“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I had a long series of projections in which I talked to Sean [Sue’s son] about his health in the physical environment, and suggest that he will find health easy to maintain. In the last projection, I found myself hovering over a long row of shopping-center-like stores. There was a large grocery store near me and a drugstore somewhere beyond. Suddenly the entire grocery store exploded into flames. I could clearly hear explosions in the building. The windows blew out and the color of the flames was fantastic.

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.

Just last week, in a five- to ten-minute period, Rob had an excellent out-of-body with very little distortion. His abilities have developed along the lines of psychic-vision, as explained in The Seth Material. His projections have been infrequent, and he never gained conscious awareness of any from the sleep state until this one. “How can I tell if I do have a legitimate projection from sleep? How will I know its not a dream or hallucination?” he used to ask. After this experience he told me that the subjective feeling is its own proof — and of course, it is.

The incident happened on a class night. Rob had been working in his studio and gone to bed around 11:00 P.M. He was vaguely aware of class leaving (at 12:30).

Before he went back to sleep, Rob told me what had happened. I was amazed, because I hadn’t been in bed over five minutes yet. I’d been waiting for his snoring to quiet down or hopefully, stop. When it didn’t, I asked him to turn over. The bathroom light had been off only ten minutes at the most and the bathroom door closed. Except for undressing, these were the last two things I did before going to bed. A humorous domestic quandary results. Now I’ll have to think twice before asking Rob to turn over if he’s snoring. I’ll be afraid of disturbing a projection.

In our next Seth session, the 583rd, April 21, 1971, Seth took out time from his book dictation to mention Rob’s experience.

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.

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.

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.

It is because of this instantaneous creation and projection of inner reality outward into form that you experience time within the physical system — to train you, to give you time to learn to handle your own creations. Projection experiments, then, should only be tried when you are in a peaceful state of mind, as Ruburt should know after his black creature experience [described in The Seth Material].