“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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:

Seth gave thirty-nine impressions. Almost all of them had direct application. Here are several, pertaining to the test object, grouped together for convenience:

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.)

Other impressions dealt with another article headlined “Portugal Shows Dip in Prisoners.” This specifically referred to the need to modernize the “big, old antiquated prisons” that were “of very low standard,” and made several remarks concerning the crime rate in Portugal. The article also stated that Portugal has the lowest per capita income in Europe. Seth’s impressions were fairly obvious here: “Connection with a monstrosity, as of a monstrous building … A disturbance … a determination and a disadvantage … an inadequate performance.”

“He would not be content simply to give the details on the snatch of paper. This is a fairly automatic tendency of his mental life. We use it, I hope to advantage, in our sessions in other ways. … In the tests, however, we tried to utilize this characteristic, since we could not deny it. Ruburt’s abilities are what I have to work with and through—besides, of course, my own. So we used this tendency here to enlarge the picture and bring in further details that gave you rather respectable data … and in a way that was fairly natural to Rubert.”

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.)

I had the feeling of something very heavy hanging over me. Was this to be translated into an object like, say, a heavy roof over my head, or to an emotional feeling that “hung over me”? I didn’t know—and at that point I couldn’t figure it out. The correct specific connection wasn’t made. Seth threw me another: “Something bright and small also, beneath this overhanging or threatening portion.” Here again, left to my own devices, I couldn’t work my way to the specific data we wanted.

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.

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.