“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I began to get a fresh insight to the symptom situation as we talked, hardly realizing that I was doing so. “It’s just that the symptoms show that you’re a human being like everyone else,” I speculated. “They show that you’re not ensconced on high, telling everyone else what to do through Seth, telling them how to handle all of their problems while you live a life of wealth, talent, and happiness, free of all worldly cares and responsibilities,” I added.

(“So you’re in trouble,” I said, “because that situation makes the Seth material legitimate. How could you possibly understand people’s troubles unless you had pretty severe ones yourself—with my cooperation? No one can ever accuse you of handing down great insights from a position of being above it all.... You can say, ‘Look, folks. I have my hassles too.’”

(Obviously, many facets of these ideas have been discussed many times. There was something new here, though, I thought, when one postulated that Seth as we knew him was acceptable because of the symptoms. Acceptable and accessible. Dealing with our personal situations was taking up more and more of our time. Strange, I thought, if it turned out that personal work would be one of the most creative of all the uses to which the Seth material could be put, rather than grandiose pronouncements coming down from on high, dispensed by one who was in a position of superiority.

—They were simply brushed up and renewed. They represented a kind of psychological handicap. The situation also helped serve to explain, you felt particularly in the beginning, oddities of your own behaviors in regard to society. When you gave up your job you did not have to explain why you did not have to find another as “any normal red-blooded male should do,” but stayed at home devoted to a time of painting and philosophy. You also had a wife to look after who had physical difficulties.

(Long pause.) The feet are connected with the overall situation itself. In that they want greater activity and circulation. More exercising of the feet will be of benefit. On a physical level alone the heat is also somewhat connected. You used this period, however, yourselves, as a time to critically aggravate the symptoms (long pause), almost as if you were looking over a body of work to see what you thought of it, and what you wanted to do next.

(A situation developed Tuesday evening—last night—as I planned to begin typing this session. The event reinforced much of the material in the session itself, and my idea that had brought it about: As Jane and I were finishing supper last night Tom D’Orio from Binghamton visited us with two of his friends [they had a small Seth group going at home]. Tom is an “old” ESP class member. Jane evidently enjoyed talking to the three of them, and before we knew it over an hour had passed, whereas I’d originally asked Tom and company not to stay long because we were busy. It was around 9 PM when they finally left, and although I was getting tired I stuck to it and typed the first two pages of notes for this session while I kept in mind what I wanted to put down. Jane then read them and agreed with them.