“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane spoke for the session while sitting down and with her eyes closed. Her voice was somewhat heavier throughout, her rate of delivery somewhat faster than usual.)

You were quite correct, Joseph, in cautioning Ruburt against the poetry session the other evening. He knew this but was obstinate. It is not only a case of being obstinate, however. I have told you that it is extremely limiting to regard the ego as the complete self or personality, or to think that the ego makes up the entire identity.

The identity, indeed, is as much and more the inner self as it is the ego. This has been mentioned in the past, but Ruburt became so fearful of his own spontaneity in early life that he was more or less forced, out of fear, to deny the validity of his identity with the inner self. On some occasions, as the other evening, he spontaneously accepts this identification, particularly when alcohol acts as a depressant.

Then he dares to go forward, only then he must rush. The spontaneity is good, the lack of caution is not. The experience concerning the poetry was a legitimate one. All in all however, Ruburt did entirely too much last week.

(Break at 9:30. Jane was not as deeply dissociated as she has been recently. She knew the gist of what she had said. Looking back at the Father Trainor episode, she said she was somewhat frightened in retrospect, and would not conduct such a lengthy experiment again.

(A copy of Jane’s account of the Father Trainor affair will be found at the end of this session. This took place on February 11, Thursday, and parts of it are recorded. A shorter repetition, also recorded, was given for Judy and Lee Wright on the evening of February 12, Friday. It was this occasion to which I objected.

(It will be noted that in the 12th session, January 2,1964, Seth, without being asked by us, stated that he “knows” Jane’s old friend, Father Trainor. Father Trainor was an Irish Catholic priest who visited Jane and her ill mother regularly, for years, during Jane’s grade and high school days. He has been dead for some time. Jane has a photograph of him.

I am not saying you should always go dancing, but this is an excellent relaxation for you both, and leaving the house or visiting at someone else’s home is also good for you both. I would not take so much time this evening with this material if I did not feel that it was important enough to warrant it. Surely you and your friends could go dancing together when you can afford it. Surely, you can for example go with Mark to one of his jolly haunts. Even though no physical activity such as dancing is available the change is still good.

(Break at 10:05. Jane’s eyes opened slowly. She reported that she was much more dissociated than during her first delivery. She resumed in the same rather heavy voice at 10:16.)

(While visiting us on a recent weekday evening, Bill Macdonnel ruptured a blood vessel in his nose. It bled to such an extent that after half an hour we called the emergency room at one of the local hospitals. Bill lost much blood and became quite ill. Just as the hospital instructed us to take him there, the bleeding stopped. Being afraid to move very much Bill spent the night with us. He was better in the morning, although the bleeding resumed briefly. It developed that Bill has been troubled by this ailment since childhood. Jane and I did not know about it, however, and this was his first such seizure in over a year.)

(End at 10:37. Jane was well dissociated. Once in a while Jane and I have discussed extra sessions, but usually we do not have the time, particularly when other experiments like the one involving Father Trainor crop up. Occasionally we would like a session dealing with some specific problem, and may try this approach. Also one involving questions and answers.)

(I stood up and began to read. The sudden volume and depth and timbre of my voice was instantly apparent, and startled me. I read all of the Lepanto and part of the Elegy in this manner. My voice boomed—I sounded more like Father Trainor than like myself. The volume of my voice was really tremendous.

(When I finished this I kept wondering about it. Why hadn’t I thought to record it? What was the change in my voice? Had I imagined or elaborated on perhaps just a small change? I tried to do it over, on tape. The reading this time was not as striking as the first time, but still there was certainly something definitely going on.

(After lunch I decided to try again. At lunch I played the tape for Rob, then while posing for him I suggested to myself that I would go into a trance as soon as I began to read, and that Father Trainor would indeed use his voice to speak through me, if he was available. I then started all over again with the readings. Except, for what reason I do not know, I turned the recorder on but forgot to depress the “record” button.

(This performance was as good as the first one. I felt carried away by the voice, almost outside of myself, very light and disconnected from this voice. But I do recall that the book itself, which I held as I paced, was heavy. I grew cold and tingled as I read. My hands perspired quite a bit, perhaps from holding the book. Rob came out of his studio to listen to me. When I discovered that I had recorded nothing this time I felt cheated, because to me this reading had been most unusual.

(I was so angry that I did the whole thing over again. Lepanto is a four-page poem. This time the performance was about like the second one, already recorded. Perhaps if I feel subjectively right about doing it again, I may try it tonight. I don’t know where the volume comes from, the deep manlike tones. Perhaps it is what actors call merely projection, breathing from the diaphragm. I wasn’t conscious of breathing any differently than usual, but if this was a subconscious production that wouldn’t make any difference. But where would the male aspect enter, unless it be a woman’s attempt to mimic as best she could the voice of a man she had admired?

(As a check I suggested later that Jane try reading a different poem, one not read by Father Trainor, to see if she could summon this powerful new voice at will. I wanted to see if something Jane had no emotional involvement with, via memory, could also be used to summon voice changes. Nothing happened. To begin with Jane could not consciously summon nearly the volume of voice, and within a few lines she was so hoarse she had to rest. She said Father Trainor always read the Lepanto and the Elegy on his Sunday visits, and that she could not remember his reading anything else.

(The volume and male inflection Jane achieved during her various readings was quite amazing. I noticed that toward the end of each verse of the Lepanto she would reach a crescendo of volume and emotion that was indeed thrilling. For brief periods her voice would sound very alien. For other periods, during what seemed to be letdowns, I would know the voice was hers. But still it would be much stronger and lower in timbre than her natural voice.

(This voice was not the Seth voice by any means. Even at its strongest Seth’s voice is a dry and intellectual one. The Father Trainor voice was very emotional by contrast. I do not believe that the Father Trainor voice at its best exceeded Seth at his best, and vice versa.

(It might be added that during the whole day’s experimentation Jane did not suffer from any voice fatigue, nor did she have any aftereffects the next day. She bore up as well as when she was conducting three-hour Seth sessions, although today’s experiment lasted something like five or six hours. I was afraid that she would overdo it however.)