“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(After supper last night Jane and I had one of our discussions that left us feeling out-of-sorts—half angry and resentful, accusatory and regretful that we hadn’t done better in the past. No need to go into details here, but it ended up with Jane asking me to get the notebook of sinful-self material. By then it was 9:00 PM, but she read a lot of it and said she was picking up some valuable insights.

(She had a very restless night and called me several times. One time, at about 4:00 AM, her legs were very restless, so she got back up in her chair. I was groggy, but asked her to tell me what she meant when she said she’d come up with some good insights from the evening before. What she explained to me in briefer form is related below. I think it’s very good material, and will prove to be very helpful. Her legs, especially the left one, had bothered her considerably, and led to her getting up. I mentioned at the time that maybe she could do some dictation this morning about her new insights, and this session is the result.

(No sooner had we started than Bill Tolbert showed up to start mowing the grass and using his trimmer, which is even noisier than the mower, but Jane persevered after I shut doors and windows, depending on where Bill was working outside. Then Mrs. Austin called about delivering the washing. But all in all this material is good.

(Jane began speaking quite rapidly, but I managed to keep up. Her voice was okay for the most part.)

That position had so many facets that it was hard to follow—that they were hard to follow—and even I had difficulty keeping track of the continuing saga of medical detail. Doctor Kardon had come that afternoon. I told myself I’d react only to constructive suggestions, but I soon felt knocked down by her interpretation of events. No blood test results had really come through yet (from St. Joe’s last week). She had said earlier they would merely give indications that vasculitis might be present or might not be present—they wouldn’t say yes or no.

But in any case she decided that I had it, and since I had already shown some evidence in my body, the next thing was how to treat it. Even discounting for the present the more tricky drugs, drugs with many side effects, quite severe sometimes, there was a drug less dangerous. Its side effect had something to do with preventing the blood from clotting so easily in the capillaries, I think. (Persantine.) The more dangerous ones, for God’s sake, turned down the body’s own defense mechanisms and immunity, an effect that really seemed absolutely senseless to me.

In any case, she wanted Dr. Sobel to look me over Friday (tomorrow at 2:45 pm). Then we were to get together when the blood tests results came, to discuss treatment, even if the vasculitis showed no further appearance, she disclaimed, it very well could invisibly attack the body, affecting internal organs in the most disastrous fashion. So taking a drug to prevent such a future development seemed the better side of wisdom to her—but not to me, not to Rob. How could my body have gotten so bad again in one fucking week—or had it? My fingers had been red before, though never that blue, when I’d been typing, and the condition vanished. But all of a sudden my physical condition did seem horrendous, and I looked at her kindly concerned face, I’m sure, with appalling dismay.

I’ll go back and work with these ideas once again, more clearly—but they still prevented me from taking that final step into a satisfying-enough acceptance of my abilities, so that each time I would reach a new impasse.

(9:44.) That summer also seemed to be a time of crisis, as Rob pressed me, it certainly seemed to me, to seek medical attention. I’d gained a reprieve, but the reprieve didn’t gain positive results. As I read the notes I began to see some sense in the hospital situation. I must have gotten to the point where I thought, “Okay, if you’re afraid to trust yourself completely, and your own life, let’s take a taste of what it’s like to have no other place to turn but the world of conventional medicine and beliefs.” And my God, talk about fatal flaws! I’m not denying that such a framework has its good points, but the overall picture is really far worse than I’d imagined.

The medical tests along the way proved that I did not have some of those most frightening conditions. Other tests that I recall made it clear that my heart and liver and internal organs were in good shape—but Doctor Kardon had seen them newly threatened by the vasculitis, and I felt, “My God, what a merry-go-round of disastrous expectations must everywhere color the medical profession and its practitioners and patients.”

Now that I took one drug, however, or rather thyroid extract, I was to some degree connected to that structure, but because I was, this did not mean I had to fall for the rest of it. I’m sure there is more coming to me intuitively, and I hope emotionally, that will give my life the impetus that I need.

(The session itself contains many references to Dr. Kardon’s visit yesterday, but below is a copy of the notes I made after she left the house. I recommend that Jane not read these. They’re included here simply for the record.

(“Dr. K. visited at 1:30 PM. Explained the dangers of vasculitis to Jane—possible damage to internal organs—start treatment before that happens, if necessary. Jane’s finger looked better. [No results in yet of blood tests taken a week ago at St. Joe’s. Tests sent to Rochester.] Jane got more and more depressed and scared as Dr. K. talked, I could see it, in spite of suggestions we’d agreed on before her visit. Toes look okay. It seems that we may have to just get away from doctors and their suggestions as much as possible. Dr. K. wants Dr. Sobel from Ithaca to examine Jane Friday even if blood tests aren’t in yet: “I can give him the results over the phone later.” I wanted to postpone visit to emergency room “till test results were in,” but Dr. S. won’t be at St. Joe’s next week. Peggy Jowett came as Dr. K. left. I helped her put Jane on the waterbed. Jane had cried a bit after Dr. K. left and before Peggy came in, and I’d tried to console her. Now Jane burst into tears on the waterbed: “I wish we’d tried harder with our own suggestions and ideas....” Crying didn’t last. Dr. K. said Jane could take a couple of aspirin if necessary in the middle of the night. I told Jane we could still use our own ideas. I also wondered—but didn’t say so—why those ideas had allowed the whole question of something like vasculitis to develop to begin with—or, for that matter, the “arthritis.” Jane also cried on the waterbed that now “it would be harder to do anything on our own, because we had to deal with the medical establishment too,” as well as our own beliefs. Dr. K. told us Jane wouldn’t feel any results from the 100 mcg Synthroid tablets she started on last Monday for a long time—that the effects from the increased dosage were “weeks away.” I wondered if this was a contradiction, because on the phone last month, Dr. K. had said Jane’s thyroid function was almost up to par from the medication she had been taking, meaning that it had acted quicker than “weeks away.”....)