“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jim visited Jane at the gallery and she invited him to the house on Friday night so that we could discuss Seth. Jim also wanted to tell us about two of his friends who had been running some telepathy tests with personnel at the parapsychology lab at Duke University. Jim would attempt to bring one of the friends with him Friday. Bill Macdonnel, the witness to the 46th session, would also be there.

(I then showed Jim and Bill the two drawings of my visions of the night before; I did the drawings this afternoon. The drawing of the head, with the brimming eyes, struck Jim rather forcibly. In his quiet way he said the drawing was very disturbing to him, and mentioned this several times after I had put them away. Both Jim and Bill thought the other one, of the girl and dog, quite gruesome. As it happened, both drawings were rather successful; I felt I had done a good job of getting my memory of the visions down on paper.

(Last Wednesday afternoon, April 22, 1964, Jim Beckett visited me briefly. He is a computer service technician whom Jane and I had met but two or three times some months ago, before the sessions began. We became acquainted with him when he was a TV repairman. He is also a ham radio operator and a science-fiction fan; thus the three of us got along well from the beginning, when we met Jim as he called to service our TV. But after this first acquaintance we had not seen him since, and often wondered what happened to him.

(Jim’s friend was unable to come, but Jim, Bill, Jane and I began to discuss Seth at about 7:30 Friday night. We also discussed the letter of April 23, received today, from the A.S.P.R., asking us to cease sending in copies of these sessions unless they contained specific information of Seth’s promised tests. Jane and I feel that we cannot rush her development, nor do we have any desire to, so the letter left us somewhat at a loss; we finally decided to let events take their course, and send the A.S.P.R. any data in which they might be interested, when, if ever, it manifested itself.

(Jim H. told of finding a man asleep at his work. Jim explained his ideas and emotions concerning the incident, and wanted to know how he could change them.)

(Jim H.: “You don’t just automatically think good things about this fellow, and repress the negative thoughts without becoming aware of what you felt.”)

(Jim H.: “In the beginning, before we compounded the frustration and the emotional charges, would you have recommended an action like saying, ‘Come on, this is wrong. [...]

(Jim H.: “I don’t want to direct the brunt of my anger at either of us. [...]

(Jane introduced Jim as a “rock drummer.” [...]

([Jim Crosson:] “When we leave the physical body where do we go?”)

([Jim Crosson:] “What determines the time between reincarnations?”)

([Jim Crosson:] “How do you discover those answers for yourself?”

Jim and Ann arrived about 10 P.M. Rob and I liked them at once. [...] “He was exceptionally bright,” Jim said. [...]

Seth went on to give an analysis of Jim’s present personality as it was connected with events from past lives, and to give him some advice about the future. Jim told us earlier that he had been a disc jockey. [...]

He said more about the symbolism of Peter’s illness, spoke about Jim’s past relationships with Ann, and said that Jim had mathematical abilities he was not using. [...]

[...] Jim and Ann were almost transformed, and before the session, I had been so dubious that I hesitated. [...] Actually I think that these abilities flow through us as the wind flows through the branches.) Ann wrote me a letter shortly after, telling me that she and Jim no longer felt the tremendous sorrow that had burdened them earlier.

(Seth stated that Jim Tennant is one of the group he expects to gather around Jane and me. Jim T. reported that this afternoon, upon being invited to attend a session by Jim B., he felt his scalp distinctly crawl on three separate occasions; lifting up as though it would detach itself. Jim T. stated that his mother is quite clairvoyant, that often when he is ill, for instance, she will get in touch with him before he has time to inform her of his illness.

(At 7:50 Jim Beckett arrived to be a witness. He brought a friend, Jim Tennant, a research technician in spectroscopic measurements and tabulating data, for Corning Glass, which is near Elmira. Both Jims are about 25 years old, both have abilities in electronics, both are ham radio operators.

[...] Seth’s reference concerned Jim Tennant’s wife. Jim T’s thought was that his wife could take shorthand notes of the sessions. Since she was quite young, Jim T was also concerned about her interest in the sessions, since she had not had time to develop an interest in ESP.

[...] Jim Beckett stated that midway through the monologue, he felt the presence of Bill Macdonnel so strongly that he expected to see Bill walk in the door. [...] It will be remembered that Jim B. and Bill [...]

(Jim Adams visited today with some sample black frames for her reading glasses, and repeated to Jane what I’d quoted him as saying his friend Dr. Werner had said about Jim’s description of Jane’s condition. Interesting, for I think Jim phrased some of his quotes somewhat differently to Jane than he had to me earlier this week —although I think the gist of the remarks is pretty much the same. [...] We told Jim we haven’t made any firm decision about seeking medical help, but will when the glasses situation is taken care of. [...]

(Frank Longwell also visited today—before Jim did, as a matter of fact —and helped Jane experiment with certain exercises for her legs in the bathroom. [...] Jim, on the other hand, is in favor of Jane seeking local treatment. [...] Jim said he couldn’t comment on Jane’s situation from a medical standpoint, except to say her eyes per se are okay. [...]

(Jim Adams also suggested that Jane see a medical internist to get at the root of the muscular difficulty, and gave us the names of three local doctors he recommended highly. [...] Thus, tonight in his call Jim told me that Dr. Werner had said that Jane’s double vision was “the end result” of something muscular in nature. Dr. Werner recommended that she be tested to discover the causes, and asked Jim if Jane had ever had any “mini-strokes,” since such unsuspected and even unfelt attacks could have muscular repercussions. [...] Jim Adams is to see us later this week to check on black frames for Jane’s new glasses, and she can question him on Werner’s responses then. [...]

(Jim Adams also called just before supper, and I relayed the substance of his call to Jane. [...] Jim agreed with us—and Seth, incidentally—that Jane’s trouble with double vision was muscular in nature. [...]

[...] Events began to come to a head last week with the professional visit of “our” optometrist, Jim Adams, to check Jane’s double vision problems.

[...] Jane herself said during Jim Adams’s first visit that “I don’t want to go to any hospital for tests.” [...]

Now I do have something to say to this one (Sue W.), and that one (Jim H.), and to some extent to all of you. [...]

(Jim H.: “Didn’t you say earlier, referring to the woman who was born in a minority race, that her challenges had been set up by a previous personality, in our terms?”)

(Jim H.: “The decision was made when that previous personality had returned to the whole self for a period of reevaluation?”)

(Jim H.: “I understand. [...]

I suggest that under the circumstances, this time Ruburt step aside and let Jim Crosson have his day. He needs it badly, and I have a note for Miss Taylor: it will hurt Jim Crosson badly if he does not have a part in the program. [...]

[...] She verified Seth’s statements about Jim Crosson’s worries about holding an audience, etc. [...]

[...] Jim Crosson does not have that much time. [...]

Ruburt will do much better on his own in a program, but should definitely not shunt Jim Crosson aside, for he is very vulnerable to slights. [...]

(I should add that we never did see Cec and Jim Lord last Saturday night. [...] Jim kept asking her if she had the date right, incidentally. [...]

(A week or so ago Jane had invited the Lords, Cec and Jim, to the house for last Saturday evening. [...]

(Jim H.: “Might this be compared to the rotating light in a lighthouse?”)

(Jim H.: “Would a noninterval be a positive interval to another aspect of our existence?”)

(Jim H.: “Could this be the key to the simultaneous existence of all of our lives, the key to nontime?”)

(First, though: Last week I received from our eye doctor, Jim Adams, the usual card telling me that it had been two years since my eyes had been examined and new glasses prescribed. [...]

(My vision is still good, 22 years after Jim’s report.)

[...] I told her about my dream of last night: I’d been in my writing room and I heard Jim Baker, our optometrist, in my studio. [...] I knew that Jane was in the house somewhere, that she was walking perfectly all right, and that Jim had come to see her, not me. [...]

[...] Our feelings about it ranged all the way from ridicule to a grudging understanding that Jim Poett had worked hard on the piece. [...]

This means of course that deeply felt hope must be sardonically examined, that deeply buried faith must be stated with parried thrusts, and to that extent the paper speaks for a concentrated portion of your population so that our Jim Poett, who is a poet at heart, must appear in the slightly worn cloak of the skeptic. [...]

[...] Instead, on Monday and Tuesday nights Jane and I were interviewed—on tape—by Jim Poett of the New York City Village Voice. [...]

[...] Jim Poett told us that the Voice will send a photographer up for pictures, so I’d figured we’d spend time worrying about that, too.

(This noon our friend Jim Beckett visited us for the first time in some months. Jim used to be a TV repairman. Last evening our TV set was acting up, and Jane wished aloud that Jim would visit us and fix the set, as he has done in the past.

(Jim lives out of town and is now a traveling repairman for office equipment. [...]

[...] During breaks, we had been trying to fill Jim Tennant in on some of the basic points of the material. Jim agreed that it might be a good idea for him to begin reading back sessions while Jane and I were holding our Wednesday night sessions, thus killing two birds with one idea. [...]

(At 8:00 PM Jim Tennant arrived to be a witness. [...]

[...] We discussed the material with Jim Tennant for half an hour before he left for home. [...]

[...] I told her I’d talked with Mary Newman this morning, boosted our insurance coverage, and called Jim Baker, our optometrist. [...]

(Today we were visited —unannounced—by a young man named Jim Poett, who has been assigned to interview Jane for The Village Voice. [...]

(Jim Poett said that we would see the article before it’s printed, at our insistence; I’d find it strange indeed to cooperate with a venture that would end up taking us apart in ways we didn’t approve of. [...]

As soon as I took Jim Young up on his word that I could make whatever statement I want to about Jane’s work, I knew that this Preface would contain relatively little about Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness itself, and I wrote to Jim about this. [...]

As the physical time passed, however, I began wanting to do a little formal writing about Jane’s death, so last month when Jim Young of Stillpoint Publishing gave me the chance to do so in this Preface for Seth, Dreams … I accepted at once.

“To me,” Jim wrote, “it would be a special opportunity for you to make whatever statement you might wish about Jane and her work. [...]

[...] However, I liked both Jim’s ideas of my doing the Preface for Jane’s book, and of publishing a photo of her. [...]