“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.

(The table seemed to have a mind of its own. Jane at once called upon the table’s “inhabitant”, A A, to help us out, and we received help aplenty. The table, the one usually used and belonging to Ruth Klebert, one of Jane’s ESP students, had been repaired less than a week ago by me; it had been damaged to the extent of losing a couple of its three legs by its violent movements in a recent ESP class.

(There were of course all manner of in-between motions given by the table also, hard to describe in words. The pressure manifested, of course, held our intense attention, since this is so diametrically opposed to our usual unthinking acceptance of the gravitational force. Jane requested A A to manifest pressure often, and usually A A, or the table, obligingly did so. Everything seemed to work together in perfect order—table, our moods, etc. If one chose to call a full levitation 100%, then our evening could be called 90% successful.

(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.

(It is of course possible to balance any object, large or small, and this has led Jane and me to experiment a bit with the table in question. It was soon discovered that by balancing it at a certain angle with the fingertips, then exerting a downward pressure, one can have an illusion of a force from beneath holding the table up with one leg off the floor. However, as far as we can tell this is not the force we have experienced when a leg will refuse to return to the floor.

(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.

(Naturally the table was the center of attention, and within a few minutes of Jane and me and a few others sitting at it, it began to perform. Pressure, the newest attraction, was at once called for, and before long began to manifest itself to various degrees; at first however nothing like the pressure of Wednesday showed, but there seemed to be plenty present, enough so that each person present, especially those who had never witnessed such a thing, could take the time to experience it.

(This evening the table did not vault into the air as it had Wednesday, but was nevertheless very active. The pressure soon was so pronounced that it was unmistakable; all agreed that they experienced it. To save time listing a long recital of varied antics: later in the evening I stepped away so someone could take my place at the table. Jane had already done so. Meaning of course that the table performed as well without Jane’s hands upon it, as it did when she touched it.

(At the same time the table was performing so well, Jane was standing a few feet away, talking to it in a loud voice very intently, rooting very strongly for the table to resist Bill and Pat’s really strong efforts to level it out. The room was filled with noise, all manner of exclamations, shouts, comments, etc. It could be called a real, almost palpable, peak of mental and physical excitement.

(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.

(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.

(The session with Seth began an indeterminate time after the shattering of the table. Previous to it, Jane told me she felt Seth; since strangers to Seth were present, we thought it best that he not come through. Jane wanted to go to a back room; but the bathroom door was closed. Someone was inside. Confined to the living room with its gathering, Jane finally let Seth come through.

(At times Jane’s voice grew very strong and loud, but I would not say this was its peak performance. I thought the session a strong reaction to the evening and the gathering. At the highest or strongest points, the voice, while powerful, was not as clear and distinct as I have heard it on other occasions—notably during the extraordinary session recorded for Dr. Instream a couple of years ago. I thought too much excitement might be responsible here. Jane’s eyes opened after a time. Peg got most of the material down, and we are indebted to her for this, for Seth spoke rapidly.