“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

CHAPTER
NINE:

A Psychologist and Seth Talk
about Existence—Another Out-of-Body

One day while we were still up to our necks in tests, I saw an Associated Press article that really surprised me. Dr. Eugene Barnard, a psychologist then at North Carolina State University, came out publicly with a statement favoring astral projection. He said that he had propected his consciousness out of his body, and that no hallucination was involved. The article also gave details concerning his academic research in the field of parapsychology.

Besides the session, Rob and I and the Barnards had a great time discussing out-of-body experiences.

Shortly after their visit, my book, How to Develop Your ESP Power, finally appeared in the bookstores. I began to get some mail, though I was hardly deluged. One of these early letters was responsible for my next out-of-body trip during a Seth session.

But, as often happens when I try to second-guess Seth, I was really wrong. Our session, the 339th, started shortly afterward, and almost immediately I left my body, though I had little sensation of doing so. I just found myself hovering in midair, looking down on a particular neighborhood that was obviously someplace in Southern California. Back in the living room, Seth was describing what I was seeing, but I was only distantly aware of his voice. To me it sounded far less distinct than a very poor long-distance telephone call.

I had no idea how to tell Rob that I was out of my body, as Seth was carrying on as usual. My body, I knew, would be animated, as Seth talked. Once I laughed to myself and thought: “I’ll have to send him a telegram.” In the meantime I floated in the air, quite high, looking down on the location Seth was describing. I was able to move about, changing my position to get a better view. But I had no connection at all with the body that sat in the living room. Seth was saying:

Again, this experience suggested all kinds of questions concerning Seth’s and my relationship in an out-of-body episode. Presumably he stays in my body, while I go out of it, but this is a simplification, I’m sure. We’re still accumulating information on such questions, both through sessions and through work on our own.

As always, when things like this check out, I smile all over. I’ve never been one to accept other people’s word about the nature of things, even though at times I have accepted more than I should have. I’ve always wanted to find out for myself. No one could have been more critical about his own experiences than I have—while still maintaining enough freedom to experiment. So after this episode, I began to relax. I’d been out of my body again, and again things had checked out. How did Seth help me do this? How could he record my perceptions when my consciousness was across the continent? I was more intellectually intrigued than I can say. One thing I knew: He was pretty tricky—sending me “out” without my prior conscious knowledge of what he was planning. I do much better that way, because I don’t feel that I’m being tested, and I don’t have time to fret about results. (He’s a good psychologist, too!)

In another episode, a friend claimed to have seen Seth, and under peculiar curcumstances. One night as I lay in bed I had a spontaneous out-of-body experience in which I seemed to be in a crowded room speaking urgently to Bill Macdonnel (our artist friend). I shook his shoulder none too gently and instantly snapped back to my body. I hadn’t been in bed ten minutes yet and I got up immediately, wrote down what happened, and told Rob.

First of all, I thought I had been in a crowded room in my out-of-body experience, but Bill was obviously in his room, alone. Another thing, he saw Seth smoking a cigarette; I smoke. Did Bill hallucinate Seth’s three-dimensional image? If so, he did this at the same time that I felt I was with him. And he felt Seth shake his shoulder while in my experience I shook it.