“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 65th envelope experiment was held. The object was the bill I received for the purchase of Masonite in Wellsburg, NY, on Friday, July 15,1966. As usual I placed the bill between two pieces of Bristol, then sealed the sandwich in two envelopes. Jane was present at the lumber company in Wellsburg when the bill was made out, but like me at the time she paid no particular attention to it, and hadn’t seen it since then.

(We were interrupted by a knock on the door at 9:08. The neighbor left us within a couple of minutes. Jane was not bothered by the noise or distraction. She resumed while sitting in the rocker again, but almost at once got up and returned to the chair across from me. 9:10.)

Now. Your party, at which I was present occasionally (sitting across from me still, Jane tapped on the table, her eyes very dark and wide) was of great benefit, as you know. But you do not know some important facts.

You understand the therapeutic results of explosive laughter. I will not dwell on this then. The explosive laughter however was in direct proportion to the inner tensions. From the first signs of Ruburt’s illness you both took precisely the correct steps. The illness itself was a regrettable, but on the whole beneficial act, for if it had not occurred, and if the inner problems had not been worked out psychically, then a more serious illness could have been the result.

A tree, or tall tree shape. Straight. A word with M again, perhaps this time a name or initial. Ruburt thinks of Marie or Mary. It is a large M, and belongs with a name. This seems very vivid in itself, but it could simply stand for Miss so-and-so you see, or Mrs. A woman connection.

(“Connection with an event not repeated.” I bought two sheets, 4 x 8 feet, at the lumberyard in Wellsburg on July 15. Since this particular kind of Masonite is hard to find and the Schuyler lumberyard had a good supply, I decided to return to Wellsburg on Saturday, July 23, to buy two more full sheets. But in the interim I figured out a method to coat the Masonite for paintings that obviated the use of any special kind of Masonite, and thus did not return to Wellsburg.

(“Numbers, perhaps 01913.” Since the object is a bill, many numbers appear on it. See page 293. The sequence 01913 does not appear in whole, but the sequence beginning with 0 does appear, in .09. This shows twice on the front of the bill; once via bleedthrough on the back, also. There are two other sets of numbers visible as ghost images on the back of the bill, and both evidently begin with a zero, but are hard to decipher.

(The death connection enters in because the bill was filled out by the worker at the lumberyard who obtained and cut the Masonite so it would fit into our station wagon. The worker—whose name we do not know, but could easily learn—became quite talkative when he learned I planned to use the Masonite as support for paintings. He described to us in some detail how he had a portrait of himself drawn during the Second World War, when he was overseas. War…death. The conversation was unusual in that the worker explained how the artist drew his face as though it was symmetrical, whereas in reality it is quite asymmetrical, with an impaired eye.

(Jane however had an image of a large capital M, she said, in which case the first interpretation applies above. Seth mentions an initial specifically later but not above. Jane was aware of no color in her image; she saw the M alone.

(“A tree, or tall tree shape.” The bill’s heading contains the word lumber, a product of trees. Masonite of course is a lumber product, but the connection is farther removed from the object, perhaps, in this case.

(“A word with M again, perhaps this time a name or initial.” Ruburt thinks of Marie or Mary. It is a large M, and belongs with a name. This seems very vivid in itself, but it could simply stand for Miss So-and-So, you see, or Mrs. A woman connection.” Seth here evidently refers to a different name this time than that shown on the bill, Glenn M. Schuyler. Jane is subjectively sure Seth was getting at the name of Mrs. Marilyn Wilbur, who lives with her husband Don in Wellsburg; the Wilburs are good friends of ours. The Marie or Mary is very suggestive of Marilyn.

(“An E and a B.” There are words beginning with E and B on the object, but the data is too general.

(“And perhaps with water.” This could stem from the wells in Wellsburg, as explained earlier, or from the fact that Jane would have preferred going to Enfield Glen to swim, instead of buying Masonite. Also, we planned to go swimming locally after getting the Masonite, but became so busy we did not do so.

(“The feeling of something hanging over, threatening or overhanging, on the upper half of the object, and dark.” This is most interesting, and is an example of the new method in which Seth gives Jane some of her data now. Jane said it was difficult to describe, but she had the very definite impression, or feeling or image, within, of a large dark overhanging mass above her, as a roof might be, for instance. This impression was strong, and she believes the overhanging feeling led her to attach the threatening data to it.

(“Connection with a photograph, I believe, or other object with triangular corners that photographs usually fit into in an album.” As stated earlier the worker at the lumberyard described a portrait drawn of him overseas. This basic information perhaps led to the above data, but we believe the following is more likely correct.

(First Question: “Can you say something about the March date?” “March, progress, march along. An event in March, that led to similar events while the original one was not repeated. I believe the letter G is somehow connected with this event.” We still could make no connections for this data, and I did not ask Seth to explain. Jane had a mental image of a single G, nothing else. There is Glenn on the bill used as object, but this wouldn’t refer back to March; our July visit was our first ever to this particular lumberyard.

(Question: “Can you say something more about four squares?” “I believe not.” See the four square data on page 301, referring to the Masonite I bought and had cut to size. I wanted to see if Jane could be more specific here, since she had already given excellent data, but she could not. As stated, the four squares data meant nothing to her, but quite a lot to me. Perhaps her lack of conscious interest prevented more information here.

My heartiest regards. Advances are being made that will begin to show themselves rather clearly. Ruburt was correct as far as he went, in describing the way in which he received the information regarding the roof. This is also something quite new. We will attempt to mix it also with visual data. It will serve finally to round out and pinpoint information more concisely. I will briefly discuss this particular point at our next session. It regards a method of perception that you use subconsciously but never recognize—a sense that is something like the way you register temperature.