“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane has had a relatively good day, and has done much better with the new chair for the bathroom. She even used it to go to the john an extra time this afternoon—a heartening sign. She had no questions for the session this evening, “But I had a feeling he might say something about that Kubler-Ross thing, and that there might be some charged material in it about me—that’s the feeling I get, so I’m just waiting....”

(The article in question is a Playboy interview with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. Leonard Yaudes left the May, 1981 issue recently, and Jane has been reading the interview therein once I noticed it and suggested that she review it. Kubler-Ross’s hassles —at least some of them—remind us of our own. I’ll note briefly that late last year, in November-December, Jane attempted to get in touch with Kubler-Ross at the behest of a friend of KR’s who had attended Sheri Perl’s classes. Jane was to call KR at a conference in Wappinger’s Falls, NY; she tried a number of times, always to be put off by a rather unpleasant and officious woman who was always saying that KR was “in conference” and couldn’t be disturbed. Jane wouldn’t leave our private number. KR, we were told, knew that Jane would be calling—indeed, had requested that she do so. The two never did make contact, so we figured it was for the best, for whatever reasons. According to our phone bill, Jane’s last attempt at contact was on December 5, 1980. “Well,” I said, “presumably KR knew you tried to reach her, so since you never got a letter or note later, forget it. That is, if that secretary, or whatever she was, was relaying your messages....”

(I spent part of the afternoon and evening writing to Tam, asking him to defend us from the well-meaning but evidently inept efforts of various people in Canada and Switzerland to arrange for translations of Jane’s work in French, Italian, and Spanish—and I’d sworn off writing such letters following the fiasco with Ariston....

(Our family of raccoons was stirring a bit in the fireplace behind my chair as I sat facing Jane on the couch. My back felt a little better, although not clear. “If it works out and you have a minute tonight, and if you’re in the mood to say something about Israel and Iraq, it would be interesting,” I told Jane. She nodded. She was very relaxed.

(We waited. Jane became even more relaxed. “I think I’ll start in half a minute or so,” she said, “but how far I’ll get, I don’t know,” she said. She lit a cigarette.)

(I hesitated. “I wasn’t going to ask this tonight, but earlier today I found myself wondering how much of Jane’s symptoms result from my own attitudes and statements about Prentice. I guess I now think she reacted to my ideas there more than I realized.”)

(9:47 PM. Jane had done well. As we had last night, both of us felt out of it after the session.

(I thought Seth’s brief answer to my question merely reinforced my suspicion that my attitudes toward Prentice had unduly influenced Jane. He’s dealt with the question a bit in past sessions, of course, but evidently not in the required depth. I couldn’t help but think his material wouldn’t be exactly flattering to me. I didn’t know whether I looked forward to it or not, but felt it essential that we get it. There must have been a reason, I thought, that I asked the question at this time.

(Yet, I noticed, Jane didn’t seem all that bothered by its implications....)