“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As referred to in the last deleted session, Saturday evening we were visited for a half hour or so by Scott and Helen Nearing, who were participating in homesteading workshops at Mansfield State Teachers College for several days. They are very nice people. He is 95, she is 78. As Jane said, “Scott conserved his energy, but he seemed to do well enough, although his movements were slow, especially walking and sitting down. But he appeared to have the use of all his faculties. Helen was very agile. Scott Nearing was quite interested in how well the Seth books were doing, whether any of the “leading magazines” had interviewed Jane, and so forth. The reasons behind his interest are brought out in tonight’s session, and in Jane’s own brief summary of the visit in her notes.

(Odd notes: Today Jane received the contract for Emir from Delacorte, but is not about to sign it yet. She wants to talk it over with Tam. And Tam was interviewed today by Jim Poett who is still tracking down witnesses relative to the article he’s doing on Seth and us for the Village Voice. Tam is to call Jane following the interview, or if it’s too late Jane will call him Tuesday morning—which she did. She learned much about both the contract and the interview.

Emerson, Whitman, to some extent Thoreau—these were men who spoke of self-reliance, either in the natural or the spiritual world, or both. Gifted young men of Nearing’s period had to some extent then two lines of endeavor.

(Interestingly, my informant about Fred, who was probably connected with the Mansfield College in some way, had been in the town only since 1971. I described to him the house in which I was born, situated directly across Route 6 from the old college buildings. My informant also mentioned the Jupenlasz harness shop in Mansfield, which I recall well, and talked of a Jupenlasz cousin, who runs it now; and there are still customers....