“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(But with a new insight growing out of this month’s series of private sessions, I explained, I now felt that one could more directly get at the heart of one’s challenges, instead of trying to cajole the body into behaving differently—after all, the body’s condition was the result of certain ways of thinking, not the cause of the trouble. In addition, it was obvious that the body hadn’t responded to those habitual suggestions over the years, so something else was needed. The cause of Jane’s symptoms is her fear of the spontaneous self—that is the area that needs treatment. One might better address the fears of being the public person, for example, rather than trying to futilely patch up a body that was only faithfully following mirroring habits of deep and long standing.

(At lunchtime Frank Longwell dropped off a medical device that’s used to transfer moist heat to the body. After lunch I fussed with transplanting a cutting of Swedish ivy while Jane slept. I also wanted to try to make up some of the painting time I’d lost this morning. As I finished cleaning up the planter I came up with another of the “insights” I’ve been getting since we started this series of private sessions on February 4, 1981; see my notes at the end of the session for February 11.

(“Insight, February 25, 1981, 1:20 PM. Although Jane enjoys the sessions, as Seth himself said in the session for February 1, 1981 She is still somewhat afraid of what he will produce in the future—new theories and ideas that either might or will place her in further confrontation with the major tenets of our ordinary world—meaning science, religion, medicine, history, whatever. She fears then, Seth going too far as an expression of her creative and spontaneous self. This expression then must be kept within strict, safe limits. This fear of future developments ties in very well with her natural concerns about becoming a public figure, one that should be able to solve the world’s problems. Once more, I know I’m on to something here, while agreeing in advance that I’ve expressed the insight in simplistic terms.”

(“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?”

(I should add, too, that this latest insight ties in well with the paragraph of Seth’s that I’ve copied from the deleted session for January 28, 1981, to add to my list of quotations from these recent private sessions: Seth discussed Jane’s fear of letting go —not because she is afraid of relaxing per se, but because she fears she will go too far.

(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.

(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.)