“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] When Bill saw the image and recognized its prescence, the fragment itself seemed to have a dream. As Bill saw and did not recognize, the fragment saw and did not recognize.

(“What was the image our friend Bill Macdonnel saw in the rocking chair, in his bedroom in Niagara Falls, in December of 1961?”)

(“Seth, was this image conscious of Bill’s presence?”)

(“Who was Bill Macdonnel’s second landlady?”)

(The experience did not take place at five o’clock, but later one evening while Bill and Peggy were in a restaurant in San Juan. [...] During a break she stood next to Bill at the bar. Bill then had the strange feeling that she would at once go back to her piano, on a raised platform, and begin to play. [...] Bill then proceeded to name, in the correct order, the first three numbers the pianist would play. [...]

[...] Bill clearly remembers a white man, at least 60 years old by his estimate, who stood next to him at the roulette table at the casino. Bill noticed that the man wore three rings on his fingers; he thought this quite unusual.”)

[...] Bill watched such a man from just outside the guest house. [...] Bill watched this man each morning; he noticed the man because he wore a suit and hat as though for business, instead of the usual tourist attire. [...]

(Tests resulting from this upset led to the medical opinion that Bill has two ulcers. [...] Needless to say, neither Jane nor I had seen Bill, or heard from him, since the unscheduled session of last Friday, December 3. We saw him later in the evening of December 10, after the interview with Peggy.)

[...] I recognized it as mine, or one I will do, of Bill Gallagher. I have been thinking over ways to do portraits of both Bill Gallagher and Bill Macdonnel.

[...] It showed a life-size, full-face figure of Bill Gallagher wearing a long dark coat, as he stood against a somewhat stylized outdoor background of pyramid shapes in bright colors—either tempera or acrylics.

[...] As Bill Gallagher walked down the hall away from us upon departing, I saw that he wore a long black coat with I believe a hood upon it—a garment quite like that he wore in the vision, and one I possessed no special knowledge of in his wardrobe.

(Rewritten November/2000: The vision grew out of Seth’s saying in the deleted 382nd session, on November 27/67, that I’d do well-known painting of Bill Gallagher. [...]

[...] Bill Macdonnel asked Jane and me to attend a seance on the deserted third floor of the building in downtown Elmira, where Bill has his studio. Working on the second floor, Bill had several times heard footsteps on the floor above; but checking the deserted floor, unused for many years, had found nothing except doors mysteriously unlocked.

(Jane and I and some people we had not met before, with Bill, tried to table tip in the darkness on the third floor. Bill took infrared pictures. [...] Bill thought we might be able to contact the doctor’s personality—name of Willamin—through the table.

(Mark is Bill Macdonnel’s entity name. Bill has witnessed several earlier sessions. The holiday plans concern a party we planned with Bill, to be held at his art gallery.

(Jane and I went dancing with Bill and his girlfriend, whom we had not met before, two weekends ago. Bill appeared to be much smitten, and during the evening paid little attention to us, much to our amusement. [...] Bill is 27.)

[...] There were twelve people in all: My parents, Jane and I, my brother Loren, his wife and son, and my brother Bill and his wife, and their two daughters and one son. Bill’s son is named David, he is four years old, and it is he who drew the test object, with a black ball-point pen on white paper.

[...] Then we saw that it referred to a visit Jane and I made to visit Bill in Rochester last summer, for here “summer scene, and water” enters in. We went swimming with Bill and his family in Lake Ontario. [...]

[...] The envelope item was a bill of Rob’s, dated July 15, 1966. The session was on August 1. I’d been with Rob at the lumberyard when he got the bill. [...]

[...] (Rob had purchased Masonite, by its brand name, but the salesman listed it as “Presdwood” on the bill. A capital M appears in the bill’s heading: Glenn M. Schuyler.)

[...] The bill did have numbers on it, and in a series that began with 0 (this seemed unusual to us), but not in the order given by Seth. One series begins with 09 (not 019); and the last two digits, 1 and 3, do appear by themselves on the front of the bill.

[...] Bill and Peg wholeheartedly agreed. [...] Seth also said that there were eighteen shrubs out in front of the nightclub, but Bill had to admit that though there were shrubs out front, he hadn’t thought of counting them.

[...] Soon after she began speaking for Seth, in a quite low and pleased voice, Jane launched into the reasons for Bill’s response to the painting. It marked Bill’s emotional perception, according to Seth, of Seth’s presence in the painting, earlier in the evening. Hence Bill’s feeling of an extra quality of life in the work. This event thus meant that for the first time Bill felt an emotional rapport with Seth, although previously he had been intrigued intellectually by the material.

[...] Earlier in the evening Bill Gallagher spent perhaps three-quarters of an hour contemplating the oil painting of an elderly man which I executed in July 1965. [...] This evening Bill commented often that the painting in question had a peculiar alive quality for him. I told him the lighting was flattering, but Bill insisted there was a different quality in the work, and that he did not believe it was due solely to suggestion.

(Bill Macdonnel witnessed the session. [...]

[...] (Mark is Bill’s entity name.)

([Bill:] “Good evening.”)

([Bill:] “Well-ordered room?”)

[...] As far as we know, neither Bill Gallagher or Bill Macdonnel (Mark) are involved with the object. Bill Macdonnel may have seen the pigeon drawing when it was on exhibit at the gallery; I do not know for sure. [...]

[...] With the date 1492 I thought Bill Gallagher cropped up in the data; this reference growing out of the other man reference; Bill and I had been discussing old sailing ships the other evening, and various dates, etc., some of the time in Jane’s presence.

(The second session was held at our apartment Friday evening, December 30, with Jane and me, Wesley Swan, Bill Macdonnel, Pat Norelli and Claire Crittenden present. [...]

[...] (Mark is Seth’s “entity name” for Bill MacDonnel.

[...] Now Bill will become more and more Bill, less and less like Seth, more and more like Bill and then less like Bill and more like someone else entirely different. [...]

([Joel:] “I guess in the beginning Jane and Rob were a little ambivalent as to whether they wanted to go and check the Frank Withers thing, and we have not made any attempt to check the stuff that Bill gave the first time—That I, in the ‘40s and having been a lawyer and went to Northwestern law school, practiced law in the Loop, that kind of thing. [...]

[...] I don’t think it’s the kind of thing, for example, if it doesn’t check out we are not going to say, ‘Well, Bill, you’re a fake, go away.”)

[...] They do not lie in a Bill. [...]

(Peg and Bill Gallagher left for Nassau, Monday, October 17, and returned Tuesday, October 25. [...]

[...] That evening Rob and I checked the material with both Peg and Bill and I took notes of their answers. [...]

(Jane now also felt sensations or vibrations in a small plaster sculp of a head, given to us by Bill Macdonnel. [...] Note that Bill is also in California now—Santa Barbara—quite a distance up the coast from San Diego, where Pete lives. [Pete, at the moment as far as we know, is in the Hawaiian Islands.] Bill and Pete met once at our apartment two years ago.

(Jane continued: “I don’t know if this is connected with Bill Macdonnel or not... [...] not sure if he, Bill, was in an accident with a girl named Maisie.”

(We do not know if Bill Macdonnel [or Tam] knows a Maisie. Nor do we know whether Bill knows an Eve, etc.)

(Jane thought she had been thinking about a Tam or a Cam, which of course apply to Tam Mossman or Bill Macdonnel. [...]

[...] This is not as definite, but we think it applies to Bill Gallagher more than Don and me. All three of us have had military service, Bill and me in World War Two on active duty. Bill is quite a historian on the subject of war, and often discusses it. [...] The connection with the envelope objects being that Bill was of course present last Friday, October 7,1966.

(When Bill, Don and I tipped the table deliberately and were not detected doing so, we certainly got an amazed reaction from the three women. [...] Jane and Marilyn were also very surprised, and Jane later told me that after the first shock of seeing the north end of the table rise, seemingly of its own volition, she thought Bill, Don and I actually succeeded in accomplishing this.

(Two other couples visited us last Friday evening, Bill and Peggy Gallagher, and Marilyn and Don Wilbur. [...]

[...] Jane read the article aloud to us, then Bill, Don and I tried tipping the table first. [...]

[...] As it happened Bill and Peggy Gallagher, who witnessed the first part of the 158th session, were again witnesses.

[...] Bill Gallagher said he agreed in general with what Jane was saying about his case, as far as he could follow the involved sentences in dictation.)

[...] She gestured often toward Bill.)

(Jane now pointed at Bill, her eyes still closed, then made a passing reference to a discussion we had had at break. [...]

(It will be remembered that Mark is the entity name for Bill Macdonnel, who has witnessed a number of sessions. Bill is in the process, incidentally, of moving out of his parents’ home and into a studio and apartment in downtown Elmira, where he is going to live and at the same time maintain an art gallery. It will also be recalled that in several different sessions Bill was counseled by Seth to live alone, lest he suffer a recurrence of his lung trouble.)

(Bill Gallagher’s ulcer was not bothering him. [...] Bill however remarked that he thought he had detected a change; he thought Jane’s lower jaw line had become more rounded, losing a little of its angularity. As it happened Bill could see Jane full-face from his position on the couch. [...]

(It can also be noted that in the second half of the session Seth made no reference to my watching out for physical changes in Jane, as he had when Peggy and Bill Gallagher had been present. Bill and Peggy had seen changes. [...] It is my thought, at least at the moment, that Bill’s observations and my own would not coincide. [...]

(Bill’s ulcer was still not bothering him, and he was still free of symptoms at 1:20 AM when Peggy and he left for home. Bill again mentioned that he thought he saw a change in Jane’s features while she was speaking, especially in the jawline and the shape of the face in general. [...]

(Peg and Bill Gallagher visited us sometime before 9 PM this evening. [...]

(The second instance involved the hassle we’ve been involved in with Elmira Video over mistakes in our billing. [...] Friday afternoon, when we received another erroneous bill, Jane called Elmira Video; the bookkeeper, Mrs. Trafzer, promised to call Monday to tell us what we owed. [...]

(At breakfast I’d even considered paying the whole bill demanded of us—I told Jane—just to be rid of the entire affair. Late this afternoon Mrs. Trafzer called, as promised to tell us that we were to forget the bill and to send in the regular monthly payment of $15.94, instead of the $33.00 we were charged with. [...]

(“But keep your fingers crossed,” I told Jane, “until we get next month’s bill.” Mrs. Trafzer has promised to personally put the proper figures into the computer, thus ending the billing confusion. [...]

[...] She said a word Bill had used had started her off again, to her own surprise. Bill said Seth used the Jesuit simile to make his point very well. [...]

(Lorraine Shafer and Bill and Peggy Gallagher were witnesses for the session. [...]

[...] Concerning her accent, which I have called a brogue, Lorraine and Bill Gallagher said they thought of it as a cultivated, well-educated accent acquired perhaps by one who had spent some time in Ireland, for instance, then moved on to live in another country—England, for instance.

You can also be of aid, both of you, as far as your brother Bill is concerned, Joseph, and I suggest that you take steps to speak with him, and if necessary we will hold a session, if the circumstances are correct for our purposes.

Bill laughed, and shortly later, the session ended. [...] Rob was used to this, but Bill and Peg attended sessions only infrequently, and to Bill it was a constant source of amazement. [...]

Peg and Bill Gallagher, friends of ours, attended the next session in which Seth continued with his suggestions for our dream experiments. [...] Of course, I welcome our Jesuit and cat-lover, as always. (Seth always referred to Bill as “The Jesuit” because of his quick, inquiring mind and to Peg as “the cat-lover,” humorously, because of her strong dislike for cats.) After a few more personal remarks, he launched into the discussion.

Bill Gallagher had been staring at me steadily as I spoke for Seth, and once Seth said,

“As you wish,” Bill said, with a smile.

(The next day, November 25, Bill Macdonnel called. [...] Bill knows Ryerson, and sees him rather often. Bill, Ryerson, and I are artists, of course. [...] I did think it a Framework 2 operation when Bill called us the day after Carroll told us the Ryerson news, but Jane didn’t credit the events like I did, for whatever reasons on her part.

You were quite correct: it was not coincidence, for example, that you heard from Bill Macdonnel just after the Burt Ryerson story. [...]

[...] We haven’t seen Ryerson in years, and see Bill M. seldom. [...]