“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane had one predominant image during the data, and this was of the greeting card. This is the reason for its inclusion with the actual object, since much of the following data actually deals with the greeting card. This is a case where the actual object, Leonard’s note to us, served as a springboard. The connection between the object and the greeting card is a legitimate and close one, and presumably would not have developed had Jane not correctly divined the nature of the object itself to begin with. The connection between the two being the fact that the object concerned a phone call to us from my mother; and that my mother was also the sender of the card to us.

(Jane of course had seen the card upon arrival, on August 12 or 13,1966. It had become mislaid after arrival and we hadn’t seen it since. We saw the envelope object on August 14. As soon as Jane began giving the envelope data I realized she referred to Mother’s card as well as the object. At break we launched a search for the card. It was fruitless; we had given up on finding it until I looked through a stack of old magazines as a last resort.

(“Something misplaced.” Leonard Yaudes, the author of the object, has recently lost a pair of garden shears. Jane subjectively feels this is the correct interpretation. I wondered if it might not refer to our search for the greeting card, described on page 327. Jane might have had subconscious knowledge that the card was lost. She was well aware that she was giving data concerning this card. I did not think of this possibility at the time and so did not ask Seth.

[...] Upon reading the card I felt it out of the ordinary, more than a mere acknowledgment. [...] The thought had crossed my mind that by deliberately waving the card at her from my second-floor studio window, I could almost make that part of that dream come true.

[...] Jane walked into our living room and picked up the card from Parker, after I asked her if she had seen the mail yet. A moment after reading the card she smiled and said, “There’s something different about this, isn’t there?”

[...] Their card was written and mailed on June 27, Thursday, giving someone there three days to read the script, perhaps make some sort of evaluation, etc. [...] A little later, handling the card perhaps half an hour after giving the impressions, Jane said she got nothing unusual from it; it seemed like ordinary mail, that is.

1. Picture a stack of cards comparable in size, let us say, to playing cards and stacked two or three feet high. [...]

4. Suppose further that the next card below represents the same two-dimensional being a moment earlier. [...] Thus each card is, in fact, a moment of the life of the being and the progressive change represents growth. [...]

2. Imagine that each card is a little different in shape or size from the one below it so there is a progressive change from the bottom of the stack to the top. [...]

(I remembered very little about the bow, yet subjectively I was sure it had been taken from a greeting card of some kind. I work for a greeting card company, but did not remember seeing other ribbons like it there in particular. I did not recall the card the ribbon came from, nor why I had removed it—if I was the one who had done so. [...]

The card in the center contained a street. [...] Trees, a get-well card I believe. [...] The earlier date marked the first appearance of the card.

(The above is a good generalized description of a certain type of card produced by Artistic. Jane has seen cards like this of course. [...]

[...] Egg-shaped as a thin oval line just inside of a rectangular card.” The object is rectangular and is a card. There is no oval shape just within its borders however, either literal or implied, although there are several oval shapes within the picture on the card, as well as the circular postmark on the back. Later note by RFB: Mother Goose on card carries a basket (of eggs?). [...]

[...] As noted on page 17, the last two letters of the month are missing within the circular postmark on the back of the card. [...] But from other records we have we have determined that Barbara mailed us the card on July 12, rather than June.

[...] Jane hadn’t seen the card since we received it. [...]

(“The object a card.” The object is a card. I did not push Jane to be more specific as to what kind of card, etc.

[...] [John happens to be a good friend of Leonard’s, though merely an acquaintance of ours; Leonard evidently made an absentminded mistake in addressing the card.] The address line of the card thus contains three names. [...]

The object a card. [...]

[...] Jane may or may not look into your playing cards. [...] You can perceive those playing cards as clearly as I can, and if you will not believe me, you will not believe yourself. [...] You can, however, prove to yourself by reading the cards. [...]

[...] I would like to suggest an experiment and I am suggesting it to you to see your reaction, like I couldn’t. I was really undecided whether to suggest it to Jane or to you, but you see like I’m kind of at an impasse because, like, there are a lot of words and a lot of concepts and philosophies bandied about, but when you make a claim you know such as that in as specific and nonconfusable terms such as that it would be very simple to demonstrate, and what I was wondering is, either now or at some time when Jane would agree to it, for instance, I brought some playing cards with me, ten cards...”)

[...] Now those who have come open-mindedly to class have found their proofs; and proofs that were not dependent upon cards or showy tricks, but strong proof in that the nature of their reality changed. [...] And to them, and to me, card reading is an entirely different and inferior product, but while that is what you are looking for you will find yourself at the level that you are now. [...]

[...] The card expired in 1965. Jane also saw the large X on a rectangular card shape, within, but saw no detail on this card shape that would have enabled her to identify the envelope object specifically.

(See the tracing of the envelope object on page 1. As stated it is a membership card in the AAA, purchased by me on August 14,1964, and good for one year. [...] The back of the card is covered by fine print, giving detailed instructions re the procedure after an accident, etc., calling Western Union, bail bond procedure, etc.

(Strangely enough, some of tonight’s envelope data is corroborated by earlier session material—something I did not anticipate when using the card as object. [...] I was about to throw the card away this week when I thought of using it for the envelope tonight, and consciously had forgotten many of the 1964 connections.

[...] Unfortunately you cannot check up on the impressions with the owner of the card, and there is little reason for me to go into the various episodes connected with the card.

The other impressions all referred to situations connected with the owner of the card. The card was carried next to a black and white photograph, incidentally. [...]

[...] For the test object I used a wallet identification card that I picked up two years ago in an empty house that Jane and I nearly purchased. Both of us had met the owner of the house, Jim Birch, a few times. [...]

(For the envelope test tonight I used my appointment card for my visit to the dentist earlier this month. [...] I also used Jane’s appointment card of May 5,1965 as the test object for the 15th envelope test in the 199th session. I picked the card for tonight’s session because I thought it would be loaded with strong emotional charges of a personal nature, whereas the identification card used in the last test belonged to a person almost unknown to Jane and me.

(I placed the card between two pieces of card and sealed it in the usual double envelope. [...]

The note referred to the appointment card. [...]

[...] This is interesting, in that Jane said she had an image of a card shape with a house and foliage on it. [...] The boxes of cards for which the sticker was made are large, large enough to contain reproductions of four cards, arranged in a rectangular pattern on the box top, and on a printed gold background. Each card design is surrounded by a rectangular white border, perhaps an eighth of an inch wide. Some of the boxes laid out before me, as I made my drawing for the sticker, contained reproductions of cards bearing houses, trees, flowers, etc.; the standard kind of subject material for greeting cards.

(“and a paper item, folded like a card”, also referred, Jane said, to my drawing rather than the envelope object. Jane said she had a vague image of a small round object upon a rectangular folded object that was like a card, yet the circle was not placed as neatly in the center of the rectangle as my drawing is. [...] On page 314 note that my tracing-paper drawing is folded roughly like a card.

(My drawing was actually a recreation of artwork that had been lost at Artistic Card Co. [...] The drawing was for a gummed sticker to be applied to a line of packaged cards of various kinds—religious, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc., and was for a large old department store in Philadelphia, PA, that goes under the cavalier name of John’s Bargain Store. [...]

(“A card, such as the kind sent out by organizations for invitations.” Jane had an image here, of a rectangular card of the kind that used to be sent out by an art gallery where she worked up until a year of so ago. This image card was the same size and proportion, she said, as the rectangular paper the envelope object is drawn on; she believes Seth gave her this data to reinforce that idea.

(“A rectangular card, with printed matter.” The object is on a rectangular piece of heavy, porous-type paper, similar to card stock. [...]

[...] A rectangular card, with printed matter. [...]

[...] A connection with a note, I believe, or a card that opened, with writing or copy on an inside page. [...] Jane considers it possible that here Seth is getting at the idea of a folded note or card being attached to the plant when Miss Callahan received it as a gift. However Jane can recall no such note or card upon seeing it in 1964. [...]

[...] A connection with a note, I believe, or a card that opened, with writing or copy on an inside page. [...]

(Pause.) I have the impression, holding the object this way, (again the same gesture) of a rectangular object, a card that is connected with a picture, and strongly connected with something that opened, as a letter could open to another page.

[...] They brought cards and foil toys. I gave Jane a card and candy, and brought in forsythia, which moved her to tears. [...]

[...] Earlier I’d read her the verse from the birthday card I’d bought her yesterday, and she had enjoyed that as much as she had yesterday, when I’d read it to her for the first time. [...] But our feelings engendered by the reading of the card were valuable events in themselves.

(For the envelope test I used a pair of name cards made by our friend Bill Macdonnel for his art studio, the Cameron Gallery. Bill gave us these cards perhaps a year or so ago, shortly after he opened his gallery. Each card is handmade and thus somewhat unique. [...] I placed the cards between two pieces of Bristol board, then sealed them in the usual double envelopes.

(The design on Bill Macdonnel’s handmade name cards can be “The shape of a star” as far as conventional symbols go. [...]

[...] “Yourself a year ago” I regarded as valid, since I had paintings of my own on exhibit at Bill’s gallery on the occasion for which he made these cards; and the event took place around a year ago, although I do not know the exact date offhand.

(“Several small letters or numbers, and a stamped card, from a distant place.” [...] It is a card, but is not stamped; instead of being mailed alone it was enclosed in a small package or envelope with Louis Pomerantz’s book and the mimeographed list described earlier; and all addressed to Jane.

(The envelope object for tonight was a card sent to Jane by Caroline Keck, conservator of paintings for the Brooklyn Museum, in 1964. [...]

[...] Several small letters or numbers, and a stamped card, from a distant place. [...]

[...] “Look” I said, “no strings, no cards hidden within cards, no bag of tricks beside me on the floor.” [...]

[...] Playing cards appeared and disappeared. [...]

(At about 4 PM yesterday Jane called me out to the card table to show me the much improved movements she could make with her head: She rotated it more freely up and down and from side to side, her whole body participating somewhat as she sat in her chair. [...]

[...] Jane had sat in her chair at the card table the whole time—in fact, she’s been in her chair since about 7:30 AM; she hasn’t gone to the john or laid down. [...]

[...] It instead represents the time I went out to the card table to join Jane and wait for one to begin.

[...] Momentarily she’d dozed at the card table; she got the name several times, just as she spelled it. [...]

(At 9 PM I sat at the card table adding to these notes while we waited for the session. [...]

(For the envelope test object I used the appointment card for Jane’s visit to the dentist last May 5,1965. [...] See also my tracing on page 1. The card is on white stock, printed in black ink, with the handwriting in black pencil. I enclosed the card between two pieces of Bristol, then inserted the whole into the usual double envelopes.

(See the tracing of the dental appointment card on page 1, and my notes about the card on page 2. The card refers to the appointment that Jane kept while in a trance state, to have her teeth cleaned. [...]

[...] The card can be “Part of a missive.” [...]