“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Our difficulties made themselves known with a vengeance when I pushed Jane into the bathroom in her chair after 10:30 PM: because for the first time, she failed to be able to get up from her seat on the john, and back to her chair as I stood waiting. She tried twice, but her feet and legs just wouldn’t support her, much less navigate well enough for her to walk. She said several times that she was frightened. I couldn’t reach her to help from the other side of the chair, because of our bathroom’s architecture. The ultimate fear had manifested itself, then: Jane was no longer able to maneuver in the bathroom. What now?

(Eventually, and very reluctantly, since I considered it a sign of a major failure, I ended up carrying her physically from the john to her chair—rather awkwardly but not with as much trouble as I’d anticipated, yet also feeling a bit of a strain in my lower back. I am still aware of a muscular sensation there, although I slept well. Jane was much relieved that I could move her, and surprised, but I had my doubts about being able to do that on a longer-term basis: I dared not endanger my own physical condition lest I be unable to take care of her otherwise, regardless of how poorly or with what ill grace I might do that.

(So this morning, Tuesday, I also carried her to the toilet seat, and once more she was quite relieved. She’d also slept well. We spent most of the morning working with the pendulum, and this seemed to help, and brought us some fresh information. A few of the answers were surprising. We have started a notebook for the pendulum material. I should add that Monday night’s session had actually begun to give us glimmers of hope, and that this buoyed-up feeling had begun to manifest itself this morning, whereas yesterday we’d felt pretty hopeless about the situation. This morning Jane also mentioned that she had the idea of trying to walk with the typing table —something she hasn’t done since last November 16, 1980, by the way—so I got it out. She tried several times to get to her feet; she almost made it, but couldn’t quite. She wants me to get the table for her each day now until she is able to walk with it in the old way. An excellent idea.

(We haven’t yet made any firm decision about seeking medical help, but are obviously very close to doing just that.)

What you want is not a crisis situation, but a therapeutic situation—so change the statements of your thoughts. Your intent now is to create a therapeutic situation. Otherwise, your concentration is upon crisis.

(I should take a moment here to note that Seth has said this before, and that Jane has referred to it also. I for one haven’t had any such feelings, since from the very beginning of our relationship I’ve always felt certain that in Jane I’d found the ideal mate—an achievement I’ve considered most fortunate, one I’d hardly dared dream I’d manage to do. Looking back, our meeting and getting together seemed the most natural and inevitable things in the world; how could I improve upon that? I’ve always been intensely proud of Jane’s achievements and abilities, and glad to be able to participate in them to whatever degree. The thing that has left me distraught, nearly broken-hearted, is to see her in such a progressively poor physical situation as the years have passed. Especially devastating is this when the material explains very clearly that things don’t have to be that way. No wonder I say to her that we’ve paid too high a price for our achievements. I want to see her able to manipulate like other people, of course, and to have her achievements also; that things haven’t worked out that way so far can’t but help have a profound effect upon my feelings, hers, and our relationship, which I’ve always taken absolutely as being as solid and enduring as the elements.)

Ruburt has been afraid of your reactions as Events and God of Jane meet the public world. I do not want to hurt either of your feelings (pause), but in your cases the creation of a crisis period is not beneficial. This does not mean there cannot be discussion, or decisions made about seeking help from others, or whatever, but that the idea of a crisis situation aggravates the very natural feelings (long pause) that are present and unfortunately exaggerated in the entire situation.

In your cases, you both began to concentrate upon the negative elements. It is not merely that you brought some elements, say, to consciousness, but that they led the field of your attention. This applies to you, Joseph, as well as Ruburt: what would happen if Ruburt got worse? How would you protect yourself, or your time? Any anger that you felt toward Ruburt in the present was then exaggerated by this negatively imagined future, so that you became angrier.

(8:19.) You have both tried to handle the situation by yourselves, and that statement applies to you both. The approach is quite characteristic of you both, all in all. It can be seen in other forms (pause)—in your interest for example years ago in situations like survival, using the land’s resources; in your imagined dealings with a possible nuclear war in the past, when you saw yourselves relying upon yourselves; in your behavior during the flood; in your determination to seek yourselves for the meaning of life rather than look to the authorities—and indeed in your own dealings with your own health when such issues arise. There are lines drawn: you see dentists, for example, but the overall pattern is a pattern highly characteristic.

I simply want to make this understandable. That pattern often means that both your strengths and your weaknesses appear in exaggerated form. I am not suggesting that you become inflexible in that regard, but that you understand your individual and joint reactions more clearly.

Ruburt’s condition does not just have a physical significance, then, for either of you, but becomes intrinsically tied up with your personal philosophies, your values about creativity and self-reliance. Those values on Ruburt’s part in particular have been contaminated, so to speak, by the fears and issues we have earlier spoken of. We therefore want the concentration upon, again, a therapeutic situation. This automatically should bring about a change of focus. You can still leave open your decision about medical help, or make it, or whatever, but you will not use fear as an impetus.

There is a relaxation going on, and a loosening between the hips and the legs, that causes other large muscles to hold back to maintain balance temporarily, to move more slowly to compensate for the unaccustomed looseness of other portions. That loosening also frightens Ruburt because of the resulting disorientation—but the disorientation represents a breaking-down of old patterns.

(8:52.) Now that situation, plus the mental strains of the crisis condition, brought about the present situation. The physical situation will change in any case, and for the better (long pause), but the crisis situation itself helped rearouse Ruburt’s lack of trust. It has often been thought that love-making in some way impairs creativity; in fact, it is highly conducive to all kinds of creative endeavor—a point I want to emphasize.