“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The cigarette was your own construction, representing your inner realization that the cigarette-smoking Ruburt was there but not present. I smoked cigars. You constructed the idea of the cigarette you see. Now give us a moment. (Pause.)

([Bill:] “What about the cigarette?” Bill saw a cigarette in Seth’s hand.)

(When I gave Jane a cigarette after turning her on her back for the afternoon, she had another instance of reverting to an old, automatic habit. Since she’s been in the hospital she’s always handled cigarettes with her left hand, leaving her right hand lying unused across her belly. If she wants to reverse the ends of a smoke because one is looser than the other, which she often does with Pall Malls, she does so by awkwardly holding the cigarette with her lips while using her left hand to try to turn the cigarette around before I light it. Now today, Jane automatically used her right hand to help her left hand reverse the cigarette—and didn’t realize she’d done so until I pointed it out to her. [...]

(I’d been upset and encouraged at the same time by the cigarette episode Jane had described to me just before the session. [...] —had accidentally dropped the lighted cigarette, and Jane had jerked her legs out of the way to avoid being burned, or to avoid the threat of injury. [...]

(“What about those sudden movements he said he made with his legs last night, when the nurse dropped the cigarette on his bed?”)

[...] Ruburt’s intent was so strong to move away from the lighted cigarette that he ignored all impediments, and his unconscious mind beautifully followed his conscious mind’s intent. [...]

(6:20 — Cigarette, Dessert. [...]

(6:45 — Cigarette, TV.

[...] At 2:50 she quit for a cigarette while on page three. [...]

[...] I answered mail while she had another cigarette before the session. [...]

[...] She put out her cigarette early, in fact.)

(6:20 — Cigarette. [...]

(7:05 — Cigarette. [...]

[...] Cigarette. [...]

[...] Jane ended up back on her back, and had a cigarette. [...]

[...] There followed our usual routine of a nap, supper—Jane ate well—cigarettes, TV for the evening, dessert and prayer. [...]

[...] Finally she decided to have a cigarette as she lay there on her side. [...]

[...] Jane did okay for a first session on her side, I told her as I lit a cigarette for her. [...]

[...] Jane took but a few puffs when she told me to put out the cigarette. [...]

[...] She had a cigarette at 2:05 while I worked on mail. [...]

[...] She had another cigarette after I inflated portions of the mattress. [...]

[...] After a cigarette Jane’s left foot began moving quite freely at the ankle in a new way. [...]

[...] Jane left for the corner grocery to get a pack of cigarettes. [...] Once again Jane had been trying to give up cigarettes; this time the struggle lasted but a day or so, and ended in tears after supper this evening. [...]

This time and particularly since adolescence ended he was able to let go the other types of greediness, letting the cigarette take place of all the rest. There is here also what I may call a sort of air panic, an insatiable taking in of air that the nervous puffing of a cigarette sometimes satisfies, even a basis in claustrophobia where the personality feels it is not getting enough air or is closed in.

There is also here connected only with his present personality an ego image of the writer with a cigarette. In this case the cigarette represents independence and even individuality, and even female emancipation. [...]

[...] Jane had a cigarette while waiting to see what she’d do next. [...]

[...] Rest and a cigarette. [...]

[...] At 4:20 she gave up reading for a cigarette and a possible session, regardless of the late hour.)

[...] She had coffee and a cigarette before I turned her. [...]

[...] Jane had a cigarette. [...]

[...] After her cigarette Jane began to groan and writhe on the bed, her head, torso, legs and feet all moving. [...]

[...] Jane had a cigarette. [...]

[...] Jane finished her cigarette and I worked on mail.

[...] Jane took a break from reading for a cigarette. [...]

[...] Jane went so far as to throw away a half-used pack of cigarettes.

To think that all these years his good disposition has been dependent upon the cigarette between his lips, and not upon any native good spirits. [...]

Lighting his own cigarette in public was the one wild gesture of independence he allowed himself because you made such a point of lighting it for him. He was saying “In big things where I need help you often refuse to help, and your help is a gesture as when you light my cigarette, when I can do that myself.” [...]

[...] You lit cigarettes for him, particularly when you were in public, but you did not open the car door unless he asked you, or reminded you when that hurt or humiliated him.

[...] She had a cigarette. [...]

[...] But I had to take her cigarette away when her hips began moving. [...]

(At 3:40 Jane asked me to take away her cigarette and the ashtray on her belly. [...]

[...] Jane had a cigarette. [...]

[...] After a cigarette Jane started reading yesterday’s session. [...]

[...] After her cigarette following dessert, I read the prayer with Jane, then left for the house at 7:05 PM. [...]

[...] I wanted to go over some of the past sessions in this group with her, but we never did get to it, what with cigarettes, people coming in, my reading her letters from a fan and Steve Blumenthal, and so forth. [...]

(Resume at 4:20, after having a cigarette, and pulse and temperature taken.)