“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I’m also trying to whip up some enthusiasm to begin work on Seth’s latest book, Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, for which we recently signed the contract, and took money. [The contract was countersigned on March 22.] “Don’t worry,” I said to Jane in the hospital, “I know who’s going to do the rest of the work on the book....” Meaning that I could see she wasn’t going to be able to contribute much physical work on it at this time. Therefore, actually producing the physical work for the publisher was going to be up to me, and I was anxious to begin work on this once we’ve established some sort of viable daily routine revolving around Jane’s nursing care, sleeping schedule, medication, etc.

(A note: Jane has mentioned several times since returning home that Seth may dictate a biography of her—presumably including her hospital experiences, etc. It took me a few days to realize that this is a unique idea—certainly it hasn’t been done before. “Every so often I get ideas about it,” she said, but not from Seth, at least yet.... that when you’re a kid you pick up certain ideas about what kind of a person you want to be—from a photograph, a corner of life, an edge, and you put all those little things together into a personality. You draw upon the people you share your new environment with. Everybody does this, and it’s much more forceful a thing in the formation of personality that people realize....”

(Jane still nods off as she sits in her chair, especially after supper, which we take to be an indication that her thyroid is still below par, although she’s much improved in that regard over her condition before she entered the hospital. The drifting off worries her, however. Even as I sat beside her at the round card table in the living room, writing these notes, she kept nodding off into sleep. I’d spent some little time trying to talk her into a short session to begin with, and she’d finally agreed to try for one. It was 8:52 when she really fell asleep in her chair, for perhaps the tenth time. I could see that we’d get no session tonight. Yet she woke up. “I’m just waiting—I feel so funny....”

(The contradictory thing was, as I’d told her the other day, that I didn’t think we were going to get anywhere in solving our dilemmas until we tapped into the session routine again. Otherwise, we’d be left to struggle within the establishment just as everyone else did. Yet each time I wanted to try something, Jane was having difficulty focusing. Just as I was about to give up for this evening, Jane came awake again and said rather firmly, “I’ve passed a certain point, Bob, and now I can do it....” meaning that she’d have a session after all. “But it’ll be a real short one.” And I knew it would be good.

I will help you still further understand those manipulations. For many people—most people—carry on the same kind of procedures while making important decisions as to whether or not they will continue life at any given time—but they hide the issues from themselves far more than Ruburt did.

(Long pause at 9:05.) Give us a moment.... The entire issue had been going on for some time. And the argument—the argument being somewhat in the nature of a soul facing its own legislature, or perhaps standing as a jury before itself, setting its own case in a kind of private yet public psychic trial. Life decisions are often made in just such a fashion. With Ruburt they carried a psychic and physical logic and economy, being obvious at so many different levels of actuality. In such a way buried issues were forced into the light, feared weaknesses or inadequacies were actively played out where they could be properly addressed, assorted and assessed. To whatever degree possible, given your time requirements, I will try to explain such matters.

(9:25 PM. Jane’s pace had generally been okay, considering the circumstances. “I felt like when I got slow there a couple of times that it didn’t have anything to do with dozing off,” she said, referring to a few longer pauses. “It was just a normal, I don’t know, thing....” I told her she’d done well. “It was more than I thought I could do,” she said, “but I really got worried tonight when I started dozing off like that.” I replied that all along I’d felt she could do more than she’d thought she could, and such had been the case.

(Seth’s reference, above, to Jane’s fear of going too fast is a reference to an excerpt from the deleted session for January 28, 1981. I keep this excellent excerpt in the current notebook where I see it each time I open the book. It seems to me that it very neatly sums up the core of Jane’s difficulties—that one, along with a longer excerpt from the deleted session for January 26, 1981 just previous. That one concerns Jane’s fear of the spontaneous self, and how she regarded her immobility as a form of protection.

(A note: I haven’t answered fan mail since bringing Jane home from the hospital on March 28, and already it is beginning to pile up. I kept up with it religiously while visiting Jane each day for the month she was in the hospital. Since returning to the house, though, I’ve had absolutely no time at all for the mail, and have stopped answering it except for business and an occasional exceptional letter, or a request for a visit, etc. I don’t know whether I regret my actions or not. Now the mail has retreated way into the background, even though I don’t forget what it means, that we get such a response from what we do, and that each of those writers is sincere, and in my opinion deserving of an answer.

(Sue Watkins has offered to help with the mail, but I don’t know what to do —guess I’m afraid that once it’s out of our house and hands the situation would turn into a mess. I also don’t want to give up physical possession of the letters, I notice. One option we’ve considered is having a temporary postcard printed up referring to our hassles with Jane’s illness, that we can’t answer mail at this time except to say thanks, and that later we may be able to. I think that at the moment that’s our best way to go, even if it means broadcasting the fact of Jane’s troubles. At least the replies would be from us....)