“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A fourth entry had been made at Three Mile Island in November, and a fifth, with a 14-man crew, was projected for December 11. We followed the news accounts of the negotiations between the United States and Iran for the release of the hostages, and of the war between Iran and Iraq. Since Jane couldn’t leave the house by herself, let alone go holiday shopping, she had a close friend buy the Christmas presents she had in mind for me. My wife did her own wrapping, though, working at it in her writing room after warning me to stay away until she was through. [With eyes averted, I had to carry my own presents to a closet, where I deposited them until Christmas Eve.] Then late in December the page proofs for Mass Events arrived for our checking. This is the last major stage we’re concerned with before a book is printed, other than okaying routine components like frontmatter proofs—meaning the table of contents, dedications, quotations from Seth and Jane, and so forth—and the index.

While she contended with her physical difficulties and related questions, having to do with who and what Seth may or may not be, Jane continued to paint for relief. [See the opening notes for Session 928, in this chapter.] Her options had become several steps more limited once she no longer left the house. She could read and write, paint, have sessions, watch television, do a little simple housework, call or see a few close friends, and answer some of the mail. She seldom saw visitors. She no longer washed dishes or cooked at the stove. I became very uneasy at her struggling to get up on the high stool she needed to sit on at the kitchen sink. Like the sink, the stove was too high for her to reach while sitting in her chair, and, because she had to stretch across hot burners, too awkward and possibly dangerous for her to operate from the stool. She did do some cooking on a hot plate I placed on the kitchen table, where we often ate lunch and supper, but I also cautioned her to be careful while using that appliance.

Within a few days, after I’d taken certain measurements from Jane while she was sitting down, our friend Floyd Waterman [who is a contractor] helped me cut down an old-fashioned straight chair and equip it with small wheels. This one was narrower than later-model chairs, and it fit well in the bathroom and some other spots in the hill house. Jane could easily hoist herself onto it from her office chair, the couch, or the bed; she could either move on it around the house by herself, or have me push her. There was only one small problem: She couldn’t tolerate sitting on the bare wooden seat for more than a few minutes at a time. So while she slept late the next morning, I rebuilt the chair by myself and padded its seat. Then she found it very useful.

“The church was quite real to Ruburt as a child, through the priests who came (to the house) regularly, and through direct contact with the religious (grade) school, and the support offered to the (fatherless) family. Ruburt’s very early poetry offended Father (Boyle), who burned his books on the fall of Rome, so he had more than a hypothetical feeling about such issues. Many of his fears originated long before the sessions, of course, and before he realized that there was any alternative at all between, say, conventional religious beliefs and complete disbelief in any nature of divinity.

I could add much material from Jane’s personal past to supplement just the session excerpts given here; perhaps the two of us can explore those fascinating connections in a later work. Right now I’ll make just one point: The priest, burning Jane’s books in the backyard of the house she lived in, taught the growing girl in most specific terms that she had to protect her natural abilities and her inquiring mind even from the very institution—the Roman Catholic Church—that she had so strongly identified with.