“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

(Yesterday morning, then, while painting, the thought came to me clearly: Jane does the Seth books just to please me. I knew at the time that this was likely to be an oversimplification, yet I also knew at once that it contained the key to the puzzle; this rather simple idea helped me assemble all of the information already described in these notes, half of it in ways I cannot consciously describe. But it did lead to the discussion I had with Jane this noon [on the 4th], and this session. All at once I had several ideas I wanted to talk over with her.

(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.

(Putting off Dreams, it seemed to me, was a necessity at the moment because I now believed that the long interlude in her dictation was, again, a clear sign of resistance to the project on Jane’s part. The idea is an attempt to at least call a halt to something that she has resisted from the start, or so it seems in retrospect—and I mean the start of the sessions, not just Dreams. I reminded her that I was the one who first suggested we start publishing the Seth material, and that she’d had reservations about doing that. It seemed to me now that a clear course of hanging back had been displayed by Jane all though our psychic endeavors, and that it could be easily charted if we took the time to do so. I said that she would have probably used her psychic gifts in some fashion in her writing, but that the Seth books might very well have not come into existence except for my own interest—hence my mental insight this morning that Jane did the Seth books to please me. I know things aren’t that simple, but I do feel that the fact of public exposure represented by the Seth books has always bothered Jane. And currently she has been bothered more than ever, as she has described in her December 27, 1980 paper. This upset includes her work on her own latest, The God of Jane.

(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.

(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.

(I’ve taken the time to write the above notes as much as for a reminder to myself as for anything else, and to start off this session as something special. I did not know whether Jane would have a session or not—yet I was still somewhat surprised when she did offer to hold one tonight. Once again, she’d been “so far out of it,” sitting on the couch and watching TV, that I’d given up on hearing Seth comment upon our latest ideas. Jane had been “out of it” for most of the day, except during our talk, which lasted over an hour. I must admit that at this time I’m pretty well puzzled as how to best help her. She was still very uncomfortable each day as bodily changes swept through her. Her backside and legs in particular have bothered her recently. Yet last night it had been her arms and elbows—I’d say that during the night she’d wake me up over a dozen times crying in her sleep at the discomfort in her arms. This morning I discovered that the knots of muscle beneath her left elbow had almost disappeared—an effect I’d never seen before. Instead the elbow was full of fluid. Was this the latest attempt by the body to heal itself by flooding afflicted areas with soothing liquid, say as lubrication, or what?

There is some difference, of course, in Ruburt’s mind between his attitude toward his books and mine. To some extent this is more than understandable. He would (pause), had I not emerged, written books of his own in any case. He would have encountered no unusual obstacles as far as his public stance was concerned, in that he would have felt the rather characteristic dilemma of some creative writers, who must assimilate the private and public portions of their experiences. He would have had no unusual difficulty, however, in say, standing up for his own ideas—holding his own, so to speak, in any arguments or philosophies.

Ruburt and you live in a world with its own cultural taboos, its own assumptions. The idea of personhood is a highly vital one, uniting peoples and societies. The idea of personhood held by the Roman Catholic Church affected the history of the world for centuries, and that idea of personhood is intimately involved, of course, with the idea of personhood’s source.

If Ruburt wants to disagree with the world’s knowledge, he feels that it is his right—and again, would defend such ideas forthrightly. They would be based upon experiences that are his own—many that you have shared as a result of your own personal experiences together. But Ruburt is not aware of my subjective experience. My self-evident knowledge comes even if I were no more, again, than a part of his larger psyche, from reaches that would be inaccessible in those terms to him (all emphatically). That is, in those terms I would be delivering self-evident knowledge to him, revealing it (long pause), delivering it. I could not hand over the psychological quality of self-evident knowing, however. In that regard he does not have the same kind of inner experience with which to back up my words.

(Jane’s dream about Oswego reminded me of a little episode that I think of every so often, and that I’ve referred to in a note in one of the books, I think—probably Mass Events: When I’d asked her once years ago what she wanted to do more than anything else in life, she’d answered quickly, “Change the world.” Her conflict can be easily seen, then, manifesting between that idea and her deep-seated need for protection.

(These notes at the end of the session are meant to round out the opening notes, and to suggest new questions for us and for Seth. The other day I’d told Jane that I had given up on the idea of donating our work and assets to Yale University Library —indeed, that in the year since we’d had our will made out I hadn’t sent them any material at all. Jane agreed that the idea of Yale had made her uneasy. I hadn’t even answered Larry Dowler’s long letter of acceptance beyond sending him a short note of thanks for all his work. Jane, now, did not urge that we contribute to Yale. Our will still commits us in case of accident, say, but that document can be changed.

(After this session was held we briefly talked about things we might do in order to ensure privacy, should we decide to be more active in the pursuit of that quality. There would be moving to a new location, perhaps, or doing something about the mail—answering labors each week. I suppose we might use the post office’s impending rate increases as an excuse to save on postage, and either cut way down on, or eliminate, answering the mail, if this will help. I’m willing to do most anything, but our ideas here as yet are very vague, and I haven’t discussed with Jane yet whether she thinks a move would do any good, really.

(That topic ties in with my idea that I mentioned to her this afternoon, about it hardly being a coincidence that many events in our lives are coming to a head at the same time: Our deep upset about Jane’s condition; the trouble with the disclaimer idea for Mass Events; Prentice-Hall’s reorganization into the General Publishing Division, in which all of their narrative books will be phased out, thus eliminating any real need for Tam and his job; indeed, Tam is looking at other job offers even now. [It’s been my position for some time now that Tam will end up leaving Prentice-Hall, or will be let go.] If and when he does go, we will be without our friend there, and will have to make decisions based on that departure. But we may be in the process of making such decisions even now, I suspect. I doubt if we would follow Tam helter-skelter to another publishing house if he left Prentice-Hall tomorrow—especially in light of our decision to hold off on Dreams. And the irony of the situation is that, even though we detest the idea of the disclaimer for Mass Events, we see it as another means of protection in the public arena....

(Today I also reminded Jane about a question we’ve thought about at other times: Why does the portion of her that’s raising such a fuss about protection not understand the damage it’s doing to the whole personality—including itself? The circle becomes self-defeating, of course, and as far as I’m concerned reached that status years ago. Yet it persists.... Any hope we have in all of this is that our new stance will allow us to focus on the good things we have in life, and to create a synthesis of old and new ideas that will result in Jane returning to normal mobility. In this session Seth referred to Jane’s need for value fulfillment as she explored her psychic gifts. He also stated that our old frameworks of understanding force us to continue to explore reality for larger definitions. All very well, if such explorations can be carried out with a reasonable feeling of safety or protection, evidently, but if that essential ingredient or feeling is missing, then more caution must be used by us—and as I see it, that’s where we stand now. The hope is that our hiatus as far as encountering the public goes will give us some valuable time to organize new approaches to our lives.