“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] The arthritis diagnosis, Jane said, would be the only one the medical profession could offer, with its very limited insights and viewpoint—whereas Seth has insisted all along that she didn’t have arthritis per se. I’d wanted him to at least refer to the arthritis subject tonight, hoping that the reinforced suggestions would help Jane mobilize her own strong creative powers. Equally important, too was Seth’s idea that Jane no longer needed to try to be “the perfect self.” [...]

(Seth’s reference, above, to Jane’s fear of going too fast is a reference to an excerpt from the deleted session for January 28, 1981. [...] It seems to me that it very neatly sums up the core of Jane’s difficulties—that one, along with a longer excerpt from the deleted session for January 26, 1981 just previous. That one concerns Jane’s fear of the spontaneous self, and how she regarded her immobility as a form of protection.

(Yesterday marked the beginning of Jane’s third week home from the hospital, and lately I’ve been trying to gently encourage her to begin a series of private sessions in an effort to learn what we can about the whole hospital-health-establishment belief system, and our part in it through and with the Seth material. I was eager to get Jane started on a program of self-therapy through the Seth material in order to help her counter—or at least supplement—the standard rigid medical framework we’ve been encountering for the last month, or since she went into the hospital on February 26, 1982. [...]

[...] [The contract was countersigned on March 22.] “Don’t worry,” I said to Jane in the hospital, “I know who’s going to do the rest of the work on the book....” [...] Therefore, actually producing the physical work for the publisher was going to be up to me, and I was anxious to begin work on this once we’ve established some sort of viable daily routine revolving around Jane’s nursing care, sleeping schedule, medication, etc.

[...] Miss Callahan and her illness, and her connection with Frank Watts, who purportedly was the first psychic contact Jane actually achieved, have been dealt with at length in various sessions. Seth did not specify the meaning of this latest date for her, and Jane and I saw Miss Callahan the day after our return from vacation, looking quite well. [...]

[...] During the day–Jane’s vacation has another week to run, while mine ended today–Jane had remarked several times that she doubted there would be a session tonight. [...]

(At 9:01 Jane said, “I have a vague feeling he might come through for a few minutes. [...] Jane began to dictate at 9:02, smiling quite amusedly as she did so. [...]

(The irony here being that I had been making efforts, consciously at least, to convince myself that I would not catch Jane’s cold, after she developed it last Tuesday. [...] 22, while Jane and I were sitting in a drafty bar with her father, in Saratoga Springs, NY, while on our way home. [...]

Jane’s hearing is much improved after treatment with decongestants and a pair of minor operations in which tiny drainage tubes were inserted through her eardrums—the procedure is called surery—to relieve internal blockage. Jane’s thyroid gland, Dr. Mandali finally told her, has simply ceased functioning, so the doctor has begun a program of cautiously rejuvenating my wife’s endocrine system, and thus all of her bodily processes, with a synthetic thyroid hormone in pill form (a low 50 micrograms to start). Jane is to take these pills for the rest of her life. [...] Dr. Mandali has prescribed drops to keep Jane’s eyes lubricated, and a liquid salicylate medication (as a substitute for aspirin) to control joint pain and inflammation. [...] The increased glandular activity is also expected to have some beneficial effects upon Jane’s arthritis, and possibly upon her anemia (a condition that often accompanies arthritis). I asked that she be tested for food allergies, since I’d read that reactions to various foods and additives can trigger arthritis, but Dr. Mandali said that “if Jane is allergic she (Jane) would know it”—a position I came to most thoroughly disagree with. [...]

[...] Although she’s not entirely in agreement with me on this point, I think that essentially Jane is a mystic—not an easy thing to be in our extroverted, materialistic society, for it represents a way of life that’s little understood these days. [...] Mysticism is still overwhelmingly regarded as a profoundly religious expression, and one that’s hardly practical, but in my opinion neither of those situations applies to Jane. [...] There’s nothing halfway about Jane. [...]

Jane and I didn’t know whether the doctors we did business with even knew what a trance state was. I envisioned some hilarious episodes during which Seth, speaking through Jane, would try to explain to gatherings of medical people just who he was and what he believed. Next, he’d go into what Jane and I believed, and why. [...]

As the days passed Jane kept putting me off about doing the translation, until finally I grew resentful and despairing at her refusal to cooperate. [...] I’d seen Jane operate in that fashion before, and I knew she’d have her way.

(Jane called last night. [...] No one had taken Jane’s temperature this morning, since it had dropped back to normal range. After lunch Jane told me that Steve and Tracy had sent her a telegram Sunday night, saying they couldn’t make it for a variety of reasons. [...]

[...] After lunch Jane began to read yesterday’s session, and did quite well. [...] Jane remembered the name of the retired newspaperman who’d written about us in his history of Chemung County — “Burs.”And this triggered my own memory: Tom Byrne.

[...] Jane finished reading the session, and had done quite well. [...] Jane was ready for the session early. [...]

[...] Dorothy took Jane’s temperature — 99.3. After she left Jane said, “See, instead of trusting my body I’m mad because my temperature is up again like that …”

[...] Jane was out as usual but remembered most of the material. While giving the data she had an image, not clear, of the dining room in Baltimore where Jane and a companion ate, in 1951 or 1952. [...] Jane was aware of this while giving the data, but made no attempt to block Seth. Jane met Blanche in 1948 in Saratoga Springs, and doesn’t know whether Blanche and Anne knew each other in 1938. Blanche never said and Jane did not ask.

(Today in the mail Jane received a group of file cards, prepared as an index by Blanche Price for the copies of poetry Jane had sent her over the years for safekeeping. Blanche died last February 2, 1967, and the cards were sent to Jane by Blanche’s friend, Anne Healy; Anne wrote a letter, also, that Jane received on January 2.

(Before the session tonight Jane wondered whether Seth could put her in touch with Blanche in some way, perhaps through a table. Jane also wanted some kind of definite sign from Seth as to his presence and identity, that would be convincing to her.

(Jane knows nothing about any argument between Blanche and Anne. [...] Jane however lived in Baltimore for almost a year and ate quite a few times at Anne’s house, in 1951-52. [...]

(Jane said at 8 PM this evening that she did not mind if we had an envelope test. I remarked that it was going to be a busy session, what with the material on the Gallaghers and Dr. Instream, a possible envelope test, and the chance that Seth might discuss two very long, vivid, and complicated dreams Jane had while taking a short nap last Friday morning. See Jane’s account in Volume 4, on pages 336-38. [...]

(For the envelope test object I used the appointment card for Jane’s visit to the dentist last May 5,1965. This is the appointment that Jane kept while in a trance state, and thus had her teeth cleaned without discomfort. [...]

[...] It came upon me abruptly at about 8:45, while Jane was reading to me her account of the two dreams in question. For some reason the sneezing made me quite angry and impatient, briefly, and I asked Jane to hold up in her reading. [...]

[...] Jane had been dissociated as usual. [...] Jane said she felt that no more than ten minutes had passed.

(Frank, also, has never come across another case like Jane’s, from the days he was a chiropractor until now. [...] If memory serves, Seth said a long time ago that Jane did not have arthritis, but for her own reasons was mimicking her mother’s disease. Jane is really bothered, though, and we trust that Seth was correct in the last session when he said this phase of Jane’s symptoms would soon pass. [...]

(Jane slept until noon, and again during the morning thrashed about often in her sleep, and sometimes whimpered or cried out, presumably because of a dream. [...] Yet Jane was back in bed by 3 PM, and slept until suppertime.

(Jane discussed such an incident the next day, Tuesday, at noon, even before I began typing this session. It involved the death of her mother’s housekeeper, Mary, and the blame Jane’s mother placed for this upon the daughter. [...]

[...] Jane’s delivery had been good. [...] And again, I said to Jane, why had it taken us so long to get to this point? [...]

[...] Jeff was in to check Jane’s bedsores after she got back from hydro. [...] Jane’s feet look improved again. [...]

(3:45, Carla took Jane’s temperature — 98.4. I read to Jane the session for February 17, concerning impediments in health versus her utter freedom in writing. [...]

(4:32 p.m. I read the session to Jane while she had a smoke. [...] I told Jane that his promise of giving more material doesn’t usually work out — I’m aware of a number of such references he’s made in this series of sessions. [...]

(This is Day 19 of Jane’s new campaign.

(I finished early so I’d have some extra time to open the account for Jane’s hospital expenses — but wouldn’t you know it, the phone rang at 11:50 a.m. It was someone from social services at the hospital. [...] I told her Jane and I have been frightened for a long time, and she understood. [...] She did have a bit of news — that insurance has been asking for more records of Jane’s care.

(Jane went to hydro this morning. [...] “I thought you were thinking about that,” Jane said. [...]

[...] Lynn took Jane’s blood pressure. [...] Then Diana brought in the extra vitamin C Jane is getting four times a day.

[...] So did Jane, I think, in spite of it all. [...] That also meant that in the interim Jane wouldn’t have “been trying too hard,” of course.

[...] It’s all right,” Jane kept saying. [...] Finally Jane told me to get out my paper and pen. [...]

(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. [...]

[...] Now Jane launched into a series of more general motions, with many noises, groanings and gruntings. [...] “When that left foot starts to move it feels like its going to fly right off,” Jane said. [...]

(At 4:50 I turned Jane on her left side, and massaged her with Oil of Olay as I continued the dehypnotizing process. [...] I took a nap from 5:10 to 5:40 while Jane watched TV. [...]

With the loving help of others I made several attempts over the years to publish various portions of Jane’s work, but with little success, for a variety of reasons. [...] Let alone the bulk of Jane’s other work: her poetry, novels both published and unpublished, her other published books, an unfinished autobiography, the records of her ESP class sessions, her journals and paintings, her singing in musical trance language, Sumari, her never-ending correspondence. [...]

These eight to ten volumes are meant to show Jane’s and my growth—in the most literal way—but always that of my wife, above all else. [...] These 510 sessions, then, are exact copies from the verbatim transcripts I made in my homemade shorthand while Jane spoke for Seth; I added notes and comments while typing the material after each session. [...]

Now let me list some of those I know personally, and who have helped Jane and her work so much: Tam Mossman, Richard Kendall and Suzanne Delisle, Sue Watkins, Debbie Harris, Laurel Davies, Janet Mills, Lynda Dahl and Stan Ulkowski, Bob Terrio, Norman Friedman, Jeff Marcus, Juan Schoch, Michael Goode. [...] I don’t know what, if anything, I’d have accomplished in carrying out Jane’s wishes without the unstinting help Anne Marie has offered in so many ways.

[...] Jane and I had been married for four years. [...] By then Jane had been speaking for Seth for a little over six years.

[...] Jane, the individual consciousness is all-important. [...]

([Jane asked:] “Why then do I have to grow toward Ruburt now?”)

(“Was this the reason for the experiment in trance states involving Jane, Bill Macdonnel, and myself, some months ago-the night I saw Joseph and the wall?”)

(“Seth, Jane’s ring lies on the table beside us. [...]

(The connection between the envelope object and our two visits to Mother Goldsmith’s is strong enough, in that Jane and I ate there both years. We saw the same hostess both times also—a girl Jane went to school with in Saratoga. [...]

[...] On our second visit, in 1964, Jane and I were told that Nate Goldsmith had died. [...] Jane did not know the Goldsmiths intimately, merely to speak to. [...]

[...] Jane feels subjectively sure that here the meeting between us and her father, Del, and his third wife, is referred to. [...] Jane and I planned to meet Del and his wife, who were already camping at Saratoga Lake, there, and spend a few days with them before going on to Maine. [...]

[...] Two men and two women were involved in the meeting referred to earlier: Jane’s father Del and myself, and Jane and Del’s wife. [...]

(Just before the session, Jane told me later, she was again aware of the cone affect, which she calls an obvious intellectual attempt to visualize the new as it is postulated in the sessions. As before, Jane felt the presence of the base of the cone at the top of her head; this is where she and I fit in. [...] Jane gets her data, she said, from this peak and it seems distant and relatively emotionless.

(10:41—I called Jane’s name three times, and she came out of trance easily. [...] When I asked the question about explaining a nonphysical life, Jane said she felt that Seth tried to switch to the other source or voice, after his own brief answer, so that we could get more data. As noted, a long pause followed here, but Jane subjectively was not aware of this. [...]

[...] On that day Jane received a letter from Prentice-Hall, outlining plans for publishing the Seth material. [...] Jane drank two and a half quick beers, which affected her enough so that no session was held.

[...] Jane again came out of trance easily. [...] At the last break and this one, I had felt that Jane’s delivery slowed down as break time approached, something like a spring unwinding. [...]

[...] Jane wrote it, since she had a part-time job with the newspaper while attending Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. The object concerns the election of Jane as president of the Day Students Council in her junior year, and the photo at the top of the article shows Jane and the other three female members of the council. [...]

[...] Seth did not return after the break, so Jane and I were left to make our own connections between the object and the data. [...] But we feel Jane did well.

(Omitted as a possible interpretation of the Mountain, or high peak data, above: Jane noted that on the front of the object one of the girl’s names is Patricia McFarland. Jane’s thought being that McFarland could be broken into “far land" and the idea of a mountain.

[...] Again, Jane says this refers to the day concept, in the article on the front of the object, concerning the election of Jane and others to the Skidmore Day Students Council, etc.

(Jane and I went dancing with Bill and his girlfriend, whom we had not met before, two weekends ago. [...] This evening he surprised Jane and me by telling us he was not seeing the girl anymore. Jane and I said nothing to him about his girl; we liked her very much. [...]

[...] The test object was a ball-point pen drawing of a dog; my four-year-old nephew made it while my brother Bill’s family and Jane and I visited my parents last Sunday. [...] Jane had not seen it. [...]

[...] As before, it was sheltered from Jane’s vision. [...] Jane knew it was lit of course but we did not talk about it, and she did not see the flame until first break. [...]

(Jane began speaking while sitting down, at an average pace and in an average voice; her pace soon began to speed up. [...] Jane’s eyes continued to open and close while she spoke.)

(We also discussed the parallels — and differences — revolving around Jane’s perception of the James book this week and her development eight months ago of the outline and chapter headings for the possible book The Way Toward Health. [...] [See appendixes 7 and 11 in Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality.] Jane hasn’t taken the time to concentrate upon either of those projects, interesting as they are, although she would if one — or both — of them “caught fire” for her. Neither Jane nor Seth had delivered their respective world-view ideas when she came through with Health and Wonderworks, so another significant aspect of her abilities has since become conscious. [...] For instance: Whose world view was Jane tuning in to for the health book? [...] In turn, of course, all three potential endeavors — Religious States, Health, and Wonderworks — must have origins that are closely related to the source of information behind the “psychic library” Jane tells of visiting in Politics.

(On Monday, November 4, I mailed to Jane’s publisher all of the art due for her Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology: the 16 diagrams I’d just finished, plus two older pieces of work. [...] I thought it interesting that as I was completing work for Jane’s first book on aspect psychology, she was starting Psychic Politics, the second one in the series. But now I can return to my longer project — the 40 line drawings for Jane’s book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time. [...]

[...] Jane rested a minute or so, still in trance. [...] When Seth returned, he delivered half a page of material for Jane and me, including this passage: “He [Ruburt] has made an extraordinary leap into his [psychic] library, and it is freeing him physically. [...] Jane was very tired, much more so than she usually is after a session. [...]

[...] One is probably just the state of Jane’s recent exceptional psychic receptivity. [...] And a fourth factor would be a most evocative experience Jane had Monday afternoon, in which she found herself experiencing consciousness as an ordinary housefly⁴: From that minute but enthralling viewpoint she knew “herself” crawling up a giant-sized blade of grass. [...]

(Jane had more blood taken this morning, during breakfast. [...] Rita crushed it and Jane tried it with Hawaiian Punch, which she didn’t like.

(Jane tried to read yesterday’s session, but couldn’t do it very well, so she laid it aside for a smoke. [...] Jane hasn’t moved much at all for a long time. [...]

[...] At 4:30 I rang for an aide, since the medicine bag was empty on its pole at the head of Jane’s bed. As we waited, Jane decided to go ahead with the session. [...]

(I also reminded Jane that we hadn’t gotten an answer from Seth to my question about why all the fever business started right after Jane had put her Day 1, 2, 3 program into effect. [...]

(I read the session to Jane. [...] I mentioned the joy Seth referred to, and Jane said she felt it, even as she cried while I helped her move her arms. [...]

(Jane didn’t call last night. [...]

[...] Jane felt panicky again, and we talked. [...]

(Jane said she wanted to try for the session. [...]

During her last days in the hospital Jane simply stopped eating, and I knew that her transition to another reality was near. [...] Yet he too acquiesced to Jane’s death when she made her decision to go. [...]

And as Jane survives, so does her work. [...] It also happens with the audio tapes from Jane’s ESP class, as she speaks for Seth, or as herself in exchanges with students, or as she speaks and sings in her trance language, Sumari. [...]

Yet there can be even more to come out of the great bulk of Jane’s work. The 15 three-ring binders containing her poems, all neatly typed, for example; her essays and journals; other blocks of unpublished Seth material, one of which I mentioned in the Introduction; an unfinished autobiography that perhaps I could put into publishable shape; likewise, passages from an unfinished fourth Oversoul Seven novel, in which Jane dealt with Seven’s childhood; a book of her paintings, with commentary; several early novels that I still believe merit publishing. [...]

Over the years Jane’s and my work led to our receiving many thousands of letters, not only from this country but from abroad, too. [...] Without the responses of others, Jane and I often said, where would we be? [...]