“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The very next day we were distracted: We received back from our publisher the film option contracts for The Education of Oversoul Seven. The filmmaker required certain additions for legal reasons; we had to have our attorney renotarize the contracts. On the same day I returned them to Prentice-Hall, I also sent in Jane’s signed contract for If We Live Again—and the mail brought us the copy-edited manuscript for God of Jane.

“After supper I discussed with Jane the question I’ve been keeping in mind for Seth, concerning what her sinful self may have learned since we began this series of sessions. I said it was essential to communicate to her sinful self [so named by Seth for convenience’s sake only] that its performance has been very destructive to Jane, and that it must release its hold. I want to know that self’s attitude toward the fact that Jane is now helpless as far as her physical survival is concerned—she can no longer take care of herself without my help, and this obviously implies that if her condition continues to worsen to the point of death, her sinful self will die also. I want to know what it ‘thinks’ about such a contradictory situation. No matter how it must reason or react, that self has to be concerned about its own survival—but in what ways, and based upon what knowledge and reasons? Of course we have some answers now, but I want more.”

Along with our shock came elation. Here, we congratulated ourselves, lay bared all of those beliefs and motivations that for years had been hidden and operative beneath Jane’s symptoms: Here were the real reasons—now we could eradicate her physical hassles! Jane’s own sinful-self revelations certainly complemented Seth’s, which in turn, we thought, were the other side of his material on the magical approach to reality.

“I believed in the soul’s survival first of all, and inspired the ‘creative self to step out as freely as possible even while in my heart I [also] believed in the existence of sin and devil. I felt upon my heart the heavy unkind mark of Cain, sensing that humanity carries (unfairly) the almost indelible strain—the tragic flaw—[of] being tinged by sin and ancient iniquities. Thusly I reasoned: If I am flawed I must automatically distort even those experiences of the soul that seem clearest. I must unwittingly fall into error when I trust myself the most, since I share that sinful propensity. Yet despite those feelings did I (did we) unswervingly set forward.”

There was no doubt about it, though: As if they had a collective life of their own, Jane’s symptoms continued to clamp down after the publication of Mass Events and God of Jane. Her feet became more and more swollen, for instance; she could take the few steps between her chair and the couch only with much difficulty. A number of times she refused my offers—and those of others—to get her medical help. The reason I don’t write more in these notes about doctors and the medical profession is that I have nothing to write about. Jane, with that exquisite stubbornness she can display, simply wouldn’t cooperate in that fashion. We studied her own sinful-self material as she typed it. Again and again we scrutinized all of those elements that we thought were bound up in her symptoms: choice, fear of abandonment and the need for self-protection, penance, and the controversial nature of her gifts. July 1981 came. On the evening of the 4th—yes, we “worked” on the holiday because Jane felt like having a session, and because “time” had become so precious to us—Seth came through with some very interesting new material as a result of our questioning.¹⁸

“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….”

To those of us who are rooted in more conventional approaches to our probability, Jane’s course may at times seem incomprehensible—but as far as she’s concerned that only shows our lack of comprehension of her viewpoint. As a mystic she can have motivations toward exploring certain avenues of the human condition that most of us don’t have. Her view of basic reality is her view, and even I must still grope at times to understand her chosen role. To actually carry out her way, as she’s doing, is something I cannot do. Her sacrifice of physical motion in order to have greater creative motion is a “bargain” I shrink from making. Jane used to say to me: “I told myself that if I let myself do that, then I’ll do this in return,” One can say that that kind of equation hardly represents a mystical view, yet I know that in her case it does. I don’t believe those kinds of bargains are necessary in life to begin with, but what’s real for Jane can be quite different than it is for me, and for most other people. She does have her reasons.

“I have said that in almost every case of severe dissatisfaction or illness, the underlying reasons will not so much be found in the discovery or expression of buried hate or aggression—though these may be present—but in the search for expression of value fulfillment that is for one reason or another being denied.

“You are social creatures. You fear abandonment for that reason, since you are meant to develop individually while also interacting with others, that interaction giving you the peculiar quality of established civilizations.