“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Before the session Jane said that in the last week she: 1. Is reading much better—“damn well” on Seth’s book. Psyche, and on Emir. This applies to her copying work on the typewriter also. 2. Her newspaper and other small-print reading has been better overall, although it’s not even in quality. But still there have been definite improvements. Her intermediate vision needs the most work. 3. “My legs have changed quite a bit during the week. I’m definitely taller. I can stand taller most of the time.” These changes were accompanied by perhaps three days or so of muscular soreness, which has now largely disappeared. All of these things Jane considered to be her “two-week report,” as discussed in the deleted session for January 7, 1978.

(My own chest difficulties are much improved, although at the same time I’m not doing any additional hard physical labor. I’m simply mentioning ordinary activities—chopping a little wood, etc. I still haven’t shoveled any snow, in spite of the series of massive snowstorms we’ve experienced within the last week—the worst in over a decade. I have been rereading the latest sessions on self-disapproval, and these seem to have made the difference. Jane has also been working on her feelings of self approval and disapproval, and credits her efforts with her improvements.)

When man identified with nature, as given in Psyche, he did not imagine that the gods disapproved of him when storms lashed across the landscape. He did not at that time, as is supposed, do sacrifice then to win the gods’ approval. Instead, identifying with nature, man identified also with all of its manifestations.

This of course gave you at that time a different orientation of consciousness. Man did not see himself pitted against the elements, but allied with them, whatever their mood or behavior. I have explained that kind of consciousness fairly well in portions of Psyche that Ruburt is reading. Man could exult in nature’s energy, power, and splendor, even in the midst of the most fierce storm —in which, indeed, his life might be in danger.

In your terms, with time, historically, he began to lose this identification, so that an emotional separation began to occur between man and the elements, between man and the other manifestations of nature. He still sensed nature’s grandeur—(louder:) but that grandeur was no longer his own, and he felt less and less a part of it. Nature became an exterior power, more of an adversary, even though man has a love for the earth, the fields, and the grain that they yielded.

With that loss of identification storms for the first time became truly threatening, capricious, for man’s mind could not intellectually understand the intimate and yet vast connections that the intuitions and emotions had once comprehended. It was then, and in the terms of this discussion, that men felt a division between themselves and “the gods,” for it was then that man began to personify the elements of nature.

You spoke of the pendulum (at last break). Again, labels are somewhat implicated, for you each thought you worked well with the pendulum, but that Ruburt did not. It can be used most effectively and in the past at times Ruburt used it well, particularly with your help—largely because he believed it necessary. Make sure you do not look for what is wrong, however, but for reasons behind behavior.

This is quite enough for this evening, since I expect you to take an almost equal amount of time not only to read this session together, but to explore at the same time the ways in which your own self-labels may have added to your own self- disapproval. That exercise is a part of this session.