“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Yet, at nine o’clock, as always, I “clicked out” and Seth began to speak. Immediately he began to discuss Miss Cunningham, and my dream.

It was Miss Cunningham’s discovery that she needed operations on both eyes that caused this deeper decision. When Ruburt learned about the projected operations, he leapt to the conclusion that this was the meaning of the dream. Subconsciously, however, he knew that far more was involved. Part of the subconscious fantasy in the dream was valid, representing a watered-down version of the actual communication — for example, Miss Cunningham’s dark apparel.

She did not remember him … as she taught his children. He admired her very much as his children, one in particular, found her an excellent teacher. Frank Withers considered her a friend, attaching more importance than she did to her influence upon his children. But beyond this, Miss Cunningham’s present personality has been gently disentangling itself from this plane of reality — and she simply did not remember him.

All kinds of questions came into Rob’s mind. When Seth paused for a moment, he asked, “You said once that the shock of birth was worse than the shock of death. Why?”

“Will she be … fully materialized on another plane before she dies in this one?” Rob asked. It was difficult for him to ask questions and take notes at the same time, but if possible, he wanted the questions answered before he forgot them.

The idiot cries.
The tears slosh inside his boots.
The people say he’s bats
Because he weeps
When the police shoot down the starlings
Aiming at the tall-eyed trees.

The idiot swears
That the birds are holy.
He shouts as the starlings drop
And the police chuckle good-naturedly
“Stop. The spirits are displeased.
Look how the bare branches rustle.”

“Do unto others, I tell you.”
He wanted to say more
But they carted him off.
The good people laughed.
On the ground was a puddle
Of the idiot’s tears.

One man bent to wash his hands in it
And saw
The skin peel off like dirt,
But the lawn was full
With the falling corpses of the birds,
And when he cried out, no one heard.

He kept emphasizing the inner senses. In the next session, the thirty-first, on March 2, 1964, he said,

Joseph was correct when he spoke of entities creating stages upon which to act out their problems. The point is that once the play begins, the actors are so completely engrossed in their roles that they forget that they themselves wrote the play, constructed the sets or are even acting.

Rob was all ready to ask, “Well, how come you’re letting us in on the secret?” But he never had a chance to ask the question.

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.

Then the screen door opened. Dr. Levine, Miss Cunningham’s doctor, came out on the porch. He stood talking for a moment with a woman who remained inside. I thought: “I might as well ask him about Miss Cunningham anyway, regardless of what’s going on.” So I waited; in a moment, the doctor came down the steps. I walked over to him and said, “Hi Sam. Could I talk to you for a minute?”

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.

All kinds of thoughts flooded to my mind. Consciousness was independent of the body — Seth was right — and if that was true, then there was no reason why he couldn’t be what he said he was: an independent personality, out of the flesh. But why hadn’t I caught on sooner? And why hadn’t I run up to see if the house mailbox had a name on it? I couldn’t wait till Rob came home so I could tell him what happened.

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.”

“You should call Sam and ask him where he was when you saw him,” Rob said.

Yet, as badly as I wanted to check this out, I just couldn’t bring myself to call Dr. Levine. “He’ll think I was out of my mind instead of out of my body,” I said. “And what excuse could I use? If I knew what the street was, I could at least say, ‘I thought I saw you on such-and-such a street.’ “