“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The sessions had begun on December 2,1963. This was still only the middle of January of 1964. We were trying other experiments on our own, some like the example given earlier, some entirely different. Mornings, I worked on my book. Afternoons were spent at the gallery. If it wasn’t a session night, after dinner and an hour’s poetry, we tried other experiments. Rob spent a good deal of time typing the sessions, as he still does. He couldn’t do much more without cutting down on his own painting hours, so I often did experiments on my own while he was in the studio.

One episode in particular is funny in retrospect — looking back it was certainly undisciplined — but at least it was not overshadowed by superstitious fears about demons; and it led to the episode with which I will close the first portion of this book. The event was a deep trance experience into which I blundered. A second experience convinced me of the high validity of dream existence, for in it a dream was split open while I watched.

I laughed and said, “Well, there’s nothing to crystal-gazing. All I saw was what you could expect — lights and reflections and things. I guess you can’t win them all, as they say,” and I plunked myself down in our wooden rocker. In the next moment, a fascinating series of events occurred that were to culminate in the third dream-state experience mentioned earlier in this book. I’m going to quote the notes I wrote the following day. In this way, our attitude towards the events at the time becomes obvious.

Rob asked me to read the small print on the inside of a match cover and a few lines from a book — all held out much farther than I could usually read — and I was able to do this quickly and without effort. My sight was much better than it is normally.