“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(These notes concern an incident that happened Friday evening, September 23,1966. A neighbor, Barbara Ingold, came up Friday about 7: with a shaker of stingers, one for Rob, Barb and myself. Rob was working. Barb and I drank our stingers and divided Rob’s. She talked about her past; suicide attempts, miscarriages, operations; very emotionally charged. I gave myself the suggestion that I would only react to constructive suggestions, to offset her emotional attitude. When she arrived, I was annoyed. We were going to have company; the dishes were to be done; I wanted to change clothes, etc. Mellowed by the drinks, I figured she might as well stay. She insisted on doing the dishes for me; she wants to buy friendship basically or make sure she is needed or some such.

(To me, at least the checked-out information in the first part was excellent; the correct town and state, initials, the point about the second child—Barb just said yes, yes; but didn’t explain; and there was something else. We didn’t check out the information I gave during the second, more emotional part of the trance. I was too upset and Rob was too worried about me to pick up such precise information—but will be curious as to whether or not any good points were given during the second, more charged segment.

(Unfortunately it was a display; at least this is our way of looking at it and certainly our way of looking at it must be the most important one and our attitudes must guide our actions; no one else’s attitudes. The information in the first part was excellent, to my way of seeing it; but it was gained at the cost of this…. exhibition. And in order to use the ability it must be disciplined; it could hardly be allowed to run wild. It probably wouldn’t in any case; certainly mediums who charge for readings and hold regular ones daily, don’t go through that all the time. On the other hand the strength of the ability also determines the amount of discipline to be used; it has to. You can’t clam up so tight in fear that you don’t give yourself the opportunity to use or develop the ability surely; but you don’t use it indiscriminately either. The way it was used the other night does frighten me to some degree surely. I’d even go so far as to say that an overly disciplined attitude would lead to a fairly decent and balanced frame of mind. A permissive attitude would make me more frightened. Looking back, I see that the situation actually was strictly supervised; if not I do not think I would have done anything. But the fact is: I am not sure.

(Daily life must be maintained at a fairly balanced level however, regardless. If such episodes are upsetting then they are not to be encouraged. Does this mean that I should definitely see to it that such a situation never happens again? Or is that too rigid? I do know that an attitude of permissiveness, generally speaking, is definitely out. It does not seem necessary to refuse to discuss ESP under any conditions with anyone—little ESP was discussed the other evening though Barb asked me to hypnotize her several times and I refused. I think that night it was the charged emotional climate; Barb’s; and that perhaps it is simply certain individuals that I must protect myself against: I will not for example discuss ESP with Barb now. This might be it: the psychotic individual—and I knew that she was at least highly neurotic—may project so strongly that I pick up too much before I apply guards.