“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Before the session Jane read over the letter from D. R. Moorcroft, the professor of physics who’d written her such a fine letter on April 3. She divided the letter into questions; Seth may discuss some of them tonight. We thought Professor Moorcroft’s letter was very well done. Seth does refer to the first question Jane had noted, and that material is also presented as the 849th session, as well as being included here.

(As I told Jane last night, I didn’t realize that I was so tight, so bound up with tensions and stresses, that I was ready to fall ill because of those basic conflicts with self-disapproval, the male-provider role, money, taxes, and all the rest of the daily paraphernalia of living. I’ve had several lesser encounters with relaxation effects since the massive one of April 24—the last one being last night. I’ve enjoyed them all. I’ve also slept well now for some time. My dreams, those I remember at least, have also reflected efforts at reconciliation of opposing beliefs, fears, and so forth. In the meantime, I’ve let myself go, not working hard in any direction, relaxing while working on the files, or in the yard, or shopping or painting or whatever. The line that’s most impressed me in all of this, perhaps, is Seth’s quote to me from my own body, given by him in the deleted session for April 18: “You worry too much. You need to relax, so that I can relax.”

(The phone rang at 8:45 PM, as I worked on these notes. The caller was Larry Dowler, calling for the Yale Archives. They want the Seth material and related papers. There are many questions to be resolved yet, since we have yet to even see the will Bill Danaher is drawing up for us. We have to resolve the issue of public accessibility, and others. [Jane is not in favor of public accessibility at this time.] LD explained a few things, suggesting among them a committee, perhaps, to screen qualified applicants to the material. All will be resolved. “I can’t believe it,” Jane said a number of times as we talked. Certainly we hadn’t expected such an outright acceptance so quickly after LD’s visit last week [Sunday the 22nd]. LD or his secretary will write. He goes into the hospital for knee surgery within a few days.

(Pause.) Your spontaneous selves in that area, relatively speaking, now, (underlined twice) were allowed their expressions. Creativity was not inhibited by a certain form but (louder), in a unique way was freed from form. It was allowed to leap beyond the boundaries of painting or writing, to escape even the temporal frames of your present personalities, and to form an original psychic or psychological structure—a new psychological art, if you prefer—that could be contained in none of the arts as they are known. You were free enough to be daring, and you took this upon yourselves out of your own sense of curiosity and wonder.

(Seth’s voice was still moderately louder than usual.)

I did not start out writing books, but speaking to you for your edification. Had I begun writing books, Ruburt would have been appalled, thinking that I was invading his province. In this area of your lives, however, and relatively speaking again, you have allowed your creative spontaneous selves some freedom. You have behaved gallantly (with amusement) and well.

(To me:)Your body wanted relaxation, but you believed that relaxation was, under the circumstances, wrong, and often when your body began to relax in the past you automatically tightened it, as another might straighten his tie to be more presentable. Relaxation leads to spontaneity. It allows you to be freely what you are. When you are tense you impede mental, psychic, and artistic spontaneity, when you relax you are open to intuitive events.

(“Good night, Seth.” Jane was surprised at the session’s quick end. After supper she’d felt Seth material on his book, the latter, and personal stuff, she said—all before the call from Yale. She could only speculate that the “Yale business” had something to do with the short session, even though she wasn’t consciously aware of it. We’d been set for the session to run until midnight if that was the way it developed.