“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Watching the hand in transition, changes apparent as they happened, joints and knuckles becoming very thick and large, flesh seeming to disappear so that hand became thinner otherwise,hand taking on the look of a very old woman’s, exceedingly bony, with the large, they said, exceptionally large, joints obvious; Rose frightened; Sally said the hand looked so stiff that it was here she asked me if I could bend the fingers, it was here I couldn’t answer her but did try to bend the hand; and at this point decided to give myself suggestions to come out of trance and for hand to return to normal. Afterwards, a comparison of hand as it was normally, with what they saw. I wondered if just the light? suggestion? But no suggestion had been given. My own hands are bony—but no, Rose said that my hand now was the normal hand of a young woman and it definitely had been an old woman’s hand; a very old woman’s hand. Everyone agreed on this—even Florence—but Theodore. He thought that perhaps my hand had gone to sleep—it hadn’t—don’t know how much time this took, perhaps ten minutes all in all, with hand manifestation taking up... three to five minutes?

The following is most vivid to the students and happened right after the above. I said I’d try something, without giving any indication of what I would try. Though earlier, as mentioned, I did mention ectoplasm, perhaps several times. I concentrated on doing something to my arms, or having someone else do it. Mentally asked for help, think I had ectoplasmic arm in mind. Instead felt as if fingers of left hand were extending. Sally and Rose said that something was happening to my left hand, which was held out; arm resting on chair rest. (Don’t know if I felt the subjective feeling before or after their comments, but no suggestions as to hand was given by me, and I asked no questions, sitting with eyes closed, concentrating, rather in good trance, but aware of their comments. Sally asked me a direct question, and I couldn’t answer.) Here everyone in the room with the exception of Theodore who was in a poor position, reported the following:

During this same time that hand manifestation was going on, and seen by all but Theodore clearly, other manifestations were reported by Vera, and by her alone. She sat kitty corner from me, diagonally in a clear line. She said that she definitely saw something green, like a green line, going up and down in front of me; also another color, I forget; and that this continued while the hand bit did. Someplace in here, they also reported that part of the astral form was present; or at least the aura was visible down around the shoulders and waist.

I didn’t think to open my eyes to see hand bit for myself. Whether this would have broken trance or not I don’t know, but as a result I saw nothing at this time; but did have the definite extension feeling on hand. Once earlier, just before, candle spurted once. Felt that energy then “leaped” to me, or that I directed it to me. Simply don’t know whether any personality was present. Some thought they sensed someone. But the room was strange. Unstable elements I felt.

(Now, while Jane still sat with her left wrist pressed to the table, her hand, turning white in part again, rose several inches [perhaps three by my estimate] up from the table. My hands were held by Jane on my left and Bill on my right, but Bill passed his free right hand beneath Jane’s hand to see that it was actually rising and was not an illusion. [Was Jane’s elbow dropping, so the hand rose up? I do not know.] But laughing, Seth told us plainly that when we had attained more proficiency, he would materialize a fully independent hand for us. [...]

[...] She looked down at her own hand and talked steadily. [...] “Now the hand changes again,” Seth said. “It becomes a stubby fat one, a doctor’s short fat stubby-fingered hand… A surgeon’s hand, short and fat.” [...] “Frank Watts had a hand like that,” Seth said. [...]

(Jane’s hand returned to the table and resumed again its pawlike shape. “Now,” Seth said to me, “very carefully, reach out and touch the hand. [...] The hand, pawlike, clublike, felt very cold to me, wet and clammy, and the skin had a bumpy feeling that I was not used to in Jane’s hand.

(I now asked Jane to place the ring in the upturned palm of her left hand. Sitting on my left, she held my left hand with her right, and I joined hands with Bill on my right. [...]

[...] When Seth spoke of my hands, Jane saw my astral hands upraised—as I was really writing at the time, with the palms outward, toward her. She said energy was particularly directed at the 4th and 5th fingers of my left hand, although energy was going to both hands. Jane said she saw my hands as she had seen her own arms straightened out yesterday. The two fingers mentioned of my left hand were somehow different, and needed the energy, she said. I told her that although the penis had reverted to its original condition, I had been aware of a noticeable and steady improvement in the right hand condition, although no previous suggestions or energy had been sent to the hands before, by Seth.

[...] (One minute pause.) And toward your hand. [...]

You faltered in your purpose subconsciously, so the hand was allowed to falter. You were not steady on your course, and the hand faltered. Yet because you are an artist above all, you also punished yourself for your envy with the faltering hand, so that the hand expressed two needs.

The envy caused you to be angry at the hand, which was not bringing you the financial results that envy required. Therefore you punished the hand. Subconsciously your reasoning went like this: “If I were any shape of a man, the hand would bring me what I wanted.” [...]

Now lately the hand has improved because the envy itself was given direct expression through the itch. [...] The envy being realized subconsciously for what it was, isolated in such a manner, meant that the hand need no longer falter.

On the one hand you are pleased because Ruburt does not demand a large amount of physical goods, in usual terms. On the other hand you have the hilarious suspicion, when you are envious of others, that if he wanted more you would get more for him. [...]

“The hand did become stubby and fat for a moment. [...] ‘Now,’ Seth said to me, ‘very carefully reach out and touch the hand. [...] The pawlike hand felt very cold, wet and clammy, and the skin had a bumpy feeling that I wasn’t used to in Jane’s hand.

[...] At the joining of hand and wrist, the flesh rose up in an egglike lump. [...] Then to end this part of the demonstration, Seth had Jane place her hands side by side on the table, so that we could plainly see the difference between the two. Gradually the hand returned to normal, and Seth instructed us to take a rest period.

“Then suddenly Jane announced in a firm clear voice, ‘Watch the hand.’ It was a command, and I knew that Seth was with us. Jane felt her hand grow cold. [...]

“ ‘Now the hand changes again,’ Seth said. [...] Frank Withers had a hand like that, just like that. [...]

You have had glimpses, but the two abilities will work hand in hand so that ideas for paintings will occur with greater vividness, and your hand itself will know how to get certain effects that you want, before you are consciously aware of how this is done.

Give your hand full freedom therefore, and it will teach you what you want to know, for it is your way of bringing inner information outward. Then you learn from your own creations, and the physical mind learns by what the hand has done without calculation.

[...] As an experiment, with a complete palette set up, then almost automatically let your hand drift over the palette and choose its own colors in turn. The intuitions of course will have guided the hand.

[...] I repeat, often your hand, left alone, will give you effects that you want. [...]

[...] It is a print of my right hand, made with black stamping ink on paper. [...] Jane had picked up a book on hands at the library recently, and this got us interested in making such prints.

[...] After the session she recited the little poem to me; it is done with hand gestures accompanying, the fingers of both hands interlocking in various positions. [...]

[...] We think this is a reference to part of the technique in reading a hand; as described in the book it is not only necessary to consider the lines, but the “mounts”, which are the high points of flesh at the base of the fingers, the thumb, the heel of the hand, etc. [...]

[...] The lines in the palm, indicated by black lines, are in actuality in white on the original print, so that the effect is the interesting one of a hand in reverse, or perhaps a map or plan printed in reverse. [...]

(At an earlier break, Bill had mentioned to me, while Jane was out of the room, that he believed Jane was right-handed but that Seth used predominantly left-handed movements. I hadn’t noticed this, but told Bill Jane had talked at times of being left-handed as a child; I told him I remembered Jane saying something about being made to write right-handed in school.)

[...] First of all, as far as the hands are concerned, to be left or right-handed has to do with inner mechanisms and brain patterns that come first, before the motions of the hands. Characteristically, I operated in certain manners that resulted in the primary use of my left hand, when I was focused within physical matter.

([Bill G:] “What significance do you attach to the fact that you seem to be right-handed, but left-handed in sessions?”)

[...] For much of the session she sat on the edge of her chair, leaning forward with her hands clasped together. [...]

(My question about Jane’s hand, her writing hand, had been on my mind for some time now. For she’s been carrying that hand with all but the index finger turned under more than ever; indeed, she cannot straighten the fingers, and I’ve worried about that situation. Especially am I curious about why the hand thing when her walking continues to improve? [...]

(I’d asked Jane today if Seth could discuss briefly two subjects in the session this evening: My recent hassles with the discomfort in my side and groin, and Jane’s right hand. [...]

The situation with Ruburt is such that conditions like the hand are transitory, as with other conditions that bothered him and left. [...]

(To Rachel) Now, in your own description of your experience you came close to making the connections of which I spoke, for the impression of the hand frightened you, that it was so old and decrepit and, subconsciously you connected it, at that time, with your foot when it was bad. You thought immediately in terms of the hand being old and dead. If you had not, the hand would have written. You were frightened for your own physical hand and, therefore, you stopped the flow of information that could have come. [...] You allowed yourself the freedom to begin with but then you interpreted the appearance of your hand as the hand of a very old woman and became frightened. [...]

[...] First of all, there were some elements of fear combined with fear having to do with underlying fears that you are having difficulty—in the physical universe, and you acted this out with the hand. [...] Now, the hand also represents freedom. [...] One of freedom as the hand, as a hand being able to rise. And the other, lack of freedom, as for example, the hand not being able to move. [...]

[...] If, on the other hand, you believe an accident happens to you that you had nothing to do with, you can learn nothing from it except to duck. [...]

[...] Now, the other night, the incident with my hand, was it my vivid imagination or something else?”)

[...] Since she’s been in the hospital she’s always handled cigarettes with her left hand, leaving her right hand lying unused across her belly. If she wants to reverse the ends of a smoke because one is looser than the other, which she often does with Pall Malls, she does so by awkwardly holding the cigarette with her lips while using her left hand to try to turn the cigarette around before I light it. Now today, Jane automatically used her right hand to help her left hand reverse the cigarette—and didn’t realize she’d done so until I pointed it out to her. [...]

[...] You were in a panic, thinking of the importance of your hand to your work. [...]

[...] In your suggestions tell yourself in whatever way you choose that your hand can be steady under any and all conditions.

Do not specifically relate the behavior of the hand with your artistic self or artistic abilities in your suggestions, but in a general manner to the natural health of your being and easy flow of your ideas outward. [...]

The difficulties with the hand were not meant to threaten your artistic self. [...]

[...] This will bring greater flexibility to the hands and fingers also, and will also be reflected in other portions of the body, including the legs and hips—a most fortuitous improvement indeed. [...] On the other hand, it was also triggered by Ruburt’s suggestions, when he playfully (musically almost) imagined himself telling you of significant improvements, without wondering what they would be. [...]

[...] The extra motion ability already present in Jane’s hands helped considerably, especially with the right hand.

[...] My first thought had been that the softening in the arms would help relieve the doubled-up fingers of her right hand. [...]

[...] I rubbed Steve’s Rescue Cream on the knuckles of Jane’s right hand, as I’d begun doing yesterday. [...]

[...] She did not like to have her picture taken on the one hand because she feared disclosure, and on the other hand, because her sense of perfection was affected—particularly in later years by an imperfect image.

[...] On the one hand you see how they fit into the book. [...]

[...] You do not want anyone else to have a hand in your own work—that is in your paintings. [...]

[...] Use the model, but let it be a flexible one, in which your ideals work with the material at hand, molding it. [...]

(“His hands shake too.” I suddenly recalled that Curt’s hands have an obvious tremor, a fact I have long known.)

[...] The right hand tremor, etc., which I had explained to Jane in detail at break.)

Emotionally you saw this as the death of your mother’s hopes, and felt on the one hand that it was up to you now, so that this reactivated older feelings from the past that you had pretty well handled.

Because he left, and because you knew his hands shook also. [...]

[...] ankles and calves, and inside both hands as she lay on her side. [...] I could feel changes in her hands especially. They weren’t so tight; I repeated that I wanted to feel the tension drain out of the backs of her hands. Already I think the skin coloration on the backs of her hands is better, the tension not so great. I told her that her body knew perfectly well how to repair and regenerate her hands, just as it did every other part of her body. [...]

(She rotated her arms and hands again as the afternoon passed, after lunch, and so forth. [...]

[...] Before I went to the john I helped her hold the session papers on the left edge with her left hand—something I’ve been hoping she would become able to do, since it would add to her independence in reading. [...] When I came back from the john, she suddenly was able to grasp the right edge of the papers with her right hand—a totally unexpected development, one that I hadn’t expected yet at all. [...] She could almost hold the papers up like anyone would, even though her arms and hands aren’t clear yet; but, she told me, they have changed enough so that she could now do this. [...]

[...] When Lynne came in to take her blood pressure, Jane showed her what new things she could do with her hands. [...]

(By 3:50, when she was reading the last two pages of the session, Jane said that already her holding the pages that way was almost automatic, though by the time she finishes a page her left hand is beginning to get tired. [...]

[...] She was delighted—she kissed his hand.

(“and some designations on the other side of the object, perhaps in the upper left-hand corner.” Holding the envelope vertically in her right hand, Jane pinched the upper left corner of the envelope with her left hand. [...] We don’t know if the upper left-hand corner data derived from Jane holding the object with page one facing away from her, for instance.

Perhaps a connection with a June date, and some designations on the other side of the object—perhaps in the upper left-hand corner. (Still holding the envelope in the vertical position and in her right hand, Jane lowered it enough so that she could touch the envelope’s upper left corner with her left hand.)

[...] Perhaps initials or date, in the upper left-hand corner, on the other side of the object. (Jane again touched the object in the upper left-hand corner as she held it vertically. [...]

(“and a small object in the lower right-hand corner.” With the object held as marked by T on page 4, the A-S monogram for the Art Shop is seen to be in the lower right-hand corner of page 1. This is speaking intrinsically. [...]

(Again, I became aware that my right hand felt enlarged; the feeling had subsided but now returned, and with an increased intensity. It was somewhat of a handicap in writing; the hand, having a different feeling as it held the pen, made me concentrate more on the simple physical act of putting the words down. And I saw Jane rubbing her hands together as she paced back and forth while dictating.)

(Far from diminishing, my hand phenomenon was now at its peak. So was Jane’s. The third finger of my right hand seemed to enlarge even more. [...] These strips I used as tapes to measure the circumferences of the third finger on both of our right hands. [...]

(As break began, I realized that my hands felt fat or enlarged; at the same time Jane said hers did also, and that she had been aware of it earlier in the session but forgot to mention it. My right hand, and especially the third finger, felt very full and engorged. [...]

[...] My right hand felt somewhat cramped after the above delivery, although in recent sessions it has been much better.

[...] It was quite hilarious and we had some laughs over it; but as I finished reading at about 9:45 PM, I became aware that I was experiencing a feeling of enlargement in the index and second finger of my right hand. Bill stated that in his opinion these two fingers were noticeably “fatter” than the corresponding two on my left hand. [...] This is the system I plan to use to check Jane’s hands also.

(Since my hand phenomena had disappeared by now, I was curious to check the measurements of my fingers now against those Bill had made earlier. The index finger of my right hand checked out at approximately the same circumference– 2 ”. [...]

(At the time I noticed my hand phenomena, our cat Willy began to [...]

(At 10:25 Jane abruptly handed to me a paper and pencil and pointed to the table. [...]