“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 60th envelope experiment used as object a quick black line drawing, on porous white paper, that I made of a giant begonia plant at the office. The plant sits on a taboret beside my drawing table. It has grown beautifully from a tiny slip that I took to the office approximately last March. Jane has not seen the plant, hardly ever visiting the office.

(Nor had she ever seen the drawing used as object, nor did she even know it existed. We have the plant here in the apartment from which the slip came however, and its history will be given in the envelope data. I placed the object between the usual double Bristol and sealed it all up in the usual double envelopes.

Now. As I said earlier, sense data does have a reality, but this reality does not reside in an object. The object represents your interpretation of the basic reality. The energy belongs to the idea. In other words, the prime energy within physical reality resides precisely in those intangibles which do not, because of their nature, appear within physical frameworks. They give life and reality to the physical framework.

It is as much camouflage as the glass on the table, (pointing) and its knowledge must come through the physical system. Now. The mind is uncamouflaged. It perceives the uncamouflaged reality of sense data, or its sees the energy that exists. It sees the energy independently of the physical object, you see.

The object is a chain, or connected with a chain. It is of dull silver color, of necklace length perhaps. Two other objects are connected with it. Two other objects have been on the chain at various times. One, a fairly oval object, of an inserted brown background, and a raised cream-colored area.

The other object connected with the chain was heavier, of a square shape, and connected with a male.

Now for some other impressions, not connected necessarily with the object. The letters N, P, G, A. I do not know to what these refer. A small cross, connected with Dr. Instream’s past. The date 1873, connected with Dr. Instream’s parents, or parent.

Four. Lettering, I believe handwriting. Seven and three. Oval and brown. A date on the object. A connection with March, perhaps 4 or 24. Six three. Lineage.

(“Do you want to give me some colors on the object?”)

Brown and oval. Now, I have the impression that the object is roughly divided into four areas, in this manner, you see, with fairly dark lines. (Her eyes closed, Jane made a vigorous and large crossing motion with an arm, thus:

(“Do you want to name the object?”)

(See the tracing of the object on page 226, and the notes on page 227. Seth returns after break, briefly, but doesn’t add anything to our own connections with the envelope data.

(“Lettering, I believe handwriting.” My signature and the date are written on the object.)

(“Oval and brown.” The little sketch used as object shows but the top few leaves of the giant begonia. These show as oval. The interesting thing here is that the larger leaves of the plant at the office are now beginning to show definite brownish tones. As stated Jane has never seen the plant at the office in its fine growth—merely a slip from a parent plant here in the apartment. Since this house plant also is developing a brown cast, Jane could know this easily enough once she, or Seth, picked up the idea that the envelope object represented a begonia.

(“A date on the object.” Yes.

(“Six three.” Jane pronounced this data as six, three, not 63. We don’t know what it means however. Six shows twice on the object, and we speculate that March is the third month of the year.

(“Lineage.” We think this a good reference to the fact that my begonia at the office, which modeled for the object, is a descendant of the plant here at home. This parent plant, given to Jane by our neighbor on the same floor of our apartment house, Miss Callahan, also has other descendants growing very well.

(“Twelve of a kind connected here.” We don’t know. We speculated, again, that the double six in the date on the object can add up to twelve.

(“A salary or payment connection.” As I sit at my drawing board at the office, perhaps a foot or eighteen inches from the begonia plant which served as a model for the envelope object, I am given my paycheck each Friday afternoon.

(“A distant connection with monolithic.” Our dictionary says monolith, while referring to one of a kind, also can mean one of large size. The object is a drawing of what is called a giant tubular begonia.

(“A card written on both sides.” The drawing used as object is done on a porous paper that is somewhat thicker than most papers, yet is not actually card stock. I used a black felt marking pen to make the drawing; this is indelible, and the ink soaked through the porous paper until the drawing is quite easily visible on the reverse side. This cannot be seen on the tracing on page 226.

(“Your initials, Joseph.” I signed and dated the object, using the first initial and last name.

(“I am not sure. I am thinking in terms of family connections. However the word may have to do instead with, for example, type on a card.” My first question, concerning the lineage data: See page 230. Seth didn’t elaborate very much. There is no type on the object. Can family connections be applied to the descendants of a parent plant?

(The second question asked for colors on the object: “Brown and oval.” This is a repeat of the data given on page 230, which can refer to the office begonia. Jane now continued before I could ask another question:

(“Now, I have the impression that the object is roughly divided into four areas, in this manner, you see, with fairly dark lines.” See the notes with this data on page 230. Jane, while holding the envelope, and the object inside it, horizontally, made a vigorous crossing and vertical motion with an arm. See the tracing on page 226. The drawing shows that the leaves of the plant are climbing up a wooden stick. With the object held horizontally, the stick is also horizontal and divides the drawing in half easily enough; the horizontal attribute of her gesture was stressed by Jane. The fairly dark lines on the object are obvious.

(There is a less clear vertical division to be seen on the object while in the horizontal position, although the brush marks in the upper left corner help to mark off a portion. This would give perhaps three quarters on the object definite enough, and possibly this gave rise to Seth’s statement about rough division into four areas. Jane continues:

(“The four areas could be different in color, and fairly bright—perhaps also a pale blue. I do not know if this is a symbolic impression or not.” The object itself is in black and white only. We offer a pale blue connection however that we have been aware of for several years. Miss Callahan, who gave Jane the parent begonia which led to the making of the envelope object, is inordinately fond of blue. We do not know if Seth would call this a symbolic connection. Miss Callahan’s apartment is largely blue. Her living room has pale blue painted walls, including a floor to ceiling painted blue bookcase. Her divan is covered with solid blue, as is a matching overstuffed chair. The other chair is of a blue printed pattern. The rug is a darkish violet and gray, close to a blue, etc.

(“I believe an older woman.” The third question sought to find out who the other woman was beside Jane. See the woman data on page 230. We think this answer reinforces our interpretations of the woman data, and the symbolic blue data just noted. Miss Callahan of course being considerably older than Jane—about 78, we believe. Again, Miss Callahan gave Jane the parent begonia which furnished eventually the office begonia; a drawing of the office begonia was used as the envelope object for tonight.

(I now made a comment: “That word monolithic is interesting.” Seth replied: “This is in connection with a drawing or design. And mono, also meaning one.” The envelope object is a drawing. See also the interpretation of monolithic on page 232.

(The next question was: “How about that five in a circle?” “The impression is visual. The circle outlined in yellow, I believe, and I see visually a red five inside.” This puzzled us, and we think it contains some sort of distortion as far as the red five is concerned. Part of this data may be valid. As a joke one of my coworkers at the office hung a homemade chain from the top of the wooden stick which supports the begonia. The stick is visible in the drawing used as object. I did not of course show the chain in the drawing.

(“I have come as close as I can this evening.” This when I asked Seth to name the object. Jane then added:

(“A connection with a framework of some kind. Perhaps wooden”, can refer to the wooden stick which shows in the drawing used as object. The stick supports the begonia plant, and is a framework in this sense.

(“He still does.” See the drawing of the envelope object used in the last session, on page 217. Today Jane told me the eagle still looked like a moose to her.)

(Reduced copy of pages 1 and 4 of the announcement used as object in the 61st envelope experiment, in the 268th session for June 15,1966.)

(Reduced copy of pages 2 and 3 of the announcement used as object in the 61st envelope experiment, in the 268th session for June 15,1966.)