“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Lorraine Shafer was a witness for the session. She had witnessed the 193rd session also. The session was held in our front room, and was not interrupted. Jane spoke while sitting down and with her eyes closed. Her voice was quiet for the most part. She began rather slowly, then picked up some speed.)

(Jane smiled as she spoke. By the Jesuit and the cat lover Seth meant of course Bill and Peggy Gallagher, who have witnessed quite a few sessions. Jane and I soon noticed that Seth did not refer to Lorraine very often, even when she was a witness, and have speculated about the reasons for this. By contrast we have obtained a good deal more information about the Gallaghers, and Jane has been aware of better “contacts” somehow in relation to them. Our thought has been that if Lorraine kept coming to sessions, sooner or later Seth would speak to her.)

(Jane had been speaking rather quietly if rapidly, with her eyes closed. Lorraine, who was also taking shorthand notes, sat close by. Now Jane, her eyes still closed, leaned rather quickly toward Lorraine and her voice boomed out briefly. I confess that I jumped. I didn’t have time to observe Lorraine’s reaction.)

(One of the questions Lorraine had at break, in relation to Seth’s statement about helping her, was whether Seth would help through Jane, or through Lorraine herself directly.

(Seth’s statement above, about trying something else, surprised me somewhat. What I say here is purely subjective, since I did not write it down at the time it occurred. This afternoon while working I had the rather clear thought that Lorraine would witness the session this evening.

(This in itself would be quite unusual, since she had also witnessed the 193rd, last week; never before had Lorraine witnessed sessions so close together by far. I then had the accompanying thought that when I told Seth I had no envelope test, he would suggest that he try something else.)

(A conversation followed concerning the above data, which was too fast and involved for me to note down fully. Being surprised, Lorraine needed some time to think, for memory to work. At first thought she recalled nothing involving herself as a 15-year-old. Lorraine then began to recall bits and pieces of events which, she thought, might fall within the pattern Seth had been producing in the rest of the data.

(Jane said that although Seth did not say so, she felt the data on Lorraine was set in the South. Lorraine agreed, saying that if it concerned an incident she was beginning to recall, it would have taken place in Asheville, NC. Jane also picked up leaf images in connection with a porch on the first floor.

(Lorraine had three children then, and they did sleep in back bedrooms of the apartment house in Asheville, NC, she said. As to a front door precisely in the center of a front room, Lorraine was not sure. She said this could be deceptive. If one looked at the front of the house from the outside, he would see a single door in front, in the center of the house; but this was a door opening into a hallway, with apartments opening off on either side, and thus would not be in the middle of a front room.

(The number 46 did not mean anything to Lorraine at the moment, and I asked her if it could be interpreted as perhaps the first week in April. Lorraine said the incident she is thinking of in Asheville took place in the spring.

(Jane had but a vague memory of what she had said. She said Seth had not been pushing to obtain the information, and Lorraine agreed. Jane resumed, again with her eyes closed, at a rather fast pace and in an average voice, at 10:35.)

(Lorraine thought the date of the incident she had in mind could be interpreted as early in April, probably in 1944, in Asheville, NC. It would, she said, be in the springtime however, rather than in winter or autumn. She said her family had lived on the second floor rather than the first, and agreed with Seth’s description, now, of the placement of the front, or porch, door. Seth mentioned “something yellow and something rose.” Lorraine told us the walls of the apartment were painted yellow, and that the furniture was of the old-fashioned kind with large rose decorations.

(Lorraine is separated from her husband. Seth’s whiskey connection arises from the fact that he was drinking heavily at that time in Asheville; the only time he did so. There were arguments, Lorraine said. If her youngest child, a boy, had listened, he did so at the age of one. Lorraine remembers a black mailbox; the apartment of course had a rear entry also. Lorraine described a party to us.

(There was no black car connected with her during the stay in Asheville, Lorraine said. But she owned a black car in 1960, while living in Elmira, several years before we met her. This is the only black car she has had, or been closely associated with. She did not own it when we met her a few months ago.

(These notes are my interpretation of what was said about Seth’s data. I asked Lorraine to make up her own notes for later insertion in the record. She took shorthand notes of tonight’s session.