“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In early February, Rob wrote to Dr. Ian Stevenson, who was connected with the Department of Neurology and Psychology at the University of Virginia. Dr. Stevenson was interested in reincarnation, and we had just read about his work. Rob also sent him copies of a few sessions, including some of the information we had been given about our own past lives. According to this, we lived several existences in the very distant past, including one in Denmark three centuries ago when Rob and I were father and son and Seth a mutual friend. Our last lives were in Boston in the nineteenth century.

Dr. Stevenson wrote us a letter much like one I would probably write today to someone else under the same circumstances. He thought that the fluency of the material suggested a subconscious origin, but emphasized that at this stage it was impossible to tell. He also told us that amateur mediumship could produce mental symptoms under certain conditions.

“As far as Ruburt is concerned, there is no danger. For one thing I am a sensitive but disciplined and sensible—if somewhat irascible—gentleman. None of the communications from me are in any way conducive to instability. I may make bold to remark that I am more stable than you or Ruburt or the fine psychologist.

“For one thing, Ruburt’s ego is extremely strong. His intuition is the gateway that relaxes an otherwise stubborn and domineering ego.” At this, Rob looked up and laughed. “The intuitive qualities, however, are not frivolous and the personality is well integrated.” Seth went on to describe dissociation, saying that I was always aware of my surroundings to some degree in sessions. “It is true,” he said, “that a state of dissociation is necessary. But because you open a door, this does not mean that you cannot close it, nor does it mean that you cannot have two doors open at once, and this is my point. You can have two doors open at once, and you can listen to two channels at once. In the meantime you must turn down the volume of the first channel while you learn to attune your attention to the second. This process you call dissociation.”

I used to envy Rob his viewpoint of the sessions. He could see and hear me as Seth and I couldn’t. Now during break I questioned him again. I hated to have to depend on someone else to tell me what was going on, but I had learned one thing: I couldn’t be Jane and Seth at once. For Seth to come through I had to stop such mental quibbling—at least temporarily.

For a while I think I spent half the time trying to psychoanalyze Seth and the other half trying to analyze myself. Caution is one thing, but sometimes I went overboard. Even so, Seth said that my strong ego was an asset to our work when I didn’t overdo it, since it kept my whole personality on an even keel and allowed me the psychological strength to handle and develop my abilities.

One small but amusing incident came up that illustrates my attitude during those early months. We have a lovely large apartment that has, unfortunately, a tiny closet-sized kitchen. When we moved in to our present apartment, the kitchen held a stove and a small refrigerator that didn’t begin to hold all our food. We got a larger one for foods that we didn’t use every day, and this second refrigerator I put in our huge bathroom, a great old-fashioned tiled room that’s easily five times as large as the kitchen. I knew that this was a crazy place for a refrigerator, but after a while I became used to it.

In early spring Rob came down with several annoying gumboils and one night he asked Seth how he might get rid of them. Seth immediately launched into a rather hilarious discussion of the unsanitary aspects of a refrigerator in the bathroom. He made a few kindly but definite statements to the effect that we should know better, and suggested that the appliance be moved into the kitchen, where it would hold all our refrigerated food. If so, he assured Rob his gumboils would disappear.

“No control personality or whatever is going to tell me how to run the house,” I said. “This is one of those suspicious signs that we’ve read about. The control personality starts throwing its weight around and trying to dominate the medium’s normal personality. Remember what Dr. Stevenson said? Besides, there’s no room in the kitchen for the big refrigerator.”

The next day we moved the big refrigerator. To save my pride or whatever, I put the little refrigerator in the bathroom and turned it into a towel chest. The big refrigerator is still in the kitchen. I got rid of the small one long ago. Oh, yes—Rob’s gumboils cleared up in two days, and never returned.

During the first six months or so of the sessions, our cat, Willie, began behaving in a most unsociable manner. A few times he began to hiss and spit quite madly just before sessions. One night he really startled us. We were getting ready to begin, and Willie was sleeping in the bedroom closet. Suddenly he ran out of the closet, fur on end, bolted through the living room, and hid behind the curtains. Once he nipped at my ankles as I was speaking for Seth, and in trance I dragged him half across the room while he hung on to the bottom of my slacks. Rob had to shut him in the studio.

We quickly learned that Seth regarded physical symptoms as the outward materialization of inner dis-ease. He emphasized the importance of suggestion and the dangers of self-pity. He did tell us then that when one of us was ill, the other was not to offer excessive consolation and thereby reinforce the idea of sickness. In later sessions he would give some excellent material on maintaining good health. This will be covered in Chapter 13.