“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(By 8:59 Jane was a little nervous, but nothing like she used to be in earlier sessions. She had no idea of the subject matter for the session. Our cat Willy had become very frisky just before the session was due, as he has done lately, so to forestall interruptions Jane deposited him in another room.

(Jane began dictation at 9:01 in a quiet voice, at a comfortable rate as far as my writing speed was concerned; her pacing was also moderate, and her eyes darkened as usual.)

(Break at 9:26. Jane was dissociated as usual. During break we discussed the situation at the gallery where she works part time. With the departure of Dee Masters as director, a new director is trying out for the job; the situation is thus unsettled, and Jane is not in favor of some of her new duties and is thinking seriously of leaving the job. This situation has also interfered with our consideration of house-buying.

(Jane resumed in the same manner at 9:32, after sipping some wine. For the last two months or more she had gotten out of the habit of taking even the nominal glass or two of wine during a session.)

(It will be remembered that Seth stated an art gallery experience was in the cards for Jane many sessions ago—back somewhere in the beginning sessions. At the time Seth also said that had we settled in Miami, Florida, as we considered doing a few years ago, Jane would have worked in a gallery there. He gave some street locations with this information, but we did not try to check it out.)

(Jane now paused in her delivery, which had become progressively slower, and I wondered if this would be all she would allow to come through on the subject.)

(Here Jane laughed.)

(Now, for one sentence only, Jane’s voice deepened and boomed out.)

(Break at 10:05. Jane was dissociated as usual. She said that Seth had fooled her, that after drinking the wine and relaxing because of it during last break, she realized Seth wanted her to.

(My hand was somewhat tired. Jane resumed in the same manner at 10:10.)

(Jane pounded upon the table for Seth.)

(Break at 10:26. Jane was dissociated as usual. She finished this delivery with a good deal of spirit and humor, particularly the final paragraphs. My writing hand felt little fatigue.

(Because she had been upset by the gallery situation, Jane at this point wished aloud that Seth could help her out as to what the future held; this is something we have scrupulously refrained from doing in any serious way, yet this time we sincerely felt we could use all the help we could get. Even so, we made no formal requests of Seth during break. Jane resumed as before at 10:31.)

(Here Jane smiled.)

(Jane laughed.)

(End at 10:51. Jane was dissociated as usual. My writing hand felt little fatigue.)

(It is, again, a Ouija board experiment Jane and I tried on Friday, July 3, 1964 at 10:05 PM. We sat at the board to begin without asking questions. Misspellings are included as received. I made verbatim notes as we went along. The words yes and no, spelled out on the board, are here indicated in parentheses whenever the pointer moved to them.

(Yes) c probert tm (yes) Roberts Jane, u are (yes) u are medium.

([Jane:] “My father doesn’t have any brothers.”)

(Jane received most of the above answer mentally, before the board spelled it out. She had also received some other answers in a like manner; and for the balance of the session she knew in advance many of the answers. Yet she did not hear Seth, or any other voice; as with the Thomas Voghler Ouija session, pages 186-7, the answers popped into her mind.

(As Tom Roberts began to spell the name out, Jane and I both knew in advance what it would be.)

(Jane’s father, Delmer Roberts, had visited us a few weeks ago. He is a rover; Jane seldom sees him, and even on his visit from Florida Del stayed with us but a few days.

(“That’s the way Jane spells that word.”)

(By now, both Jane and I were highly suspicious of the origin of these messages; we suspected subconscious sources. Needless to say, while using the pointer both of us were very careful to see that we did not consciously move it.

(Three times the pointer moved to the above word on the board. Both of us were surprised. Joking, I asked Jane what she was doing to the pointer.

(The board appeared to be dead, so I noted down that the session ended at 11:15. Jane and I were in the mood to continue, so we thought we’d try a few stratagems to get the board working again. First I sat at the board alone to see if I could get anything. In the past this had never worked for me, the pointer not even moving over the letters.

(This time, the pointer did begin to move, quite slowly. It gradually picked up speed while Jane wrote down each letter it paused over. No sense emerged from the series. It might be added here that out of a whole page of strings of letters, there were no instances of accidental spellings of words—not even short words like to, as, but, is, on, etc. It was almost as though either the pointer or myself deliberately chose to produce nothing at all recognizable.

(Jane then tried the board alone; on it she had raised Thomas Voghler by herself, last week. Tonight it would not work at all for her. As a last resort we once again tried the board together; and almost immediately it began to respond. Resume at 11:48.)

(I do not know whether I finished or not; I have the feeling George Marshall promised to contact me. [It will be remembered that Seth had instructed Jane and me to ask this of whomever we managed to contact during psychological time.]

(In an effort to jog my memory, I have consulted a road map altas. Two town names in the northeast corner of Louisiana seemed familiar to me: Columbia and Cameron. Yet later, out for a drive with Jane, it popped to mind that the town name I wanted was Sheridan. During the experiment I then recalled thinking that the name George Marshall gave me was a reasonable one for a town, and that it was the same as a town [or city] in Wyoming.

(Jane: Fri. 7/3, PM: I saw dark water with moonlight upon it, a woman’s unclear figure on the shore. Sailboat way out.

(Jane: Sat. 7/4, PM: I looked up at a tall tree and felt as though I was going to levitate up to it. A strong jerk of my feet snapped me out of the state. I then heard Rob’s mother say approximately these words: “You’re taking me back with you, whether you know it or not...” Then I heard “The investigation,” in an unidentified voice.)