“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Rob and I were both practicing with predictions; they took but a few moments daily. We cleared our minds of objective thoughts and wrote down whatever came into our heads, trying to predict the day’s events. The trick was to give the intuitional self freedom and not to intellectualize. Results surprised us, and convinced us that most people have more knowledge of the future than they realize. We discovered, among other things, that we would often foresee different portions of one event.

By now we’d experimented with hypnosis in some age-regression and reincarnational work. In these I acted as hypnotist, with Rob as subject. We had never used hypnosis to induce a trance in Seth sessions, however, and we had no experience with hypnosis when the sessions began. Would Dr. Instream want me to go under hypnosis? I wasn’t at all sure that I would consent. Now, after reading about the hypnotic testing undergone by Mrs. Eileen Garrett, the famous medium, I know I’d never stand for it myself. (Self-hypnosis is something else—I use it now to give myself general good-health suggestions.)

“Human personality is not innately limited. The waking state, as I have often said, is as much a trance state as any other. Here [in sessions] we merely switch the focus of attention to other channels. Consider all types of awareness as trance states. Consciousness is the direction in which the self looks. …

This happened between our first and second interviews with Dr. Instream. In the meantime we drove around the deserted college town, and stopped once for a drink in a hot little bar. Never had I been so filled with self-doubts. The psychologist had spoken aloud the most exaggerated of my own inner fears.