“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I didn’t fully grasp the significance of these interludes while working on Mass Events, not until I reread the other night Jane’s paper of December 27, 1980. She’d written that treatise at my request following some remarks she’d made. I’d read it, but it hadn’t penetrated sufficiently at the time. In it she tied her eye trouble and other symptoms with her fears about public reactions to her Seth work—her fears of its rejection, etc., and that she might—indeed, has—found herself outside the accepted realms of science, religion, etc., because of her psychic work.

(As soon as I reread her paper the evening before last, I was reminded of the two excerpts I’d copied from recent deleted sessions—those for January 26 and 28, 1981. In them Seth briefly explained how Jane had created her symptoms as protection against the spontaneous self going too far: this fear was the real reason for the symptoms—not, as we usually thought, her fear that she would do other things besides work if she had normal mobility. The latter idea is a cover-up for the previous one. To Jane, going too far means that she would find herself in an unsafe position in the world. And to me, as I began to put all of this together, it meant that although she did the Seth books, which we think so highly of, she also drags her feet in resistance with each one—hence the long intervals of non-work that crop up during the production of each one. Again, without checking, I think that an examination of our records would show that her symptoms flared up, indeed worsened, as she worked on each Seth book, and that behind her labors on each book there lay this fear that she was going too far with each one she produced. This fear may be based on outmoded ideas—as Seth has mentioned at various times—it may make no sense, or whatever, yet as long as it exists it must be dealt with. This present session represents, then, our latest attempt to come to terms with all of our personal, public, and creative aspects involved with the Seth material—not just those we’d chosen to deal with in past years.

(This noon after lunch, then—on the 4th—Jane and I had a discussion about the ideas mentioned above. My latest efforts to cope with our challenges involve her letting go of Seth’s latest books. Dreams, for some time. That is, we can work on it if we want to, but with no thought of deadlines or signing a contract, which would commit Jane to additional public exposure. The idea is that she’ll be free to do what she wants with the Seth material, for as long as she wants to, without our adding fuel to her fears until we’ve had a chance to work things through. I told her I was sure I was on the right track here, without knowing positively that I was, and without having pat answers that would solve all of our hassles.

(I explained that in their different ways both Jane’s ESP classes, and the mail, reflect other aspects of public exposure, and that these too must have engendered resistance over the years. [Jane remarked last week to the effect that she wondered how she could get out of answering the mail, for example.] Class had always seemed to offer much, and has helped many people, yet implicit in its very existence was the fact of public exposure concerning unacceptable psychic abilities, in Jane’s eyes, I told her. My idea is that both class and mail have had an unfortunate reinforcing effect over the years as far as the symptoms and their attendant fears go.

(Even today’s mail, which we read after finishing our discussion, contained several beautiful examples of points I’ve described above. This brought up another matter—our being confronted with the work we have published, as well as by Mass Events and God of Jane. No way to get away from those fifteen books of the past, I said, so to that extent we have to live with the results they engender. I too wondered about dispensing with answering the mail, while being very reluctant to do so, since many of the letters are openly laudatory, and we save them for reference [although we haven’t actually used any for such purposes]. But therein lies trouble, too, I said, because they would reflect Jane’s concern about public exposure, her fears about leading people astray.

(Putting off the publication of Dreams, then, is only a ploy to gain some time to defuse the present situation, while Jane’s body struggles to right itself as much as possible. We do believe Seth’s assessment, to the effect that her body is righting itself in numerous areas after years of disuse, of being held down, but at the same time it’s very difficult not to have qualms and doubts about what’s happening at the same time. At Christmastime I discussed with Jane the idea of seeking medical help, and asked her to tell me what she thought of this idea later, but she has yet to bring up the subject. I knew she’s not in favor of it, but as I said at the time, this seemed to mean that she was indulging the idea of spending the balance of her life sitting down —quite immobile for all practical purposes. I’d told her at the time that I had no great hope that medicine could help much, but still I wondered often enough if the medical profession might be able to offer some sort of help. I didn’t want Jane to get so bad that she was forced to turn to doctors, before at least considering outside help. At times I feared something like this would happen if she wasn’t able to “pull out” of her symptoms on her own—that is, with her own, Seth’s, and my help.