“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 58th envelope experiment was held this evening. The object was a faded color Polaroid photograph. The picture was taken by Don Wilbur on April 4,1966, as noted on the back. Don and his wife Marilyn were due to witness the 248th session on April 4, but last-minute developments prevented them doing so. Don left the sealed envelope he had prepared for the session with me, however; I kept it until the Wilburs were able to witness a session. The photo is of a decorative garden cat, bearing a shining glass glaze, and was made by Marilyn.

(I did not know the contents of the envelope, nor of course did Jane. She had seen Don hand me the envelope on April 4, but since none of us had ever mentioned it since then I was hoping she had forgotten about it. After the session tonight Jane confirmed she had forgotten that I had the envelope. Even when the Wilburs arrived for the session tonight, Jane did not remember it.

(By coincidence Don had sealed the object in an envelope of the same size as those I use for the experiments. He did not use double envelopes, but had achieved the same effect by first wrapping the object in opaque white paper rather loosely; this also obliterated any hard edges that might have given sensory clues. Seth however discounts any possible data obtained through fingering, etc.

Without such recognition however an encounter could be unpleasant. You have little control, and I am speaking here now all evening, of projections and their circumstances—you will have little control over the constructions of others. If, for example, during projection travel you encounter a disturbing image, you must first will it to disappear. If it is a subconscious fabrication it will vanish, but if you do not will it to vanish it will remain, and then you must deal with it as a reality.

(A loud knock came on the hall door, but Jane continued.)

(Break at 9:22. The knocking came again, loudly. I did not notice, being busy writing, but Don Wilbur said the first knock really jolted Jane out of her trance, or at least the deeper stages of it, even though she continued speaking. Later Jane told me she had been very well dissociated. Her pace was fast, her eyes opened often, and she had used many gestures and much emphasis.

These are my instructions. You may consider this your first lesson. We will go by easy stages, for we do not want you betwixt and between. You may induce a medium trance in whatever way you choose. On occasion this will be spontaneous, as you know. For best results in the beginning it is good to make a projection attempt when you already feel physically drowsy, but pleasantly so. When you have induced the trance state, then begin to examine your own subjective feelings until you find recognition of the inner self.

Now your consciousness will not be in it, but it is hardly lifeless. Its maintenance is being controlled by the consciousness of the individual cells and organs of which we have spoken. I will give you alternate methods of projecting, but I will be concerned now with what you can expect the few moments after you have left the physical body.

They are not together, but separate. They are not initials.

(Seth had a few comments on the envelope data after break, but the Wilburs and Jane and I had by then made the connections with the object. See the tracing on page 206, and the notes on page 207.

(“Connection with a meeting.” As stated, Don took the picture for specific use as an envelope object in the 248th session, due April 4,1966. The projected meeting would thus involve four people; the Wilburs could not attend at the last moment, but Don delivered the object personally on April 4, so there was an actual meeting of three.

(“The impression of stairs or steps. Something ascending in this fashion, you see.” Here Jane gestured positively that something rose on the object at perhaps a 30-degree angle, perhaps less. This is my estimate. There are no steps shown on the object, but the brick walk is in perspective, and rises perhaps at a 20-degree angle from left to right. The separate bricks in the walk, which are not cemented together incidentally, could perhaps have led to the use of stairs or steps.

(“and with square objects, in design fashion.” The bricks in the photo are rectangular, not square. As stated they are not cemented in place but set together irregularly; the pattern they make is a nicely designed one. The walk is in front of the trailer the Wilburs inhabit in a nearby small town.

(“Something to do with tomorrow. That is, tomorrow as far as the object is concerned, or to do with the future, this being indicated on the object.” When the Wilburs discovered they couldn’t attend the 248th session as witnesses on April 4,1966, the day the photo used as object tonight was taken, I saved the object for future use when they could be witnesses, as explained. In this sense perhaps it can be said the object had a meaning assigned to it concerning the future. But there is nothing on the object itself to indicate this.

(Since I didn’t know what the object was all my questions were asked in the dark, so to speak. My first one asked just how the yellow and green were connected to the object. “Perhaps yellow in the center of a slightly rectangular shape, outlined in green.” The object is rectangular, but more than slightly so. The above data is a good description of the yellowish brown grass in back of the cat’s head, as explained under the yellow and green data on page 212; and of the way the yellow grass merges into the darker green brown grass around the edges of the photo. See the tracing on page 206.

(My second question asked for more data on the M and G: “They are not together, but separate. They are not initials.” We of course had this answer before giving our own interpretations of the M and G data on page 213. We had assigned the M to Marilyn’s name, thus using an initial, and the G to the glass glaze on the cat. Seth agrees with this interpretation after break, so there is some contradiction here.

Now I have told you that you may legitimately visit not only the past, present and future as it existed, or will exist in physical terms; but you may also visit realities which never existed in physical terms. In our earliest sessions I emphasized that the intensity regulated the duration of an experience. Now, many events that were only imagined and never took place, physically speaking, many such events still exist. They are simply not a part of your definition of reality. You may therefore visit a museum which was planned in the 16th century, but never built. Such a museum has a reality as real, you see, as the house in which you live. Ordinarily you only perceive physical reality. In projections you may visit other realities such as these also—which you may be tempted to call imaginary, but they are not.