“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

By July 8 we’d accumulated 61 fully private sessions since Jane had given the first session for this chapter of Dreams, the 919th, on June 9, 1980. [During that 13-month period we also held 10 regular nonbook sessions and one more book session.] As she began to study that mass of private material on the 8th, Jane abruptly laid it aside to spontaneously write a complete outline for a book on Seth’s magical approach to reality. She’d had many such impulses since giving the first session on that subject 11 months ago, and I’d been hoping she would try the venture. Seth had announced as recently as four days ago that he’s heartily in favor of the project. He repeated his approval in our 63rd private session, held on July 13.

“Finish checking copy-edited manuscript of God of Jane this afternoon. Feel this important…. As I finish, I realize how much physical activity and energy is required for even that seemingly sedentary task, for I’ve been uncomfortable, sitting, switching my weight, body soreish, eyes not seeing properly and so forth…. But in some newish way I seemed to understand how much seemingly mental work is dependent upon physical vigor, flexibility and so forth; and then rather strongly—emotionally it came to me that I’d thought it my duty to clamp down physically, to cut down mobility in order to … have mobility as a writer; that is, to sit down, cut down on impulses, distractions, to make sure I’d ‘do my work,’ pursue my goal undeviatingly; that new [book] contracts instantly led me to that kind of behavior and that I really see that such behavior carried to its extremes would end up smothering my writing, defeating the purposes it (seemingly) meant to protect. But I did fear that impulses and body motion were … distractions to work…. Now I see how much impulses are conducive … to just typing, for God’s sake; imagine typing and seeing with ease, just thinking about what I’m thinking about, instead of trying to get my fingers on the proper keys. I feel as if I’m on to something here … feel some relaxation. If this is the case, the entire process could be changed around quite quickly, of course, toward mobility. I’m not writing here tonight about the reasons behind such behavior—many ideas—but did want to get something down now….”

“In fact, Seth gave us Framework 1 and 2 stuff in there, to help me. I did grab hold several times, and with the God of Jane book, the new inspiration there and the material on following impulses, made some very good improvements. [Rob’s emphasis:] But far more than Rob from the beginning, I was nervous and anxious about directly coming out with many of the ideas—which at the same time I fervently and even passionately believe in…. I may fear that if you go too far … telling it like it is … that the establishment will just cut off your platform … or that people will stop buying the books … something like … biting the hand that feeds you. You can only go so far. Yet I’ve always known that these ideas conflicted with official ones. It’s just that [earlier our] ‘attack’ was less direct.

“When Ruburt left the church, the concept of the sinful self was still there, but the methods that earlier served to relieve its pressures were no longer effectively present. The concept was shifted over to the flawed self of scientific vintage. Science has no sacraments. Its only methods of dealing with such guilt involve standard psychoanalytic counseling—which itself deepens the dilemma, for counseling itself is based upon the idea that the inner self is a reservoir of savage impulses. Period.

“The main issues with which the sinful self was concerned were focused most clearly in Mass Events and God of Jane,” Seth told us, “since more than the other books they represent a direct confrontation, ‘attacking’ the very legitimacy of the entire concept of sin and evil, insisting more dramatically on the good intent of man’s basic impulses…. [Ruburt’s] sinful-self explanation represents a fascinating psychological document in that regard, and also shows the self’s mobility and willingness to learn and change—once the intent is made to take a stand.