“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

SESSION 103

(By 8:55 PM Jane had no idea of the material for the session tonight, nor was she nervous.

Our session may be somewhat briefer this evening, to make up for the unscheduled one.

It is of course true that within our rather rigid schedule we miss some excellent occasions for sessions, as far as Ruburt is concerned. That is, we miss instances when his abilities are at high peak. Yet overall we balance out fairly well. And particularly in the beginning such regularity is important.

When a particular situation arises, or when his abilities are unusually attuned, we have in the past held unscheduled sessions, and I have always attempted to compensate by cutting the next one short, or cutting it out entirely.

(Offhand, I do not recall any instance where Seth has eliminated a session entirely. But I can think of many instances where a succeeding session has been cut short in compensation.)

For reasons of convenience on your part, completely unscheduled sessions would not be practical. With your permission, we may attempt to take better advantage of such peaks of activity in the future, but if and when we do we will still maintain a general practice of not holding more than two sessions a week.

This kind of procedure, while appearing less disciplined, would in actuality require added discipline, since this would be necessary to avoid the imbalance of either too many or too few sessions.

Also here a word concerning wine, in connection with sessions.

It is a fact that alcohol is a depressant, that conscious inhibitions become lessened with indulgence of varying degrees. Ruburt has not indulged to any degree. Since, however, he has noticed that occasionally, without touching a drop of wine during a given session, he nevertheless feels as if he had been indulging, so I would like to make a brief explanation.

(Jane smiled as she paced about the room. I had heard her mention often that after a session she would feel as though she had drank a little too much. She is rather in the habit of sipping at something during sessions, since she uses her voice constantly. If she uses wine it is seldom more than a glass or two. Most often she favors milk or iced coffee.)

Now. Conceivably at times during a social evening several glasses of wine, under certain conditions bringing him quite naturally to the same sort of state that he goes through and passes beyond in these sessions, could lead him to misinterpret his data, or get his signals crossed.

This was true long before the Seth sessions ever began, and it is generally true. In such a state, regardless of its cause, any individual is more sensitive to inner data. I am making this plain, naturally, for your own benefit.

There is little danger here except under the most unusual circumstances, merely an inconvenience or a feeling of disagreeability on your parts. Actually there is only a certain rather well-defined period within which the dissociation is conducive to our sessions. That is, while Ruburt drinks socially to some quite limited extent really, the fine balance of dissociation that allows our sessions to begin would not be possible, if for example our Ruburt drank more some evening than good sense would ordinarily permit.

He has wondered about this. However, he does not have to worry ordinarily about beginning a session on the spur of the moment under the influence of too much drink. If he had truly that much, he simply would not be capable of a session, even if I were idiotic enough to agree to one. And I assure you that I would not be.

I must tell you however, that a session begun through mistake, so to speak, after a few drinks, would not suffer as far as the material itself were concerned. I mention the affair in general merely so that you can be alert to the possibilities, and to aid Ruburt in the development of his inner distinctions.

In any state of dissociation any individual is more sensitive to inner data. This sensitivity varies in accordance to the ability of the individual in general in this line, which is why I make the point. In an intimate gathering of close friends, if a few glasses of wine are drunk, and if Ruburt happens to then be increasingly aware of inner data, there is not anything out of the way in holding a session, if this happens only occasionally. Indeed a judicious (underline judicious) use of wine is somewhat beneficial, but never to be overdone, and this is very important.

Under circumstances of which I do not approve, I will not permit a session. My distinctions are not always the same sort as your own, however. There are certain social, peculiar niceties that are held in changing, shifting, sometimes meaningless patterns, to which I would not respond. That is, I simply would not be attuned myself to social situations or social transgressions, or what might seem social transgressions to you.

I was perfectly willing to hold such a session. I knew your reluctance, but you see I did not truly appreciate considerations that were strong with you, and as you recall I did not come through. But this was in deference to you and Ruburt personally. To me the social entanglements and—ah—possible social disagreeabilities did not exist.

I would always catch any real possibility of danger. I would catch any occurrence that would be strongly disagreeable if it were actually going to occur. I would know beforehand, but I am not necessarily aware of what you might consider possibilities in that line, unless I use particular effort, so these possibilities are not considered by me. In the particular instance that we are discussing, if such a session would have led, if held, to a strongly unfortunate situation, then I would know in advance, and not hold such a session.

In such cases therefore you must make your own decisions, and you should not have a session if for any reason you do not feel comfortable about it. This applies to both of you.

There must be an agreement on both of your parts or the session will suffer. Dissociation opens or makes available lines and possibilities of communication, but there is no necessity that they be used at any given time or instance.

Now if, and this has occurred, Ruburt finds his abilities unusually attuned, and circumstances are advantageous, it is perfectly legitimate to hold a session, though it is not a scheduled one. I will automatically make adjustments. This refers to sessions with or without witnesses.

Naturally, conditions being beneficial, such sessions may allow us to take advantage of high peaks of activity and increase our spontaneity. And with increased spontaneity we will decrease any distortive effects. These effects very rarely occur, except in personal material, or in cases where Ruburt feels under pressure because of doubts. During high peaks of psychic activity the doubts are minimized.

This will not be a long session. The effect seen last evening was legitimate, and I will discuss it at a later date.

(Jane now took a rather long pause as she paced about. The effect Seth referred to, Jane told me later, was the one seen by Bill Macdonnel during Sunday’s unscheduled session—the opaque white eyes superimposed upon Jane’s closed eyelids.)

The increased appearance of his ability creatively, as seen in his own writing, should be apparent to you Joseph, and is objectively apparent in the letters he has received. The increased focus of his abilities I predicted during an unscheduled session, if you recall. His short stories dating approximately from that time display a much increased facility and knowledge.

(See the unscheduled 82nd session. In this one Seth for the first time mentioned that Jane should work full time at her writing. This was August 27. By the end of September she had left the gallery where she had worked part time four years. This move was not dictated wholly by the Seth material, but certainly this played its part. Since leaving the gallery and buckling down to work, Jane had received many very favorable letters from publishers. Invariably they comment on the much improved quality of her work. This improvement has seemed to blossom like magic, and we feel that the time when Jane begins to sell her work regularly will soon arrive.)

I will here close the session. We are doing well. Nevertheless I want to make sure that our precious balance, in terms of energy involved and so forth, is maintained, though I am in fine form and per usual could carry on for hours.

(Jane said that the fingers of her right hand had been slightly “fat” late in the session, particularly her index finger.

(This was the first manifestation either of us had had of such a sign for many sessions. The 59th session furnishes an example of hand enlargement, which Seth labels as the attempt of the physical body to expand in rhythm with psychic, or inner, expansion. See the detailed measurement data in the 55th session also. As in the past, Jane’s sensation began to diminish as soon as the session ended; by the time I looked at her hand I could not see anything out of the ordinary.

(Seth’s remarks about the recorder point up the reason we do not use it to routinely record the sessions for later transcription. Not only would I sit through the session with Jane even though we were recording, but in doing the transcription I would have to expend an equal amount of time listening to the session again, plus the time necessary for typing, and starting and stopping many times.)

(It’s a terrific autumn day, sunny. Walked perhaps half a block or so. Remember thinking suddenly that Seth might say the following in tonight’s session: Material world of physical matter doesn’t actually exist as such at all, in a real sense. Atoms and molecules etc. are our names for the stuff of which we compose our images or transpose them into apparent validity. Then the next thing I remember is a marvelous feeling of lightness, I felt not so much buoyant as free of resistance; physical resistance. Free of physical bulk, of physical pressures, as say, sometimes we imagine we might have felt sometime in early childhood. This didn’t register at first though; just felt unusually good, enjoying my walk, conscious of the lightness of my step, aware of a satisfying unity with creation.

(As soon as Jane returned home from doing her errands and mentioned that she still “felt funny”, I suspected that we would see something like a repetition of her adventure of January 10, 1964, Volume 1, page 83. On page 89, in the 100th session, Seth had stated that Jane could allow herself more freedom now, and since she had mentioned the feeling of what she calls ecstasy to me this noon, I thought she was indeed doing more than usual. I also wondered whether she had done too much.

(Again, see my notes on pages 89-90, concerning Jane’s ecstasy. From some of her recent psy-time experiments I had thought she was close to achieving that state again. She had been giving herself suggestion lately, that she would be able to travel psychically, during her experiments. From the following session it will be seen that Jane was correct in thinking that the rushing-out sensation she felt, through the top of her head, was definitely an attempt at traveling.

(Ever since she traveled to her home town, Saratoga, NY, psychically, Jane has wanted to travel again. (See Volume 2, page 65, April 30, 1964.) She believes that her experience today was an effort at travel, and wondered why it was apparently so much more difficult to accomplish now than it was last April. Seth deals with the problem somewhat in the following, 104th, session.)