“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 we resumed the vitamin and cod-liver-oil therapies, which we’d let go last week, in the face of what I had taken to be Jane’s resistance. That had made me angry: I felt that it at least offered an avenue of exploration, that perhaps we could use it as an avenue for changing beliefs. Characteristically, she didn’t ask to resume it herself; I did this morning. I felt it offered hope, simple as it really is, and I couldn’t figure out what she was going to do without hope—without the sessions, without using her own abilities, without accepting some kind of reinforcement from anyone else.

(Yesterday Jane had what was probably her worst day yet—very uncomfortable indeed; she was in “a crisis situation,” as she put it. It was only too obvious. If prolonged it meant the hospital, or God knows what, but we had to do something. “If you love me,” she said, “comfort me like you would an animal, for I really need you.” And I tried to. I slept with her last night—fitfully, but it helped. She didn’t know how she’d get through the night, she said, but she made it. Her ass and buttocks and lower spine are a disaster area as far as bedsores go—much worse than previously, and, I told her, they must represent an exact replica of her inner state. How could it be otherwise? Such was the state to which we were reduced.

(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.

(Jane was still uneasy and nervous as she waited for Seth to come through. “I feel like I could shit and burp for a week,” she laughed. “Then go to bed and sleep forever,” she added humorously. When Seth did come through her voice was quite strong, and free of tremor. With her usual delivery, and rather frequent short pauses:)

(8:53 PM. Jane sighed with obvious relief as she came out of trance. “That answers one question I’ve had for some time: I was getting pretty squirrelly—I wondered if I could still have a session. You know, if some part of me had decided that that was enough of that, or something....”

(Jane had heard the fireworks next door, which had only sounded for two brief intervals. All was quiet. I read her the session. “It’s a start,” I said, and she agreed. I can’t wait for the next one. The alternatives are too painful and unnecessary to consider.)