“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Tuesday morning Jane visited Miss Callahan in the front apartment, as Seth had suggested last session. Miss Callahan’s condition appeared to be remarkably good, compared to what it had been when last we visited her in the hospital some weeks ago. Jane said she did appear to have trouble with a faulty memory, however.

(Just before the session began Jane happened to remark that Saturday, May 23, Miss Callahan’s companion will be replaced by another, who is to take care of her weekends. Neither of these two companions are professional nurses, though they are used to taking care of people with troubles like Miss Callahan’s. May 23 is the date Seth gave us as a day of crisis for Miss Callahan; and Seth reiterated this along with a word of caution in the last session, the 54th, page 90.

(This afternoon Jim Tennant, who was scheduled to be a witness tonight, called Jane at the gallery and told her he would be unable to attend the session because his wife is in the hospital.

(By 8:55 Jane was nervous as usual; she also had something of a kink in her neck, though to a minor degree. It was a pleasant spring evening, although traffic noise was loud through the open windows. Jane began dictating in a rather normal voice; she paced at a moderate speed and her eyes darkened as usual.)

(At my request, Jane repeated the word psychio-physical for me. Again, Webster’s Unabridged for 1951 lists no such combination. Along with extral value, used by Seth in the last session, this makes two such recent instances of unfamiliar words.)

(Break at 9:27. Jane was quite dissociated for a first delivery, she said. Seth came through well. When she is dissociated Jane said she does not worry about distortions in the material. She also realized that the bothersome kink had disappeared from her neck. The combination, psychio-physical was not familiar to her.

(Jane resumed dictation at 10:32.)

(Jane’s delivery had by now become very slow; at times while she delivered this material, she would pause for several seconds between words, pacing slowly back and forth.)

(Break at 10:02. Jane was fully dissociated—way out, she said. She could feel Seth trying to make her use certain phrases rather than others, in order to make the material as clear as possible. She also had a vague idea of the general direction in which the material was headed.

(Jane laughed.)

(By now, Jane was again delivering the material at a very slow and deliberate pace.)

(Later, Jane told me that as she was delivering this material aloud, she also contained within another parallel channel of thought from Seth, as she often does. This time she was quite aware of Seth’s concern lest anyone, upon reading this section of the material, commit suicide in a misguided effort to prove that it is possible for the consciousness to get along without the physical body. Jane said that at times she is aware of as many as three separate, parallel streams of thought, at the same time as she is giving voice to one of them.)

(Break at 10:44. Jane was much more dissociated than usual. Her neck felt fine, she said. The whole session, which she feels to be exceptionally good, has been like a dream to her. My right hand felt somewhat cramped after the above delivery, although in recent sessions it has been much better.

(As break began, I realized that my hands felt fat or enlarged; at the same time Jane said hers did also, and that she had been aware of it earlier in the session but forgot to mention it. My right hand, and especially the third finger, felt very full and engorged. At such times the skin acquires a taut, almost flushed look, and the fingers feel strained when they are doubled up. The phenomenon lasted for several minutes with both of us.

(Jane also announced that at various times during the past two or three weeks, she had had the feeling of her left foot or hand—never the right—being plunged in hot water. It is not a feeling of perspiration, but more like a hot flash. It will happen at any time—at work, at home, etc. It is a feeling almost as though the limb could dissolve or merge into a warm environment that was enveloping it.

(Jane resumed in the same manner at 10:55.)

(At this moment I heard clearly the crunching banging sound of an automobile accident, through our open windows. Our living-room windows command a good view of our street, one of the main ones in Elmira, but a quick look told me the accident was out of our visual range. Jane heard it too, but merely cast a casual look through a window. As with the burning chicken described in the last session, she paid no attention; during delivery she seems to be largely impervious to distractions.)

(Again, I became aware that my right hand felt enlarged; the feeling had subsided but now returned, and with an increased intensity. It was somewhat of a handicap in writing; the hand, having a different feeling as it held the pen, made me concentrate more on the simple physical act of putting the words down. And I saw Jane rubbing her hands together as she paced back and forth while dictating.)

(I was now most interested in taking some measurements from both Jane and myself while our hands felt this way, as Bill Macdonnel had helped me do in the 47th session, when we found definite physical evidence of finger enlargement. Not being able to do this at the moment however, I did recall Seth’s very definite statements in the 49th session, page 63, concerning his most conservative attitude toward demonstrations.)

([Jane:] “Good night, Seth.”

(End at 11:31. Jane was fully dissociated; way out, she said, with no memory of her surroundings while delivering the material. Yet she knew the session had been one of the best yet.

(Far from diminishing, my hand phenomenon was now at its peak. So was Jane’s. The third finger of my right hand seemed to enlarge even more. Jane looked for our scissors; since we were unprepared it took a few minutes to find them and cut some narrow strips of paper. These strips I used as tapes to measure the circumferences of the third finger on both of our right hands. I measured Jane’s above the middle knuckle, and mine above and below the same knuckle.

(At 11:35 Jane’s measurement was 2 ”. The following night, 5/21, the same finger measured 2 ¼” at the same spot, for a difference in circumference of ”.

(While trying psychological time Jane and I had the following experiences.

(Self- Sunday 5/24, 9:45 PM: We had spent the day driving about the countryside. Now in the desired state I had several short experiences where I was gliding along different highways, up and down hills, around curves, etc. Do not recall being in a car, or that Jane was with me. Very pleasant.

(Jane- Saturday, 5/23 3:30 AM: Jane saw two hands, shiny like a sick person’s, in a white light. The image was so clear she thought her eyes were open. When she did open them she came out of the desired state.)