“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I’m writing these notes as though for a session, but I have no idea whether a session will develop. As I can note the next day, however, one did develop—so I’m skipping the typing of the sessions for November 8—the second one for that day—and November 9, in order to get right to work on this one. I think it has very important things for us to follow.

(Our time was running out. If, as Seth has repeatedly said lately, Jane was clearing her psyche, then I feared that she’d begun her task too late, mentally and physically. As Peggy J had said today, Jane needed nursing care that neither she nor I could provide now. That leaves but one alternative, and my thought and fear is that if Jane goes into the hospital again, the sessions are over—for good. And who knows what the hell will happen to us for the rest of our lives? Of such ingredients are cosmic farces made, I thought. It can be seen that I was having a hard time to keep from falling into the deep pessimism I’d experienced not long ago, and seemingly had rebounded from.

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

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

(8:47.) Those early feelings date back to Ruburt’s early childhood. They are the final, and yet first expressions of that panic. Therefore, they can be extremely valuable. There was also of course the event of St. Vincent’s. Also numerous small abandonments when Ruburt was still younger—but with your help he can indeed clear both mind, body and spirit, for he senses that relief, and knows it is at least within his grasp.

The session is apt to go off and on, but for a fairly long period—I am not sure—as we deal with the nature of action and expression. (Long pause.) Reassure him of your love again. See his head is well lifted, and I will shortly return.

(8:56.) He may need particular help this evening again, but as far as both of you are concerned, this will more than pay off.

(9:05. “It’s me.” But at once:)

(9:07. Jane still spoke for Seth with her head down for the most part. Voice strong but muffled, eyes usually closed. “I found your face,” she said then, staring at me straight on. “I wanted to hold my head up—do something—because I’m so scared.” I helped her lean back against the pillow in her chair.

(9:14. “He’s right. I’ll try to.... I want to cry, but I need to get more comfortable.” I changed the pillow at her back, which helped. “I feel like screaming,” Jane said, “but it scares me....” I lit a cigarette for her. The moment had passed, I thought.

(“Because I’m going to have to let go or do something pretty quick.... Boy, am I scared.” Jane said this often. I rubbed her back low down on her spine. She was very restless. I wasn’t sure whether or not she’d let the tears come through. “I’ve got to put myself out, like I did the other night,” she said at 9:28. I wasn’t sure of what she meant by that. But it seemed that now she would try to shut off the crying, or sidetrack it, at this time. The charge, built up and/or saved since childhood, must be terrific. Ordinarily the crying would hurt me, but now, this time, I really wanted her to let it come through.

(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.

(10:15. By now my wife had thrashed back and forth in her chair—not violently—telling me often that I had to help her; she certainly acted disoriented. “Don’t bother writing now,” she said, but when I stopped nothing came of it—no crying, or even talk. I moved her chair to the spot at which I sat at the card table, as she directed. A minute later I moved her back to her usual place at the dining room table, again as she directed. Silence. The movie on TV’s channel 2 was a bloody tale of youths being killed one by one by wicked, deranged men, near monsters, in dark summer woods.

(By 11 PM I’d moved Jane in her chair many times from position to position at each table. “Please, Bob, move me, move me, but don’t swing me so far out into the room, out in the middle like that....” But I had to, I explained, in order to be sure her chair legs cleared the table legs. Jane leaned far to her left again and again, yet didn’t topple over. Very gradually she seemed to calm down. There was a little shouting at me—very little—which I didn’t record, but no tears.

(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.

(But the notes drew themselves to a close. At 11:30 PM I gave her aspirin and one of the pain pills Hal Williams had sent her. Jane passively accepted them. “Don’t you have to go to the john by now?” I asked. She nodded. I wheeled her into the bedroom. I had a time getting her on the commode, and then into bed; half the dressings were pulled lose.