“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There must be a vast amount of pertinent dream information ready for the tapping, however, and maybe with Seth’s help Jane and I can eventually learn more about the undoubtedly therapeutic roles our joint and individual dreams have played as we contended with the challenges posed by her physical difficulties. Many questions arise: Even granting our personal reservations about influences being exerted within our current lives through past, future, as well as other present existences, what about exchanges on dream levels concerning Jane’s symptoms between or among any of our reincarnational selves, our counterpart selves, or various combinations of the two? How am I involved in any of these, and how are Jane’s and my families—and reaching how many generations back in ordinary time? To what extent does Jane’s physical infirmity mushroom into other probable realities through the dream state? I think that Jane herself can deal with many such questions; possibly tuning into them on her own, should she decide to, or through the mediation of her “psychic library.” A book could automatically develop out of the investigation—even, I joked with Jane, a “world-view” book.

Even if those sessions can’t be quoted in these essays because of the obvious space limitations, I can note that Jane and Seth each continued to develop the themes already laid down in the sessions that have been presented. What they really signify for the long term is (as I wrote in the essay for April 16) a continuing program of intense study for Jane and me—and yes, for Seth, too—as we seek to better understand our chosen commitments in our present physical lives. [...] For if the information arouses such mixed emotions in Jane and me, surely it will do so in others too, serving as an impetus or goad to learn more even while it highlights one’s strengths and weaknesses. [...] The anger I’d felt at Jane and myself when she began recording her sinful-self material (see the essay for April 16) has long since dissipated. I won’t claim that residues of it may not be buried within my psyche (and within Jane’s), but it’s very difficult to stay mad when one agrees with the simple but most basic and profound idea that you do create your own reality.

[...] Because Jane still requires regular care, our sleeping patterns remain much more evenly divided between the daylight and nighttime hours (see the essay for April 16). [...] Once again I’m becoming aware of my dreams, and so is Jane. I haven’t been able to get back to painting since Jane left the hospital, and I’ve had to hire help to mow the grass. [...] Jane’s nurse now visits but twice a week, which is all that’s necessary (my wife’s decubiti are under control, for example).

At the request of Dr. Mandali, a few days ago Jane underwent her routine phlebotomy, or bloodletting, here at the house. Today (on June 18), the doctor informed us by telephone that as one result of the test we can increase Jane’s thyroid hormone dosage from 100 to 125 micrograms—a most welcome development, for we hope it will add to her daily energy. Yet there was unwelcome news, too—for the test also showed that the level of liquid salicylate medication (the aspirin substitute) in Jane’s blood is too low. [...] Dr. Mandali instructed us to put Jane back on aspirin, to keep any arthritic pain and inflammation under control: “You can take up to sixteen tablets a day.”

In the first essay I referred to Jane’s unique combination of stubbornness, innocence, and mysticism, and in that respect nothing has changed. In spite of her horror at the medical practices and suggestions she’s encountered, and in spite of her dismay at the physical damage the arthritis has caused in her temporal body, Jane will give up nothing until she—and/or her whole self—get out of the entire illness syndrome exactly what she wants to get. [...] Jane learned to refuse to strike back at the invalid Marie’s rage and sarcasm, to inhibit her spontaneity and impulses, and so habits of repression entered in. [...]

Jane’s book would be called The World View of Jane Roberts, of course. [...] If she could tune into the world views of the philosopher and psychologist William James, and the artist Paul Cézanne, why couldn’t she do it for the writer and mystic Jane Roberts? [...]

It seems that once again we must learn the hard way that in Jane’s case any improvements we achieve are going to come from within ourselves (for I’m certainly as involved in and “responsible” for her illnesses as she is). That such feelings are rearoused in us at this time is hardly coincidental in view of our lifelong habits and belief systems; our tendencies toward secretiveness and our desires to be as self-sufficient as possible—even with Jane’s very dependent situation. [...] Once again I note that in my opinion Jane’s dependency represents, at least in part, a search for a “redemption” that encompasses other motivations and realities than those concerned with “just” our temporal lives; that indeed, her impaired state grew out of her mystical nature itself (but was hardly caused by it!).

So, although I think that Jane has made some “remarkable gains” during recent weeks, I also think that basically she has yet to resolve the entire issue of her illnesses—or even whether to continue physical life. Seth put it beautifully a couple of months ago in the session for April 12—the first time Jane spoke for him since leaving the hospital—and I return to it again and again. See the essay for April 16: “The entire issue (of Jane’s living) had been going on for some time, and the argument—the argument being somewhat in the nature of a soul facing its own legislature, or perhaps standing as a jury before itself, setting its own case in a kind of private yet public psychic trial. [...]

I should add that I don’t think Jane has started to “set … aside” the medical interpretation regarding her “arthritis situation,” as Seth suggested she might do when he came through on April 12. (That session is presented in the essay for April 16.) Any decision Jane makes about altering the deeply set beliefs involved in her condition will require the cooperation of a number of portions of her psyche, including her sinful self, and it appears that at this time neither of us is ready to try achieving that kind of overall effect. [...] Ironically, Jane’s sinful self is one of the main creators of and participants in her illness syndrome, so any beneficial changes she can bring about will first call for a major shift in the attitude of that very stubborn portion of her psyche. [...]

[...] It’s easy to see how, in Jane’s case at least, the church’s teachings about sin began to grow as the innocent child started protecting her spontaneous natural mysticism—that prime attribute she’d chosen for exploration in this life. [...] And so, of couse, the sinful self’s own overreactions, although carried out without “malice,” became themselves a portion of Jane’s long-range learning challenges this time.