“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

One night in April of 1968, we settled down for our usual Monday night session, unaware that anything new was about to happen. I sat in my rocker. Rob sat on the couch as usual, taking notes. According to Rob, Seth’s voice was unusually powerful that night. My opened eyes were very dark, and Seth seemed to be watching Rob rather closely.

Seth began the session, our 406th, by telling Rob the direction the material would take in following years. “You have been given a sketchy outline, but we have time to fill it in,” he said, smiling. “For that matter, the outline itself is scarcely completed. … We want to deal with the nature of reality as it exists within your camouflage system and within other systems, and to study the overall characteristics that pertain to it, regardless of any given materialization.

I couldn’t tell Rob what I was experiencing, of course, but he began to suspect that something was happening. Seth became very emphatic, watching Rob closely for one thing. For another, Seth began to stress each word.

At this point, Rob became aware of the new and rather odd energy in Seth’s voice as his delivery grew more powerful. My open eyes were very dark. Rob began to look up whenever he could snatch a moment from note-taking.

“Yes,” Rob said, but he spoke almost automatically; the delivery had quickened, and he was having trouble keeping up with the notes. Later we were to read that above paragraph over many times when—as you’ll see shortly—I found myself almost “in over my head.”

Rob nodded. “Yes,” he said again.

The voice became even more powerful. Rob thought of asking Seth to slow down, but he wasn’t sure what was happening, and thought it best not to interrupt.

Then, to Rob’s surprise, Seth told him to end the session. Rob was to follow the procedure given, recently, to end my trance. (Just lately I had begun going into particularly deep trances compared to earlier ones, and Seth had suggested that Rob call my name three times.) Seth said, “This evening you have reached somewhat beyond the personality by which I usually make myself known to you. Even if I continue to speak, end the trance.”

Rob called me several times, getting no response. Then he touched my shoulder and I jumped rather violently. This interrupted the trance state. I didn’t know what was going on either. The powerful energy kept flowing through me. If I stood up I felt as if I’d go flying through the wall, propelled by this force. My head felt huge, as if my ears were out several feet. This last sensation wasn’t new; I’d had it in some Psy-Time experiences. But trying to contain that energy was something else.

The next Wednesday night I was somewhat hesitant as session time approached. We began at the dot of nine, but instantly Rob knew that this wasn’t going to be a “normal” session. For one thing, the voice was different. It was much more like my own voice, yet it wasn’t mine. Seth’s deep tones, his gestures and characteristic way of using words—these were absent.

The voice was much softer than usual. Rob had to listen closely to get all the words. “The development in the last session was latent from our first session, but it was a development that could or could not have occurred. Had it not, then many important future developments would have been blocked. The points where the [Seth] voice was loudest and most powerful—these points often represented openings through which the development could occur. For various reasons, however, that method was not used. The energy would have been diverted from the voice in which it had already been built up, you see.”

“Some material he can present to you more clearly than I.” Rob looked up sharply this time. If Seth wasn’t speaking, who was?

Here we had a break and I came out of trance easily enough. This also gave me the opportunity to tell Rob something that happened just before the session started. I got the feeling that a cone came down just over my head. I didn’t think that an actual physical cone was there, but the idea of shape was definite. The wide end was about the size of my head, with the narrow part on top like a pyramid.

Here the voice was very distant, high and clear, so unlike the usual Seth voice that Rob was still rather taken back. “I am more, however, than this portion of me that you contact, for it is only one portion of me that experienced that reality. It is highly important, then, that this material not be distorted, for most communications take place on far different levels than this—[levels] so closely connected with your own system that even the most ‘undistorted’ data is highly distorted because the communicators themselves do not realize that they create the realities which they then describe.

When the session was over, Rob and I sat up talking. “It’s crazy,” I said. “When we have a usual Seth session, I sort of feel Seth take over, though I don’t like that term. With this personality, though, I go somewhere, out of myself, and seem to make contact with it in some nowhere, leaving my body empty. I don’t know how I get there, wherever it is, or how I get back.”

Rob nodded. Both of us felt almost sad, in one way. I think we were afraid that our regular Seth sessions were over, and that the new ones would take their place. “Besides,” Rob said, “what do we call this new personality?” We knew it was meaningless basically, but we felt we needed a name, a label. And how exactly was this new personality different from Seth? What could it do that Seth couldn’t? “I wish it were more masculine or feminine,” I said. “A neuter personality seems so strange.”

No one thought anything in particular about that last statement until later that night. The voice continued for a short time and I encountered some difficulty “getting back.” I felt suspended in darkness somewhere far above, but I was also aware that Seth was close by. A few minutes passed. Suddenly Seth came through, loud and clear. The contrast between the two personalities was so marked that even Rob was startled. Seth started to joke. “Now that ‘Big Brother’ has had his say, I will bring our Ruburt back to you.”

Here I screamed and started shaking violently. Rob thought that my heavy rocker was about to tip over. Rob and Phil leaped to their feet, Phil knocking his glass of beer to the floor in the process. Rob rubbed my hands and tried to get me out of trance.

When the personality compared physical reality with children’s blocks, he made a remark about individuals returning in our future to peer into physical reality like giants squinting down to watch children play with blocks upon the floor. (As the voice spoke, my eyes were closed, of course, and I don’t remember what the voice said, but have checked Rob’s verbatim notes of the session.) In here someplace, suddenly I saw a giant’s face peer into our living room, its face filling up the entire window.

I didn’t feel as if this were happening. To me it was happening, literally. I simply panicked and started yelling. It took Rob some minutes to get me out of trance, but by then I was ashamed of myself. I felt like a real coward.

Rob was worried about me and wondered if I should continue with the session, but by now I was really embarrassed at making such a fuss, and I knew that the experience was significant. I went back into trance, but very soon I was to break off again.

Here are a few quotes from Rob’s notes just before the session resumed:

I tried to find my voice to tell Rob I wanted to end the session, but the other personality was using it. Through all of this I use the word “I,” but “I” was so a part of the action that it was difficult to separate myself from it. Now, wanting out, I tried again to use my own voice.

That session was well over a year ago. Our usual Seth sessions still continue, and only now and then does this other personality speak. We refer to it as Seth Two. Often these sessions involve me in some kind of subjective experience, though now I am learning how to handle myself when this happens. Once during a rest period, for example, Rob wondered what it was like to be nonphysical. When the session resumed, I felt myself seemingly suspended, fully alert and aware—but bodiless—in space. I had no form as far as I knew, but I possessed complete freedom of motion—something like conscious air. This time I wasn’t frightened, realizing that we were getting an answer to Rob’s question. During this experience, the emotionless, lilting, distant voice explained what nonphysical existence was like.