“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 36th envelope experiment was held tonight. See the tracings on pages 313-14. The drawing on 313 is the actual envelope object. The drawing on 314 is executed by myself, after my boss’s drawing and instructions, and enters into the envelope data in the manner in which the four letters became involved with the envelope object in the 234th session. The relationship tonight is simpler, however.

(See the tracing of the envelope object, and its accompanying drawing, on pages 313-14. We did not ask Seth to clear up each point in the data, so give below our own interpretations. As stated, the key drawing made by my boss was the actual envelope object. This is on thin white paper. The drawing on tracing paper was made by me, from instructions given to me by my boss, and is a schematic drawing to be traced onto Bristol board for final artwork.

(My drawing was actually a recreation of artwork that had been lost at Artistic Card Co. As often happens the original art was later found after I had duplicated it. The drawing was for a gummed sticker to be applied to a line of packaged cards of various kinds—religious, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc., and was for a large old department store in Philadelphia, PA, that goes under the cavalier name of John’s Bargain Store. As the copy of my tracing shows these stickers are applied to the appropriate merchandise at various times of the year.

(“establishment, or something established.” My thought was that both drawings were produced at an establishment, namely my place of employment. But this could also refer to the customer in Philadelphia.

(As can be seen, much of the envelope data given by Seth was transposed from the actual object to my own tracing-paper drawing. It might be noted that during the session, while Jane held the envelope in her hand, my tracing-paper drawing was in the same room with us, although I was unaware of this until after the session. It reposed in my jacket pocket in our front room closet; I had brought it home several days ago, then forgot about it, not having worn the jacket since. Both drawings were made about two weeks ago. Jane hadn’t known they even existed.

(“I get a connection with a missionary, or religion”, is a reference to the fact that the stickers were to be used on boxes of religious cards, as well as other categories. While I was making the drawing the four or five boxes of different cards were laid out before me so that I could refer to them, and the religious box was among them.

(“A small round object, with some inscriptions resembling a postmark.” Jane said she saw within a small round object, with horizontal lines running across it; she thought of a postmark on an envelope, with the cancellation lines, but knew this wasn’t it. When she looked at my tracing-paper drawing, she said this was evidently what she was trying to arrive at subjectively; my drawing is of a round object, although much larger. Jane said the straight-across lettering, Key Value, is in the position of the horizontal lines she saw within. There are also ruled-in horizontal lines on the drawing.

(“and with ribbonlike shapes. That is, long lines that are straight, perhaps two of these, and of dark color, I believe, or dark red. Black or red. Horizontal rather than vertical, in the position in which I hold this.” As stated on page 321, Jane held the rectangular double envelope up with its long edge parallel to the floor, and moved it back and forth to indicate most definitely her insistence upon the horizontal attribute. This is most interesting, for the envelope object itself contains neither vertical or horizontal lines or masses. Once again her actions and data seem to be an attempt to get at my tracing-paper drawing, which bears a close connection to the envelope object.

(My drawing contains lines that are horizontal and straight. There are two sets of these horizontal lines, across the top and the bottom of the words Key Value, and when one turns the drawing over on the back—not shown here—is seen the dark smudges of my pencil as I prepared the drawing for tracing onto paper. Jane said these lines and the dark smudges beneath them are what she believes she was referring to, more so than the other two horizontal sets of lines below the end of the key.

(When she saw the smudges on the back of the tracing-paper drawing, Jane said this was what gave her the idea of “ribbonlike shapes.” The “dark color” and “dark red” references were her attempts to further refine this data.

(“A connection with a machine”, could refer to the fact that I did some of the work on my tracing-paper drawing on a darkroom machine that is called a Lacey-Luci. This is a bulky contraption containing floodlights, a ground glass, and a magnifying-reducing lens for fast juggling of copy or artwork to proper size. A machine of this type is a standard in most art departments.

(“Star shapes.” This is related to the geyser data on page 321, and out of it grows a personal association of Jane’s. Note that my tracing-paper drawing bears a formalized six-pointed star. Jane said she had an image of a star of sorts, and that this gave her the idea of fireworks shooting into the sky—thus the idea of a geyser, and something rising and explosive, etc.

(“The color white background”, might be taken as a reference to the white paper the envelope object was drawn on, but Jane said that once again this referred to the tracing-paper drawing I made. Tracing-paper is a pale translucent gray or off-white color, but not really white as this typing paper is white.

(“and a paper item, folded like a card”, also referred, Jane said, to my drawing rather than the envelope object. Jane said she had a vague image of a small round object upon a rectangular folded object that was like a card, yet the circle was not placed as neatly in the center of the rectangle as my drawing is. It was more offset toward the upper right corner, hence her postmark reference on page 321 also. On page 314 note that my tracing-paper drawing is folded roughly like a card.

(“the center bring a rectangular shape.” Jane said this is another reference to the rectangular area taken up across my drawing by the words Key Value.

(“Somehow cluttered, or full, and empty toward the outsides.” On the original tracing-paper drawing my pencil smudging on the back shows through easily, and gives the drawing a cluttered or crowded look in the center. By contrast it looks bare toward the edge of the circle. This is an effect I noticed at work while making the tracing, but the illusion disappeared on the finished art.

(“Dark and shadowy in the center”, Jane said, is another reference to my smudges on the back of the drawing, and refer back to the ribbonlike shapes on page 321. She had a fairly good image of this darkened area, and its horizontal disposition.

(“with suggestions of motion”, again refers to my drawing rather than the actual envelope object; the motion, Jane said, of my pencil smudges across the back of the drawing, and to the slant of the words This Week’s above the key and star.

(“and late afternoon.” Jane said this is another impression taken from the smudges on the back of my drawing. Note that this pencil smudging on the back of the tracing affected Jane probably more than anything else. This late afternoon impression stemmed from the feeling of dusk or evening falling, as suggested by the dark smudges. Jane was quite aware of this feeling subjectively.

(“A connection with a house and a white border.” This is interesting, in that Jane said she had an image of a card shape with a house and foliage on it. It was not very clear, yet she knew that much about it. The boxes of cards for which the sticker was made are large, large enough to contain reproductions of four cards, arranged in a rectangular pattern on the box top, and on a printed gold background. Each card design is surrounded by a rectangular white border, perhaps an eighth of an inch wide. Some of the boxes laid out before me, as I made my drawing for the sticker, contained reproductions of cards bearing houses, trees, flowers, etc.; the standard kind of subject material for greeting cards.

(Jane said that out of all the connections we made, practically all of them referred to my tracing-paper drawing rather than to the actual envelope object itself. My boss made the envelope object. Jane knows him of course, and likes him; yet the fact that I made the tracing-paper drawing evidently exerted a stronger pull emotionally. Perhaps this diverted Seth/Jane’s focus from the envelope object to a closely related object. As stated, Jane didn’t know the two drawings existed.

(End at 10:55. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes had remained closed since break, her pace rather slow. She said she felt sure about the impressions concerning my tracing-paper drawing. She was aware, she repeated, of the circular shape upon the rectangular shape formed by the folded tracing paper; she felt it was folded when Seth said so.)