1 result for (book:wth AND heading:"part two chapter 14 juli 4 1984" AND stemmed:mass)
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(I had many questions after the call, of course. I felt sad for Jane and what was happening to both of us. I also felt angry at the role she’s chosen, even while I thought I understood it, basically. When Jeff called I was reading the last portion of the first session in Jane’s book, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events — for April 18, 1977, in connection with a note I’m doing for Dreams. The passages are on death and suicide — natural death, no less, and how we continually interfere medically with people’s chosen time of death. Hardly a coincidence, I realized.
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(I took Mass Events to 330 with me. Jane was a bit better, yet still uncomfortable. She could keep some medications down, but was very careful about food. I’d forgotten to make her a promised corned-beef sandwich, and she’d been counting on that for supper. Georgia had told her Jeff had called me, and her version of the call was pessimistic indeed. Jane knew of Jeff’s concerns.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
(Yesterday I’d told Jane that I knew her “body was up to something.” But what? I said that I hoped it wasn’t another case of her improving while getting worse — which I used to rant about in years past. We had a long talk. I said I wanted information on whether she wanted to live or die — or whether she was trying to die her own natural death, in line with that excellent information in Mass Events. I wanted to know what her sinful self thought about what it was doing to her body, if it cared, if it even understood that it’s protective actions threatened its own existence. Or was her death the ultimate goal of the sinful self? I said the situation must be a common one. I felt I was onto something here, but wasn’t quite sure what — something close to the more basic human condition that is little understood. I told Jane it would be a joke if those portions of the self we’re blaming for her condition, really are the truest, most simple and honest portions after all, and that their roles in bringing about her natural death were being subverted by our conscious-mind meddling and interference. Just where is the “truth”? I asked.
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(After my nap I asked her why she didn’t read more, to keep in touch with the world, and got quite a response from her. She got angry and shouted that she would read more if I wanted her to. I laughed — my first of the day, I said — and told her that she was only saying that because I wanted her to read more — not because she’d suggested that she do so on her own. Later, she did suggest I bring in some reading matter. I told her that Mass Events was still a terrific book. “So why isn’t it a household word?” I asked. No answer.
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