“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

NOTE: On April 13 at 6:00 A.M., the huge K Mart at the Mattydale Shopping Center near Syracuse burned in a sudden fire. I saw this on TV when I awoke in the morning. The news film showed the food cans exploding — or rather, the newscaster explained this was what happened. The plate glass windows blew out, and all of this was in the news. I got up at 6:30 A.M. so I don’t know if the experience was a projection at the time of the fire or a clairvoyant viewing of it. A drugstore next to the market was undamaged.

As stated, I wasn’t at all frightened. I thought this was a fine time to do something, anything while I was at it — a visit someplace else, a trip down the street. … As I lay there, I tried to think of some experiment I’d particularly like to try.

All this time Jane was beside me in bed. I was also snoring. I could hear the snoring clearly and was amazed at the loudness of the sounds my body made. I heard the sounds in my physical head, I believe, just beneath me. Now I conceived the idea of using the sound of my snoring as an impetus to leave my body on the bed, while I went soaring off.

I arrived at this idea after several conscious and deliberate attempts to ‘get going’ once again and leave my body behind. No success. I just remained where I was, hovering. Trying to use my own sounds I began to snore even louder, if possible. I wanted to build up a massive sound-impetus that I would somehow use to propel me. All this time I enjoyed the feeling of floating above my body, but even more, of using my physical body to make noise with. This must imply a kind of dual consciousness here, since I was aware of both bodies.

Rob has had several spontaneous projections but none experimentally produced. The one Seth mentioned happened several years ago, in wintertime. We slept in the living room for the night because the back of the apartment was chilly. Rob had just gone to bed on the opened-up couch. I puttered about, in the same room, ready to join him. All the lights were on. He closed his eyes. The next instant he found himself fully awake and conscious in his studio.

(From his notes:) I was pounding some nails with a hammer, working on some frames. Actually, I’d been cutting masonite and gluing canvas on panels all day. I felt the hammer, saw the nails.

I lay down to experiment and fell asleep at once to have a confused experience, mixed with dream elements. I found myself getting out of my body with some difficulty, only I was someone else or in someone else’s body, a young woman student. I went running out of a house into a landscaped yard, sat down, left that body and went strolling through the yard. Other people were there, and I was jubilant because no one saw me. A young man stood by the steps. I finally said, ‘I’m out of my body. Can you see me? Can you?’ He said that he could, and didn’t seem at all impressed, so I went back into the other body again. I started to wake up and realized that some kind of a projection had been involved, though I wasn’t sure how much was contaminated by dream elements. I decided to let myself fall back into a doze to see what else developed and to monitor my consciousness.

I was having trouble getting away from the couch and walking properly. All through this, I was afraid that my body might not be as deeply asleep as I’d earlier supposed, but all of my consciousness was with me in my astral form. My vision wasn’t clear, though, and the room looked hazy. I shook my head to clear it and saw to my dismay that the entire living room wall was lying flat on the floor, face up, closed door and all. This told me at once that I was hallucinating and if I didn’t watch it, I could fall into a dreaming state. (If I’d just accepted the wall’s position as ‘one of those things,’ I would have lost my critical awareness.) I decided that it might be better to go back into my body and try over.

Sue, my other students, and myself are aware that creative, psychic and sexual energy are only various aspects of the same force. At times we may collect this energy sexually, then switch over, transforming the energy from one form to another. The sexual feelings accompany many dream projections and are entirely absent in others. Their presence at all, however, may easily give rise to interpretations based more on social taboos than anything else — and to sexual hallucinations that should be but are not always recognized as such.

I decided to continue the projection though I hadn’t faced these particular conditions before — being half in and half out of an environment. Instantly, I found myself walking along the park path, sometimes slightly above it. The night was foggy and dark, as it was in Elmira. My sight was operating perfectly, but it took a while before my hearing worked. (In good projections, all senses are super-perfect). I worked at getting clearer focus and really enjoyed walking down the park paths. I hadn’t been in that park for years and was consciously delighted. Now and then I paused to see if anything had changed. So far everything was the same.

All the while, I was very conscious of the white light that was beginning to bother me. It seemed to fill my entire head, growing more and more intense. A funny whooshing sound inside my head also distracted me and my head itself began to feel fantastically light. The more I tried to concentrate in my environment, the stronger these effects grew.

Ignoring the light, I willed myself to go to the house of the Linden family, across town. Instantly I found myself there on the porch. For a moment I wondered if I was in the right place, then I saw that the old side porch had been completely removed and another front porch added. Was this a distortion or hallucination? I willed all hallucinations to vanish, but everything remained the same. This usually means that the environment is a “real” location. It was dark, with no lights on in the house, and I decided to go inside.

It all started when I turned over to switch on the light next to the bed. It flashed a bright red color which I thought strange and unaccountable. I got up to go to the bathroom, but when I began to walk, I felt very dizzy. When I reached the door, I had the odd feeling that I’d left something behind me. When I looked back toward the body, I nearly flipped. I sure had left something — my body! Then I realized that I was in my astral form.

First I found myself in the studio and Rob was there. He came to bed with me, and we made love. I was surprised he was home, knowing it was Friday when he was out of his body also, and so was I. I told Rob and we discussed it, plus our amazement over out-of-body love-making. Then, laughing and curious, we walked out into the living room together, looking at everything. The room and the morning were all normal. We hugged and joked — the bodies we had certainly seemed real to us. Yet to others we’d be invisible.

This made me think of looking at my physical body. Rob’s, we knew, would be at work. I went into the bedroom, but the bed was as I left it, only empty. This really confused me. I called Rob. He couldn’t see my physical body either. “My body’s got to be in bed,” I said. “Why can’t we see it?” We discussed what had happened so far, but couldn’t solve the mystery. “Could it be that we’re really both physical after all?” I asked.

“No,” Rob said. “My physical body’s at the art department.” With that, he simply disappeared. I found myself back in the bedroom. I left the apartment and had two very long adventures in the astral condition, all clear and vivid, and recorded in my notes.

Denying energy to such a construction can be like pricking a balloon. … Then all attention must be taken from it, for it thrives upon attention.