“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane later said she thought she said more, but actually we do not believe we missed recalling much. [...] Her trance, Jane said, was quite different than the usual Seth trance, and a few times, particularly during the crying attempt, Jane felt she might be approaching an unpleasant experience, as has happened a few times in the past. Again, Jane felt that in making contact, Blanche had to go through the last, and so unpleasant, stages of her physical life. After the session we wondered what part Jane’s knowledge of the circumstances of Blanche’s final days might have played here.

(Jane began to breathe more deeply. [...] I felt that my speaking, steadily but not rapidly, gave Jane freedom and reassurance to do more than she might have otherwise, and she later agreed to this. Now Jane’s left hand began to move; it lifted and slapped lightly at her right hand, on the table, and did this repeatedly. I thought this meant Jane had established some kind of contact or feeling with Blanche, or the idea of Blanche, and she verified this later. [...]

(Jane’s head did not remain still however, but began to tip to one side at times; then she would right it again while seemingly making efforts to speak. [...] As though it were necessary almost for Blanche to go through the experience of being ill once again in order to make contact through Jane, and to even approach the death experience itself. At no time, Jane said, did she “see” Blanche, or feel disembodied herself; yet she felt at the same time that contact had been made. If play acting was involved, Jane said later, it was on a completely subconscious level where she would possess no egotistical knowledge that such was transpiring.

(The session, Jane said, verged often on the unpleasant, as if Blanche had to go through her own last memories first in order to make contact, and we wondered whether a survival personality would want to do this very often. As I continued speaking, trying to help Jane get an emotional feeling of making contact without being engulfed by any strong or unpleasant emotion that Blanche might be reexperiencing, Jane began to whimper in a subdued way. I thought this reinforced the fact of contact, yet at the same time reassured Jane, by name, that she could do very well, and that Seth and I were with her as protectors.

(At no time was Jane aware of Seth as a personality, and neither of us saw any signs of him or from him. One of my concerns when Jane asked me to speak to Seth at the beginning of the session, was whether my speaking would bring on a regular Seth session, but this didn’t develop; and the method gave us both confidence for like experiments in the future. Jane said my speaking was a great help for her, and did act as a protective device. My own idea was for Jane to make emotional or feeling contact with Blanche, without whatever emotions she encountered becoming too intrusive and so interfering with any data we might get.

[...] Jane asked Seth for signs of his presence; Seth had talked about giving such signs, soon, in the last session. [...] Jane spoke to Seth in a quiet voice for some little time, but no results were obtained; nothing out of the ordinary was noticed by either of us. Jane then suggested that I speak to Seth, since I was used to doing so; her hope being that by going into trance on her own she might contact a survival personality—namely, Blanche Price.

(Blanche died last February, and Jane had many emotional connections with her from years past; in addition Jane had recently received correspondence from Blanche’s closest friend, Anne Healy, in Baltimore. Anne’s letter lay on the table before us tonight, with a pack of file cards pertaining to Jane’s poetry that Blanche had had on file for safekeeping in Baltimore.

(I believe Jane set the stage for the events that followed, as she herself spoke aloud, and that by the time I began to speak things were well under way even if they were not obvious. Jane and I wanted Seth’s assistance in contacting Blanche, without Seth himself speaking, for we thought this would make the session too much like the regular sessions. Jane had repeatedly asked Seth for assistance, and I began by doing the same.

(I asked Jane, who said she felt no awareness of Seth about, to try contacting Blanche by feeling, if possible, rather than mere words. [...] Not long after I began to speak, Jane began to nod her head repeatedly, in a gentle way. [...] I spoke to Seth, asking for both his help and reassurance, his protection, and that he help Jane reach Blanche.

(Jane said later that this worked well, and evidently helped her across several rough spots—the feeling or urge to cry passed after a few moments. Jane now seemed to be in a deeper trance, and began to try to speak. [...] “This is Blanche,” was one of the first things she said, after I had deliberately called her Jane for reassurance, while thinking she had probably made contact with Blanche, and was somewhat unpleasantly involved in a sickroom episode.