“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The irony of the whole affair is that during the visit I thought he’d helped Jane by advocating doing nothing about the finger at the time—which was what we wanted also. While we were there Dr. K. called him and gave him the results of the blood tests begun in the hospital the week before: One was normal, one said vasculitis could be present, the third one didn’t work—so after all of that the results were very meager and frustrating. We haven’t seen Dr. K. yet, or heard from her, although presumably Dr. S. has given her his opinion, whatever that may be.

(While we were there Dr. S. repeated several times that he wasn’t a vascular surgeon himself. He called a colleague of his who was in Ithaca, and described Jane’s finger condition to him, but if memory serves he received ambiguous information again. Again, I thought the visit at least preserved the status quo for us, since I could see that more and more Jane was turning against the idea of preventative drug treatment for vasculitis, say, or anything else. She was convinced the finger would mend itself, and it appeared to be doing so in its own way. There are more normally-colored patches on it now intermingled with darker spots.

(I also knew she hadn’t wanted to keep the appointment, and that she blamed me at least partly for her keeping it. At the same time she said she wanted to talk to an “expert” on arthritis. I felt caught between these opposing ideas, and didn’t really know what to do. I figured there were reasons for the finger thing erupting so suddenly to begin with, and leading us against our conscious wills into the whole hospital scene at St. Joe’s, so whatever lessons there are in those experiences are still being assimilated. It wasn’t until we returned home Friday afternoon that I began to see how upset Jane had become by thoughts of arthritis, vasculitis, angiograms, clots, drugs, operations, etc. I kept thinking that she was on her way to adopting a stance in which she would turn against medical help and/or advice if at all possible.

(I made no notes at the time about the whole affair, so all of these here are reconstructed five days later. Jane has the freedom, I told her, to change any of them. She seldom does, though, so the record furnished by notes is practically always from my viewpoint.

(Jane has been sleeping poorly, lying down for a couple of hours at a time at the most for the last several nights. This morning she did surprise me—and herself—by sleeping until noon, probably out of exhaustion. No nurse visited Monday. We’re on a three-times-a-week schedule now, which will very soon be cut to twice a week. Peggy Jowett is on vacation for a couple of weeks, and we don’t know who will be showing up today.

He told you he thought you both needed help in getting him into the car, which would necessitate motions quite difficult for him at that point in time—but he went along with your opinion, feeling again that negative suggestion alone was responsible for his own feelings. The body simply knew it did not need that extra stress in a time of stress. What was not said was as important as what was said as far as the interview itself was concerned, for implied there was always the authoritative picture of the progress of certain symptoms, ending in the most dire pictures.

Now much good came out of the entire experience, and from your joint reactions. The sharpness of the encounter made Ruburt come to the decision then and there that he would not use drugs to combat ahead of time conditions that may or may not appear at some future time. More than that, the interview —friendly enough, good humored enough, as it seemed on the surface, made Ruburt realize in an immediate practical fashion the limitations of medical science. He had to take a stand somewhere, but before did not know where to do it, or how.

(Very long pause at 8:31.) It was in its way a more controlled experience for Ruburt than even the weekend before. It was one hour’s experience, then, but of a very charged quality that aroused for both of you many of the issues, ideas and beliefs that had been simmering for some time. You certainly used it as a learning experience.

Ruburt needed some time to rest, and so did you. Again, I suggest that several times a week you sit in anticipation of one kind of session or another. (Long pause.) “A way” of dealing far more effectively with your problems will automatically present itself, and you must believe that you are making manipulations at all levels of actuality, whether or not they show—because they will be showing (intently).