“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.

(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.

(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 would rock back and forth beneath the touch of our fingertips when the pressure was requested; as it did so it would begin to feel increasingly solid and heavy; the creaks and groans in it would disappear and it seemed to become one indivisible unit. The pressure would rather quickly build up until members grouped around it—usually standing—would have to really bear down to level it out again. Once it finally groaned dangerously and I feared some part of it, possibly the top, was about to break.

(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.

(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.

(When we asked for a full levitation, it seemed the table did its best to achieve this, getting all legs off the floor except the last tiny point of contact of the third leg; it would then go in circles beneath our hands, or begin to dance about, eventually. I cannot recall whether pressure was apparent at such times. I am tempted to say that it probably was not as strongly present as at other times when we frankly requested pressure in order to experience it. At just about all times one or more of us was talking to the table, exhorting it to go on, to better its performance, in most positive tones.

(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.

(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.