“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The 75th envelope experiment used as object the employee record stub from Jane’s first check as a substitute high school teacher. Jane had of course seen it several times since receipt on October 28. The object is printed in black on green paper which contains a faint pattern. The green is itself a light tint. The large numeral in the upper right corner is in red. The back is blank. I placed the record between the usual double Bristols, then sealed it in double envelopes.

(Jane began speaking in trance with her eyes closed, her pace quite slow with some long pauses.)

(Tonight Jane was asked to do some mailing work at the gallery where she used to work.)

(A note: Miss Callahan was taken to a home for the elderly a few weeks ago, and has given up her apartment in this house, etc. A couple of days ago Jane and I heard through a friend that Miss Callahan has twice been found walking along Route 17, a main highway here, as she tried to get back to this house. Her mind is failing. Miss Callahan’s first mention is in the first session of Volume 1.)

(Break at 9:28. Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes began to open and her pace picked up quite a bit. She resumed at 9:40.)

(Jane has called up the school board and taken her name off the list of teachers on call for substitute duty. Today, October 31.)

(Bill and Peggy Gallagher have a copy of the material given by Seth regarding their Nassau vacation. Many hits were scored. When Jane has the material and their notes collected in readable form, copies will be attached to a session.)

(“Yes.” Jane knew that I would have one tonight.

(Pause. Jane still held the envelope horizontally to her forehead, but by now she had shifted hands several times while doing so. Eyes closed.)

(Break at 10:04. Jane was very well dissociated, she said. She did not lower the envelope from her forehead until just before break. Her eyes remained closed. None of the data made any sense to her, she said. She could not recall specific images at the moment, saying that she saw them when Seth said she did.

(See page 141 for a copy of the envelope object, and the notes on the next page. As stated the object is the stub from Jane’s first paycheck as a substitute teacher, received on Friday, October 28. It is made of green paper, light in color, with a pale green pattern throughout. The printing is in black, with the large number in the upper right corner in red. The back is blank. The stub contains the amount of the check, tax deductions, the date, etc.

(“Connection with an encounter.” Jane said this is definitely a reference to her first day of teaching, October 11,1966. The object is from the paycheck for this day’s work. Jane said that although she liked teaching, the first encounter with a class is one to be remembered. She has had odd jobs teaching in the past, but never in a school system, in a formal classroom, etc.

(“The number 6. 6 PM, 6 as a date, we shall see.” Jane said this refers to the fact that in order to keep the job as a substitute teacher she must begin taking 6 credits a year at Elmira College, after she has taught a total of 40 school days. This is a New York State law.

(“A connection with greed—a grasp.” Jane took the teaching job for the high pay given; this is the main reason she accepted it. It is the highest paying job she has ever had, $25.00 a day.

(“With an article, an article of clothing.” Too vague. Jane said there is a chance this refers to her second day of teaching. She was called late, and while rushing to get dressed caused a run in her last pair of stockings. She had to wear them on the job, run and all.

(“and an initial—initials—I believe three, J A B.” Jane believes this refers to herself, and if so it is a strong connection with the object of course. Jane has no middle name now; her name used to be Dorothy Jane Roberts but she dropped the Dorothy when we were married 11 years ago. She chose the saint’s name of Ann however, as a Catholic girl at about age 12. But she puzzled over why the A would crop up now, since she never uses it. Nor did she particularly.

(“Playground.” This is good personal data as far as Jane is concerned, since from early childhood she has had a strong association between playgrounds and schools. This has cropped up before in these experiments also. [Jane’s note: Donna Taylor had shown me the playground for her 1st graders, during my 2nd teaching job.]

(“Squares.” See the copy of the object on page 141. Jane said that by squares she meant the little boxes strung out along the horizontal lines on the object. There are four rows of these.

(“A call. The color black.” Seth adds a bit of data during the questioning, and verifies my first thought here, that this data refers to our having a telephone—black—installed because of Jane’s teaching job. Also, Jane insisted on a black phone.

(“A date. Perhaps 1963, and a scroll of sorts.” We believe this data goes together, although there is a date, October 27,1966, on the object. The scroll we think of as symbolic of education or school. In 1963, Jane talked to a class conducted by Mr. Clauss, at Elmira College, subject poetry. The college connection arose recently, because Jane also applied for a teaching job there, as well as in the Elmira school system.

(“Connection with three people and a fourth, separated.” Too vague. Jane said one interpretation could be that we know three other teachers personally; the fourth, separated, would be Mr. Clauss whom Jane met twice perhaps a couple of years ago. I have never met him.

(“Piccadilly Square.” We don’t know. Piccadilly Square, London, England, might refer to the fact that a professor at Elmira College, with whom Jane would like to work as an assistant, teaches English Literature and specializes in Victorian English. At this writing Jane is to hear from him any day about the job.

(“A city. Very distant connection with something like Cincinnati, Ohio.” A possible distant connection: At the end of her second day of teaching Jane was given a ride home by a next-door neighbor who is also a teacher. The neighbor is from Ohio, but not Cincinnati, which could account for Seth’s reference to “something like” Cincinnati. In addition, the neighbor had just returned to Elmira from a trip to Ohio, so the Ohio thought was mentioned in the conversation more than once. City is also mentioned on the object itself—City School District, etc.

(“A center upright.” Jane said this is a reference to the fold in the object, made when I inserted it in the double envelopes. See page 141. Note that Jane held the envelope to her forehead in a horizontal position, as she almost always does; this means the fold in the object would be vertical in relation to the long dimension of both the object and the envelopes. The long dimension of the folded object paralleled that of the envelopes.

(“Six again, I do believe referring to time.” Another reference to the fact that Jane must begin taking 6 credits a year at Elmira College, after she has taught in the public school system 40 days. Thus there is a time connection.

(“With a momentous occasion of some kind; not usual occasion. Somehow different.” Jane also had the idea of an initial occasion here, and regretted not saying it aloud. She said this data refers to her first day of teaching; to her it was certainly momentous, not usual, and different. The envelope object is the employee pay record from her check for this first day’s work.

(“Numbers or mathematics.” The object contains many numbers. A mathematics connection that is possible: a friend of Jane’s who is also a substitute teacher told Jane that she had a lot of trouble trying to teach the “new mathematics.”

(“An object having to do with a knife, and a pen. Sharp and pointed.” These data seem to go together. Jane recalled a connection with a pen, but nothing for a knife. She made a special effort to always have a pen with her when teaching, since she required one so often.

(“A room with something missing.” Jane said this refers to the taking of attendance in class. It was stressed to her that she attend to this job above all others, she said, so she was careful about this. Since all the students were new to her each time, she had to depend on their help to keep her records straight. Sometimes she took attendance every period of the day.

(“A C and a J.” Jane said this is valid data, if not as good as we would like. The J refers to herself. The C can refer to either Gene Cesari, an assistant dean at Elmira College, or to Bill Cieri, of the public school night-course system. Jane also cited the similarity in sound between Gene and Jane.

(“And an abstract design.” Jane said this is a valid reference to Bert Ryerson, superintendent of art in the Elmira school system. Bert first got Jane interested in teaching; he is also an artist, and paints abstracts.

(1st Question: What’s that connection with greed or grasp? “I am not sure. Holding onto, reaching out toward, with some urgency. An unassailable position. A Q. A great deal of fuss.” As stated, this data applies to Jane’s taking the teaching job, and her grim determination to keep it at all costs. She felt it urgent that she do so. A great deal of fuss was involved, also. We saw no particular connection for Q.

(“A small rectangular object, perhaps of metal, with numbers upon it. Such as, for example, a small license plate, that would carry numbers and notations, and be metallic and connected with travel. And the color orange and black, and an automobile perhaps.” All of this refers to Jane’s taking a taxi to the various schools in town, whenever she was called. I was not available to take her, having already left for work except on the first occasion. The taxi she used was orange and black.

(2nd Question: Are you saying this is the object? “No. I am saying that the image I see gives me this impression. It may or may not be the actual object, but seems to be strongly connected with it. And something raised up from a surface, as something embossed.” More on the taxi-auto connection regarding Jane’s teaching, from whence comes the envelope object: Probably the multitude of numbers on the object also related it closely in the data to the license and auto ideas. By asking this question I hoped to lead Seth to be more specific about the object itself.

(4th Question: Can you say something about the initials J A B? “A connection with several circular shapes, rather oval.” Here Seth was still considering the previous questions pertaining, Jane thought, to the automobile or taxi idea.

(“A schedule of events, and an accounting.” Good data. Seth gets back on the track in the next sentence. The object is an accounting of Jane’s earnings, and a schedule of when she earned the money, etc., since it is an employee’s pay record from the Elmira school system.

(7th Question: What kind of events? “Future events. Connected with past events.” This could apply to the object, since this employee pay record has boxes or spaces on it for the entry of moneys toward retirement, savings bonds, credit union, etc., for steadily-employed teachers. Jane had no entries in these spaces. Later note by Jane: Unknown to us at this time I was to end up with another teaching position, in answer to an ad I had not yet read.

(8th Question: What does that call and the color black refer to? “Ruburt has a phone connection, of course.” Jane had to have a phone put in for the teaching job, since she would be on daily call. She insisted on a black wall phone, in the face of the company’s efforts to sell her more expensive colored phones, etc. We regard this as good data.

(9th Question: What’s that toreador connection? “A red and violent connection. High activity connected with a male, or repressed violent tendencies, in the situation.” This is also good data, and related to the envelope object in that it refers to an event taking place in Jane’s classroom on her second day of teaching. [The object represents Jane’s first day of teaching.] Briefly, a very violent scene was enacted before Jane and her class. A male teacher entered with a young male student in tow, and literally threw the student across the classroom in a violent fit of anger. The bout resulted from the student’s misbehavior in the hall.

(Jane said the teacher’s face was very red with anger, and that it was obvious he had a strong temper. Later that day she overheard two of her students talking, and they discussed the teacher’s bad temper, it being a well-known fact in the school. Jane discussed the incident with me the day it happened. It had made quite an impression on her, and of course took her by surprise.

(Two male teachers and a female were involved with Jane while she sought work as a teacher—Mr. Don Hennigen and Mr. Albert Ryerson. Jane cannot now recall the name of the female supervisor, whom she met but once, but doesn’t think the initials tally. Others could be involved here—as on page 148.

(11th Question: What’s the 1963 mention? “I do not know. Connection with a past incident at about that time, and a seeming connection with a 1967 incident yet to occur.” See the 1963 data on page 147. As stated the date could very well refer to the time Jane lectured a class at Elmira College on poetry. The connection would be the teaching activity as related to the envelope object.

(“February and October.” Jane thinks it quite possible she spoke to the class at Elmira College in February, 1963. There is an October date, October 27,1966, on the object itself.

(“And a foreign element of some kind.” Jane now said she thought this data somewhat distorted, and that by foreign she meant something new and strange to her, rather than literally out of the country. Yet Seth appears to think the Picadilly connection, next, a valid one.