“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A stranger stood there, a man with thinning hair, deeply set dark eyes, a pudgy face, perhaps in his late 40’s—I’m not sure. His hair was black and straight. He wore a white business-type shirt, a tie, no coat, and gray business-type pants. I could see that his pointed shoes looked rather worn. A fat brown suitcase and an attaché case were on the ramp beside him. As soon as he started talking I knew we were in trouble.

“If you don’t let me in your house I’ll just die,” Fred said. By now he’d taken two hardcover books from a bag, and given them to me. One by Jerszy Kosinski and one by Somerset Maugham. The latter was an expensive anthology. In one he’d written a note on a blank page to Jane, and to me in the other. Check their phrasing for a close approximation of the way he talked. Fred also handed me a thick, neatly tied package of brown paper and yellow string—The Christ Book, he said, which was for Jane and me, and for Prentice-Hall. I didn’t open it, and still haven’t. When I asked him where he was really from, he said Denver, and that his address was inside the package. It wasn’t on the other manuscript. Nor was I quick-witted enough to ask if he had a family, if anyone knew where he was, or what he did for a living—if he worked, or could—or how he found our house in the first place. I wondered if he was schizophrenic. He appeared to be harmless enough.