“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We started the Instream tests and our own envelope tests in August of 1965. In October my first book was coming out, and Peg Gallagher, a reporter for the Elmira Star Gazette, interviewed me. I’d known her slightly in the past, but now she and her husband and Rob and I became good friends. Bill is assistant advertising director of the Star Gazette, and he and Peg were soon leaving for a vacation in Puerto Rico. We decided to set up an experiment.

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.

“A cab ride. Our cat lover laughs [Seth’s nickname for Peg, who dislikes cats]. A three-dollar fare which seems too much. An old, rather than young, cab driver with a stubby neck. A destination that is mainly to the right after one turn.”

How much more fun this sort of thing was than the Instream tests, which we were also conducting! Even our own envelope series was dry in comparison. We mailed copies of the Gallagher material to Dr. Instream. I was really excited about the whole thing and waited eagerly for his comments. I took it for granted that he wouldn’t consider that we had any scientific evidence, but we did have the nearly identical sketches, and the impressions were correct. “He may not consider this scientific enough,” I said to Rob, “but he has to admit, at the very least, that clairvoyance occurred.”

The items were enclosed in one sealed envelope between two layers of lightproof bristol cardboard, and then the whole thing was placed in another envelope, which was also sealed. I never knew when we would have such a test, and I never saw the envelope before a session. Rob would hand an envelope to me in the middle of a session. I was always in trance, and usually my eyes were closed. (In any case, the test item was enclosed within the two pieces of cardboard and two envelopes, and was quite opaque.) Sometimes I held the envelope to my forehead while delivering impressions. After the session we checked our results. (Specific examples will appear in the next chapter.)

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.

As Seth varied the trance depths, I became aware of two lines of consciousness, his and my own, and to understand at least to some degree when my own personal associations were an aid and when they were a detriment. In a very deep trance, the inner processes are hidden even from the medium. With most mediums the mechanics are so automatic that little can be learned about the inner psychological actions involved in such work. Seth maintained that our situation would work to our advantage in this respect.

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.

Trying to prove the existence of telepathy and clairvoyance to a self-professed “hard-nosed psychologist,” sell fiction to one of the best magazines in the country, and conduct our own tests in the Seth sessions was rather a bit to take on in one year—as I discovered.