“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(What a comedy of errors, I told Jane. First the girls are wrong about the cause of the slight swelling, then Fred gives her a lousy suggestion about arthritis! I told Jane I hoped the whole episode served as a warning as to what hospitals were really like, and the well-meaning but misguided people who worked in them. Jane answered my question about whether Fred had any idea he was giving out rotten suggestions about arthritis by saying that it never occurred to him—or any other doctor.

(“But don’t they know any better?” I persisted. I even meant ourselves. For if people “knew better,” then places like the hospital would be empty, and all the people in them would be working at other kinds of jobs. Of course. “The only thing that’s going to save us is ourselves,” I said, and reminded Jane to never forget this little episode. “When you get home,” I added, “we’ll throw away all of your old clothes in the closet and buy new ones.”

(Jane’s new freedom of motion continues in many ways. Many of those ways are small yet, but show signs of enlarging—and none of them even existed a short time ago. Turning her back on her back went much more easily this noon; she’s also dispensed with the pillow between her legs, and using a doughnut sponge we used to use before the leg break. I massaged Jane’s neck, after she had trouble trying to read yesterday’s session. The massage is supposed to help her eyes, according to Seth.

(3:50. Lorrie came in to take Jane’s blood pressure. She gave no sign that she realized Seth was present. Jane broke off at once to speak in a conversational tone. Lorrie is the gal who, with a student nurse, broke Jane’s leg when turning her, when showing the student how to do it. Lorrie smiles and talks to us, but hurries in and out as quickly as she can. I know the episode affected her. After she left I read the last paragraph to Jane. Resume at 3:53.)

(Then I looked up to see Jane reaching up to her left ear with her left hand—in a spontaneous gesture I haven’t seen her do in I don’t know when. It looked unnatural to see her do this. She was surprised too. It was another great sign, I told her. With her gesture Jane couldn’t quite reach the ear, which itched. She began to move on the bed, twisting her hands and wrists and rotating her arms. “But you will reach it,” I said, delighted. She tried again—and did reach the ear. She actually dug a bit of wax out of it with a forefinger. “I got it. I got it,” she exclaimed. Obviously, this was something she couldn’t even manage yesterday, let alone last week, say.

(“And that’s another sign,” I said, as she scratched her chin on the right side with that same left hand. As of now she can’t get her right hand up to her right ear by some little distance—but she will, I told her.

(As we talked Jane’s big toes began to move at the first joint, almost in unison. They were painful when I gently touched them, but the toes moved at the first joint. Jane felt strong sensations in them like pins and needles, she said. But a little later the big toes began to bend by themselves. Then both ankles began to move—the whole foot in each case. She said the rhythmic motion was “just like that bicycle exercise I used to do, right in rhythm....” She had to stop when the tingling sensations got to be too strong even when I wasn’t touching them.

(4:32. Jane now said that her reference yesterday to an unexpected visitor probably referred to Peggy G’s visit today. Then I got it. Of course: Peggy had not only visited unexpectedly, but she’d brought a letter from a fan who wanted to visit us from New York City. I’d scanned the letter while Peggy was present, but hadn’t made the rather obvious connection then, nor had Jane. “It makes your prediction pan out,” I said to Jane. “It reminds me of those old envelope tests. See the correlations?” Jane did. Things work out in unexpected ways.