“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 55th envelope experiment was held during the session. Notes pertaining to the object will be found along with Seth’s data given during the experiment.

(Jane was especially logy before the session, and remarked that she didn’t feel much like having one. She decided to go ahead, however. I felt somewhat tired also. It was a warm and rainy night, which didn’t make us feel any more active.

(Jane began speaking while sitting down and with her eyes closed. Her pace was slow and she used many pauses, some of them long. A few of these will be indicated.)

(Break at 9:26. Jane was “out” as usual. Her pace had remained very slow. Many of the pauses during the delivery lasted for over a minute. Her eyes began to open finally, and she smoked a cigarette and sipped iced tea. She said she thought the session would be short.

(Break at 9:58. Jane was well dissociated, she said. She wasn’t aware of the traffic noise for instance, even though the windows were open. Her eyes remained closed through both experiments.

(I picked up the matchbook in a restaurant, Mother Goldsmith’s in Saratoga Springs, NY. Jane has been familiar with the place since childhood, and on our infrequent visits to Saratoga we always stop in. I dated this particular matchbook on the inside when obtaining it—August 1963, which was before these sessions began in December 1963. The book is printed in black on a dim yellow—as Seth calls it—cardboard stock. All the copy on it, except for Nate Goldsmith’s name beneath the caricature of him, is in this dim yellow against the black background.

(It wasn’t until Jane and I began to study the envelope data that we realized it referred to more than one visit to Saratoga on our part. This immediately complicated things. Interpretations became elusive indeed, and part of our knowledge that two visits to Saratoga were involved was subjective only. Had we realized this by the end of the session we would have called Seth back to help out. As it was we didn’t appreciate what had happened until the time came to write these notes. Another complication is that while we cannot pin down all the data, we feel that most of it is quite legitimate.

(I will indicate below where we believe the two Saratoga visits are referred to in the envelope data. The first visit was in August 1963, the second was in the summer of 1964. On both occasions Jane and I were on our way to York Beach, Maine, on vacation; both visits to York Beach played a part in these sessions, and exact dates can be found in appropriate sessions. See Session 9 in Volume 1.

(“A connection with a spade.” On our second visit, in 1964, Jane and I were told that Nate Goldsmith had died. We do not know just when he died, but believe it was after our first visit. Jane did not know the Goldsmiths intimately, merely to speak to. Also on the 1964 visit we were told the restaurant had been, or was being, sold.

(“Four. Connection with a meeting.” This too took place on the 1964 visit. Jane feels subjectively sure that here the meeting between us and her father, Del, and his third wife, is referred to. The meeting was arranged by mail beforehand. Jane and I planned to meet Del and his wife, who were already camping at Saratoga Lake, there, and spend a few days with them before going on to Maine. This we did.

(“Writing. Five, perhaps five lines.” Once again, we do not know just what Seth means by writing—type like this, printing, handwritten script or lettering, etc. The front cover of the object contains five lines of large type against the black background. The object was presented flat or opened up in the envelope, so also visible at a glance would be more than five lines—eight to be exact exclusive of the name on the caricature. I hand lettered inside the cover also. The phone number on the top fold of the object contains a five, but we don’t know whether this means anything.

(End at 10:11. Jane was “out” as usual. She said Seth felt affectionate at the end of the session. She held the session tonight not only because she didn’t want to miss it, but because under similar circumstances in the past the results have been good. She had confidence that if she really shouldn’t have a session Seth would either call it off entirely or make it very short.)