“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Just last night Jane sat up in her chair all night—literally—letting me put her on the commode at about 2 AM. I did so again at 7 AM, and she then sat up until Peggy arrived at 2 PM. Her legs are swollen like tree trunks from the fluid that has collected in them; her toes are like sausages. I’m very distressed at all of this. When I had to change the dressings on her ass this morning, before putting her back in her chair, I saw that the sores were worse than ever—an angry, irritated red—and spreading. Such is my wife’s pitiable state at this time.

(Peggy and I had a couple of hurried conversations this afternoon, concerning Jane’s condition, and before leaving Peggy had her say to Jane as we sat at the card table. I can tell that she’s appalled at my wife’s condition, and said outright that she’s not doing Jane any good at all any more. She wants me to call Dr. Kardon to come to the house to examine Jane, saying we owe it to Dr. K., who couldn’t know the extent of Jane’s symptoms these days. “She deserves to be informed.” Of course. I told Peggy I’d think it over, and we’ll probably make a decision this weekend. The only thing that’s stopping me at the moment is Seth’s latest comments on the bedsores clearing themselves up automatically as Jane releases inner motion. This may be a case of pure wishful thinking, for I don’t understand how the sores can possibly heal themselves without outside help—possibly even surgery—of some sort.

(“This thing has almost got the best of me,” I’d told Peggy this afternoon, “after 15 years.” I didn’t mean I hadn’t played my own role in all of it, for obviously I had. I explained to Peggy our insurance options. I stressed, however, that Jane’s challenges were still primarily psychological, and that her “cure” lay in that direction. I devoutly hope and trust that this session will mark the beginning of something very good. I demanded a session, I’d told Jane, if it was at all possible.)

(“But Bob,” Peggy had said, “you don’t have to go it all alone....”)

First of all, the anxiety rises with its own rhythm (pause), expressing at this time the anxious patterns that lie beneath, serving both as messages of the nature of the stress, and containing also other deeper material that has, in a fashion, accumulated. You are not comfortable. Arrange yourselves and I will return.

(8:35.) These feelings of panic beautifully illustrate several issues, and Ruburt will be able to handle them all right. Take a brief break.

(I was pleased at the way the session was going—and indeed amazed that Jane could manage to pull it off at all, given her circumstances. She said no more, just smoked. The TV was on, without sound. The cats slept beside the waterbed in the living room. The room was lit with a soft yellow glow.

(“All right. I don’t know what I mean by all right, but I think I’m ready.”

(“All right—what a relief,” she said at 9:34.

(I moved her in her chair over to the dining room table where we eat breakfast and watch TV. “That’s a good thought,” she said. Then: “I’m going to pretend I’m getting up in the morning. Can you turn the TV on a little?” I did—to Alec Guinness in the excellent TV movie, Smiley’s People, on channel 7. Once again I thought Jane looked like she might want to cry, but the moment passed. Now I sat on the opposite side of her, and she leaned away from me. “All I can say is, make believe you’re getting me up.”

(“Where you are,” she said cryptically. I thought she might be getting ready to erupt, but instead she sat finally with her face almost down to the tabletop. Then: “I’m safe here in the chair, but I’ve got to get back over there somehow.” She meant leaning to her left. But she was very restless. “All right, I’ll see what I can do this time.... I do it every morning—I’ll try to do it now,” she said, restlessly shifting from side to side in the chair. More and more I was concerned about getting her off her ass and into bed, but I was afraid to mention it yet. I turned off the television’s sound.

(The movements in the chair had to represent something in themselves—a shifting of attitudes—what else I wasn’t sure that quickly. Jane’s fear of being out in the center of the rug, away from a table she could lean on for support, could also represent her fears of abandonment, the casting away of old beliefs and fears. Often she insisted she knew what she was saying to me, but at times I felt that she didn’t, and even that some of it represented vocal dreaming. I did think that it was all therapeutic.

(I could see that her feet were badly swollen from all those hours—over 36—that she’d spent in her chair. So were her entire legs; the skin on them was stretched tight as a drumhead.

(“And I’ll tell you one thing,” I said, “never again are you going to sit up like that for all of those hours. You’re going to be nicer to your body from now on. No more are you going to sit up like that. Never.”