“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We wouldn’t communicate at all through usual means. Instead, we would ask Seth if he could “tune in” on the Gallaghers during their vacation. During their trip we would substitute this experiment for our envelope tests. We knew that Peg and Bill were going to San Juan, but that was all we knew. Besides, neither Rob nor I have ever been to Puerto Rico.

I had just enough time to see the cab driver’s neck from the rear—it was thick and stubby. I didn’t see his face. While this was going on, I lost all contact with my body in the living room. My subjective sensations were those of someone suddenly thrown off-balance by the sickening swerve of the car’s turn. Yet while this was happening, my physical body sat upright in the rocker, speaking without pause as Seth:

Suddenly, without transition, I found myself descending through the air to land on a long narrow porch that was surrounded by a low railing. I knew that my body was in bed, but lost all contact with it. Regardless of where it was, I was someplace else entirely. Looking around I saw that I stood on the veranda of an oddly constructed double-story motel.

Sometimes Rob prepared the envelopes just before a session, and sometimes way ahead of time. He used all kinds of things for test items, some that I had seen, recently or in the past, and some that I had never seen. He might use a letter, for example, that had come the day before, and which I had read, or a bill from several years back, or an item he picked up that I had never seen, or an envelope prepared by a friend—in which case the contents were unknown even to Rob. Pieces of paper Rob picked up in the streets, leaves, beer coasters, chunks of hair, photographs, sketches, bills—all were used at one time or another. Sometimes Rob chose items specifically because they had strong emotional charges connected with them. Other times he purposely used neutral objects. We wanted to see if Seth did better with certain kinds of targets than others.

All in all our own tests proved invaluable, not only as a part of my training and as a means of increasing my self-confidence, but also in preparing me for some other out-of-body-experiences that would take place during later Seth sessions. The tests, and Seth’s comments, also gave us insights into the nature of inner perception that literally could not have been achieved in any other way.

Our own tests gave me a standard against which to measure my performance and Seth’s, providing an immediate check of accuracy and teaching me to sharpen my subjective focus to go from the general to the specific. All of this training was important as far as my reception of the Seth Material itself was concerned. Seth has often spoken about the necessary distortions that must occur in any such communications, and he is most concerned that the material be as little contaminated by distortions as possible. He discusses this thoroughly in later sessions.