“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Late yesterday afternoon my pendulum told me that Jane’s symptoms stemmed from her feeling that she had failed to become a successful “straight” writer—a novelist, poet, essayist, et al.; that she felt she had failed as the serious writer she had always dreamed of becoming, that the psychic work represented a turning down a wrong path; that actually, basically, the psychic work represented failure to her rather than success. I was very excited by these ideas, more excited than I had been in a long time. I intuitively felt them to be true. I discussed them for some little while with her before we went out to a New Year’s Eve party at McClure’s. Jane seemed to agree with the ideas.

(At a quick scan I thought the ideas answered all the questions we’d had about the symptoms over the years—explaining, for instance, their onset before the psychic developments, etc. They seemed to offer a unified theory to cover the years of our marriage, and even Jane’s childhood. I saw at once that if valid they also meant Jane must shelve her projected book, Adventures in Consciousness, and concentrate on things like Rich Bed, the Dialogues (poetry), and, perhaps, let Seth do his own thing in sessions. If this included writing books, okay. But crisis time was here, and something had to be done. I was somewhat puzzled that I hadn’t asked my pendulum this specific set of questions before—or had I? If I had, perhaps I hadn’t understood the answers, I thought; because certainly no action had been taken because of them, along the lines now contemplated....

(I was quite surprised the other day when Jane told me that our two apartments were okay to her if she was a writer, but not all right for a psychic—especially one who was becoming well known and was visited by all kinds of people, etc. She also told me that to her the idea of stairs represented success and failure—up and down, etc.)

(Yes, I recall clearly urging Jane to publish the material; most regrettable now, of course. A serious error, for at that time she instinctively knew what was best for her. I want her to go back to relying upon her instincts and intuitions.)

(9:06. The session was going excellently, I told Jane. I mentioned three questions I hoped Seth would cover at least in part: Jane’s projected call to Tam at Prentice-Hall tomorrow morning, re substituting Seth’s new book for Adventures; Jane’s planned letter to Eleanor Friede about Rich Bed; and whether Jane should continue with ESP class.

(A few notes for the record: Bill Macdonnel returned to Elmira over the holidays to visit his parents. He’s visited us a couple of times. A week or so ago Jane had a dream in which she saw Bill with his mouth full of blood. Calling Bill a couple of days later to invite him to a New Year’s eve party, Jane was told by Bill that he’d been to the dentist and had several teeth pulled the day of the call.

(Subsequently, Jane several times was seized with a strong ache in her lower right jaw. Her pendulum told her she was picking up on Bill. We haven’t heard from him since the call. Monday, January 1, 1973, we decided to go for a ride, since it was a beautiful day. Unknown to me Jane’s jaw began to bother her as she left the house.

(Discovering this on the way to Sayre, I pulled into the near empty parking lot of the shopping center on Elmira Street and gave Jane my own pendulum to use. We learned that her sinuses were involved in her jaw ache, and Bill Macdonnel, but also that she was strongly concerned about the acceptance of Rich Bed by Eleanor Friede of Macmillan. Jane’s jaw began to clear up as we drove through the countryside beyond East Athens.)

Ruburt’s condition deteriorated after the meeting with Eleanor. The situation brought into focus, you see, the entire problem. Seagull’s middle-aged lady focused it further. (Bach’s description of Jane for Time.) The middle-aged lady was mentioned as middle-aged, and as a psychic, poet and science fiction writer—a turning of the ways in that the psychic books were mentioned, but no books of poetry, which gave impetus to Dialogues.

(“When I used the pendulum Sunday afternoon and found out about the reasons for Jane’s symptoms, it seemed like I’d asked questions like that before; but nothing happened, there weren’t any results—”)

(10:35. It is Wednesday, January 3 as I finish this session. Jane has already cleared the matter with Tam—who incidentally had a vivid dream Monday night, in which in distorted form he learned that Adventures was to go by the board. Many elements in Tam’s dream tallied with events depicted in this session, bearing out Seth’s contention that Tam already sensed the conflicts over Adventures, etc. We are to send him what’s done on Seth’s new book.

(Jane wrote Eleanor today; it will be mailed tomorrow. I have obtained the paint to do her workroom. Tomorrow Jane calls the paper to place our ad about a house. We have made a list of important items to carry out as soon as possible re these sessions, our ideas, etc.

(The galleys for Oversoul Seven arrived yesterday. This has been most opportune—and in them Jane was delighted to see many hints and ideas for future work —many clear signs that she had already begun to feel her way toward the future; including poetry. Our opinions of the book have risen apace, though we liked it before also.)