“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The regular session was scheduled for this evening, but did not develop. These notes are from those I made Wednesday evening, but cannot be strictly verbatim because of the very nature of the experience. It will be necessary to add very little from memory though, since the notes are quite complete.

(The notes will ramble somewhat; to save time little effort will be made to condense them or make them strictly chronological. They are for future reference mainly. We believe the events described to be quite authentic, but will have to wait for verification with no idea of how long this may take. Too, no verification may ever be obtained. For a similar episode, see the Jerry Kramerick seance, of January 13, 1968, described in the 391st session. [In that instance, the data could be verified at once.]

(I painted as usual until about 8 PM. As I worked however I was aware that Jane was even quieter; this is always a signal to me that something is up. She said she’d felt strange since supper; now she said she felt that we shouldn’t be so subjectively aware, now; but that we should be as our future selves, observing the present scene and our physical bodies as they sat in the living room, from the outside.

(The colors in the room by now seemed very brilliant to Jane—pulsating. She didn’t necessarily feel Seth around, but could have held a session, she said. The top of her head “felt funny” to her. Now the eyes in the oil head I recently finished of the discarnate artist, Van Elver, seemed alive to her; the portrait hangs on a bookcase wall in our living room. Jane again walked through the apartment. Looking out at the kitchen from the studio, she said the path to the kitchen looked like a “charged pathway” to her.

(At 10 PM I asked Jane if she could stop the sensations. She said perhaps, then reminded me she had suggested going out earlier—a suggestion I now remembered but hadn’t heeded at the time. Sitting on the couch with her back to the windows, Jane said she felt “scary” about going into a trance now. The feelings were still climbing. She said she’d know when they subsided. She felt “slightly” out of her body to her right as she sat there, but nothing drastic.

(This afternoon we’d had a strong thunderstorm. Jane now said that as she worked in the kitchen then she’d been aware of the charged air between the thunderclaps. She felt this way now, and quite light. She again walked through the apartment, and felt the same sensations, but stronger. The bathroom, she now said, was “too much.” Everything was too clear. Sitting down on the couch again, she felt like moving to the right out of her body again. I was getting very sleepy as I sat in the rocker making these notes. I yawned and yawned, yet did not feel tired. I’d had a mild tingling sensation a few times. We talked about a projection dream Jane had had thismorning. Tam Mossman had been in it. Jane has the dream recorded.

(At l0:15, Jane decided to try giving impressions. I was quite bleary. Jane didn’t want to close her eyes, but she did, and waited.

(“I don’t see anything...” [Pause.] “I have the impression of something far away; coming closer. Just the word ‘told,’ but I don’t know what it means... I also have the impression that somebody could take me over rather completely, if I’d let them, with some rather emotional stuff; that I’d go through something I don’t particularly want to, full blast.”

(Jane continued: “I don’t know if this is connected with Bill Macdonnel or not... but somebody’s around here, in an out-of-body state, I think. I am sort of seeing things as they do. When I walk through our rooms and stuff. I got the word Maisie, a name... When I said that—I don’t see anything—but I got the feeling of a car accident... wanders... not sure if he, Bill, was in an accident with a girl named Maisie.”

(“I don’t know,” Jane said, then suddenly jumped on the couch and threw up her hands, eyes still closed, in the obvious grip of urgent strong emotion: “I don’t know —slam—slam brakes!” Jane cried and yelled out, almost hysterical. I sat beside her, not knowing whether to continue the notes or try to bring her out. My touch on her shoulder helped; her crying subsided but continued as she called to me. I remembered reading that gifted mediums will actually live through experiences; that although obviously under great stress, they are actually safe.

(I thought that a coldblooded attitude, so talked loudly to Jane, and she answered between sobs that she was trying to continue without being overwhelmed. But then another wave of intense emotion swept over her: “Ah, hon... trying to control it ... I get Evelyn! Find Evelyn!” And crying, Jane repeated the name over and over.

(Eyes still closed, face streaked with tears, Jane whispered, “I’m trying to control it...” Her breathing quieted as I talked to her. I thought of shaking her out of trance, but didn’t know whether to or not. Jane sat quietly through a long pause, then muttered: “Cracked glass ... windshield. I don’t know where I am now. I’m in the driver’s seat ... Whoever was on the other side of the car is gone.” [Pause.] “It’s very quiet ... Maybe nobody find—maybe nobody find us ...” she whispered. Each time I thought she might be coming out of it while quiet, Jane would then go back into the experience.

(“I’m still in the car,” she said, “and it sits on the bank...” Her voice rose toward crying again but controlled this. “People are coming, but it seems like they’ll never get here. I don’t know.”

(“There were two cars,” Jane cried out, glasses thrown aside. Mouth odd. “So quiet ... am I dead? Right there... arm’s funny.” Now she rubbed her lower left arm; she cried out, voice rising almost to a scream: “I was driving. Can’t make out—!” Jane burst into tears. “Papa, Papa, Papa...” I spoke to her loudly but it did no good. “I... Papa should know it wasn’t my fault. Brakes bad... I can’t decipher...”

(She now said she had kept trying to pull out of the experience after I had asked her to. She stayed around, but backed off— the experience could have been much more intense, Jane said, had she permitted it. But by then she was afraid to probe too deeply for more emotional data.

(It was then I remembered hearing Tam mention his girl, Eve, over the weekend, for what this is worth. This morning after I left for work, Jane lay down to experiment with psy-time, and had a dream involving Tam Mossman; the location of the dream, and possible out-of-body experience, was in back of our apartment house, though, and not in New York City where Tam and Eve live. Jane had no idea of the location of her experience tonight. It took place at night. Jane had the impression of police cars during the experience but they hadn’t reached her yet; although the girl knew the police were near.

(At 11:05 Jane said she was not Evelyn; she remembered calling out for Evelyn. Evelyn was the person “I was so concerned about. She was in the car with me before the accident. I was a woman, but not Evelyn. But I was in the driver’s seat. Whoever sat next to me, or was supposed to, was gone—not there—or hurt or thrown free...”

(Jane didn’t see any buildings in the accident location, no lighted windows at night. But she did see the lighted police cars, etc., already described.

(Our living room looked “more normal” to Jane now, by 11:15, as though things were subsiding, but she added that the charge wasn’t gone yet. The name Marguerite just came to her so she told it to me.

(By 11:25 PM Jane felt better, but still wanted to snap out of it all the way before she went to bed. “I feel all right, but I also feel like I could start yelling any minute, as though it’s not far away.”

(Nothing more developed during the evening, however, and she slept well. The next day Jane put in a call to an editor at Ace Books, after receiving an encouraging letter from Don Wollheim of Ace, concerning her dream book. The editor Jane will be working with at Ace is named Evelyn Grippo. Jane talked to this Evelyn twice in the afternoon by phone, but on neither occasion did EG mention anything about an auto accident, etc.

(Several days after the seance, we still have no clues as to any basis the seance might have. A letter was received from Tam Mossman of Prentice-Hall late in the week, but this contained no mention of an auto accident. Tam’s girl Eve was mentioned in a normal informative way, but that was all.