“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(To begin we sat silently at the board, hands on the pointer. As was usual now Jane began to hear Seth within almost immediately. After taking a few words through the board she laid it aside and began to dictate. Her eyes darkened considerably; at times they appeared to contain no highlights.

(This is our longest session to date and at its end we were both weary. Jane smoked 16 cigarettes. Her voice was normal most of the time; she had a few periods of loudness.

As to Jane’s feeling about the tree having certain consciousness, or course this is the case. What you have here is much latent energy and vitality and capacity, with much of it withheld or suspended momentarily.

(Break at 9:43. Jane felt that Seth wanted to go on, but had so many points of departure to choose from that he couldn’t decide which to pursue first.”I can feel him buzzing around,” she said just before she resumed dictating at 9:50.)

(Break at 10:26. Jane said she had stage fright this evening; why she does not know. She still wonders where the material is coming from, especially when she does not consciously know what she will say from one word to the next. Her eyes have been very dark this evening.

The inner tree continues to grow because the bark is flexible. Man lets his ego face the outer world as does the tree bark, and this is its purpose. Nevertheless the inner self, like the inner tree, must have room to expand. The tree bark makes allowances for good weather (here Jane pounded the table) though bad weather is repulsive to the bark. Nevertheless the bark makes whatever adjustments are necessary and is flexible. Forgive me if this is a trite analogy, I almost hate to say it, but it bends with the wind. It does not bend when there is no wind. Nor does it solidify, stopping the flow of sap to the treetop for fear the dumb tree, not knowing what it was up to, would bump its head against the sky.

(Jane nodded agreement. While she is dictating she does not like to switch voices.)

(Break at 11:13. Jane was tiring by now, and also smoking too much. During break we discussed our experiences in Florida a few years ago. We spent some months at Marathon, in the Keys, with Jane’s father. Driving back to Pennsylvania we passed through Miami. Jane wanted to stay there and I liked the idea, but since I had only thirty dollars I was afraid to chance a strange city with so little, and we headed north to my parents’ home in Pennsylvania. Jane resumed dictating at 11:20.)

She would have talked the landlord into taking one week’s rent instead of two months’ rent in advance. There is a supermarket three blocks away where she would have gotten a job that would have lasted seven months. At the end of this time you would have had a job in an advertising firm. You would have gotten by very well. You would not have stayed at the advertising firm over eighteen months. However Jane would have worked in an art gallery—this experience was ahead of her, not foreordained but ahead of her in any case. You would have ended up in the same gallery.

Your impulse at the time was the same as Jane’s, if you remember, but you were afraid of the practical aspects. Your parents would have visited you last year, and be strongly tempted to settle in a small town northeast of Miami, where your father would be amazed at the opportunities in his own business. Things have changed. Free will constantly operates. I will not attempt to give you definite so-called practical advice now, but you can learn from this and the paths will be clear.

(The Mr. Burrell referred to here was Jane’s employer, the manager of a supermarket in Marathon where Jane worked for a few weeks as a cashier. It was a job she hated.)

It was this that Ruburt sensed and that caused the emotional explosion. Mr. Burrell would have come to the trailer to tell—and I will say Jane now—that she did not have to pay the 17.50 short on her register. Jane’s father would have asked Mr. Burrell to go to the bar for drinks. The fight would have been started by Jane’s father. Midge, I believe that is her name, would have flirted with Mr. Burrell. You would have been painting in the trailer. Jane would have gone with her father, since I think this particular bar was only a short distance away.

It was for this reason that Jane was antagonistic to Mr. Burrell from the beginning, and filled with panic. What set her off was not the disappointment over the teaching job, which fell through, but the sequence of events, such as Mr. Burrell’s advances and her subconscious knowledge of her father’s nature.

(Jane had become increasingly nervous on the job, and finally made a mistake on her register which cost her 13.00.

(Nor did I understand what was happening, beyond the obvious fact that she was coming to hate the job. I was doing some samples for a business venture with a relative that offered a chance of rather handsome monetary rewards if successful; our agreement was that Jane would hold a temporary job in the meantime.

(Jane finally became unable to eat breakfast before going to work. She had cramps, and then her thyroid gland began to act up. I had never met her employer, but gradually understood that he had made advances by innuendo. I told Jane to stay home and went to the store and quit her job for her; by chance the manager was not there at the time.

(Jane required the help of a doctor in bringing her thyroid under control. I obtained a job painting signs in Marathon for a few days. We then left Marathon for Pennsylvania, a few days before the hurricane devastated the town.)

Had you stayed in Miami you would have been ahead of the game, but you are still ahead of the game by getting out. Whenever Ruburt, or Jane, puts up such a fight against you there is good reason. Because Ruburt is trying to learn gentleness this time and because he is a woman strongly attached to you, his respect for you is boundless and in most cases he will give in to what he considers your superior judgment. When despite this the present Jane puts on a strong emotional guise it is because the intuitions push her to this extreme.

(Break at 11:47. Jane’s voice had become very quiet, quieter than at any previous time. We had something to eat, then Jane resumed dictating at 11:55.)

You’re far ahead for leaving Sayre to begin with, regardless of anything else. The most long-lasting tragedy would have occurred had you stayed there. The same sort of a possibility will not exist again. You avoided it together. Jane did push for the Elmira move, feeling instinctively that Sayre was a mistake.

By this time Ruburt-Jane was so confused that he would have taken the radio position in Elmira, and here again this would have been an error. In fact Joseph, and I do not say this to make you feel better but because it is the truth, you literally saved her life.

(Break at 12:20. We were both tired. Jane’s voice was hoarse. This was our longest session, and I thought she might be losing her voice. But she wanted to continue for a little while. Resume at 12:29.)

When I said that you saved Ruburt’s life I meant it quite literally. In a sense, Ruburt saved your parents’ lives by insisting that you leave Sayre when you did. Any other mistakes you both may have made are more than made up for because of this. Jane’s father is still in danger of losing his life violently, but if he survives the next five years he will die a natural death, before 70 I believe. (67).

I do wish to show you how things happen or almost happen. There are always clear reasons, though not necessarily clear causes. Loren is as lucky in his way with his wife as you are in yours. I will go into Ruburt’s background later. It does not have as immediate implications however since she, or he, has erected his own barriers along these lines, and the parents are not so involved as far as distance is concerned. Ruburt, or Jane, amputated the present mother for necessity’s sake and for survival’s sake.

Her Walter Zeh comes in here very definitely. However it is too late now to go into details. The circumstances were so unusual that more leeway is permitted. That is, she, Jane, got away with more without guilt because she was so threatened.

(At this point our cat Willy became very insistently affectionate. Jane had taken a chair while dictating, and he wormed his way up into her lap and began to purr. His eyes were unusually dark, as were Jane’s.)

(At the board Jane and I said good night.