“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Since the 806th session was held 10 weeks ago [on July 30], then, I’ve worked steadily on Volume 2 of “Unknown.” Late in August Jane interrupted her work on James to move all of her writing paraphernalia into her new room at the back of the house. Sue Watkins delivered the finished manuscript for several chapters of Psyche, and picked up more to type. Jane, who was to work on James all through September, prepared a presentation for that book so that in the meantime her editor, Tam Mossman, could show it to his associates at Prentice-Hall. On September 12, Jane had a very vivid dream that she believes was rooted in a past life of hers in Turkey: Her dream involved a little boy, Prince Emir, who lived in a brand-new world in which death hadn’t been invented yet. Over the telephone three days later, Tam suggested that Jane do a children’s book, or one for “readers of all ages,” based on her dream about Emir;² the next day he called again, this time to give her the delightful news that he’d accepted James for publication.

In a few isolated areas of the world even today, the old are not disease-ridden, nor do their vital signs weaken. They remain quite healthy until the time of death.

The flu season intersects with the Christmas season, of course, when Christians are told to be merry and [wish] their fellows a happy return to the natural wonders of childhood, in thought at least. [They are also told] to pay homage to God. Christianity has become, however, a tangled sorry tale, its cohesiveness largely vanished. Such a religion becomes isolated from daily life. Many individuals cannot unify the various areas of their belief and feeling, and at Christmas they partially recognize the vast gulf that exists between their scientific beliefs and their religious beliefs. They find themselves unable to cope with such a mental and spiritual dilemma. A psychic depression often results, one that is deepened by the Christmas music and the commercial displays, by the religious reminders that the species is made in God’s image, and by the other reminders that the body so given is seemingly incapable of caring for itself and is a natural prey to disease and disaster.

Science has seen man as an accidental product of an uncaring universe, a creature literally without a center of meaning, where consciousness was the result of a physical mechanism that only happened to come into existence, and that had no reality outside of that structure. Science has at least been consistent in that respect. Christianity, however, officially asks children of sorrow to be joyful and sinners to find a childlike purity; it asks them to love a God who one day will destroy the world, and who will condemn them to hell if they do not adore him.

Dictation: One of man’s strongest attributes is religious feeling. It is the part of psychology most often overlooked. There is a natural religious knowledge with which you are born. Ruburt’s book The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher: The World View of William James explains that feeling very well. It is a biological spirituality translated into verbal terms. It says: “Life is a gift (and not a curse). I am a unique, worthy creature in the natural world, which everywhere surrounds me, gives me sustenance, and reminds me of the greater source from which I myself and the world both emerge. My body is delightfully suited to its environment, and comes to me, again, from that unknown source which shows itself through all of the events of the physical world.”

That feeling gives the organism the optimism, the joy, and the ever-abundant energy to grow. It encourages curiosity and creativity, and places the individual in a spiritual world and a natural one at once.

At certain times, and most particularly at the birth of medical science in modern times, the belief in inoculation, if not by the populace then by the doctors, did possess the great strength of new suggestion and hope — but I am afraid that scientific medicine has caused as many new diseases as it has cured. When it saves lives, it does so because of the intuitive healing understanding of the physician, or because the patient is so impressed by the great efforts taken in his behalf, and therefore is convinced secondhandedly of his own worth.