“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(After supper I asked Jane if she’d hold a private session for me, since I felt so bad. On Saturday, October 27, I’d evidently come down with a “bug” of some kind —whether physical or psychological, and haven’t felt good at all since. At first I’d thought I was going into a beneficial relaxation episode like that I’d experienced on April 23, 1979. We’d been working hard, and when I lay down for a nap Saturday afternoon I felt relaxation effects. “Thank God for relaxation,” I told myself again and again as I fell asleep, hoping the effects would rejuvenate me. But I ended up with the cold chills, and for the next week was in often severe pain in the joints and muscles. We’d seen recent notices on TV of a local bug going around, but I didn’t know if that was involved or not. The worst part of the whole thing was that I developed urinary difficulties during the malaise: urination became very painful indeed, and I had a strong sense of blockage and impairment at times. I always managed to “go,” but it often took a while, and was very uncomfortable.

(We missed last week’s sessions, of course, and last night’s as well. even though Jane suggested one. My strength was coming back by now, but yet I was too down or disgusted with myself to accent help: that may be the most honest way to put it. The urinary problem still plagued me no end, and tonight the pressure was heavy; hence, I gave in and asked Jane for help.

(The little I’ve worked with the pendulum tells me my troubles are rooted in money attitudes, as well as the production time I’ve lost on Mass Events for the last two weeks and more. I thought I was doing something by working hard on that book, to get it underway in an organized fashion, I told Jane as we sat for the session—so what happened? I added that I wouldn’t put up with the kind of hassles involving Prentice-Hall beyond a certain point—that I’d take some kind of drastic action in order to rid myself of the problems connected with dealing with someone I no longer respect. This would involve holding the sessions, but letting Jane herself do any work about producing books for the market. I would go back to painting, try to sell some, and possibly end up with a part-time job for ready money—anything to break the vicious mental pattern of distrust I seem to keep creating. I believe that Jane at last understands that I’m quite capable of reacting that way, that I would refuse to indefinitely put up with our present kind of hassles with Prentice-Hall, or any other entity. I explained that I had such thoughts when we moved to Pinnacle Road, and could easily revive them and try a different kind of life.

(I might add that on the telephone with Tam the day before yesterday I really lit into Tam—rather to his surprise, I think. But I was determined that he understand our feelings—or mine, at least, in no uncertain terms, for as we talked I could feel him start using words to paper over our upset about foreign rights; I felt that his tactics would only make it possible for the whole thing to happen again with succeeding books, and that I was going to short-circuit at once. I believe my reactions, which were loud and clear, paid off, for Tam called Jane yesterday to find out, in his own way, whether I was mad at him personally. Jane said I wasn’t, of course—but of course I was.

The latest episode was indeed triggered by Bill Crowder’s death—triggered.

Your mother looked up to him because he made money. She held his money up to your father, and in many ways let your father know that she did not think much of him. Overall, as a male or as a breadwinner. To her he fell from an initial high estate—meaning his early success, that offered her the possibilities of wealth and social status. All of this was in the back of your mind. Your early financial success also pleased your mother, and she felt that you had fallen from a high estate, not having lived long enough to see your financial gains.

As she was in life, she would not have understood in any case unless the money definitely came from a recognizable, socially accepted output on your part. To some extent, the affair of Crowder’s death made you look at yourself through what you thought were your mother’s eyes. You were judging yourself, and have, with some regularity, according to those standards. This is at an emotional level, of which of course you do not intellectually approve.

There was no ill intent on the part of the Dutch publisher, or the German. They wanted the books to start with because they did indeed respond to the books’ vision—but the versions they came out with represented the gap between what they understood and what they could not understand.

A good artist, of course, who was free of such nonsense, would accept it gladly without a qualm.