“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today I mentioned to Jane that I’d like Seth to discuss any beliefs she might still have that might reinforce feelings that it still wasn’t safe to recover fully. We’ve given up using the pendulum to check out such things, and I wanted to know what might be operating to either slow up Jane’s recovery—which, after all, is still moving along—or perhaps to delay it indefinitely. Jane agreed. Last night in bed she was very sore and uncomfortable in the head, neck, jaw and shoulder areas especially—so much so that she slept late this morning, when finally she did get to sleep after 7 AM. She felt better as the day passed, though, which seems to back up Seth’s contention that her periods of acute discomfort are a good deal shorter these days, and not as intense. A good sign, of course, and one we’re well aware of.

The father in many ways wanted to save face, so that his death should indeed appear accidental, and the result of someone else’s fault beside his own. He did not want to live into an old age—but more than that, life had lost its flavor for him. He had sired his children, loved as well as he could, done his job—but there was no contemplative life to look forward to, no greater love than the one with his wife—and that love while conventionally sound enough, did not content him.

(Our conversation about this during break led me to what I think is an exceptionally good idea for a book—one done even in conventional terms. It would be for the author to conduct a survey of the surviving members of families involved in such accidents, to study the after-effects, see what changes the tragedy had brought about in their lives, their habits, ways of thinking and looking at life—in short, the detailed study of each family case history would comprise an intimate, in-depth probing of all the complicated effects that had resulted from that single tragic event.

(I told Jane that the farther back the author could reach for his studies, the better, so as to have more room for study as far as the passing years were concerned —say that he interviewed a man of 40 whose father had been killed while the boy was 19, say. The idea actually embodies several ideas, or books. A detailed study of one large family group so involved in a tragedy could easily take up an entire book. Another approach would be half and half: First the family story in usual terms; then that same family story studied with Seth’s ideas in mind. The insights that could result, Jane and I agreed, could have excellent psychological and social implications toward understanding of such seemingly senseless accidents. I think that Seth’s insights into the accident discussed this evening are a good capsule case in point, and much more penetrating than could be arrived at in usual terms.

(So I felt a keen regret, actually, that the idea, one of the best I’ve ever had, will probably never be used. Neither Jane nor I have the temperament for it, or even the time if we did want to do it. It could be developed as a novel. We talked about the difficulties that might be involved in getting family members to talk openly to strangers, too, about what had happened to them. Some we thought would be glad to, others most vehemently not. Also, how would one explain to a family that with Seth’s ideas in mind certain other family members had chosen, or planned, their deaths? Not an easy thing to do at all, unless lots of time was available, and perhaps an exceptional willingness to learn on the parts of such families. I suppose that part of any such survey could also go into the refusal of certain families to restudy what had happened to them in the light of Seth’s ideas.

Apropos of your remarks: you should do your work, as you used the term, first of all because you both want to do it. As you know, in a fashion you are appealing to portions of peoples’ minds that exist “beneath” the conventionalized version of consciousness that they take for granted. The words are perceived consciously, but the concepts run directly counter to many usual beliefs—not just scientific ones, but to the beliefs that underlie the accepted establishment of the world.

(Also during break, I’d told her I’d found myself stewing rather often about the reception of Seth’s material by the world at large, and science in particular. This had even showed up in one of my dreams. The dream contest simply represented seeing which of us could remember the most dreams within a week. I won by one dream according to Jane.