“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In the summer of 1980 I missed Seth sessions for nearly two months. I was finishing work on one of my own books, The God of Jane. Rob was preparing Seth’s The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events for publication. We were both caught up in the same events as most other people were during that June and July — the hotter-than-usual nights and days, the drought in parts of New York State that touched our area lightly, the TV news drama as the political parties argued and planned for their conventions. Some nights the (singing) bugs in the small back woods were louder than the sound of our television set. The same heat that made me groan with dismay turned Rob into some version of a south-sea island native. He looked supercool in his cut-off denim shorts; his long hair curled into natural corkscrews, his light durable frame seeming to luxuriate in the heat while my light durable frame turned into a sponge that added ten pounds of fatigue.

Something in his words struck me in a new fashion. Rob and I often discussed such subjects. He was saying that we were immersed in “magic” no matter what we called it, that manifestations of telepathy, and so forth, were just places where our magic “showed.” For some reason as I finished reading … I felt inspired. Or rather, I felt an inner psychological motion happening — a movement as definite, yet subtle as the shadows that flickered on the floor. A change of balance — a vital but usually-hidden psychic action that instantly changed me and the afternoon.

As I recognized the feeling of inspiration, I glanced idly toward the kitchen. The sight of the table struck my fancy, plus my view of the front doorway, with the green foliage showing through the open threshold. I thought about doing another painting of the scene; I hadn’t done any painting in months. Then I thought of asking Rob to take a snapshot of the table area, so that I could paint it later. Not two minutes passed before Rob stood at my door with his camera! He’d bought a flash gadget several months ago to use with it, and he hadn’t tried it out yet. Now he told me he had one exposure left, and he wanted to take a snapshot of me to use it up.

He had been fussing with the camera at the other end of the house from the den. There was no way, I thought, that I could have picked up physical clues as to his activity. Yet here he stood, camera and all.

My feelings “clicked;” the incident was significant; and it seemed to fit in too perfectly and meaningfully into the events just previous, as if saying “yes, you do operate magically” … and this is an example of how those perceptions work. If Rob hadn’t come in at that point, I wouldn’t have known that my thought about cameras had anything to do with his thoughts or activities at the same time. So how often do our thoughts relate in one way or another to the thoughts of others?³

I told Rob what I’d been thinking just before he came in. My hunch is that because of my state of mind — interpreting Rob’s dreams, and my reading of his notes, I was in a particular kind of correspondence with him, or with his state of mind, that facilitated the inner communication. We talked about it.

It was okay. After the layoff, there was Seth poised psychologically once again (for over the thousandth time). At the threshold of my mind those “psychic gears” turned. Rob was ready with his notebook and pen. I took a sip of my wine and ice. The fan whirred. A slightly cool breeze came in through the open doors and windows. Then I took off my glasses, “turned into” Seth, and began to speak. Bare legs propped up on the coffee table Rob sat, pen poised, and the session started.