“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 31st envelope experiment was held during the session. The test object is a leaflet concerning highway signs to be used in case of an atomic attack. Jane and I picked it up at our local Bureau of Motor Vehicles the second week in January, when we went there to inquire about the delay in receiving my new license plates. I had ordered them December 3,1965; as will be seen this date plays a part in the test results.

(The session was held in our front room and was not interrupted. Jane began speaking while sitting down and with her eyes closed, although they began to open after a few minutes. Her pace was good, her voice average.)

Imagine the whole self as composed of some master tape. Your recorder has four channels. We will give our master tape numberless channels.

Each portion of the self must therefore become fully aware of all the other portions. We are not dealing however with anything as simple as a mechanical recorder, for our tapes, in analogy, are constantly changing.

Something resembling a bench, but small and lighter in weight. Old- fashioned, it is old-fashioned. (Pause.) I have the impression of a miniature antique, of Victorian style, and it is scrolled. (Pause.) The legs, I believe, are scrolled. This is our object.

(“and an occurrence that was not repeated.” The sheriff told us the bureau was flooded by mail requests for plates and was very much behind; indeed they had just begun filling mail orders a day or so before our visit. The sheriff advised us to return a few days later if we did not receive our plates. Although we didn’t receive the plates by the day he mentioned, we did not return to the bureau as he said to do, but chose to wait a little longer; the plates arrived the next week.

(“An afternoon.” Jane and I made our visit to the motor vehicle bureau in the afternoon.

(“Two men, one taller than the other. Both of them at one time or another.” This I felt to be a rather far-removed connection involving myself and the service manager of the Ford garage in town that keeps our car running. He is a friend; visiting us over the Christmas holidays, he urged Jane and me not to wait too long before making personal inquiries at the bureau, to check and see if they had received my application. I am the taller of the two referred to.

(Jane was pleased with the test results. As stated, the envelope object had good emotional connections for both of us, with the added connection of the dream material mentioned on page 260. The dream material was not specifically mentioned by Seth, however. It will be noted that his data moved between the fact of our being strongly concerned about the license plates, and the experimental object itself, which was picked up as the focal point of our concern.

Since we covered some of our own material quite well this evening, I will add a few comments here on other matters.

Now, Ruburt’s subconscious simply got in our way at last evening’s session. Now and then it is to be expected, but I regret the particular circumstances deeply. He was subconsciously but never consciously aware that next month marked the time of his grandfather’s death, and subconsciously he knew his grandfather’s age at death.

I would apologize to Ruburt, but the distortion was not my own. I do deeply regret it however. I also think that you will find his attitude from now on an improvement over his past attitude, as far as our experiments are concerned, and this will be of benefit to all of us.

That was indeed our weak point, and since we were doing well I did not press it. You were the taller man, and your garage man was the short one. I let this go since we were doing well enough without pressing Ruburt.