“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We think also that Seth’s statement above might refer to letter #4, written by Jane on January 25. At the time she wrote this letter Jane had yet to receive letter #2, and thus did not know F. Fell would be out of NYC until February 7. Actually Jane’s letter #4 was never answered by mail. It was discussed in the telephone call between Jane and F. Fell on February 8. This is the call discussed in the notes on page 269 of the 232nd session. And again, the connection here with the envelope object is the January 25 date on which Jane wrote letter # 4, and the January 25 postmark on the object.

(“Paws, and netlike shapes, and triangles.” These are very good references to letter #3, and take the form of doodles executed by Jane. She remembers making these on February 8, just before her telephone call to F. Fell. Letter #3, again, was written January 25, and the date connects this letter with the January 25 postmark on the envelope experimental object. Either letter #2 or letter #3 was enclosed in the experimental object.

(Letter # 3: Written January 25. This too was from the offices of F. Fell, written the same day as letter # 2, and was a simple note from an Emma Hesse, of the bookkeeping department, requesting that Jane send in her social security number for tax purposes. Actually the letter was a form letter and Jane was addressed as “Gentlemen:”.

(“Ruburt’s association is with something that did not arrive on time, but let that one pass.” After break Seth tells us he hoped to make this clearer, but could not. Jane and I thought this was a reference to the fact that F. Fell left for Florida on January 24, Monday, before reading Jane’s letter #1, of January 20, the previous Thursday. Letter #1 would not have arrived at his office by the next morning, Friday. Thus letter #1 was acknowledged in letter #2, written by F. Fell’s secretary, Rhoda Monks, on Tuesday, January 25.

[...] The empty envelope used as object was mailed to me last May 26,1966, by an old friend, Wendell Crowley, and contained a letter detailing a reunion of a group of friends, all artists, that Wendell and I worked with in 1941-43. The letter was not in the envelope but was kept separate by me for reference after the session. As I suspected, some of Seth’s data referred to the contents of the letter rather than the envelope object itself.

(Wendell’s letter of May 26 is two typewritten pages long, and at the moment we do not plan to include a copy of it with these notes. If necessary we will do so; in the meantime the letter remains on file with other envelope-related material. Other background material may be necessary to fill in the relationship between Wendell, myself and our friends discussed in the letter, and this will be included in our interpretations of the envelope experiment data. [...]

[...] As stated, the object contained a letter describing the reunion of perhaps half a dozen artists who worked together in the early 1940’s. The reunion was attended by the writer of the letter. [...] In his letter Wendell does not name the town or city in which the reunion, at a restaurant, took place, but from following data Jane and I surmise it took place in New York City.

[...] Wendell’s letter of May 26 was in answer to a letter I wrote him last February. I do not have a copy of my letter, but am sure it was written in February because Wendell discusses my references to snow and poor weather. [...]

(“Connection with a letter. [...] The object is of course a letter. I believe the Florida data should be included with the mention of a letter, although a separate sentence. Once again, the Water Street address on the letter could give rise to the Florida data. [...]

(“A name with seven letters.” Lodico has six letters. Colucci has seven letters however, and Jane was subjectively sure this is the name referred to, especially when taken along with the next data.

(The object for the 70th envelope experiment was the first draft of a letter I wrote tonight, to a local dentist. [...] Jane had not seen this draft, or even the final copy of the letter, although she knew I was writing it this evening. [...]

(See the copy of the first draft of my letter on page 31. [...] Tonight’s object is a first draft of my reply to his letter, and is dated September 12.

(On June 27 Jane had received a letter from Tam Mossman at Prentice-Hall, requesting information on Dr. Instream, Dr. Bernard, both psychologists; and on Ray Van Over. We had talked over the best way to answer the letter, and had made some notes to that end today. [...]

(Before the session tonight Jane and I discovered during our conversation that each of us had toyed with the idea of asking Seth to answer the letter. [...] Still, we didn’t make any formal request that Seth write such a letter. [...]

May this letter serve to introduce us. [...] Since matters pertaining to me are at issue here, then I feel I would like to make a few comments of my own, and take it upon myself to answer your last letter, sent to Jane Roberts.

Would you then take the following letter addressed to Mr. Mossman and Miss Carr, jointly? [...]

When you first learned to write in school, you had to be taught how to form the letters. [...] Finally, however, you could form the letters quite easily. [...]

Then you were told that you had to put those letters together to make words. [...] Were you stupid or dumb—or an asshole—when you could only form simple letters? [...]

We will call this a letter to Frank, though hopefully it can be of use to some other people I know (amused). [...]

[...] They do not even seem to be mistakes until you are “at the next level” of development, or a step higher in your understanding—as when, say, in the sixth grade you looked back and saw a page of your own childish lettering done at the age of five. [...]

If you do not have copies of your own letters, perhaps you can tell us what you said in them, and the dates you mailed them. [...] I’m also writing this out in a letter instead of calling so that you can have the record to refer to at your leisure. [...]

I’m dashing off this letter hoping to get it out to the mailbox before the mailman shows up this noon. [...]

[...] I would like to ask you for copies of whatever letters you may have received from the healers, as well as your own correspondence. [...]

[...] (I remember those letters Jane used to get from Harry Edwards.) However the story works out, that’s the one we’ll be wanting to tell others about. [...]

Thanks very much for your letter of December 21. [...] Jane has been snowed under with work, correspondence, classes, etc., so I have taken it upon myself to help her out re letters. [...]

[...] If we ever meet we could ask you a lot of questions, but we have learned it’s tough to do much of a job by letter, so we’ll content ourselves with what’s been said above.

We don’t know how things work re turning in a thesis, etc., as you mention in your letter, but you have our best wishes. [...]

LETTER TO ROGER J. SULLIVAN

[...] Afterward I read my letter and Maude’s to her. “Your letter is terrific,” she said, an excellent piece of writing.” [...] Jane said she’d also dictate a letter eventually to the group. [...]

[...] When I got home from 330 last night I found in the mail a letter from Maude Cardwell of Reality Change, the Seth newsletter she publishes in Austin, Texas. [...] The letter I’d had published recently in the November issue of Coordinate Point International, describing Jane’s challenges, had come to the attention of the reader in St. Paul, MN, who had called Maude with the idea of a fund. [...]

(I brought both the letter and the issue of CPI to show Jane and get her opinion. I was taken unawares by Maude’s letter, unbelieving and yet grateful that anyone else would offer to give strangers money. [...]

[...] That is why you received the letter about the fund. [...]

(A couple of days ago Jane received from Tam a letter written to Tam by Saul Cohen, the editor at Prentice-Hall who’s evidently been assigned to shepherd Jane’s work through production. [Tam is still her regular editor.] In the letter Cohen had good things to say about her work, and the chances that Prentice-Hall will publish Seven III, the first five chapters of which Tam has forwarded to Prentice-Hall. There seems to be a chance also of trying to get Prentice-Hall to publish the three Seven books in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback editions, if we interpret the letter correctly. Anyhow, the letter engendered immediate reactions in Jane of a very positive nature. Note: Cohen’s letter is dated October 13—yet according to Tam’s note on it, and postmark, he didn’t receive it until October 21—8 days later.

(In our first talk I’d suggested to David that he write us a letter describing his attraction to this woman, and he called today to say that he was mailing such a missive, after rewriting it a couple of times. I’d thought the letter idea might help him put the whole affair, which he says has gone on for three years, in better perspective. [...]

Ruburt’s interpretation of the letter is correct. Behind the importance of the letter as a triggering agent, however, there is, as he knows, much material still dealing with the so-called sinful-self material that I will be giving you shortly. [...]

[...] We await David’s letter. [...]

(Seth is discussing the Gonzolus letter from Indianapolis, Indiana, that we received this week. [...] Letter on school notepaper—palsied and hard to read. [...]

[...] Not the one who wrote the letter. The one who wrote the letter is usually the less dominant of the two. [...]

[...] The man from whom Ruburt received the letter. [...]

In connection with the brothers and the other letter. [...]

So as I listened to our visitor (I’ll call him Larry) talk, I browsed through the letter. [...] Then I thought of Ed’s first letter of two years ago, breaking a twenty-year-old silence, mailed from Alaska where Ed was skiing. In fact, the letter before me mentioned the Alaskan ski trip. [...]

[...] There was a letter written the morning before (on Friday) by the same friends that had been so much in Ruburt’s mind. [...] From the way the letter was written, it seemed as if the friends — call them Peter and Polly — had already started on their journey that (Saturday) morning, and would stop in Elmira on their return much later toward evening. There was no time to answer the letter, of course.

[...] And I know that those memories and thoughts were connected with my later predictions and Ed’s letter in the noon mail. I’d been reacting to Ed’s letter before its arrival.

[...] One letter in particular caught my eyes because it was from an old friend, Ed, the man who had introduced Rob and I to begin with; a man who we had lost touch with until two years ago when he’d suddenly written from Alaska.

[...] That one sentence is (underlined) meaningful because of its organization of letters, or if it is spoken, its organization of vowels and syllables. It makes sense, however, not only because of the letters or vowels or syllables that are used within it, but because of all of the letters or vowels or syllables that it excludes.

(At the end of the 852nd session I mentioned a letter Jane had received last month from a professor of physics, and that in a recent nonbook session Seth had come through with a partial answer to some of the professor’s questions. This afternoon Jane reread the letter, and wondered if Seth might give more material in reply; as she worked on Heroics she did get a line or two from Seth, commenting on that possibility. [...]

[...] This occasion signals the first appearance of the Seth material in another language, and we’re happy to note that the translator, with whom Jane exchanged just a couple of letters, did an excellent, painstaking job. [...]

Now: Earlier today, Ruburt wondered if I might dictate more in reply to your scientist’s letter. [...]

[...] The letters upon the page are symbols, and you have agreed upon various meanings connected with them. You take it for granted without even thinking of it that the symbols — the letters — are not the reality — the information or thoughts — which they attempt to convey.

Now in the same way, I am telling you that objects are also symbols that stand for a reality whose meaning the objects, like the letters, transmit. The true information is not in the objects any more than the thought is in the letters or in words. [...]

Chapter Five: As you read the words upon this page, you realize that the information that you are receiving is not an attribute of the letters of the words themselves. [...]

[...] The letters upon the page have the reality only of ink and paper. [...]

[...] I took Maude Cardwell’s letter to show Jane. [...]

[...] I read her Maude’s letter, and her article in Reality Change, saying we’d have to work out a response. [...]

Now: a letter.

I hope that my letter meets with your approval.

(Going through the mail was rewarding, though — for in various letters I found checks adding up to more than $375. [...] Now when a batch of mail arrives I have to open the letters at once to see if money has been sent. Otherwise the letters may lay there for some time before I investigate them. [...]

[...] There may be further complications, in which the person insists that phones were bugged, letters opened, and privacy was constantly invaded.

[...] Separately, the letters, in capitals: S, and A, and G or C or Z. In connection with a letter to Ruburt, and also perhaps with a letter written by the same individual to someone else.

(A letter Jane received Tuesday, May 16, may or may not be referred to in the above last session paragraph. The letter is from her correspondent in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, the Reverend James C. Crosson. Reverend Crosson did not refer to the WELM program, of course, but in his letter offers Jane an opportunity to lecture to a group on ESP in Massachusetts, which is the same type of activity. [...]

[...] I did not learn this till January when Crosson told me in a letter. [...]

[...] If, for example, a letter comes to you bearing good news, and you react to the letter with high spirits, then you should understand that the high spirits existed first, and created the materialization of the letter within the physical systems, through the multilayered and complicated reactions that bind together the physical system.

If an annoying letter arrives and you react to it negatively, the negative quality preceded the letter and caused it to materialize in your system. Now you do not force someone to write such a letter, you see. [...]

(Jane receives 35 to 50 letters a week. The flow of mail to our hill house is surprisingly steady throughout the year, as we’ve often noticed: We never take in 100 letters one week, for instance, and none the next, or 70 one week and 15 the next. [...] Each Saturday and Sunday Jane catches up with her replies for the week, brief as they often are, so that on Monday morning, when I put out that bundle of letters for the mailman, we’re ready for the next week’s accumulation. All of the mail doesn’t need answering, of course, but the other day we estimated that with very little help from me Jane now replies to around 2,000 letters a year. [...]

(In my Introductory Notes for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, I explained how Jane acknowledges the mail we get from our readers by sending them copies of letters from Seth and herself; to the latter she adds a few personal lines for each correspondent. [...] Seth dictated his letter in April 1975, just after finishing his part of the work for Volume 2 of “Unknown,” and I presented it while introducing Volume 1. Jane still handles most of the mail herself, and she continues to send people Seth’s letter because we still think he presented excellent ideas in it.

(In those notes I also referred to an earlier letter that Seth had dictated for readers in January 1973, and it can be found in Chapter 8 of Personal Reality. Jane and I suggested then, as we do now, that when possible the two Seth letters be read together, since they compliment each other so well.

(“Some larger lettering, and then some small.” Jane feels this is a distortion of my writing or lettering on the object. I would say lettering is a closer description than printed matter, being more specific.

(“I think there is a red color, and rather large lettering, perhaps four or five lines.” My fourth question asked for the content of the horizontal lettering mentioned by Seth. Seth named both horizontal lettering and red before in the data. [...]

[...] The letter D connected with the sign. [...]

[...] Some larger lettering, and then some small.

[...] As we waited for the session Jane gave me two very long letters she had received yesterday. [...] To answer one letter would draw its author to our doorstep at once: “I am your Seth,” and: “I will visit you as soon as I hear from you.” The writer of the other letter, while praising our work, is caught up in questions of conventional religion: “I keep wondering over and over again whether Seth is a demon or a deception. [...]

Reluctantly, I agreed with Jane that she’d better not answer the letters. [...]

On the envelope of the letter containing the queries about Seth’s validity, Jane had penned a few lines as she sat at her desk yesterday afternoon: