“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane was sleepy before the session, but did not tell me until after the envelope data had been obtained.

They are aware of your egotistical self, but very dimly. You are their environment, so to speak, and they are aware of your health and vitality as it affects them and their own well being. Some are stronger than others. Some are intrusive. Your whole physical system contains these generic patterns and images. They are held together and unified by the higher organizations of the self.

The impression of a maze (or amaze?). A Friday. A vertical format. (Jane now lowered the envelope to her lap.) Three. This could be 3 PM, I do not know, but a trio or three. (Pause.) And a connection with time mentioned. A scale of sorts.

We are having difficulty. Ruburt thinks of your father, but is afraid of distorting the information. (Pause.) If you have no more questions you may take a break.

(Jane had some images and these will be mentioned in place. This is a case where Jane had seen one of the two items making up the envelope objects very recently—the beer can cap, on Friday, October 7, three days ago. She had never seen my penned note bearing the date and identifying the brand of beer, Draft Beer. See pages 86-88 for tracings of the two envelope objects, and the beer can. I might add that Jane saw the beer can cap only in a casual way. There were quite a few lying about our living room Friday evening. Our candle was not lit until late that evening. When I picked up a cap to blacken in the flame I thought this would focus Jane’s conscious attention on this particular one, but she told me at break tonight that she hadn’t noticed my heating the cap, or else had forgotten it.

(There are more details to our evening’s fun, and these will develop as we go through the data. Seth helped us out a little after break, but Jane and I made most connections on our own.

(“A big A.” Jane and I could make no connections, even after I asked a question about this. But Seth explains after break.

(“The impression of a maze.” This is a case where variations are possible in writing down sounds. At first I wrote this data as two words, so let it stand, but soon reconsidered and realized I could just as well have written down “amaze”. I could not tell which version to use, actually, from Jane’s pronunciation.

(“A vertical format.” Seth didn’t help us out here and I neglected to ask him to after break, but in view of later data Jane and I believe this applies to the design on the Draft Beer can, furnishing the cap used as one of the envelope objects. See page 88. Due to its nature a beer can would bear a vertical format. The card table we used had a plain brown top; but perhaps Seth referred to something else.

(“Three. This could be 3 PM, I do not know, but a trio or three.” As far as we know 3 PM doesn’t figure in the envelope data, but a trio, meaning Bill, Don and me, does. Another trio featured during last Friday evening would be Jane, Peggy and Marilyn. Both trios worked at tipping the table several separate times, for many minutes at a time.

(I blackened the cap in the candle flame in order to tie the evening’s activities more closely to the cap, for the beer had been consumed during the table tipping. As stated I held the cap in the flame without pretense, before everyone, but of course told no one why I did so. Nor did anyone ask. It also developed that Jane did not notice my doing so.

(Jane said at break that she had had an image of the initials RFB, and she wished mightily now that she had said so. As it is she gives several excellent pieces of data on the note, and the initials would have made her achievement even better. Jane said she didn’t speak the initials aloud because she thought they might refer to my father, and that this was a distortion. She knew she had already mentioned me, as “yourself”. My initials are the same as my father’s; but although I am a Junior, I seldom use it after my name.When I do I abbreviate it as Jr.

(Giving this kind of data calls for fine discrimination on Jane’s part while in trance, and often she has to make up her own mind, she has often said, as to which course to choose. At times in the past also, she has withheld data she later wished she had given voice to. But we regard it as very encouraging that she had mentally perceived the initials.

(Jane is not sure, but she believes Marilyn could have worn a blue Poorboy sweater Friday evening, one of very dark blue. Jane knows Marilyn owns such a garment.

(3rd Question: Who is the other man mentioned besides myself? “We will try on this in a moment.” See the interpretation of the “two men” data at the top of page 96. As stated, Jane had an image of my initials on the note used as test object; but since my father’s initials are the same she feared she would distort the data by voicing the initials. Yet she knew that I was also connected with the envelope data.

(4th Question: What’s that about a skirmish? “Having to do with an argument.” Again see page 96. There were several skirmishes during the evening over whether the three men were faking the table tipping. There was also one between Jane and me after company left. This was not an argument, but Jane forcefully presented her idea to the effect that she and I were obligated not to clown around with effects in the psychic field. I agreed.

(“Also with a past war connection.” This is not as definite, but we think it applies to Bill Gallagher more than Don and me. All three of us have had military service, Bill and me in World War Two on active duty. Bill is quite a historian on the subject of war, and often discusses it. We believe the subject is almost always mentioned when we are together. The connection with the envelope objects being that Bill was of course present last Friday, October 7,1966.

(5th Question: Do you want to go back to that other man now? “We are having difficulty. Ruburt thinks of your father, but is afraid of distorting the information.” At break Jane said she again had the image of the RFB initials, and was more confused than ever. Later, she said, she realized the initials were meant to be taken literally, but instead she tried to interpret them; hence getting the idea of my father into the picture.

(“Oval also. Something oval.” Jane said that while giving this data she knew a small object was referred to, but did not say so. She thinks Seth was trying to get across the idea of the elongated egg shape of the ring and cap, thus:

The big A, distorted, referred to a tepee, you see. I tried to get the 1842 through, but there was some distortion from Ruburt in the separate 46 data. I was trying for 42. The 18 you see came out separately also.

Basically, it is not necessary that Ruburt work out, but because you both believe that it is, then it becomes so, you see. This is your doing; that is, the doing of you both, and none of mine.