“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today Jane received an answer to her letter of March 11/64 to the American Society for Psychical Research. A scientist there wondered if Seth could describe him or one of his associates. Jane and I both felt that Seth would not comply, at least at this time. We based this opinion on material already received.

(Jane felt so “unalert” tonight that first she took a nap after supper, then went for a walk at 8:15. By 8:45 she said she had no idea of Seth’s material for tonight, and that this made her nervous. I thought she acted well, though she said she was tired. In fact, after the session she felt better than before it began.

(Break at 9:27. Jane was only moderately dissociated. She still felt tired, she said, but at least no worse. When she began dictating again her voice was a little louder. She kept up her rather fast pacing. Resume at 9:31.)

(Break at 10:01. Jane said she was more dissociated this time. She also felt better. However I had to ask her to repeat several phrases, and thought she was tired. I felt somewhat that way also; indeed, we have often wondered whether I too am in a light trance while Seth is around. At times I have been aware of a feeling very similar to the pleasant, easygoing state I first became acquainted with when Jane hypnotized me.

(Break at 10:27. Jane was dissociated as usual. She said that she now felt much better but that it was up to her, she could end the session whenever she wanted to. Seth’s reference to open windows came because Jane had opened a window during last break when the room got stuffy from cigarette smoke. Resume at 10:35.)

(End at 11:00. Jane was dissociated as usual. She said that by now she felt much better than when she began the session, and that ordinarily she would have felt worse, considering all the walking she had been doing, etc.)

(At 8:45 I walked into the living room to call Jane. She lay quietly on the couch, eyes closed, but in a few minutes told me she was awake. She also told me she had been visited by a most strange sensation; and from her description of it I felt sure it must be an exploration of the inner senses, similar to the one I experience occasionally, which Seth has called the feeling of sound. I thought Jane’s description most remarkable.

(Jane told me that upon slowly coming awake from her nap, and while she was listening to me move about the living room setting up the desk and my pad, etc., for the session, she had the most peculiar feeling of “growing larger.” The first laughing phrase she used was that she felt as though she was as big as an elephant.

(The feeling was predominant in her head and arms, but was also slowly spreading into the lower parts of her body. It was as though, she said, her boundaries of awareness had expanded. It was not that she felt thickheaded, but as though the skull itself was literally expanding. Holding her hands out on either side of her head, she indicated a width to me of perhaps two and a half feet; she said her head felt, literally, that wide.

(When we close our eyes, Jane said, we are aware of a certain “area” of blackness, an area we are used to. Her area while in this state was much enlarged—she used the phrase infinitely large to describe it. She was not aware of too much happening within this area, she said, just that it existed. Had she known more about it, we felt she might have understood more that would be going on in this extended black area. She was not frightened by the sensation, and went along with it.

(Jane said it was as though her eyes had actually moved farther apart, to create this expanded, broadened field of awareness, of infinite black. When she opened her eyes she felt a light snapping sensation that was very gentle, and not audible. She did not have the sensation when her eyes were open; but she said the physical sensation of this experience was so strong there could be no doubt of it.

(She was not able to give me dates for either occasion. One was perhaps a few months ago, the other probably two or three years ago, she believes. Both were felt upon awakening, and while her eyes were closed. They hadn’t made such an impression on her either time, because although she had felt the expanding of the skull, she had experienced nothing like the strange infinite black within this expanded area.

(I would like to add here that I again experienced my own sensation on Sunday afternoon at about 1:45 PM. We had driven to Sayre to visit my parents. At the time I happened to be alone in the living room, reading the paper, when the familiar thrilling swept over me to a fairly strong degree. I felt the residues of it for some time afterward. Although I was alone, there was much noise in the house, for my brother and his family were also there and his children were quite noisy.)