“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Very long pause—one of many such—at 9:59.) I would never stand in the way, however, of Ruburt’s recovery as you understood it. Nor would I feel that Ruburt has let me down, or that you had in any way. Ruburt does need a return to an earlier orientation. That sense of beauty, that reorientation, can relieve the feeling of responsibility that he has at times taken upon himself. He needs an orientation toward the simpler issues—those that carry within themselves a simpler childlike magic. He needs to turn away from an overconcern with life’s more ‘“weighty problems,” to lose the feeling that it is up to him to solve those problems for himself and you and for the world.

(Jane said that lately she’d “felt good” about getting back to work on Seth’s Dreams and her own Magical Approach, although actually she hasn’t done much on either of those projects for a very long time now. I also wanted to know what she meant about feeling good, when this noon she’d spent much time listing all the ways in which she didn’t feel good, today. At lunchtime she said she felt panicky, and hadn’t done anything that morning. After lunch we used the pendulum to try to find out something about the reasons for her panic, but had little success. As I told her today, and had a few days ago, it appeared that she was embarked on a long-range campaign to eliminate her communication with the rest of the world, the environment she lives in. “And what’s left of the psychic thing anyway except for an occasional session?” I asked. She’s now developed difficulties with vision, hearing—especially in the left ear—walking, and practically all physical activities except sitting at her table or desk, or on the couch watching TV. The hearing trouble, a recent development comparatively, has already cut down on our mutual communication, for almost automatically I’ve stopped speaking to her unless we’re facing one another; and then I often have to repeat myself, so that our conversation becomes more episodic and the easy exchange is lost. Jane has also cut her trips to the john to just three times a day —incredible! Her feet became badly swollen last summer, and stayed that way for many weeks. Very alarming, and now that the swelling has subsided to some extent she’d left with feet covered with a tough leathery skin that bears no detail and scales off in dead flakes.

(Actually, I said in conclusion, there wasn’t too much left to sacrifice. She usually sits at her table in the morning and afternoons until going to the john around 4 PM; usually she doesn’t do much in this period. Reading mail may take an hour of more of it in midday. She may make a few notes or try for a poem, or leaf through the manuscript for Magical Approach, or Dreams, or read a few later sessions for herself. When she sits on the couch at perhaps 4:30, that’s it for the day: She’ll seldom read while there, but naps or looks at TV.