“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:)

He was three times a woman.

(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.

(By 8:50 she was again nervous. She was also tired, as I was. When she said that the thought of talking and pacing for 2½ or 3 hours was somewhat appalling, I had to admit that I felt the same way about the physical labor of writing for that period of time.

And this is also an example of an instance where Ruburt would have blocked me, but this time he did not. My good afternoon instantly confused him since he was well aware of the time. He almost blocked me, changing this to the more ordinary good evening. But as you both can see I had my reason and Ruburt gave me the chance.

I have endeavored to avoid this sort of occurrence from happening. Ruburt has increased his abilities, or rather learned to handle them more competently since that time. He learns as he goes along, so that he will be able to recognize the actual feeling of such distortions and avoid them, as this evening he was able to feel his own attempt to block the initial portion of my greeting.

(“I just felt that it was taking place at times, very definitely.”)

(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.)

(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.

(“You said it in a session some time ago. I happened to remember it because I was retyping the session. Or did I get the word wrong?”)

(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.)

I was going to say that discipline is even more important in the use of the inner senses than you might think. It is true that focusing upon the inner reality at times requires a temporary lessening of outer focus, and this would sometimes give the appearance of letting go, but the inner concentration requires discipline and intent. It is quite possible to let the inner and the outer senses operate at the same time. It merely takes practice.

(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.)

—and this time we have no distortion but a simple mistake I believe in notes. I certainly did not say what I have just seen through Ruburt’s eyes. The error is in one word; not fluent but “inner.” The outer senses are not as fluent as the inner. For some reason the word was either mistaken or transposed, I do not know. The outer senses dealing with rigid camouflage patterns could not be as fluent as the inner senses.

You may have taken the word down wrong but your performance has certainly been excellent irregardless. I am certainly glad that this was caught.

(This was true. Recalling this statement as I had first recorded it, I had wondered about its accuracy more and more as Seth gave us additional information on the much wider abilities of the inner senses. Later, checking my original handwritten notes, I found that I had indeed taken the statement down that way, then typed it up that way. So, although we didn’t pinpoint the exact cause of the error, at least it has been corrected.)

(“Possibly. I was just wondering why a body of knowledge like this couldn’t have accumulated over the centuries, slowly.”)

They are watching these developments. Someone who was not a believer in any particular religion was needed. Actually more simply what was needed were personalities that were not fanatics along any line, including scientific fanatics who would object as much to the reincarnation data as forcibly as religious fanatics would object to some of the other material.

At the same time these personalities had to be disciplined and intuitive. These personality requirements are not easy to find; plus the fact that they had to be well balanced and intelligent, at least for my purposes. I did not want to just fill a vessel. Such was not my intention. I wanted a give and take between myself on one plane and you on another.

All religions are distortive. For that matter much of your science is distortive. Both arrive at approximations, at best, of reality. Religion has been the cause of much prejudice and cruelty, but the bomb over Hiroshima was not caused by the Catholic Saint Theresa showering down any roses. The distortions in science and religion have been truly disastrous. I will go into this upon another occasion.

There you go again. In one way I have been where I am going all the time. However it was a good try.

Your next-door neighbor may work out well. Ruburt’s personal feeling is important as far as any witnesses are concerned, and while I did suggest a witness to him tonight the choice of the witness was his. Your choice, Joseph, is of course important here, but someone antagonistic to Ruburt might bother him, which is why I left the choice to him.

I was attempting contact with Ruburt during his brief nap as an experiment and as a brief lesson.

(My remark above was based on a flash of intuition. Although Seth agreed with it he did not elaborate upon it, so the session ended at 11:35.

(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.)