“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I’d raked leaves this morning—it’s been a beautiful day—while waiting for family to show up. Just before going outside I’d told Jane a capsule of my current thinking—that we were at the end of the line that she was going to end up hospitalized again, or in an institution where she could receive constant care. I could see no way out. I’d mentioned while she was still in bed this morning that I was going to call Dr. Kardon tomorrow morning, and tell her I wanted Jane back in the hospital. “What are you trying to do?” my wife cried out, “shock me into getting better?”

(As usual, I said a lot of things in the short time we talked before company arrived. That she was again telling me that she was getting better when I could see that she was getting worse. Even Seth did this. The same old story, I remarked. I added that I no longer believed the later sessions, in which Seth had talked about her getting better by the holidays this year, or her having turned a corner in probabilities. How could any of that be true? I had a million questions, and felt almost totally frustrated trying to get answers. Why, Jane, why? Again and again, I thought of resistance, of the sinful self putting up roadblocks, no matter what the consequences. And it seemed to me that certain parts of her personality were quite ready to continue such behavior until death—the final end, the dissolution in which host and ailments disappeared together, and all conflict was resolved. Was this to be the “redemption” Seth had talked about a couple of years ago, and that I’d tried to deal with in the intro for Dreams? I thought it likely. I told Jane I wouldn’t be surprised to walk into the bedroom some day and discover that she had simply died during the night, so resolving her challenges. An understandable-enough resolution, I said, and one I couldn’t argue with basically, since such a course could logically be the one chosen by some personalities—but it was also one that I didn’t choose at this time.

(I got a horrified reaction from Jane in the bedroom this morning when I’d mentioned the hospital to her, and that I was reaching a turning point in my struggles to care for her myself. Seth had recently said the hospital experience had been a traumatic one for Jane—so why was she doing again the very things that could lead to a return to that situation? Once again, a mindless resistance seemed to be the answer, at least from my standpoint. “Once again,” I said, “whatever it is, I know you’ll accept it, since it’s the reality you’re creating. And once again, I’m the one who’s pushing you to use your own abilities to save yourself, meaning at least trying to learn what’s going on through the sessions, for example. You should be telling me what to do—not the other way around.... But it’s impossible for one person to save another if they don’t want it that way.”

Now: I can offer you no better advice than I have given, since it is advice couched in truth. (Long pause.) The body behaves as I have stated, and so does the mind. Of late the situation has led to at least a momentary framework in which physical disabilities take a good bit of mental and physical time. Their own nature stresses the idea of disability, say, over constructive work. Time is spent “getting better” that otherwise would be spent in any other area of activity. It is almost, at least, as if you decide to take so many hours a day and struggle with a physical condition, through whose unique cast you would view your private reality and that world. (Long pause.) Ruburt’s body is recovering a good deal of inner responsiveness, or motion—moving more quickly in specific areas.

I bid you a fond good evening—for now, and see what happens.

(5:21. “I was afraid I was going to lose what I had,” Jane said, “so I’ll see what comes through in a minute.” I kept my mouth shut, but I had lots of what I considered to be vital questions.

(5:43 PM. And that was it. We need a lot more. I probably won’t call Dr. Kardon or the hospital tomorrow, but will simply wait for nature to take its course, since except for the movement in the knees—which hasn’t increased—it’s been all bad, so the general outcome for the future is all but inevitable. I’d told Jane earlier, referring to it several times from different angles, that I felt the sessions were closing themselves down, for good. I may even make that decision myself. I’ve also thought of not finishing Dreams, but going back to painting for the rest of my life—another option. I know that sooner or later I’ll be doing this no matter what the outcome of our present situation is, whenever Dreams is finished, I suspect at this time.