“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....”

(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.

(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 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....”

(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.”