“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane’s birthday was yesterday, and a couple of events that made pretty nice presents revolved around that date. Two days ago, she worked on our new front porch for the first time; she sat in the slanting sunlight and wrote down the information she psychically picked up from the “world view” of William James, the American psychologist and philosopher who lived from 1842–1910. She now has considerable material for her book on James. [In the note she’s making for her Introduction to Seth’s The Nature of the Psyche, Jane describes a world view as “…a living psychological picture of an individual life, with its knowledge and experience, which remains responsive and viable long after the physical life itself is over.”]

(12:15 A.M. Seth ended the session as abruptly as he’d started it. Jane was doing so well delivering the material for him at a steady, intent pace that I’d expected her to continue for some little while. She said the session stopped because I asked Seth to repeat the word “vital” — just above — which I hadn’t understood the first time.

(Jane explained that when I did this she was “already three or four sentences ahead” in the material, and the question forced her to look back at what she’d just said. Then, knowing it was late even though she was in trance, she suddenly decided to close out the session. At the same time, she’d felt quite capable of continuing for another hour.)

2. Seth is certainly right when he says that “senility is a mental and physical epidemic,” considering the many millions of people who have suffered — and perished — from it in the past. I watched my father go through the ravages of senility; he died in November 1971, at the age of 81. See Jane’s very evocative passages about him, as well as my drawing of him in old age, in Part Three of her book of poetry, Dialogues.

The beliefs people acquire when young can be changed, of course, and according to Seth (and the ideas Jane and I have also) this process of change would be the best “inoculation” there is against senility. As I watched my father grow older, with an accompanying progressive loss of memory and function, I used to wonder why he didn’t consciously revise his response to life — and why I never saw any indication that he wanted to. I clearly sensed that it was possible for him to improve his beliefs about life, and that the benefits from such a course of action would be great. Nor did I merely wish he would change just so that I could avoid the pain I felt watching him deteriorate. My father’s chosen withdrawal from the world was all too plain for everyone to see. In our imperfect understanding, Jane and I and other family members saw this process go on: We did not feel there was much any of us could do.

As I wrote this note Jane pointed out that some of my material in Note 1 for the 803rd session is applicable here. For, obviously, senility will have to be conquered by some combination of physical and/or mental techniques if men and women are to live a lot longer, let alone “forever.”