“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It was a weekend that we had company. The friends present had no idea we were involved in any psychic work, and the subject never came up in our conversation. (No one knew what we were up to, for that matter, except for one close friend. We hadn’t even told our families.) In the middle of that innocuous evening, Rob suddenly had three experiences that were quite startling at the time and rather frightening. Here is an account from his own notes:

On the evening of Saturday, February 8, 1964, I had three separate and very strange sensations. We had company. I had just finished my first small glass of wine when a wave of ‘feeling’ swept over me from foot to head. It was a magnified tingling, or thrilling, suffusing the whole body, flooding up my legs into the abdominal and chest cavities. I was left feeling as though I might be lifted up and swept away.

The first time, the sensation was not as strong as the next two times. When it first swept over me, I wondered if the wine could be responsible, though actually I had drunk little. I waited quietly, and in a moment or two the sensation was gone. I was balanced on the arm of our davenport, talking to our company. I had the odd feeling that the sensation was related both to the subject of conversation, and to some kind of message or communication I felt within me.

The next two sensations came later in the evening. The second same over me around 11:30 P.M. as we sat around the table eating. This sensation was so strong that I put down my sandwich and took off my glasses, because I literally didn’t know what might happen next. The wave of feeling washed over me very strongly this time. Although everyone about me was talking quite loudly, I had the weird sensation of voices within me, of mouths open or crying in soundless rhythm.

I also sensed, or felt, a great chute or trough or pathway of some kind that reached down into me from above me, or at least from outside of me. At this point, I definitely was apprehensive. The sensation in my chest was very strong. I even thought that perhaps I was having some sort of physical attack, though I felt no pain.

Looking back now, the next morning, I think the possibility crossed my mind that some psychic effects were being felt, but, actually, I was so startled that I didn’t think much of anything.

Later, after our company left, the sensation came back yet again as I stood in the kitchen talking to Jane. Even then, I was not quickwitted enough to capitalize on it, perhaps by asking myself questions. I was too involved in the feeling to be that objective on such short notice. Now, the next day, the memory still lingers. What was it? Maybe Seth will know.

While writing out this statement, I’m reminded that I experienced a milder version of the same sensation last month, while I was working at my part-time job in the art department of a local greeting card company. I was alone in the art room, eating lunch at my desk, when the feeling swept over me. There was no warning or pain, but the surprise doubled me over my desk. I was frightened, thinking it might be some kind of an attack then, but it passed quickly and did not return.

I didn’t tell Jane about this at the time, but in a recent session, Seth referred to it and said that I’d been calling — psychically — for help because my back had been bothering me then badly. Also when I had these experiences last night, I wasn’t feeling my best. I wonder now … had I again called for help? Was this an attempt at an answer?

The next night, Rob and I purchased a tape recorder, hoping that we might be able to lighten his work load. We didn’t get back from the shopping center until nearly 8:30 and then we began fussing with the recorder. As was usual in those days, I began to get the jitters as 9:00 P.M. approached; we finally decided not to use the recorder that night but to wait until the next session and give ourselves time to become acquainted with the gadget.

This last was given with rich mock humor. Seth went on to explain that great dimension would be given to the sessions as we progressed. He began to go into the inner senses more thoroughly and Rob really pricked up his ears, hoping that Seth would mention his three recent experiences. Were they the results of his fumbling attempts to use the inner senses?

It was invented by the ego to protect the ego, because of the mistaken conception of dual existence; that is, because man felt that a predictable, conscious self did the thinking and manipulating, and an unpredictable self did the breathing and dreaming. He set up boundaries to protect the ‘predictable’ self from the ‘unpredictable’ self and ended up by cutting the whole self in half.

Originally, psychological time allowed man to live in the inner and outer worlds with relative ease … and man felt much closer to his environment. In prehistoric times, mankind evolved the ego to help him deal with camouflage patterns that he had, himself, created. This is no contradiction, as will be explained later. He did the job so well that even when he had things well under control, he was not satisfied. He developed at a lopsided level. The inner senses led him into a reality he could not manipulate as easily as he could physical camouflage, and he feared what he thought of as a loss of mastery.

Here, we took a break. “If Seth doesn’t mention my experiences, I’m going to interrupt and ask him,” Rob said. He was still having back trouble, and now a spasm seized him so that he grimaced. Suddenly, Seth said,

The circumstances at your end were right for something like this to occur. It was like a sudden opening of a door. You didn’t know how to open it further, and if I may say so, you didn’t know how to close it. Yet, you would not have consciously admitted the experience not too long ago, as something like it happened at an earlier date and you forgot it consciously.

The first time this happened, you were calling for help. Like many others, you feared the inner world so strongly, even though you were somewhat acquainted with it through your art, that nothing but panic would force you to try that invisible knob. This time, there was a remembrance of panic but that was all. Actually you opened the door out of desire, stimulated by our sessions and out of curiosity, but you were still frightened.

For this reason, you attempted a rather hilarious feat. You tried to switch over and pick up inside data with the outer senses, and then project this inward. For a beginner, it was quite a performance. … It was a defect on the receiving end that caused fear on your part. You felt sound. But, because you did not hear sound with your ears, you panicked and formed the image of mouths that could not speak. This was a projection of your inability and should not be taken as any condition of helplessness existing in the inner world, as I am afraid you interpreted the image.

Your feeling of a door or funnel is quite legitimate, however, and if you felt attacked because of the onrush of data that seemed to crash down upon you, it was only because of your inability to control the volume, so to speak. You switched yourself off automatically because the experience frightened you, but the whole affair was beneficial since it gave you some first-hand experience with pure inner sensory data. It was unfortunate that it was so uncontrolled, but I’m afraid this can often be expected in the beginning. If possible, try to relax if the experience happens again, and the data will slow itself up.

From its framework you will see that clock time is as dreamlike as you once thought inner time was. You will discover that ‘inner time’ is as much a reality as you once considered outer time to be. In other words, peeping inwards and outwards at the same ‘time’ you will find that all divisions are illusion and all time is one time. …

By now, the sessions were running from seventeen to twenty typed, double-spaced pages and they lasted anywhere from two and a half to three hours. Only one experiment using the tape recorder showed us that our usual procedure was the best one. Rob really had a great time, though, for the twenty-fifth session he didn’t have to take notes while we tried out the recorder. Seth also spoke much faster. He congratulated us on our “twenty-fifth anniversary,” and said jokingly, You will be much older by the time I am through with you. Most of the session was a discussion of ordinary subjective states emphasizing the fact that these could not be pinpointed in a laboratory or understood simply by the use of the ordinary scientific method. Yet, they are vital elements in our lives.

The next day, though, Rob found himself “paying” for his freedom from notes. The session lasted three hours. But he discovered that it took him much longer than this to transcribe the tape, since he had to start and stop the recorder so often. It was much easier and quicker to work from his own handwritten notes.

At around 9:15 P.M. I was in the living room talking to Jane about her ESP book. She had been interviewing people in the apartment house about their experiences. I got up to look out the window, to try my mental experiment of traveling across the bridge again. I wanted to feel myself doing it as before.

As I looked out, that strange sensation came again. It began in the left leg and left arm and then spread to my chest and head. The sensation then localized somewhat in back of my ears. It was like an internal tingling or thrilling — a rich, suffusing feeling. Seth called it ‘feeling sound’ in a recent session.

Through all of these early sessions, Rob was not feeling well. He is in such good health now that it’s difficult to remember how badly he felt. The session notes show his condition quite clearly, though. Often Seth would give us a break so Rob could rest. Frequently he took notes on the old TV set, standing up, and sometimes he sat in the new rocker.

Our twenty-sixth session, due Monday, February 17, was not held for two reasons. This is the second time we have missed a session since they started in December. The first time we missed one was during the holidays. This time the reason was far different.

I hadn’t felt well. My back was acting up, work was difficult, and by suppertime, I was drained. I did not really feel like taking fifteen to twenty pages of dictation from Seth; I was concerned lest I miss some of the material.

Also, after supper, it developed that Miss Cunningham, the retired school teacher in the front apartment, suffered an attack of some sort and was in urgent need of help. Another neighbor and tenant, Don Jacobs, called us. Jane went to see what was wrong and found that Miss C had fallen on the floor, was suffering from severe lapses of memory and was in very poor condition. She had evidently taken several falls earlier that day, and had not been eating.

There followed a very confusing and, to me, upsetting several hours during which Jane and Don tried to make arrangements with Miss C’s doctor, relatives and a hospital. The relatives refused to help, seemingly out of fear of Miss C herself, who had always been quite independent with them. In the meantime, Miss C was hysterical, pulling at her hair and so forth. Miss C’s family (nieces and nephews) finally said they would take the patient to the emergency room at the hospital; her doctor told Jane he would be waiting for her there. In the meantime, the relatives changed their minds; the doctor was furious and left. Jane finally contacted another doctor who arrived at midnight and authorized Miss C’s hospitalization.

As the regular hour for our session came and went, Jane began to get ‘nibbles’ from Seth. At the same time, I felt worse. I had not been helping Jane and felt guilty about it and was angry at Miss C’s relatives. Once I had such a severe attack of back cramps that I couldn’t stand.

Coming in and out of Miss Cunningham’s apartment, Jane would tell me the snatches of thought she received from Seth. I was in no condition to cooperate, so Jane wrote the words down. Several comments were directed to me, and one, in particular, was quite illuminating. ‘You want to help but fear to move. If you had helped tonight, you would not have felt the need to turn your emotions inward against yourself in such a self-destructive manner.’”

Once Jane said to me, ‘Boy, you were some help.’ And later she was mentally taken to task for the remark by Seth.

The next night Mark Ragen, a friend, dropped by. We were somewhat tired, but glad to see him. For the first time, I felt that Seth was “around” while we were socially engaged. My feelings were confused. I thought sardonically, “A guest from another layer of reality is one thing, but do you really want your friends to meet him?” Finally my nervousness was so apparent that Rob asked me what was wrong. For a moment I just sat there. Should I introduce Seth to Mark or not? I remember thinking that no book of etiquette even written could give me an answer.