“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Once again I planned an envelope test for the session, should the opportunity arise. I prepared the usual double envelope while Jane was working at the front of the apartment. For the test I used a color photograph of my brother Bill, his wife and two young children, taken in Webster, NY, in 1959. I found the photo accidentally in my files earlier in the day while looking for something else. I knew Jane hadn’t seen it for some time, perhaps years. Bill is 37 years old.

Ruburt has the impression of the school fence across the street from the house in which he lived, and he is thinking of a particular photograph of his own that involved his house, the street, part of the fence, and perhaps some children. We are letting all of this come through.

(Once again the test data was interesting. This was the first time, also, that Seth had separated his own data from that of Ruburt’s, or Jane’s. Refer to my tracing of the photograph on page 242. Seth’s data can be seen to apply rather directly, with the exception that the photo is of four people instead of three. This is dealt with after break, along with the matter of chimney shapes.

(Jane told me that in the past she would have given her own interpretation of the photograph she had in mind along with Seth’s information. On one level she had a distinct impression of her own photograph. But now she allowed Seth to separate the two impressions.

Now, I knew this was a photograph. Ruburt however, through association, made certain deductions. He picked up from me the fact that children were involved. He picked up the road and the pyramid shapes. This led him to think of his old home, for in the afternoon the shadow of its roof threw a pyramid shadow form upon the road.

The children that I perceived, he projected into this picture of his, a photograph in which children were indeed involved. The photograph used in the test was taken in the afternoon. The chimney was not in the picture. I saw the chimney of the other house in the test photograph, but this does not show there.

(During last break we had speculated about the photograph being taken in the afternoon, because of the elongated shadows on the white snow. I will check with my brother in Webster, hoping he can remember after six years. It seems reasonable to agree with Seth; I do not believe such shadows can be found in the morning during the winter months.

(The photograph has a white border, and a stamp with writing on the reverse side. No chimneys show in the photo. The house across the street is very small in the photo; for Seth to make an association with that house is most intriguing to us. As in the last test, the process of association involved proved to be most interesting.