“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session was unscheduled. Jane had received a letter from her publisher today. We had been talking about Seth, also. Alone in the kitchen after supper, she wondered about a “little” session tonight, and received this:)

I cannot afford to give you any predictions at this time for fear that you would unconsciously distort them, and then it would seem that I was to blame.

(While she was in my studio telling me this, she received more:)

(I laughed. But Jane asked me to get pen and paper, so the session got under way in our living room. For the first time we did not use the Ouija board. The curtains were open, it was still light out, we could hear people talking downstairs and in the hall outside our door. Nothing seemed to interfere. During the session we observed no voice phenomena to speak of. There was a moderate darkening of Jane’s eyes.)

However your unbounded enthusiasm this evening made me hesitate to disappoint you. It’s so nice to be wanted. I don’t mean to be sarcastic, it really is. Though I certainly appreciate your interpretation, Joseph, as far as my comment on the lively arts is concerned, nevertheless though I enjoyed Jane’s little performance that is not what I was referring to. Incidentally, I rarely attend your little apartment unless in one way or another you ask me to, and tonight you were yelling my name from the rooftops, so to speak.

(Earlier this evening we had discussed whether I was really necessary to the sessions. I had wondered why Jane, rather than dictating to me, could not just sit down and write out the messages from Seth.)

This is but a brief session. I do not intend to keep you very long, but I am pleased with the letter from Ace; and Jane is right, you have them hooked. And why not? My name was in the book. In any case the two of you are needed, as I mentioned earlier. For one thing we three have much in common. More in fact than you know thus far.

I was not trying to reach Ruburt in her sleep. Even I am not so bold as that. A woman’s slumber is after all a private and sacred thing. See how prim that last sentence would sound if it were merely written down without the lively, slightly sardonic inflection which I manage to give to Ruburt’s voice?

In any case however, her inner senses were indeed wide open. She forgot to close them before she went to bed. The material was coming through from her own entity. I had kept you up, as it was, long enough.

This is just a short private little session. I have never completely trusted the written word half as much as I trust the spoken word, and on your plane it is difficult to trust either. But I do not feel that I could be myself as easily if you tried automatic writing, for example. I do not mind speaking through Ruburt’s mouth. Somehow the sound of the words is rather pleasant. But seeing myself transformed more or less into plain black and white words on a page of paper seems dull and uninteresting. And I have always enjoyed conversation, which is the liveliest of all arts. And I am speaking now of the social arts, dear Joseph. Already I can see you yelling foul. I did not mean that conversation was on an equal par with painting.

(“I was thinking of trying to express myself in a different way, with a different medium.”)

(“I know I could try for a likeness in a drawing, of course. I was just wondering about doing the same thing in a different way.”)

Your experience yesterday Joseph was an exercise of the inner senses, and one that you should try for again and again.

I will have much to say about Ruburt’s family, whether he likes it or not. I did meet with Ruburt’s grandfather, who said that his favorite granddaughter last time was a good kiddo.

(“You’re a good kiddo,” was the ultimate compliment that Jane’s very reticent grandfather could pay her. He died in March, 1948, when Jane was 19.)

(Here, I was trying to lead Seth on.)

It was not safe to play around with Ruburt in such a manner ever, because when you weren’t looking he would be just as liable to hit you over the head with a rock for something you had said ten years ago, and completely forgotten. Not really a rock, but you know what I mean. Some things about a personality never change.

Incidentally, you called me when you were sick last year, though you probably don’t realize it consciously, and Ruburt was calling help like crazy. When he gets panicky does he ever get panicky! He guards you like a mother hen, you egghead.