“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“Slowly the hand regained normal shape. Jane still sat with her palm up. Now Seth really extended himself. The fingers began to elongate noticeably and to whiten. Then a second set of fingers began to rise up over Jane’s own fingers. Now it could have been easy enough for Jane to bend her own fingers into this position, but here the three of us now saw the second set rising up long and white. Moreover, this second set had the fingernails on top. Had they been Jane’s own fingers, the nails would have been on the undersides and invisible.

“After the break, Seth told us to shut the door leading to the bath. The living room side of the door holds a full-length mirror, and Seth told us to look into it. Since the mirror is tall and narrow, we had to crowd in close on three sides of the little table, in order to see our reflections. Jane sat in the middle. Her lips were very close to my ear as she talked. I could hear and feel each breath, each swallow she took. Her voice dropped considerably in volume and I really had the sensation that she was indeed speaking for someone else (rather than for a subconscious personality, for example, who just called itself Seth).

During the séance I hadn’t been a bit nervous or frightened. Toward the end, though, I was shocked to see such a difference between my mirror image and myself. I think that I was momentarily afraid that I really looked like that. After all, that’s a normal enough reaction—usually when you look into a mirror, it gives a faithful reproduction, and no woman is going to be pleased to see a weird-looking apparition staring back.

But as soon as the séance was over, I was appalled. Instead of being encouraged by Seth’s part in the events, we were upset. We all knew what we had seen. Rob had even touched the hand at one time, and Seth had given us many occasions to check effects as they occurred. We couldn’t accept the evidence of our senses, nor could we really deny such obvious evidence. Though we were trying the experiment for the book, we thought that seances were kooky, somehow unrespectable. We didn’t want Seth involved, and specifically had made a point of not asking for him.

The next night we held what we thought might be our last session. After it, we knew that we were committed, and to us the session really marks the beginning of the Seth Material, the end of the preliminary data.

For the first time Seth really “came through” as a definite other personality, laughing and joking. Rob just couldn’t believe that he was speaking to me, in any ordinary terms. But more than this, Seth’s long monologue on the nature of reality captivated and intrigued us. We had no idea that it was actually a highly simplified explanation, cleverly geared to our own level of understanding at the time. It made a tremendous impression on us nonetheless.

After having Rob describe the session, and after reading the notes, my attitude was one of simple astonishment. Rob and I are very informal; our friends are informal. The men don’t wear hats and suits, for example, but jeans and shirts or sweaters. I found Seth delightful, whoever or whatever he was. Who else did we know, so “old school” who’d even speak of tipping one’s hat, or refer to food as “good cuisine?” Anyway he certainly didn’t sound frightening, and the fifth-dimensional monologue was really provocative.