“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Tonight Bill and Peggy Gallagher came to visit us. Bill told us that he would have to leave for a few minutes to pick up an advertisement at the bus terminal and take it to the newspaper office, the Star-Gazette, where he works. On the spur of the moment Peggy suggested that we all try to pick up impressions concerning the ad, while Bill was gone. Bill himself would not know the contents of the ad, which was in an envelope, until he opened it at the paper.

(Bill said that he would try to think strongly of the ad. He left here at approximately 10 PM and returned about 10:35. Rob, Peg, and I had all written down our impressions, and none of us knew what the others had written. None of Peg’s were correct. Many of mine, about 11 impressions, were correct, and some of Rob’s.

(My score would seem to be above chance. I did not seem to pick up impressions about the ad itself, however. I seemed to pick up impressions of Bill at the newspaper office, and follow him as he went about his chores. I had no idea at the time that any of my impressions were correct. Indeed I suspected that they were all wrong. I seem to work with words rather than images, that is, I pick up word impressions, I guess, rather than pictures.

(Correct. On entering the newspaper building Bill went into one particular office and left, making a sudden and sharp turn to go upstairs.

(Correct on both points. Bill went upstairs to talk to the men in the Ad department. Though I have been in the newspaper building, I did not know that these offices were upstairs. Bill’s own office is downstairs, as I knew, and if I thought about it at all I assumed that all his business took place there. I had no idea that Bill had any connection with the upstairs offices at all, since the editorial work is done there, and he has nothing to do with that at all. Peg, who works up there, has told me often that she never sees him upstairs.

(Correct, though this was the upstairs office. The three people were a Mr. Connor, who Bill definitely did not expect to see, and his two children.

(Correct. Bill spoke about the “sunny climes” in particular in contrast to our autumn weather, as he intends to go to Puerto Rico for his vacation and the discussion had to do with the differences in weather this time of year.

(Correct. Bill insists this is a direct hit. He said that the term sig is always used in the ads, and is part of the language of the ad department. They discussed which “sig” to use, and the word “sig” was inserted, though no signature was then written in. Though sig means signature, the word signature itself is never used, Bill said. Phonetically the words are the same, cig and sig, though mine begins with a C.

(Wrong as far as Bill knows.

(Correct, and not anticipated by Bill.

(Correct. Bill and another man discussed a specific tour taken by the other man a few years ago to Puerto Rico.

(Correct. Bill had an unpleasant encounter with Mr. Connor earlier in the day, and he was thinking of quitting his job because of it. When he found Mr. Connor in the office after regular hours, and unexpectedly, Bill was upset and instantly tense.

(Near-correct. Before Mr. Connor’s entrance, Bill was joking with another man. On purpose he pronounced the word Ponce as P O N K A Y, which sounds very much like padre.

(While Bill Gallagher was putting on his hat and coat at 10 PM tonight, preparatory to leaving our apartment for the bus terminal, I wrote down two impressions of headlines. I was not in a trance state. Bill did not see these until he returned at 10:35 PM; he told me both of them were incorrect.

(After Bill left Jane and Peggy sat talking while I read. As she talked Jane jotted down her impressions. I interrupted my reading to put myself into a light trance state, and then wrote down four more impressions. Three of these proved to be correct. I used the trance state rather casually, and later wished I had written down more impressions; but I was interested in getting back to my reading.

(Both incorrect. I made these before Bill left the apartment. The ad was printed on Tuesday, October 12, 1965. The actual headline consisted of the single word NOW!

(Correct. The above impression and the following three were made in the light trance state. Bill said the description fits the stereotyper at the newspaper, and that the two of them discussed the ad this evening. Murphy, the stereotyper, whom I have never met, is according to Bill a large, rotund fat man. I have not been inside the newspaper building since Jane and I moved here five years ago.

(Incorrect. Here I referred to the wrapping of the ad when Bill picked it up at the bus terminal. Bill said the ad was wrapped in brown paper and sealed with brown paper tape.

(Correct. Bill said the material for the ad, [the plates], was protected by two layers of heavy cardboard.

(Correct. Bill said the layout suggested for the ad was for four columns. When he got to the office and tried to make a layout for four columns however, he found it to be too crowded and switched to a five-column layout. The sigs he arranged at the bottom of the ad.

(With this impression, as I sat with closed eyes, I seemed to receive a picture. I saw fairly clearly a four-column layout set in type; at the top was a plate for printing a photograph, with headline lettering on either side of the photo. I could not distinguish the subject matter of the photo. When Bill returned he asked me to diagram what I had seen. To the viewer’s left on page 321 is a copy of the drawing I made for him, to the right is a sketch of the actual ad as printed. On Friday night Bill told me my sketch was pretty close to the layout he finally decided upon at the office, and talked over with the stereotyper. My impression was of the metal printing plate, not the final printed ad. The metal appeared to be clean and unused and shining.)