“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Part one: A table tipping session on Wednesday, November 22, 1967, in our living room, with the following: Jane and Rob, and Claire Crittenden and Carl Watkins. Highly successful, the best achieved up to that time, with seemingly a full levitation almost accomplished.

(This session was not particularly planned, but grew out of conversation on the subject. Claire and Carl are young college students, and were home for Thanksgiving vacation. Rather late after meeting we began tipping the table, which started performing almost as soon as we sat around it. The session lasted for several hours, perhaps until 1 AM, and at its end all of us were exhausted.

(I repaired the broken legs with nails and glue, to insure a strong job; before, the legs had been merely dowel-fastened. This Wednesday evening the table performed as follows: Irish jigs upon request, vaulting up into the air while in Carl’s grip, chasing around our backs as Carl held it while we tried to keep up with it, skittering across the rug, knocking back and forth, and building up a very strong pressure indeed, when we tried to force the leg up in the air back down to the floor, or rug.

(Several times during the evening Carl and I had to use considerable pressure to get the raised third leg of the table back down to the floor. The effect appeared so often that all four of us had ample time to feel it—as noted before, to me this force reminds me strongly of two magnets repelling each other—something invisible yet most palpable, and when things are going well, easily demonstrable.

(Carl had a brainstorm; we placed our bathroom scale on the tabletop finally when the pressure was “going good,” and requested A A to continue building up the pressure so that Carl, who was on the side of the table manifesting the pressure at that time, could measure the force he used to get the table back on the floor solidly. A A obligingly built up the pressure again; pressing down, Carl saw that he used a hand pressure of 70 pounds, as measured by the scale, to get all three legs of the table back on the floor, whereas usually gravity would effortlessly draw the legs back to the floor when our fingertips were removed.

(Carl and Claire, previously, had used what they considered to be an even greater pressure on the table to level it out. With the experience furnished by the scale, they now estimated they used close to 90 pounds pressure to level the table, this being the moment of highest pressure during the evening. Several subsequent pressures were measured by using the scale on the tabletop, ranging from 30 to 50 pounds.

(Needless to say, when Carl or whoever was measuring pressure on the scale, the other three took pains to see that they were not subconsciously exerting a heavy pressure on the other side of the table,thus forcing a stronger response across the tabletop to get the legs back on the floor. Such checking was easy to do; nevertheless conscious deliberate checks were constantly being made to make certain opposing pressures were not unwittingly being exerted. Most of the time our hands touched the table so lightly that it could move quite freely beneath them, seemingly of its own volition. This steady checking has the added advantage that it serves as a protection against any possible hallucination [although this would have to be a mass effect, and highly unlikely]; the checking in a deliberate manner was a good method to keep one’s feet on the floor, so to speak, even if the table was acting contrary to gravity.

(The table was active until after 1 AM. One other distinctive movement involved a seeming vault into the air while Carl held the table at arms length. This tipped the top vertically to the floor, and the other three present touched the top lightly. At first the table seemed to move Carl around in circles, continually being ahead of him, in that it ended up by twisting Carl’s arm awkwardly behind him; this made it very difficult for Claire, Jane and me to keep contact with the top. At the same time Carl insisted that he was not deliberately twisting the table this way around himself. The twisting was rapid.

(Carl, being big and strong, could hold the table as he did, with but one hand, the arm extended straight out, for some little time. At the same time we requested levitation. Abruptly the table, still in Carl’s grasp, vaulted up toward the ceiling of our living room, very rapidly, until it was upside down to the floor and beyond our reach, except for Carl, who still held on. Carl said he had not consciously made the maneuver, and he appeared as surprised as we were. Later he told us he was afraid the table would either crash into the ceiling—since Carl was tall enough—or would hit a nearby wall where several of my paintings hung.

(After hanging upside down for a short but measurable length of time the table again descended. Later, Carl tried to consciously make the table describe the same upside-down movement, and discovered that he could not exert enough force while using the same grip on the table top edge. The best he could do was to get the table up to shoulder height at the most, and I believe this to be a somewhat generous estimate. Also Carl’s arm tired quickly, whereas before it had not. Was he dissociated to any degree when the table vaulted up?

(The 381st session took place, unscheduled, after a lengthy and active table-tipping session of the evening of Friday, November 24, 1967. Claire Crittenden, Carl Watkins, Jane and I, along with Pat Norelli, from Boston, were joined by Bill and Peg Gallagher,Doug Hicks, Danny Stimmerman, Curt Kent and Peg’s brother Dick and his wife Carol, for an even dozen present, at our apartment.

(There was no doubt that Seth wanted to come through. The evening’s events had set the stage most thoroughly. I have no idea of the reaction, subjectively, of some of the witnesses to what must have seemed a very strange happening indeed. Personally, I believe that only the Gallaghers, Claire, Pat and myself had witnessed a session. This left as new witnesses Peg’s brother Dick and his wife Carol, Danny,Curt, Doug and Carl; though Carl and perhaps one or two others had at least heard mention of Seth.

(Peg’s notes are below. After all but Claire, Carl and Pat had left Seth came through again, dealing with reincarnational data on Carl, and I made verbatim notes on this.)