“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(I had been able to ask Seth six questions concerning the envelope data—the most so far, I believe.

(See the tracing of the object on page 91, and the notes on page 92. At first the data meant little, but Seth’s answer to the second question furnished the key that made it intelligible to us. It would have been quite opaque to an outsider. This is a case where Seth used the object as a springboard to delve into data that is connected to it through location mainly. My thought was that the bulk of the material he gives had more appeal emotionally for him than the object itself, and he confirmed this after break. Still, the turn the data took was unexpected.

(Aunt Mabel and I seldom see each other. Jane has met her just three times during the eleven years we have been married. The third time was at the funeral of my Aunt Ella on August 8,1965, in Wellsburg, NY. Thus the most recent time that Jane had a chance to speak at length to Aunt Mabel involved the funeral of a member of the Butts family. In addition Seth dealt at length with Aunt Ella in the 176th session of August 9,1965, the day after her funeral. Note that the object was secured two months after Aunt Ella’s funeral. We have noticed this curious time jump before in the envelope experiments, backwards as it were. Jane possessed strong emotional memories regarding the funeral, and clairvoyant knowledge of the envelope object in some form; evidently Seth responded to, or deliberately chose, what he perceived as the stronger intensities pertaining to Aunt Ella’s funeral over the object itself.

(There follows a group of impressions related to a child. I asked Seth several questions about these. My brother Loren, his wife and his son Doug attended Aunt Ella’s funeral. Loren and his wife have a daughter, Linda, who could not attend because she was away at school.

(“Some connections with a child here, and the color purple.” We made no connections with the color purple. This child reference is linked by Seth to the tension, and hence to Aunt Ella’s funeral.

(“Female.” Seth gave the sex of the child in answer to my question, thus eliminating Loren’s son Doug, who was 13 at the time. Nor do we regard Linda as a child.

(“We will say then a small child. A connection with a small child.” Seth gave this answer to my request for the female child’s initials; Linda is thus eliminated definitely. More important, Jane said that when I asked questions concerning the child, she wanted to say Linda but that Seth wouldn’t let her. Backing off from the idea of Linda because she felt it was wrong, Jane compromised with the small child data.

(We did get a line finally on who the small child might be, but not until the next day, Tuesday April 12, when I had a chance to ask some questions. This will be given in its proper place after Seth resumes at 10:50.

(Seth gave a few impressions connected with the object, the maple leaf, itself, at the beginning of the data, and at the end when I asked him to name it.

(“Red and yellow, strips I believe, and a cardboard backing.” I used two of the maple leaves Jane and I gathered on our October 1965 walk as subjects for a watercolor painting. The envelope object is one of them. Both of the leaves were fall colors—red and yellow, with some green. There may be other connections here but we did not ask Seth. I don’t see the strips reference, or the cardboard backing.

(“It is something from a gathering. Bordered in white, I believe. Darker in the center, or at least outside of the white portions. And something that seems to go inward here.” This is Seth’s data in response to my request that he name the object. The object is something from a gathering—a gathering of leaves. Bordered in white can be a reference to the rough white watercolor paper on which I did the painting. I painted only the two leaves and their cast shadows, and left the rest of the paper white. Thus the leaves are darker in the center of the painting, outside of the white portions.

(There are a few other impressions that we made no connection for, nor did we ask Seth about the m-i-s-s data. Jane resumed at a leisurely pace at 10:50.)

(“Good night, Seth.”