“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

CHAPTER
SEVEN:

Out-of-Body Episodes—
I Pop into a Taxi
While My Body Stays at Home

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.

The building was raised up from the ground in a manner different from the usual. Over the railing, a small body of water was visible, and beyond this there was a much larger body of water, an ocean, I thought. Was this Puerto Rico? I had no idea.

Doors opened off the veranda, which extended the full length of the motel. I wondered if this was where the Gallaghers were staying. Instantly I knew that it was, and that the center door led to their room. Peg and Bill weren’t in sight, though. Before beginning the experiment at 11 A.M., I had set the alarm clock for 11:30. Now it rang. My consciousness returned so quickly to my body that my physical head was swimming. I sat up in dismay—couldn’t I find out more? Couldn’t I see a sign, or get a more definite idea of the location?

I was too high to make out details, so I willed myself to move down closer. Without any difficulty I changed position and came down, though still not to the ground. A man was directly beneath me, and slightly ahead of me. He wore a business suit and hat, and carried a briefcase. As I watched, he crossed a blacktop expanse to a sidewalk, and entered a large building on the other side of the motel. I remember thinking it odd that he wore business clothes in what I took to be a resort area. It seemed that only moments had passed, but the alarm rang once again. I snapped back to my body.

I was fascinated; there was so much to learn. In the cab episode in the Seth session, Seth had described everything while I saw it. This time I had to wait until I got back to my body to write down what had happened, and draw my diagram.

As far as I was concerned, I had enough evidence to convince me that both episodes were legitimate. They started me on my own work in out-of-body experiments, in which I’m still trying to find answers to the many questions posed by such phenomena. Later, Seth was to give us instructions. As a matter of fact, as I write this book, Rob and I are just starting a joint series of projection experiments that Seth initiated. These first instances greatly increased my confidence in Seth’s abilities and my own.

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.

I started the autumn of 1965, then, with high hopes, particularly because of the two out-of-body episodes mentioned earlier in this chapter. I waited to hear what Dr. Instream had to say about them. I was sure he’d have to admit that they were encouraging, even if they didn’t involve his own experiments with us. We’d already begun his series of tests and were sending the results to him each week. So far we’d heard nothing from him about these, and I also looked forward to see how we were doing here. If they turned out even half as good as the out-of-body data, I thought, we’d still be getting off to a great start.