“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Finally she called me for the session at 9:40 PM. Again she struggled to get comfortable, just as she’d done for last Wednesday night’s session. Walter is a nice young man. I went back to working on taxes while Jane talked to him, and at the same time found myself wondering whether his unexpected visit might symbolize one of the very facets of Jane’s dilemma about privacy versus the public life—at least as I understand it: Her vulnerability and availability to anyone who chooses to come here. We can’t get away. Others must know this, by whatever means, and may take advantage of her immobility. Walter, for example, told us that when he woke up this morning he decided to go see Jane Roberts—so he just came. [This was his second visit, the first being a couple of years ago.]

(Jane had remarked the other day that she thought Seth would talk about her reaction to class and the mail—topics discussed in the opening notes for the last session. I was also still thinking about her reaction to the sessions themselves: the idea that she could feel inferior to Seth and/or the material was, as I noted, a pretty new one for me, and somewhat surprising. Yet Jane had said recently that such thoughts had come to her. See page 289 of the last session. I noted there that I didn’t recall her telling me about such feelings.

Through writing such notes, and exploring his feelings, his own attitudes will come more clearly to mind. In any case he should begin again writing about his feelings. He is in a way a different kind of psychologist, examining the nature of psychological reality from different viewpoints. He did not simply accept “mediumship” at its face value, so to speak. (Long pause.) Most people, generally speaking, have one more or less familiar notion of a self that they try to actualize within physical reality. (Pause.) They do not have visions or experience, again generally speaking, with any characteristics that cannot be actualized more or less within the framework of established experience.

He encounters the invisible organization of my books, say, the effect of those books upon others. He recognizes the vast complexity that lies behind our relationship, and therefore is ever aware of psychological issues encountered by few other people, relatively speaking. His relationship with me, and mine with him, is bound to be interpreted in multitudinous ways by our readership, the public and so forth. To some extent (pause), there can be a feeling of inferiority on his part (pause), one that he does of course not deserve. He focuses in the world, and I do not.

He thinks that that background and temperament should no longer apply. That is, if once he disliked crowds, a new purpose and understanding should let him rise above such nonsense—but there has always been a kind of singularity there (long pause)—a characteristic need to go his own way. This does not mean that he has no need for expression. Small groups are one thing, large ones something else. The private context was the home, when you had classes. He likes encounters with other people, naturally, but he does not like crowds nor speaking to a kind of mass mind, directly encountered.

Ruburt should do some small amount of writing each day—for his own pleasure and expression. It is disconnected from ideas of publishing, though later it may be published. (Pause.) The responsibility for each person’s life lies with that person. That (underlined) is one of our main messages. The books offer their own continuing educational process for people to follow if they choose, and the process of self-discovery is one of the most valuable aspects of such growth. So Ruburt is not to be taken in by people who come here or write, expecting him to solve their problems in the flesh, or expecting me to do it. Nor is he obligated to answer mail.

(In some way portions of Seth’s material tonight triggered an awareness of my own—not a new one, yet it seemed somehow that it was quite significant. Simply that the whole hassle Jane and I are involved in first showed itself—clearly—when we met with Instream in Oswego, and encountered the disbelieving young nameless psychologist. I found myself reviving Jane’s hesitation on the jungle gym at the park on the lake at Rochester; we’d stopped there on our way home from Oswego, and brother Dick had taken us to the lake.