“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At about 6:30 p.m. Jane was reading a magazine article, and came across the word specious. She found herself reading the word as spacious; then the phrase “spacious present” came to mind. She did not feel Seth about, yet thought the phrase significant for some reason.

(At 8:10 our cat Willy behaved in a most peculiar fashion. I was working in the middle room of our apartment; my studio is thus on my left, the living room on my right. Willy was sleeping in the closet. All was quiet when suddenly Willy burst out of the closet in a mad scramble, his nails sliding on the bare floor. His ears were back, his hackles up. Looking back into the empty studio, he raced into the living room, jumped up on a bookcase beneath a window and hid behind a curtain.

(Jane was reading in the living room, and Willy startled her. Both of us then watched him begin to very cautiously stalk back through the apartment toward the studio. Of course none of us saw anything. The studio was dark. Yet Willy spent at least five minutes making a careful survey of the studio; he remained in a very jumpy mood until just before the session began.

(At 8:45 Jane said she was not very ambitious. She was a little nervous. “I like to keep busy right up to the session,” she said, “especially when I don’t know what he’s going to talk about.” Pouring me a glass of wine just before the session was due, she said she could feel Seth “buzzing around.”

(Jane began to dictate in a voice a little stronger than usual, and more or less maintained it until the end of the session. Her eyes darkened and her pace was slow. Her delivery was also quite slow and deliberate through most of the session.)

It was not in the nature of a surprise to me, although I did find your reactions amusing. I was in your back room, minding my own business or yours, looking out the large window at the rainy night, and of course your cat discovered me almost at once.

It was not my presence alone which so startled him. I was not completely reassembled for your plane, however, and he prickled at the unusual chemical fields that were noticeable to him because they were not yet stable. I did not purposely set out to frighten your pussy.

I was about your establishment earlier, and Ruburt was right. There was a purpose in his misreading. Actually, subconsciously he picked up my thoughts on this occasion. He picked them up a few minutes earlier but his mind waited for a suitable occasion to transpose the word spacious in connection with the present. The spacious present is an excellent term. In actuality there is only a spacious present, so spacious that it cannot be explored all at once in your terms, hence your arbitrary division of it into larger rooms of past, present and future.

(The article Jane was reading is The Uncompleted Man, by Loren Eiseley, in Harper’s for March 1964.)

(Break at 9:26. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her delivery was very deliberate and quite slow. Willy lay sleeping now on the divan. Jane said she thought Seth would say something to the effect that on this plane we use ideas for protection from a true reality that might be too much for us to handle. Her voice was normal when she resumed at 9:32.)

(Break at 10:00. Jane was dissociated as usual. She also felt somewhat tired, as did I. But we were more used to our new schedule than we had been last week at this time. Resume at 10:06.)

(Break at 10:28. Jane was dissociated as usual. The small amount of material obtained between breaks resulted from the very measured and deliberate manner of Jane’s delivery. It was as slow as any I recall, and yet paradoxically the time seemed to go as fast as ever. Resume at 10:36.)

(Break at 11:00. Jane was dissociated as usual. She resumed dictation in a normal voice at 11:03.)

(End at 11:13. Jane was dissociated as usual. It had been a very peaceful session. Jane also said she was not now as tired as when the session began. And Willy slept through it all, on the divan.)