Jane Roberts Collage

by Richard Kendall

In trying to put together a collage of Jane, I started out feeling a bit overwhelmed. Jane’s creative output was so vast and so exceptional, how does one choose what to present? With the conference quickly approaching, I was feeling pressured. I still didn’t have a handle on how to proceed. And then, out of the blue, I heard a little voice say: “Did you ever think of just being playful? Playful? Wow, what an amazing concept! You mean not worry about it and just try to have fun with it? I had forgotten about that one. So I took the advice to heart and proceeded to choose a variety of excerpts from Jane’s letters, poems, conversations, and interviews, both before and after the emergence of Seth. I also decided to let the excerpts find their own order rather than to arrange them chronologically. So now let’s hear what Jane has to say.

Am married, no children, but a terrific cat named William Loehman Butts. Husband is an artist. He designs labels in a local plant four hours a day (in the art department), and the other four he paints, writes, or sometimes when we need more cash, does commercial work. Yours truly, with an old bicycle and three baskets, wearing slacks, oodles of sweaters, and bright lipstick, sells Avon products three hours a day, and between us, financially, we manage pretty well. This includes rent on our three rooms (five rooms now), Rob made me two rooms out of the attic. They are cardboard rooms with cardboard walls, but well insulated, and covered with paintings; our daily supply of food; cigarettes; magazines; and books. Our apartment, our work, and our love is our life.

Sunday—A beautiful day! We went dancing last night as usual and had a great time. Today we have to drive down to see Rob’s dad in Troy at the home. I cleaned the house up. Rob is painting. Len downstairs, just back from vacation, is mowing the grass. I realize how lucky I am, how great our lives are, Rob’s and mine, compared to tragedies of others. If I had a rough time in early years, certainly not now. Why was I so complaining and unable to emotionally enjoy life for awhile? What joy each day, and how we so often project all kinds of restrictions upon our own subjective enjoyment.

A gigantic thunderstorm begins around supper time. We eat watching Star Trek, and Rob goes down to the basement to see if there’s water there. Suddenly, I’m aware that my right hand closes easily, without resistance; sometimes it closes now and then, but always with resistance. I clean up the kitchen while the storm rages. Once, lightning strikes close or so it seems; a snapping sound and flash of white; my knees tremble and go woozy. Now I sit at the table, elbow and right arm working better; and right toes feel woozy. It’s humid, still pouring rain. And for a moment, the oddest sensation—as if the inner and outer conditions merge completely. The stormy landscape, a perfect counterpart of my inside world. The thunder rolling around the hills—MY angers rousing and releasing themselves; the teaming rain, my own frustrations and tears released in a torrent over inner landscapes. No wonder my hand suddenly freed; old stubbornesses rolling off my shoulders; a cool refreshing wind still angry, but clear, blowing through my skull. The feeling was amazingly fleet, but complete. I was exhilarated by the storm, and I felt like driving in the rain down to the corner, to see how much water had collected at the intersection, or even like making noise, singing or something.

All of a sudden, with no transition at all, I left my body. My consciousness just flew right out over Water Street. There was a nail in the window and, shit, I can’t explain it, but as I went out I sort of merged with the nail, and flowed through the leaves of the pear tree, and flowed through the bark, and I knew that everything had life—that the nail was alive; that the atoms and the molecules in it had a consciousness; that the world was amazingly alive no matter how dead anything looked. The next thing, I was back in my body and my note pad, which had been there for writing poetry, was full of writing that I must have done while I’d been out of body. It was called, The Physical Universe As Idea Construction.

All Norths and Souths and ups and downs
And bombs and cash and you and me
Exist in toylike replica,
Each precise and exact
As the head of a tack
In an idiot’s brain, in yours and mine
Each automobile, and dog and church
Stands out apart and in its place
All intact and sharp and safe
Under the skull’s clothed curving sky
Every man carries in his head a miniature of the universe
Enclosed by brow and nose and jaw
Locked in tight by skin and bone
All complete with the smallest house
And the most hard to find Ohio town
And the tiniest mole on anyone’s arm
The tissued hills of the shining skull
Behind the eyes lie snug and still
And every man who walks the surface of the earth
Wanders first the bright brainscape
Within the angled slopes of cheek
Every flower blossoms in microscopic Aprils
Each sickle pear ripens on trees that bloom with nerve ends
No blizzard sweeps down one side street
But the snows first flew in the brains Northeast
And every Autumn wind
Blows leaves that first fell
Through the silent layers of the cells
Each killer kills first
A man who lives in his head
Stalks him through streets made of muscle and blood
And the agonized cry rings first of all
Through the plotted alleys of thought
Where the victim first falls
And no one dies neither you nor me
Till first he says no then says yes
The us that we know, the self of the flesh
Is like a giant voodoo doll
Of the self in our head
A second image some six feet tall
Projected out by a ghost of smaller inscrutable stuff
And when that inner voice speaks
The fleshy lips talk
And when the inner self moves
The sporty god walks
But when the giant image falls
Crashing to earth
The inner ghost takes his world someplace else.

The Seth Material is my unique source and a literally fabulous one that I really did not truly appreciate, and to which I was not really directed. It is as if clouds of the worst sort have rolled away. Rereading some material, I was struck by the massive intellect behind it, the real beauty of the material, and sad that I did not really let myself realize it before; indeed, that I had allowed myself to be affected by the lesser writings of others; even to the extent that in some late sessions it affected the material. I feared setting myself up as some sort of a false prophet. I could go on television, and make a lot of money, but it would take away from other more important things to me, and the rich personal relationships I have in class. Class is as far as I’ll go besides the books. Whatever Seth has to offer, it’s in very personal terms, and the same for me. I am not going to be a Seth missionary for mass audiences.

Took a bath, had fun bathing, perfuming, yet felt to some degree I should be working. But doing nothing may be good for both of us, like when I sit at the table after dinner watching trees. Sometimes I justify it by saying I get poetry ideas, which I do, but I think now I realize doing this is good—because it feels good—and puts me in touch with myself and nature. Most important: do what I want to do first, not what I think I ought to do. I am free to do what I want; pursue the psychic work or not, what parts of it I want, not do others, get a job, volunteer work, go outside, do Christmas shopping. I am free to do whatever I want, how come I thought I wasn’t?

Anyone getting really good material and giving it out publicly is in a position of proving that it’s true in a physical fact relationship, and any proofs automatically water down the material, making it less valid and forcing it into a lesser context. Hence, the spirit guide bit. You will be put in the position where you have to tell the public, yes, this is a spirit, and he’s really alive and all this stuff. Or, I’m a fraud, or a schizoid. I was regarded as having the truth and a spirit guide, and I’m speaking generally here, by spiritualists and those in the field, or being a fraud or psychologically disturbed at the other end, and in that frame of reference there is no in-between. Either I was looked up to, not as myself, but because of Seth, or I was thought of as a nut and disturbed. And I refused the entire framework. It denied me my own joy and contact in a way I can’t explain. Spirit guide terminology is completely inaccurate to explain personalities such as Seth, and any of the same kind that you might encounter as a result of your own experience. I do not believe they are spirits in the terms meant. I consider the Seth material as evidence of other Aspects of the multidimensional personality. The person I am in my time can really get screwed up trying to figure out in what terms Seth is or isn’t valid, or what he is. Would a Seth, experiencing Jane, think of her as a lesser developed personality? Maybe, but just maybe, he’d also think of her as one with great growing potential to be encouraged, so that in time terms, he with his ability could emerge. He would be me, in my present time, developing abilities that would later let him be him. And simultaneously, I would be developed. And simultaneously I would be him developing and guiding me in my present time. The usual spirit interpretation isn’t a step ahead of the normal psychological explanation at all, because they automatically take it for granted that the guide is outside ourselves or independent, because inside or coexistent sounds awful and means it’s just you, and you know you’re nothing.

There is a message in a postbox
Meant for me alone
It may be in front of some old barn
Hidden in Ohio
Or maybe it’s in Timbuktu
Or in some postbox
By the sea
It’s been there for centuries
Waiting just for me
It may be far closer though
Waiting for me
Where my life
And the message
Sing the same lifesong

The symptoms are a constant reminder to be more understanding of others. If I were completely healthy I’d be apt to be more impatient with others. The symptoms help me relate to others’ problems in a way I wouldn’t otherwise. Keeping them as a reminder, no one, including myself, is perfect, to keep me from getting a big head, from going off half-cocked. So after good news I emphasize the symptoms, so I don’t feel superior.

I sit at the typewriter and through the window I see a fantastic autumn day and revel in it. The sudden clearness right now of suddenly visible sky that was until lately filled with leaves; yet I feel my anxiety strongly. Annoyed by kitten who is playing with paper on floor and anger goes out toward the kitten, but realize the anger is independent of the kitten and think the kitten represents something. The compulsive need to take care of something who needs care as mother did; the resentment at having to do so. My ‘helplessness’ is a power play. Try to put it clearly. No way to defend self against mother as a kid, forced to care for her yet felt she had no use for me for doing it; if I had gumption I wouldn’t; she detested me. So I had this great anxiety. With the psychic stuff, suddenly others started looking to me for help. All of this was hatred against mother, being forced to help her, I wouldn’t do it again; so when the situation arose, I looked helpless so people would see I couldn’t help them when I couldn’t help myself. Only way I could express hostility safely against mother, or against other people who had something wrong and wanted help. You couldn’t yell at them or do anything; by their need, they controlled you. If I hurt, too, they won’t see what I’m doing and neither will I. So don’t have to take the responsibility of refusing to help. At same time, idea of being powerful, the greatest, is a way of getting back and defending self. So get these abilities then refuse to use them—brings sense of power. The anxiety became a force again when I was needed to help. Not succeeding all the way, also of getting back at her- all ways of releasing hostility; only way that seemed open. Anyone could be cast in the old mother stance; Rob too; so my ‘helplessness’ makes him do things for me; power play; I control him through symptoms as my mother did me! Cut off nose to spite face. Can release these feelings creatively through writing now and conscious awareness should help. Sense of power and expression of hostility in not acting as I’m supposed to; not using psychic abilities fully, not functioning as I should, prevents me from taking joy in real achievements. If I realize I’m OK, as good as anyone else, if Rob can help me by loving me lots and I keep this stuff in mind, I can make it.

I was sitting in the yard the other day working on Psychic Politics, and I’m getting some great ideas and there’s a whole bunch I didn’t bother writing down. I was watching a dog, we had a dead rabbit out there, and the dog was going wild rolling on the dead rabbit, and for some reason I translated that, as rolling in shit. And I was thinking, we think that is so terrible, if we let go, what are we going to do, we might do something awful like have an orgasm rolling in shit, or that it would be so awful and so primitive and so uncivilized and so unspiritual, that that’s what we’d do. And I was thinking, how crazy. For centuries we’ve gone to war, and we think that is a heroic manly act worthy of a human being. Almost any man I think, would rather be caught, even with a gun in his hands in the face of his enemy shooting him to death, than rolling in shit laughing his head off, out in the backyard.

I still resent it when new people come to class with the attitude—will Seth come through? If you’re waiting for me to have Seth come through, you should be as anxious to hear your own inner selves come through. You look for wonders from me, when you should look for wonders from yourselves. And there are wonders; you think there aren’t any, there’s all kinds of wonders from yourselves. You have all kinds of potentialities right now, not that you necessarily have to wait for or work for or anything, but that you have now. And when you look at me and want Seth to come through, and when you don’t want to know what Jane says, but you want to know what Seth says, you are denying your own reality. You are denying your own inner voice. Because you’re saying, well, Jane is just an individual, and she can’t know, but Seth knows, and I’m an individual, and I don’t know, but Seth knows. But without me Seth couldn’t speak, and without your inner selves, you wouldn’t have the knowledge. All I want you to do, is if you hear your own voice, not to distrust it. Why, because it’s somebody else’s voice, does it all of a sudden attain authenticity, where your own voice doesn’t. You distrust your own experience, and for some odd reason trust other people’s, and this is what I want you to get away from.”

Elmira, 6-97.