“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jim Adams also called just before supper, and I relayed the substance of his call to Jane. Last week he’d said himself that Jane’s eyes were good, that she had no eye disease, or glaucoma, etc. —worries Jane has fretted over for years. Jim agreed with us—and Seth, incidentally—that Jane’s trouble with double vision was muscular in nature. He decided against using prisms to unify her visions because of frequent problems people had with nausea, etc. Instead he measured her for new reading glasses, and these alone evoked an enthusiastic response from Jane, since she could see to read much better with the test lenses.

(Jim Adams also suggested that Jane see a medical internist to get at the root of the muscular difficulty, and gave us the names of three local doctors he recommended highly. He also promised to call an ophthalmologist friend of his, to explain Jane’s case to him and hear what this individual—a Dr. Werner—had to say about Jane’s double vision. Thus, tonight in his call Jim told me that Dr. Werner had said that Jane’s double vision was “the end result” of something muscular in nature. Dr. Werner recommended that she be tested to discover the causes, and asked Jim if Jane had ever had any “mini-strokes,” since such unsuspected and even unfelt attacks could have muscular repercussions. Dr. Werner added that he felt Jane should get attention, since help could lengthen her life span through muscular relaxation. Jim Adams is to see us later this week to check on black frames for Jane’s new glasses, and she can question him on Werner’s responses then.

(I might add that Frank Longwell has suggested that Jane’s extreme slowness of movement currently stems from healing changes taking place in her muscles, and that such movement is protective in nature. Perhaps, I said, but the slower motion doesn’t appear to be leading anywhere, as one might expect it to. We gather that Frank isn’t particularly in favor of contacting the medical establishment, but what is one to do, I asked Jane, if one cannot bring oneself out of his or her difficulties unaided? Jane has been having steadily increasing difficulties in the bathroom ever since the last private session was held—and, of course, even before that. Seth has said often that just because one has physical difficulties does not mean those problems are fated to get endlessly and progressively worse, but this hasn’t been born out in Jane’s case —so far. How much longer dare we wait? Jane herself said during Jim Adams’s first visit that “I don’t want to go to any hospital for tests.”

The physical condition is the mirror of that attitude. The material on the Sinful Self and so forth gives some insight into the nature of the problem. That is, it gives expression to the portion of the self that holds attitudes that are behind the difficulty.

All of the material I have given about attitudes toward revelationary material are important in that context, and please realize that I am categorizing. To that degree and in the light of this discussion, you end up with what I will call —and have in the past called—the overly conscientious self, which attempts to deal with the attitudes of the Sinful Self by checking and double-checking all the time, by being, in other words, overly conscientious: is Ruburt dealing with “the truth,” and so forth? That kind of question is endlessly considered by the conscientious self. You are taught as children to be honest in very literal terms, and often children’s natural imaginative abilities and creativity get them in a good deal of trouble.

Ruburt’s nature leads him toward the kind of creativity he is naturally embarked upon. It represents his true nature. The fears and difficulties may be deeply ingrained, but they are largely learned. To cut down on creative activity will not alleviate the situation. An overconcern (underlined) about the mechanics of publication, or the necessity of publication, or the wheres and hows of publication, or a sense of responsibility about the work, can indeed cause difficulty, but the basic creative expression—which has been impeded in the past by fears—should still be encouraged.