“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session was due yesterday but was not held. John Bradley, our friend from Williamsport, PA, who had witnessed a group of sessions, visited us yesterday evening. Jane, John and I then journeyed to the home of the Gallaghers, where the session was to be held. When unexpected company arrived at the Gallaghers shortly before 9 PM however, Jane and I put the session off until tonight.

(The 59th envelope experiment used as object a tag that had been attached to a rifle we had bought in October 1962. Jane hadn’t seen the tag since. See the tracing on page 217. The tag is printed on typical card-weight stock in two colors, red and black as indicated. The face of the tag is gold coated, the string red. The object was sealed in the usual double envelopes, between the usual two pieces of Bristol. The results of the experiment were quite unusual, and Seth goes into the mechanisms involved.

(A very heavy rain and hailstorm developed at 8:30 this evening. It appeared to be over by 9 PM but actually was not. Our windows were open, and Jane began speaking in a voice heavier than usual, as in the last session. Her pace was average, her eyes closed to begin.)

(We need answers concerning the rather spectacular results obtained in the 11th session because Jane is writing a chapter on this seance for the Seth book. We had always thought we’d get the answers when we took the time for them.)

(Break at 9:26. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her slow initial pace had picked up, her eyes had begun to open frequently, and she had sipped iced tea and smoked a cigarette.

(Jane’s pace was now fast and energetic, and she used many gestures. Her eyes were very dark, and open wide for paragraphs at a time. She was smoking again.)

(Break at 9:57. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her energetic delivery lasted until break. It had been fast and emphatic.

(It was time for the 70th Dr. Instream experiment. Actually this material was a makeup for last evening. Jane’s pace slowed, and she sat with her hands raised to her closed eyes. Resume at 10:04.)

(“Yes.” Jane paused at 10:12, then took the envelope for our 59th experiment from me without opening her eyes. She held it to her forehead briefly, lowered it to her lap, then raised it to her forehead again.)

(Her eyes closed, Jane gestured with the envelope, which she was holding with its long dimension parallel to the floor.)

(It had begun to rain a while ago. Now the storm resumed in full fury, the worst rain and hailstorm here in 16 years according to later reports. There is a large patio roof outside our living room windows, and this is covered with aluminum roofing. The sound of rain upon it is usually very pleasant. Now however the hail created a drumfire so loud that I could barely hear Jane, although she sat but three feet away. I almost called a halt, but since she seemed prone to continue I did also. The racket was disconcerting and I had to ask her to repeat some of the data.)

J, and/or perhaps June. A connection with an establishment, and the numbers 1471. (Jane paused and lowered the envelope to her lap.) Do you have any questions?

(“Okay.” I could have asked more questions, but the rain and hail made so much noise I could hardly hear Jane.

(Break at 10:27. Jane was out as usual. Her eyes had remained closed through both experiments. Her pace had been fair. Surprisingly enough, her voice hadn’t increased in volume to rise above the noise of the storm. Jane now said the storm hadn’t bothered her, so this fact may account for it. She evidently heard me without trouble.

(See the tracing of the object on page 217, and the notes concerning it on page 218. As usual at break Jane and I went over the data to make what connections we could with the object. Without Seth’s help, in some detail after break, we were greatly puzzled by the data. That is, we could speculate on the reasons for what seemed to be many distortions, but had little idea of the causes. Since we could pick out a few items in the data that seemed to apply to the object, we took it that Seth had correctly tuned in on the object itself, and that Jane’s translation of the data had been distorted most of the time. For this reason, immediately below will be listed only those parts of the data we think apply. The rest is cleared up by Seth after break. Actually we found the experiment most interesting, and unique in the series so far.

(Clues were available however. As soon as she opened the double envelope and saw the front of the object, Jane announced that the picture thereon was of a moose. Actually it is a black line drawing, in some detail, of an eagle. We pursued this impasse for some little time. Jane insisted the drawing represented a moose; she interpreted the spread of the eagle’s wings as stylized antlers. My tracing is quickly done on page 217, and shows little detail, but the drawing on the actual object is very well and finely done, including individual feathers on the wings, etc. I could see little relationship between an eagle and a moose here except in the most abstract sense. It was easy for us to agree that Jane saw a moose instead of an eagle because she wanted to. Intellectually she agreed that the drawing was of an eagle, but said that she saw a moose.

(As I began typing these notes on Saturday June 11, two days later, I showed Jane the envelope object again. Her opinion on the drawing had not changed; she still regarded the drawing as that of a moose, with the eagle’s wings representing stylized antlers. As for the rest of the drawing other than the wings or antlers, she said she couldn’t see anything in it “in particular” that represented an eagle.

(As soon as she saw the object and identified the eagle as a moose, Jane said the M and “munch” data, given first, applied to the moose idea.

(“The impression of two people. One bending down or over… Now these may be objects, or representations, rather than persons, but I have the impression of two persons… In any case these two objects seem to be together, toward the lower center of the object perhaps, holding the object this way.” These are excerpts from succeeding impressions as a group, and are given here because Jane thinks the bending over idea here derived from the way the wings of the eagle bend in and down toward each other; they are together, or close, at the base, and in the center of the object.

(Jane held the envelope with the long dimension horizontal, but we do not know the position of the object inside them at that time. It is possible the tag was simply upside down. Perhaps this gave rise to Seth’s mention of lower center.

(“The impression on the object, on the lower bottom, of very small rectangles or squares…” On the back of the object is the phrase “Side-opening loading-port for easy rapid-load.” As soon as she read this Jane said this was the source of the above data, well distorted. But Jane was subjectively sure.

(“…impression of a woman and a shorter woman… The impression has to do with shapes. They seem to be bending down or over.” This in answer to my first question, concerning the two people. Jane said, again, that she believed the bending over idea expressed here stemmed from the bending of the eagle wings.

(“I have the impression that it is a picture or transparency of some sort, or strongly connected….” My fourth question asked Seth to name the object. There is a picture on the object. According to Seth after break his data was legitimate as given to Jane, but was distorted by her.

(Jane resumed, smiling, her eyes opening often, at 11 PM. The storm had once again died down.)

(While Jane was giving the envelope data I detected nothing out of the ordinary in her delivery. She sat with her eyes closed, speaking quite calmly and easily as she usually does. The storm outside was the only one I was aware of.)

(End at 11:11. Jane was out as usual. Her pace had been fast, her eyes open often.

(At the end of the session she was still convinced the eagle looked like a moose, although she agreed it was actually an eagle because I said it was. Jane mentioned showing the object to others to get their opinion.