“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

He said that he was here to take Carl and me on our second trip. He promised three some time ago, and we’d been on one. I turned and looked at Carl’s sleeping body. Then I shouted at him until he began to project, grabbed his astral arm and helped him to his feet. Seth stood smiling, then gestured and we followed him. He gave us a lecture that I swore to remember. When I came to, it was dawn. The lecture had been so real that I was certain I’d remember it. Of course I didn’t. From now on, I will hereby install a pen point in the end of my nose and sleep with my head on a writing table.

Physically, I was sleeping flat on my back with my hands down at my sides. My astral body was in the same approximate position, perhaps six inches above. The state and sensation were remarkably steady and pleasant. I felt fully awake, aware of what I was doing and quite free and weightless. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. At the time I remembered asking Jane in the past how you could distinguish between dream projection and dreams. The difference is obvious, when you have the experience at first hand.

I was particularly aware of my lower astral legs, hovering above the physical ones, and took great pleasure in wiggling them about, enjoying the marvelous sense of freedom and lightness they possessed. I knew my physical legs couldn’t move this freely, although they are in good condition. My astral legs felt rubbery, so loose and flexible! I could see that they were light-colored, translucent from the knees down — this without my sitting up in my astral form to see them.

I don’t know if I would have succeeded in getting further or not because now Jane said to me, ‘Hon, you’re snoring. Turn over.’ I heard her very clearly. … That ended it. I had no further success, although the pleasant aura surrounding the episode lingered. The whole time I felt that so much was possible with the state, that just beyond my ability at this moment lay wonderful accomplishments. … At no time did I see the astral cord.

In this case, I think that Rob projected to the studio, and hallucinated the rest of the events or performed them in the astral body. Had he been more critical at the time, he could have caused the hallucinations to disappear, continued with them or left the apartment.

Then I realized that I was in an excellent state for experimentation, fully alert and awake, and still in my body which was asleep. This time I decided to try and get up astrally, just walk around the room and observe the various stages of activity. I tried cautiously at first, afraid that I might rouse the physical muscles instead. The second time I succeeded, getting used to the fine distinction between moving the astral body up while leaving the physical one alone. This took quite a bit of concentration. I finally stood up, wobbly, and somewhat groggy with the effort.

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.

By now, I was standing with my back to my body, and I just ‘fell’ backward into it. I got out again fairly quickly, this time able to study the strange sensing involved in distinguishing between the astral self I wanted to sit up and the physical self I wanted to stay flat. I walked out to the center of the room which now was perfectly normal, but had difficulty walking and remembered that in my case, at least, this sometimes happens when I’m close to my body. I decided to go to Rob’s studio, where he was working, to see if I could make him observe me.

I was still walking very slowly, with my astral eyes slitted to cut down the focus of distractions. I closed them to deepen my trance and reached out for the bathroom doorknob. I felt it hard and round, perfectly normal in my astral hand. Then I paused in uncertainty; something didn’t seem right. What had I done wrong now? I opened my astral eyes fully and stared down at my hand. It circled a ‘knob’ of air. For just another moment I felt the hardness, the bulk of that knob. Then only air was there. Obviously, I’d hallucinated the doorknob. The door was still several feet away. Disappointed with myself, I returned to my body, determined to plan out a new course of action.

Between the first episode and the second, I was fully alert, awake in my astral body, but still connected with the physical one. In this state I experienced what I can only call ecstasy, involving the entire body. While the feeling was not localized, it certainly felt strongly sexual in nature, and when I left my body, there was a moment when this continued very intensely.

As I fell off to sleep I had been thinking of Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, New York. Suddenly, I became aware that I had begun a projection, but I wasn’t sure exactly how far the process had gone. I found myself seeing Congress Park very clearly, for example, yet I wasn’t there yet, and my head kept throbbing in a way that wasn’t physical — as if I heard rather than felt the throbs. This was accompanied by a buzzing noise and other loud sounds that I now accept as characteristic of certain kinds of projection. My head felt full of a white light. Everything in my astral visions was opaque white, instead of dark.

I found myself then in my astral body above my physical one, but in reversed position. My astral hand with its strange sensations and pulsing light was to the south, over my physical feet. For a few moments I kept fluctuating — back to the park then back to my room — with the white light pulsating very strongly. Finally I just wished myself into my body, experienced some difficulty, a brief instant of unconsciousness, and fell back in.

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.

Now I had trouble staying out of my body but found that by exhaling I could keep myself in the astral one. Once I went back in my body, got up and thought I did so physically and was in a normal state, but then I saw my body on the bed …

From the sleep state I project to Carl’s and shout at him until his astral body sits up. I try to get to Jane’s.

“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.

For your own purposes, an unfinished painting on your easel would help you project to the studio, for you would wish to study it. You have often done this, without remembering. It would be to your advantage if the two of you traveled together, however. You could help each other retain proper consciousness and purpose during projection. If Ruburt is projecting, he should try to rouse you astrally.

Now, there are ‘objective’ realities that exist within the astral system. There are more than your own thought forms, in other words. Your own thought-forms can be definite aids when you are in the proper mental condition, and they can impede your progress if you are not. For example, a man in a desperate frame of mind is more apt to emphasize the unpleasant aspects of the news and to see bitterness rather than the joy in the faces of those he meets. He will ignore a contented child playing on one side of the street and notice, instead, a dirty ragged child, even though he be further away. So your frame of mind when projecting will largely determine the kind of experiences you have.