“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

August 12, 1982. Originally I’d planned to write the standard kind of introduction for Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment. However, as I became involved in describing the complicated, emotionally charged series of events surrounding the hospitalization earlier this year of my wife, Jane Roberts, the material automatically began organizing itself into a series of dated essays. I was more than happy to follow this intuition from my creative self, for it answered many questions I’d started to consciously worry about.

Moreover, the choice of presenting the material in essay form proved to have one virtue that was more valuable than all the others combined: It allowed us to delve into the events I describe, and “our deep-seated, sometimes wrenching feelings connected to them,” a little bit at a time. Those situations might have been too devastating for us otherwise, too emotionally threatening, too charged for us to present them with at least the minimum amount of objectivity required by the written word. Many of the events and feelings evoked such deep implications of trial and challenge for Jane and me that we were often left with strong feelings of unreality: This can’t be happening to us. At our ages (52 and 62, Jane and I, respectively), why have we created lives with such nightmarish connotations? Why do I have to leave my dear wife alone in the hospital each night, so that I feel like crying for her when I go to bed by myself in the hill house? Why can’t we be left alone to live lives of peace and creativity? And how many millions and millions of times through the ages have other human beings on this planet felt the same way—and will yet? Why are our lives ending like this, when we feel that simply getting through each day is an accomplishment?

The essay form gave us chances for at least a minimal study of the various forms our creative learning experiences have taken to date. We quickly agreed that we’d been setting up the illness syndrome for years, yet the deep emotional shocks accompanying its physical developments seemed to come at us like attacking dark birds zooming in from another probable reality. We learned. We adjusted in ways that a few weeks previously would have seemed unbelievable to us—and, ironically, as must often happen in such situations, once we’d moved into our new joint reality, it appeared that those particular challenges had always been incipient for us.

[...] Well before she was 10 years old Jane had developed persistent symptoms of colitis, an inflammation of the large intestine/bowel that is often associated with emotional stress. [...]

[...] Not only would the two women be emotionally tested and enriched across physical and psychological time, but so would their entities or whole selves.

[...] (I also note that that truth being sought may end up as so abstract a quality that it loses its emotional and intellectual meanings for us, and moves out of our generalized perception. [...]

[...] “Interactions with others do occur, of course,” Seth told us long ago, “yet there are none that you do not accept or draw to you by your thoughts, attitudes, or emotions.” [...]

[...] 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. [...]

And from Session 613 for September 11, 1972: “Interactions with others do occur, of course, yet there are none that you do not accept or draw to you by your thoughts, attitudes, or emotions. [...]

[...] I knew at once that the tape’s contents were so revealing of her feelings about her illness, so disturbing and frightening, that she couldn’t bring herself to explore those deep emotions at that time. [...]

Actually, I was amazed at the opacity of my perception: It seemed that once again I was just beginning to understand that Jane had chosen to embark upon a journey in which she would explore herself and the world in intensely physical and emotional terms—in contrast to the more intellectual ways by which she and I have usually conducted our searches, through the Seth material and our own inquiring minds…. [...]

[...] In a variety of ways we kept trying to do just that through the screens of our emotions and intellects. [...]