“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Once again the day was quite warm — 40 degrees by the time I left for 330. Jane was on her back. She’d just had her dressings changed before I got there. The staff had been very busy, and so had hydro.

(I also told Jane about the entertaining time I’d had this morning checking Biblical genealogies, preparatory to the note I want to write for Chapter 5 of Dreams. Seth’s elders would have lived long before those in the Bible — or would they? For Adam was the first man, at least according to the Bible. It would depend upon what terms one chose within which to view the situation.

(Jane ate a good lunch. TV was on, advertisements for movies, and I asked her why our literature is made up of the bad in life — murder, mayhem, thievery, bribery, robbery, and so forth. I said our craving for such “entertainment” must reflect our basic social beliefs beneath our veneer of respectability — the conscious, negative fears of the unknown, meaning that we’ve created such a division in ourselves by shutting out our conscious awareness of our own true selves. We’ve now reached the point where our subjective lives are largely hidden, but continuously striving to show themselves against all pressures …

(3:00. Jane began reading yesterday’s session — and doing much better than she had yesterday. She finished at 3:08 — quickly — and said that part of the time her vision was very clear. She had a smoke and I worked on mail while waiting to see if she wanted to do any more reading.

(4:00. Carla and Shannon took her vitals — temperature 98.3. Jane said she wanted to have a session. I mentioned to her my idea that Seth’s elders must predate by far the elders of the Bible, and she agreed.)

(4:19 p.m. Neither of us had particularly thought that my dream-paternal feelings represented an analogy with the way early man had expanded his own knowledge while in the dream state — but we saw the connection as soon as Seth mentioned it. I read the session to Jane.

(I thought, as soon as Seth had mentioned it, that the data regarding the Speakers and oral traditions went way back to when Jane produced Seth Speaks in 1970–71. [See Session 558 for November 5, 1970, in the appendix of Seth Speaks]

(Jane said that as I read to her, she picked up from Seth information that in those old days people most often insisted upon returning to the sites of their destroyed or damaged cities and towns and farms, even though such events had wiped those places out more than once. It was as though the people were psychically and emotionally drawn back to such places for reasons that made no sense intellectually. We talked about the well-known “tells” in Israel, for example.

^* Hydro, as staff members call it, is short for the hospital’s hydrotherapy department. Each morning, Jane is placed upon a litter that is lowered into a large tub of gently-swirling warm water that massages her whole body. The treatment is very relaxing, very beneficial, especially for bedsores.

^* Maude Cardwell publishes a Seth-oriented newsletter, Reality Change, from her home in Austin, Texas. We’ve met only by telephone. Maude wants to ask the readers of RC to help Jane and me pay for certain very large medical bills not covered by insurance. A most humbling suggestion for my wife and me — we’ve always prided ourselves on making our own way.

^* Enfield Glen is the local name for Robert Treman State Park. It’s located near Ithaca, New York, some 35 miles from both Elmira and Sayre. The Butts family spent many a happy summer camping there. Jane is from Saratoga Springs, in upstate New York. The beautiful Glen is the first place I took her to after our engagement in 1955.