“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Friday evening, January 21, Jane had some success hypnotizing both Bill and Peggy Gallagher at their request, separately. The experiment was not planned. Peggy has been hypnotized twice—one of these times by Dr. Milton Erickson—but this was Bill’s first experience. Dr. Erickson is nationally known.

(Jane achieved partial success with Bill on two attempts. The first try was the best. Bill was unable to open his eyes and developed good amnesia in his left hand, these being the tests Jane used to show him something about the trance state. However he was not able to speak during either session, and came out of the state both times when Jane asked him to answer questions. He did succeed in relaxing very well. This is difficult for him to do; he has ulcers.

(Seth came through briefly shortly before the Gallaghers left, at about 1 AM. He told us he had watched the proceedings with much pleasure and amusement. He explained that Bill had allowed the hypnosis to proceed just so far before his ego called a halt, but that he could progress. Seth said Peggy used rationalization in saying that she stood for Willy’s proximity because she thought Jane touched her instead of the cat. Peggy, Seth said in high good humor, had actually achieved an excellent state of deep hypnosis when Jane used the more authoritative approach; otherwise she wouldn’t have permitted the cat’s presence.

(I was somewhat dubious about Jane’s hypnosis attempts since we haven’t had time to do much work in this direction lately. But Jane said she felt like it, and the Gallaghers insisted that she try. I didn’t think Bill could be easily hypnotized, but he was quite pleased with his results for a first attempt. Both Bill and Peggy said they thought they could have done better had Jane taken more time with her induction, yet Jane’s approach had been quite leisurely; thus time appeared to have been compressed for them.