“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now I think that this is an excellent example of the way extrasensory perceptions are sometimes received. Sales are a method of disposal, yet verbally the final connection isn’t as concise as we would like. There’s more than just the idea of conciseness involved, though: such answers are also just different—unexpectedly so, and they make us consider old objects or ideas in new and equally valid ways. I’ll have more to say about this sort of thing later in this chapter.

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.

Seth told Dr. Instream that he would be moving to a Midwestern university by the end of the year, for example. I have no idea if Dr. Instream had any indication of this ahead of time, but he did move when Seth said he would, and to a Midwestern university. We never learned how many correct impressions even of this sort checked out. Enough of them would have added up to something. So would a high enough percentage of hits on specific names and dates and so forth, statistics or no.

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.