“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Although my confidence had risen with the two out-of-body episodes, I felt that I was putting Seth and myself on the line with each test session. I never knew whether or not we would have an envelope test. Often I was afraid of having a session for fear we’d have an envelope test and the results just would not apply. (This never happened, incidentally, though the impressions given were not always as specific as we would have liked.) Actually I didn’t care what was in the envelopes—I just wanted to know if Seth could tell us, and I wanted him to be absolutely right each time. My attitude was bound to have an effect. Now I wonder that Seth was able to do anything with me at all in those days, but most of the time he managed to do very well indeed.

“There were other issues, having to do with Ruburt’s own characteristics. Now it is true, generally speaking, that material of an emotional nature actually has a stronger vitality and is easier to perceive. Beyond this, however, Ruburt has no love for detail” (Seth smiled) “and will always use it as a clue to see where it leads him.

This test was funny, really, because Seth was doing beautifully on his own. Then he threw the ball to me, and I nearly fell flat on my face. The envelope item was a bill of Rob’s, dated July 15, 1966. The session was on August 1. I’d been with Rob at the lumberyard when he got the bill. (See the illustrated section).

All in all, Seth gave twenty-four impressions. Each of them did apply, though some were not as specifically connected as others. For example, Seth said: “Connection with black, symbolic of death; and with a tournament, again symbolic, as of a crossing of swords.” We believe that this was a reference to World War II, when the salesman who waited on us had his portrait done as a soldier. Another example was this: “Numbers … perhaps 01913.” The bill did have numbers on it, and in a series that began with 0 (this seemed unusual to us), but not in the order given by Seth. One series begins with 09 (not 019); and the last two digits, 1 and 3, do appear by themselves on the front of the bill.

Here Seth’s impressions had been quite literal, as if the words on the bill were coming to life and being described as objects instead of as words describing objects. Later I was to do much better when Seth left some impressions up to me, but this kind of training was invaluable. Even though I didn’t do a very good job, we learned something about the nature of perception, which was Seth’s intent. This test made us suspect that all impressions, extrasensory or otherwise, are initially nonverbal and nonvisual, more like pure feeling that is only later interpreted in sense terms.

We knew that Nora was a secretary in a hospital office that had to do with the purchase of drugs and supplies, but that she had nothing to do with patients, their records, or medical procedures. I didn’t know she’d brought an envelope. She slipped it to Rob after the session began.

I was doing the dishes when a drawback suddenly occurred to me. Rob was in the living room. I went in. Slowly. “I bet Dr. Instream would throw out the results of that hand-print test because we both worked on palmistry the week before,” I said.

The overall results of our own envelope tests encouraged us to hope that Seth was doing fairly well on the regular Instream data, too. We started these with zeal and energy.

With no idea of how we were doing, I couldn’t have cared less, finally, what Dr. Instream was concentrating on. The tests just became time-consuming, cutting down on the amount of theoretical material we could receive. Once more I wrote the good doctor, suggesting that he not spare my feelings in case the data was just wrong. If so, we were wasting his time and our own. Again he wrote of his continuing interest and suggested we keep on. But he would not say we were doing well, fair, or poorly, and he gave no reports on the many specific details given.

Actually, I’m not sorry that we took so much time for the tests, but I’m glad we ended them when we did. I’m not temperamentally suited to putting myself under fire twice a week, which is what I was doing with the attitude I had at the time. Emotionally I disliked the tests; intellectually I thought them necessary. Seth didn’t seem to mind them at all, but I forced myself to go along because I thought I should. The fact remains that in our sessions the best instances of ESP have occurred spontaneously or in response to someone’s need, and not when we were trying to prove anything. I knew I was disappointed not to get some sort of “certificate of legitimacy” from Dr. Instream. On the other hand, we didn’t ask for one; we were too burned up not to have reports on the results.

Here are a few excerpts from that session: “In a portrait,” Seth said, “do the same exercise as given earlier: [that is], imagine the individual as the center of all life, so that when the painting is completed, it automatically suggests the whole universe of which the individual is part. Nothing exists in isolation, and this is the secret that the old masters knew so well.

“In the smallest detail they managed to suggest the reality of the spiritual universe of which that detail was a part and through which the energy of the universe spoke. Use your talents—and they are considerable—to this end. You can do no less. …

“One of the attractions of your portrait of me is that it automatically suggests an unseen audience to whom I appear to be speaking. Not a formal audience, but unseen listeners who represent humanity at large. The unseen is there. The figure manages to suggest the universe of men and the world that holds them, yet nowhere do these appear.

Seth did say, however, that Rob’s picture using the color-building technique is a portrait of the artist in question. (See illustrated section.) He also said that Rob would do other paintings of both the artist and his environment, including possibly the artist’s studio.