Sun magazine article after Jane went to the Happy Hunting Ground

[chasman]

I was searching for a Jane quote today and stumbled upon this.

there is a letter to the author of the article from Rob. (scroll down a bit,
after the article and you'll find it.)



https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/109/death-in-the-family

Admin modified by adding attachments.

[jbseth]

Hi Chasman, Hi All,

Thank you for posting this article from the Sun and that very touching letter from Rob.

Some of us here were Seth followers before Jane passed and some of us weren't.

I was one of those that were.  As I reflect back on Jane's death, the following was my personal experience.



Even though Jane died in September, 1984, I didn't know that she had died until perhaps sometime in 1985 or 1986.  There was no internet at that time, and word of mouth about this sort of thing, just didn't move very fast. As far as I knew, there weren't that many people who even knew who Jane Roberts was.


Sometime in 1985 or 1986, I was in a bookstore and I saw 3 "new" hard-back Jane / Seth books on a book shelf. What a great bonanza.  "Oh Happy Day."  

At that time, many bookstores didn't carry any of Jane's books and so just finding a "Seth" book in a bookstore, was a pretty rare event; never mind finding a "new" Seth book. In addition to this, there was no easy way to tell whether the last Jane or Seth that you bought, might not turn out to be the last one ever written, for any number of reasons.  As I previously said, there was no internet at that time.

As you can probably imagine, being the huge Seth fan that I am, when I discovered the 3 "new" books, I was extremely surprised and happy.  At that instant, I decided that since we create our reality, and, since all 3 of these new books suddenly showed up in my reality, then this must mean that I'm to have all 3 of them and so decided to purchase them all.  These three books were, "DEaVF1", "DEaVF2" and "Seth Dreams and Projections of Consciousness".


After making this decision, I opened DEaVF1 and started looking through it.  I read the text written on the book cover, just inside the front of the book and then read the rest of it located just inside the back of the book. On the book cover just inside the back of the book, there was a separate paragraph and in this separate paragraph, it mentioned that Jane had died in September 1984.

I was absolutely "stunned". I was so completely shocked by this that, for me, it was like the shock of "911", it was huge.

From all of Jane's and Rob's notes in the various Jane & Seth books that I owned, I had no inkling that Jane had any sort of health problems. Furthermore, while I really hadn't thought about it too much, I kind of expected that as long as Jane felt like it, she would continue to write Seth & Jane books and these would keep showing up in the foreseeable future, for perhaps 20 more years or so.

After the shock of this awareness finally set in, I was really depressed about this for maybe a month or so. I just wasn't ready for a reality that contained no more Seth or Jane books in my life.


At that time, I had no expectations that, in the years to come, many more Seth books would, in fact, be published.  This would include, "The Magical Approach", "The Way Towards Health" and many of the earlier books such as TES1-9, TPS1-7 and TECS 1-4.

Had I known that these other books would eventually be published, I might not have been so shocked and depressed, when I first learned that Jane had died.

Suffice it to say, it was quite a shock to me, when I first learned that Jane had died.


-jbseth

[Deb]

Awesome chasman, thank you! I think I have a couple of articles from The Sun about Jane/Seth that I'd found a while ago and "printed" as PDFs. I don't think this was one of them. A great find, and too bad Rob didn't get to write the book he mentioned. I imagine it's buried somewhere in Laurel's house.

I've also printed this article as a PDF, will attach it tomorrow along with the other ones I've saved. Always good to have a copy of this type of stuff as websites sometimes disappear. It's always a thrill for me when previously unknown Seth/Jane things turn up.

BTW I jb I enjoyed your story about the found books and hearing about Jane's death. I was first introduced to Abraham Hicks, before Seth, and in one or more of their books Jerry mentioned how finding a Seth book in a used book store changed his life. He and Esther read as many books as they could (I have the feeling that Esther has photographic memory... a different story). They were in a restaurant and pouring over one of the Seth books, and another diner came to their table and said, "you know she died, right?" They were shocked and dismayed, as they had wanted to track Jane down and meet her.

[chasman]

hey Deb and jbseth,

      thank both of you super lots for your excellent posts.

I am so glad that you both enjoyed it.

I did too.

and here are some more thoughts I have.

some of the stuff in the article, I didn't  quite understand. even after re-reading
2 or 3 times.
other parts I liked alot.

about Rob's letter:

hmmm, I remember reading the Way Towards Health many years ago,.
and crying my eyes out at Rob's grief.

reading his letter to this article's author
has got me wondering some things though.

if Rob believed Seth, why did he cry so much?

I was introduced to the Seth material around 1975.
I talked to the man who introduced me to the Seth material
about 7 years ago.
I asked him what he thought about Seth and death.
he said he still thinks Seth's explanation is the best he's found for stuff.
and that in recent years, his wife and one of his daughters had died.
and he said, he did not cry when they died.

thats how much he believes Seth.
he said that when we die, we reincarnate.
we just change to a different body.
he compared it to getting a different car.
(hey the word "car" is in the word rein"car"nate. I think I'm having a Jack Handey Deep Thoughts moment.)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Handey

I love some of these, and have not heard most before.
I wonder if Jack was a disciple of Yogi Berra. 

"MAYBE in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Basically, it's made up of two separate words — "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind."

anyway, as for death and not crying.

after thinking about it more, I think that Rob did strongly believe Seth.
and that even so, Rob was a human being.
and that means he was a complex being.
(and he was a truly kind man, a shining example of mankind, indeed

and the fact that he cried so much, showed how much he loved and missed Jane, even though he believed Seth.
as for my friend who didn't cry when his wife and daughter died,
well thats truly amazing.
I will remember him in the future, if people that I love go to the Happy Hunting Ground before me.

[jbseth]

if Rob believed Seth, why did he cry so much?

Hi Chasman, Hi All,

I think that Rob truly believed in Seth a whole lot. I think Rob probably believed in Seth, even more perhaps than many of the rest of us.

It was Rob, after all, who took down all of those approximately 1,000 sessions worth of notes, in his own unique shorthand.  It was also Rob who typed up and edited many of those notes and added his many notes to many of Seth's books. That's an awful lot of writing for Rob to do, for someone who didn't actually believe in Seth.

It was also Rob, who spent very many evenings conversing with Seth about all of the various topics that they discussed over the years. Because of Rob's very unique place in talking to and in dialoguing with Seth directly, I'm pretty sure that he came to believe in Seth way before Jane ever did and way before any of the rest of us ever did for that matter.




Grief is one of the most powerful emotions that people can experience.  Speaking from personal experience, it can grab you when you least expect it, and turn you into a complete blubbering mess.

For many people, one of the best ways to deal with grief, is to allow yourself to experience it, so that you can release it and heal from it. I think that the way Rob chose to deal with his grief over losing his wife Jane, was to allow himself to experience it and release it. This included some crying, which, under the circumstances was perfectly normal.  I don't think that this, had any bearing, in any way what-so-ever, in Rob's belief in Seth.




In regards to the man who introduced you to Seth. I don't think that the fact that he chose to deal with his grief, when his wife and daughter died, by not crying, has any bearing on Rob's belief in Seth.  I don't even think that it has any bearing on this man's belief in Seth.  Actually, I think that the only thing that it has any bearing on, is how this man chose to deal with his grief.


Choosing to cry, or not to cry, while your in the mist of having some painful emotional experiences, do to the fact that someone you love has just died, and you won't be able to hold, hug or share personal experiences with them any more in the 3D physical world reality, doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether or not you believe what Seth has to say about what occurs after death.


-jbseth

[Deb]

I think that Rob truly believed in Seth a whole lot. I think Rob probably believed in Seth, even more perhaps than many of the rest of us.

I totally agree. And I also felt for Rob, having to watch Jane suffer from her physical problems, her long steady decline in the hospital, and then her death.

The thing with grieving for the dead is that even though we are willing to consider that there is no death of the personality, the fact is the person who dies is gone from this life we know and we miss them. So even knowing we will meet again is small consolation for the grief of missing someone right here and now.

Jane and Rob spent so much time together as a team that the shock of Rob being completely alone would have been very hard to bear. To have someone in your life every minute of every day for decades and then they're gone... I can imagine Rob feeling so alone and without direction for a while. jbseth's saying Rob spent many evenings conversing with Seth also made me realize that Jane's death changed Rob's life completely—no more Seth sessions around the living room, no more visitors asking for Seth's help, no more Seth to chat with. The loss of TWO best friends. That whole lifestyle was over, even more to mourn. That must have been so hard. Thank god for Laurel, I really think she gave Rob a reason to go on, and in the process more Seth books were published.

And I agree, Rob was a complex and amazing person, I wish I could have met him. From the books and what he's written, he seemed incredibly gentle and calm and sensible, while Jane seemed to be more high-spirited and spunky. They balanced each other out. Rob seemed to me to be the more obvious "end of reincarnational cycle" candidate.

As far as his crying, one of the things that struck me about Rob is that in the books he was very honest and open about personal things. Rich was that way in his writing as well, and my experience with males is that most tend to keep personal things and emotions buried, so I really appreciated that about both of them. Chasman your friend may have cried himself to sleep every night for years, but may also see crying as a weakness and so hides his emotions from others. I was raised that way, so I can relate.

Boy, all this talk about crying makes me wonder physiologically (but not psychologically, I get that) why humans do it. I understand the need for babies to alert parents of their needs, but why tears too, what's the purpose? Some animals have been shown to grieve, but I think crying may be uniquely human.

I loved the Jack Handey reference, I used to love Deep Thoughts, very profound while being tongue in cheek and yes, much like Yogi. Coincidentally, I found this quote on the Handey page:

"It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man." 
   
PS I'm attaching all the The Sun articles I have to the first post in this topic. Who knows, there could be more.

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi Chasman, Hi All,

I don't think that I've ever heard of "The Sun", until just a couple of days ago when Chasman first mentioned it.

What was "The Sun"?  I'm assuming it was magazine and not a newspaper.

Does anyone know where it was published?  For instance was it published in for example,Elmira N Y. (or perhaps somewhere else such as: Washington D. C. or Denver, CO, Los Angeles, CA, etc.) 

I'm just curious more than anything else.

- jbseth

[Deb]

I only heard about The Sun the way chasman did—searching on Jane Roberts one day and an article coming up. From their site:

In each issue of The Sun you'll find some of the most radically intimate and socially conscious writing being published today. In an age of media conglomerates, we're something of an oddity: an ad-free, independent, reader-supported magazine.

But since they have a link to "Find the Sun in your Area," apparently they also print and are their own publishing company. Barnes & Noble carries them. Based on their contact phone number, they're in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

I just ordered the 1984 issue of the Death in the Family issue. They are having Covid issues right now, so they offered a free download of a PDF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_(magazine)

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/

[jbseth]

Thanks Deb.

-jbseth

[chasman]

thank you Deb and jbseth for your very nice replies.

a couple thoughts

I think Rob had one of the most, if not the most extraordinary lives of anyone who ever lived.

I would guess that he was upset that Jane passed away, even with all of Seth's help.
I am guessing too, that Rob had been hopeful right until the very end, that Jane would get better.

and indeed, missing his beloved wife, well, of course I understand.

and yes thank all that is for Laura and Rick. and Mary and Rich.
(and what the heck Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice too, hahahahhaha).

and thank all that is for Jack Handey.
I wonder what he thinks about Seth.
and what Seth would think about Jack Handey.

its those things that make me go hmmmmmm