“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As we began to reread Monday’s session this morning, Jane said something that triggered a reaction on my part that I felt was based on material Seth gave in that session: “I tell my body every day that I trust it, that it can bear my weight when I go to the john, for example,” or words closely to that effect. Suddenly it came to me that she had it backwards—that her body didn’t need any additional trust, that it was perfectly willing to do her bidding at any time, including healing itself. What she should be stressing, I said, was that she trusted her spontaneous self—then the body would automatically react to the release of tension, to her trust in that spontaneous self. Put another way, the intellect then must learn to cooperate in that trusting by relaxing its near-paranoid protective cover.

(Now Jane agreed with all of this at the time, but later while painting I wondered whether I’d been too vehement in what I’d said. I didn’t want her to feel bad. And I learned during the day that our talk had upset her considerably, even though I’d told her I felt that there was “a lot of hope” in the ideas expressed in our discussion. Jane further echoed my concern when she said later that she didn’t know what suggestions to give herself when she went to the john, and later got onto the bed. Yet I felt that I was on to something good, and asked Jane pretty definitely to see that Seth discussed the subject tonight. I also wanted him to talk about the subject we’d mentioned for Monday night’s session, but which hadn’t been covered: the reasons for her sore backside, and what she could do to help ease her hip and leg discomfort. Somehow we got totally off that subject when Seth went into the interesting topic of PKMB, or psychokinetic metal bending. But at this time in these sessions we’ve got to get all the new data we can to help in our own hassles.

(“The insight also reminds me of one of my questions for Seth: I plan to ask him for hints about what sort of ideas he would advance if he’s given the freedom to do so by Jane. He’s already alluded to this notion through a rather recent reference to the fact that he “toned down” some of his material for Mass Events in order to make it more acceptable. I now wish I’d asked him at the time, acceptable to whom? Jane and me, Prentice-Hall, the world, critics, the post office?”

(Jane called me for the session at 8:25. “I don’t feel Seth around and I don’t feel like a session,” she said, “but I guess I’d better....” We sat waiting for some time. I showed her my rough notes on the latest insight, and took pains to explain to her that it wasn’t a negative statement, but one that I saw as having only beneficial connotations. “What I think would happen if Seth were free to do anything he wanted to, would be great,” I said. “Whether it was ever published or not. We can talk about it later.” We agreed the insight represented something of a new idea.

The body is softening. The affair frightens him nevertheless because, as mentioned earlier, he identifies strongly with his own bodily tensions. Letting them go brings him into a more or less constant encounter with many of the fears that helped generate them. Some of these have to do with an erroneous idea of relaxation in general, of course, with his father, and with spontaneity.

It often seems to him that to relax is to be lax, to let down, do nothing, achieve nothing, as if spontaneously left alone he would be lazy, unambitious, and again lax. He has those feelings and fears. (Pause.) At the same time there are feelings that to relax would be to let go too much (louder)—slide into overly spontaneous behavior, to lack control over one’s life, to lose the observer’s fine focus. As his body begins to relax—as indeed it has—those feelings become more prominent than before. Under the circumstances he is handling them rather well.

They do present difficulties, however, and are the cause of the panicky emotions he feels at times. The body’s relaxation is as of now uneven. Certain muscles relax for the first time in recent times, while others might momentarily contract so that balance is maintained—so the body is in a state of constant change.

The change itself, and the relaxations, give him a feeling sometimes of having no firm support (as Jane said earlier today). He should try to talk with you, however, when he is anxious, to foreshorten such periods. The fears do indeed prolong this particular period.

Taking some kind of writing or sketchbook or whatever into the bedroom will help, so that he can do some creative work there if he wants to. The same applies to the couch.

(Pause.) The rigidity that was a general characteristic is breaking up, you see, so that by contrast portions of his body do feel vulnerable to him—soft, unprotected—but those feelings were to a large degree covered over before. Now he is physically aware of them, and mentally also. They can be encountered far more directly then, and as they are the body will feel more and more able to respond more, and let go the other stops that still do operate.

I admit that it is somehow sometimes difficult to attain proper balance, so that you are not concentrating upon the problem exclusively again. Those early autumn sessions, and the late summer ones, are of help here to balance what we are doing now, for they remind Ruburt of the magical framework and its operation, and assure him that relaxation is one of the best methods that release Framework 2 and its creativity.

(Pause at 9:32.) The particular paper of suggestions—he will know what I mean—does contain a good variety of suggestions for him, couched in terms that are highly beneficial. Again, certain suggestions couched one way will work at one time, according to the circumstances, while the same group may be rather adverse to fit other circumstances. Overall suggestions do of course give excellent leeway, so that the pressure can be taken off any specific areas of overconcern.

They do not have to be studied every day, but kept in mind. The entire rationale as expressed in some of those sessions concerning the rather paranoid tendencies of the conscious mind, should also be remembered. Such issues help place certain of Ruburt’s reactions in perspective.

(Actually it’s Friday night as I finish this typing, and I read the untyped portions of the session to Jane each morning as I had it in progress. It has been a lot of help. She’s sleeping better, and yet is still uncomfortable on her bottom and legs. The fears continue to surface. I’d say she’s doing very well, and it seems that this time we are really making progress. Another brief insight came to me yesterday, which I told her about: simply that she’d given up her own volition to one part of her personality. I mentioned it because she discussed the question of volition in God of Jane; she thought the insight made sense.)