“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Normal lights were on in the living room where we had gathered. Jane took the double envelope. She held it without making any obvious attempts to guess at its contents by feeling. She sat with her eyes closed now and her head down somewhat as she faced the three of us. She did not appear to be nervous, and her voice remained average. Pauses will be indicated. The first paragraph that follows consists of the excerpts I noted down. Begin at approximately 11:51 PM.)

I will now suggest a break.

(Break at midnight. Jane’s eyes now opened. She had been dissociated as usual. She asked me to open the test envelope. She said she had no idea whether the information given was correct.

(In the first test, given in the 179th session, I had found myself mystified over part of the data. Now, the four of us found ourselves puzzling over the first part of tonight’s test data. As will be seen however most of it is connected with the test object. We are learning that our confusion stems from the unexpected and sometimes far-reaching turns that such connections can take.

(Bill and Peggy Gallagher now left. I thought the session had ended, but as Jane and I sat talking Seth came through once more. The following material still concerns tonight’s test, and is verbatim because once again I asked Seth to speak slowly. Jane’s eyes were closed in the beginning, her voice quiet. Resume at 12:20.)

(The session ended at 1:10 AM. Through it all Jane had been dissociated as usual. There had been rather frequent breaks. Jane now went to bed, and I began to make notes to supplement what I had already written down. I would like to add here one more piece of information given by Seth, concerning an earlier test, before concluding Part One. This was given after the Gallaghers had left.

(It will be remembered that in connection with the test photograph used in the 180th session, Seth/Jane stated: “...and a border. I think now of a border of flowers...” The test photograph has a white border. Seth now informed me that in the 180th session Jane distorted the information about the border of the photo into a border of flowers because of her personal childhood associations. He said Jane has an early memory of a border of flowers around a garden.

(At this time Jane, as Seth, stood up and picked up our cat Willy. Her eyes were open. Her voice was loud also, and Willy immediately squirmed out of her arms and darted away, his ears back. “See,” Seth/Jane said, “Your pussy doesn’t know who his mistress is right now....” Actually, Seth said, Willy knows him well, having grown used to his appearances. Many many sessions ago Willy had occasionally reacted to Seth’s appearance, usually just before a session began, or at the very beginning itself.

(At one point I remarked to Bill Gallagher that I used to have two favorite questions for Seth: “What do you do between sessions?” and “How’s my old friend Frank Watts?” Seth’s answer to my first question was “What do you do?” He now gave essentially that answer when Peggy asked my old question tonight. Commenting on Frank Watts, the personality Jane and I first contacted on the Ouija board to begin these sessions, Seth told me that there were records in town pertaining to Frank Watts, if we would stir ourselves to look for them.

(This was simply to determine if Jane herself, as Jane, could ask Seth a question, then go into trance and deliver the answer as Seth. Since Jane had been switching focus often tonight, I suggested that now was as good a time to try the technique as any. With a little urging Jane, a little self-consciously, asked Seth about what kind of a reception such a query would get from the editors at Cosmo, whether they would buy such an article, etc.

(This past week Jane learned the editor of Topper magazine that they had bought a short story of hers, The Mission. She was of course greatly pleased by this news. Seth now told us that Jane would sell more stories out of that batch she had written up before starting the ESP book. It will be remembered that Seth had something to say about Jane’s sales of short stories and books in the 104th session. The predictions given in that session 10 months ago are still working out. See Volume 3.

(Jane is at loose ends now, and quite restless. She will be calmer when she starts her next project. In the meantime she worries, Seth said, about my opinion of her because the money is slow in coming. She also worries about a delay before her next project is accepted, remembering the long delay between her first novel, The Rebellers, and the acceptance of the ESP book—at least a year. I reassured Seth that I am not worried about Jane or her contributions in any way. Seth told me that Jane is pulling her weight psychically in our household, and that money will follow.