“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Then on October 23 Jane’s creative contentions led to her “attend” material—in which she picked up from Seth that her only responsibility in life is to herself: “Attend to what is directly before you.” Seth told her that she bore no onus to save the world. In relief, Jane wrote a short poem to accompany Seth’s message, then wrote further that she “realized that like many I’d become afraid of faith itself.” I’ve presented this cluster of material in the frontmatter for Volume 1 of Dreams. Her insight helped both of us. However, she hadn’t had a session, regular or private, in over 10 weeks [since August 13], so on October 27 she recorded in her journal the continuance of her daily creative struggles: “And once again I’m way behind in sessions and writing. This A.M. I ‘worked’ from midnight to 3—without getting anything done. I wonder about the advisability of the entire project [Magical Approach]. Where had the magic gone? Where was my inspiration? Those were my thoughts when it occurred to me that I should be writing them down, because they’re part of the whole picture. I felt better….”

Jane and I thought it most interesting that within 29 days [in October] various events—the arrival of Volume 2 of Conversations, Jane’s coming through with her “attend” material and poetry, the visit of her former students, and even her contentions with Magical Approach—had helped her rejuvenate her sense of physical ease and well-being on at least three separate occasions. She wrote more notes, more poetry. We kept trying to encourage her new motions, of the kind described in Note 8, but they began to taper off.

You perform far more actions in a day than you recall. You do not know how many times you lift your arms, speak a sentence, think a thought. With the kind of consciousness you possess, an overreliance upon conserving principles could then end up in a reduction of life’s processes.

10:01 P.M. Jane vaguely remembered Seth’s puzzling continuation of book work after he’d said dictation was over for the evening. I told her I thought he’d triggered his extra material himself through talking about our species’ couriers. I’m pleased that he said Jane is such a one. I don’t remember him describing her before in just that way; it’s another insight into her chosen mystical-psychic role in physical life “this time around.”)

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.)

I cherished Jane’s ending for her poem, for in it she’d reaffirmed at least the possibility of her self healing itself. Yet, my hope was tempered even as my fear lessened, for she hadn’t mentioned outright the integration of a more understanding sinful self into her psyche. Jane’s physical challenges, her symptoms, are with her now, I thought, and we must deal with them on the way to rejuvenation. I was left caught as we talked after I’d read her poem: suspended between despair for my wife and the hope that she would choose to go on living, in our terms.