“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(In fact, I’d been bothered more and more in recent days—ever since, I thought, the family get-together had been suggested by Betts a couple of weeks ago. Yet all through the summer I didn’t think I’d fully bounced back from last spring’s rather drastic upsets. I’d taken to giving myself suggestions each morning upon arising, before calling Jane, and these had helped. Yet I knew the symptoms lingered beneath the surface, one might say.

(When I mentioned a session to Jane finally she said she didn’t really feel like it; she was getting relaxed, “really out of it,” and I could tell she’d rather not do it. I went for a walk, which helped. When I returned home the sensations did also. Then as I sat making notes, Jane called in to me that she felt better, that she’d try a session after all. So:)

(Pause.) Most men’s abilities are prosaic enough and conventional enough so that their value can be ascertained—or worked out by labor unions (amused). If all a man can do to “prove his value” is to put a bolt in a car, or drive a truck, or even teach a class, then he is very careful that that contribution be noticed, and that a definite value be given it. You cannot estimate the value of ideas or of creativity in that fashion.

(“No. I need some time to go over all of this.”)

(12:13 AM. I felt better already. “Boy,” Jane said, “if you’d told me I could have had that session after they all left, I wouldn’t have believed it. I was exhausted. I felt selfish, too. I just wanted to watch the television program [Upstairs, Downstairs], but when that was done I felt better, and I knew you needed the help....” Her delivery had been animated and fast throughout the session, with many indications of wit and amusement.

They scorned all decoration, and considered art sinful. Poverty was worthy, and proof of morality. In your country, this was coupled, however, with the growth of economic individualism, Darwinism, and so forth.

Take all of this to heart. You have been given the very circumstances your life and creativity requires. It is sheer nonsense to look back for, or desire, such rigid frameworks of self-worth or merit. End of session.

(12:31 PM. Something had really turned Jane on after all. Seth was still around, she told me. “But now what I’ll have is a little milk, a cookie, and a cigarette—and go to bed,” she laughed. Her energy was still up. Even sitting in bed, she remarked that she was picking up more of that generalized material from Seth.

(“Twenty minutes later I’m sitting at the front living room table, feeling relaxy and good about things, when I catch an odd brief but lovely experience; something happened momentarily; I felt as if I was seeing with all of me, instead of just with my eyes.... as if my molecules almost saw what I saw too in their own fashion. Physically my vision was the same, I think.... but there was a fuller visual appreciation or fullness difficult to verbalize....”