“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Ann Kraky visited us at supper time last night. She brought with her a batch of papers Leonard Yaudes had saved for us; naturally our talk revolved around Leonard’s recent heart bypass operation—see the opening notes for sessions 894-97, for example, and my own reactions to Leonard’s situation.

(After her visit I began to feel a resurgence of the same uneasy, even panicky, chest symptoms that I’d experienced on occasion before while Leonard has been sick. These sensations persisted through the evening; they certainly felt physical in origin, even while I tried to tell myself to forget the whole thing. I was mad at myself. I felt badly as I took out the garbage, went for a walk, etc, and when I went to bed I nearly had to get up again because the feelings intensified. But I soon fell asleep all right. However, in the morning the symptoms returned as soon as I woke up, and have lasted at various pitches of intensity through the day. By session time they were somewhat diminished, but were very inhibiting during the day, making me hesitate to do the things I’d ordinarily do without a second thought, such as drive to the post office to mail Jane’s intro for Sue’s book Conversations With Seth.

(Jane was so relaxed by session time, so “out of it,” that she didn’t think she could manage a session. I told her to do as she pleased; I hadn’t asked her to have Seth say anything about me. She decided to try for the session. As I sat on the couch Billy, who is much improved now, curled himself up half in my lap, so that writing as Seth spoke was more than a little difficult. Yet when Jane went into trance her delivery as Seth was fast and steady:)

There is certainly no point either in belaboring the fact that you are still, individually and jointly, affected by some of them. Animals and your own body consciousness have little concept of age. (Pause.) In a fashion almost impossible to describe, their consciousnesses—the body’s and the animals’—are “young” in each moment of their existences. I must perhaps here clear up a point: I am taking it for granted that you understand that I am referring to the “mental attitude” of animals and of the body consciousness, for they both do possess their own mental attitudes—psychological colorations—and above all, emotional states.

There is also something else you can do at such times—and try all of these suggestions of mine, for one or another may be particularly effective, while another simply does not suit you as well: one way or another, imagine a kind of neutral platform, a subjective platform. Imagine yourself standing upon it, and see it as being a certain distance away from the platform of your usual beliefs.

(By now, speaking, Jane had fallen into a mode of dictating to me as I wrote; this was different than her simply telling me something in ordinary terms. It wasn’t Seth speaking, but her own delivery was quite precise and unhesitating, and she paused just as Seth did to give me time to write down her words. So from here on I’ll put her material in quotes:

(10:29 PM. “I know that’s from Seth,” Jane said. “I’m sure it’s from a line of his that I got in the john the other day, but why does it come through that way? Well,” she said, pleased, as she moved over to the couch, “that’s one of life’s little surprises. Maybe next time we can ask Seth how come I got it that way.”

(As we went to bed Wednesday night, I told Jane that I thought the material on the body consciousness was excellent—the kind of thing we’d never heard before. It reminded me also of a comment Seth had made months—years—ago, to the effect that he had reams of material, untouched, on the body consciousness. I’d always been interested in asking him about that, had we the time.)