“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(Break at 9:59. Jane said she was well dissociated. Seth was giving her the material so fast that she had trouble keeping up with it; her delivery had been so fast I had barely managed to keep up with it, in turn. Her eyes had opened often; her voice had been good, her manner emphatic, with few pauses.

(Break at 10:29. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes had remained closed through both experiments. She said that Seth had felt like giving many impressions.

(As soon as she opened the double envelopes, Jane said the object looked like a man to her, with either horizontal edge uppermost, and that she thought this impression had given rise to the photograph data. See the tracing on page 162, and the description of the object on page 163. This marked the end of the session for all practical purposes as far as Seth was concerned. Jane and I made the connections we could and did not ask Seth to elaborate.

(“Dark printed matter.” As stated, the pigment used on the object is quite dark, a burnt gray brown, but it is not black. Jane’s impression of it, I noted, was that it was darker to her than to me. I don’t know whether Seth uses printed here to mean an ink applied to paper or newsprint, or just some other substance applied to a surface as in the case of the object.

(“A square object, perhaps a small square shape at the top center of the object, balanced by another shape at the bottom center.” Throughout the data Seth keeps attempting to refine this shape or block image, with some success. Although none of the shapes on the original object are square, they do give the impression of being balanced one upon another. Any object produced like the envelope object will give a feeling of balance, no matter what the design, as long as both halves are printed or impressed in full. On the original many small white interstices show that are not visible on the quick tracing. It seems Seth had a correct impression.

(“The square shapes again, now, as in small patterns.” Seth’s refinement here is to the point. The original object contains a multitude of fine patterns made by the rough paint when I pressed the folder paper together. It is very charming; the patterns are almost like the veins in a leaf. Flecks of white scattered throughout also.

(“The question is not a good one.” Just for kicks, I asked Seth if he thought the object was a photograph. This because of the numerous photo and man references in the data. At this time, of course, before Jane had seen the object, I had no idea that it would remind her strongly of a man, and hence possibly give rise to the photo data.

(“Give us a moment, please… With a block or blocks, as rocks or steps of stone.” This block or rock or stone data could be connected to the data in the paragraph just above this one; although Seth took a long pause in between. At any rate it seems that the texture, the rough stonelike feel and appearance of the pigment on the object, could have given rise to the rock or stone impressions which in turn could conjure up the step data and so lead to the idea of a photo.

(“Also a connection with a building that is not seen from the front but from the side, perhaps from a verandah.” This building data could thus have resulted from the steps mentioned above. If Seth is talking about a photo here, Jane and I do not know offhand what one it could be. We have photos of buildings in our album, of course, but no specific building or location comes to mind.

(“The feeling of a fluid dark color, broken by white shapes that appear like blocks.” The wet pigment used to make the object was a fluid dark color, of course. Seth now uses the block data to refer to the whites scattered through the object on the original. Some of the whites are of a block shape, roughly, but more often simply irregular just as the pigment is.

(I neglected to deal with Seth’s next impression, “The object marked in the middle of the back, in pen or pencil.”

(“Perhaps J B and a date.” Jane, or Seth, getting at the idea of photograph again. As stated earlier, I made two similar objects with the same pigment on May 10,1966. I dated and initialed the one not used in the envelope experiment; this gives an RB and a date, but I doubt if this is what Seth is getting at here.

(“Good night, Seth.”