“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We talked briefly after a late supper.While washing up, Jane told me after she was finished, she “got” that she was worse in Key West because she should have stayed here and worked today. We went to Key West with the idea of possibly spending our last week there, but found prices too high for us, at least on such short notice. After the nap, I suggested we might stay here the next week, to work, have a couple of sessions, etc., and Jane agreed.

(When Jane came out of the bathroom after washing, she said several times that she was getting this information, that it had a strong charge behind it, and that she “didn’t know what to do.” She repeated this phrase several times. The feelings wanted to explode, she said. She had experienced similar feelings some other times here in the past week, particularly after the last session, and made an effort to discharge them reasonably by talking. I thought that probably the feelings should be allowed to come out violently, but we were inhibited by our surroundings, and probably fear, etc. At any rate it seemed a great help that we had even reached the feelings. I asked Jane, rather impatiently at last if she could discharge the feelings in a session, as we had planned.

(She said she thought Seth was trying an experiment, that it was better to do it this way. She could feel Seth about, but he was letting her go ahead on her own.)

(It was a colder, very windy night here. The wind had been blowing strongly—to 30 miles an hour, and even more—for over 24 hours. We had the heater on in the efficiency. We sat in the kitchen. Jane’s voice was average, so this meant that often I had to ask her to repeat a phrase because the various noises almost drowned it out. She said later that she was in an altered state of consciousness. She knew what she was saying and remembered some of it. Her eyes were open most of the time. Her pace didn’t exceed my writing speed, but often it was close to the limits. A mild anger showed itself at times.

Strong moral ideas welded what I am together—welded the creative drives like glue. Part of me was born in Ruburt’s childhood. This part was strengthened by your own ideas of work and creativity. You became the policeman. I relied on you to see that Ruburt’s creativity was channeled and used, protected, but most of all not frittered away.

I do not want you to go hungry, or to be unhappy. I do not want you to be in want, but outside of that nothing else concerns me but your work.

You two more or less made me a promise that Ruburt would begin working sensibly on his book again (after last session), and instead you took a trip. I consider this a betrayal—a small one, but quite indicative of your behaviors.

My methods have not brought about what I wanted, however. Now you spend half of your time trying to figure them out, and what is wrong with Ruburt—time that you should be working. I do not care if both of you die poor, but I do demand that you live using your abilities.

I understand you have left, but I expected a full concentration on your work and plans. Unfortunately there were side effects from my methods, that make Ruburt’s condition an impediment to the very plans I want.

I considered the trip a scandal today. The vacation itself an excellent idea if half of it were devoted to work. I go along with the psychic development, as long as it adds to your work and influences it. I am suspicious of it if it prevents you from painting, because of notes, but this does not bother me when you are painting also.

My demands, to me, are simple and reasonable. More than that, I see no others worthwhile. All you have to do to please me is work a reasonable amount of hours daily; then I do not care what you do, but I expect that purpose to govern and direct your lives to be the focus about which all other events happen, not a sideline.

You finally began to realize that I wanted you to leave the job (long pause at 9:55), but the negative attitudes that had built up attached themselves to the new projects—something I did not foresee. My power is the strength of both of your drives. (Pause for a cigarette.) I am a part of you, then, the part that always hated your job, and can scarce[ly] forgive you for keeping it so long. I understand it was necessary for a time, but all thoughts of security beyond the daily necessities mean little to me. I want you secure enough to work in peace. Outside of that I have no interest.

I need your cooperation now, since the methods that I chose have fallen so poorly. Apparently I must allow you more freedom, but you must use the freedom to do what I want you to do.

(“I think we appreciate the intent. It’s our nature to be creators, but finally we had great difficulty creating under the conditions mentioned. The situation became self-defeating.”

(Jane tried to say more. I talked to it, offering reassurances, saying we didn’t require it to leave us, but merely to understand our need for freedom. The physical freedom symbolized creative freedom, I said. To us freedom of motion meant creative freedom. It agreed, as Jane cried. She became very relaxed in her chair, so that I had to hold her upright.

(Jane said she was in an altered state of consciousness as she delivered the material, yet was aware of what she said as she said it. “I felt this real sad ‘Okay, I’m going,’ at the end,” she said. It had wound up confused over what to do, but I thought we could help it understand as the days passed. I thought she was achieving, or trying for, an integration of drives that might be very important. I hoped that the motivations behind it would rise to join her ordinary consciousness.

(As we talked at 10:45 it almost returned. Jane said she got, several times, “and all that for nothing,” so I repeated our ideas. I made it a point to reiterate my statements about freedom being absolutely necessary to us in order to create, and that we requested its help and assistance with these limits or goals in mind. “But I’ll be just as happy, “ Jane said, “if it goes away altogether.” The only concern I had in this respect was that it represented creative drives, if in a distorted form. I wanted the drives to remain with us for our use without limitations, so I wasn’t sure if it should be dispensed with completely.

(10:55. “I’m not sure I should even think about it,” she said, still yawning, but I think the relaxations reached to about here,” and she touched her legs just above her knees. Previous relaxations, including one yesterday, stopped at her waist. “I can’t understand it,” she said. “I seem to be getting another one after coming out of the first trance... Going back in....” She didn’t, though. I helped her to the john. Afterward she told me her knees felt better than they had in some time.