“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Seth did mention Rob’s vision in the next (thirteenth) session on January 6, 1964. We began this one with the Ouija board. Rob said, aloud: “Seth, can you tell me anything about the vision I had two nights ago?”

Here, we took our break. Rob always enjoyed Seth’s sense of humor, and he was still smiling at the last remark when I came out of trance. “He called me Joseph again,” he said.

“Serves you right,” I said, grinning. Seth referred to me as Ruburt and to Rob as Joseph, saying that these were our entity names. The entity is the whole self who experiences many reincarnations. I didn’t like either name too well, so we used to joke about them. We didn’t have time to say much, however, because Seth came back in about ten minutes. During the break, Rob had made a remark about solidified emotion, and Seth began by saying:

These mental enzymes, to go back to them, are solidified feeling, but not in the terms that you usually use … I have said that our imaginary wires that seem to permeate our model universe are alive; and now if you bear with me, I will say that they are mental enzymes or solidified feelings, always in motion, and yet permanent enough to form a more or less consistent framework. You could almost say that mental enzymes become the tentacles that form material — though I do not find that a very pretty phrase …

By now, we were both convinced that the human mind or consciousness had abilities and methods of perception far beyond those we had thought possible. If this was the case, then my consciousness possessed these potentials, and I was determined to discover their nature and extent. I never considered them supernormal, or rather, supernatural. On the other hand, it never occurred to me that there was any other way to study consciousness except by studying my own — a journey into subjectivity seemed, and still seems, as valid as a journey into objectivity.

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.

Rob asked me what was wrong. I answered that I felt odd and unlike myself. My body then was very light — weightless to me, anyway. I wasn’t conscious of any muscular weight or pressure at all. My arms and shoulders felt like water or air. Rob told me to get up. He was beginning to look worried. But I could hardly rise from the chair. He had to help me to the couch. I didn’t feel physical enough to move.

Rob made coffee for me. I didn’t believe I could lift the cup. When I finally did, my motions were extremely slow, as in a slow-motion motion picture. Rob made me drink two cups of coffee. He had me stand with my head out of the kitchen window in the cold night air, but nothing seemed to help. I just seemed to be in a weightless body in which I had little interest. By now I was rather frightened, yet I thought that I could snap out of it if I really exerted all of my will power — or knew how.

My senses were still very acute — vision … and hearing. We decided that since I wasn’t having much luck coming out of the trance, we might as well use it to do some experiments. Besides the handwriting, I tried the typewriter. This frightened me a bit further, since I couldn’t exert enough pressure to use the keys. All this time I felt completely weightless, unable to function in the physical world. Because my motions were so strange, Rob had the impression that my limbs were heavy. To me they were as light as air. I felt completely relaxed and still my senses were sharp and clear as never before. I was able to talk to Rob without difficulty, also. When Rob felt my hand, it was wet and floppy, and my body seemed to have no physical resistance at all.

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.

While experimenting, we found that I could make a rapid decisive motion if I exerted great mental force. Rob asked me to lift a coffee cup with a normal gesture. (Earlier, he had held the cup while I sipped the coffee.) I concentrated as hard as I could on what he wanted me to do — which seemed hilarious to me, and an impossible task — and then really made a supreme physical effort. As a result, my hand jerked up high, suddenly, and then just as suddenly swung back, banging the cup back on the counter.

Applied suggestion by Rob would have snapped me out of this state easily, but we didn’t know that at the time. As it was, the condition lasted about three hours, ending only when we went to bed, past midnight. By then I was no longer frightened but merely curious and trying with one part of my consciousness to find out what the other part was up to — and how it went about its business. Finally, I fell asleep, expecting nothing but exhausted slumber for the rest of the night.

The next thing I knew, I was dreaming that two men stood by the bed, talking to me. They wore ordinary clothing, slacks and sports jackets. Just then a loud noise awakened me. I sprang to a sitting position, instantly alert.

I was too amazed to speak. Seth had barely begun any discussion of the dream-state realities and I was at a complete loss. Both men were smiling as they stared at me. Obviously, they weren’t intruders in the usual sense, and they were not at all threatening. Their presence was a complete impossibility, yet I couldn’t deny the evidence of my senses.

Finally, I just pulled the bedcovers up to my chin and sat there, staring back at them. The next moment, they began to disappear before my startled eyes, from the outside edges as if the air was consuming them. If their appearance surprised me, this bit-by-bit disappearance was even more startling.

As they vanished, I felt the strangest sense of loss. I ‘knew’ that the men were as real as I was, and that I had glimpsed some other dimension of reality quite as valid as the one I knew. Through all of this, I hadn’t thought to disturb Rob, who was sleeping soundly beside me. My attention was utterly focused on the events. Now, turning toward him, I remembered the noise that had awakened me. Hadn’t it awakened him? Had there ever been a noise?