“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Ruburt is of course much more familiar with sense impressions than he is with internal data, or with impressions that do not come to him through the physical senses. Therefore in our experiments, often, I will give him an impression, and he will automatically translate it into visual terms, although his eyes are closed. And then he is tempted to interpret it literally, as he would an ordinary visual image.

For simplicity’s sake, I say that I gave him the image, but actually I gave him the impression, which he translated into an image, so that he could deal with it in a more familiar way.

Here is a very brief example. Suppose I am trying to give him the impression of a glass of water. It is fairly easy to insert the idea of water, but this may lead him personally to think of the Gulf of Mexico, or the ocean off of Marathon, or even of the Atlantic at York Beach. I will use his associations until I am certain that he has the concept of the word water, but precisely where he is about to say the ocean for example, and after having made use of his associations to get him to this point, I must suddenly make him say a glass of water.

Give us a moment, please. These are impressions.

Ruburt’s impression now is of a basement. Mine is of something steep, downward, with rock. Rock walls, and hard rather than soft beneath. And perhaps water.

(“A reference to four people.” We were not sure here, unless this was a reference to the evening Jane and I spent with my boss and his wife, after the note and the phone call, etc. We call these kind of impressions twice-removed from the actual object.

(“Ruburt’s impression now is of a basement. Mine is something steep, downward, with rock. Rock walls, and hard rather than soft beneath. And perhaps water.” This is the data obtained after I asked Seth to elaborate upon the underground, or grave, data. It adds a little to the first impression given tonight. See page 17 also. Jane said now that because she hadn’t given the word grave in the envelope data in the 232nd session, involving a death, she made it a point to speak it aloud this evening when she obtained a similar impression.

(Yet note that above she has an impression of a basement instead, personally, and when speaking for Seth does not use the word grave, as she did the first time. One point I am curious about. Is water somehow involved with Ezra’s grave? Is Seth clairvoyantly aware of water in, or near, the grave? I wasn’t quick enough to ask the question after break.