“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(First is my dream of the night before, which I described to Jane in case she had a session and Seth wanted to comment. I dreamed in color that Jane and I had moved back to Sayre, Pennsylvania — my home town — to Mrs. Potter’s old apartment at 317 S. Elmer Avenue. However, the place was more spacious, and bore elements of 458 W. Water Street, in Elmira, New York, also. I walked around the large rooms, saying to Jane, “See, this place isn’t bad at all. It’s a nice setting, we can make a go of it here.” We were in town, protected, and looking out the windows I saw more spacious yards than actually exist there. I liked the near-downtown setting, and so did Jane. Elmira is only 18 miles from Sayre.

(Second: At 5:30 I went to the restroom off room 330. While in there, the sum of $20,000 popped into my head as I idly thought very briefly about our friend, Maude Cardwell. In fact, I’d almost forgotten I’d written a letter to her last week. I didn’t try to pick up anything more. “I don’t know whether the $20,000 represents all we’ll get from donations — the fund — whether it’s from one person, is a start of something larger, or what,” I told Jane. But I wanted her to know my impression just in case.^* She was about to have supper.

(Third: At 6:10, as I began feeding Jane, the thought of Steve and Tracy Blumenthal crossed my mind quite definitely, without being terribly intrusive. Here too, I hadn’t been thinking of them — had forgotten, in fact, that the day was Sunday, when they usually visit. I suddenly knew they were going to call the hospital. A few seconds later I heard high-heeled footsteps in the hall, coming around the corner, approaching 330. A woman we didn’t know knocked, then came in to tell us that Steve was on the line, and wanted to visit Jane this evening. Jane said okay — after 8:00 p.m. I told Jane I hadn’t even had time to tell her of my impression before the woman — who perhaps was a volunteer answering the phone — came to us. In other words, I’d picked up the fact of the call while the woman walked toward us and I heard her. It’s possible, I speculated, that the very sound and rhythm of her footsteps helped trigger my conscious realization of the call from Steve.

(I asked Jane if the Cardwell experience could be said to validate the Blumenthal affair, or vice versa, and she said yes, since they’d happened so close together. Note that the money affair by-passed entirely the question of insurance money. I hadn’t been thinking of the insurance money at all.

(Jane had a good day, although a bit of a problem trying to read the session from the day before. She also wore a small patch on her left elbow, which she’d knocked somehow — perhaps in hydro — so that it was quite sore.)

(No interruptions this morning, Monday, January 9. I worked on taxes for an hour, Dreams the rest of the time. I took the Christmas bell, made in Switzerland and sent to us by a reader in upstate New York, in to 330; when wound up it plays Silent Night most evocatively. The woman who sent it wanted Jane to write the founder of a Seth group in Syracuse; the lady is dying of cancer. I wrote both women last night.

(Jane ate a good lunch. I told her that I got mad this morning because I felt that the Seth material wasn’t — and wouldn’t — get the hearing it deserved in our society. I asked why the material, if it was inherent within human beings, was so much ignored. “I don’t mean just lately,” I said, “but for thousands of years.” I felt that mankind seemed to have deliberately or perversely chosen to ignore it, for probably innumerable reasons historically. Yet, why not use it, if it could help solve some of our species’ great challenges? Jane didn’t show much of a reaction, beyond saying “They’ll use it.”

(If I wasn’t at my best today, neither was Jane. She admitted it, that she’d been blue. She tried reading previous sessions, and after taking a break in-between, did manage to get through them, but it wasn’t easy. As usual, though, she finished up better than she’d been when she started.

(4:05. After her vitals had been taken — temperature 97.4 — Jane talked about having a session. Robert, the male nurse, had taken her blood pressure, and had to stop and readjust her position to a more comfortable one before he could proceed.

(Jane’s Seth voice was a bit stronger today.)

(4:18. Diana, an RN, came in to see Jane’s hair, which she’d thought had been cut. Jane had forgotten to tell me, but someone from downstairs had wanted to cut Jane’s hair this morning, but then couldn’t because of a clash of schedules with Jane going to hydro. Jane had canceled the deal. I read her the material she’d just given.)

(4:24. Penny, an RN whom we like a lot, stopped in to say good-bye for the day. “I’m going crazy,” she said twice, referring to the hectic day she’d had on Surgical 3 today. She’s a friend of Luke and Lois Hutter, of Sayre, whom Jane and I knew many years ago. Through a call Penny had arranged, I talked to Luke around the holidays, and Lois subsequently wrote us a letter giving us all the latest news about their family, Mrs. Potter, etc. I’d idly speculated with Jane about whether the reacquaintance with the Potters — Lois is Mrs. Potter’s adopted daughter — had any connection with my dream about our moving back to the apartment we’d had in the Potter house in Sayre.)

(4:48 p.m. “Well,” Jane said with a sigh, “I’m glad I had a session.”

(“Well, whatever it is,” Jane said with some desperation, “I’ve got to get over it …”

(While she ate I told Jane of another question I’d had in mind for some time, and asked that Seth comment: Our situation, for which we’re both responsible, is one of extremes. That is, it seems that we could achieve the same results with less exaggerated, less damaging extremes of behavior. Why did we have to go so far? I’ve always wondered about this. I granted that one could always say that the same end couldn’t be achieved by not going as far, but then, I told Jane, if one followed that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, physical death would result — that state would be the final extreme of any form of behavior.

(Jane called, with nurse Carla’s help, as I finished this session after 10:00 p.m.)