“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 52nd envelope experiment was held. The object was a page of manuscript from Jane’s dream book. She had thrown it away on May 5; unknown to her I fished it out of the wastebasket. It is typed on yellow paper and bears her penned notations. The back of it is blank. I used the two pieces of Bristol board and the two envelopes as usual in preparing it for the experiment.

(The session was held in the front room. Jane spoke while sitting down and with her eyes closed. For much of the time she held a hand to her face, her head down. Her voice was quiet and she paused frequently.)

Your brother’s wife was a baker’s daughter, and still has the habit of overindulging in food.

In connection with Boston, there was a street, I believe called Grant, or there was a building called the Grant Building or residence, which was used in connection with a church. Perhaps as living quarters of the minister.

The address itself had two fives in the number. There is a connection with a 1632 date that I do not understand. Perhaps we can clear it up later. (Long pause.) A Gaylor family was connected with the church. Rich members I believe, and they were buried nearby. A Sarah and an Oscar.

(Break at 9:28. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her pace had been average to begin the session but it had slowed a great deal when she reached the reincarnation data. Her eyes opened just twice, briefly, during the delivery. Most of the time she sat with a hand up to her face.

G-r-a-n-o-l-d-y. A connection with St. Ambrose, and the church. (Long pause.) Church records kept in a vault in the basement. (Long pause.) Later, much later, a track of some kind was built very near by the church property. For a while in later years, the house where you lived had front rooms converted into a barber shop. Perhaps from 1870 to 1890.

Later still, a dress shop, and then a restaurant, as the neighborhood deteriorated. Then, all new buildings. You were portly. The church was near the water, and it was visited on occasion by sailors. (Many pauses, some of them long. Jane’s eyes were closed and she was very restless.)

Before this it was more elegant, and when it was the ships came in further to the north to dock. As shipping increased the docks moved southward to take in the area near the church.

There was another town directly west, or an area whose name began with an A, and it was more distant than the other two settlements. You moved here, and then moved back to Boston.

You did not act as a minister in the other location, but worked with lumber. When you returned to Boston you became minister of a church in the same denomination but in a different building. The other, or later location, was a socially better one by contrast, but you did not move in the best circles by any means. The northern area of the city was the most elite.

The word I wanted in connection with Ruburt’s name was not note. It was Nostra, N-o-s-t-r-a. This was part of her name: Nostratious was the first name. Elmo—

—Elmo was the last name, and there was a professional name that was used also.

(Break at 9:58. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes remained closed and her pace was slow. She was aware that she was very restless. Jane said that during one of the longer pauses she felt Seth trying to get at the name Nostratious from the earlier note data. We thought Nostratious Elmo a most peculiar name. In an earlier session Seth told us Jane had been a medium in her Boston life, and that she had misused her abilities. This could account for the mention of a professional name above however. See page 86 in Volume 1.

(It was now time for the 61st Dr. Instream experiment. Jane’s pace was once again broken by short pauses as she sat with a hand raised to her closed eyes. Resume at 10:09.)

(Break at 10:29. Jane said she was well dissociated. Her eyes had remained closed through both experiments. I had the feeling that she hadn’t wanted me to ask questions, particularly. When I hesitated she called for break.

(We were able to make many connections. Also, the same object was used in the next session, the 258th, and it is interesting to see how Seth picks up some of the same points both times. These points of agreement will be noted in the 258th session.

(See the copy of the envelope object on page 142. As stated it is the top half of the first page of chapter five of the book on dreams that Jane is writing. This was the first draft. Jane had thrown it away and I rescued it from the wastebasket in my studio. It is written on yellow paper; the notations were made by a pen with the same color ink as those on the copy. I wrote the date in pencil on the object the day I found it. It was folded once before going into the sealed double envelope. The back side of the object is blank.

(“A framework, that seems to be wooden, with thin lines like poles.” We believe this data is reinforced by the “high ledge shape” data given later, and that it refers to my studio, wherein the page of manuscript used as object was written. Jane uses the studio in the mornings while I am working outside. Her desk faces a row of five windows, tall and narrow, and with small panes. The studio is actually a glass-enclosed back porch, second story, converted to year-round use.

(“The connection with anemia leads Ruburt to think of Helga Anderson, or a connection with artists or artwork.” Jane thinks that here Seth was trying to get her to say that an artistic endeavor, meaning the dream book, was involved with the object. Helga Anderson, a good friend, has anemia. She is the wife of Ernfred Anderson, a sculptor who was director of the art gallery where Jane worked part-time for several years. In the chapter five connected with the object, Jane uses a dream of Ernfred’s to make a certain point.

(“A star shape. Something round, again, with spokes leading outward, but rather prominent.” Jane immediately thought of this diagram when she read over Seth’s data. It is on the back of page 112 of the first draft of chapter five of the dream book. Jane believes that she quite possibly made the diagram on the same day she typed up page 80, which was used as envelope object. Page 112 was used in the final version of chapter five, fortunately, and so was not thrown away. I had not seen the diagram before. It is one Jane made to help her see clearly certain points involving the whole self, and waking and dreaming states. There was much handwritten copy beneath it. Jane located the diagram immediately after this session. She said it is the only one she made for the dream book; she has the habit of making many notes on her manuscript, but very few diagrams of this kind.

(“A connection with a high ledge shape, as one connected with a roof, or lookout from which one can look down and away.” See the interpretation of the “framework” data on page 148. As stated, the manuscript page used as object was written by Jane in the studio at the back of the apartment. The studio is a second-floor converted porch with two sides made up of five windows each. Jane sits at her desk facing the row of windows to the west; from there she has an excellent view of the backyard and the street beyond. She “looks down and away” at grass and flowers, etc., and to her left, not obstructing her view, is the porch roof of the apartment on the ground floor.

(“Also a small screen.” It took Jane two days to make the connection here, and when she did it was very vivid. At the end of the session she said she’d had no images while giving the envelope data. Association a couple of days later reminded her that she had indeed had one mental picture—that of a small television screen, and quite clearly. These images can be difficult to recall, particularly on the spur of the moment, and Jane has had other instances where they came to mind some time after the session.