“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

CHAPTER
EIGHT:

A Year of Testing—Seth
“Looks Into” Envelopes
and Gives Rob a Few Art Lessons

For the next eleven months, the Seth sessions dealt mainly with test data of one kind or another. At 9 P.M. as usual, Seth would begin with the theoretical material in which we were increasingly interested. At 10 P.M. he gave impressions for Dr. Instream, and after that Rob gave me an envelope if there was to be such a test that evening. If we did have one of our own tests, then we’d sit up after the session, trying to evaluate the results. By then it was usually past midnight, and we would be exhausted.

Here’s an instance where Rob was trying to test for clairvoyance rather than telepathy. Like many others, this test had surprising results. Rob’s notes show clearly the procedure he followed in choosing the test item:

The above impressions referred to the test object itself. Now here are some about the page from which the object was taken. Seth said, in consecutive order: “A method of disposal … Something in the vernacular … Gubatorial.” (I was after the word “gubernatorial” here, but as usual Rob recorded it the way I pronounced it in trance.)

For a minute this data stumped us when we went over the test results. Then Rob looked at the full newspaper page.

“And look at this,” Rob said, holding up the item in one hand and the full page in the other.

Refer to the illustrated section for reproductions of the test item and the page from which it was torn. Both sides of the test item contained portions of advertisements that were tied in with election day, yet the words “Election Day” didn’t appear on the object itself at all—only on the whole newspaper page that had lain on a high shelf of Rob’s studio bookcase.

“Listen,” Rob said, laughing, “we have to go along with the way the data comes through and try to learn from it. You did well …”

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).

Rob had purchased two four-by-eight-foot pieces of Masonite and a roller pan. The salesman who waited on us became quite talkative when he learned that Rob was going to use the Masonite for paintings. He told us that a European artist had done a portrait of him while he’d been a soldier in World War II. Somewhat humorously, he described how the artist had drawn his face as though it were symmetrical and without blemish, while actually it was quite asymmetrical with an impaired eye. The salesman also wore glasses.

Here are some of Seth’s impressions: “Four square, or four and four square.” (We thought this was very good. Rob had the two pieces of Masonite cut in half so they’d fit into our car. This gave him four pieces, each four-foot square.)

“An oval shape or eye shape, that is, this kind of an eye, inside of a rectangle or triangle, you see.” (According to Rob’s notes, I pointed to one of my own closed eyes. The salesman, as mentioned earlier, specifically mentioned his poor eye in connection with his portrait, and his glasses.)

“A word beginning with m, and another M, this time the initial of a name.” (Rob had purchased Masonite, by its brand name, but the salesman listed it as “Presdwood” on the bill. A capital M appears in the bill’s heading: Glenn M. Schuyler.)

The second impression that I was supposed to complete (“something bright and small beneath this overhanging or threatening portion”) was to lead me to the word “roller pan,” which also appeared on the bill beneath the word “roofing.” A roller pan is small, bright, and shiny, and the one Rob purchased that day had been a shiny aluminum color.

We tried all sorts of things with the envelopes. In The New York Times test, Rob himself didn’t know what was on the test object. He didn’t always know what the test object was, in any case, and sometimes he didn’t even know that a test would be held! For example, occasionally friends would come unannounced to a session and bring their own test envelope. This was just handed to me in the middle of the session, without my knowing beforehand whether or not a test would be held. Sometimes Rob would use such an envelope at once; at other times he would save it for a future session.

It didn’t seem to make any difference in the results whether Rob knew what the test envelope contained or not. One night Nora Stevens (not her real name) came unannounced. She was the friend of a friend, and had attended two sessions previously. During this period we encouraged people to drop in with test envelopes, though actually few did. (Before and after this we preferred to keep our sessions private.)

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.

Yet sometimes I’d get discouraged even over good results. One test had pleased me no end at first. It was our 37th, held in the 237th session on March 2, 1966. The target item was a print Rob had taken of his own hand a week earlier, when we were reading some books on palmistry. Seth’s impressions couldn’t have been more concise. I went around the house with a smile on my face just thinking of it for days afterward.

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.

“He might,” Rob admitted. “But the fact is, we’ve received plenty of letters that I could have used since then. We also did work in handwriting analysis; I could have used one of those samples. I could have used something older than you are—as I’ve done before. I could have used anything. No matter what we use, Seth still has to describe a particular item. And those impressions weren’t general; they could only refer to that specific hand print.”

I agreed with him. But after that, Rob often made up several test envelopes at once, shuffled them, and then chose one just before a session.

I didn’t feel this way in the beginning, but I was really furious that he didn’t tell us the results of the tests; all those hours seemed to be going down the drain. One night, really angry at not hearing from him, I did go with Rob to a nearby bar—only to rush home at the last minute so as not to miss the session!

This time Peg and Bill went to Nassau. Again, neither Rob nor I have been there. Again, we exchanged no cards, letters, or communications of any kind. But to my delight, Seth certainly knew where the Gallaghers were staying. In a series of impressions one night (October 17, 1966), he accurately described their hotel:

Very shortly after the sessions began, Rob started to see visions or images. Some were subjective, but others were objectified—three-dimensional, or nearly so. Some were of people, and Rob began to use them as models for his paintings. Now our living room is full of portraits of people we don’t “know.” Seth has said that some depict ourselves in past lives. One, used in this book, is a portrait of Seth in the form in which he chose to appear to Rob. (Since then, a student and a friend of ours have both seen Seth as he appears in this picture.)

Rob has a strong visual memory. Once he sees such an image, he retains it and can refer back to it at will. My visual memory is poor, in contrast, and so is my eyesight (I have no depth perception). Rob is a professional artist, an excellent draftsman and technician. Yet in sessions, Seth has given Rob excellent advice and information on the techniques and philosophy of art. This strikes us as really funny, since I paint as a hobby, with a stubborn lack of perspective. Rob used to try to teach me perspective, but the lessons just wouldn’t take. I’ve never studied art, and my paintings are rather childish in execution, done with raw color. Yet Seth told Rob how to mix and use certain pigments, and Rob has added the information to his repertoire. Seth says that he has no artistic ability either, but questions artists who have entered his own field of reality.

In one session, Seth gave some pointers that Rob immediately put to use. The picture is one of our favorites, and belongs to Rob’s “people series”—portraits of people we’ve never met. The inspiration for this particular painting came to Rob suddenly a few days after the session in question, and he used the techniques Seth had given in its execution.

After the session Rob told me he was quite certain that I didn’t consciously possess such knowledge—that my mind “didn’t work that way.” Rob had never tried this particular method of building up color tones in portrait work, and it is this technique he used in the painting idea that “came to him” a few days after this session. Later Seth added to this information. We are still accumulating material on art, art philosophy, and painting techniques.

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.

In the past, Rob’s portraits were representations of personalities involved with us personally through association or past life connections—as far as we know. Some of them still have to be identified. Lately, however, the range of the portraits has been extended. Rob did one of a young man recently, for example (see illustrated section). He had no idea who it was. Later one of my students, George, picked out the painting as a portrait of a personality called Bega, who communicates with him through automatic writing. Seth corroborated this, and said that Bega is one of his own students in another level of reality.

Though the sessions continued as usual, we found ourselves having other experiences then, like Rob’s visions, that also developed out of the Seth Material in one way or another. And as if to stress our new sense of freedom and further add to my confidence and training, Seth was to send me to California during a session, while he and Rob talked in the living room of our apartment in Elmira, New York. So much more fun than trying to tell the contents of sealed envelopes! This time complete strangers were involved in an experience that would really satisfy my seemingly endless search for proof after proof.