“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

And a very positive event took place that afternoon. Jane received from Prentice-Hall the first copies of her book of poetry: If We Live Again: Or, Public Magic and Private Love. We had looked forward to seeing that handsome little volume ever since she first conceived of it well over two years ago, before she had a title.⁴ If possible, Jane was even more pleased at the publication of If We Live Again than she had been when her book of poetic narrative, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, came out in 1975. If We Live Again once more carried her back to her earliest days of creative work, which in turn had led to her teenage dreams of becoming a published poet [she was born in 1929]. As I’ve shown in various notes in the Seth books, through the art of her first love, poetry, Jane presents her beliefs with an amazingly simple clarity, combining her mystical innocence and knowledge with her literal-minded acceptance of physical life.

Jane’s main puzzlement, however, is that even with Seth’s and her own sinful-self material her physical symptoms persist to such a degree, in spite of an occasional lessening. Evidently, she said, both of us are still consciously unsure of what our challenges and fears are on certain levels. Obviously, I’m as deeply involved in her symptoms as she is. We talked about the many delays involved in our producing Mass Events and Dreams. She’s “felt good” about finishing Chapter 11 of Dreams a week ago, but has done little on Magical Approach recently, except to reread her rough work for the beginning of that book. (She began to slack off from Magical Approach early last October—two months ago—after working well on the first three chapters.) Tonight, I even speculated, admitted my fear, that in a way she’s embarked upon a long-range campaign to at least drastically reduce, if not eliminate, her communication with the world, for one sacrifice follows another in an order that can hardly be accidental, Jane revealed that she’d had similar thoughts.

I’d also written in the notes for the last session (of December 1) about our difficulties producing Mass Events, and that Jane has “done little on Magical Approach recently….” Seth this evening:

“Another point: Regardless of any seeming contradictions, the beneficial aspects of any particular creative activity far outweigh any disadvantages. The nature of creativity, regardless of any given specific manifestation, is reflected in an overall generalized fashion that automatically increases the quality of life, and such benefits are definite regardless of what other conditions also become apparent. I mean to make clear here that regardless of any complications that may seem only too apparent to you, in the production and distribution of my last book, and Ruburt’s (Mass Events), the benefits far outweigh any disadvantages.

“December 9, 1981. Each time I think of beginning MAGICAL APPROACH I feel this reluctance; I’m not sure what bugs me, the copying of records, putting together the days events or what—but i want more of the fun and magic of it for myself, and less hard work. I’d planned a consecutive story line book including some of robs dreams with interpretations yet feel strain there now, showing how this detail or that one fits the picture, this noon it came to me that the approach seemed to rational at this time; i wanted one that was lighter in tone, quicker yet more expansiveso if anything the books technique would be magical itself…. forcing the reader to make some connections from other-than-time frameworks. a possibility came to me of a part 1 consisting of the original abridged sessions one after the other with robs notes included but nothing of mine at all. This followed by a part 2 with chapters following an intuitive shape favoring more association, the sinful self stuff too, showing the portions of psychic motion, could start with a chapter 1 very like the one I have organized and then just have a session or so a chapter until part 2. i don’t know, its a thought…

Once in a while, Jane will sing to herself as she sits at her table in her writing room and looks east through the sliding glass doors at the side street rising into the woods to the north. Across the street is the white clapboard house of our neighbors, whom we love and who love us. Our friends have a large yard beside their house. It’s filled with trees and flowering shrubs—a view Jane cherishes, and one she has painted and written about a number of times. Indeed, she was looking out at that view at four o’clock on a foggy morning in June 1979 (over two and a half years ago) when she was inspired to name that certain part of her “that is as clear-eyed as a child” the “God of Jane.” Out of that insight she titled the book she had started a few weeks earlier The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto. In Chapter 9 of Mass Events, see the opening notes and Note 1 for Session 860.