“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At 7:30 PM. Jane was resting briefly in preparation for tonight’s session, as she usually does. Idly she wondered how our neighbor across the hall, Leonard Yaudes, would be as a witness. Leonard is a school teacher and knows of our interest in ESP, but not about these sessions. Jane then received the following from Seth:)

(Jane believed she received more, but she was in a dreamy state and could recall nothing upon awakening. 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. We thought it too late to explain much to him by then, but by 8:35 the feeling was so strong that Jane knocked on Leonard’s door.

(It developed that Leonard, who previously had told us he would be home for the evening, had just heard from friends and was going out for beer; he was unavailable after all. But Jane felt immediately relieved just because she had followed her impulse.

(But Jane began talking just the same at a few moments after 9 PM, in a voice a bit stronger and deeper than normal.)

(Seth’s greeting surprised us both; I interrupted him, and Jane stopped pacing for a moment.)

(Once again, as soon as this subject came to my mind, Jane began to immediately deal with it. 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.)

(“Seth, is there any telepathy taking place between Jane and I?”)

(Break at 9:31. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her voice had been fairly strong at the start of the session, but it was tapering off by the time break arrived. She said she heard Seth’s good afternoon greeting just before she gave voice to it, and immediately became alarmed because she couldn’t determine what was going on. This is about the way I felt, also. Resume at 9:36.)

(Jane’s voice now was practically normal. During our sessions we no longer kept the curtains drawn. After each turn through the living room, Jane had been pausing to look out one of our windows at the rather busy intersection of Water and Walnut Streets, one house away. Now as she dictated she remained at the window looking out.)

(Break at 10:16. Jane was dissociated. Her voice had been only a little deeper than usual, and her delivery very deliberate. Both remained the same when she resumed dictation at 10:27.)

(Here a surprising thing happened. As soon as I voiced this thought, Jane stopped in her pacing and stared at me. Her eyes were very dark.)

(I had a peculiar feeling of something gone wrong. It was the first time in all our sessions that any problem like this had arisen. Jane continued to stare at me as she stood by the window.

(Jane paused in her delivery. I was tempted to say more, but did not because I found it difficult to take notes, and write and ask questions at the same time. I was afraid I’d lose track of the material. I was not satisfied, but said no more.)

(Break at 10:45. Jane was dissociated as usual. It developed that during the exchange with Seth Jane had thought I used the word fluid, instead of fluent. To me however the two words had the same implication in this instance.

(Hoping I could find the line in question in the few moments we had during break, I picked out Volume Two of our typed notes, and was lucky enough to find after a brief search the line in question. See page 107, of the 17th session. Jane sat down to read the passage over. She resumed dictating at 10:50.)

(Here Jane paused. Hands on hips, she stared at me in an undoubted humorous way.)

(“Jane mailed a letter today to the American Society for Psychical Research.”)

(Jane was in the same state of dissociation during each monologue. She said she was not aware of her surroundings, and yet she was. She said it was not frightening because she knew she could snap out of it any time she chose.)