“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Many people know of Jane’s death by now, and this makes it impossible for me to deal with that event in chronological order within her books. By rights, I shouldn’t be mentioning it sequentially until I publish the two books that Jane and I had finished while she was hospitalized — then it would be all right to announce that she is dead! But for convenience’s sake, in Seth, Dreams … I bring together certain events in chronological time; I feel that its having been written some time ago makes this book the ideal place for me to discuss Jane’s death, to unite the “past,” the “present,” and the “future’; I regard it as being next in line after Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, which Prentice-Hall, Inc. is publishing in two volumes in the spring and fall of 1986. In Dreams, “Evolution, “… I stuck to Jane’s production of the Seth Material for that work, plus a strict chronological account of our personal lives while she delivered it. I made no leaps in time to write about her physical death, for to me that sad event lay too far in the future — over two and a half years — from the time she finished dictating Dreams, “Evolution,” … in February 1982.

The night was so warm that I unzipped the bag all the way down to my feet. In the half-dark I spoke aloud to my wife, telling her that I wished she was with me. I fell asleep. Around 4:30 A.M. I woke to the sound of a heavy wind and the feel of much colder air creeping in around my body. The wind chimes hanging in a corner of the porch were clashing together repeatedly. I zipped up the bag as spatters of rain began to blow in on me. The woods come down over the crest of the hill in back of the house, to the north, and with a sound like an ocean tide the wind was racing through their treetops, plunging south past the house and into the valley. Jane and I had always loved that great roar. The trees thrashed in my neighbor’s yard across the road. The whole scene was one of change and energy and mystery.

‘The glowing, very beautiful and alive grass also represents Jane’s new reality. The bridge arching over the lawn symbolizes another connective between that universe and my physical one. Jane doesn’t ask me to cross the bridge now. I think that the structure also stands for the ‘psychological bridge’ upon which she met Seth during her sessions with him. (Seth wasn’t in this experience, however.)

A block to the west of the hill house, the main road drops straight down into the outskirts of Elmira. Opening off the road to the left like a series of steps are short, level sidestreets upon which I often run late at night. In the beginning the running helped me physically handle my grief over Jane’s passing; I cried often as I ran, and tried to comprehend where she is now. I’m a natural runner, but had been unable to do more than a little jogging in recent years because of the pressures of work and of taking care of Jane as she became more and more ill. After her death I could run nightly if I chose to. I find that activity still secret and evocative. The streets are lined with trees arching up to meet overhead; periodically those intersecting patterns of leaves and branches are punctuated by bursts of light from the streetlamps. At certain times the moon follows me along in its phases. The only sounds might be the wind in the treetops and the chug-chug of my shoes on the asphalt. A dog may bark in the distance. When I do it right I float effortlessly along. And amid my tears I finally permitted the obvious to become obvious to me. The following is revised from my entry in my grief notebook.

[...] He shoved her out into the street and rolled her over and over on the stones and in the dirt; but she died.

[...] Then the cycle began all over.

[...] The boy, Albert, was too young to take over the shop, and for a couple of years the village had no cobbler, and the boy was a fisherman. [...]

[...] “We’ve only been involved in this stuff a little over a month,” I said. [...]

When the ego becomes overly concerned, it becomes overly conditioned to negative responses. [...]

“We’ve only been at this a little over a month,” Rob said. [...]

[...] However, when the ego becomes involved with fears, it ceases to be an effective tool and becomes instead a hammer hitting you incessantly over the head. [...]

[...] My eyes brimmed over with tears. [...]

[...] And she’d rush ahead of me down the hall, so agitated that she’d shake all over. [...]

[...] I walked over to him and said, “Hi Sam. [...]

[...] After it was over, and our salesman friend left for his motel in a nearby town, Seth came through with a few personal remarks for Rob. [...]

[...] Have a secondary personality give you the dickens over it — and in front of company — with me supposedly in the clear, taking no responsibility for it at all.”

[...] When it was typed, we both read it over several times. [...]

[...] The second same over me around 11:30 P.M. as we sat around the table eating. [...] The wave of feeling washed over me very strongly this time. [...]

[...] I was alone in the art room, eating lunch at my desk, when the feeling swept over me. There was no warning or pain, but the surprise doubled me over my desk. [...]

[...] I had just finished my first small glass of wine when a wave of ‘feeling’ swept over me from foot to head. [...]

[...] When it first swept over me, I wondered if the wine could be responsible, though actually I had drunk little. [...]

[...] When you weren’t looking he was apt to hit you over the head with a rock for something you had said ten years ago, and completely forgotten. [...]

[...] After the session was over, it seemed to follow me out into the kitchen while I finished the dishes.

[...] He could see the change that came over me while I was speaking for Seth, and Seth inspires confidence. [...] On the other hand, I only knew what had been said when the trance (or the fun) was over. [...]

“I really felt that someone else was here, that Seth was looking out the window,” Rob said, when the session was over. [...]

[...] I wrote the notes immediately after the session, then Jane and I went over them.