“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“I feel gaps in my consciousness,” Jane said, worried. “I’ll start to do something, then I’ll find myself thinking that I’ve already done it—but that means that I’ve dozed off in the meantime, and didn’t do it at all....”

(At first Jane didn’t know what she wanted to—or could—do. She’s fallen into a regular, very narrow pattern of eating, watching TV, and sleeping, either in her chair or in bed, night and day. She reads a little but writes—or tries to—even less. “I’m scared,” she said again. “That dozing off really worries me....”

(Today Jane’s nurse, Peggy Jowett, put her through a regimen of moving, washing, and changing dressings—a busy two hours that was all Jane could handle, we agreed. Was her later malaise simply the result of physical exhaustion? I didn’t really think so while granting the possibility, for Jane also dozed in the mornings and on weekends when no nurses were present, and I changed her dressings on weekends within 20 minutes, so there was little strain involved there.

(“The only other thing I can think of is the thyroid, that it’s still below par,” Jane said. I agreed that had something to do with it, but also felt other, psychological factors were involved. Mr. Wrigley, the physician’s assistant who had called a couple of weeks ago, also visited today to check upon Jane’s decubiti [which are doing well, by the way], so he was here when Peggy arrived. The four of us talked in the bedroom. Mr. Wrigley said that the ulcer on Jane’s coccyx was filling in with “grainy” flesh, which means it’s on the mend also, if slowly. But the entire afternoon had been an active, tiring one for Jane.

(I’d also run errands to the post office, supermarket and drugstore while Peggy assisted Jane, and by the time I got back Peggy had managed to get Jane from the bed back into her chair—but it hadn’t been easy, Jane said later, and she hadn’t been able to describe to Peggy just how I did it myself with little effort.

(At my request Mr. Wrigley is going to ask Jane’s doctor, Marsha Kardon, if the blood test she’s due for May 3 can’t be run here at the house instead. This would save a trip to St. Joseph’s Hospital next Monday, and perhaps speed things up a bit, for I felt that Jane could now use a boost in thyroid activity through a stronger dose of supplement, Synthroid. Mr. Wrigley is to call this morning—Thursday—as I type this material, although I don’t hold out too much hope that things will work out that easily. He said Dr. Kardon herself could take the blood from Jane; and she has promised to visit us here.

(“I’m just waiting.” Jane said now, smoking a cigarette as I sat with her at the card table. I’d brought the notebook, as she had suggested I do. Her eyes were heavy, but—“I almost feel something.” she said at 7:25. “Anything,” she said, rocking back and forth in her chair, meaning she was trying to stay awake and would accept whatever she could get. And once again, as we waited I thought that I was the one who’d initiated events this evening, whereas I had trouble understanding why Jane didn’t do more of that herself.

(During the night Jane has also more or less settled into a routine of laying down for a couple of hours, then sitting in her chair for an equal time, and even sleeping in it, then going back to bed. She sips Coke but doesn’t eat. The TV set is on constantly. I usually get up at least three, and usually four, times during the night to help her change from chair to bed to chair, etc.)

(A case in point: When he visited today, Mr. Wrigley said Jane should wear support stockings or bandages around her feet and legs in the daytime, to help reduce the swelling in her feet and ankles. Otherwise, he said, ulcers could develop there also. This frightened Jane, but she didn’t tell me until some hours later. Her feet are somewhat swollen—edema—but look much better than they did last year, say, and their color is normal. She does wear my elasticized winter stockings, which offer some such protective support. These kinds of dilemmas are what bother us about the medical establishment: We don’t know whether to completely ignore such advice, or to heed it and thus accept medicine’s prognosis. I do personally credit the body with having terrific healing powers—especially if, as I said to Jane recently, the body is left alone to repair itself. But obviously, this leaving alone is often very difficult to achieve in that fashion. It may even be, I’ve often thought, that one cannot really leave the body alone, nor be meant to—for the physical body would be a portion of the reality each individual creates, and so is bound to be intimately involved with individual fears, desires, intents, successes, etc.)

(I’ll have to admit that when Seth was speaking I wasn’t sure whether he was contradicting himself or not—first talking about my accusing Jane, then commending me....

(7:59 PM. Jane leaned back in her chair, coming out of trance even though her eyes were closed. “Very good,” I said, pleased. “I can’t believe it: he offered to come back after a break. Do you remember that?”

(I’d planned to mow grass for a few minutes after the session—it was dusk by now—but I had to wait. So did Jane: “Now that he said that. I’ll have to wait....” I lit a cigarette for her. I told her the session had lasted for 27 minutes, which pleased her, “since I didn’t think I could get two words out of me to begin with.” But I’d known she could do it.

(I scanned the local newspaper during “break.” “I think I’ll go to the john,” Jane said at 8:17. “What I was getting from Seth was that any hospital serves as a terrific example of a belief system....” Abruptly, Jane broke off speaking in her normal voice and began delivering her material in a different, light, hesitant voice that was in between her own and Seth’s: “....highlighted through the light of activity and interactions. That is, you have the medical beliefs themselves, with their appropriate props immediately available, so that suggestion becomes remarkably effective.”

(“I’m in a sort of transitory state,” Jane said after a pause, “between my own level of consciousness and Seth’s. There will be far more said on such issues, but in the same way, any organization devoted primarily to one large system of beliefs will always highlight the effectiveness with which belief systems operate. But what you see is the end product.”

(A very long pause at 8:26. “I lapsed a little,” Jane said. “Courthouses, for example, dealing primarily with the law, already relying upon their courts and legislatures, are another case in point.... You do not have to accept their versions of reality, of course: You can think of them merely as interpretations of events. In any case....”

(“That’s it,” Jane said after another long pause.

(8:27 PM. “I don’t know where that came from,” Jane said. “I started to disappear from it, or go into another state or something.” Certainly she hadn’t sounded like she was giving her usual “own” dictation for the intro to Dreams, and certainly not like Seth. “Gee. I don’t know what that was. We’ll probably get something more on it later.”

(“Probably your energy level dropped,” I said, “and that was as far or deep as you could carry the material’s expression.” Jane tentatively agreed.