“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(She identified with writing poetry very early in life. “I believed what I wrote, but people said I’d grow out of it and have kids, and I was determined not to.” Had trouble sharing poetry with most boyfriends; smarter to play dumb, she discovered. Marie had always encouraged her poetry, and the two women shared it for a number of years. Jane used to write poems to get back in Marie’s good grace: “At the same time I felt like I was betraying myself for doing it. I remember that quite well.” I didn’t remember Jane telling me this before, though she might have.

(About the envelope tests — Seth had to be almost omnipotent — because she transferred the authority of the church to him. An important point, and a new one, I think. Again Jane was nervous and edgy, near crying. But the church wouldn’t approve of Seth, I said. Enter the idea of she starting a false church — heretical indeed — with a false god, Seth. The Catholic idea of penance was mixed in here. I added that since she wanted to use the abilities instead of denying them, as the church would want her to do, she chose to continue her mental rebellion and so had to pay penance physically, through the symptoms. The creative part of her poetry had always been trying to go beyond where the church wanted it to go. A neat circle, with no way out, I said. Jane said she felt like she could chew nails. She was very uncomfortable, but no tears.

(We talked a lot about the priests in her life, and the conflicts her work set up with their early teachings, and their personal behavior, good and bad. Jane remembered no reaction from her mother when her poetry came into conflict with the church, or when Father Rakin burned her books. I thought this strange.