“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(On Tuesday, November 24, we had as dinner guests Dee and Joe Masters. They no longer live in Elmira. It will be remembered that Seth has discussed both of them at various times in past sessions. Until about a year ago Dee was Jane’s supervisor at the art gallery. Some predictions concerning them will be found in the 63rd session for June 17, 1964.

(Jane and I tried some ESP experiments with Dee and Joe, and obtained good results. In one of them Dee achieved a light trance state. I have notes on the proceedings, and will include them in the record should Seth ever discuss them at some point in the future. Seth was not involved in Tuesday evening’s activities in any way.

(On Wednesday, November 12, Jane sent a copy of the 44th session to A.J. Budrys, science fiction editor of Playboy Magazine. Jane and A.J. have met once, at a science fiction conference some eight years ago in Milford, PA.

(At this conference Jane, A.J. and three other science fiction writers formed a group they called “The Five.” Letters were exchanged for some little time. In her letter of November 12 Jane asked A.J. a few questions about The Five. A.J. replied on November 22, stating that before he could answer Jane’s questions he would like Seth’s answers to three questions: “When was the last time you grew up?”, “What do you love?”, and “When is the self born?”

(A.J.’s letter arrived this afternoon, Wednesday, November 25. Since a session was due tonight, Jane studied the letter in the event Seth would choose to deal with it this evening. Just before the session was due she read the three questions aloud. Jane did not feel up to par and was not particularly in the mood for a session.

(The session turned out to be one of the slowest I can recall. Jane began dictation on time and in a normal voice. She spoke very slowly and with many pauses. Again her glasses were off, her eyes dark as usual. Her pacing was also quite slow. A.J.’s letter lay on my writing table.)

(Jane smiled and picked up the letter.)

(Now Jane lay the letter on the table and bent over it, studying it.)

(In the 4th session, December 8,1963, Seth stated he lived in Denmark three centuries ago, and that Jane and I did also. According to Seth Triev no longer exists. It was situated near Eastern Roads. The use of the word Roads in this connotation may have a maritime meaning. See Volume 1 of The Early Sessions.

(Jane smiled as she paced about the room.)

(Break at 9:28. Jane was dissociated as usual. She said she felt all right while delivering the material, but not as good during break. Her rate of delivery was so comparatively slow that perhaps half as much material as usual came through.

(Again Jane bent over A.J.’s letter as it lay on the desk.)

(Break at 10:02. Jane was dissociated as usual. She now said that she felt much better than she had before the session began. She still stuck to her very slow delivery however.

(During break we quickly looked through the early sessions to see if we could establish the year of Seth’s birth. It had not been given. We did find that he died in 1655, in a fire in Sweden. Much of the reincarnational data is incomplete. Jane and I asked many questions about this kind of material in the beginning sessions, but as the material began to unfold such questions were pushed aside. Seth has said at various times during the year that we can bring such information up to date, but it seems that we do not get around to it. Thus it becomes one more category about which we have many unasked questions.

(Jane resumed in the same quiet and slow manner, again without her glasses, at 10:12.)

(End at 10:50. Jane was dissociated as usual. She felt much better than when the session began. Note that the date of Seth’s birth, given as 1486, is probably wrong. Jane and I think it should be 1586. I did not catch this during the session and so did not ask about it. From material given in various sessions we think the date of Seth’s death, given as 1655, is more likely to be correct. If Seth had been born in 1586 he would have been 69 at his death in 1655. I will ask about the discrepancy in the next session.)

(During our first test on Saturday, November 28,1964 at 8:10 PM, I told Jane that I would think of a series of random numbers. Each time I told her I had a number in mind, she tried to match it with her spoken answer.

Rob                      Jane

(In the second test, each time I spoke a word Jane answered it as quickly as she could, without thinking. She felt blocked at times.

Rob                       Jane

(Jane and I usually go dancing Saturday evenings, leaving the house at about 9 PM. Shortly before 7 PM Jane told me that she felt herself to be in an excellent mood of pleasant anticipation; she thought she might be trying to receive information, but did not know how to go about it.

(First we concentrated on trying to move a small brass ring lying on the table between us, without success. At times the moving shadows gave us the illusion that the ring did move. Next we sat in our living area, away from the windows, and concentrated on our Kennedy rocker. It did not move. Jane asked for help in attempting this from anyone who might be present. She still felt quite strongly her mood of anticipation. Again, the changing shadows gave us the illusion that the rocker did move slightly at times.

(Next, in an effort to “break through” Jane’s mood, we tried a matching numbers test that failed. Then I tried a word association test. I could see well enough to write without turning on lights; the test revealed that Jane was concerned with some associations connected with books, publishers, stories and New York City, but did nothing as far as enabling her to “accomplish” something this evening, at least quickly.

(Now we turned on a closet light and left the door ajar so that the living room was softly lighted. Jane said her mood had leveled off somewhat. It seemed we would accomplish little. We began to exchange random thoughts. Jane did not want to call on Seth and had not since the beginning; she was more interested in obtaining some kind of effects that she could see herself, instead of being the one observed by others.

(By attaining a certain mood, and then talking quietly, Jane had in the past produced the Sarah Wellington and the Malba material. See Volume 1, pages 64, 103 and 127. She had shown rather subtle voice changes each time. For Sarah she had spoken in a rather more childish manner; for Malba she had sounded rather petulant, grown, not too bright and poorly educated. In each case there was no doubt that the voice was Jane’s.

(Nor was there this evening. Sarah and Malba were of course female. I believe the voice and the personality Jane used or displayed this evening was largely male. We sat on opposite sides of our coffee table. Jane’s back was to the light source and I could not see her features clearly. Her voice never became loud. Instead it acquired a very dry and light and hesitant quality. She used many ahs and ums and other such bridges, but I felt that these reflected the personality’s manner rather than Jane’s groping for the next word or phrase.

(Jane began speaking in this manner as we exchanged idle conversation. I was not aware of any sharp point of transition. As soon as I did become aware that a change in her state had taken place I began to ask more pointed questions. What follows is my reconstruction of our conversation. I did not attempt to make notes. We merely exchanged words in a normal manner and at a normal rate.

(Jane began by telling me that “Several of us are much older than you are. We watch and we try to help you develop your abilities. I am not at this time able to give you my identity, or that of the others.”

(I never did obtain any hints of identity. I tried three times specifically; and each time in a most dry and amused, even pleased way, the personality said firmly that Jane and I could not be told why at this time. I learned that three were involved in the watching. The group had not been with us very often in the past. They knew Seth. They said he was an educator, and that they were also. One of the more interesting points the spokesman made was that much instruction was passed on to our plane of existence through dreams; this when the ego was more relaxed.

(Jane had recently had some more levitation dreams. The nameless personality said the group had assisted in these dreams, and that Jane had done better psychically, with them, than she had so far done physically. It also developed that Jane had begun to develop her psychic abilities as a child, as a means of protection and escape from a very unhappy family situation. I named some people, now dead, with whom Jane had been closely involved in her maturing years. The spokesman said these personalities were on “other” planes, and that he could not contact them.

(The foregoing sums up the bulk of our conversation. The nameless personality announced that he and his fellows would leave us, and a moment later Jane had left the state. It did not last more than fifteen minutes, and was finished by 9:15 PM.

(Jane remembered parts of what had been said. Her mood was now normal. As far as I recall, the personality I spoke with had nothing to say about any reasons for her excellent mood earlier in the evening. Nothing about this being Jane’s way of trying to establish contact with the group, for instance. Jane did not speak at all like Seth, either in manner or inflection. At times her voice sounded so dry it had a rasp.

(The following data are from Jane’s psy-time notebook:

(It will be remembered that Seth still limits Jane to fifteen minutes of psychological time experimentation daily. See the 105th session.)