“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(When we discovered the pointer was lost, I remarked to Jane that now Jimmy would probably want the board back. [...] Jane and I looked for the pointer again while Jimmy waited. [...] Jane and I decided it was time to ask Seth for help.)

(Jane paused at 10:16, her eyes closed. [...] But evidently this had been enough to alarm Jane subconsciously.)

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] He would, she said, be only too pleased to speak to us and be of help; he would speak now for hours, Jane said, were it not for the work involved on our parts.)

[...] Jane is 37, I’m 46.

[...] Jane began speaking while sitting down, at 9:01. [...] Jane had been in a good mood, and so was Seth. Jane smiled broadly as she opened the session.)

(We are not sure whether Seth refers to the publication of Jane’s ESP book, or perhaps the start of another in some fashion. The ESP book is due May 16; Jane’s birthday is May 8. Also, Seth and I are mentioned often in the book. Jane was speaking rather rapidly now, and I did not think to interrupt and ask Seth to clear up this point. [...]

(In the 222nd session Seth asked Jane not to smoke during tests. Sometimes seriously but more often humorously, he has gone into the reasons behind Jane’s smoking in these sessions: 31, 32, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 222.

(As mentioned in the notes for the 232nd session, page 269, Fate Magazine wrote Jane concerning an article on the envelope experiments. [...] We suppose Seth’s rather cryptic note above means the article will sell if Jane sticks to the way she has planned.

(Much of Jane’s day had been made up of a series of altered, and at times even near-ecstatic states of consciousness, each one expressing a unique and creative facet of her essentially mystical nature.¹⁰ Even though not at her best, she’d been able to draw upon lavish amounts of energy. [...] There are certainly deep connections between Jane’s apprehension of her true tone, and Seth’s statement in that session that each of us possesses certain qualities of feeling uniquely our own, “… that are like deep musical chords.” [...] I also think that Jane’s sensing of her true path reflects her understanding of Seth’s subsequent remark at 10:16 [in that 613th session]: “The feeling-tone is the motion and fiber — and timbre — of your energy devoted to your physical experience.¹¹

[...] Jane’s trance had been good, her delivery quiet and rather fast; her voice had become a little rough because of her cold, though. When Seth talked about Jane’s private psychic vision he reminded me of her own remarks on the same subject; see the notes opening the 713th session.

[...] Jane has had her share of such reactions from others (as have I). [...] In accidental ways that would be quite humorous if they weren’t so personal, we’ve also learned what negative ideas others can have about us: A person will inadvertently reveal to us, during a conversation, or in a letter or over the telephone, the unflattering opinions his or her mate, or parents, or friends, really have of Jane and me and the work we’re engaged in with the Seth material.

(This afternoon Jane called Tam Mossman, her editor at Prentice-Hall, and told him: “I’ve got my next book.” [...]

(By 8:59 Jane was a little nervous, but nothing like she used to be in earlier sessions. [...] Our cat Willy had become very frisky just before the session was due, as he has done lately, so to forestall interruptions Jane deposited him in another room.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] of Dee Masters as director, a new director is trying out for the job; the situation is thus unsettled, and Jane is not in favor of some of her new duties and is thinking seriously of leaving the job. [...]

(It will be remembered that Seth stated an art gallery experience was in the cards for Jane many sessions ago—back somewhere in the beginning sessions. At the time Seth also said that had we settled in Miami, Florida, as we considered doing a few years ago, Jane would have worked in a gallery there. [...]

(Because she had been upset by the gallery situation, Jane at this point wished aloud that Seth could help her out as to what the future held; this is something we have scrupulously refrained from doing in any serious way, yet this time we sincerely felt we could use all the help we could get. [...] Jane resumed as before at 10:31.)

[...] A prediction was given that Jane would receive a teaching job she had applied for at Elmira College. [...] On November 7, Jane was notified that she would not get the job.

[...] Jane and I have often speculated on what part telepathy plays in the envelope experiments, since I usually am consciously aware of the object in detail. I thought the method used tonight might make ordinary telepathy harder to divine on Jane’s part. [...]

(After the experiment was over Jane opened the envelopes, and I picked up the newspaper from which the object had been taken. [...] It also developed that I had leafed through this section of the paper in a casual way—without remembering the pages in question, 11 and 12—and that Jane had never seen it.

[...] Jane groped a bit on gubatorial, although I had no trouble putting down her pronouncement here. [...] Since the New York State elections, including that for the governorship, were due on November 9, it is apparent that Jane was trying for the word gubernatorial, with which she is not particularly familiar on a conscious level.

(Today Jane again achieved a prolonged state that was begun during a psy-time experiment. [...] As we ate lunch Jane finally admitted that somehow she had failed to snap out of the desired state at the regular end of her psy-time period.

[...] Jane felt she had unwittingly given herself improper suggestions during the experiment. [...] This experience, Jane said, wasn’t very enjoyable, whereas the one of February 8 had been great fun. [...]

(Jane did not feel overly tired as session time approached. [...] Once again we held the session in our small back room, and Jane spoke sitting down and with her eyes closed. [...]

(On November 4, 1964, Jane unwittingly achieved a trance state, during psychological time, that lasted for several hours. [...]

The collection will include our family trees; my father’s journals and photographs; Jane’s and my own grade-school, high-school, college, and family data; our youthful creative efforts in writing and painting; the comic books and other commercial artwork I produced; our early published and unpublished short stories; my original notes for the sessions; session transcripts, whether published or unpublished, “regular,” private, or from ESP class; tapes, including those made in class of Jane speaking for Seth and/or singing in Sumari; our notes, dream records, journals, and manuscripts; our sketches and paintings; Jane’s extensive poetry; our business correspondence; books, contracts, and files; newsletters about the Seth material, published in the United States and abroad (independently of Jane and me); the greater number of letters from readers—in short, a mass of material showing how our separate beginnings flowed together and resulted in the production of a joint lifework.

Jane’s editor, Tam Mossman, who graduated from Yale, helped us contact officials at Sterling Memorial a year ago (in December 1978). Jane and I completed arrangements after that, when those at the library explained how our collection would complement others already there. [...] Jane and I are most pleased that the Seth material and everything connected with it are to be preserved.

(This noon Jane and I signed our wills, with our attorney and his wife serving as witnesses. Jane had been somewhat depressed this morning, and her writing hadn’t gone well. [...]

[...] Now Seth came through with a rather long dissertation concerning the psychological manipulations Jane and I make between Frameworks 1 and 2, and how we can help each other during those transitions. [...]

(Jane went to hydro as usual this morning, but wasn’t too happy about the system. [...] Since I had to wait for his call — which never came — I couldn’t leave the house to get Jane’s typewriter. [...]

(4:38 p.m. Jane said both her hands are still improving, and they seemed so to me as I massaged them with Oil of Olay after I’d turned her on her left side. [...] Sleep well, Jane. [...]

(Jane called me last night with Carla’s help. [...]

[...] Jane began reading yesterday’s session, getting through it much more slowly than she did yesterday. [...]

(The two instances cited here actually represent good improvements on Jane’s part, in that she allowed me to learn what was involved. [...] I think also that the conscientious-self or “it” made a creative advance on February 19 when it stated its tactics were bringing about the very thing it did not want—Jane’s inability to work in freedom. My thought at the moment is that more expression on Jane’s part will free the conscientious-self to perform its own balanced role, and to actually retreat in doing so. [...]

(This afternoon I wrote Jane a three-page statement. [...] I included a few lines of Sumari at the end of it; Jane hasn’t translated these yet.

[...] I learned the trouble was based on my fear that Jane wouldn’t accept, or believe in, the statement. My action led Jane to tell me about her teeth and sinus bothering her before and during our trip down here, for about three weeks. [...]

(I told Jane today that when a fear is expressed, it takes its natural place in the scheme of things and no longer grows unseen. Jane at first said during our talk that she must hate many things—but it seems that hate would only be a mask for fear— hence the suggestion that instead of asking herself what she hates, a more basic question is “What do I fear?”

[...] This portion of the session ran longer than usual, and Jane said Seth didn’t want to stop. Jane was mildly dissociated. [...]

(After the session, Jane said that along with this answer she also received the thought from Seth, which she did not give voice to, that even though Miss Callahan did not pass away by April 15th the date would still be a significant one for her, a time of change; but whether for the better or worse Jane did not know.

(Note that Jane wrote this poem on Wednesday, November 20th. [...] Jane said the reference to suicide doesn’t fit Ruby, murderer of the president’s assassin, unless he in turn dies by his own hand.

[...] The streets have been littered with debris from trees, and driving home this noon after taking Jane to work I felt several small limbs strike the roof of the car.

[...] Reaching over, I dropped the test envelope in Jane’s lap as she spoke. [...] I chose this method of introducing the envelope into Jane’s awareness to see if it would halt or interfere with the material of the moment, and was pleased to see that it did not. I had taken care to see that Jane had not seen the test envelope during breaks, or before the session.)

(Since today was a holiday, Jane and I had some extra time. [...] Jane will mail the material tomorrow.

[...] I prepared the usual double envelope while Jane was working at the front of the apartment. [...] I knew Jane hadn’t seen it for some time, perhaps years. [...]

[...] Jane was well dissociated. [...] Jane told me it is hard to explain, but at times she feels she is more a part of the voice than at other times.

(In the notes preceding the last session I wrote that Jane was to call Tam about the date of publication for Mass Events and God of Jane. [...] The expected call came as I finished reading to Jane at breakfast time—but it wasn’t from Tam: Ethel Waters apologized for the fact that now Mass Events has been delayed until May 19, or just possibly only May 4. Mass Events and God of Jane are now due to be published in the same month. The news tied in with Jane’s upsetting dream of April 12—see the copy attached to the last session; this makes the dream precognitive in at least some sense.

(I reread last night’s session to Jane after supper, since today I didn’t make even a start at getting it typed. I painted for an hour this morning while Jane slept, but felt a peculiar heaviness or loginess I was unaccustomed to. [...] Jane also felt it. [...]

[...] I was glad I’d asked the second question in particular—at first I’d found it hard to believe that Jane thought of herself as evil for any reason, parents or whatever. Not that we hadn’t known from earlier material and our own conscious experiences that her mother especially had often exerted an unhealthy pressure upon the daughter—but I’d been taken back to realize that Seth was actually saying that Jane had considered herself evil.

(Jane slept late this morning, and after she had breakfast I read her last night’s session. [...]

(Part of my surprise stemmed from what I’d taken to be my knowledge of Jane’s relationship with her father. Her parents had divorced when she was two years old, and since her mother did not remarry Jane grew up without a father.² Jane and “Del” met again, briefly, when she became 21 years old in 1950. After Jane and I married a few years later we occasionally visited her father in various parts of the country — but still, we hadn’t seen him for several years before his death. Yet now it seemed that even beneath that scattered performance Jane’s psyche had felt stronger ties of some kind — at least with Del, if not with her mother — than either of us had suspected; that at least some part of her had sensed a sort of biological or creature loss upon the death of a blood relative. [...]

(I shouldn’t have been surprised last evening to hear Seth say that such an impetus had triggered Jane’s Sumari abilities, for today, when I reread the 598th session for November 24, 1971, I was reminded that he’d said the same thing then. The death of the student’s father had taken place on Thursday, November 11 of that year; Jane’s father, Delmer, died without forewarning on the following Tuesday, November 16; Jane came through with Sumari in class one week later, on November 23; and the next night, in the 598th session, Seth discussed Sumari for the first time.

[...] Ruburt (Jane) lost a parent also. [...]

2. In Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality there are several sources of information on Jane’s parents and her early background in general. [...]

[...] On the table lay Jane’s ring, an inch from an ashtray. [...] From various information Seth has given us, I believe such things are possible at times, and Jane agrees. This time however, Jane quickly became impatient for some reason, and literally commanded the ring, mentally, to move. [...]

(Here Willy, who had been quiet all evening, now began to chase after Jane as she paced back and forth. Without breaking delivery Jane tried to shoo him away; but the cat persisted, so Jane finally stopped talking and pointed to the cat. [...]

(Making my feelings plain, I thought, without saying much actually, I left the garage and walked down to tell Jane, who by now had left the gallery and was waiting for me outside. [...] Jane immediately announced that the car would be ready when we went back for it, and asked me not to think about it while we went out for supper.

[...] Jane said it was our car, though I was sure she could not see it, actually, well enough to know for sure. [...] Jane told me then that all through the meal, she had concentrated as hard as she could on the fact that the car would be fixed and waiting for us. [...]

(Margaret Bumbalo and Debbie visited Jane last night; she also called me around 8:30. Jane had to have her catheter changed again, at about midnight, after attempts at irrigating it failed. [...]

(I also rubbed the Rescue Remedy Cream on the knuckles of Jane’s right hand, as I’d done yesterday. Steve B. had given her the cream, and we’re using the nodules on Jane’s right hand as a testing ground. [...]

[...] Lorrie came in to take Jane’s temperature—96.8. A few minutes later Lynne came in to give her eye drops. At 4:10 Jane had a cigarette while I reminded her that I wanted Seth to comment on my dream about her last night. [...]

(I told Jane about the very excellent dream I’d had about her last night—in which I’d seen her fully recovered—walking, her hair black again, shopping, going out, meeting friends who exclaimed over her great progress. [...]

The answers to such questions that Jane, Seth, and I arrived at are in this book. Jane was a human being first, and a very gifted psychic second. [...] Beyond that, Jane and I learned that there exist great realms of knowledge and feeling as yet largely unrevealed. [...]

The Way Toward Health is more than an account of the stay — and death — of my wife, Jane Roberts, in a hospital in Elmira, New York, just 13 years ago. [...] Not only about Jane’s fine ability to speak in a trance or dissociated state for Seth, that “energy personality essence,” as he calls himself, but about all of the vastly complicated challenges that can, and do, arise in the course of a human life.

During those 21 months in the hospital, Jane, Seth, and I said much about her physical/psychic condition, and I recorded it all in my homemade shorthand as best I could under often very stressful conditions. [...] For weeks after her admittance in April, I didn’t know if Jane would ever do any “psychic” work again, but three months later she surprised me by beginning a series of dialogues similar to the “world-view” material she’d produced for her books on the psychologist and philosopher William James, and the artist Paul Cézanne. [...]

Jane died in the hospital at 2:08 a.m. on Wednesday, September 5, 1984, after being there, quite helpless in certain ways, for a year and nine months. [...]

[...] Jane had the window of her room wide open, and the place was still hot. [...] I knew that Jane was in the house somewhere, that she was walking perfectly all right, and that Jim had come to see her, not me. [...]

(As we talked before lunch came, Jane shed a few tears. [...] The insight, which is hardly original, popped into my mind when I asked Jane why the healing was taking so long, in response to something she said. [...]

[...] Dana took Jane’s temperature — 98.6 — perfect. Jane had just started reading the session for yesterday. [...]

(After eating an excellent lunch, Jane told me of her own long and complicated dream of last night. [...]

(As soon as I turned Jane back on her back at about 1:15 I massaged Oil of Olay into her left leg and talked to her and to it. [...] At the same time Jane’s left foot hurt when I rubbed the leg, and turned outward on its side. [...]

[...] Jane began reading yesterday’s session. [...] During this time Jane moved her arms and hands—which look better—and various other portions of her anatomy. [...]

[...] I was telling Jane earlier that now I wonder about some of what I wrote—stressing that Jane has arthritis, and the medical opinions about it, and so forth. [...]

(Jane described a dream she’d had last night, a very positive one, she thought, in which she’d looked at her face in a mirror for the first time in a long while. [...]

[...] sorting it by date, when Jane said, “Will you write something down for me?” She actually thought it might be from Seth—she could hear his voice reciting it, I believe she said. It’s poetry; I’m presenting it line by line as Jane told me to divide it after the session.

[...] Jane was doing well. [...]

(Jane has been having trouble with the new teeth, so I put Sea Bond adhesive on them before she ate lunch, and this helped somewhat. [...]

[...] “The funny thing is,” Jane said, “I thought that that was coming from Seth—that is, he was speaking the words, though he usually doesn’t do things like that.... [...]

(One of the events we’ve been preparing for is the visit tomorrow of Tam Mossman, Jane’s editor at Prentice-Hall, Inc. He plans to attend ESP class tomorrow night, then stay over Wednesday to read and discuss the two works Jane has in progress, Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology, and “Unknown” Reality. Tam will also look at my first rough sketches for Jane’s book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time.¹ Then on Wednesday night he’ll witness the scheduled 706th session. [...] Almost always Jane dictates book material without witnesses other than myself and uses the framework of ESP class for emotional interactions involving herself, Seth, and others. [...]

[...] In it Seth gave the heading for Section 4, just before finishing his evening’s work with a few minutes of personal information for Jane and me. He’s remarked more than once that he’ll close a session by dictating the heading for the next chapter, or whatever, “so that Ruburt [Jane] knows what I am doing. [...] But I’d say his procedure also helps satisfy Jane’s spontaneous impatience about learning what’s coming next in the material.

[...] The regularly scheduled session for last Wednesday night wasn’t held while we made ready for several approaching events, and as the days went by Jane [and I] simply forgot about what was coming up in “Unknown” Reality. [...] Usually a certain kind of serene existence makes the best kind of day-by-day framework for these sessions and our other creative work, even while those days may contain within them points of unusual interest or excitement [such as Jane’s weekly ESP class]. [...]

[...] He had many questions — and was too impatient to finish the letter to Jane that he’d just started. [...] I talked to him for a few minutes while Jane rested after coming out of trance, and suggested that he call her later in the week. [...]