“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In the summer of 1980 I missed Seth sessions for nearly two months. I was finishing work on one of my own books, The God of Jane. Rob was preparing Seth’s The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events for publication. We were both caught up in the same events as most other people were during that June and July — the hotter-than-usual nights and days, the drought in parts of New York State that touched our area lightly, the TV news drama as the political parties argued and planned for their conventions. Some nights the (singing) bugs in the small back woods were louder than the sound of our television set. The same heat that made me groan with dismay turned Rob into some version of a south-sea island native. He looked supercool in his cut-off denim shorts; his long hair curled into natural corkscrews, his light durable frame seeming to luxuriate in the heat while my light durable frame turned into a sponge that added ten pounds of fatigue.

As I recognized the feeling of inspiration, I glanced idly toward the kitchen. The sight of the table struck my fancy, plus my view of the front doorway, with the green foliage showing through the open threshold. I thought about doing another painting of the scene; I hadn’t done any painting in months. Then I thought of asking Rob to take a snapshot of the table area, so that I could paint it later. Not two minutes passed before Rob stood at my door with his camera! He’d bought a flash gadget several months ago to use with it, and he hadn’t tried it out yet. Now he told me he had one exposure left, and he wanted to take a snapshot of me to use it up.

I grinned. I wanted to. Yet after the two-month layoff I was nervous too; as I always was after any extended “trance vacation.” Suppose — just suppose — I couldn’t start up again or I lost the knack as suddenly as I’d acquired it (17 years before)? Or Seth spoke gibberish? I didn’t really worry that such things might happen, but I was uneasily aware that they could. “Nonsense,” I muttered, “it’s the heat!” Because I knew that Seth would speak about the magical “connection.” I managed another grin — and who should know more about “magic” than Seth? Didn’t he emerge magically to begin with?

2. See Note 2 for Session Two.