“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Last night when I got home, I saw that the young fellow Frank Longwell has put me in touch with to do the lawn had done his job; the place looked great. This afternoon he was to come back and do the raking.

(Jane was on her back again when I got there. She seemed to feel a little more comfortable. After an average lunch she read the last two sessions to me, wearing her new close-up glasses, and zipped right through them. I told her I think that now she can read aloud faster than I can.

(The mail from Prentice-Hall is increasing considerably, whether or not this is in line with Seth’s recent statement that an increase in sales of the books is under way. Batches of fan mail have arrived the last three days. Already I’m way behind, and feel that I’ll never get it answered. In fact, today was the first day in 330 that I didn’t answer at least a few letters from readers. It gave me a strange feeling of freedom; the afternoon seemed stretched out, or longer. I believe I’m on the point of renouncing the fan mail, or most of it. Perhaps I’ll take the time from Dreams to work out a final fan letter — including Seth’s — to send folks who write. One I can sign, and that’s it.

(Much of this we’ve gone over before, at various times. Jane began by talking about how her mother, Marie, told her at puberty that she had bad blood in her from her father [Delmer], that he had syphilis. Jane was frightened at having her periods and talked to a nun about all of it — and the nun would have her own hangups, probably; Jane didn’t say, or perhaps remember.

(She also recounted how she didn’t have to take gym in school because of her periods, and how Marie said Del had bad eyes because of the syphilis and couldn’t read. Jane remembers all of those feelings, yet doesn’t feel them, she said. She was very afraid to get pregnant, and never fooled around. After our marriage she was afraid of being pregnant, thinking it would wreck our careers. I reminded her that when she did get pregnant, I hadn’t been terribly upset, and accepted it. She felt the men didn’t pay her serious attention at the science-fiction conference 27 years ago because she was a woman. The same with the psychic stuff: a hysterical woman. She felt that men were superior to women.

(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.

(Jane was terrified a couple of times that she might be pregnant by me. Yet except for one time in a passionate moment she never had any urge to have a child. “But I certainly felt the feminine part of you was the part you couldn’t trust,” she said. As we talked about these things she said she was getting edgy and nervous, and wanted a cigarette, so we were getting close to buried feelings.

(I asked her about Seth, a male, speaking through a woman. She said she suspected that as a woman she’d have more authority if she spoke as a male. She “sensed a feeling of duplicity” in the beginning of the sessions. I don’t remember this either. Again she was getting nervous, her voice almost teary. She recalled that once Seth said that if he’d come through as a woman she wouldn’t have stood for it. All of this male business is related to the male priests in her childhood years.

(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.

(3:35. She was again nervous and edgy, and had another smoke. She talked about having a session to put it all together. She described again all those visits from Father Trenton. She talked about how the one priest who put her to bed when she was but 3 or 4 years old would “play” with her sexually, and how Marie finally figured that out. This was the one who called her up while we lived together; he was old and living in a retirement home south of Pennsylvania, I believe. She described how Father Trenton sat with his back to Marie when he was mad at the mother, and how Father Rakin made advances to her. She grew up in a male-dominated world. The first time they met, Jane said Father Rakin said to her when she was but 13: “You’re just too forward.” A nice greeting, and one Jane obviously still remembers. She realized today, while talking, that her grandfather had no love for women either. And Marie said to her: “You were a nice kid until you turned about sixteen — then you turned into a bitch.” Several times in Florida she thought I was going to leave her. I wasn’t.

(Jane was frightened when her mother read cards or tea leaves. She remembers her mother making predictions that came true — but how many did she make, I asked, that didn’t pan out? Probably hundreds.

(4:32 p.m. It was getting windy outside, and cooler, and was clouding over. “To tell you the truth, I was so uncomfortable I didn’t think I could have a session,” Jane said. She had a cigarette before I turned her. We thought of games involving the French book, or even crossword puzzles. In the ash tree just starting to get leaves beside the windows of 330, I saw a tiny yellow bird flitting about among the branches. I pointed it out to Jane, but she couldn’t quite see it, except for a flash of color. I’d seen the same bird, I think, yesterday afternoon also.