“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 34th envelope experiment was held during the session. The object was the front of a recent letter to Jane from her publisher’s secretary. I folded it once, put it between two pieces of board and sealed it in the usual double envelope. Jane did not know I had saved it. I thought this object simple enough, while containing some good emotional charges, but as will be seen Seth picked up many connections. The experience turned out to be a complicated one. There were unexpected hits, and one not used.

(Jane was visited by the wife of our landlord after supper this evening. Marian Spaziani is a good friend. It will be remembered that Seth dealt with her husband’s financial activities in some detail in the 229th session. Seth has also called Marian an excellent telepathic receiver, and has dealt with some of her experiences, concerning the death of her husband’s father, in past sessions. See the notes on page 248; and the 100th and 101st sessions in Volume 3, for example.

(Marian had an interesting experience to tell Jane. Recently Marian’s daughter wrote what Marian considered to be an excellent composition on the poet Donne; the quality was exceptional, according to Marian, and she typed up the paper for her daughter to take to school. To their surprise the English teacher marked the paper with a D minus.

(The session was held in our front room. Jane began speaking while sitting down, and her eyes opened briefly almost at once. Her pace was fast; she sipped wine occasionally and was smoking.)

(Jane, her eyes wide open, stared at me, smiling broadly.

(Break at 9:29. Jane said she was dissociated as usual for a first delivery. Her pace had been generally fast, slowing a bit in the middle. Her eyes had opened often, her delivery had been emphatic.

(Jane was again smoking when she resumed in the same manner at 9:42.)

(True, Jane has had trouble remembering her dreams lately, and for that matter so have I. She had also been quite tired at the end of sessions, as noted; whereas she usually feels better than at the beginning.)

(It was now time for the 40th Dr. Instream experiment. Jane sat with her right hand raised to her closed eyes. She used many short pauses but her pace was average in between. She was not smoking. Resume at 10:09.)

(Here Jane made a gesture, her eyes still closed, as if she could somehow distinguish between the above impressions.)

(It was 10:20. I handed Jane the sealed double envelope; as usual she took it without opening her eyes, then resumed her former position, with her right hand raised to her eyes.)

A connection with a grand view. A package. (Jane gestures.) Ruburt’s association is with something that did not arrive on time, but let that one pass.

(Break at 10:28. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes had remained closed. She had spoken at a fair pace broken by many short pauses.

(Jane said she felt that she was trying too hard during the experiment; she wanted Seth to name the object exactly, and when she realized this she tried to relax. She now went on to explain that when I handed her the envelope she had “shifted gears” in order to give herself suggestions that she do very well on the experiment.

(Jane said she felt her awareness “rising” as she did this; she believes she came part of the way out of her trance state, then sank back into it when she made her effort to relax. In retrospect she does not believe such tactics to be good ones, and will not repeat them.

(See the tracing of the envelope object on page 289. I had used this for the object on the spur of the moment, more or less, without being concerned with whether Jane might know, or have on file, the letter the envelope had contained. Some of the data we could connect with the object, some we could not. When Jane began to go through her file of correspondence with her publisher, F. Fell, we began to see what complications could evolve from what seemed to be a simple envelope object.

(Letter #1: Written January 20. Jane wrote Frederick Fell giving approval of the title given to her ESP book. She also offered her help in writing copy for mail order ads, and offered her small collection of ads for various ESP books which she has collected, as a guide. She told F. Fell copy for the ESP field is hard to write without experience in the field.

(Letter #2: Written January 25. This acknowledged Jane’s letter of January 20, and was written by F. Fell’s secretary, Rhoda Monks. She informed Jane that F. Fell was out of town for two weeks, and that he would be back in town—NYC—on February 7. F. Fell was out of town from Monday January 24, to Monday February 7. It developed that he was in Florida on a selling trip and vacation.

(Letter # 3: Written January 25. This too was from the offices of F. Fell, written the same day as letter # 2, and was a simple note from an Emma Hesse, of the bookkeeping department, requesting that Jane send in her social security number for tax purposes. Actually the letter was a form letter and Jane was addressed as “Gentlemen:”.

(Letter # 4: Written January 25 by Jane, before the receipt of the two lettersfrom F. Fell on the same day. Our mail arrives late in the day. In this letter Jane discussed the 200 pages she has finished on her first book on the Seth material itself. She also discussed the title for the ESP book, again offered her help on publicity ideas re this book, and told F. Fell that she was ready to help in any way she could.

(Both letters of January 25 from F. Fell to Jane, although on different-sized paper, bore fold marks that revealed either one could have been enclosed in the experimental object, which is an envelope front from F. Fell, postmarked January 25. Since the data obtained from the experiment this evening refers to both letters, as will be shown, we have no way of knowing which letter was actually mailed in the experimental object. I did not realize until after the session that it would have helped to ask Seth this.

(It should be noted here that Jane spent most of the day working on the article for Fate Magazine, dealing with Seth and the envelope experiments. In the 233rd session, Seth said the article would be sold. In order to do the article. Jane spent much time going over past envelope experiment results. It was tiring work in its own way, and Seth gives this activity as one of the reasons the envelope experiment results were not better. He has also said in the past that this kind of work on Jane’s part can lower the level of her results.

(“A connection with twine.” We thought this general, since Jane’s book manuscripts are usually bound with twine.

(“With the numbers four three”, was also general. Jane speculated that it could refer to the age of either the publicity director of F. Fell, or to Rhoda Monks, the author of letter # 2. Jane telephoned Frederick Fell on February 8th, and in so doing spoke first to Rhoda Monks; to Jane she sounded as though she could be about that age.

(“A package.” A package was mailed to F. Fell on February 10. It contained the manuscript for the book on the Seth material, plus that of the poetry book. See page 269 of the 232nd session for Frederick Fell’s request to see the book plus the tape recording Jane made of some of the poems. The connection here with the envelope data is the January 25 postmark on the experimental object; Jane discusses the book on the Seth material in letter #4, written on January 25. Also, the tape was mailed to F. Fell on February 10 in a separate package.

(“Ruburt’s association is with something that did not arrive on time, but let that one pass.” After break Seth tells us he hoped to make this clearer, but could not. Jane and I thought this was a reference to the fact that F. Fell left for Florida on January 24, Monday, before reading Jane’s letter #1, of January 20, the previous Thursday. Letter #1 would not have arrived at his office by the next morning, Friday. Thus letter #1 was acknowledged in letter #2, written by F. Fell’s secretary, Rhoda Monks, on Tuesday, January 25.

(We think also that Seth’s statement above might refer to letter #4, written by Jane on January 25. At the time she wrote this letter Jane had yet to receive letter #2, and thus did not know F. Fell would be out of NYC until February 7. Actually Jane’s letter #4 was never answered by mail. It was discussed in the telephone call between Jane and F. Fell on February 8. This is the call discussed in the notes on page 269 of the 232nd session. And again, the connection here with the envelope object is the January 25 date on which Jane wrote letter # 4, and the January 25 postmark on the object.

(“An achievement and a scarcity.” We think this a reference to letter # 1, written by Jane on January 20. Achievement being a general reference to her ESP book, and scarcity being a more specific connection in that Jane offers her own small collection of ESP ads to F. Fell’s office for use as a guide in writing copy. The connection with the envelope object being that this letter #1 was answered on January 25, by letter #2, and that it is quite possible this is the letter contained in the object used in this evening’s experiment.

(“Three people in particular.” Three people wrote the four letters involved. Jane wrote letters #1 and #4, Rhoda Monks wrote letter #2, Emma Hesse was responsible for letter #3. But I did not ask Seth for clarification and so we are not certain.

(“A note—there is some confusion here—that was not sent, or did not arrive. This lead Ruburt to think of a note he wrote but did not send, to Father Martin. I mention this for your information.” There is an interesting example of association at work here. Jane saw it before I did. Father Martin is a monk in a nearby monastery close to Elmira, and the author of letter #2, possibly enclosed by the envelope object, is Rhoda Monks.

(Jane did write Father Martin a letter on December 2,1965 that she never mailed. In the 212th session for November 29,1965 Seth discussed various measurements that could be taken from Jane just before, during, and after sessions by a doctor. Father Martin was a doctor before entering the religious life; he knows of the sessions but has not witnessed any or read the material. We considered asking his help in the matter of getting some data on Jane’s physiological states, but did not go through with the idea because of lack of time.

(“The impression of cleverness”, meant little in particular, other than that Jane received the impression that F. Fell is the shrewd businessman type, through her telephone talks with him.

(“A long passage of time, and then a meeting.” This is a connection growing out of letter #4, written by Jane on January 25, which is the postmark date on the experimental object. As stated, F. Fell did not answer letter #4 by mail. The letter was answered by telephone in the call of February 8, between Jane and F. Fell. Jane said the passage-of-time reference grows out of Mr. Fell’s questions as to when she was coming to New York, and her reply that she saw no use in it until the ESP book was out; then, in May, she wanted to be in NYC to help with publicity. Thus a year or so is involved from the time F. Fell agreed to publish the book and Jane began her final draft of it. The “meeting” grows out of Mr. Fell’s reference that in this telephone call of February 8, he felt he was getting acquainted with Jane as a person, meeting her personally; also that he looked forward to their meeting in May.

(“A willingness to achieve.” In both letters #1 and #4, Jane expresses her willingness to do all she can to help with publicity re the ESP book—write copy, appear on radio or TV shows, etc. In the February 8 phone call, F. Fell told Jane he would try to get her on some shows to publicize the book.

(“Paws, and netlike shapes, and triangles.” These are very good references to letter #3, and take the form of doodles executed by Jane. She remembers making these on February 8, just before her telephone call to F. Fell. Letter #3, again, was written January 25, and the date connects this letter with the January 25 postmark on the envelope experimental object. Either letter #2 or letter #3 was enclosed in the experimental object.

(Jane has the habit of making such doodles, but as it happens letter #3 is the only one of the four letters involved that has doodles on it. Nor, for the record, does Jane’s unmailed letter of December 2,1965 to Father Martin contain any doodles. The doodles from letter #3 are reproduced below as tracings from the originals, and are not in the same position as on the original, standard-size 81/2 x 11 inch typing paper; the doodles are scattered over the page.

(I interpreted the portion indicated of the one doodle as bearing a resemblance to the imprint of a paw, although Jane intended this design as flowers. The netlike shapes and triangles are obvious.

(We now come to an impression that Jane had while giving the experimental data this evening, but to which she did not give voice. Naturally, she was considerably vexed to learn that it was a legitimate one, and pertained directly to the object. See the tracing of the experimental object on page 289. Note that the word “bread” is written upon it as part of a grocery list. As soon as she opened the sealed double envelope and saw the object, Jane realized she had had an impression of bread. She did not have an image of a loaf of bread, for instance, but the words “a loaf of bread,” rather quickly. She does not know why she didn’t give voice to them, other than that the next impression came along quickly. This has happened before, she said. Then succeeding impressions crowd out memory of what has been left unsaid, until later. In this instance, Jane could not recall very accurately what part of the data she was giving voice to when she had the bread impression, except that she was sure it wasn’t toward the end.

(Jane resumed with her eyes closed, but opening occasionally, at 11:01.)

(Seth slipped up here, we believe. Rhoda Monks did author letter #2, but letter #3 was written by a woman, also; it is this letter that concerns Jane’s social security number.

(Seth is correct, and after he mentioned the twine connection Jane and I remembered it. This took place not on January 25, however, but on February 10, when the manuscript on the Seth material and the poetry book were mailed together. But Jane wrote letter #4, concerning the Seth material, on January 25. We did not use twine on the package, incidentally, but did use it on the package containing the tape recording Jane made of some of the poems in the poetry book. This was also mailed February 10. See page 269 of Session 232.)

(End at 11:14. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her pace had been average, her eyes had opened occasionally. Once again she said she was tired after the session.)