“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Seth made this session very brief, since Jane and I were quite tired by the time it began. We had changed our schedule, and our earlier hour of rising has made itself felt by session time. We did not really feel like holding a session, but tried anyhow because we did not want to break the routine.

What I am actually giving you this evening is an outline for our next session, since you are not up to par this evening. Now, the strange sensation experienced by Ruburt just before this session was a taste of our seventh inner sense, but only a small portion. It represents enlargement or an opening up and extension. This operates in two directions. The purpose of the enlargement or extension I will discuss at the next session. It is of course an enlargement or extension of the self, and a widening of the boundaries of the self, and therefore of even conscious comprehension.

I have said little about these tissue capsules. However they will also be held for the next session. I do not want our sessions ever to become a chore. However I do prefer that their regularity be maintained and I am perfectly agreeable now and then to making them briefer, due to circumstances. You will find that in these few pages I have given you some new ideas. It is possible that we can make up for any lost time on your part in the future, with a few brief sessions when you are in tiptop shape.

I will end the session now, and you cannot say that I am unsympathetic in any way. I am not necessarily disturbed, either, at the brief session. Your limitations are far greater than mine. Sleep tight, but again I do look forward to our sessions, and dislike saying good-bye so soon.

It might be interesting to note that with the rather generous average of 3 hours per session, for 43 sessions, the material in this book was collected in about 129 hours. (This includes a few sessions other than the Seth material.) There are 168 hours in a week.

Unless otherwise indicated in the early sessions, the pointer gave yes and no answers by moving to the appropriate word printed on the board, rather than by spelling out the answer letter by letter. Also in the first few sessions the pointer very often indicated the word yes between each word of the message being received. [...] Everything else, misspellings included, is presented just as received, and is taken from my handwritten transcripts of the actual sessions.

From the very beginning we kept detailed notes of the sessions, even when we were writing down strings of meaningless letters. Early in November/63 we had several sessions in which we received only gibberish, and rather lost interest. [...] And from that session on the material began to flow.

This rather cumbersome method was greatly simplified as soon as Jane began to dictate the bulk of the sessions. For a time we needed the board to open and close the sessions, but now we do not require it at all. [...]

(In this session Seth spoke of my past life and attributed my current patterns of life to the lessons learned by my previous existences. Of immediately provable fact is that during the session Jane [Ruburt] spoke with a deeper voice than usual, she had a definite Boston accent on certain words. Prior to the start of the session I had, in conversation, asked Robbie [Joseph] a question involving his point of continuous existence versus evolution. [...] This happened so frequently that towards the end of the session, when I would think of a question I would have immediate confidence that it would be subsequently answered.

(This session was not expected on our part, and took place without the use of the Ouija board. Since Seth had stated that unscheduled sessions would be the exception, Jane and I were waiting for the regularly scheduled session of tomorrow, Wednesday.

[...] It will be remembered that during the 21st session Seth had wanted John to stay as a witness. [...] John offered to leave, but I said aloud that we’d rather wait for our regular session time.

[...] She insisted that I get pen and paper, that we have a session now with John as a witness. So the session began. [...]

[...] These 510 sessions, then, are exact copies from the verbatim transcripts I made in my homemade shorthand while Jane spoke for Seth; I added notes and comments while typing the material after each session. Over half a dozen years we filed the typed sessions in 44 three-ring binders. The sessions in one of the volumes published by Rick are accompanied by my drawings of the objects used in the series of “envelope tests” we conducted, both for ourselves and long-range with a well-known scientist, over some 11 months.

[...] Also, even though I’d been so intimately involved with the Seth material from the very beginning, for example, I didn’t fully comprehend the volume of just the session material that we’d accumulated over a total of 21 years. Let alone the bulk of Jane’s other work: her poetry, novels both published and unpublished, her other published books, an unfinished autobiography, the records of her ESP class sessions, her journals and paintings, her singing in musical trance language, Sumari, her never-ending correspondence. [...] Rick’s publication of The Early Sessions, then, is a very important advance in the marvelous journey of discovery that, I think, each one of us is inevitably involved in, that each one of us has chosen to create, in whatever way and for whatever purposes.

I’m tremendously pleased that Rick Stack, the proprietor of New Awareness Network Inc., is publishing the eight-to-ten-volume set of The Early Sessions. These books consist of the first 510 “sessions” that my wife, Jane Roberts, delivered for that well-known “energy personality essence”, Seth, after she began speaking in a trance or dissociated state in December 1963. [...]

I asked Rick to correct spelling, to delete the few notes I inserted in succeeding years, and to keep the presentation of the sessions uniform in the use of roman and italic types, punctuation, parentheses and brackets, dashes and hyphens, and so forth. [...]

We will also all improve so that you should actually find your energies refreshed at the end of a session, though we have not reached that level at this time. The mere fact that the sessions continue, and have continued despite ordinary fluctuations of daily life, is proof of the validity of the sessions.

The reason that direct inner experience is often cut off and rarely sustained is that the ego almost immediately clamps down to examine the phenomena; and, Joseph, the bulk of the sessions is somewhat shorter for two reasons. [...] I have given you some shorter sessions, though not many, because of your own changed schedule, and because I work through your energies, your combined energies, in a way that I have yet to explain.

[...] Jane yawned and remarked that if she could be out until the end of the session she would be quite happy. [...] I also felt the sessions were threatened, though I did not say so, but Jane instantly sensed my mood. [...]

[...] This time, napping before the session, she awoke wondering about the time; she saw the veil of light again, but not the clock and could not determine the time.

[...] Bill is a schoolteacher in his mid-twenties, and one of our friends who has known about these sessions from the beginning. [...] He has quite often expressed a desire to witness a session. In past sessions Seth has given Bill the name of his entity, Mark, and answered for Bill several questions that we relayed. [...]

(Now, Jane’s voice, which had been stronger than normal through the whole session, began to take on added timber; that is it began to grow deeper more than it increased in volume. [...] Already her voice had changed more than it had in any session except the 14th. [...]

All in all a splendid session. I’ve been attempting to get the point across about your father’s example now for three sessions, and finally Ruburt let me make it.

(This afternoon at 2 PM a very large tree limb fell just outside our living room windows, where I type up these sessions.

[...] of the session she had deliberately “held off” any dissociation, being quite upset by the psychiatrist’s letter. [...] However, the phenomena did not return for the balance of the session. And since she exhibited no voice changes this need not be mentioned for the balance of the session. [...]

(This was our second consecutive session without the board, though I had it out simply to use as a handy writing board on my lap. [...] We thought that we would let the session open itself, however it might. [...]

(Throughout this session Jane maintained the same deliberate, normal tone of voice; also, her rate of pacing was quite deliberate and much slower than the previous few sessions. [...]

We will have our regular session Wednesday. [...] Or I will end up using half of each session to hush you. [...]

Your intellect is a good one but we need more than your intellect in these sessions. You become intellectually involved when you read the material directly before sessions, and it could hamper the session itself. I leave your intellectual writing life alone, though you are free to use what you have learned, so kindly keep your sometimes meddling intellect out of the sessions themselves. [...]

(Tonight our first formal witness, Bill Macdonnel, was to attend a full session. [...] Jane lay down for a rest, and gave herself positive suggestions concerning the session. [...]

[...] She didn’t hear it clearly within as she ordinarily would if it was a message from Seth before a session was to begin. Her own thought was that it indicated Bill’s arrival sometime after the session had begun.

[...] Jane was not beginning the session, either. [...] Throughout the session her voice was a bit stronger than normal, her pace rather slow, her eyes dark as usual.)

I may make this a short session, since Ruburt is somewhat indisposed, and after all I am not that much of a taskmaster. But if I do make it a brief session, then I will have you exercise your abilities with the ESP cards until the ordinary ending of the session. [...]

And now I am going to give you an unheard of bonus, and close the session a trifle earlier, since Ruburt has been indisposed, and yet did not refuse to hold the session. [...]

[...] In fact, after the session she felt better than before it began.

[...] The session should be quiet. [...]

(This session was unscheduled. [...] Alone in the kitchen after supper, she wondered about a “little” session tonight, and received this:)

[...] But Jane asked me to get pen and paper, so the session got under way in our living room. [...] During the session we observed no voice phenomena to speak of. [...]

[...] I’m amazed…” I could see that even after an hour Jane had tired somewhat, so I said good night to Seth aloud and ended the session. Jane had shown no voice or hand phenomena, nor had she any feeling of nervousness before the session began.

I am not necessarily in favor of sessions outside a regular schedule, for reasons having to do with your natures rather than mine.

Usually in these sessions only one inner sense is in strong operation, but as I mentioned in our last session, man does not trust anything which occurs to him or in him unless he is consciously aware of what he is doing, how he is doing it, and why. It bothers Ruburt, as he has said in my hearing, that often-times just before we begin our session formally he does not have a thought in his head. [...]

At another time we will have sessions dealing with evolution, and in these sessions we will cover the advent of clock time and its many ramifications. [...]

[...] The sessions had been very beneficial, giving me several days of freedom from pain after each session.)

[...] Then we began to sit quietly in preparation for the session. [...]

[...] But at lunch she told me she wouldn’t be surprised if we had a short session this evening. [...]

[...] Throughout the brief session her voice was normal and her pace slow. [...]

[...] This is not to be considered a regular session. [...]

[...] This short session would not even be necessary except that I was not sure if you would consider the suggestion as legitimate if I did not give it in a normal manner, or should I say a formal manner.

[...] Jane was resting briefly in preparation for tonight’s session, as she usually does. [...] Leonard is a school teacher and knows of our interest in ESP, but not about these sessions. [...]

(“You said it in a session some time ago. I happened to remember it because I was retyping the session. [...]

[...] At 8:30 she had no idea of what Seth would talk about for the session, but she was increasingly aware of a feeling that Seth wanted her to ask Leonard in as a witness. [...]

[...] The optimistic remarks had come through the Ouija board in the first two or three sessions; none of them had materialized, and in the light of Seth’s recent material on distortions Jane and I had thought distortion the reason for this failure.)

[...] But for quite a while it will not involve missing sessions but shortening them. [...] I had intended giving you a week off after your first thirty sessions. [...]

If your prefer we will end the session. [...] And may I congratulate you in a backhanded fashion for having a full session this evening. [...]

[...] No sooner had the session ended than I noticed that my hands felt “fat.” [...] I found myself rubbing my hands together, subjectively aware of a swollen feeling in them as we talked after the session. [...]

[...] Jane was so enthusiastic over this idea that she forgot to be nervous before the session began.

[...] I would like to ask Seth about it, at this evening’s session, this being a Monday.

(My back was beginning to bother me this morning, at around 11:00, so I sat in my chair, in the studio, and closing my eyes began to use the induction technique that Jane had used on me in our previous sessions. [...]

[...] I kept my eyes closed from the start, but midway in the session felt that I could not have opened them, at least very easily [re Jane’s suggestions when she is putting me under].

(Our 26th session, due Monday, February 17, 1964, was not held for two reasons.

[...] “I like to keep busy right up to the session,” she said, “especially when I don’t know what he’s going to talk about.” Pouring me a glass of wine just before the session was due, she said she could feel Seth “buzzing around.”

(Jane began to dictate in a voice a little stronger than usual, and more or less maintained it until the end of the session. [...] Her delivery was also quite slow and deliberate through most of the session.)

[...] It had been a very peaceful session. Jane also said she was not now as tired as when the session began. [...]

[...] Yet Willy spent at least five minutes making a careful survey of the studio; he remained in a very jumpy mood until just before the session began.

I do not know if Ruburt is less nervous before a session when you do not use the board, or more nervous. After so many sessions I would think that he would be reassured.

One of these nights Ruburt will get his because I will alternate a few sessions of regular material with a few sessions having to do with his present family.

(Again this session took place without the board. [...]

(Jane’s voice during delivery tonight was a little stronger than usual throughout the session. [...]

(After the success of last night’s session, during which Jane manifested some startling phenomena with her left hand and arm, we were naturally curious to learn what Seth would have to say about it during a regular session with the board. We decided to try for another unscheduled session, rather than wait until next Monday, January 6, as we would have done ordinarily. [...]

[...] This certainly must hint at some conscious control, Joseph, and should make you feel more confident about our sessions, not less. I am hardly worried that your critical sense will dim in this or other sessions. [...]

(“Well, I hadn’t planned on that kind of session. [...]

Your brother was born on the 22nd of April, I believe in 1671 (I wrote 1871 in an earlier session. [...]

[...] Jane said that at times she is still afraid she’ll give contradictory information involving past sessions—wrong dates, etc. [...] I don’t want to get all mixed up; so I hardly ever read the material between sessions.”

[...] We talked about having witnesses to these sessions occasionally. We also discussed my idea, mentioned some days ago, that in the beginning of these sessions we [...]

[...] In any case I believe we will close tonight’s session. [...] However I do not feel it would be a good idea so late in the session. [...]

[...] When this session began I had the drawing propped up on the bookcase so Jane could see it easily as she paced back and forth.

(By 8:45 Jane had the jitters as usual before a scheduled session. [...] not nervous, since the session was unscheduled.

(We had been speculating about spending our immediately-past lives in Boston, since Seth had hinted at this in the last session. We opened the session by sitting silently at the board, but Jane began to receive Seth even as the pointer spelled out his greeting. [...]

[...] I suggest a brief break, and may I say that I am unusually pleased with tonight’s session, and with Ruburt’s performance, since this material is coming to you without any distortion whatsoever, as far as I can tell. This is indeed our best session to date.

(Through this session her voice had been normal. [...] She maintained it until the close of the session, along with her fast pacing. [...]