“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Coupled with all of this is the statement Seth made recently to the effect that we “have made no major errors.” This is one of those bits of data that I return to much later and begin to question, after having let it pass at the time. “Well, if we’ve made no major errors,” I said to Jane recently, “what do you call the hassles we do have?”’ I was—am—quite aware of the humor implicit in the whole situation. At times I for one can agree with Seth, but at other times I have strong doubts.

(Like class, Jane has often been threatened by the mail, only more overtly, as well as by personal visitors who sought us out. Another example of this occurred at noon, when we were visited by two beautiful young ladies—who, unfortunately, were using the Seth material in ways we wouldn’t have. All such incidents, I told Jane, reinforce individual actions on the part of readers that would be quite rejected by the establishment: further signs of how far outside accepted thought Jane has found herself over the years. I explained here that I thought this has always bothered her deeply. No reviews in accepted journals, no welcome in the universities by academia, as she herself wrote in God of Jane. And of course the whole lengthy disclaimer bit for Mass Events beautifully sums up the situations: Even our own publisher seeks to protect itself from possible legal action because of the material within the Seth books. Jane sees this as a threat, although she doesn’t say much about it. And I for one wonder about disclaimers for future books—or even having them added to past works.

(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.

(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....