“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Note the date for this evening’s session. It’s the first one since December 6, 1978. Now with the New Year we want to start up a schedule for the sessions, and stick to it for the most part. The holidays are over. The Christmas tree and all the decorations have been dismantled; the house is cleaned to some extent, and the copyedited version of Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality has been returned to Prentice-Hall. Jane and I spent two hard weeks erasing most of the suggested changes in the manuscript, and it is now headed for the printer for page proofs. I mailed it December 26, and just today received the return receipt.

(For the record: “Uknown,” it seems, appears to be one of those jobs that won’t go too smoothly, even though now we’re reaching the end of its cycle. Even today, the day after this deleted session was held, I received a call from Tam at Prentice-Hall, wanting to know about cutting the length of the book. Both Jane and I refused. However, the call evidently helped trigger a “panic” attack, as I call them, on my part, involving palpitations in the chest. The pendulum agreed. Naturally this is brought about by my own reactions to whatever the trigger happens to be, but still “Unknown,” and other creative endeavors have often been involved, when conflicts between what I think of as useful creative work run into doing things like shoveling snow, or other household items that I seem to think of as “chores.” None of this is new, although I have improved greatly in my reactions during the last year. The long working time—perhaps three years—spent on “Unknown” evidently allowed that project to accumulate strong psychic charges on my part; when doubts or challenges arise in conflict with the work on the book, I would react in uncomfortable ways occasionally.

(Jane is still faithfully doing her exercises twice a day, and walking more than ever; I am starting a chart. She is making her own list of things to do for 1979, including the point of power. I am still concerned deeply about her condition, and for the most part we seem to move along from day to do as we always do. In the holiday interim the sessions seemed to fade far away into the background. When we reach that state, I personally find myself thinking that the sessions make little difference one way or the other. Then when we resume, it seems that a key unlocks doors. I’m afraid that Seth has spent years encouraging us to do things that for whatever reasons we either don’t do or can’t do, simple as they appear to be.)

A certain Mr. Butts, I believe, spoke earlier today about his parents, and mentioned the accomplishments that were present but not appreciated. The list I just gave you is important because if you do not value your abilities or approve of yourself, then you cut yourself off from using your own abilities. You deny yourself their help and aid because you do not recognize your own abilities as such in the true sense of the word.

You question your own characteristics, and so your accomplishments fade in your eyes. I do not want to be severe, and yet you do indeed show ingratitude when you “wish you were like other people.” People of ordinary ways wish deeply “that they were different,” that they possessed qualities that you both possess.

Begin the library—the two of you or Ruburt alone if you prefer. Read over the Framework 2 sessions, for both of you have largely forgotten to focus in that direction, and to look for hints of its activity. The looking-for creates the activity also, you see, for it serves as a psychological focus.

(At the same time, I now realize that my father did accomplish much that he and the other members of the family were blind to. All of us certainly were more than happy with some of his contributions—simply those revolving around camping, for example—while misunderstanding or missing out upon many other facets of his life, and our own individual lives as they functioned within the family framework. I suppose everyone feels later that there were innumerable things they could have done to help others....)