“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Do you have an envelope for me, Joseph?

(At 10:03, her eyes closed, Jane took the double sealed envelope from me for the 72nd envelope experiment. She held it to her forehead in a horizontal position, lightly, without attempting to determine its contents by obvious feel, etc. Early in these experiments Seth announced that he would give no data resulting from Jane’s sense of touch, and he has stuck to this procedure. Jane’s eyes remained closed, her pace average.)

(Seth helped us out with our interpretations after break, as sometimes happens. Whenever possible we prefer to make as many connections between the data and the envelope object as we can on our own. Our purpose in conducting these experiments in this manner is to see what Jane, or Seth, can pick up about a concealed object that bears some kind of emotional charge related to us personally. To this end, envelope objects are often deliberately chosen by me with emotional involvement in mind, since Seth has said many times that his abilities have an emotional basis; this primary emotional basis is then disciplined and given shape by the intellect.

(Seth will occasionally comment about the lack of emotional impetus surrounding an object if I pick one that happens to bear little charge. I cannot be sure that I am choosing an object that carries little charge, however, for Seth’s data will often shoot off at an angle entirely unexpected by me. This data can be related to the envelope object in a variety of quite valid ways. I make no conscious effort to dwell on the object chosen for an envelope experiment, and when I do choose an object it is usually a spur-of-the-moment decision.

(See the tracing of tonight’s envelope object on page 71 and the notes on the next page. The empty envelope used as object was mailed to me last May 26,1966, by an old friend, Wendell Crowley, and contained a letter detailing a reunion of a group of friends, all artists, that Wendell and I worked with in 1941-43. The letter was not in the envelope but was kept separate by me for reference after the session. As I suspected, some of Seth’s data referred to the contents of the letter rather than the envelope object itself.

(“A double, or something twice, or a negative.” Relatively little of the data refers to the envelope object itself. Instead the empty envelope from Wendell serves as a springboard. This data is a case in point. After break Seth agrees with Jane and me when we assign the double or twice mentioned here to the frequent use of the numeral 2 on the second page of Wendell’s letter.

(“The photograph connection is strong [pause] but I do not believe the item is this precisely.” [Pause.] Seth tried to help Jane discriminate here, as he often does. Tonight’s object of course is not a picture or photo, but an envelope that contained a letter about people who make pictures. Also, I was taking pictures of Jane last week, as explained. Thus it can be seen how all such related data, even though separated by much time, comes together in these session experiments. This particular chain of association was not anticipated by me when I picked the Crowley envelope as object for tonight. The two studio settings—the studio I worked in with Wendell Crowley in 1941-3, and my present studio, are separated by as much as 23 years.

(Let it be noted there is a bridge of sorts here however, in that for most of this intervening time I have had a studio of my own. Jane and I married in 1954, and so she has been strongly aware of studio connections with me, on a steady basis, since then, and has often heard me talk about earlier studios.

(Seth called for break after the second question, taking me by surprise. Usually I can ask more questions, and attempt them without being leading about it. I owe Wendell a letter, and may ask him to clear up some of the points mentioned in the data, and by Seth after break. It is however difficult to explain briefly in a letter just why such questions are necessary, and so Jane and I usually forego trying. But any additional information obtained will be attached to this session at a later date.