think the temperature was around 45 degrees. Fred sat in one of the folding chairs and I hurried inside. I slid the kitchen window shut so he couldn’t call into Jane. She still sat at the card table, of course. “We’ve got a problem,” I said to her on my way to the closet. “I’ll tell you about it....” I grabbed my heavy corduroy coat. “We’ve got to call the police. I’ll be back in a minute.” I helped Fred put on my coat and bundled him up. He readily agreed to my offer of some hot tea or coffee. I went back in to put the water on the stove for heating. In all the visitors we’ve had, this one went the furthest, I thought, to the point I’d often wondered about: actually calling the police for help in handling someone. I didn’t want to call them, but had no choice. I fumbled around looking for their number (we hadn’t written it in the front of the book, as you’re supposed to). When finally I called on the speaker phone, the number rang four times by my count, and I began to wonder what we’d do if for some reason the police simply never answered. Did they work Saturday? Call the State Police, I thought. When someone did answer, I explained the situation. Whoever I talked to had evidently been questioned by someone also looking for us—if not Fred himself —but his description of the person, as being older and with white hair, didn’t match Fred’s appearance at all, so I didn’t press the point. (Later I wished I had.) But I hadn’t explained much of the situation when my caller said, “We’ll have someone up there right away.” I said we’d be waiting.

I explained a few more details to the officer today, and he told me to give them a call if by any chance Fred shows up again. Like me, he didn’t believe that Fred flew here from Denver—that is, talking a stewardess into giving him free transportation all that way—yet Fred got here somehow, and I explained that the manuscript of Fred’s that I’ve looked over contains descriptions of his landing in Pittsburgh, PA, and working his way east through a series of stops at restaurants, in which he’d add to his manuscript each time. [...]

It turns out that the officer took Fred to the Rescue Mission, rather than the Salvation Army (they may be connected, for all we know). Fred stayed overnight, was let go, went to the local Holiday Inn, and was arrested for failure to pay for services. [...] So as I wondered about the day it all happened, Fred was turned loose in town, and might have indeed turned up at our door. [...]

[...] However, he knew about his fellow officer’s encounter here at the house with Fred Conyers last Saturday. [...]

(Pete surprised me by saying that he’d talked to Fred Kardon yesterday, here in town. Fred, he said, was on the defensive. Pete ended up getting mad at him—for Fred contradicted himself by saying that Jane required acute care, but that all the other facilities in town said they rejected her for that very reason. I don’t know whether I’m correct in this interpretation or not, but Pete said Fred was evidently trying to protect himself. [...] I told Pete about Fred signing that form on November 18, saying Jane didn’t require acute care. [...]

[...] We received an unwelcome surprise when Kim told us that on November 18 Fred Kardon had signed a paper stating that Jane no longer required acute care. [...]

(“That’s the system,” Connie Lido said when I told her Fred hadn’t told us he’d signed that form. [...]

(Jane told me that Fred Kardon was in to see her this morning. [...] Fred hadn’t heard from Pete, she learned. [...] Fred told her that the other places had rejected her because of the ulcers. [...] Fred said the insurance hassle is “a matter of writing letters back and forth.” [...]

(However, this morning, Jane said, Fred was amazed at the way the large ulcer on the outside of her right knee is healing itself. [...] Fred said they had a way to go. [...]

(However, a little thought shows that Fred’s departure may actually work to our advantage—slowing down any precipitous decision on the part of the Chemung County Infirmary to want to possibly move Jane over there; if he isn’t present to give advise, officials may not be able to reach a decision, except to leave her alone—which is what we want. [...]

[...] I explained that I’d become quite interested in the Fred Conyers thing because I’d been reading a couple of pages a day of one of the manuscripts he’d left us: The Rule Book of Love: A Seth Book. I thought the title intriguing. I also thought portions of the manuscript itself were intriguing, quite acute, mixed up with Fred’s obsessions and compulsions, his personal life and family, his far-out ideas, his attempts and frustrations as he tried to use the manuscript as a vehicle toward understanding himself as he attempted to uncover the secrets of his personality: He thought them locked away from his understanding by the very device he had chosen of speaking for Seth. [...] I’ve also learned that Fred has a wife, Heidi, and at least one daughter, and that he did—does —live in Denver, Colorado. [...]

(As I told Jane today, a study of the affair would be fascinating in many ways, particularly as it would have to involve Fred’s behavior and beliefs as associated with the Seth material. [...] Fred has it wrapped in brown paper and so much yellow string that at first I thought he’d used a rope like a clothesline as a binder. [...]

(“I’m quite interested in the Fred Conyers affair. [...]

(Jane is off the Kefzol, the antibiotic Fred Kardon had her on after she broke her right leg. Fred took her off it this morning. [...] When Fred came into 330 Georgia had told Mary Ann about it, and Mary Ann pointed it out to Fred. [...]

[...] First the girls are wrong about the cause of the slight swelling, then Fred gives her a lousy suggestion about arthritis! [...] Jane answered my question about whether Fred had any idea he was giving out rotten suggestions about arthritis by saying that it never occurred to him—or any other doctor. [...]

(The couple, Carol and Fred—not married—related to us a most “far-out” series of events leading to their finding out where we lived. [...] Miss Dineen told them they needn’t do so on a holiday, and the conversation among the three of them took off from there—culminating in Miss Dineen remembering that she knew us when Miss Callahan was alive, etc.—all of this after Carol and Fred had asked Miss Dineen if she knew us.

(These notes hardly do justice to the string of events that led to Carol and Fred meeting Miss Dineen—from the couple’s leaving Watkins Glen, motoring to Elmira, deciding upon how to find us, asking a policeman finally for directions to a book-store, going to the wrong bookstore—Rubin’s—just as Miss Dineen came out of the religious bookstore almost next door, Miss Dineen first directing them to 458 West Water, then remembering that we’d moved, etc. This list is not complete, but could be fleshed out should we ever want to; we have the addresses of Carol and Fred on file.

(Note that in both cases, involving Rusty and Hal, and Carol and Fred, the couples returned to 1730 after their first visit had failed to make contact with us. [...]

[...] In color: I’d looked out the south window of the bedroom to see Fred Kardon standing out on the lawn; he was talking to someone else who was doing some kind of work near the big pine tree that grows up over the corner of the house. [...] Fred wore old work clothes—jeans and a sweat shirt, I think—and I could hear his voice clearly as he talked to the other person. I wasn’t sure of my interpretation of the dream, except that it must involve a reappraisal on my part of Fred’s role in society. [...]

(In the hall outside the emergency room I met Fred Kardon, who asked me how Jane is doing. [...] “I haven’t heard from any of the nurses,” Fred said, meaning he’d received no negative reports. [...] Fred stressed that it was important that Jane drink as much liquid as she can. [...]

[...] I learned to my surprise from our chauffeur that the father, Fred Jupenlasz, whom I remember well, had only recently died at the age of 85. For some reason, I’m not sure of the first name of Fred’s wife, whom all of us liked very much. [...] In vivid memory is a picture of her attempting to get out of the family car in front of 704 N. Wilbur Avenue, in Sayre, after Fred had driven the family over to see my parents for a visit—probably on a Sunday.

(Interestingly, my informant about Fred, who was probably connected with the Mansfield College in some way, had been in the town only since 1971. [...]

[...] A long time ago Fred had said he didn’t want her to stop taking it, so she wouldn’t get depressed like she used to. [...] Fred had said the drug stays in the system about three weeks after one stops taking it. [...]

[...] [Jane later said Fred Kardon might have mentioned this some time ago; I don’t recall.] Madeline Sullivan said we were well off as far as our insurance goes, and I laughed and said, “Yes, only we can’t collect.” [...]

(Saturday afternoon it was Fred Conyers from Denver, CO. [...]

(I’d wanted material on the fascinating case of Fred Conyers, but had never hoped we’d get it. [...]

[...] Next he’s going to call Fred Kardon. [...]

[...] Pete wants Fred K. to write a letter, or something like that. [...]

(“Maybe you can light a fire under Fred about the letter,” I’d told Pete. [...]

[...] Fred Kardon must have seen the stone, Jane said, since the word was relayed through him that that’s what it was—a bladder stone. Jane didn’t see Fred. [...]

[...] Jane and I were surely surprised, and suspect that Fred was also. A couple of weeks after our return from New York City, Fred wrote Jane a glowing letter.)

(See my hospital notes today for details regarding my talk with Fred Kardon here at the house this morning. [...]

[...] Today Ken Wrigley echoed Fred Kardon’s sentiments re Jane returning to the house—in favor of it, much to my surprise, and Jane’s too. [...]

[...] I did think to ask Joan about what she’d told us a couple of weeks ago when Jane’s Synthroid dosage had been cut down by Fred Kardon. [...]

(By the time the Pipers had asked their third question of the board, concerning the name of the communicant they had raised, Fred Lake, Jane had received this name mentally. [...]

(The next question the Pipers asked for was a date from Fred Lake. [...]

[...] A patient in 333A was having heart problems—so the people came running down the hall pushing the emergency heart/breathing machine, including Doctor Fred Kardon, who said hello as he passed 330. [...]