“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.

(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.

(Now slowly at 9:13:) Ruburt is very highly gifted—extraordinarily so in many respects. The nature of his gift generally speaking, however, presupposes or implies the existence of vast reaches in the psyche—reaches that if (pause) unwisely compared to the usual portions of the self, can seem to leave the usual self in a position of inferiority by contrast.

(Long pause at 9:27.) Give us a moment.... There are few people in such a position. He is not cowardly in that regard (as Jane had speculated during our discussion). He was, in fact, quite daring in refusing to accept the conventional spirit-guide dogma—which would at least have given him a kind of psychological covering (all emphatically.

(Now it’s Friday night [the 6th] as I finish typing this session. Seth’s reference to “grievous errors” was obviously in answer to my own comment as recorded in the opening notes. At first when I asked her, Jane said the session hadn’t done anything to “relieve some of Ruburt’s stress.” But then we decided that it had helped her somewhat Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday night she’d had a dream involving our Instream-Oswego experience, and a copy of that is attached under February 5. And she had a pair of positive healing dreams that afternoon during her customary nap. These dreams were quite good.

(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....