“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Finally, though the editor was for the book, his publisher turned it down. I was really disappointed at losing the sale. As a result, I played around with the idea of publishing some of Seth’s ideas as my own and hiding their origin. This seemed dishonest, though, and I decided against it. Besides, I felt that the very fact of the sessions was psychologically fascinating, and brought up questions that were answered in the material itself. So I sent my eight chapters somewhere else, stopped work on the book for nearly a year, and devoted my working time to short stories which were published in various national magazines.

I just wasn’t ready, apparently, to put Seth or myself under any kind of test. I was afraid that Seth’s claim to clairvoyance might be subconscious bluff—his or mine—and I didn’t know if I had enough courage to call the bluff or not. And suppose it wasn’t bluff? I wasn’t ready to face that either! I just hadn’t come to terms with my experience yet. I thought of “testing” Seth in a highly rigid, uncompromising manner. Seth had to be right or wrong. The idea of hits and misses in ESP investigations was unknown to me. I had little notion of the inner mechanics involved in mediumship, and most likely my attitude effectively blocked any consistent demonstrations at that time.

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.

The idea of ESP tests still frightened me, but I felt that they were inevitable and necessary.

“Again, I’m in over my depth. I need time to consider what we can do, what your ideas are.”

We drove up past the stately university buildings. How neat and orderly! If only life were that neat, I thought. Rob was still trying to comfort me when we arrived at Dr. Instream’s office. Was I really one of those talkative domineering women who used any kind of trick to control their husbands? I looked over at Rob. He stood there, quiet but assured, “cool” versus my “hot”—my idea of a man. Usually I’m talkative. Now I shut up and let Rob do the talking—or tried to let him.

Then, on our return home, Rob had another idea. Suppose we tried something along the same lines on our own? So at the same time we initiated our envelope tests, in which Seth was asked to give his impressions of the contents of double sealed envelopes.