“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(After supper Jane began to show signs of going into an altered state of consciousness. She started talking about her “silky” skin, and the luxurious feeling of her sweater against her back. She’d had similar feelings preceding the last session, too, although to a lesser degree; see the appropriate notes. Now, her already acute hearing began to magnify sounds — the rustle of cellophane as she opened a pack of cigarettes, the quality of my voice as I talked to our cat, Willy, the noise of my handling the newspaper. “But words are such poor things to describe the effects,” she said more than once. “They’re too trite….”

(Her situation reminded me of several transcendent states she’d achieved during the last year, so I suggested she go along with it. Jane said she preferred to hold the session. She went into the living room to read, and found the magazine she picked up “heavier” than it should be. Gradually her perception of the beauty in ordinary things became considerably heightened. She’d planned to turn her easy chair around so that she could look out at the street lights, but instead she found herself admiring the bookcase that the chair already faced. By now her voice had acquired a hard-to-define richer quality, joyous but subdued.

(For a while she just sat there, exclaiming over her surroundings. Willy, our cat, jumped up into her lap. He became especially beautiful, Jane told me; when she stroked him his fur felt marvelously smooth and alive. On inspiration, she simultaneously stroked the air beside Willy with her other hand — and found that sensation to be almost as rich.

(We had a snack, then Jane moved to her rocker. While we waited for Seth to come through she stared wonderingly about the room, her eyes much darker than usual. “Everything looks so great: you, the room, Willy, but I think I can have a session. I want to….” Late in the session, Seth commented upon her state of expanded awareness.)

(10:17. Jane’s trance had been very deep. She hadn’t heard the sporadic sounds of flood-repair work being done downstairs.

(Her very pleasant altered state continued at break, as though she had rejoined it. “It’s a real richness of sense data. Everything’s got such a fantastic unity….” Jane explained that the motion of my hand as I wrote was related to the sounds of automobiles passing the house; the rhythmic noises of her rocker were sensually connected to the feel of her slacks beneath her hand; when she ran a finger down a fold in them “amplified long sound” was produced. She was especially loose from the waist up when she got to her feet.

(During break we heard an elderly downstairs tenant, Margaret, call her cat, Susy. Jane said this reminded her of a fish; she had the hilarious image of Margaret’s gulping mouth sending her calls out in physical ripples through the air, to envelop Susy and draw her home.

(Jane thought she was experiencing the results of her own work with bridge beliefs, since receiving the material in advance, so I asked her if Seth would say something about her personal reactions for this chapter. “All right. I’m waiting now,” she said, and closed her eyes. Resume at 10:43.)

(11:37. Jane had been far out, she said, but she’d known Seth had been talking about her. During break her “ecstasy feelings” — she didn’t know what else to call them — continued. They surged through her. She was acutely conscious of the sensations of her clothing against her skin. “My body’s so alive that I almost can’t stand it at times —”

(The sound of a passing automobile leaped up her legs, through her body and down to her fingertips. Water running somewhere in the house filled her with a great thrilling. Jane, wanting to continue the session, made strong efforts to quiet her reactions. She lit a cigarette, sat in her rocker, and closed her eyes. Resume at 11:55.)

(12:02 a.m. “Those feelings even came up a couple of times while Seth was talking,” Jane said. And her richly sensual responses continued. The feel of the bedsheets against her body was “almost too much” for an hour or so after the session. Traces of the experience lingered into the next day.

(A note added later: For some related material about the flexibility of Jane’s perceptions, see our extensive notes for the 653rd session in Chapter Thirteen, as well as those for the already mentioned 639th session.)