“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Tuesday night. Jane wrote her feelings down for the day, as usual. They’re on file. We went over them this morning. Their contents are embodied in the two papers that are reproduced below; the first one, from the library, she received before placing a call to The Village Voice; the second, from Seth, came through after she made that call, and called a few people about visiting us next Friday night.

(Jane’s Tuesday paper on her feelings is evidently a very important one, representing some excellent insights on her part about her repressed impulses, her fears about my reactions to various events, her private nature and public appearances, and related topics. I’d say that to some extent at least its content flows from the proposed interview with a reporter from The Village Voice, a contact made with the business manager at WELM in town, and so forth—hardly accidental, we think, that these events connected with publicity, her work, etc., come into our awareness at this time. They seem to be like small test cases, meaning that our reactions to them, how we handle them, will show rather clearly where we’re at these days, as they say.

(After finishing the library material, Jane called The Village Voice on impulse, but ended up feeling she didn’t do well: She didn’t get to speak to Jim Poett, who was not there, or to his editor. She asked a friend of JP’s to have him send her tear sheets of his last two articles, which I thought an excellent idea. The friend, also a reporter, mentioned the Middle of Silence people to Jane, which she didn’t like, although she learned things. Jane also gave the reporter our phone number, which she regretted doing later. I said I thought it better that she did follow the impulse, though, since anything, any action, was probably better than sitting immobile.

(“Well, it’s certainly no accident that the interview thing with The Village Voice came along at this time.”)