“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane read aloud to the gathering an article in the November 1966 Fate Magazine titled Table Up! or How To Tilt a Table, by Georgia Mae Fields. This is an old children’s game, and we decided to try it with a card table. Our experiences of the evening involving this game enter into the envelope data, although neither of the envelope objects refer to it directly. This is often the case, the often innocuous envelope object reflecting whatever strong emotional charges surround it at the physical time Jane and Seth are trying to get back to.

(“An advantage. Something to do with an advantage.” Jane read the article aloud to us, then Bill, Don and I tried tipping the table first. We sat at the south end of the table and made the vacant north end rise as we chanted away, per instructions in the article. What the three women didn’t know at the time was that the three of us were helping nature out a little, making the free end of the table rise by conscious physical pressure from our hands.

(When Bill, Don and I tipped the table deliberately and were not detected doing so, we certainly got an amazed reaction from the three women. Peggy’s jaw literally dropped. Jane and Marilyn were also very surprised, and Jane later told me that after the first shock of seeing the north end of the table rise, seemingly of its own volition, she thought Bill, Don and I actually succeeded in accomplishing this.

(“Maze”, meaning puzzlement, can also apply here, for when the three women tried tipping the table they did not succeed. Jane said this was very vexing and puzzling to them.

(“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.

(“And a connection with time mentioned.” We are not sure. We mentioned time many times during the evening, of course. A prominent written source of time last Friday evening lay in the Fate article on table tipping, which we all read in turn: twenty seconds; after midnight; twelve years; a month later; four months later; three minutes; since 1960, etc. My envelope note on page 86 says Friday.

(“A scale of sorts.” Again, Jane said this referred either to the schedule of instructions given in the article on table tipping, or to our own working at the table last Friday evening; our rubbing our hands, chanting, etc.

(We thought an apt connection with scale would be the “balancing” of the table on its two south legs as the male and female trios sat before it. As stated, the first two times Bill, Don and I sat at the table we deliberately made the table tip; the last time however, with Jane added to the group, the table really tipped through subconscious pressure.

(“The color red.” We cannot be sure. There could be many sources of red that Friday evening; for instance, the candle I used to deposit a coat of carbon black on the cap used as object, was a brilliant red; this was a large fat candle, and one we have used in previous experiments. We used it toward the close of the evening last Friday as an object upon which the six of us focused our attention. Half humorously, we attempted to increase the height of the candle flame by concentration, with no success. This was after we had finished the table tipping.

(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.

(“An achievement.” As stated, the last time we sat at the table, [Jane, Bill, Don and myself] we did succeed in tipping it in the correct manner, according to the Fate Magazine article. A somewhat weird feeling to watch the north end of the table rise, seemingly without help. Actually pressure exerted by us subconsciously did the job. We wouldn’t know about any other agencies being involved, as the magazine article says is possible.

(“An armchair also.” This is interesting, and we believe refers to a wicker upright armchair that one of us sat in when at the table tipping game the last time of the evening. We have three black wooden kitchen chairs that ordinarily we press into service in the living room when company comes. These three chairs were used by the male and female trios as they sat at the table. When a fourth member was added to the last table tipping of the evening, featuring Jane, Bill, Don and myself, the wicker armchair was pressed into use since it was the only one available except for a Kennedy rocker. Neither Jane or I recall who sat in the armchair.

(“A skirmish.” There were several verbal skirmishes in the course of the evening, stemming from the suspicions of the three women that Bill, Don and I might be faking the lifting of the table the first couple of times we tried it. Also between Jane and me after company left, when I told Jane we had assisted nature during the early attempts. A little more data comes out on this during the question period.

(“Connection with a stranger also.” Last Friday evening was connected with a stranger, in that a stranger, Georgia Mae Fields, wrote the article on table tipping in the November 1966 issue of Fate Magazine. The comments and instructions given in the article dominated the evening, certainly. Jane had been especially aware of the article since the previous Wednesday, October 5, when she first read it and decided to use it on Friday evening.

(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.