“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The third time we tried it, the little pointer finally began to move beneath our fingertips. It spelled out messages supposedly coming from a Frank Withers (not the real name) who had lived in Elmira and died during the 1940’s.

The next time we tried a few days later, Frank Withers said that he had been a soldier in Turkey during one life, and insisted (through the board) that he had known Rob and me in a city called Triev, in Denmark, in still another life. Dates and locations were given, though it was made clear that Triev no longer exists.

Rob asked the questions, then we paused while he wrote out the answers the pointer spelled. Frank Withers had given simple one- or two-word responses in previous sessions. Now the answers became longer, and their character seemed to change. The atmosphere of the room was somehow different.

From the first few messages, Frank Withers had insisted upon the validity of reincarnation, so Rob said, “What do you think of your various reincarnations?”

[...] Ruburt would indeed perceive withering looks on such occasions. [...]

[...]

“Withers? Withers?” She said. [...]

Actually, the board first gave a few messages from a personality called Frank Withers, who insisted that he had known our neighbor, Miss Cunningham. [...]

“Did you ever know a Frank Withers?” I asked finally. [...]

“Frank Withers,” I said, feeling guilty at disturbing her.

[...] Seth had spoken jovially but not maliciously about Frank Withers. [...] On the other hand, you knew me before I knew Frank Withers, and my vanity then was astounding. [...]

[...] Now and then old Frank Withers comes through simply because he was the latest independent materialization and is used to taking things upon himself. [...]

[...] Without the energy the beliefs would wither.

In the 4th session for December 8, 1963, the personality Jane and I had been contacting through the Ouija board, Frank Withers, spelled out with the board’s pointer the message that he preferred to be called Seth—and Seth it’s been ever since. Shortly before he announced himself as Seth, I’d asked Frank Withers if people were ever “reborn as animals.” [...] Frank Withers would not give us the location of this dog: “No.”

[...] Frank Withers had a hand like that, just like that. Frank Withers was a fathead,’ he said, with great satisfaction, even though Frank was, according to Seth, a personality fragment of his own entity.

The first session with Frank Withers had been held on December 2, 1963. [...]

[...] If you have faith in that, then doubts will vanish, and Ruburt’s symptoms also will wither away more quickly than you imagine. [...]

[...] During the first three sessions the material came from a Frank Withers — who, it developed in the 4th session, was one of the “personality fragments” making up the Seth entity, or whole self. Just before Seth announced his presence to us in that same session, Frank Withers spelled out a remark through the board that meant little to Jane and me at the time: “One whole entity may need several manifestations, even at simultaneous so-called times.”

(Though Frank Withers never used the word “counterpart,” we see now that this can be a reference to the concept of simultaneous reincarnations, to that of counterparts, or to both.

Frank Withers was a fragment personality of mine. [...]

[...] Frank Withers was the original name given to us when the sessions began in late 1963.)

[...] The projection in time and space may disappear, in your terms, wither and die. [...]

“Where does Frank Withers fit in here?” Rob asked.

[...] Frank Withers considered her a friend, attaching more importance than she did to her influence upon his children. [...]

(For some reason, Rob began to think of Frank Withers. [...]

And as far as assimilating our old Frank Withers, don’t let me lead you too far astray. [...]

The withered foot (of my father) represented any and all deformities, and the great gap you felt existed between man’s ideal, and his actualization of it.

([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. [...]

[...] If life has no meaning, then nothing else really makes any difference, and intellectual curiosity itself also ends up withering on the vine.

[...] For all we knew, Seth might vanish as Frank Withers had. [...]

[...] This has nothing to do with consciously deciding how you want to spend your time, but with those inner fears that make you think of your time as something that must be protected—that considers your talent so fragile that it will wither if you do not make great effort to protect it.

([Rachel:] “In other words I am withering up and dying.”)

At the same time he gave less and less nourishment to the body, denied it exercise until it began to wither from disuse. [...]