“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:

“A paper item, rougher rather than smooth background.” (The object was a piece of newspaper, coarse newsprint rather than, say, a coated magazine paper stock.)

“A gray view.” (Portions of illustrations were visible on both sides of the item, all in gray tones.)

“Connection with a telephone or telephone call.” (On one side of the item we find “No mail or phone orders,” and on the other side, “Mail and phone orders filled,” plus a long series of telephone exchange numbers.)

“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.

There were quite a few other surprises in this test. Not only did Seth pick up this excellent identifying information, but he gave further impressions concerning the whole page from which the test item had been taken. Besides all the sales, there were four articles on the large section. The envelope item didn’t include these, yet Seth gave impressions referring to three of them.

Seth also gave some other impressions of the page from which the envelope item was taken, besides those dealing with the articles. “A date above … Buttons … some figures and a distant connection with skull shapes … the colors, blue and purple and green … and other round shapes.”

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).

“A rectangular item with some dark coloring on it, perhaps dark blue.” (The bill is rectangular. The back of it is printed in heavy black.)

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.

“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.”