“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The idea being since we refuse to take vacations like other people [really before I was physically bothered] we have to have our own equivalent which can be any of the above mentioned at different times. I think there was quite a bit more that I’ve forgotten.)

(Late yesterday afternoon [Monday], we were visited by Larry Dowler of the Yale Archives. He told us many things and answered—and asked—many questions. Seth came through briefly several times, and very humorously, to handle certain questions himself. Among other things, he said that “there is no place for the Seth material to be kept,” that “you have to make a place for it, for it is unique.” The interludes weren’t recorded, to my regret. Seth did express his own willingness to have the material available to the public, but Jane and I are much less sure of that.

(Jane was quite upset because of all the time she spent on the calls this morning, plus the visits this noon by F. Longwell and H. Wheeler. Nor did I accomplish much. I mowed some grass, worked with the pendulum, helped Jane walk—she’s still taking steps—and wrote these notes. The pendulum insights may be most valuable, however.

(I insisted I could take notes okay, even as the feeling deepened. The malaise became more profound. I didn’t feel like writing the notes I wanted to about what was happening. Indeed, I didn’t even feel like taking the cap off the pen. The sensations were extremely pleasant—and heavy, yet looser and looser. My eyes closed. I sat motionless for minutes at a time, bathing in a most beneficial, relaxed state. It was actually one I’d been trying to approximate ever since I’d begun to feel bad after finishing checking all the page proofs for the books we have coming out this year. But when I’d told myself I wanted to relax, I’d had no idea such a profound state could be obtained. I had approached it in a casual way through self-hypnosis: the same lax, heavy looseness in the limbs when I made the effort to move. I savored the experience now because I felt at a deep peace and my body was almost free of aches and pains. But at the same time I wanted to know more.

(Jane sat on the couch in her usual place to my left. By now I was far out of it: I doubt if I could have moved except in the direst emergency. As Jane talked I fell asleep a number of times. She said I snored so loudly that she had to turn the TV volume up in order to hear the programs. During half-waking periods I was conscious of my lower jaw continually dropping, so that I sat with my mouth gaping open in a most uncharacteristic manner. I slept through deep, immensely enjoyable and totally saturating periods of relaxation. After a while my arms began to twitch and jump spasmodically without my conscious volition. These reflexive reactions continued for some time, even later in the evening when I began to come out of the heavy sleep periods. But while they were happening I cared not at all.

(When I finally tried to get on my feet to get Jane more milk, however, I realized that my situation was far from over. I staggered around in the kitchen, taking six-inch steps with more than a little effort and caution. My knees felt loose as could be, but the muscles in the legs were heavy and stolid. I poured more milk for both of us, and ate the cornbread, half asleep as I did these things. When we decided to retire I shuffled about the house, cleaning up and locking doors and windows as Jane made ready for bed. I could have cheerfully collapsed at any time. I bumped into walls and door-jambs, or leaned on tables for support for minutes at a time. I yawned deeply and wished only for bed, over and over again.

(My state persisted—so much so that I felt like a long-distance runner nearing the finish line. I was engaged in a contest to see if I could help Jane get ready for bed, set the alarm and the electric blanket, turn out the bedroom lights and open the curtains and a window—all before I gave out in a heap on the bed. Indeed, I lost my balance twice while helping Jane undress, and each time collapsed on the bed beside her, to her evident concern. Nor were those episodes painless, for in one of them I put an unnatural strain on the deltoid muscle in my right shoulder. [I’d injured the shoulder last summer while pulling on the starting cord for the lawn mower; it’s bothered me ever since, although not steadily.] The pain was intense, although not as bad when I’d first hurt the muscle. I struggled to rouse myself enough so I could take pressure off the arm; I was afraid I’d re-injured it. So even in that state of deep relaxation, in which I could move only with effort and concentration, I learned something that I fully realized at the time: Even though I was far out on a “trip” of some sort, I could still feel pain. My muscles weren’t magically healing themselves, nor was I undergoing any kind of overall healing that might confound my own beliefs, or those of medical science. Not that I’d thought I was....

You wanted to illuminate the world in some respect. You saw your family as a small sample of the world’s peoples, and their interrelationships with each other, and with the neighborhood, as representative of most people’s relationship with the world. You were sorry for your parents. You yearned to help both of them, as you yearned to help your brothers. That part of you existed quite intimately in your thoughts, while at the same time you found it difficult to communicate with the family [members] generally, and you were struck by the great gap of communication that seemingly existed between the most related people.

On the one hand, you pursued your version of what was expected of you. You went to school, became a commercial artist, and did very well at it. Now you liked that work, Joseph – not only because of the art, but because of the communication that was involved. Particularly when you drew animals, you could use them as symbols for noble virtues, but in any case it was the means of communication, a communication that to some extent could bridge the particular emotional troubles people might be having at any given time.

You sensed certain characteristics in Ruburt when first you met, and you knew intuitively that certain probabilities could bring the two of you together, both using your individual abilities in ways at that time unknown to you, but that those individual abilities, joined, could together produce a new kind of threshold—an overview through which that sensed excellence could at least be glimpsed, contained in essence at least, and communicated.