“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“Some really beneficial and odd developments are taking place in my physical condition,” Jane wrote, “generally starting last Saturday night (October 31) when the kids visited from NYC—students I haven’t seen in nearly two years. During their visit I noticed that my right leg, propped up on the coffee table, would suddenly fall very quickly and unexpectedly to the floor. Then they left. When company had gone I talked to Rob and nodded and dozed—then again my leg suddenly dropped and entire body turned independently of my will or intent to the left. This happened several times. Then in a moment of dozing I suddenly found my body moving forward, half standing, with strong energy and more or less natural motion—all by itself.

“Effects continued on Sunday. Once my right arm suddenly moved out to the left, throwing my pack of cigarettes I was holding to the floor with sudden energy. Then late Sunday night I watched TV, dozing off a few minutes at a time—I came to, frightened, to find myself half off the couch and on the floor, trying to get onto my chair; yelled for Rob, who was in another room. He helped me back. Then a long dream experience in which my body was clearing itself.”

9. Jane held her ESP classes for seven and a half years (from September 1967 through February 1975). Those gatherings were disrupted almost seven years ago, when we moved from our downtown apartments into the hill house, and for a number of reasons we did not resume them. Strange it may be, but Jane and I have never conducted a search for class artifacts, as our friends had just been doing, and as other former students had done before. We grew up without modern conveniences like portable tape recorders, of course, but even so our natural creative desires had always been to express ourselves graphically, in written and printed words and in drawn and painted images. They still are. In addition, Jane’s impetus is to continue driving forward; that’s her way, even though each project grows—as it must—out of the past. (I’ve shown in Dreams that many of her physical symptoms have resulted from conflicts between those spontaneous urges, and entrenched beliefs that revolve around her sinful self and tell her that such activity is wrong.)

We always liked the idea, however, that others were recording class events and were keeping tapes for us if and when we wanted them; we also liked the idea that it was safer to have the tapes scattered about instead of being kept in one place. In class Jane might have listened to portions of a tape as it was being made, or immediately after class was over, but seldom would I hear her playing the same tape later—if we had a copy of it, that is. She’s fascinated to hear herself speak as Seth, and sing in Sumari, but she always wants to move on. I simply have never devoted myself to collecting tapes. I don’t want to overstate the issue, but neither does Jane pay that much attention to a book once it has been published. She does reread various private sessions, usually those in which Seth discusses matters relating to her symptoms. Until this year (1981) she would occasionally replay one of the few tapes we’d made together, or use our recorder when writing poetry. She gradually gave up working that way, however, as it became more and more difficult for her to exert enough finger pressure on the recorder’s keys.