“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane’s hand began to change its general proportions. Slowly, with Seth’s monologue in our ears, the hand came to resemble a pawlike shape. I had the eerie feeling of an animal’s forepaw. Jane’s fingers, normally long and graceful, had shrunken to stubby appendages, or so it appeared. The glow suffused the palm, eliminating the shadows normally to be seen there, so that it did not seem the fingers were merely folded over.

(Jane’s hand slowly regained its normal shape. She still sat with it turned palm up. Now Seth extended himself. The fingers began to elongate noticeably, and to whiten. Then, a second set of fingers began to rise up, over Jane’s own fingers. Now, it would have been easy enough for Jane to bend her own fingers up into this position. But here the three of us saw now a second set of five fingers rising up, long and white. And moreover, this set of fingers had the fingernails on top. The nails were to be easily seen. Had they been Jane’s own fingers, the nails would have been on the undersides, and invisible.)

(Jane’s hand returned to the table and resumed again its pawlike shape. “Now,” Seth said to me, “very carefully, reach out and touch the hand. I want you to carefully touch it so that you will see what it is like.” I touched my fingertips to Jane’s palm. The hand, pawlike, clublike, felt very cold to me, wet and clammy, and the skin had a bumpy feeling that I was not used to in Jane’s hand.

(I would estimate that a good hour was taken up by the above proceedings. Usually the changes in shape and color took place quite slowly. Our interest was of course intense the whole time. We did exactly as Seth told us to; often, for instance, I wanted to reach out and grasp Jane’s hand while it was in metamorphosis, but I did not touch it until Seth said to. During the whole time, Jane-Seth spoke constantly. The dialogue, while unmistakably Seth, had the added fillips of an almost macabre wit and a biting sarcasm. Often Seth remarked upon our rather childish desire for demonstrations; yet when I asked him if he would rather we refrained from such requests in the future, he said he understood the desire, that it was natural, and that if he felt like it he would comply.

(“Now the three of you see your reflections in the mirror, just as you should… Now watch closely, for I am going to change Jane’s image in the mirror, I am going to replace it with another. Watch the shape of the head. Closely now, for this is very difficult…”

(We could see our reflections clearly enough, even though dimly. As Jane continued to talk, her image did slowly begin to change in the mirror. Her head began to drop lower between Bill and I. At the same time, the shape of the skull changed, the hair grew shorter and fit around it much more closely. The shoulders of the image in the mirror hunched over, and grew narrower. And then the head tilted and looked down, while Jane stared straight ahead into the mirror.

(Jane was quite tired. It was after 10:00 PM. Bill Macdonnel was more impressed with the hand phenomena than the mirror demonstration. To Bill, while he thought he sensed a change in the shape of Jane’s head in the mirror, there was little else to be seen. He did not sense an aura, for example, or receive any impression of an alien countenance.