“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

(We finally held our first “new” Seth session last Monday evening, on April 12. [...]

[...] And why, I wondered, did most of us, most of the time, buy our new experience and knowledge at such high prices?)

[...] I bid you a fond good evening—and know that you have taken, both of you, important new strides.

[...] Certainly Jane chose all of her challenges in this life, just as I did, and as we believe each person does, but a major concomitant of focusing upon certain activities involves how one copes with them (often in close cooperation with others) as the years pass: What new and original depths of feeling and idea are uncovered, layer by layer, what insights, what rebellions, and, yes, what acceptances….

[...] The old established explanations had faltered, and finally seemed almost incomprehensible, while the new explanations of Seth seemed beyond my reach, at least in certain areas—areas that were vital to physical and psychic peace. [...]

[...] We were living in Sayre, Pennsylvania, a middle-class railroad town in which I’d grown up, which lies only 18 miles southeast of our present home in Elmira, New York. [...]

Jane didn’t tape this new Sumari, though—which we regretted—for she wasn’t able to get out of her chair to hunt for her recorder; I was too charmed just listening to her sing to think of a tape. [...]

In our ceaseless search for answers to an unending list of personal questions, we discussed the notion that in her own way Jane has described a circle from her childhood: Her parents, Marie and Delmer, were married in Saratoga Springs, a well-known resort town in upper New York State, in 1928. [...]

(I believe that current medical thinking about the immune system and arthritis will be much enlarged upon by the time this book is published, though I haven’t given that much thought to just what new information may be acquired. [...]

[...] We hope that eventually our “fan mail” will serve as the foundation for a study concerning the ways in which society reacts to new ideas, through the viewpoints, say, of science, philosophy and psychology, religion, the “occult,” skepticism, generalized deep curiosity, and mental illness. [...]

I think the beliefs the three of us hold are very creative ones; we accept them on that basis; they are as good “proofs” as we can currently get, and offer their own answers by sparking us into new ways of trying to make sense out of our reality. [...]

[...] Already this morning I’d typed from my notes last night’s very encouraging private Seth session: “—and know that you have taken, both of you, important new strides.” [...]

That evocative, prophetic line is from a Sumari song that Jane sang to herself a few days before she went into an Elmira, New York, hospital on February 26, 1982. [...]

After some hesitation following my question about having a session this evening, Jane decided she wanted to contribute introductory material for Dreams. This was to be a new experience for us: Because of the arthritis she was having trouble even holding a pen, so she intended to dictate her material as though she were writing it herself in longhand. [...]

[...] Yet it’s still the best way to go, Dr. Mandali said, even with the new anti-inflammatory, nonsteroidal drugs that the FDA (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) has released to the marketplace recently, for often they produce more side effects than aspirin. [...]

[...] And all of this presupposes that each of us will be ready to draw “new facts” into our daily lives from Framework 2.

[...] During our work on these pieces Jane and I have automatically been led back to earlier material again and again, but each time we’ve tried to plunge deeper into the topic under discussion, to uncover new layers of meaning and insight. [...]

“I’ve had several new experiences with altered states of consciousness,” she wrote in labored script, “and these are quite different than anything I’ve done before. [...]

[...] But the experiences I’ve mentioned here, plus others, have uncovered some surprising new dimensions of her abilities, and later she wants to thoroughly investigate and write about them.

My condition had certain drawbacks, however: The two sides of my body were uneven, so I could end up with four bright new metal and plastic joints and still not be able to walk properly. [...]