“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Once again, I tried to get through to her that the sessions or her own work could offer ways to get through that period, or at least offer greater insights into it. “If it was me,” I said, and I probably shouldn’t have, “I couldn’t wait to get something on what’s going on, in the hope that it would help.” Lately I’ve more or less given up bugging her to have sessions, since it seemed that that activity was beyond her means at this time. I also tried to keep in mind Seth’s recent reference to her own natural rhythms, thinking that if she didn’t want sessions just now, that might actually be part of the healing process.

(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’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.

(“I do feel him slightly around,” she said at 7:30. “I’ve been telling myself....” Her voice trailed off, and I could see that she was struggling to stay awake. Yet she did manage to let a session happen. She began speaking for Seth with her eyes closed —but her voice was quite strong, comparatively speaking, with a minimum of tremor. Her eyes were quite dark when they finally opened to stare at me.)

He does respond to stimuli rather well. So brief conversations with you on that subject, or on your work in general, or on any subject whatsoever, will automatically quicken his mood and responses. He has of course improved, and in general strength, since returning home—but in the hospital nothing was demanded or expected of him.

(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....

(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.”

(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.”

(“Yeah. I’m glad I did.... I don’t know what I did with that last material. I felt like I could get a lot from Seth, but that was all I could do.”

(“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.