“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Malba insisted that she was the same girl I saw die in Levonshire, England, in my earlier trance, except that her death had taken place when she was fourteen, not seventeen as I had reported. She told Rob that our work with Seth was a lifetime project, that we would publish his manuscripts, and help spread his ideas. She also informed Rob that I could contact the deceased for their living relatives if I wanted to, emphasizing that a good deal of trial and error would be involved as both of us learned to use our psychic abilities.

“I know, but I didn’t particularly want to speak for someone else. I wanted something that I could observe, too. When I’m in trance … well, that’s it.”

If you remember what you know of the trance state — in a light trance, you are able to maintain awareness of self, your environment and your place in it. You simply behave somewhat differently, not bestirring yourself in any direction unless the suggestion to do so has been given. The awareness of plant life lies along these lines.

Now, in a deep trance the subject, though fully aware of what is happening in the trance, may remember nothing of it afterward. The awareness of plant life is also somewhat like that of the subject in deep trance. Except for the suggestion and stimulus received by regular natural forces on your plane, the plant life does not bestir itself in other directions. But like the trance subject, our plant is aware. Its other abilities lie unused for the time, and latent, but they are present.

The material on trees fascinated me, though. Vegetation was not just alive, but aware. And yet, in a strange way, the world was also in a trance. The session inspired the following poem that I wrote a few days later.

Deep is the sleep
Of the moss and the pebble.
Long is the trance
Of the grass and the meadow.
Footfalls come and footfalls pass,
But no sounds can break
That green-eyed trance.