“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane went into a trance one evening during a discussion. Out of this episode — which we did not understand was a trance for several years afterward — evolved a group of writers, Jane among them, who called themselves “The Five.” [...] The four other writers in the group were much better known than Jane was.)

[...] Jane was out of her trance easily. [...] Jane had no images or visions, as far as she recalled, when dictating material. [...]

[...] In 1957, after Jane had sold her first few short stories, she was invited to a conference of science fiction writers at Milford, Pennsylvania. I couldn’t go because of my own work, so Jane attended the conference with Cyril Kornbluth [now deceased], a friend and a well-known writer who lived near our home in Sayre, Pennsylvania.

[...] Jane was well dissociated as usual. [...] Jane did not appear to be bothered by this, but since Willy kept it up I finally dislodged him rather than take the chance of him interrupting Jane. [...] This is the first time Willy has paid any attention to Jane for many sessions.

(While trying psychological time on January 25 and January 27, Jane achieved her now customary state of lightness or “ecstasy” to a fair degree.

(Again Jane delivered the material for the session while sitting down, and with her eyes closed. [...]

(It isn’t necessary to quote Jane’s delivery of Saturday evening, however. [...] The night before last, then, I told Jane about my idea of asking Seth to comment upon early photographs of her parents, Marie and Delmer,¹ to see what would develop in the material.

(In a few moments Jane left her altered state of consciousness. [...] Echoes of Saturday night’s experience do show up in tonight’s session, although it doesn’t appear that the material will have the long-range effects of Jane’s March 4 delivery.

(On Saturday evening, May 4, Jane briefly came through with some trance information of her own. [...]

9. On facing pages in our album, Jane and I have a pair of large, rather formal photographs of ourselves that we’ve often joked about. [...] Jane, in her photograph, is 6½ years old. [...] More than once Jane has asked me what I’d have thought at that age had I been aware that my wife-to-be was a “round-faced little kid, still playing with paper dolls….”

(“I’m just waiting,” Jane said at 9:25, after we’d been sitting for the session since 9:10. [...]

[...] The sounds of the package, for example (as Seth, Jane crumpled an empty cigarette package), or the fingernails across the table (demonstrated), are magnified, for in the cellular world they are an important outside-the-self cosmic event — messages of great importance. [...]

(Jane slept well last night and got up with me this morning. [...] Jane described several humiliating incidents her mother had perpetrated upon her. [...] Very good, I told Jane. [...]

[...] She dwarfed Jane as the two sat side by side on the couch. [...] I thought such a decision would be simple compared to the ones Jane is trying to cope with.

(I had 2 pages typed on last night’s session, and gave Jane page 1 so she could refresh herself on my question, the one that Seth had begun discussing, about the intensity of her reactions. “Well, I almost feel him around now,” Jane said at 8:42.)

[...] Jane came out of trance easily, though it had been a fairly good one, she said. [...] I was angry and disappointed; I was fearful that Jane and I would never be able to rise above our problems and fulfill our potentialities, which I knew to be excellent. I was especially concerned that Jane wouldn’t be able to surmount the problems, so explicitly delineated by Seth, above, and so eliminate the symptoms. [...]

(Jane had been having trouble writing her book on the Seth material with her old spontaneity, and both of us were concerned. [...]

[...] Jane began speaking for Seth in an average voice, with pauses, eyes open often, etc. [...]

[...] Once again, as in the 133rd and 134th sessions, Jane was shocked out of her trance state. [...] As before, Jane then drifted back into the trance state, and resumed at 10:25.)

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] Since interruptions have evidently become something of a hazard because of Jane’s deeper trance state, we have decided to move the sessions into our bedroom. [...]

(Jane dictated while sitting down, and with her eyes closed. [...]

(Now I did mention to Jane perhaps the overriding question I have, and have often puzzled about: the intensity of her personality’s response to the idea of the Sinful Self. [...] Jane agreed.

(And here we have an excellent capsule answer as to why Jane has grown progressively worse since beginning Mass Events—see her paper of last December about her unease over that book and God of Jane—and why her symptoms have become even worse as the publication date of Mass Events draws near. [...]

(This morning Jane slept until noon again, as she’d done last Monday. [...]

[...] Jane and I wondered what role Billy’s illness might play in our affair with David—surely a way of thinking that would have been quite alien to us before the advent of the Seth material.

We’d also noticed that as soon as Billy lost his appetite his littermate, Mitzi, became “just a little busybody,” as Jane put it, playing and running about the house and out on the porches, as if in her own way she was trying to compensate for Billy’s unaccustomed lack of activity.

“I wouldn’t mind getting something from Seth on why Billy got sick,” I said to Jane after supper. [...]

(Last night Jane held her ESP class at the home of Ruth Klebert, and was very successful in demonstrating table tipping. Jane told me she really felt a focus of concentrated power emanating through her hands; even when they did not touch the table, the table obeyed.)

(Jane again began speaking rapidly, her eyes opening at times, as she sat on the divan.)

[...] (F. Fell, Jane’s publisher.)

(2. I found myself wondering if my own attitudes might have strongly influenced Jane’s early psychic behavior in ways neither of us suspected—that she may have inhibited certain elements of her abilities because she feared my own ideas about distractions, time, failure, etc. Perhaps, Jane had wanted more physical and psychic activity all along, I thought—more tours, TV, publicity, fame, money, whatever—but all those things she held back on because of my own negative attitudes. [...] I do know that Jane has the abilities to perform all of those activities, and this almost idle realization recently may have triggered the more concrete question.

(1. Does Jane’s inherently mystical nature give rise to conflicts with the non-mystical world she finds herself in this time around? [...] Jane said that she never thinks of mysticism, herself, yet I think such factors could operate easily enough in our world. [...]

(Jane has written down her feelings each day since we began the new program, and we’ve then discussed them. [...] Jane reports a continuing series of physical changes throughout her body—from the legs and ankles to the shoulder blades, elbows, ribs, etc. [...]

[...] Jane merely stopped speaking. [...] Jane said she had the usual pyramid feeling, described in detail in earlier sessions, and that as usual when break came she felt herself coming down through it.

(At 9:50 Jane said she was “just beginning to feel him again,” though as far as we know sexual definition of the entity is meaningless in its terms. As before now Jane began to sit quietly, hands again folded in her lap; her mouth and lips began to work again, and finally the high thin voice emerged once more. [...]

(At 9:09 Jane told me that for the first time in a long time she felt like “the other personality,” meaning Seth’s entity. [...]

(Without a break Jane went from her Seth trance into another very creative mode of consciousness. [...] Then Jane came through as Sumari once more, but this time she spoke in conversational tones.³ Immediately she was finished, Seth returned:)

2. Sumari is a “family of consciousness” that Jane first contacted in ESP class for November 23, 1971. [...] Jane describes the whole development in chapters 7 and 8 of Adventures. [...]

(The contents for this appendix, including a short description of Jane’s use of Sumari, came through within a month after the 690th session was held.

(Jane also discussed with Tam a number of points growing out of our last royalty statements; some of these are quite legitimate gripes that we’ve kept quiet about for some time. [...] During the week after the Dutch edition arrived, we received from Tam the contracts for God of Jane and Mass Events, both of which contain phrases and clauses in an effort to get around Prentice-Hall’s habit of withholding percentages of earnings against returns. [...] Prentice-Hall even wants to apply any losses for God of Jane against Mass Events after 18 months, in an effort to make one book pay for another! [...] I don’t think Jane yet grasps the implications here.

(Jane immediately called Tam, to learn that, ironically, all of the bigwigs at Prentice-Hall are in Europe, attending the book fair at Frankfurt, Germany, I believe is where it is. [...] Jane finally agrees that we must take certain actions now in our professional lives, and we don’t know what will happen. [...]

(The upshot of all of this at the moment is that Jane will not be signing any contracts at this time, and that we’ll be informing Prentice-Hall that we won’t be contracting for any work for them until our questions and assurances are amply demonstrated. [...] I’m personally quite willing to let the chips fall where they may, to coin a phrase, but I’m not at all sure that Jane will agree to go along. [...]

(Shortly after I became aware, Jane began to do the dishes. [...] Jane made noise handling the dishes, I heard the water run, etc. [...]

(Jane and I hadn’t believed there was any connection between Jane’s Sumarian development, and Sumer, since the Sumari, as explained in recent sessions, had never been physical in our terms. [...]

[...] Jane’s pace had been good, her trance good also. [...] Jane read them over, and agrees that this copy is now as Seth meant it to be.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] Jane had called them earlier because our reception had been poor ever since the falling tree limb of March 6 had ripped down the line. [...] Jane particularly missed the channel for music only, since she was used to working by this in the mornings.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] Jane felt we had been experiencing foreshortened time. [...]

(At 10:22 the TV serviceman knocked on the door, just as Jane finished the above sentence. [...] Jane rested briefly, for she could not make the switch back to Seth that quick, then resumed dictating at 10:31.)

(After retiring at about 1 AM on July 20, 1969, on Sunday morning, after Jane & I had been to the Steak Shop for a few drinks...

(I was lying in bed in a sleepy drowsy state, waiting for Jane to come to bed. [...]

[...] It’s possible Jane interrupted it, or brought it to an end as she came to bed. [...]

[...] Jane uses suggestions — she’s asked her mother to forgive her, and vice versa, and she forgives herself. [...] Jane became quite nervous and edgy as we talked about this, so I know there’s something there.)

(Jane discussed a positive, energetic dream of last night, which isn’t recorded here. [...]

(Jane felt with some emotion — she refused to think about it — that she’s embarked on some project involving her entity at this later time in her life. [...]

[...] Robert Butts had gone out for a while, and Jane, Eve, and I were chatting. I could feel Seth’s vague presence in the room, which Eve apparently didn’t. Jane went into the kitchen to see about the chicken she was cooking and — as she later told us— felt Seth coming through and hurried to get back to her chair.

[...] Seth withdrew rather abruptly, and noticing the change in Jane, I added, “I’ll help Ruburt get back if there’s any need.” Jane didn’t, fortunately, and woke up with no trouble and a pleasant smile. [...]

( This session was unusual; even though I have only seen Seth on a few occasions, I noticed that Jane kept her eyes open much more than usual. [...]

[...] Jane came out of trance. The last lines above referred to a discussion Jane and I had earlier in the day. [...]

[...] At break Lillian commented that she thought Jane’s delivery as Seth sounded Germanic. She also said that when speaking as Seth, Jane tended to use the same gestures and facial wrinkles shown in the portrait I have painted of Seth. [...]

(Jane’s voice was somewhat stronger and more forceful than usual, and quite serious.)