“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This session will actually report two separate events, lumped together for convenience. Both involve table tipping, and include one Seth session.

(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.

(PART TWO:

(The next moment the tabletop split in two and a leg was torn free of the central pedestal. The table crashed to the floor. Consternation, a second of disbelief. For a moment I couldn’t believe it.

(Jane and I do not know the exact sequence of events. Most likely Bill and Pat exerted so much downward thrust that the table was at last overwhelmed. The force with which the third leg hit the floor shattered it; at the same time, did the top split in two? We cannot be sure. No pictures were taken of course, or notes made at the moment. This account is written several days later, after several conversations by Jane and me with some of the people present. A variation in accounts of course resulted, and we will not try to give these here.

(The two obvious points are that the table broke, and that a great force was needed to do this. I personally witnessed Bill Gallagher pushing heavily down upon the resisting table a few seconds before it broke. My estimate is that the third, resisting leg, was perhaps an inch or two off the floor. I recall at the time being especially intrigued that such a small space between table leg and floor was leading, for whatever reason, to so much human effort being expended.

(Jane and I cannot say exactly who was at the table when it broke, although we know that neither of us was, nor was Curt Kent, who sat to one side drinking beer. We believe that five people were at least touching the tabletop, and perhaps more. The breaking of the table left us delighted and appalled—me especially; and it took me several hours on two succeeding days to repair the table. So much force was used to shatter the table leg that a nail two and a quarter inches long, that I had used in my previous repair bout, was bent at an exact right angle. This nail remained embedded in the detached leg. Other smaller nails in the same leg were pulled through the detached leg and remained in the central pedestal.

(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.