“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This is our first private session since September 27, 1971. During the long layoff Jane and I worked on Seth’s book, editing, rewriting notes, etc. The book was delivered to Prentice-Hall a week ago today. Jane called the publisher today, and learned that The Seth Material is due in paperback probably in January, with Seth’s own book to be published next October.

(Jane said she was somewhat nervous as we sat waiting for the session tonight. I had some doubts of my own. These were connected, with the sessions per se. I wasn’t sure, really, whether Jane wanted to resume them now, or wait, etc. I finally asked her this afternoon whether she wanted to have a session this evening.

(Jane said she finally became aware of “half-formed words, or something like that,” from Seth, as we waited for the session to begin. I found I had to work harder taking my notes, to remind myself of the many symbols and signs I had worked out; some of these had temporarily slipped my mind, I discovered. Jane’s pace was brisk.)

(Jane has had some rather brief sessions in ESP class during the interim.)

(“Yes.” Plus two others that Jane was committed to.)

(I heard a man and a woman begin to climb the stairs from the front entrance of the apartment house. They clumped on up past our floor to the one above, sounding very loud and clumsy. As I feared, they had come to call on the tenant who lived in the small apartment above our living room, where we were holding the session. I heard the door open, then slam shut, and a babble of voices. Footsteps began to resound back and forth overhead. I was of course highly irritated, as I always am at such interruptions during sessions. Jane, in trance, kept speaking though, seemingly not bothered.)

The creative liberation in his own work (since Seth’s book has been finished Jane has started two books of her own) is a clear symptom on the positive side of the change in feeling-tone, as was the more expansive idea of adding to your establishment. (Renting the second apartment, across the hall from the original one.)

(Pause. May I add that Jane surprised me also, in the excellent relationship she established with my parents.)

(10:02. Jane’s trance had been good. I was finding the session very revealing. Since it dealt with parents, I brought up a thought I’d been entertaining, although I told Jane I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea after all.

(Her father, Del, had died on November 16, at 7:30 AM, in Daytona Beach, Florida. Midge, Del’s wife, called Jane later that morning, and Jane in turn called me at work. There isn’t anything we can do, particularly, beyond the few letters Jane wrote. During break I explained to Jane that she might like Seth to say something about Del; by this I meant his experiences after death. I thought his death might give Jane a chance to “follow along” with a personality no longer physical in our terms. Resume at 10:20. )

In developing his own abilities and searching for answers through these sessions, Ruburt also unconsciously sought, and seeks, finds answers for his mother, since she was unable to find them, and answers for his grandfather Burdo as well. (“Little Daddy,” as Jane called him.)

(Jane took a pause, her hand to her closed eyes, which lasted well over a minute.)

He has met his former wife (Maxine, who died about 14 years ago, just as Jane and I met), but the connections are not good. The mutual attraction no longer exists as it did between them. The reunion is joyous and his vision is clear at last in terms of his own selfhood.

(“Okay.” I never met Mattie. I was still writing. When I looked up I saw that Jane was out of trance, her eyes bleary. I said good night to Seth quickly, but I was too late. “It’s me,” Jane said. I also forgot to note the time the session ended. Approximately 11:10.

(Jane said she had to “fight to stay in trance” at the last, because she began to pick up some “bad feelings” about Midge, alone in the house down there in Florida, and probably drinking. Jane kept wanting to come out of trance. She had an impression of Midge in a robe, crawling on the floor near the oil stove in the living room. Jane saw no flames, she said, but “it was all hazy, like smoke... I don’t know, but I don’t feel good about it right now.” Then, “I’ve still got this scary feeling. Maybe I’ve just translated all the mixed-up feelings about my father and the house there and everything into Midge. I’ve got the impression that she was trying to close the door of the stove.”

(We have no idea to whom Seth might refer when he tells us that another member of the family from the west coast might soon join Del, Mattie and Dorothy. Mattie has a sister, Maude, also elderly, if still alive. Actually we don’t know whether she still “lives” or not. Maude has a daughter, Ruth Dudley, a little older than Jane, we think, and she in turn has children. Jane said there are also assorted cousins, etc. out there whom we haven’t met, so there is still evidently quite a family group extant.

(Class had been discussing dream realities, personality, etc., for about an hour; Pat and Sheila began talking back and forth on Sheila’s ideas on separate personalities, when Jane interrupted to say that she had the impression that the “hole in the universe” had opened up in Dr. Sam Levine’s house next-door and a crowd of people were flying from it into the room. She added that she thought their teacher was standing at the table by the windows. We went into Alpha to see what we could get—most of us had that impression of other: in the room—and Jane got the words to a chant, which she wrote down. As she started to read this chant to us, she suddenly threw her head back and wailed the words in an extremely loud voice; she then remained in trance for five minutes or so, and began to speak in a liquid, near-whisper: