“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Our friend John Bradley visited us this evening. We played part of the 170th session, which was recorded and directed by Seth to Dr. Instream. In the middle of a passage Seth suddenly came through, saying: “Why settle for a recording when you can have the real thing?” His voice was quite strong. He seemed in excellent spirits. John had never heard the loud Seth; the previous sessions he witnessed had all been quiet ones. Now Seth began to speak loudly and jovially. Rob made no notes, as Seth told him they were not necessary. These notes are written from memory.

The voice became very loud at times. I worried about the neighbors during our frequent breaks. It was a hot and humid night and our living room windows were of course open. Seth was obviously enjoying himself, and I was very active physically as I spoke for him. My eyes were open a good deal of the time.

A few times the voice reached startling volume. I was afraid that the neighbors would wonder what was going on, and as it turned out my fears were justified. As Seth was speaking a knock came at our door. Almost instantly, it seemed, I snapped out of my trance.

Our friends were mystified. They had recognized elements of my voice, but because of the volume did not really think it was mine. The girl, Donna Taylor, said she thought we might be in trouble of some sort. Her husband Ed finally decided to come over to see what was going on. Not knowing what to say, I tried to joke that it was the television set, but Donna said it wasn’t; their set had been on, and they had checked all the eight stations to see if they could find such a voice.

Rob then said it was an experiment in self-hypnosis for my next book. This certainly was no lie, and the Taylors seemed to accept the explanation. John was having trouble keeping a straight face. The Taylor’s cat began playing with our cat, Willy, and we had no trouble steering the conversation into safer channels. The Taylors stayed for half an hour, then left. John Bradley left shortly after. By then it was past midnight.

(As often happens when witnesses are present, Seth was in a fine and frisky mood; there is no doubt that a witness or two will produce what appears to be abundant extra energy on Seth/Jane’s part. More often than not strong voice effects are manifested. Jane appears to be swept up, fully involved in the role, and thoroughly enjoying it. Nor does this involvement produce any apparent fatigue of any kind. On top of this, Seth promised an excellent session at our regularly scheduled time tomorrow night.)