“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Last Friday, April 25, was day 174 of the taking of the American hostages in Iran. Until that day the 53 prisoners had been held at two locations in Tehran, the capital city of that very turbulent land. As we ate breakfast early Friday, Jane and I were astounded by television news reports that in the predawn hours of the 25th, Iranian time, American commandos had failed in a very complicated attempt to rescue the hostages. Actually, our forces hadn’t come close to reaching the prisoners: Responsible were mechanical failures and two dust storms that the American helicopters had to struggle through before joining a group of transport planes at a remote airfield, code-named Desert One, in central Iran. By then three of the eight “choppers” were out of action. Since six of them were considered vital for a successful rescue, the mission was canceled at that point—but eight crewmen were killed when one of the remaining helicopters collided with a transport plane during a refueling attempt. The resulting fires and explosions could be seen and heard for miles through the desert night.

At this time Jane and I think the missions failure is a blessing: Based upon our limited knowledge of the factors involved, we do not see how it could have succeeded. We mourn the dead servicemen and wonder how many more Americans—military people and hostages—would have been killed had our commandos penetrated to the American Embassy compound, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry, in the heart of Tehran.

Just before dusk, a fine rain began to fall. Jane sat in the doorway that opens from her writing room onto the screened-in back porch of the hill house, and watched the birds searching out the wet remnants of the feed I’d scattered in the driveway this morning. Because of her walking difficulties she’d stayed in her office chair, which is on wheels, and pushed the sliding glass door wide open from that position. The rain didn’t bother the birds at all: a pair of cardinals, several red-winged blackbirds, some phoebes, various warblers, and a group of mourning doves. Jane grew very relaxed as she sat there at that quiet hour—yet she wanted to hold the session anyhow; she called me early; she felt Seth around….)

(9:48. Pausing in trance, Jane poured herself some wine.)

(10:05. “Well, I thought some of your material tonight, about focusing and bodily states, sounded like Jane’s own situation—her troubles with stiffness and walking.” Seth stared at me for a long moment.)

10:12 P.M. “There was something there toward the last,” Jane said. “I didn’t quite get it through, about the end justifying the means. He doesn’t want people to apply that to genetic handicaps…. Was that a good session?”