“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 56th envelope experiment was held during the session. The object was a pencil drawing I made of Jane this afternoon, without her knowledge. I looked down on her as she sunned herself, my viewpoint being the back row of the studio windows on the second story. The sketch took but a few minutes because she moved so frequently, and I was much amused at her restlessness; this mirth plays a part in the experimental results. The drawing is on porous paper with a slight yellowish cast. I placed it between the usual two pieces of Bristol, then sealed it in double envelopes.

These body forms however are necessary camouflages, for you cannot yet think of identity without some kind of physical body. Therefore you project yourself in a body form. It varies according to your own abilities, and without it you would feel lost indeed. The form itself is not important, but the form can tell you something about the dimension in which you are having experience.

The dream body is the one with which you are most familiar. It has been called the astral body. It strikes you as being physical, though you can do things with it that you cannot do with your physical body. You can levitate with it, for example. As a rule you do not go through walls with this body. This is the body that you use for ordinary dreams. Levitation is possible with it, but on a very limited basis.

When you enter a different dimension the abilities of the body form change, and for all intents and purposes it is a different body form, which we will call a mind form. It still seems physical in shape, but you can walk through physical matter with it, and you can truly levitate with it within your solar system, but you cannot go beyond in this mind form.

At physical death, after the last reincarnation, then the normal body form is the dream body, and excursions are made from this point, you see. It is possible to suddenly switch from the third form to the dream body, but at a considerable jolt to the consciousness, as a rule. Transition is simply too sudden.

But the training here is vastly important, and a manipulation of consciousness in this way has definite advantages. It will take some work on your part, but you will indeed by able, perhaps with some use of suggestion, to realize, when in the dream state, those occasions when you are projecting.

The object he has chosen has a strong connection with a place. (Jane began to rub her eyes strongly.) The object is not utilitarian, that is, you cannot do anything with it, but it represents something else.

I am not sure here. It seems a connection with a party. But also a connection with something unpleasant, so I am not sure.

(Break at 10:29. Jane was far out, she said. She wasn’t conscious of anything but the experiment, and her eyes remained closed through all of it. She had a few images during the experiment and these will be mentioned in place in the data.

(Seth mentions another possible connection with mirth in answer to my third question. But his answer to that question also makes us believe the interpretation above is the correct one.

(“Yet also a connection with an unpleasant event.” Jane said the unpleasant event was the fact that earlier two neighborhood children had been quite noisy and active running about our yard; she had wanted to go sun herself after lunch, but put off the expedition until the children had gone, by 3:00 PM. She wanted to go over the manuscript for her dream book, without interruptions. Also, the same two children had been romping through Jane’s freshly spaded garden out back, which did not cheer her up. The garden site is about 25 feet from where Jane sat while I sketched her.

(The card bears my writing, but strictly speaking this is not printed matter; which need not refer to writing at all.

(“An impression of many people.” Here Jane said she had the impression of a party, but decided to drop this line of association. This came from the mirth reference, she thought, and she was not sure the chain of association was correct. Sometimes it is left up to her as to what train of thought to follow. Again, Seth expresses uncertainty about the party-mirth connection in answer to my third question.

(“Missed, an occasion missed earlier.” See the interpretation of an unpleasant event on page 184. The “missed” here refers to Jane putting off her sunbathing until the neighborhood children had gone. She went outside around 3:00 PM, when I made the sketch. Originally she had wanted to go out after lunch, but waited.

(Jane didn’t have much to say about the map simile, but thought the ground crack idea pertinent. While sitting in the sun, smoking the one cigarette she had with her—it is shown in the sketch, which means she smoked it after I finished the drawing—she looked for a bare spot of ground against which to put the smoke out. In doing so she realized that the ground was quite dry, and that we needed more rain.

(“I am not sure here. It seems a connection with a party. But also a connection with something unpleasant, so I am not sure.” My third question concerned the mirth data, discussed on page 184. At that time Seth didn’t come up with a party connection with mirth, although he mentioned party later on. He did connect mirth to something unpleasant, however, and we believe this to be the correct connection. Here above, he is also unsure about the party connection, the something unpleasant data interfering.

(“Come… An invitation to do something, or go somewhere, or to join.” Jane believes this data grew out of the gallery card data interpreted under organizations on page 186. There is another connection; Jane mentioned it tentatively but we had no way to be sure. Seth confirms it after break however.

Now, I could often carry our sessions longer. I have been keeping them short for your convenience. Not so much because of the time used in the session, Joseph, but because of your labors in recording them.

(When I first saw Jane on the lawn below the studio windows, I leaned out to joke with her briefly. I thought of joining her myself, but did not mention it because I did not want to lose painting time. Nor did Jane openly ask me to join her.)