“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This is the first session Jane has held since giving the deleted one for last January 7. Once again, she was very uncomfortable as she sat in her chair across the coffee table from me. Earlier today—as she reaffirmed now—she’d said more than once that she wanted to “get back to the sessions, no matter what,” or how she felt. Her bodily condition presented rather large contrasts: Her upper body was very relaxed, her eyes bleary. Her arms were longer, as they had been for some time now. Her backside was sore, as well as her hips and inner thighs at the groin; she couldn’t move forward easily. At the same time her upper legs above the knees were “soft and mushy,” while below the knees the muscles were hard and tight. Yet her feet were in good shape. These are the highlights of her condition. This morning she’d slept for an hour before lunch.

(This week especially has also been one of emotional turmoil for us, and for many others, on the national scene: the inauguration of President Reagan; the freeing of the American hostages by Iran, and their return to this country in stages. Steve and Tracy Blumenthal have also lent us a complete videotaping set, and we’ve experimented a little bit with filming Jane reading poetry. The Gallaghers have also been featured. We’re waiting for an extension cord from Steve for the TV camera so we can try to record sessions. I’ve wanted to try to film Jane reading poetry in the meantime, but each time I think of asking her —usually at night—I can see that she’s so uncomfortable that I let it go.

(Jane said she felt Seth around by 9:20, but that she thought the session would be a short one. I told her I was primarily interested in but two things, both personal: her reactions to Mass Events and God of Jane in connection with her symptoms, and what was going on in her backside and hips. She hasn’t “walked” for weeks now—since last year—and the hip problems especially have persisted now for a number of months. I wanted to hear from Seth something about why her body was taking so long to respond in those areas.

(The night before this session was held Jane suggested that each day we read over a session, or talk or review some notes, as a way to give ourselves a “pep talk” and to lead us into the day. So the day of the session, after breakfast this morning, we reread the deleted session for January 7, 1981, which is a very good one. And this morning—Tuesday—I read last night’s session to Jane from my notes, since I didn’t have it typed yet.)

I do not want to oversimplify, but it is as if each generation or group of generations seeks it own overall themes, about which the world will be organized. Those will appear in the private lives of citizens and in private dreams and in national events, or global ones, so that both arenas of activity are always intimately involved.

Ruburt found it very difficult to take a public stand, as separate from, say, a private one. My book and his—that is, Mass Events and God of Jane—both do take public stands. They comment clearly on issues that affect individual and private, and national or community behavior. The importance of impulses was stressed in particular, and the acceptance of such an idea is important to Ruburt’s recovery, of course—but also vital in the behavior of nations.

It may seem that nations behave only too impulsively, that for example the just-released American hostages were kidnapped as a result of highly impulsive behavior. In fact, that event might only seem to prove that impulsive behavior is basically aggressive, undependable, and chaotic. As a matter of fact, the students took such regrettable actions not because they gave into impulsive behavior, but because the road to true impulsive expression had been blocked so long that such actions became one of the few possible ways of giving vent to certain expressions. When you are a hostage you cannot express your own impulses, of course. Your free will is highly curtailed for all practical purposes. It is curtailed because the number of impulses are so drastically reduced by circumstance.

Whenever, and for whatever reasons you block the normally free flow of impulses, you also curtail the exercise of free will, for free will involves you in the experience of choosing between the actualization of one impulse or another. The captors then cut down on the freedom of the hostages by reducing the number of impulses to which the hostages could respond. This is all so clear that it is difficult to express step by step. The telling itself makes the affair seem complex—but whether or not you are dealing with private behavior, with the treatment of one person in regard to his or her own impulses, or whether you are dealing with a mass event of political nature, involving the enforced blockage of impulses on the part of one group toward another, you are necessarily cutting down on the exercise of free will.

He was taught to be very cautious lest that livelihood be taken away. The only private fears he had were also old ones, having to do with the whole false-prophet syndrome, the fear of leading people down the garden path, and so forth. Those private and public arenas became connected, however. (Long pause.) He was worried that his natural expression and search, publicly expressed at that point in history, was dangerous because it put him in the gaze of a growing band of fanatics on the one hand, and also roused old fears of a private nature, having to do with the overall validity of revelatory information.

The information in Mass Events and in our sessions helped him use impulses to a far better degree than he had before, and helped him keep some balance, let him advance in understanding despite the period of difficulty. Still at various times and throughout the period, he used what he thought of as that additional protection: the symptoms kept him inside, where it seemed he could indeed express himself with the least duress. At the same time he was learning that expression denied at one level means expression denied to some extent at all levels (louder)—so that of course his creative work also suffered to some degree.

This is a stage, then, in that process—one in which he is holding his own. The period, however, can and should be shortened. Your free and open communication with each other on this subject can be of far more value than either of you realize, and it is really the only primary point of contention right now. That is, he is dispensing with the beliefs behind the problems fairly well, so it is only on the issue of safety, and the safety of relaxation, that he is still concerned.

(10:30.) The understandings that Ruburt is now achieving are precisely the ones needed. What is left is reassurance that each step along the way is safe and supported. It is important for him to remember the effortlessness with which increased flexibility can come. It can come as easily as your income does (with humor, referring to my work on taxes the last two days). It is important that he not worry, or project his difficulties into the future—and while he does much better at that than he did, he still needs the reminder.

(Seth gave me a half-pitying look combined with one of willingness and understanding. I’d expected the reaction, but still wanted a concise definition that we could refer to.)

(10:42 PM. Jane closed her eyes as Seth, and when she opened them that personality was gone. The session had hardly been a short one; I told her it was excellent.

(“I was hardly aware of my ass or anything else,” she said. “I felt a whole lot of stuff there on the hostages—stuff it would take forever to get, darn it....” So we talked about what a great book Seth could do on the hostage question. “Before you got through it would cover history, religion, science—the whole works,” Jane said. I agreed that it would certainly encapsulate our whole civilized world structure before Seth finished it. “Forget it,” Jane said. “We’ve got one half done now.” She wanted to know what would happen to Seth’s book on dreams in the meantime, and I explained that it would only wait until the other project was finished. After all, it was waiting now for us to get back to it.

(As I finished it this evening, however, I can see now that the session is even a better one that I’d thought. Actually, it contains the key to Jane’s recovery, and her progress continues. I massaged her thighs after supper. This afternoon, when I told her it was okay to relax, “even to walk,” she said “something melted” inside her, and she became more relaxed. In fact, she slept for over an hour this morning. She planned to try for a session this evening, she said, as I went back to my typing.

(I might add that Seth’s capsule commentary on the reasons for her symptoms is just what I wanted, and that we ought to keep copies of it available for easy reference. The thought came to me after supper that Jane’s doing the ESP classes probably contributed to the symptoms over the years, since the class situation was one in which she advanced her unconventional ideas to the public. I haven’t had a chance to discuss this with her, but it seems possible that her disseminating her ideas to a large number of people, in person each week, could have struck her deep-seated need for protection.... If Jane reads this material before holding a session tonight, perhaps Seth can comment.)