“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Seth told Bill that a summer Sunday in 1946 is very important to him subconsciously. It involved Bill’s father William [Jane hadn’t known the name of Bill’s father], and an older man with brown hair whom Bill looked upon as being in a position of authority. There was some kind of disagreement as to Bill’s choice of a career [Bill had left the Navy not long before], an argument with Bill’s father; ever after that Bill didn’t get along with his father. Bill did not follow his father’s suggestions, I believe.

(Bill and Peggy agreed that Seth’s material on his parents seems to fit them psychologically, although some of the information given concerning Bill’s subconscious feelings toward his father was a surprise to Bill. At one point Seth asked Bill to not say so much when he answered a question, because this led Ruburt to start to actively and consciously consider the material and to make his own interpretations, which could be distorted. Seth also asked Bill not to tell us any more about his family relationships; presumably so that more material Seth came through with in future sessions could be checked with Bill’s knowledge, as in the blue dress and the bookkeeping incidents.

(Bill’s mother was fascinated by the relationships of numbers, Seth said, and the color blue. After the session Bill revealed that his mother had been a bookkeeper, which Jane and I did not know previously. Peggy recalled that Bill’s mother had been buried in a blue dress, which upset Bill’s father very much; and that Bill’s mother had many blue dresses in her wardrobe.

(Seth told Bill he subconsciously blamed his father for his mother’s condition, after Bill remarked that whenever he and his father were together for a few minutes they would end up arguing. Also, when a small child Bill had overheard a sexual encounter between his parents, in which his mother cried out. Bill took it to mean his father had hurt his mother. Later when his mother fell ill, Bill made the subconscious connection with her illness and this earlier incident, and blamed his father for his mother’s illness.

([Bill Gallagher:] “An unscheduled meeting was held the evening Bill arrived. [...]

([Bill Gallagher:] “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”)

([Bill Gallagher:] “My room number 552 adds up to 12.”)

([Bill Gallagher:] “None that I know of.”)

[...] Bill and Peggy share the cost of a cottage on Seneca Lake with other members of Peggy’s family, and had been taking steps to sell the cottage this fall. Bill dislikes seeing it go, since he uses it as a base for his skin-diving expeditions in the lake, which is one of New York State’s famous Finger Lakes.

[...] During it, Bill said he thought the information from Seth was sure to be pretty fragmented. [...] Bill knows something of local history. [...]

(Bill also said the 17th century date could be correct if bronze artifacts were shown to be related to the Jesuit missionaries, who were known to be in this section of the country then. Bill has done extensive skin diving in Seneca Lake. [...]

(Bill was by now so interested that both he and I began to take verbatim notes when Seth resumed, since Bill planned to go diving Sunday. [...]

(The festival-type thing is also good, and refers I think to the letter from Bill Ward that accompanied the art. In the letter Bill dwells upon a dinner attended by himself, Wendell Crowley, and several other old friends of mine; the dinner being held just a few days ago; at this dinner Wendell mentioned my availability to Bill Ward for free-lance artwork, and this in turn led Bill to ask me to help him out.

[...] Possibly good data, and a strong link with the bill used as object. The bill was made out by Marjorie Buck, proprietor of The Art Shop. [...] There are other M’s, both upper and lower case, on the bill. [...] Actually Marjorie’s name doesn’t appear on the bill at all.

(The envelope object was a bill I had received this afternoon for art supplies, and which Jane had never seen. Jane does know the proprietor of the Art Shop, Marjorie Buck, who made out the bill. [...] The large number at the bottom is in red; the back of the bill is blank. [...]

[...] I believe this is a reference to the letter Bill Ward sent me with the art work I received Sunday, October 23. [...] Also keep in mind that the bill used as object represents pencils and paper stumps I bought in order to finish the job Bill sent to me.

[...] Bill began scribbling notes after the session began; I was not taking any, and hadn’t planned to. Jane spoke rather rapidly and Bill couldn’t keep up verbatim-wise, but did get down most of the gist of what Seth was saying.

([Bill:] “What about the cigarette?” Bill saw a cigarette in Seth’s hand.)

(A short unscheduled session was held on this date, with Bill Macdonnel and his friend Joanie Gilbert as witnesses. [...]

(The following is taken from Bill’s notes. [...]

[...] (to Bill:) you run away. [...] to please you I will make a bargain with you: I will not mention your problem if you do not want me to—(There followed another humorous exchange between Seth and Bill.) Some Jesuits are sorrowful jokers, and laugh while the tears roll down their cheeks. [...]

(To John and Bill:) Now. [...] (To Bill:) You have very simply two alternatives. [...]

(Jane, during break, began to get impressions from/for Bill Gallagher, and Bill signaled me to take them down. [...]

[...] [In answer to Bill’s question.] “A close relative. [...] A connection between this guy’s father and yours [to Bill]—because I know your father’s dead. [...]

Seth-Jane ended the monologue with a laugh at Bill. Now I asked Bill exactly what he had seen. [...] The form was mainly a silhouette, Bill said, without strong detail, and yet during the first monologue he got a good look at the face. [...] Bill added that the face of the apparition was about six feet above floor level. [...]

Seth explained that the apparition’s appearance was distorted by Bill’s own ideas, though. The high forehead represented Bill’s interpretation of great intelligence, for example. Bill interpreted the available data in his own way: this was the Seth that Bill saw, regardless of Seth’s own appearance.

From my writing table at the right of the entrance to our bathroom, I could easily look at Bill as he sat in our Kennedy rocker, facing the bathroom entrance itself. … As Jane continued her delivery, I noticed that Bill was staring quite consistently into the open bath doorway, yet I didn’t pay any particular attention to this. I just took it for granted that Seth’s remark about using Bill as a guinea pig meant that he was to be a topic of conversation.

As soon as Bill told us he had seen an image, Jane and I both looked into the doorway, of course. But we could see nothing; for that matter, Bill said, the image had vanished during break. [...] Bill continued working on his sketch, saying that he was not satisfied with it and would try another.

[...] He and his boss, Cove Hoover, were driving home from a yearly outing for newspaper staff on Seneca Lake; Bill driving. [...] Bill is afraid to drive too fast—as road is full of curves, so Kendall’s car speeds out of sight. On a hunch Bill turns off on Chambers Road, Horseheads. [...] Bill said that he probably would have been involved if he continued speeding after Kendall’s car to catch him. [...]

(Note: Jane’s trance data mentioned another newspaperman besides Bill G. —i.e. Tom Page. [...] Also Cove Hoover, riding with Bill as they followed Kendall. In fact, Bill drove Hoover’s Mercury.)

(On Friday, July 18, Bill Gallagher tells us he had a cluster of fairly close near-accident situations since Monday—one involving two boys on bicycles—he stopped about 20 yards from them—but he was going 55 at the foot of Mount Zoar Hill on Holden Road.

(From my writing table, to my right of the entrance to our bath, I could look easily at Bill as he sat in our Kennedy rocker, facing the bath entrance itself from the other side of the same door. As Jane continued her delivery I noticed that Bill was staring quite consistently into the open bath doorway; yet I did not pay great attention to this, taking it somewhat for granted that Seth would use Bill/Mark only as a talking point relating to whatever subject he discussed.)

[...] Clowning around, she moved into the doorway, into the exact spot in which, Bill said, Seth’s apparition was appearing. At this time, this moment, Bill said he could not see the image. I was standing beside the rocker Bill occupied, and both of us were watching Jane as she stood smiling and laughing in the bath doorway.

[...] Jane, Bill and I discussed an experiment the three of us could try while Bill was on his trip. He planned to go to Cape Cod; as soon as he was settled for his projected stay of several weeks, Bill was to write us. [...]

(As soon as break arrived, Bill announced that he had seen an image in the doorway of the bath; it was this that had drawn his attention as Jane dictated. Bill asked for a sheet of paper and immediately set to work on a sketch of what he had seen. [...]

(Seth told Peg and Bill there is constant communication between them telepathically. [...] Seth told Bill that he took his problems with him on vacation, especially the ulcer, and Bill heartily agreed. [...] Bill showed us his Japanese “tranquilizer,” a small black wooden carving he had bought in Puerto Rico.

(During break, Bill Gallagher described his narrow escape from drowning while skin diving in Puerto Rico. Bill is an expert swimmer and diver, but got caught unawares between an incoming and an outgoing tide offshore, in choppy water, and nearly perished. Bill said the panic that seized him was as dangerous, if not more so, than the tides.

(Seth/Jane scored many hits in the material dealing with Peg and Bill. [...] It developed that the notes Peg and Bill kept did not often coincide with Seth’s material.

[...] This discussion grew out of Seth’s remarks concerning a very close call Bill had while skin diving in Puerto Rico. [...] As it was no such requests were made, thus no warnings given before Peg and Bill left.

[...] In this opening sequence, Jane, Bill, the members of the Potter family, and myself, were gathered in a living room. I was pulling out some of Jane’s drawings and paintings and showing them to Bill, and Jane, Bill and I were animatedly discussed them. [...] It then struck me this evening that the discussion between Jane, Bill and I, over Jane’s new work, bore some rather remarkable parallels to that opening dream sequence, and I wondered whether that portion of the dream could have been clairvoyant. [...]

[...] Before this couple left, Bill Macdonnel dropped in. Jane, Bill and I were eventually left alone, and since Bill is also an artist, the three of us joined a rather animated discussion of Jane’s latest work. [...]

[...] We discussed the apparition Bill had seen in the bath doorway, described in the 68th session. This in turn led to Bill’s telling of some very vivid and upsetting dreams he had been having in recent days; in these dreams his bedroom had seemed to be peopled by apparitions or strangers, he said, entirely unfamiliar to him. From the recent material we had received on the dream world, I said it sounded as though Bill was in contact with other parts of his inner or whole self.

(It will be recalled that at various times Seth has said that Bill Macdonnel has much natural psychic ability, and that it is largely untrained. Seth stated that Bill was gifted in many lines of psychic ability, among them the perception of apparitions. [...]

(Tonight Bill and Peggy Gallagher came to visit us. Bill told us that he would have to leave for a few minutes to pick up an advertisement at the bus terminal and take it to the newspaper office, the Star-Gazette, where he works. On the spur of the moment Peggy suggested that we all try to pick up impressions concerning the ad, while Bill was gone. Bill himself would not know the contents of the ad, which was in an envelope, until he opened it at the paper.

[...] Bill went upstairs to talk to the men in the Ad department. [...] Bill’s own office is downstairs, as I knew, and if I thought about it at all I assumed that all his business took place there. I had no idea that Bill had any connection with the upstairs offices at all, since the editorial work is done there, and he has nothing to do with that at all. [...]

[...] Bill insists this is a direct hit. [...] Though sig means signature, the word signature itself is never used, Bill said. [...]

[...] Bill had an unpleasant encounter with Mr. Connor earlier in the day, and he was thinking of quitting his job because of it. When he found Mr. Connor in the office after regular hours, and unexpectedly, Bill was upset and instantly tense.

[...] Bill thinks he remembers noticing a woman he thought was Cuban, with a baby.”)

(But Bill overheard a serious argument)

[...] A small shack by the water, with some red on it, by some rocks, where the Jesuit (Bill) goes underwater (snorkeling). [...]

(“Could be Paradise Island, where Bill went snorkeling. [...]

[...] When the police asked Bill to remove the painting from his gallery window, he asked advice from three people in particular. [...] These two supported Bill’s decision to leave the painting in the window. The third man, Ernfred Anderson, who has a national reputation as a sculptor and teacher at Elmira College, and is a close friend of Bill, Jane and mine, advised Bill to remove the painting. Bill told Jane and me this on his visit earlier this evening, although we had heard this from other friends several days ago.

[...] On Friday April 15 Jane and I and the Gallaghers heard about Bill’s difficulties. Peggy planned to call Bill Saturday but did not do so. We saw the Gallaghers on Sunday evening and learned that she still hadn’t seen Bill Macdonnel. Her story however was printed on Monday, April 18, which means she had to see Bill sometime Monday morning. This was possible because Bill Macdonnel, as a teacher, was still on Easter vacation. [...]

(“A connection with a schedule,” Bill Macdonnel’s gallery referred to in the article is a converted store with an inset door. [...] In the window opposite it Bill has a large hand-lettered sign dealing with the hours when his gallery is open to visitors and for painting classes. Bill has been ill recently and has not maintained his advertised schedule, which has resulted in some confusion.

[...] We had saved the article because it dealt with our friend Bill Macdonnel, who has witnessed several sessions. When Bill visited us early this evening I thought of using the clipping as object.

(Bill states that on or somewhere either just before or after July 29, the date of the 75th session, he attended a party at Larry O’Toole’s cottage. Attending the party were Bill, Gary, Larry, and two other men Bill did not know. Thus, as Seth stated, Bill “was in a group with four men.”

(Bill did make two friends, one older, and one about his own age. [...] Gary is about 25, [Bill is 27], and Larry O’Toole is 50 or so. Bill knew Gary for about two weeks, and O’Toole for about six weeks. [...]

(It might also be noted that Bill was a witness to the 68th session, but not of course the 75th. At the 68th session, Bill, Jane and I made tentative plans to experiment at set times for telepathic communication while Bill was at the Cape, but these plans did not materialize.)

(Bill reached Provincetown the second week in July. [...] Bill first got acquainted with him in the Old Colony Bar in Provincetown. [...]

(Seth broke off his material to introduce this bit of humor because Bill, sitting perhaps five feet away, was leaning forward and staring intently at Jane as she spoke. Smiling, her eyes still closed, Jane now shifted her chair so that she did face Bill squarely.

(At an earlier break, Bill had mentioned to me, while Jane was out of the room, that he believed Jane was right-handed but that Seth used predominantly left-handed movements. I hadn’t noticed this, but told Bill Jane had talked at times of being left-handed as a child; I told him I remembered Jane saying something about being made to write right-handed in school.)

(Bill and Peggy Gallagher were witnesses to the session. [...]

([Bill:] “As you wish.”

[...] Of course we had no idea of what all those tests would cost, and weren’t billed when she was discharged, since test results weren’t in. A few nights later, evidently after I’d been wondering how much the bill would be I had a dream in color, in which I was informed of the amount of the bill —$800-odd dollars. [...] I was shocked—so much so that I woke up after the brief little dream, for my best guess had been that the bill would be between $400 and $500. [...]

(Today [on June 3] the bill from the hospital arrived—for $812.00. Instantly I remembered the dream, while being appalled at the size of the bill. [...] The bill was printed on blue and white paper and unfolded as in my dream also.

[...] The cost of that little operation would also probably be astronomical—well over a thousand dollars, I’d say at a guess, so in light of the present bill from St. Joseph’s I doubt if we’d opt for it anyhow. [...]

Now: we will call this a very brief Seth visit—for which there is no charge (with much humor, referring no doubt to the bill from St. Joseph’s). [...]

[...] The object was the bill I received for the purchase of Masonite in Wellsburg, NY, on Friday, July 15,1966. As usual I placed the bill between two pieces of Bristol, then sealed the sandwich in two envelopes. Jane was present at the lumber company in Wellsburg when the bill was made out, but like me at the time she paid no particular attention to it, and hadn’t seen it since then.

[...] Since the object is a bill, many numbers appear on it. [...] This shows twice on the front of the bill; once via bleedthrough on the back, also. There are two other sets of numbers visible as ghost images on the back of the bill, and both evidently begin with a zero, but are hard to decipher.

[...] The bill used as object is rectangular in shape. [...] The price and date applied automatically by the register at the top of the bill is in a medium blue ink. Since we have the carbon copy, the handwriting on the bill is in a dark blue or gray. [...]

[...] However if she held the object so that its head, or top, pointed to the right as she faced it, then there would be printing along the left-hand side of the bill. This being the fine print at the bottom of the front of the bill.

[...] This served as a connection to Bill Macdonnel. The affair in which Bill is involved has already taken place also, the night of Ruburt’s experience. [...]

[...] I do not believe Bill Macdonnel was injured, but he was either responsible for the accident or it was his car and the woman with whom he is involved. Now a child connected here also, whether with Bill Macdonnel or Tam Mossman I am not sure.

[...] It would be a minor accident, but in the Bill Macdonnel accident someone, not Bill, was severely injured.

[...] It served as a transition: an accident in which Mark, Bill Macdonnel, was involved, though I do not believe he directly participated. [...]

(And now Seth incongruously told us that Bill Macdonnel’s entity name was Mark, and that Seth, Bill, Jane and I had all known each other in previous lives.

(“And you,” he said to Bill, “have been twice a man and once a woman. [...] At the time he saw the apparition, Bill, who is a schoolteacher, had a summer job painting houses. [...]

[...] My hands were held by Jane on my left and Bill on my right, but Bill passed his free right hand beneath Jane’s hand to see that it was actually rising and was not an illusion. [...]

[...] Bill Macdonnel was more impressed with the hand phenomena than the mirror demonstration. To Bill, while he thought he sensed a change in the shape of Jane’s head in the mirror, there was little else to be seen. [...]