“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The circumstances leading up to the Seth sessions still surprise me. I wasn’t drifting, looking for a sense of purpose, for example. My first novel had just been published in paperback, and all my energies were channeled into becoming a good novelist and poet. I considered nonfiction the field of journalists, not creative writers. I thought my life and work were planned, my course set. Yet here I am, writing my third book of nonfiction.

The year 1963 had been a poor one for us, though. Rob had severe back trouble, and hardly felt well enough to paint when he came home from work. I was having difficulties settling on another book idea. Our old pet dog, Mischa, had died. Perhaps these circumstances made me more aware than usual of our human vulnerability, but certainly many people have had difficult years with no resulting emergence of psychic phenomena. Perhaps, all unknowing, I had reached a crisis and my psychic abilities awoke as the result of inner need.

It was a lovely autumn evening. After supper I sat down at my old table in the living room, as I always did, to work on my poetry. Rob was painting in the back studio, three rooms away. I took out my pen and paper and settled down with my ninth or tenth cup of coffee for the day, and my cigarettes. Willie, our cat, dozed on the blue rug.

As it was, I didn’t know what had happened, yet even then I felt that my life had suddenly changed. The word “revelation” came to mind and I tried to dismiss it, yet the word was apt. I was simply afraid of the term with its mystical implications. I was familiar with inspiration in my own work, but this was as different from ordinary inspiration as a bird is from a worm!

“I know,” Rob said. “But you’re interested in dreams, certainly after those two particular ones you had. And what do you call that experience you had last month? Besides, the books we’ve seen have dealt only with well-known mediums. But what about ordinary people? What if everyone has those abilities?” I stared at him. He’d turned quite serious. “Couldn’t you work out a series of experiments and try them out? Use yourself as a guinea pig.”

Somewhat to my surprise he answered quickly, and he was quite enthusiastic. What he wanted was three or four sample chapters. Rob and I were delighted, but somewhat appalled too, as we looked over the chapter headings I’d listed for the book: “A Do-It-Yourself Séance,” “Telepathy, Fact or Fiction?”, “How to Work the Ouija.”

We were surprised that the board worked for us. I thought it was a riot, two adults watching the pointer go scurrying across the board, and we didn’t take it too seriously. For one thing, of course, neither of us particularly believed in life after death—certainly not conscious life, capable of communicating. Later on, we did learn that a man with the communicator’s name was known to have lived in Elmira, and died in the 1940’s—that took me back a bit. But we were much more interested in finding out what made the pointer move than in the messages it gave.

Then, on December 8, 1963, we sat at the board again, wondering whether or not it would work. It was a comfortable evening, warm in the room. Snow fell past the windows. Then suddenly the pointer began to move so quickly that we could hardly keep up with it.

The next session started like the others. I was working afternoons at an art gallery, and after the dishes were done and Rob was through with painting for the day, we got out the board.

“I’m glad somebody thinks so,” I said to Rob, but now that things were safely back with the board, my curiosity was at me again. I told Rob to ask if one of us alone could work the pointer, and the pointer suggested that we try. Rob put his hands on the pointer and asked a question, but it barely moved.