“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session came about because of a phone call I took today from the publicity department at Prentice-Hall. The young girl made an innocent-enough request about Jane doing a radio-phone interview with a station in Houston, Texas. A few weeks earlier Jane had tentatively okayed with publicity the idea of doing an occasional radio-phone interview, based on the condition that first she obtain one of those desk microphones/telephones so that she didn’t have to hold the phone for an hour or more. She’s tried once to locate the equipment, but failed.

(She’s received several recent requests for such interviews from or through Prentice-Hall, and the call this morning brought the matter to a head. When I called Jane at 10:30 and told her about the proposal, I could see that the idea of it made her uneasy. I finally realized that she didn’t really want to do such shows anymore, no matter whether the Sinful Self was involved or not. It came to me that this dilemma was the reason for her much worse hand and arm discomfort: She can barely hold the telephone now, and has much trouble typing. [I’ve also noticed that she keeps such requests lying around on her desk for days before answering them in the negative. I’ve seen her carry such envelopes from room to room with her work, even.]

(I did want the situation resolved, however, because I could see it drifting toward a larger hassle with Tam and publicity at Prentice-Hall. Prentice-Hall was bound to be confused about our motives and intents, and also there was the latest evidence that the uncertainty or resistance would lead to aggravated symptoms on Jane’s part.

(What particularly upset me about the flap over publicity was that I saw in it a repetition of past ways of refusing to meet challenges head on involved with the psychic work. I finally understood that Jane didn’t want to do any work involving publicity or interviews, and that for years now she’s bitterly—if unwittingly —resisted such demands, and that these unresolved pressures were having a devastating effect upon her physically. This was all behavior I still could not really comprehend.

(For several days now I’d been thinking about a remark of Seth’s in one of the earliest of this group of sessions, to the effect that Jane’s symptoms would get worse before they got better as we tried to cope with them. I’ve wished, often that I’d asked him to elaborate at the time—or at least marked the session so that I could find the remark later. Well, now Jane’s symptoms are worse. Before the session began I tried to locate the remark, but couldn’t. I felt considerable frustration, and finally laid the book aside. “Well, I hope I don’t ever have to find a specific remark in these sessions any more, “because it’s becoming impossible.”

(“But it’s the same old story,” I told Jane when I asked that she have a session tonight, to deal with her hands and arms, and Seth’s remark. “I’m the one who’s asking for it, not you.” What I wondered, of course, was why she wasn’t the one who demanded the help.

(“You did on the hands and arms, but how about more on the remark you made in that past session, about Jane’s symptoms getting worse before they get better?”)

(10:20 PM. The session had been excellent—so excellent that I’d felt like interjecting many questions as Seth preceded along: one of those times when I had a hard time not injecting myself, with my own impatience, into the session. I did explode at its end briefly, however, and Jane sat silently while I ranted and raved.

(Upon thinking it over—it’s now Sunday afternoon as I finish typing the session—I now believe that I should have said little or nothing, and I became concerned lest I undid, or tried to, what progress Jane has managed to achieve lately. I was angry at session’s end, however, with the fact that she had responded to the publicity dilemma with aggravated hand and arm symptoms, and that it had taken me so long myself to realize what was going on. It made me question what we were doing generally, that such an obvious response should escape our notice. All of this is based on my deep concern for what has befallen Jane—or, more truthfully, what she has created for herself with my cooperation.

(I do think that it will all serve a valuable purpose, however, if we clear up the one major stumbling block over publicity—whether to do or not to do it. If we have solved that dilemma, well and good. Earlier I asked Jane if she was willing to stick by her decision to forgo public life, as stated in the letter she wrote Prentice today, and she said yes. I certainly am, let the chips fall where they may. I for one have no real idea of how Prentice-Hall may react, although Jane told me today that she’s picked up that Prentice-Hall plans to be much more aggressive on questions concerning publicity. I don’t think there will be any hassle, for surely the people at Prentice-Hall know enough about Jane’s abilities and sales and productive talents to know a good thing when they have one, whether or not publicity is involved.

(A note: Jane did tell me Saturday that she’s noticed an improvement in her hands and arms, and also in her ability to get onto the bed from her chair, since we made the decision to not do publicity.)