“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

(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.)