“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As we sat waiting for the session to begin at 9:20, Jane told me she’d just “picked up” the heading for Chapter Three of Seth’s book: “Telepathy and Belief Gathering” — or “Idea Gathering”; she wasn’t sure which. We’ll see how close she came. At 9:25 she said, “I’m getting ready to start now. I can tell….” She lit a cigarette and looked off to one side and down, her attention already turned inward as she prepared to psychically join a very familiar “energy personality essence,” as Seth calls himself.)

(Pause at 9:45, one of many. Now rock music began to blare out from one of the apartments below us. I felt the very floor vibrate, but Jane, in trance, didn’t seem to be bothered.)

(10:01. There were several developments during break, and I’ll try to discuss them in order before we get into Chapter Three. To begin with, Jane left her excellent trance easily, saying she had barely heard the music. It still boomed up from below us, but she wasn’t interested in that. Instead she talked about “feeling sort of funny,” without being able to elaborate.

(Willy was outside now, in a light rain that had begun a couple of hours ago. At supper time he’d actually seemed to feel that the inside of the house was forbidden territory, and had refused to come in. Now I went down the back stairs and called for him as I circled the house. No Willy. I met Jane in the front hall. Here the music was even louder, thundering out from the first floor apartment.

(Once we were back upstairs in our living room, the music led me to talk about peer groups involving young people. We like rock and often dance to it; it’s alive and vital. I also believe that Jane uses its energy when we hear it in the house during sessions. I commented upon the value many youths obviously placed upon conforming in their nonconformity. Jane described her own similar, intense concerns in high school and college. I had evidently chosen not to be much influenced by those factors, though; I’d always been something of a loner.

(I asked that Seth comment upon Willy’s behavior, if he cared to, after dictation. Then Jane said, “I knew I was feeling funny tonight. Now l get it. It’s like I’ve got three channels from Seth going at once….

(“Over here now,” Jane said, designating her upper left, “is Seth on what you were just saying about peer groups — how young people feel it’s so important to fit in with their own kind, and why. And why I felt that way, but you didn’t. Hey, I’ve even got a bunch of history about that, all ready to deliver — a lot of material on each idea…. I was really confused for a while, yet now I see that each thing’s separate, already prepared by Seth. You’re not going to get two sentences about one subject, then switch to another one….” Jane laughed. “Which channel do you want?”

(“I’m keeping my mouth shut,” I said, joking. “How about going back to the book?” I thought doing that would help her control the proliferation of channels until we could learn more about the development. The possibility had been indicated often: witness Seth’s ability to discuss a variety of subjects with the members of a group, even if they were strangers to Jane. The new step in her abilities would be her conscious awareness of the blocks of material already prepared and awaiting delivery. Jane promptly agreed to resume book work.

(“Each channel is as clear as a bell. There’s no static or bleed-through between them. There: Now I’ve just got another one”— Jane pointed to her lower left — “and it explains all of this.” She laughed again. “Just call me station J-A-N-E….”)

1. See Jane’s Introduction for material on the development of her Sumari abilities.

2. Jane learned on her own some time ago that a very moderate amount of alcohol goes well with the sessions. So does tobacco. Subsequent reading informed us that both substances depress the central nervous system. We think Jane combines the resulting spontaneity with her natural psychic abilities in these sessions. She doesn’t begin tasting any beverage, however, until the session is under way.

(Pause. Note the difference between Seth’s heading for this chapter and the one Jane gave before the session.)

(10:51. Jane’s delivery was very intent.)

(11:37. Again Jane had really been under. She didn’t remember the material, and was amazed that an hour had passed. I told her I’d taken the break because I was still worried about Willy.

(Jane said she believed that “Seth could do three books at once, a chapter at a time on each, and with no confusion among them. Right now I feel that this whole book’s just there, ready to be given for the writing down.” Her very active dream life had evidently included a lot of preparation for it, she added, but I didn’t ask her any questions that might open up more channels.

(“Not since the sessions started [in 1963] have I felt that Seth’s material was so richly available. I wasn’t able to be that open before this — I couldn’t accept a lot that was right there because it didn’t fit in with my beliefs.” Jane pointed to her left. “Hmmm. Now I could get stuff on archaeology, of all things. Wild….”

Willy was always the house cat, you see, and Jane stayed in the house all day, writing. So it is the house cat who changes habits, rather than Rooney (our other cat).

(End at 12:07 a.m. After coming out of trance Jane attempted to describe a manifestation which, though invisible, was “hovering before us now like a big oval type of thing.” It was made up of a group of energies that could represent a personality like Seth, she said, yet it was nameless. It was just there, and gave her no feeling particularly that it was going to be of assistance. Jane had trouble being precise about the effect and her feelings in connection with it, and I had difficulty translating her narrative into written words. I mention it here in case something develops. She’s had similar perceptions occasionally before.

(By now the members of ESP class are staying on top of each session for the book, implementing the material before the chapters are finished. So are Jane and I. It looks like all of us will grow as the book does.

(A note added a few days later: This session was held on Wednesday. We had guests the following Friday evening, and as Jane described the multiple-channel effects to them, she realized that she was tuning into some of Seth’s backlog of data about peer groups and the need to conform. Seth hadn’t actually given us the material during Wednesday’s session, nor did he now — instead Jane verbalized it on her own to some extent. The next morning I asked her to note down what she remembered of it.

(“Telling Rob and our friends about the channels that I became aware of in the last session,” Jane wrote, “I suddenly began drawing upon the one with the information about conformity and the need for individual expression.