“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Well, you’d better come over here [to the card table] and let me take a stab at it before I fall asleep,” Jane said at 8:07. “I’m nervous and upset....” She’d been exercising her knees and hands. This was to be our first session since June 7, 1982. What’s happened in between would make a book in itself. I may add some of that material at the end of the session. I’ve just reread the last session, as has Jane, and will merely note here that I agree with much of it, especially with what I said in the notes —yet, rereading them, I can see how our attitudes brought about that material and its consequences. I believe both of us have learned much since then.

(I’m no longer angry, for instance, although I was up until quite recently. That has passed, but Jane is in poor shape; her decubiti are much more aggravated, and have been for some time. She feels terrible most days. I still want to know what role the sinful self—to use the appellation Seth gave us—plays in all of this, for I’m more convinced than ever that it is still the dominant force behind all of it. An oversimplification, no doubt, but essentially true, I think. As I said to Jane this morning during our long discussion, I still want to know why one portion of the personality would want to drive all of the rest before it, even to the point of destruction, and perhaps even beyond. Surely there’s no future in that for the personality, at least in mundane terms.

(Today she was much improved, psychologically, at least, and so was I. We talked off and on for much of the day, between interruptions like Rusty and Hal dropping in, my going shopping, etc. We agreed that from now on the sessions, and Jane’s own sessions, will have to come first in our lives, even before books or deadlines, so we take it from there. “Boy, it sure seems like a strange night to me,” Jane said as we sat waiting for a session at the card table at 8:27. She was restless and quite nervous, lapsing—for the first time—into periods of what approached a sleep state. “What if I try to have the session and nothing happens?” she asked. I told her everything would be fine. Part of the reason we both felt better was that we had made some decisions that offered hope: the food therapy, the sessions, etc. I really believed what I said, and still do.

(I remembered that Seth once said that if a dying person decides to live after all, they’ll seize upon the tiniest hope, and respond. I thought that situation analogous to ours, for I can think of nothing left to rely upon except ourselves. I reminded Jane that I was interested in sinful-self material above all else. She agreed, I guess, but I know much other material will be forthcoming along with it, as it should. We’ll have to wait and see.

(Long pause at 8:43.) Deplorable as world conditions seem, for example, as man’s desperate need for self-understanding is made known to himself, so in that world also there is a time of sensed change: new values that “will take this time.” (Firecrackers next door.) This applies now privately to some of the people that you know, but in particular it applies to both of you now. Period. (More fireworks at 8:46, but Seth wasn’t bothered.) These periods involve accelerations, sensed while they may still be invisible, and it is this kind of period that you have just now entered into. I will have far more to say whenever you decide our next session should be—tomorrow evening or whenever, as you embark upon your new saga—and for now I bid you a fond good evening.

(“I never had any doubts that way,” I said. I told her I thought there must have been many times, or “openings,” in these past months when she could have had a session. That we didn’t do so is part of the problem, of course. Personally, I had been alternately angry and not caring because of our lapses, when we had avenues of help available that few could rely upon, yet hadn’t bothered to use them.