“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

At first she didn’t know. The question followed the little talk we’d had after supper. My back hurt somewhat. I’d finally decided that the ache wasn’t because I’d been lifting her physically—all 82 pounds of her—but because of the medical bills we’d received today. (That had been my somewhat amused speculation to begin with.) We’ve gotten a flurry—a small blizzard—of bills from doctors during the last few days.

I should note, by the way, that her bedsores weren’t infected when she went into the hospital, but were less than a week later. How come? “It’s staph,” several of the nurses told us. A sign warning of infection was put on the door of 3B9, Jane’s room, and stayed there until she went home. “If the infection in that ulcer on your coccyx reaches the bone, it means at least a six-week stay in the hospital,” exclaimed Jane’s principal doctor, Rita Mandali (not her real name). Twice-daily treatments with hydrogen peroxide and a sulfadiazine cream were started. And I began to read up on how many kinds of staphylococcus bacteria alone there are, and indeed how common infections are in hospitals, since by their very nature those institutions are far from being the cleanest in town….

Jane’s hearing is much improved after treatment with decongestants and a pair of minor operations in which tiny drainage tubes were inserted through her eardrums—the procedure is called surery—to relieve internal blockage. Jane’s thyroid gland, Dr. Mandali finally told her, has simply ceased functioning, so the doctor has begun a program of cautiously rejuvenating my wife’s endocrine system, and thus all of her bodily processes, with a synthetic thyroid hormone in pill form (a low 50 micrograms to start). Jane is to take these pills for the rest of her life. At least that’s the current prognosis. Her double vision is not as severe and is supposed to keep improving as the hormone takes effect. Dr. Mandali has prescribed drops to keep Jane’s eyes lubricated, and a liquid salicylate medication (as a substitute for aspirin) to control joint pain and inflammation. Both of these products are taken four times a day. The increased glandular activity is also expected to have some beneficial effects upon Jane’s arthritis, and possibly upon her anemia (a condition that often accompanies arthritis). I asked that she be tested for food allergies, since I’d read that reactions to various foods and additives can trigger arthritis, but Dr. Mandali said that “if Jane is allergic she (Jane) would know it”—a position I came to most thoroughly disagree with. But usually, I thought, the trouble with having something diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis is that not only do you have it when you go into the hospital, but when you leave it. Such is the state of the art of medicine in this case, unfortunately.

(Long pause at 8:22.I thought Jane was tiring. She might have added that she also laughed because neither did she have a brain tumor, cancer, vasculitis [an inflammation of the blood vessels], or any of several other diseases the doctors thought might be present. She felt she’d beaten a number of negative suggestions from medical personnel in connection with all of those afflictions.)

I liked practically all of the doctors and nurses and orderlies, and they liked me. Most of them didn’t know or care “who I was.” Very few were familiar with my work (although a few local fans—strangers—eventually found their way to my hospital room). I found I could hold my own in that environment that at first had seemed so alien. I learned to joke even as my backside swung perilously above the commode, while I hoped that its aim was true in the hands of the nurses and orderlies—and again I felt that long-forgotten camaraderie with people, and a growth within myself apart from my work, or what I did. I had a right to be on earth because I’d been born here like every other physical creature, and on that level alone I was part of a great framework of physical energy and cooperation.

This is a good place to explain that while Jane was in the hospital neither of us ever made any attempt to “convert” the people there—doctors, nurses, technicians, say—to a belief in the Seth material. Beyond saying that Jane was a writer and that I was an artist, we told no one of our interests in life. We weren’t there to impose our beliefs upon anyone else. We’d made the conscious, joint decision during a time of crisis to seek certain kinds of help from skilled practitioners in the medical field, and we were willing to learn from them, even if those people were pretty certain to have belief systems very different from ours. (Well, I should add with a touch of a smile, at least we were more willing to learn in the beginning!)

Jane and I didn’t know whether the doctors we did business with even knew what a trance state was. I envisioned some hilarious episodes during which Seth, speaking through Jane, would try to explain to gatherings of medical people just who he was and what he believed. Next, he’d go into what Jane and I believed, and why. Then he’d add some very pungent remarks as to what those in his audiences believed, and why….