“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Our regularly scheduled session for last Wednesday, September 1, was not held because Jane and I had unexpected visitors. A few details here are of interest because the visitors became entangled with the test results mentioned above.

(Our friends in question do not know about the sessions. They visited us at 8:30 PM Wednesday, and before Jane and I realized it session time had come. We like our new neighbors a good deal and did not resent their calling, but we did dislike missing the session. They left us at about 10:30. Jane and I did not consider having a session then; I also thought Jane could use the break in routine.

(Bill and Peggy Gallagher, who have witnessed several sessions, visited us this evening, Friday, September 3. Our conversation touched upon many subjects. They read the 183rd session, dealing with Jane’s third envelope test. No session had been planned for this evening but as the four of us sat around our coffee table Seth came through at about 10:30 PM.

(Seth told us that he merely wanted to join in the general conversation, as he had during the unscheduled 182nd session last weekend, which the Gallaghers also witnessed. Seth requested that we continue our exchange without notes on my part and without weighty questions. Jane’s eyes were closed in the beginning, her voice average in volume. She was nevertheless quite active in her chair. After perhaps half an hour her eyes opened. They were very dark. She smoked as she talked with us, and at times got to her feet as Seth. This last is something she has not done for many sessions.

(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.

(Jane herself made the possible connection that the “...unpleasant circumstance... in which a woman was involved,” could be entangled with the day I made the drawing; this being last Wednesday, when we missed our regular session because of visitors. See my notes on page 233. Seth’s information following this statement connected itself with the drawing easily enough, even to the “color gray,” which arises from the shadow effect I achieved in the drawing by using closely-spaced parallel lines.

Once again there was some confusion of channels... as there was in our first test when we were alone... But tonight we succeeded in getting Ruburt painlessly across that first-test-before-witnesses barrier... And it was a barrier to him. Such tests are very good training for him... He needs it... It is a beginning.

(Referring to the drawing, it can be seen that there is an interlocking group of 7 designs or blocks on the right, and a like group of 3 on the left. My literal mind also notes a single block beneath each of the larger groups, but Seth did not refer to these. We suppose the “familiar location” can refer to our own apartment wherein I made the drawing; or perhaps to the apartment house itself, in which our visitors also live. And surely the drawing contains a “multiplicitude of designs” and “crisscross shapes”.

(Seth deplored our ideas on war and peace, which must improve if we are to survive. This led into a discussion about computers, and Bill Gallagher’s personal idea of studying up on them for future use in business. Seth said computers would transform human life. He said Bill’s personal ideas were good ones; the inherent danger with them had to do with the type of salesman’s personality, the feeling of superiority and of having power over others, that might color the use of computers. He told Bill that it would require strict discipline on his part if he worked with computers in such a fashion.

(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.

(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.

(At one time our cat Willy became sick on the rug, and Seth broke from the discussion to enable Jane to take care of Willy.

(Seth said in answer to a remark by Bill Gallagher about tattoos, that he himself had never been tattooed. Our friend Mark had, however, in his Denmark existence when he was a sailor. Mark is the entity name for Bill Macdonnel. According to Seth, Jane and I knew Mark in Denmark in the 1600’s. Mark, Seth told us, had a large angel tattooed on his chest as a good luck charm, and believed it to be a protection against storms at sea.

(One disquieting subject arose after the Gallaghers had left, and Jane, Seth and I were talking quietly. Seth surprised me by mentioning our neighbor across the hall, Leonard Yaudes. We have known him for several years but he does not know of the sessions. Seth began by saying that the following information was on the edge of Ruburt’s awareness and that he was not very well focused upon it. It had to do with the possibility of an accident or an unpleasantness for Leonard sometime within the next three months. Seth then mentioned the period from September 15 to October 15, after saying that possibly he could focus a little more intently upon the problem.