“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

DELETED SESSION

(At 10 PM I asked Jane if she felt like having a session. We’d been visited today by Loren, Betts and Doug, and Dick, Ida and David, and at times my left groin area had bothered me considerably. Now after everyone had gone—Dick and family stayed until about 8 PM—I felt poorly indeed. As I had last spring, I didn’t know whether my symptoms of unease were physical or mental, and was very concerned. I thought of a hernia—and Loren had been operated on for a hernia this summer—yet I suspected the unease was basically mental. This had been the case last spring. And now, those feelings had returned. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the proper adjective to describe the groin sensations; they weren’t ones of pain—but what?

(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:)

(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.

(“The only thing I might have asked,” I said, after having had a few moments to think it over, “was why I would choose to pick on myself here.” I pointed to my left groin. “I know that in those earlier sessions Seth said I equated the left side with the unconscious portions of the personality and the masculine role in society [see the deleted sessions for April 4 and 16, 1979], but—”

(Jane paused, still in trance. I expected her to end the session, but as she sat there I saw that it was one of those times when she—or Seth—could say more. I was surprised, considering her feelings before the session. Then:)

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.

(“I started to get some material from Seth right after breakfast. I felt as if it were being gently inserted into my mind and that for some reason I became aware of it. It’s as if this often happens, material being inserted and then “stacked up” or stored there for, say, the next session. For a few minutes, five or more, I was aware of quite a bit of material on work, and the Protestant mainstream [as separate from, say, Emerson or James or Thoreau, even]. Thought I’d write it down and told Rob some of it. Now though, I just remember the subject matter more or less; now I’m not even sure of that [and it’s only about ten minutes after I told Rob what I’d picked up].

(One final note: At the beginning of this session I wrote that I had trouble describing the very uncomfortable sensation in my left groin—that it wasn’t pain. but what? I felt much better by the end of the session; remarkably so, so Seth’s material was on the mark. Then in the bathroom it came to me as we prepared to retire: the feeling in the groin was like a knot—and my realization had been triggered by Seth’s remark about tension I had created in that area. In a flash the understanding led me to a very obvious conclusion that, it seems I should have reached on my own earlier: the knotty feeling was very much like the muscle spasms I’d experienced in the back, years ago when we’d lived on West Water St. These had been so bad that I’d lost months of work; the sessions had begun as Jane tried to help me, as well as for her own needs, in 1963.

(This morning I felt much better after an excellent sleep. I concentrated upon suggestions that the groin muscles would be relaxed today, and function well, and so forth, as I tried to remember this session before typing it. At 9 PM the improvement holds.)