“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

So that each board session is not so critical. You should not be dependent upon the board for your answer. You should allow the answer to spontaneously come from within, otherwise the board becomes a symbol in this particular case now alone, so that you demand the answer of it and that is not how to go about it. Does that make it clear?

([Janice:] “Is there any legitimacy to the information we received on the Ouija board at my grandmother’s on Sunday?”)

You can always continue. Do not limit yourself, however, by insisting upon specifics at your particular point in the game. Do you follow me?

[...] Perhaps a game connection.” Games figure prominently in chapter five of the dream book. [...] There were many kinds of games to be indulged in at the playground in waking life. In addition, in her recurring dream Jane kept recreating a series of games at the playground, in a section where there were none. There is more to the dream, but enough is said here to make the game connection.

[...] See the recurring childhood playground dream, mentioned in the data dealing with the interpretation of “a game connection.” [...] In the dream Jane constructed a set of games, involving physical apparatus like swings and jungle gyms, in a section of the playground where in physical life none existed. [...]

[...] I used the two pieces of Bristol board and the two envelopes as usual in preparing it for the experiment.

[...] Perhaps a game connection. [...]

[...] Seth didn’t really announce himself until we had worked with the Ouija board four times. [...] Almost from the beginning, however, I did anticipate what the board was going to “say,” and the poem is as valid as any strictly factual statement I could make about those sessions — if not more so.

In the meantime, we held our board sessions twice a week. [...] After supper, I did the dishes and worked on my poetry for an hour, and then Rob got out the board. [...]

[...] Before the eighth session, all replies came through the board. [...] We began this one with the Ouija board, but after only a few moments, I shoved it aside and began dictating as Seth. [...]

[...] Those of you who read my two other books in this field know that the experiments were astonishingly successful and led, through the Ouija board, to our first contact with Seth.

[...] Yet Seth not only took him on, but in some way I still don’t understand, he used Gene’s own terminology and jargon to beat him at his own game—and with humor and grace.

[...] Some games are necessary and always relevant.”

“Isn’t the object to play the game … not to create or probe?”

“You are yourself the game, in those terms.”

(As usual to begin we sat at the board, in our living room with the shades drawn and a soft light on, shielded somewhat from my view. At the appointed hour Jane and I touched our fingers to the board but did not ask any questions. [...]

(By now, Jane was hearing the answers within, in advance of the board’s spelling. But we continued with the board.)

[...] As we laid the board aside she said, “He feels very affectionate tonight—I almost got a lump in my throat. [...] He’d go right on if we went back to the board, he’d go on for hours if we could stand it. [...]

[...] As your paintings are solidified feeling on board or paper, apparent in the physical universe and therefore vulnerable to the laws of that universe, so is the universe itself on your plane physical materialized feeling, only with more dimension than a drawing or a painting. [...]

[...] I placed the cards between two pieces of Bristol board, then sealed them in the usual double envelopes.

[...] That is, not here (Jane held the envelope up, shaking it, her eyes still closed) but connected with what is here; as a children’s game. [...]

[...] as a children’s game,” is quite interesting to us, and we believe a good example of the way associative memory can work while also being accurate. [...]

(To begin we sat silently at the board, hands on the pointer. [...] After taking a few words through the board she laid it aside and began to dictate. [...]

Had you stayed in Miami you would have been ahead of the game, but you are still ahead of the game by getting out. [...]

(At the board Jane and I said good night.

[...] The two of you together through these sessions help to spread certain ideas, yet many people not personally involved actually can use the material at times better—but they could not produce it—a very important point, and so in that area of freedom you are so ahead of the game that ordinary behavior by contrast is sadly lacking. [...]

[...] I can let my ability flow outward through my fingertips and brush, so that I create an entirely new reality upon the board.”

[...] We cannot move them around like toy people on a game board. [...]

[...] My introductory notes contain a reference to Jane and me borrowing a Ouija board from our landlord “in the fall of 1963,” which compares with the date given by Seth this evening, of September 10,1963. The notes refer to our attempts to use the board early in November 1963 also, without success.)

[...] The color of the porous paper or board is a typical light beige or tan, not resembling metal, and certainly not heavy in weight for its size. [...]

(This reminded Jane and me that during Saturday evening, Marilyn had described to us how her young son had discovered what fun there was to the universal game of hanging by his mother’s apron strings, as she tried to go about her duties in the trailer home in nearby Wellsburg, NY.

[...] Your emotional reality permeates everything with which you come in contact—across the board, regardless of the time element.

[...] Both of them wanted to beat you at the game, simply because you were the eldest, but as they began you gave it up.

(To everyone.) Now in one way you are all playing childhood games with yourselves, and if you will forgive me, I will use an analogy and remember it is an analogy. [...]

([Gert:] “I just like the assurance that if I get up on that high board someone will be there in case I don’t...”)

No one forces you to go up onto the high board. [...]

(To open the session, we sat silently at the board. [...]

[...] But this does you no good at this stage of the game and so you are in the peculiar position, once more, of trying to dissect the inner world with camouflage tools.

(At the board, we said good night. [...]

For some time I have given you much advice, many suggestions, knowing full well that some would go by the board. [...]

[...] It is a game you play with yourself. [...]

He was unused to setting himself up against his own spontaneity so strongly, yet when you did show signs of drawing the line, say, at fear of spontaneous sessions fairly early in the game, he felt on the one hand relieved, and on the other angry at giving up this new prerogative.

For our next few sessions I will work on our book, do a few chapters, and then if you prefer take some time out for reincarnational material, so that it does not go by the board.

[...] This is also good data, and refers to the surface characteristics of the illustration board upon which the job is executed. The board has a pleasing grainy texture typical of such material, and is far from smooth.

[...] The job involved teaching children various games, for the school or sports connection.

Very soon after that initial revelation, Jane and I began the actual sessions when we sat with a Ouija board on December 2, 1963. [...] Yet the board had played its part. One can even say that Jane’s basic intuitive knowledge of idea construction led us to use the board in the first place.

We’d borrowed the board from our landlord, James Spaziani, who hadn’t had any success using it with his family. He was to later just give us the board. [...]

Jane had read about the Ouija board and expressed casual interest in it, but hadn’t tried to obtain one; nor was there a local supplier. What conscious and unconscious communications, we were to wonder, had led her to mention the board to Jimmy? [...]

In fact, he had to dig the board out of his cluttered attic to give to us. [...] We didn’t even have to order a board!

[...] He sits now (at 10:09) at a table like a card table, I believe alone, with a game of some sort before him, or at least with a board such as a checkerboard. (Pause.)

3. In Chapter 3 of The Seth Material Jane describes our use of the Ouija board in the early sessions. In the 8th session for December 15, 1963, she began dictating portions of each session; by the 14th session, she was delivering verbally all of Seth’s material except for an opening remark or two obtained through the board. A month after that we dispensed with the board entirely.

(I’ll begin our chronology by reminding the reader that Note 6 for Session 711 contains a description of how, through the Ouija board, Seth announced himself by that name in the 4th session for December 8. [Note 6 also includes his reasoning about names, as given a decade later.]

As for another advancement made, besides dispensing with the material [Ouija] board, Ruburt has achieved a state in which he can receive inner data from me more readily. [...]

[...] He seems to be in awe, relatively speaking, of your simplified “perfectionist” detailed ways, while to a certain extent you seem to be equally awed by his inspired, undetailed ways — a game each of you plays.