“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Through all of our challenges, we were aware of at least some of the incredible variety of positive and negative world events in the news—the bombings and the peace talks, the sports contests and the religious controversies, the national strikes and the latest developments in the arts. Amid the economic difficulties in our own country, and after a number of often very expensive delays, the second flight of our shuttle spacecraft, Columbia, came due on November 4. Of primary importance was to be the testing in space of the 50-foot-long remote-control robot arm, which had been designed to place satellites in orbit and retrieve them for service and repair. Only seconds before lift-off, however, computers shut down Columbia’s flight because of a drop in pressure in oxygen tanks. Then clogged oil filters were discovered. The launch was rescheduled for November 12.

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.

5. After superscript number 14 in the opening notes for Session 931, see my accounts of tailoring the straight chair for Jane, and of her vain attempts to get on her feet.

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.)

10. Seth dealt with our personal challenges for almost all of this session on Monday evening, November 9. After supper Jane had announced that she wanted to try for a session—she didn’t know whether it would be private, for Dreams, or on other material. She’d just finished rereading a number of book sessions. She was both nervous and impatient at the prospect of her first session since last August. Here are excerpts: