CHAPTER 11

(Three months ago, way back on August 13, following the outline she’d written on July 8 for The Magical Approach to Reality: A Seth Book,¹ Jane began work on the first draft for Chapter 1 of that project. That same evening she held the final session, the 935th, for Chapter 10 of Dreams. Since then she’s given but two short private sessions, on November 9 and 12. All through those weeks her physical states had fluctuated considerably. Seth reassured her in both sessions. In the first of the two he remarked that “Ruburt is still dealing with spin-off material following or resulting from his sinful-self data….” In the second one he stressed that although Jane was still afraid of spontaneous bodily relaxation, “[Ruburt] is safe, supported and protected—that is, of course, the message that he is trying to get through his head at this time.” Before going into our chronology of personal events for those three months, however, I want to continue my brief study of the affairs—really the consciousnesses—involving Three Mile Island, Iran, and the war between Iran and Iraq. I last dealt with those subjects in the first, 933rd session for Chapter 10.

I’d never seen Jane hesitate for so many months over beginning a new project, as she had with Magical Approach. Usually she just plunged right into her latest creative inspiration, and that she hadn’t done so this time was to me a clear sign of her long-range, general physical-emotional state. I continued to reassure her [as Seth did also] after she’d finished Chapter 10, for I was deeply frustrated and concerned for her. There wasn’t anything else I could offer that she would affirm. As the weeks passed she denied more than once that she was depressed. Watching my wife over the years, I’d long ago come to feel that I was observing someone who was following a chosen course with incredible ability and determination. Nor is it contradictory of me even now to note that Jane’s path is quite in accord with her basically innocent, mystical nature—for her acceptance of her nature makes possible her explorations of it in her own unique ways. When she does mourn her impaired state, it’s still never with that tired old question directed at a supposedly unjust and uncaring nature: “Why me?” She just keeps trying to grapple with her challenges.

From the 19th of August through the 28th, then, Jane worked on Chapter 2 of Magical Approach.⁶ Three days later, when she was writing Chapter 3, we received from an editor in the trade production department of Prentice-Hall the frontmatter proofs for If We Live Again. They were easy for Jane to check, and she called in her approval of the few little changes that had already been made.

At the beginning of these notes I wrote that three months passed after Jane finished Chapter 10 of Dreams before she held her next session—a private one—on November 9. In that short session Seth sought to add his reassurances to Jane’s own, and to mine as well.¹⁰ On the 12th Columbia was launched as scheduled, but only after another delay caused by the failure of an electronic decoding unit. Then within a few hours after lift-off, the shuttle’s crew had to deal with the malfunction of one of the ship’s three fuel cells. Mission officials decided that for reasons of safety Columbia would land after a two-day flight instead of staying up for the planned five days; the 83 orbits were reduced to 36. The crew did successfully test the orbiter’s multijointed robot arm, however. In the meantime, on the evening of the 12th, following his suggestion that she resume the sessions on a twice-weekly basis, Jane spoke for Seth in another private session. That one too was short.¹¹

Five nights later—at 8:35 P.M., Tuesday, November 17, 1981—she held the first, 936th session for Chapter 11 of Dreams. Here are the notes for the session itself:

—good evening, and dictation. Beginning of the next chapter (11), which will be entitled: “The Magical Approach (very long pause, eyes closed), and the Relationships Between ‘Conservation’ (very long pause) and Spontaneous Developments”—and give us a moment.

1. In Chapter 10 of Dreams, see the opening notes for Session 933.

4. Following superscript number 7 in the opening notes for Session 931, in Chapter 9 of Dreams, see my information on how we were trying to cope with Jane’s physical difficulties back in March 1981.

6. My ever-present concern for Jane would certainly have turned into outright fear had I seen at once the long, untitled poem she wrote on August 26, concurrently with her work on the second chapter for Magical Approach. She didn’t put the poem into its final form, and she didn’t show it to me. Not that she tried to hide it. Neither of us may tell or show the other everything—I just hadn’t been present when she wrote the poem, and she let it lie in her 1981 journal, where I “accidentally” came across it some time later. Even when I did find the poem I became sad, then frightened, then more hopeful as I read it, and I knew at once that I’d have to insert it here in Dreams. For Jane had been depressed when she wrote her poem. Perhaps it was her poetic art of expression that helped me identify so strongly with her emotions, but I suddenly felt that even I had never really understood the myriad depths of her challenges and her reactions to them. In the poem I saw expressed anew her ancient fear of abandonment, along with her dilemmas over her lack of mobility—and my fright was engendered by what I thought were signs that she might choose to leave this physical reality for good. To die. (I’d had similar feelings seven months before she held this 936th session: In Note 13 for Session 931, in Chapter 9, see my comments following the excerpts from the private session for April 15, 1981.)

7. In Chapter 2 of Dreams, in Volume 1, see Note 1 for Session 885, which we held on October 24, 1979. Through a series of misunderstandings, the people at Ankh-Hermes had published an abridged translation of Seth Speaks without having permission for the cutting from Jane and me. We still feel regret that the company had to go to all of that extra expense in order to publish a second edition of the book. I also wrote that “all concerned must wait for at least another year before a full-length version of Seth Speaks will be published in the Dutch language.” Actually, almost two years passed before we received our copies of the new edition.

I also mentioned our challenges with Ankh-Hermes in Chapter 5 for Volume 1. See the notes opening Session 902, which Jane held in February 1980, four months after coming through with the 885th session.