“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“After lunch yesterday with a mild sense of horseplay, Rob had put a piece of fresh paper in my typewriter. Just title it Chapter 1 and start in on a new project,’ he’d said. He went back to his studio and I closed my eyes trying to visualize my [psychic] library;⁹ nothing, I tried again and just as suddenly I saw a woman seated opposite me [at] the living room table.”

Neither of us knew how such a tremor and slowdown might influence the sessions, for example: Jane hadn’t spoken for Seth in several weeks, so we had yet to find out! I took comfort in remembering her excellent vocal power when delivering the private session for December 3.¹² Her voice is a powerful and dramatic connective among realities for her, charged with energy and emotion whether she’s speaking for herself, for Seth, or speaking or singing in her trance language, Sumari.¹³ That vocal steadiness and power, coming out of someone whose weight hovers around 100 pounds, has always been most reassuring to us. We tried what Seth had suggested many times: After discussing her voice effects we gave Jane gentle suggestions that they could be greatly minimized, then turned our attention away from them. Actually, I hoped that our almost childlike trust—which I felt was closely related to at least some of the psychological elements involved in her acceptance of the voice challenges to begin with—would make possible their complete disappearance.

Jane listened to me go on and on: “I’m on the point again—very close—of refusing to help you with the sessions any longer. I know I’ve said that before, but this time I don’t know what else to do. If we don’t see some pretty drastic improvements within the next few sessions, you may end up talking to the wall if you want to have one, or into a recorder if you can operate it. I can’t stop you from speaking for Seth by yourself, or doing it with someone else, but I can refuse to encourage you myself.

(10:28. Sitting very quietly on the couch, Jane took another long pause. Her eyes were closed. Then she began to gently snore: She was asleep, of course. After my first surprise I debated over whether to call her. Finally, as I began to put away my notebook, she came back to her Seth consciousness with a start:)

“I will bring the session to a close, then. I have ranged within it on several occasions this evening, to see what other glimmerings might have immediately come to my attention, and I wish you as always a fond good evening.”

As I did for the opening notes for the session, I’m summarizing the closing notes. Jane remembered sleeping, but nothing that might have taken place during that time. We understood how she could drift into sleep from her trance state—if she was tired, say, or deeply dissociated—but in spite of my questions she had no idea of why she “woke up” in trance instead of in her usual awake state of consciousness. She’d even resumed speaking for Seth. She dozed again while I put away my notebook and fed the cats. I helped her get into her chair from the couch.

(Long pause at 9:03.) “You do not have to worry in an overly strained way about putting the new principles of life into practical experience at once. You do not need to worry or deride yourselves for stupidity if it appears (very long pause, eyes closed), looking over the long annals of work that we have done together, that it should have been obvious that our ideas were leading in certain directions—for not only have I been trying to divest you of official ideas, but to prepare you for the acceptance of a new version of reality: a version that could be described in many fashions. It has been during the annals of history, but many of those fashions also indisputably, and with the best of intentions, managed to give a faulty picture: You ended up with your gods and demons, unwieldy methods and cults, and often with the intellect downgraded. I hope, of course, that our ‘model’ avoids many of those pitfalls.