“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 54th envelope experiment was held tonight. The object was a homemade pattern made on light-colored paper, with hand-ground gray brown earth color for pigment and polymer medium for binder. It was folded once as indicated in the making. The effect is like an inkblot, except that the quality and texture of the paint is much superior as far as charm goes; this particular hand-ground pigment, which I make myself by heating a certain Italian earth color, has a texture like fine cement or roughened stone. Since it is a heavy-bodied pigment, it was built up in spots on the object as much as 1/32 of an inch thick. The whole pattern was made up of lines and white spots which do not show very well in my tracing. I placed the object, folded once, between the usual two pieces of Bristol and sealed it in the double envelopes.

(Jane of course had never seen this object, or any others like it, because I have never made them before. I made two of them on May 10,1966; I dated one of them and used the other in the envelope. The pigment color is quite dark, but not black. The stonelike or rough surface and the dark color enter into the experimental results.

(“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 film connection, black and white.” As stated Jane at once thought of a man when she saw the object, and this she thinks led to the film connection. It comes up again, as does the black and white data. To Jane the color of the pigment on the object is quite dark.

(“Connection with an image of Ruburt. Black and white again rather than color. A connection with the early 1960s.” Again, Jane thinks the dark pigment on the object gave rise to this data, with the date perhaps referring to the year a picture of herself was taken.

(“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.

(“Something overturned.” The irregular shape of the pigment on the object; a similarity here between it and some liquid spilled.

(“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.

(“Perhaps some connection with a pond or pool shape.” Again, this applies to the irregular shape of the pigment on the object, and is close, and in the same vein as the “something overturned,” and “the feeling of a fluid dark color” data. We regard these three impressions as good.

(“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.