“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(One event concerned the telegram from attorney Thomas Bernier in Roseburg, Oregon. It arrived late this morning. When Jane called him the lawyer told Jane that his client was a 27-year-old schizophrenic who’d confessed to killing a certain woman he’d met in a Seth class both attended some years ago. He had confessed to her death several times, but no one believed him—until the last time, evidently. Now he was on trial. Jane didn’t ask for details on the case, but instead explained to the lawyer something of Seth’s ideas so that the attorney could use that material in his defense, making it clear that above all Seth was not for violence, even though the prosecuting attorney was evidently trying to make the defendant sound as though it was okay to kill because reincarnation was a fact: Since we all lived other lives, no one could really kill anyone. I sent Bernier a book list. Interestingly, in the small town of Roseburg he’d been able to buy James and Cézanne and ESP Power, but no other Seth books.

(The other event concerned a medium in Hollywood, California, who claims to be speaking for Seth, and who gave a well-advertised seminar at a Holiday Inn there. He’s been doing such speaking in trance since the early 1970’s. The literature a fan sent us last week made it seem that the medium claimed to be speaking for Jane’s Seth. More arrived today from the same fan—and the quotes given seemed like copycat material of Seth’s, down to calling himself an “energy-essence,” and so forth.

(Jane was angered by this material [the second batch; I’d already sent Tam the first communication, asking for his help], and decided to call the medium, Thomas Massari, since a number was listed. She thought I didn’t want her to call, but I told her to do as she pleased. Jane talked to Carole, the medium’s wife who works with him, and stated clearly that she didn’t want others claiming to speak for her Seth—who, incidentally, had told us years ago that he spoke through no one else but Jane. [It would be interesting to get material from you-know-who on this whole question of others claiming to speak for Seth.] No shouting or anger was involved in the call. I’d been concerned lest Jane become involved in an unpleasant situation that would have repercussions via symptoms —the idea of publicity, of public display, which she doesn’t want—just when we were trying to learn more about the subject as she reacted to it.

(It turned out that the wife claimed her husband was not trying to capitalize on Seth, that they both respected highly the Seth material, and that as we had suspected he had written Jane several years ago telling her about his Seth. Jane had told him then that he wasn’t speaking for her Seth. Jane told Carole that it was okay to use the Seth name as long as claims weren’t made that the two Seths were one and the same, especially the Seth who was producing the Seth books. Jane was reassured that no such claims were being made.

(Sometimes I’m slow, and other times even slower. I discussed these notes with Jane when I wrote them—Thursday, July 30—and our individual attitudes toward the mail in general, which is steadily increasing in volume. Then it came to me: The two events described here certainly did speak well for some kind of accomplishment on Jane’s part—and one greater than any she’d given herself credit for. For both events obviously involved effects her work was having in that outside world we shied away from: Seth, it seemed, had even managed to make his way into a court of law, the very fabric of our society; and regardless of whether he was praised or knocked, his ideas were “officially” discussed. And the medium, Thomas Massari, was basically spreading Seth’s ideas among the so-called leaders of at least segments of our society: M.D.’s, psychotherapists, and others in the medical field. Even if, as we thought likely, all was not strictly honest on the medium’s part.

In the case of our book (Dreams), however, Ruburt himself was worried about your attitude. His overall concerns of course to some extent blocked his creative processes, which further alarmed him. The main issue here is that feeling of responsibility again, so that he writes or whatever because he loves to do it, not because he should or must, and that involves my books as well as his own.

He becomes overly serious, overstressing the entire picture, as you can at times, so that the affair seems hopeless: the evidence before your eyes, and so forth.

(9:25 PM. Jane had done well this evening, I told her. Seth’s material above is certainly excellent—the latest version of what he’s been telling us for years. I for one will try to reassure myself that “things aren’t that bad yet.” What can one lose? For little else seems to work.