“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Father Ryan lived there. Jane met him toward the end of the long period during which she had her recurring playground dreams. However she never told Father Ryan of the dreams—nor anyone else except her mother. Jane said it is interesting to remember that from the classroom in which she had many long talks with Father Ryan, she could look across the street at the very section of the playground which served as the setting for her recurring dream.

(“A border. Perhaps in black.” My own idea is that this refers to the recent death of a priest Jane knew in her teens. A couple of weeks ago she received notice of his death, with a photo of him edged in heavy black. There is a connection between the priest, Father Ryan, and Jane’s playground dreams, and the playground itself in Saratoga Springs. The playground is directly across the street from the Catholic school Jane attended. The school was actually housed in a complex of buildings that contained also a church and the headquarters and living area of the particular priestly order serving Saratoga and environs.

(A note here: On page 148, see our interpretation of Seth’s impression, “Anemia,” and Jane’s connecting this with our friend Helga Anderson. Writing of Father Ryan now reminds us that he died of leukemia—also a blood disorder as anemia is. Note that Seth merely said that anemia reminded Jane of Helga Anderson; Helga is not given as Seth’s impression. Perhaps the anemia impression is a distortion of leukemia. However, we think Jane’s Helga impressions and the interpretations leading to the envelope object and the dream book in general, to be legitimate.

[...] The Father Ryan influence—and he also had back trouble. [...] Father Ryan was seen as rigid and uncompromising, but good. Father Ryan gave Ruburt his first typewriter, and desk, and bed. [...]

[...] Besides telling Jane about the sweater, Jane’s mother wrote in the May 10 letter of the death of a family friend, Father Ryan, and enclosed a news clipping account of the funeral, which was to be held shortly. Father Ryan died of leukemia and his death was expected; it could correspond to “dying out” or “fading away”.

Father Ryan and Father Traynor have been notified. [...]

I will myself attempt to communicate with Father Ryan, who is now much less rigid than he was, and this may help. [...]

[...] In this life Ruburt saw those same characteristics in Father Ryan, where repression was used to keep him in the church. [...]

[...] If the church became upset with what Ruburt wrote or read, then Father Ryan burned one of his books, or argued with his poetry, for example, so all of that was living emotional content. [...]

The back problem was particularly easy for Ruburt to pick up, because of his mother and the arthritis, and because of this Father Ryan, whose back was injured. [...]

His mother, Father Ryan, Walter, some college friends, Mozet, Hays, all of those persons in one way or another implied strongly at times that he was either a saint or a devil, a creator or a destroyer. [...]