“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The number four. (Pause.) Some connection with a February event. A scramble. Black and white colors. A photograph. Ruburt here thinks of the photographs taken in your studio, of him.

Two again, like a double exposure. It seems a definite connection with your studio. A bottom or middle drawer, next to something financial. And a small round object.

(The negative mention in the data is interesting, and has several connections, both here and in the rest of Seth’s data. Jane and I did not think of negative in connection with the word no, for instance, but in relation to pictures or visual images. On page two of his letter Wendell tells about a friend who works for the Neilson TV survey people—having to do with pictures. But also, negative, meaning pictures, is called to mind because Wendell’s letter deals with a group of artists who worked together in a studio, drawing comic strips, in 1941-3. In addition I personally have a studio here in the apartment, and the envelope used as object was kept in this studio. These references about studios, pictures, and the object crop up again later in the data also.

(“A photograph. Ruburt here thinks of the photographs taken in your studio, of him.” The picture data begins to emerge again. Seth here mentions some test photos I took of Jane in my studio here last week. Studio is the link here with Wendell’s letter, and hence the envelope object. In his letter Wendell specifically mentions the studio we artists shared back in 1941-3.

(“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.

(“It seems a definite connection with your studio.” Beside the connotations mentioned just above, the envelope used as object was kept in the studio, at the back of our apartment, for five months, or from its receipt in late May until now, October 3,1966.

(“A bottom or middle drawer, next to something financial.” The object was not kept in a drawer of my desk in the studio, but lay beneath a pile of papers on a shelf of the desk, perhaps a foot above the desk drawer which contains our financial records.

(“And a connection with an older man here.” Jane and I felt reasonably sure here that this referred to the boss of the studio at which both Wendell and I worked in 1941-3. His name is Jack Binder, and he is in his 60’s now—perhaps twenty years older than the crew of artists he had working for him. Seth agreed with our interpretations after break.

(This is a good description of my main job in Jack Binder’s studio in 1941-3. I do not recall now whether I had ever described it to Jane in this manner, but may have.)

The studio connection was legitimate, but Ruburt associated it with you primarily when two studios were involved. These are the main points.

(Two studios, meaning the studio of 1941-3, and my present one.

(“Do the two studios account for the twin data?” See page 78.)