“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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.

(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?

(Nor of course does the question involving the downward thrust explain other peculiar table motions, such as pirouetting, vaulting into the air, dancing, etc, since with these motions no great hand pressure is maintained. In fact, it is often extremely difficult to maintain fingertip contact with the table, so rapid can its movements be.

(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.