“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session began without plan, and involved Jane, Bill Macdonnel and myself. It was the first one without the Ouija board. When it began, I for one had no thought that we would end up asking Seth for assistance, yet within an hour I found myself doing just this. I was quite reluctant to do so, since I felt it was better to continue with the board, and to accumulate a written record which might serve as a basis for other types of experiments at a later date.

(I now asked Jane to place the ring in the upturned palm of her left hand. Sitting on my left, she held my left hand with her right, and I joined hands with Bill on my right. Nothing happened as we stared at the ring. I began to ask questions aloud, at random, searching for a presence or a sign, but I did not direct them at Seth. I wanted to see if the questions would help Jane establish contact with another entity or a fragment. Since we seemed to be getting nowhere, Jane began to answer me aloud. Still it appeared that we would get no results.

(With considerable relish Seth described in detail each phenomena that followed—so that, as he said, there would be no doubt as to what took place. He began by telling us to watch Jane’s thumb. The tip of it began to glow. It seemed to be an internal suffusing of the flesh with a cold white light; there was no radiant effect, merely the changing color of the flesh itself.

(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.)

(Now, while Jane still sat with her left wrist pressed to the table, her hand, turning white in part again, rose several inches [perhaps three by my estimate] up from the table. My hands were held by Jane on my left and Bill on my right, but Bill passed his free right hand beneath Jane’s hand to see that it was actually rising and was not an illusion. [Was Jane’s elbow dropping, so the hand rose up? I do not know.] But laughing, Seth told us plainly that when we had attained more proficiency, he would materialize a fully independent hand for us. He explained that he drew on all three of us for the psychic energy necessary to do this.

(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.

(“That’s the astral body,” Seth said. “I cannot let you see the features of the image clearly. My control is not steady enough. It would be unrecognizable to you, and quite frightening. The image is that of another entity…”

(There was no doubt that we saw an image in the mirror that sat several inches lower than Jane herself sat, and that the mysterious head would dip down and then hang forward of the body. The strongest impression I had was of the change in proportion of the head, and the sensed or felt alien presence of a snoutlike creature confronting us.

(Jane and I agree on this account, but make no claims. We feel that some things did take place. We do not know whether one member hypnotized the other two, for example, and so influenced them. If so, this would be quite an accomplishment. We have not tried to hold another seance, partly because of time limitations, partly because of a fear of failure [we imagine], and partly because we want to learn more about such things from Seth before we try again.)