“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At my urging we sat for the session at the card table at 2:25 PM. Just as we did the phone rang. It was David Butts again—telling me that since our talk last week he’s been free of the rather obsessive thinking about sending and receiving telepathic messages involving a certain female comedy star who appears on a late-night TV show. [He wouldn’t tell me who the personality is.] I’m David’s uncle.

(In our first talk I’d suggested to David that he write us a letter describing his attraction to this woman, and he called today to say that he was mailing such a missive, after rewriting it a couple of times. I’d thought the letter idea might help him put the whole affair, which he says has gone on for three years, in better perspective. I’d explained that I thought the personality was a symbol to him, of what I couldn’t be sure quickly. He’d told me that the fixation, or whatever, had gotten worse lately, and that he’d had strange palpitations and breathing difficulties when he began to think of her. He hadn’t been able to just shake off the feelings involved.

(David has told his parents of his yearnings toward this person, he said, and his father responded by telling him it was “all in his head.” Naturally, I had no idea whether telepathy was involved, but had attempted during the first call to explain our ideas of such possibilities. I doubted it in this particular case.

(I’d meant to write up a more detailed account of what is really an interesting case, but had become sidetracked by the Fred Conyers experience, work, and other things to do. I’d even forgotten I’d told David to write. I was a bit surprised to hear he’d been so free of the feelings so quickly after our talk. I’d immediately suspected that he called us because he needed help that he wasn’t getting from his parents, but didn’t say this to him. I did downplay the telepathy ideas, however, thinking it was much better that he solve the puzzle through ordinary channels and approaches.

(Today was sunny, cool, and quiet, and when I saw that Jane was alert after lunch I suggested she try for a session. I’d planned to go food shopping. She’d been so relaxed this morning that I put her back in bed after breakfast. I hope she’ll come to see that living—sheer survival—comes first, then work/art. “Boy, I’m turning to water,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t know....” I thought she was charged-up enough over the letter to have a session. Her Seth voice was surprisingly strong, with the usual pauses.)

(I won’t try to repeat it all here by any means, though at the time I’d thought I had some good things to say. Jane had agreed, so I thought. The gist of it had to do with how far one wanted to carry one’s personal challenges, and that these limits or extents would be different for each individual. My own reaction to the events in our lives over the years was that consciously we had reached limits, and that it was beholden upon the rest of the personality—Jane’s especially—that it recognize this and back off enough from its own goals so that the physical body could recover, at least enough to ensure survival and a working life in which it could deal with life’s daily goals, and arts, too. Otherwise, I said, the whole process becomes self-defeating not only for the conscious portions of the personality, but for the very body itself. Granted that certain individuals could choose to pursue certain goals and challenges even through the point of physical death, never relaxing that focus; still, most did not.

(“Your readers certainly don’t expect that of you,” I said, explaining that I was keeping in mind Seth’s recent statement that both of us had decided upon our joint experiences, wanting and not wanting the symptoms at the same time. “Your readers write asking for help with the idea that you’ve managed to solve certain challenges that they’re still struggling with....”

(As for the food and vitamin material, I’ve become less and less insistent that Jane adhere to any kind of regular program, since I think she continues to show that she’s not really sold on such therapy. I don’t really know whether that attitude negates my efforts or not. My original idea was simply to offer the physical body some help it could use, even regardless of the beliefs involved, and to use that help as a springboard for changing certain beliefs. I don’t believe any medication or vitamins—or anything else, for that matter—are going to do a person any good without a change in belief. That change would come about in a socially acceptable way through the medication.

(At this point I am more than reasonably sure that Jane began to show certain marked improvements after I initiated the vitamin, peanut-oil, cod-liver-oil daily routine: Her hands first began to show definite reductions in swelling within a very few days, and this was followed by an excellent increase in her knee movement a few days later. Certain B-vitamins in the regimen were each supposed to help these specific areas, and evidently did so. I am quite aware that these changes were also accompanied by possible changes in belief, since we’d talked about what we were doing, obviously. But certainly more than coincidence is involved here. I do think I’ve seen similar temporary changes in belief before, without the accompanying changes in the hands and knees. More minor changes, possibly [though offhand I don’t recall them], but nothing like what’s now taking place. My personal opinion is that the combination of all three elements—vitamins, peanut oil, and cod liver oil, have helped a great deal in achieving these improvements, and that each time we pass up the “treatment,” which is absurdly simple, we do miss out on something helpful. But I may be wrong. Seth has promised to comment.