“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(1:30. Jane began eating a good lunch. She’s having spasms in her bladder from the catheter. Her hair and scalp itch—I suggested it was caused by the medicated water in hydro, but she said no. My own ears itch, and have for some time. Yesterday I read in the Enquirer that such itching can be caused by shampoos, so I’m going to do some experimenting.

(3:10. After a cigarette, and my doing some mail, Jane started reading yesterday’s long session, which I’d finished typing at about 10:30 last night. Before I went to the john I helped her hold the session papers on the left edge with her left hand—something I’ve been hoping she would become able to do, since it would add to her independence in reading. She started reading fairly well. When I came back from the john, she suddenly was able to grasp the right edge of the papers with her right hand—a totally unexpected development, one that I hadn’t expected yet at all. Jane uttered cries of approval. “Look at what I can do.” This feat enabled her to bring the session closer to her eyes, so that she didn’t have to read with it propped up against her knee—she held the papers where she wanted them. She could almost hold the papers up like anyone would, even though her arms and hands aren’t clear yet; but, she told me, they have changed enough so that she could now do this. Wonderful, I said. I stressed that it was a very important step, and that maybe soon I could take apart Personal Reality, as I had suggested doing some weeks ago, so that she could read it page by page.

(By 3:50, when she was reading the last two pages of the session, Jane said that already her holding the pages that way was almost automatic, though by the time she finishes a page her left hand is beginning to get tired. By now, she said, all of the nurses and aides notice it when she uses the call button, and many of them remark about her general improvements.

(3:55. I opened a letter from a reader who had sent us our individual lifecharts, in answer to a card I’d used to reply to her letter last month. The charts were ridiculous, I said to Jane, and showed her how they allowed each of us only about four good, creative, safe months a year! What rot, I said. They’d been prepared by a famous astrologer, the woman said. I was especially intrigued by the “fact” that my birth month, June, was shown in red—meaning that it was a danger month and that I should be very careful in life. I crossed the writer off my mental list of who I might reply to in the future.

(4:18. Good movements, head and shoulders and both feet. “See, that’s the impetus from the spine again,” Jane said, breathing heavily. “I’m trying to sit up again, I can tell, but I can’t do it from way down in the bed. It makes me feel all hot and itchy....” She’d talked several times earlier about feeling itchy, and the tingles, in various parts of her body, as though circulation was increasing.

(Now Christina was sounding off in jumbled English and Russian, singing bits and pieces of Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Georgia, and so forth. I worked on mail and watched parts of a football game and an old Humphrey Bogart movie until Jane said she’d have a short session. Now Christine was bothering me a little.)

(4:51. Jane had said before the session started that her head didn’t want to stay back on the pillow—that it kept moving forward all by itself. It did so now also. She had more bladder spasms, and was afraid she’d loosened the catheter with her motions, although I hadn’t thought they were that strong, except for the rapid head movements. But she said they had been strong enough.

(After turning Jane and massaging her with Oil of Olay, I took my usual nap. Just before I did Margaret Bumbalo called and invited me for supper. Jane was eating supper when Peg and Bill Gallagher visited between 6:05 and 6:16 or so. Bill noticed that Jane had put on some weight. He went next door and said hello to Christina in Russian. She was delighted—she kissed his hand.

(However, Jane was having pretty frequent bladder spasms as she ate dessert, and feared that tonight she might have to get a new catheter. “I just hope they get it in right,” she said.

(I got all ready to leave, when we remembered that we hadn’t read the prayer. So we skipped it for the day—but I’ll say it for my wife in bed tonight. After I got home from the Bumbalo’s, Louise Stamp called. She had been watching for my house lights to go on. Someone had sent us a bouquet. When Marty brought it over I discovered it was from Betts and Loren—my brother and his wife. It’s beautiful, a Christmas bouquet. The temperature is down to 23 degrees.