“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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. [...] Was he dissociated to any degree when the table vaulted up?

(The twice-repaired table has been used in subsequent sessions, but very gingerly for it is now much weakened. [...] We mourn the table’s withdrawal for obvious reasons. [...] We want to keep the table to maintain this contact, even if casually, and for further study on pressure angles, etc. Also to use this table as a springboard for work with heavier, four-legged tables, etc.

(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. [...] 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. [...]

(I stood back in a corner by the bookcase; the table had worked its way toward the bathroom door, which was closed. At the table were Bill Gallagher, with beside him Pat Norelli. Others were also at the table, but Bill and Pat were on the side showing the strong pressure. The pressure finally reached the point where Bill Gallagher could not force the third table leg back to the floor. [...]

(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. [...] 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. [...]

(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. [...] 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. [...]

(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. [...] 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.

(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. [...] 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. [...] 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.