“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(At 8:00 PM Jane and I both tried psychological time, before taking a brief nap. I experienced nothing that I could recall, but Jane received snatches of tinny music, as though it was being played on an old rickety piano.

(At 8:55, while Jane and I were discussing their visit and information, Bill Macdonnel arrived, to our surprise. He asked to be a witness and of course we agreed. It will be remembered that Bill had participated in the single seance the three of us have tried, on January 1, 1964; and was scheduled to be a witness to the 36th session, March 18, 1964, but couldn’t at the last moment.[See Volume One.]

(Bill barely had time to get his coat off and take a pencil and paper I offered him so that he could take his own notes, when the session began. As usual Jane was nervous before 9 PM. She began dictating in a fairly strong voice, and somewhat more rapidly. I had the feeling she was a bit nervous because of the witness. Her pacing was rather fast, her eyes darkened as usual.

(It might also be noted that Willy, our cat, jumped up on Jane’s lap a minute or two before the session began. Jane said it was the first time in all of the sessions that Willy had done so; evidently, if he sensed Seth’s presence, he was not perturbed.)

A note. The material was not distorted when Ruburt gave the April 15th date in connection with Miss Callahan, and the crisis of which I spoke. Her ego has given up the struggle. It realizes that it will not be liquidated. Moments of lucidity will flash and die away. She is basically satisfied now, realizing from direct experience of her own that death involves a transformation, and if there is an ending in your terms, then there is also a new beginning.

I certainly, most certainly, admire your interest and concern with Frank Watts. You always manage to bring him into a discussion. Frank Watts is aware now of Miss Callahan’s condition, and he will be there to greet her, to her surprise, since our Frank always considered himself a friend of hers, although she was scarcely aware of his existence.

That is, because he “saw” (in quotes) a partial apparition, this does not mean that the so-called apparition was in itself not whole, he only perceived part. His abilities are natively strong in this respect. What is needed is additional inner confidence, and even the development of inner discipline.

This one, that one, is one of your favorites, and one of Ruburt’s, and for that reason I myself do feel a warmth. I would suggest that Mark also exercise himself in the use of psychological time. He should progress fairly rapidly. His impulsive nature is actually somewhat more restrained in this life than it was in the previously past life. Nevertheless, one of the problems for the personality is still the need for a more disciplined ego.

Three lives ago, Mark was contained in a remarkably cruel and violent nature. He is now extremely kind to make up for past cruelties. In the immediately previous life he was a woman, living in your own west, midwest.

He was erratic. You might say that Mark was too erratic to be erotic. He at that time was fairly wealthy, and gave away much money in a subconscious attempt to make up for the aggressive and cruel male existence just previous. The choice in the past life of a woman’s personality represented a somewhat understandable weakness on his part, and yet it also represented bravery in a sense.

The impulsive and warm quality began with that midwest existence as a woman. Through the erratic nature of the woman’s personality he was actually able to be much kinder. A male’s personality at that point would have held too many temptations as far as overaggressiveness and cruelty were concerned.

His present mother was a wife to him when he was overly aggressive, and he chose to be born as her son in this existence in order to pay an old debt. He was unkind to her when she was a wife to him, and here we run into another case where the subconscious knows what it knows.

(Smiling broadly, her eyes very dark, Jane stared at me. She was highly amused.

Sometimes you read me correctly. Mark was one of your children in the existence of which I have spoken. One of Mark’s present brothers was a son of Mark’s when he was a woman in Iowa.

(Break at 9:39. Jane was fairly well dissociated. Bill had noticed that at times he would be quite aware of what Jane was going to say before she gave voice to it.

(When Jane began dictating again her voice was quite strong and somewhat deeper, but the phenomena did not last. Within a few paragraphs she was back to a rather normal, slow delivery. Resume at 9:45.)

You will be taken advantage of in many instances because you are afraid to act even in a self-protective manner, because in the past your actions resulted in violence. You feel an exceptionally strong sympathy for your mother, since you subconsciously remember your previous treatment of her when she was your wife.

You have more than compensated now for past errors, not only in this life but in the previous life. Your painting is almost a direct result of a desire for creativity, to balance what was once your destructive personality.

There is quite a fleshy story here, in which Mark was rather directly connected. There are few of your friends and acquaintances in this life with whom you were connected to any strong degree in past lives. Some acquaintances were in your circle in various lives, and merely happened to be born in a like situation to your own because of problems that more or less corresponded to your own.

Mark, however, was closely connected to you both, as was Rendalin, R-e-n-d-a-l-i-n, who is now your Ed Robbins, not of this city. Take your break, by all means.

(Break at 10:10. Jane was dissociated as usual. Bill said that in his observations of Jane as she was delivering the material, she walked with a heavier tread than she usually used; that she kept her hands in her pockets, which she usually does not do; and that her voice, while within her range, was quite a bit heavier and deeper than usual.

(Seth’s mention of Ed Robbins, who now lives in New Paltz, NY, struck me as rather strange. Ed and I became acquainted first by mail when we were both doing free-lance commercial art work. At the time, many years ago, we did not meet. Later, while I was living in my hometown of Sayre, PA, I received a phone call from Ed inviting me to work with him on a project in Saratoga Springs, NY. This time it was a syndicated comic strip. Indeed, Ed introduced me to Jane the day after I moved to Saratoga, where I lived for about a year in the mid-fifties. Within a year Jane and I were married. Then for some time we did not see Ed; the last time was during an overnight stopover in New Paltz, when Jane and I were on our way to York Beach, Maine, on vacation. It will be recalled that it was in the dance hall at York Beach that Jane and I saw the projected fragments of our own personalities, that Seth dealt with so extensively in the 9th session, of December 18, 1963. [See Volume One.]

I have said much along these lines in previous sessions, and Mark should refer to them. He was a sailor on a ship that carried exotic spices. The ship was mine.

You, Joseph, were the pudgy, hairy-chested and lecherous landowner, and the town was Triev. Your son was an artist, and certainly prances up and down now in the person of your Ruburt; and at the time you had no understanding nor use for art as any man’s profession; and let it be said that in this respect Ruburt treats you much better than you treated him.

Nevertheless, in a barn one October evening, a sailor came drunkenly tip-toeing from the fields, Mark being our tipsy sailor. He expected to find his fair damsel there in your son’s arms, and he was quite prepared, having a knife in his belt. He heard the girl’s nervous titter—

—she was a numbskull, hardly worth your notice, and he came rushing in, to find what? Not his contemporary, your son, but a barrel-chested, white-haired and lecherous, lustful old geezer—

You, Joseph, dropped your pretty parcel; this is for the record, so I shan’t note the position in which you had her so tenderly enfolded. There was no light in the barn. Our friend Mark let out a bellowing shriek. You thought the intruder was your son, since the girl was one of his mistresses. In a truly laughable attempt to elicit your son’s sympathy you literally wept in your beard.

The painting is in a room with three windows, in a large building. It was not stolen but misplaced. The reasons are many. One of the main reasons is one that has to do with Mark’s own personality and psychological makeup.

He was attracted to the painting, and subconsciously he resented giving into the impulse of giving the painting to his mother. As a subconscious punishment he allowed the painting to be lost through a series of small slips, errors and mistakes of his own, and others.

The painting has been in the same place since it was removed from a show. There is a room with three windows, connected to a larger room in a public-type building in which men work.

(Break at 11:01. Jane was dissociated as usual. The painting Seth referred to is one that Bill lost last summer, while or after it was being shown in a sidewalk art exhibit here in Elmira. Bill has looked for it many times, and finally enlisted the aid of the police, to no avail. I had mentioned the subject during last break, saying that perhaps Seth would discuss it.

(While Jane was delivering the material on Denmark and Triev, Bill said that he recalled quite vividly his experience with his “lost town” episode. This involves a time when Bill was 11 years old. Out walking in the fields and woods just north of Elmira, he came upon an old-fashioned-looking town. It was quite small; he remembers a blacksmith shop and a few other buildings, and people in odd clothing. A few weeks later, attempting to return to this strange place, he could not find it. He never has found it, although at odd times he has attempted to over the years. It made such an impression on him that he never forgot it. He is now 25, and a school teacher. He first told Jane and me about his experience a year or so ago.

I will upon another occasion go into his lost town, and some of his other experiences. It makes no difference how inner data is received. It can be as valid in a dream, or even more so, than in waking life. The lost town incident was extremely significant to him, and represented his subconscious projection of a memory from a past life upon the present.

The town was indeed Triev. However, he projected only that portion of the town with which he was at one time intimately concerned. His name was Grand Graley, G-r-a-n-d G-r-a-l-e-y.

Ruburt is over the seasonal problems, with which I was quite concerned. I will close the session after a few brief remarks.

(End at 11:26. Jane was dissociated as usual. Bill said that Seth stated something about him which he especially agrees with—the fact that he, Bill, is often taken advantage of. Bill said he has often wondered why this was so.

(The first vision floated into my mind as I lay in a very pleasant drowsy state, not thinking in particular of anything. It was in full color; and in spite of its clarity and duration, was gone before I fully realized what had happened.

(It was of a young girl in a type of flaring and belted, blue party dress. She had long yellow hair; her back was to me. She wore short white socks and shiny black patent-leather shoes with a single strap across the instep. And she was in the act of stomping down, repeatedly, upon a small white and brown dog, with her right foot. The dog lay on its back, legs up. It made no sound, nor did it appear to be hurt. The girl, about six years old, repeatedly brought her foot down upon the animal. Her arms lifted like wings, her hair was very pretty. The belt around her waist was about two inches wide.

(The nondescript little dog acted bewildered. I have a memory of it finally getting to its feet and scampering away, unhurt. Although this vision was gone before I realized what was happening, I felt that as far as its duration was concerned I had been somewhat successful in maintaining it; by comparison this one lasted much longer than any of my previous visions.

(While still in this drowsy state, without making a great effort I tried to let the sighting return. I was of course more alert by now, but I have the feeling that I did succeed, partially, in allowing it to return. That is, while I saw nothing definite, I have the feeling that it was right around the corner, just out of my range.

(The second vision came, I believe, soon after the first one. This time I saw within quite clearly a kind of framed screen with rounded corners, such as a TV screen. The vision was of a bald male head, off center on this screen to my right as I looked at it. The border of the screen cut off a portion of the head but I could see both eyes clearly. The rest of the screen, to my left, was empty, appearing to be a milky white blankness.

(This bald head just about filled the screen from top to bottom, although I was aware of a rather thin neck. I was not aware of any clothing. The man was in his later forties perhaps, or older. His head had roundness to it. There was something of an Oriental feeling about the features and the composition, though I do not believe the person was an Oriental.

(He was smiling straight at me, a very kind and compassionate smile. His expression was very sympathetic. His lips were wide, indenting deeply at the corners under the cheekbones. The most arresting feature was the eyes. They were sparkling bright, not widely opened, and yet were brimming with tears. There were no tears upon his cheeks. There were also tiny light, or white, crosses centered upon each pupil; these, coupled with the brimming tears and the smile, formed a most striking and unusual effect. The whole manner was compassionate and understanding and sad.

(The color was rather monochrome in this vision, almost an overall brownish gray upon the head. The features do not remind me of anyone I know, although there is a resemblance between them and a black and white ink- and-wash drawing I have for sale at the gallery where Jane is employed afternoons. I feel this drawing is one of my best, and have a rather secret hope that it does not sell, since I would like to keep it.