“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session, following yesterday’s regularly scheduled one, was not scheduled. The reasons for it will become apparent.

(This morning while I was at work, John Bradley stopped by briefly while on a hurried business trip to give Jane some information relating to a prediction of a narcotics scandal that Seth had predicted for Elmira in the 63rd session, of June 17. See page 158. Seth stated the scandal was due within three months.

(It seems that last night John, while eating in a restaurant with a friend we do not know, was informed by this friend that the Elmira police had taken into custody a man who had been making the rounds of the Elmira pharmacies with a forged prescription for narcotics. This was not in the newspaper.

(John also wanted to call to Jane’s attention a news item in the Elmira paper for Aug. 23, 1964. This appeared on Sunday, the day we arrived home from vacation, and we did not know of it. The story was largely a refutation of an article concerning drugs in Elmira, published by a national tabloid, the National Mirror. Ironically, while Elmira authorities were denying this story, there appeared in the column next to it an item detailing the theft of a doctor’s black bag, containing narcotics, from the doctor’s car in one of the local hospital parking lots. I am keeping both of these items on file.

(I am also filing an item from the Thursday Elmira paper, dealing with another attempt to use a forged prescription in drug stores in Corning, N.Y., about ten miles distant. The prescription blanks used were from the stolen bag mentioned above. The culprit was not apprehended.

(This evening after supper, while busy with other material, Jane received the thought that it was time to begin work on Book One of The Seth Material, a project we had discussed sometime before vacation. She thought the title should be The Physical Universe as Idea Construction. She came to the studio to tell me this, and that she also received the thought, evidently from Seth, that Donald Wollheim, her editor at Ace Books, could or would write the introduction for Book One.

(Jane said she thought she might be able to have a session. I did not encourage her, not knowing whether it was a good idea. In a few moments she returned and asked me to bring my notebook to the living room when I finished cleaning up, which would take a few minutes.

(Finally I sat with her, ready in case the session developed after all. It was still light out; classical music played on the radio. Again Jane had been coughing all day, but when she rose to begin the session the coughing virtually disappeared. She began dictating in a voice a bit deeper than usual; her pacing was slow, her eyes dark as usual.)

(Break at 8:30. Jane was dissociated as usual, and ended the monologue with a smile. During break, I jokingly remarked that it would be a great help to us if we knew who would be interested in publishing the material. I did not expect an explicit answer.

You can afford to be more freely committed. However faith in an idea is frowned upon in scientific circles, but no new concept or idea, or discovery, ever came unless there was first faith that it indeed existed.

(And here Jane’s voice was most amused.)

Had he left the gallery when his novel was published, he would by now have one and a half times his present income from writing. That is, his yearly income would exceed what it is now.

(Break at 9:06. Jane reported that she was far, far out. She had coughed but little, yet did not recall whether or not she had. My writing hand was getting somewhat weary.

(The only comment I had to make on the above material during break was that Jane would have but a limited time in which to start bringing in money from writing, since our bank account would not last forever. Jane resumed in a determined voice, staring at me, at 9:10.)

(Break at 9:27. Jane was dissociated as usual. She had not coughed at all. She resumed in a quieter voice at 9:30.)

He was, and is, afraid of commitment to his own work, much less mine. You can be of great assistance to him, to yourself and to me. His energy, Joseph, and his ability to project ideas into material construction, is truly astounding; and with your help we must tap it.

My purpose here was not, and is not, to put either of you on the spot, but to point out the course that has the very best chance of success for all of your endeavors, and to hope at least that you would follow it.

(End at 9:45. Jane was dissociated as usual. My writing hand was somewhat tired.)

(In the 68th session, July 6, 1964, page 221, Seth stated that our friend Bill Macdonnel, who was going to vacation in Provincetown, Cape Cod, for a few weeks, “will of course go to the seaside. There is a man, perhaps fifty years old, with whom he will become acquainted, or with whom he may become acquainted, with prickly hair. I see a rowboat with a symbol of some sort on it. I do not particularly see any women. That may be because my interests are somewhat different now, though this could be misleading.”

(In the 75th session, July 29, 1964, page 273, Seth stated regarding Bill: “Your friend has made two friends, one older and one approximately his own age. He is of course, or has been, near water. He has been at a bar with a large keg in it. There are two houses nearby, and a front room across from a beach. There is a boat and dock. I also believe he was in a group with four men, maybe something to do with a string of shells, also.”

(Bill reached Provincetown the second week in July. He had not been there long, he said, when he did meet a man as described by Seth in the 68th session. His name and address will be furnished on request. The man was 54 years old actually, and his “prickly hair” turned out to be a brush cut. Bill first got acquainted with him in the Old Colony Bar in Provincetown. The man is from New York City, and was spending a week in Provincetown to “get away from his wife and family.”

(Bill states that on or somewhere either just before or after July 29, the date of the 75th session, he attended a party at Larry O’Toole’s cottage. Attending the party were Bill, Gary, Larry, and two other men Bill did not know. Thus, as Seth stated, Bill “was in a group with four men.”

(The front room overlooking the water is, contrary to expectations, rather an unusual one in Provincetown, Bill said, since the cottages are rather crowded in against other buildings in somewhat of a helter-skelter fashion, and actually most of them do not command a view of the water. In this O’Toole’s cottage was out of the ordinary. The bar in the cottage has a small beer keg, Bill said, but he does not believe this is the one referred to by Seth.

(It might also be noted that Bill was a witness to the 68th session, but not of course the 75th. At the 68th session, Bill, Jane and I made tentative plans to experiment at set times for telepathic communication while Bill was at the Cape, but these plans did not materialize.)