“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In the meantime we decided to write someone else in the field. Dr. Karlis Osis of the American Psychic Society would have experience with cases like ours, we thought. So in March 1964 we wrote him a letter. He soon wrote back asking for a few sample sessions and suggesting that Seth clairvoyantly describe his office in New York. I don’t know what I expected from Dr. Osis, but I sure as the devil wasn’t ready to see what Seth could or could not do. Seth offered to carry out the experiment, but I held back. I don’t know if I was more afraid that Seth could or couldn’t follow through.

While I hesitated trying the experiment, Rob sent Dr. Osis some more of the material. Dr. Osis wrote that he wasn’t interested in the material itself, since it didn’t fall within his field of empirical psychology. He asked us not to send more unless it contained reports of ESP demonstrations. Even though he expressed interest in “testing” Seth for ESP, and suggested again that we try the clairvoyant experiment, I was put off by the letter. So I sulked: If he didn’t express interest in the material, which I thought was terrific, then he could just go find someone else to go looking through his walls!

I was angry at Dr. Osis for looking for signs or wonders (my interpretation, then, of his letter). Yet I knew that I was going to demand the same sort of thing when I got up enough nerve to put Seth, or myself, on the spot.

In 1964, though, when we wrote to Dr. Osis, the trance hadn’t achieved this depth, and I was just getting used to the idea of sitting down in sessions. During 1965 the Seth Material constantly accumulated at our twice weekly sessions. Early that year, Frederick Fell gave me a contract for the ESP book, and I had a deadline to meet.

In spring 1965, about a year after we wrote Dr. Osis, Rob wrote to Dr. Instream (not his real name), who was connected with a state university in upstate New York. Dr. Instream had been one of the nation’s foremost psychologists in his earlier years, and had investigated many mediums in the past. If Seth was a secondary personality he would know it, I thought. Again we enclosed a few sessions with one letter. Dr. Instream wrote back, expressing interest and inviting us to attend the National Hypnosis Symposium to be held in July 1965.