“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I would add that much of my present concern seemed to have been brought to a conscious focus by an even that took place last Saturday evening, when Jane spontaneiously asked the Bumbalos over for a drink. She’s written her own account of the event, so I’ll just note here that at the end of the visit, she spontaneously felt like standing up and walking normally—an impulse that she hasn’t been aware of for a number of years, but is so normal to most people.)

When Ruburt does not see people, his reasons are sometimes much like yours, topside. In effect, of course, he becomes afraid to see people. He sees himself at such times in an inferior physical situation, so that it seems to him that physically “he is not a good specimen,” but obviously flawed. So it seems to him that he does not see people because he is ashamed of his physical condition.

This does not mean of course that you must helter-skelter have a burst of interviews of visitors—but after three or four encounters with people of any supposed authority, Ruburt is then in a position to make new decisions on such matters, based on current knowledge and his own preferences: and he will no longer avoid such adventures out of fear.

He yielded to the impulse to say yes for the interview, where earlier he would not have. His fears would have prevented it. Any new such experiences give him not only new confidence, but allow for a give-and-take with other portions of the self, which will be quite aware of the changed status, so all of that is important.

Ruburt felt like neighborly contact several times earlier that day. He felt that you would go along, but on your own would prefer no company. That evening he followed his impulse. He felt proud of himself, at ease with the company, and he spoke of matters he considered important. A feeling of peace filled him as he enjoyed the evening, and he forgot his physical problems. The drinks did further aid in the relaxation—but there was a freedom of expression, a trust of the self, a concentration away from the body, and a self-acceptance.

You were quite correct last night, incidentally: the knees have changed. So have the ankles. In the past two weeks, however, in particular, there were periods when the arms and legs were both changing in their own fashions, so that Ruburt did not feel like walking, while he did feel like exercising. He had difficulty with this (left) leg, and became upset—but the back leg muscles were exercising themselves. Nerve impulses between the spine and toes were being regenerated, and that is further loosening the knee.

(10:25 PM. This actually represented the end of the session. It was one of the most difficult sessions I ever recorded; I told Jane that by its end I was barely able to write Seth’s words legibly. In spite of the very reasonable tone of the material in it, to me it seemed to fly in the face of all of the accumulated fears that had been bugging me, and Jane also, I thought. As soon as Seth mentioned her feelings of inferiority at the beginning of the session, it was all downhill for me; I thought we’d done a reasonable job on encountering those with our pendulum work, but it seemed that they were still as present and active as ever. Nor could I take any comfort from Seth’s remarks about encountering strangers, or even friends, I said, since it seemed that whenever any outsider was present we were both constantly worrying about whether they would notice Jane’s condition, whether she ever got on her feet, and so forth, until it seemed that those episodes were hardly worthwhile. Jim Poett told us that the Voice will send a photographer up for pictures, so I’d figured we’d spend time worrying about that, too.