“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 40th envelope experiment was held during the session. See the tracing above. The envelope object was a dried holly leaf. This gray-brown leaf had been taped to the shade on my lamp at work for well over a year; originally I had used it as a model in doing some artwork for a Christmas card. I saved it because of its interesting color and shape, and the fact that its points were as sharp as ever. It was sealed in the usual double envelope, between two pieces of Bristol. Jane had never seen it, nor did she know I had brought it home.

(The session was held in our front room. Once again Jane smoked very little during the session. Her pace was again slow, with many pauses of varying length. She spoke while sitting down, and with her left hand raised to her lowered head. Her eyes were closed; she maintained this position until break.)

(Jane and I were at once very intrigued by Seth’s term, “psychological bridge”—one most natural and evocative, it seemed to us.)

(Break at 9:30. Jane had been dissociated as usual for a first delivery. She had maintained her original position—eyes closed, head resting on her left upraised hand, for the whole delivery. She did not know why. She hadn’t smoked and her pace had been a little faster toward break.

(Jane has been reading G.N.M. Tyrrell’s book, Science and Psychical Phenomena & Apparitions, lately, and she now told me she had hoped that Seth might discuss his relationship with her this evening.

(Jane resumed in the same manner and in the same position, with pauses, at 9:39.)

(See page 7 of the 240th session for the envelope data on the AAA card used as the object. The card bears the expiration date, and Jane got at the idea of this by gesturing boldly with her arm, finishing up the several lines of data with “as something canceled.” See also page 9, where Jane describes the internal visual data accompanying her vocal data.)

(Break at 9:59. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her pace had picked up considerably. Once again she sat in the same position for the entire delivery—her head lowered, her left hand raised to her closed eyes. Her eyes had remained closed and she had not smoked.

(It was now time for the 47th Dr. Instream experiment. Once more Jane used the same position, with the difference that now her pace slowed once again. Resume at 10:06.)

(Jane paused at 10:17. She still sat in the same position, her eyes closed, her head lowered to rest on her left hand. Without opening her eyes, she reached out with her right hand to take the sealed 40th envelope from me. She then held it against her forehead.)

(Break at 10:28. Jane was dissociated as usual, and once again maintained the same position throughout the delivery. Her eyes had remained closed.

(Jane and I made connections, and Seth briefly concurred regarding some of them.

(In Volume 5, see the 232nd session for Feb. 9,1966. In that session Ezra is dealt with in the envelope data with the same type of data; Seth gave Jane the grave data, signifying Ezra’s death, but at that time Jane, who did not like the idea of graves, did not use the word. This time, Jane now said, she came out with it when Seth gave her the data. We believe the grave data was to refer to Ezra, who worked at Artistic before he died, and that this in turn was to lead Jane to identify Artistic as the source of the envelope object.

(“The number 6.” A lengthy article on Jane’s ESP book was published in the local Elmira Star-Gazette on July 6,1965. This can be a possible connection but we are not sure since I did not ask Seth to speak on this point. The article however is involved with some of the following data.

(“A phone call.” The newspaper article led to a note to Jane from the wife of my boss, Harry Gottesman, inviting us to the Gottesman home for an evening. Jane answered the note, received in July 1965, by phone. All of these oblique references are attempts to tie in my boss, Harry, with the envelope object itself.

(“A note from a man in connection with an achievement.” Jane said she believed she meant to say woman here instead of man, and that this data is another oblique reference to the connection of my boss with the source of the envelope object. See the notes after “phone call” above. My boss’s wife actually wrote the note.

(“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.

(Jane said she had no images that she could remember, during this experiment.

(Since the data hadn’t been specific enough, Jane and I had thought of ourselves and Harry and his wife, as making up the four people.)

(As has happened before, I remembered this as soon as Seth mentioned it. As did Jane, even while she spoke in trance.)

(End at 10:48. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes had remained closed, as they had all evening with the exception of one instance.)