“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

By now I was shivering also. I think the temperature was around 45 degrees. Fred sat in one of the folding chairs and I hurried inside. I slid the kitchen window shut so he couldn’t call into Jane. She still sat at the card table, of course. “We’ve got a problem,” I said to her on my way to the closet. “I’ll tell you about it....” I grabbed my heavy corduroy coat. “We’ve got to call the police. I’ll be back in a minute.” I helped Fred put on my coat and bundled him up. He readily agreed to my offer of some hot tea or coffee. I went back in to put the water on the stove for heating. In all the visitors we’ve had, this one went the furthest, I thought, to the point I’d often wondered about: actually calling the police for help in handling someone. I didn’t want to call them, but had no choice. I fumbled around looking for their number (we hadn’t written it in the front of the book, as you’re supposed to). When finally I called on the speaker phone, the number rang four times by my count, and I began to wonder what we’d do if for some reason the police simply never answered. Did they work Saturday? Call the State Police, I thought. When someone did answer, I explained the situation. Whoever I talked to had evidently been questioned by someone also looking for us—if not Fred himself —but his description of the person, as being older and with white hair, didn’t match Fred’s appearance at all, so I didn’t press the point. (Later I wished I had.) But I hadn’t explained much of the situation when my caller said, “We’ll have someone up there right away.” I said we’d be waiting.

How could he manage to arrive here without a penny in his pocket? I kept wondering if he had some money and change (at least) stowed in one of the suitcases, but he swore—Seth swore for him—that he did not, and finally I believed him. I also believed him when he finally sat down in the driveway and said he was prepared to die in the cold. He could have wanted to sit down from sheer physical exhaustion, yet I think more was involved. This noon, as I talked about writing these notes, Jane wanted me to call the police and ask what had happened with Fred. I wanted to also, but hesitated. My stomach felt empty. “Wouldn’t it be hell if Fred shows up at our door again?” I asked. “Maybe he’s from town,” Jane said. “Maybe the police will just let him go and he’ll come back.”

“I am very disappointed, Robert, that I can’t get in to see Jane, just for a minute. But if not it’s perfectly all right, I guess you’ll have to call the police. Fred is very cold indeed.”

I took him up on it. I opened the screen door. “Look, come in here and sit down and let me get you a coat. You don’t mind if I call the police?” “Not at all. Fred means you and your wife no harm....”

At about 12:45 PM an officer from the West Elmira Police came to the back door. [...]

The police didn’t know how he arrived in town either, without money or even a coat. [...]

As with Jane and me, Fred had offered no signs of violence toward the police or anyone else that they knew of. [...]

For instance, the individual might be talking along normally enough when he or she hears the sirens of a police car in the distance. [...]

[...] Or instead, the individual might embark upon a rather heated discussion of police forces in general.

[...] Also that behind me, not too close, ran a police van, with several cops in it checking up on me. [...]

(I told Jane that I thought the police in the dream meant that I’d left behind me old imprisoning beliefs, that I was now running free of those beliefs. [...]

[...] This so incensed her that she telephoned the police. After talking to two different desk sergeants she was referred to the police chief. The chief said she was the only complainant the police had had; other callers had given the police their addresses and asked them to destroy the birds on their own properties.

[...] The people at the newspaper were quite surprised to learn the police were shooting birds. [...]

Saturday the police had shot them down.

[...] It is quite frequent for persons with those beliefs to discipline their bodies overmuch, take positions as police guards, or set themselves up in one way or another in control of their fellows.

I am not here stating that all police guards, members of the military or whatever, fall into that category. [...]

[...] Some men, maybe police, come in and we hide in the shadows; a door beside is going to open so we get down and drag ourselves on our bellies to another door at the end of the room to hide in the shadows. [...]

[...] I called the police. [...] Eventually the police found the car, abandoned some distance away, but unharmed. [...]

[...] Certainly the pressure applied to Bill Macdonnel by three police visits or calls, in an effort to get him to remove the painting from the window. A slightly different interpretation here would be that the police constitute an organization, and that their efforts to have Bill remove the painting constitute an endeavor.

[...] When the police asked Bill to remove the painting from his gallery window, he asked advice from three people in particular. [...]

[...] The first paragraph of the envelope object contains Bill Macdonnel’s intention not to remove the painting from the gallery window even though requested to do so by the police. [...]

[...] The rich and poor alike are provided with fire protection and police protection. [...]

Though you paid little taxes, the fire and police protection were not withdrawn, and all of the services continued. [...]

[...] He is on the way to register the puppy and claim it at a local police station, which means he was introducing this portion of himself to all other parts, and legitimizing it with the authorities—meaning that he was accepting it wholeheartedly under the auspices of the new authority of the self. The police usually stand for discipline, the puppy stands for spontaneity, and that spontaneity and order are united. [...]

[...] Jane had the impression of police cars during the experience but they hadn’t reached her yet; although the girl knew the police were near.

[...] But she did see the lighted police cars, etc., already described.

[...] The individual — convinced he or she is being pursued by some secretive organization — again, may hear the sirens on a very real police car. [...]

(Today the newspaper carried the story of the violence attending the Democratic presidential convention in Chicago in August, 1968, telling of the many clashes between police and various groups of demonstrators; and a guilty verdict re police behavior was rendered by an investigative commission. [...]

(Today the newspaper carried the story of the violence attending the Democratic presidential convention in Chicago in November 1968, telling of the many clashes between police and various groups of demonstrators; a guilty verdict re police behavior was rendered by an investigative commission. [...]

[...] He used those as in other circumstances a paranoid might use the sight of a police car to convince himself that he was being pursued by the police, or the FBI or whatever. [...]

[...] The police were shooting down the starlings that always nested in the treetops. [...]

The idiot cries.
The tears slosh inside his boots.
The people say he’s bats
Because he weeps
When the police shoot down the starlings
Aiming at the tall-eyed trees.

The idiot swears
That the birds are holy.
He shouts as the starlings drop
And the police chuckle good-naturedly
“Stop. [...]

[...] When it seemed you would not police the two of you with the intense fervor necessary, I began to do so, and took upon myself all those attitudes that had been yours. [...]

If you work on your own, both of you, then I do not need to police you. [...]

[...] Among the agencies chosen, of course, are the FBI, the CIA, the Russian Secret Police, the Ku Klux Klan, or any controversial group given to acts of violence for whatever purposes.

(The hospital was hardly a quiet place, what with fire trucks and police cars pulling up beneath our window with sirens screeching and wailing, and with people in the hall outside 330 pushing carts that rattled and sounded like a bushel of pots and pans jouncing around — all of this as Jane was ready to begin the session. [...]