“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

SESSION 184

(Tonight’s unscheduled session is arbitrarily divided into two parts in order to present the envelope test data first. I have verbatim notes on this; I asked Seth to speak slowly enough for notes on the test and he agreed. The rest of the session material is presented in summary form in Part Two.

(Tracing of my drawing used in the 4th envelope test, in Session 184, September 3,1965.)

(Jane, her ESP book finished and mailed, has some free time for a change. She has copied the 179th, 180th and 183rd sessions to send to Dr. Instream. She also plans to write him a letter. As it developed, she will be copying Part One of this session to send to Dr. Instream also, for even though the session was unscheduled an envelope test developed. Once again parts of the test results were unexpected. The whole test was very interesting; and all the more so because it was Jane’s first before witnesses.

(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.

(I had prepared the usual test envelope that Wednesday afternoon while Jane was napping, as she usually does on session days. When the session did not materialize I saved the envelope for the next session, which I thought would be on Monday, September 6.

(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.

(Much was said before the envelope test developed, and this is summarized in Part Two. At about 11:50 PM Seth surprised me by asking if I had a test prepared. I replied that I had and went back to my studio to get the envelope I had readied for last Wednesday’s session, and my pen and notebook. Jane, as Seth, sat quietly talking with the Gallaghers while I was gone; I wondered if the enforced delay would give her time to become nervous.

(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.

We held many sessions before we tried such tests... while we waited for Ruburt’s confidence and abilities to develop... They are still growing. They need even more developing, and they shall be.

(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 road referred to your neighbor, the male, who is a salesman, and who travels on the road often. It was he and his wife who were referred to here in the unpleasant episode. This was associated with the test because the session for which you prepared the test was not held because of their visit.

(The drawing can be “a spread of sorts,” but we see no particular connection with grass, nor with “something spectacular.” I did not think to query Seth about these points as we sat talking near the end of the session.

(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.

(After tonight’s session Jane said she vaguely remembers a small plot of grass and vegetables, bordered by flowers, maintained by her grandfather in the backyard of her home in Saratoga Springs, NY. This would be quite an early memory for her. She had not made any conscious connection with this memory and the border data given in connection with the second test, however, until Seth mentioned it tonight.)

(The following material is a summary of other topics covered in the unscheduled 184th session, witnessed by Bill and Peggy Gallagher. Some of the material was of course obtained while the Gallaghers were present, and was in actuality intermingled with the test data discussed in Part One. Part Two depends on my memory and on Jane’s to some extent. I am fairly certain of it. Material I recall but vaguely is omitted.

(Almost at the beginning of the session Jane, as Seth, pointed at me and said my head would be clear for the rest of the evening. Hay fever had been bothering me a great deal during the day. Seth said the reason I am bothered more at home than at work, where I feel remarkably good, is that the house dust in the apartment reminds me of house dust at home, and of my mother, when I was a child.

(As Seth suggested, it developed that my head was good for the next few hours, and I was more than willing to comply with the suggestion. Seth said I could have information concerning my parents and my hay fever at any time during a regular session, so I could get it all in writing. He said he prefers to deal with blocks of material in this fashion.

(In this summary I give all the information I can recall on a particular subject at the same time, for convenience’s sake, although it may have been scattered throughout the session. Thus some of the above material was given to me after the Gallaghers had left.

(After the Gallaghers had left Seth told me Bill Gallagher had “great bursts” of energy. Bill and Peggy, he said, were very good for us and the sessions, in that they contributed. I do not recall more on this particular point. Seth told Bill that if he follows the material given on the construction of matter and suggestion, and applies it, he can be rid of his ulcer within a year. It will require discipline. Bill should read the material because the intellectual integrity behind it will appeal to him. Then he will understand how he creates his own ulcer.

(In the beginning of the session Seth asked us to continue as we had been; he wanted the convivial party air. When we fell silent, or adopted the usual more formal session air, he demanded to know what had happened to all the jokes. On one occasion his voice began to climb in strength and volume, half jokingly. Bill and I implored him to keep the voice under control. For the most part however the conversation moved along quite easily.

(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.

(When Peggy asked him if the records pertained to Frank Watts being a teacher, Seth gave an answer I do not recall, except that I am sure it was not a direct yes or no. Frank Watts, Seth did tell us, is doing very well. Seth also said in a quietly humorous way that Frank Watts was still a fathead, as he had told us many sessions ago. In Volume 1, see the 11th session, held on January 1,1964.

(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.

(Seth said the oil sketch I have begun of my vision, described in the notes for the 183rd session, is very good. It is promising to be one of my best pieces of work.

(Seth briefly discussed the candle-flame effect mentioned in the 182nd Session, saying the phenomenon was so successful because Jane had no forewarning of it.

(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.

(The session ended at 1:10 AM. Jane had been dissociated as usual while speaking as Seth. Much of the time her eyes had been open. She had smoked many cigarettes. Her voice had usually been quiet, her pace a conversational one, which means that usually it is a little too fast for me to take notes. Jane felt no unusual fatigue at the end of the session.

(Front and back tracings of the 1959 color photograph used in the 5th envelope test, in Session 185, September 6,1965.)