“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Our living room seemed twice as cozy that evening, with the warm lights and Willie sleeping on the rug. But I said to Rob, “Look, Miss Cunningham was as rational and bright as either of us not too long ago. What happened? How do we know it won’t happen to us?” And the comfortable room suddenly seemed a facade. In years to come, where would we be? What difference could it make that we ever sat in this room, or had sessions, or moved furniture, or stroked the cat? So I didn’t feel like going into a trance.

Actually we didn’t get up to see her for some time. In the thirty-third session, March 9, Seth told us that April 15 would be a critical date for Miss Cunningham, but that is all he said.

On April 23, I met Miss Cunningham’s niece in the hall and asked about her condition. “Oh, didn’t you know?” she said. “We had to take her to a nursing home. She became so violent that the hospital called and told us we’d have to move her. She upset the whole floor, ran screaming up and down the halls, threw dishes at the nurses and was completely irrational.”

For a moment I didn’t know what to say. It was almost impossible to imagine Miss Cunningham indulging in such behavior. Then I remembered the date given by Seth, so I asked as casually as I could, “When did all this happen?”

I blinked my eyes. Did I have amnesia? Had I actually walked here under my own power and forgotten? It didn’t occur to me then that I was having an out-of-body experience. For one thing, Seth had only mentioned them briefly; and for another, everything was so real that I took it for granted that I was in my body and as physical as anything else was.

He looked right through me, taking no notice of me at all. Since we were acquaintances, I was indignant. “Sam,” I said again, but he walked briskly past. I looked at him fully in the face, running ahead of him, ready to confront him with “What’s the matter with you?” But, instead, I realized that he didn’t see me. He never saw me at all.

Now I was really frightened. Was I a ghost? The warm sunlight was everywhere on the lawns, and the shadows were real. There was no doubt that this was the physical world. Then why didn’t I show up in it? Suddenly I remembered the jolt I’d felt at the base of my neck … had I had an attack of some sort? Maybe I was delirious? But I was thinking rationally.

In the meantime, the doctor got into his car and drove away. I stood there, yelling at him and wondering how I would get home. Then suddenly I thought: “Could I be out of my body?” But how, since I didn’t remember leaving it? Quickly I looked at the house. The street number wasn’t visible, and I was in the middle of the block, away from street signs. At that moment, I felt another sharp jolt at the back of my neck and instantly found myself back in my bedroom, fully alert and awake.

He was envious. I was triumphant. This time, I didn’t have to wait for him to report what I’d done while I was in a Seth trance. I’d been myself. “And I know it wasn’t a hallucination,” I said. “I was completely alert, and the whole thing brings up so many questions … and ideas for experiments.”

“Well, I know I was out of my body. That’s what counts as far as I’m concerned,” I said. “In that ‘Idea Construction’ thing I didn’t seem to have a body — I seemed to just be my consciousness. So I never made any connection at first between the two experiences. …

We had no idea then that I would be involved in still more startling episodes with Miss Cunningham, but I grinned, looking out the window. I’d been on my first real “field trip.” I didn’t have to take everything Seth said on faith alone. The psychological time exercises suddenly took on greater significance. I was ready now to really use the inner senses. And almost immediately after this, Seth began his discussions on the nature of dream reality and the methods that would let us explore it for ourselves. If I could leave my body and go out into the physical world, then I didn’t see why I couldn’t leave it and explore the inner one.