“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

All answers obtained through the Ouija board, and later through Jane’s dictation, are in caps. My questions are in regular type, my comments and descriptions are in parentheses. Occasional corrections the board made in mid-passage are also in parentheses, and can be skipped in the reading. The word “gratis” is used to denote places where, after a pause, the board delivered up further information without being asked to.

We borrowed the Ouija board from our landlord in the fall of 1963, when by chance he mentioned that he’d bought one but had never obtained any results with it. Jane and I tried the board a few times (sometimes with friends) and at first had no success. Then for a few sessions we received what seemed to be understandable information in the form of various names, initials, dates, places, etc. Nothing we could very easily verify, and some of it was contradictory. Nor could we ever contact the same “source” again.

Unless otherwise indicated in the early sessions, the pointer gave yes and no answers by moving to the appropriate word printed on the board, rather than by spelling out the answer letter by letter. Also in the first few sessions the pointer very often indicated the word yes between each word of the message being received. For ease in reading this word has been eliminated when so used, without changing in any way the content or intent of the material received. Everything else, misspellings included, is presented just as received, and is taken from my handwritten transcripts of the actual sessions.

[...] She said that receiving the material direct instead of through the board was much more exhausting. [...] The board, she states, is much too slow a medium to use at times; and even my writing, fast as it is, is sometimes too slow.

(We began as usual by sitting at the board.

[...] Until otherwise noted, the answers came through the board.)

[...] By now Jane was receiving the answers to so many of my questions in advance of the board, that with her agreement I began to take them down from her dictation. In these instances she felt too restless and impatient to merely sit quietly while the board spelled [...]

(Begun as usual, sitting at the board.

(Jane received not only the answer to this question before the board transmitted it, but the question itself before I had either voiced it aloud or written it down.

(We were a little more hopeful of obtaining results on the board after getting the few jumbled words on November 26/63. Jane and I sat facing each other with the board on our laps, hands on the pointer but asking no questions. [...]

(This answer was spelled out on the board, whereas the previous yes and no answers had been indicated by the pointer moving to the words printed on the board.

[...] The pointer hovered near the word Good-bye on the board. [...]

[...] We settled on the Ouija board first, because it seemed the least complicated of our various experiments. Our landlady found a board in the attic and we borrowed it. Actually both of us were a little embarrassed the first few times we tried the board. [...]

We were surprised that the board worked for us. I thought it was a riot, two adults watching the pointer go scurrying across the board, and we didn’t take it too seriously. [...]

[...] I felt as if I were standing, shivering, on the top of a high diving board, trying to make myself jump while all kinds of people were waiting impatiently behind me. [...] For the first time I began to speak for Seth, continuing the sentences the board had spelled out only a moment before.

(After the success of last night’s session, during which Jane manifested some startling phenomena with her left hand and arm, we were naturally curious to learn what Seth would have to say about it during a regular session with the board. [...] We sat at the board, as usual.

(Halfway through this answer, Jane laid the board aside, rose and began to dictate. [...] before doing this, she had begun speaking the answers aloud in advance of the board.

[...] After the rest, we sat again at the board, but almost immediately Jane laid the board aside, got up and resumed dictating. [...]

(Conducted as usual, with Jane and I sitting at the Ouija board.

(I got this far in my question about levitation when the board began to answer.)

(“Seth, in the future will it be possible for us to contact you without using the board?”)

(By this time, Jane was usually getting the answers to the questions mentally, before the board had time to spell them out. She did not trust this method, however, and insisted that we continue to receive the answers also through the board.

[...] Jane thought that in the previous session she had quite often received the answer to my questions mentally, before the board had a chance to spell them out. [...]

(This answer was both indicated on board and spelled out.

[...] He thinks that my book—this one (Personal Reality)—should be read before people begin to dabble with the board and so forth. (The Ouija board.)

There is a compassion, a jovial yet understanding one, that I can feel for such activities that is more difficult for you to experience, but in many cases the drama—the gods or devils who seem (underlined) to speak through the board, the sense of importance felt by the participators, the heightened emotional activity—all of these provide often, rich elements of experience otherwise lacking from a mundane daily existence.

[...] In a physical sense this board is a projection of wood or a tree, but in this case the board has less properties than the parent tree. The tree can grow, the board cannot. [...] The board however cannot learn to grow, even though you stick it in the earth.

(We sat silently at the board. [...]

[...] In a way, say, (Here Jane lay the board aside and stood up. [...]

[...] 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. [...]

(We haven’t used the Ouija board for perhaps two years. It will be recalled that the board helped these sessions get under way, in December 1963, but it was soon dispensed with when Jane began to speak the material. The pointer’s loss however was quite embarrassing because the board did not belong to us, but to our landlord, James Spaziani. [...]

(When we discovered the pointer was lost, I remarked to Jane that now Jimmy would probably want the board back. Two days later, Jimmy visited us and asked us if he could take the board back; he and his wife wanted to experiment with it. [...]

You have both been so consciously concerned with your Ouija board pointer that it is difficult for me now to get much information through. [...]

(It is, again, a Ouija board experiment Jane and I tried on Friday, July [...] We sat at the board to begin without asking questions. [...] The words yes and no, spelled out on the board, are here indicated in parentheses whenever the pointer moved to them.

(The board appeared to be dead, so I noted down that the session ended [...] Jane and I were in the mood to continue, so we thought we’d try a few stratagems to get the board working again. First I sat at the board alone to see if I could get anything. [...]

(Jane then tried the board alone; on it she had raised Thomas Voghler by herself, last week. [...] As a last resort we once again tried the board together; and almost immediately it began to respond. [...]

(To begin this evening’s session Jane and I sat at the board as usual, with our fingers touching the pointer. [...] Until otherwise noted all answers came through the board.

[...] As the board spelled out the answer, Jane began to hear it within, a bit in advance.)

Good night, but do touch hands to the board.

(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. [...]

(“Did you seek us out for contact by ordaining our interest in the board, or did we try the board on our own?”)

(During this session, Jane received the answers to many of the questions before the board spelled them out. [...]

(By the time the Pipers had asked their third question of the board, concerning the name of the communicant they had raised, Fred Lake, Jane had received this name mentally. She did not tell the Pipers, but she had the whole name in mind by the time the pointer had moved to the letter F. She was quite surprised, and has never had the experience before, although it has been some months since either of us watched others working the board—indeed, since the Seth material began to flow. [...]

[...] After the session, Jane and me showed them how to use the Ouija board, since they were curious.

(The board began to work for them immediately, where it had taken Jane and me quite a few sessions before we obtained anything at all through it. [...]

(Friday, June 26, sometime after supper, Jane felt like trying the Ouija board by herself. [...] The transcript ends where I interrupted it by walking out into the living room where Jane was using the board.

(As usual, Jane’s questions are in italics, the board’s answers in roman.)

[...] (Pointer moved to word yes printed on board.

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. [...]

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

[...] It was the first one without the Ouija board. [...] I was quite reluctant to do so, since I felt it was better to continue with the board, and to accumulate a written record which might serve as a basis for other types of experiments at a later date.

[...] Yet at the same time the continuity of the board sessions will not be broken by a mass of material other than derived from the board.