“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Rob and I started talking about them as I sat on the bed, and we got ready to retire. I remembered and described three of them, thought there was a fourth, but couldn’t remember it. This is the first time we’ve discussed those paintings in … ten years?

If our discussion actually happened Tuesday, before Peg’s visit (which was planned ahead of time), then we run into other possibilities than if our discussion was on Wednesday … (as we thought).

So as I listened to our visitor (I’ll call him Larry) talk, I browsed through the letter. My thoughts went back to the years when Ed and Rob produced the detective comic strip Mike Hammer together with Micky Spillane. Then I thought of Ed’s first letter of two years ago, breaking a twenty-year-old silence, mailed from Alaska where Ed was skiing. In fact, the letter before me mentioned the Alaskan ski trip. That might have been the reference that suddenly gave me small shivers.

My eyes scanned the list. Could 3 and 7 — egg carton and milk man — apply to Larry’s grocery store job? These I just marked evocative. Then I thought of another connection with “milk man” — our young fan, Larry, once would only drink milk, he was on a natural food diet — or had been. In fact, I had offered him milk as I went over my predictions … I suddenly remembered something else. That morning before beginning work, I sat at my desk unaccountably thinking about the way Rob and I had met. I had the impulse, for no particular reason, to write about the meeting today instead of writing on this book (The Magical Approach) and spent a good ten minutes thinking about the entire affair. In memory’s quick vivid images I saw the very first meeting:

All of that came to mind this morning; not that it couldn’t have just been “coincidence” that later in the day I hear from Ed — after making three predictions that seemed to apply to him. But surely there is a point where feelings themselves are meanings; where the heart’s evidence recognizes intuitively what the intellect must question. And I know that those memories and thoughts were connected with my later predictions and Ed’s letter in the noon mail. I’d been reacting to Ed’s letter before its arrival.

The next morning, Tuesday, August 25, 1981, I scribbled down another short list of predictions. Reading them back I read “old friend, Auld Lang Syne.” Not likely, I thought, just after hearing from one old friend. Remembering the Ed affair of yesterday, I thought ironically this must be old friend week.

Furthermore, Ruburt did not like the idea of making an invitation on such short notice. Then he became aware that those particular thoughts were intrusive, completely out of context with his immediately previous ones, for only a moment or so earlier he had been congratulating himself precisely because he had made no plans for the day or evening at all … about fifteen minutes later he found the same ideas returning, this time more insistently.

… It would be simple enough, of course, to ascribe Ruburt’s thoughts and feelings to mere coincidence. He remembered the vividness of his feelings at the time, however. It looked as if Peter and Polly were indeed going to arrive almost as if Ruburt had in fact called and invited them. That evening the visit did take place. Actually, some work had prevented the couple from leaving when they intended. Instead, they called later from their home to say that they were just beginning their trip, and would stop on their way.