“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

All during this time I was working at the local art gallery in the afternoons. Mornings I spent on my ESP book, writing up the results of our experiments. We still hadn’t told anyone what we were doing, except our friend, Bill. In fact few of our friends even knew what we were up to until the book was out. Now I wonder why we were so secretive, but at the time it seemed much better to keep the world with all of its questions out. We had enough of our own to consider.

“Time has no meaning without barriers. To put it another way, time has no meaning without the necessity to counteract against other actions. Basically, this is a gem of a description, if I do say so myself. The sad part is that you probably won’t be able to understand it yet. It all takes time! As I try to counteract your ignorance, I couldn’t resist. I mean it kindly, for you have no idea of the difficulties involved in explaining time to someone who must take time to understand the explanation.

“Looking at Jane and knowing her natural feminine voice so well, I had to think twice to realize that this other new voice was issuing from her in such volume, and with no strain at all. I don’t know whether I was more surprised at the fact that Jane seemed not at all disturbed by this voice, or by the fact that it had such a definite deep and masculine tone.”

“Now, as an example of my good intentions, I will end this session. I would continue if I did not have your physical limitations to contend with. I am able to come through very well this evening, and when this happens I like to take advantage of it. After all, do you blame me? … In any case I shall say good night. You should know that I too enjoy a moment of social discourse, or I would not keep you so long. I regret the necessity to keep Joseph so occupied [with notes]. Good night, dear friends.”

Instantly my voice returned to normal. The hoarseness had long since disappeared. Now it was almost impossible for us to end the session. We were too intrigued. Despite Seth’s parting words, I could “feel” him still present, along with a tremendous sense of vitality and goodwill. Rob told me about the heavy masculine voice with its astonishing volume, and all around me I felt this high energy and great humor as if an invisible Seth were sitting there, smiling, ready to start a friendly chat.

“I enjoy speaking with you for a few moments of what you might be pleased to call normal conversation. Friends do not always talk of high and weighty matters. … Previously we have been too concerned with other matters for any emotional interchange. And if Ruburt’s voice sounds rather dreary in this transitional phase, I myself am in a very playful, you might say, frisky mood. By all means, ask any questions you have in mind.”

“I fear that as a man’s voice, Jane will sound rather unmelodious. I do not have the voice of an angel by any means, but neither do I sound like an asexual eunuch, which is all I’ve been able to make her sound like tonight … and Ruburt, if you want a cigarette, get one. She’s been walking around with a match in her hand for the last ten minutes.”

Again, on reading the notes we were fascinated by the material, particularly since Seth told us that he was going to explain these Inner Senses more fully, and teach us how to use them. He was as good as his word, for as you will see shortly, he did give us instructions and we were to have all kinds of new experiences as we followed them. We didn’t know that this information was geared to our own level of understanding and quite simple in comparison with the elaborations that would follow.

At this point, there were several courses we could have taken. We could have told no one what was happening, we could have contacted a spiritualist group or we could have informed the parapsychologists. We definitely decided not to tell any of our friends or relatives, at least for the time being. The spiritualist groups would have been out in any case, because of my views at the time on religion in general. But the ESP books we’d read all advised that anyone having such experiences contact a qualified psychologist or parapsychologist.

The next few chapters will deal with our efforts to be “scientifically responsible,” to “test” Seth for ESP. We didn’t really come to any overall decision, but I think that I was driven by the need to make all of this intellectually or academically legitimate. It was, of course—but I had a lot to learn.