“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] This one was more extensive. It also took me a bit to realize that it was starting to show itself in the form of hallucinations or disorientation. [...] I cannot really explain what she said; it was too rapid and varied, and I had no notebook handy. [...] At one time Jane thought she was on the commode in the bedroom, and began to pull up her blouse. Another time she thought she was in her writing room while I did the dishes. [...]

[...] I was surprised when Seth abruptly came through just as I finished the above notes. Jane’s voice was good, her head down, eyes closed; she swayed to her left often. I was about to note that the session was probably a last gasp attempt to learn something important, to keep going on our own, before our world began to fall apart. [...]

(I was pleased at the way the session was going—and indeed amazed that Jane could manage to pull it off at all, given her circumstances. [...] The TV was on, without sound. [...] The room was lit with a soft yellow glow. [...]

(Our time was running out. If, as Seth has repeatedly said lately, Jane was clearing her psyche, then I feared that she’d begun her task too late, mentally and physically. [...] It can be seen that I was having a hard time to keep from falling into the deep pessimism I’d experienced not long ago, and seemingly had rebounded from. [...]

It was an attempt to fit man within the picture of evolution, and to manufacture a creature whose very existence was somehow pitted against itself. [...] (Pause.) There is no doubt that the church cast the soul in a position of stress, caught as it was between its heavenly source and original sin — but there was a sense of psychological mobility involved, one that saw continued existence after death.

[...] That word was large enough to contain man’s experience. It was large enough to provide room for conventional and unconventional, bizarre and ordinary states of mind and experience. It was roomy enough to hold images of reality that were physically perceived or psychologically perceived.

[...] Psychological reality, for all of the religious (pause) dangers placed upon it, was anything but a flat-surfaced experience. It was in fact because the church so believed in the great range of psychological activity possible that it was so dogmatic and tireless in trying to maintain order.

Anyone who experienced “something that could not exist” was therefore to some extent or another deluded or deranged. [...] (Long pause.) Modern psychology was an attempt to make man conform to the new scientific world view.

The nursery school was at the time the only move he felt really open to him. He was afraid he would not manage a steady income with the Avon, and already frightened of the mobility it demanded. [...] He felt guilty at turning down the yoga classes, yet he felt that to match your performance he was expected to work five afternoons. [...]

[...] This last Saratoga episode was highly beneficial, even though it frightened Ruburt because he was afraid to use the freedom offered to him. There was great emotional charge behind the whole reunion question, and the “shall I go—shall I not go”—questioning discharged long withheld energy. [...]

[...] The conflict—when it was touched off you see by the need to make more money again—the conflict resulted from what would appear to be two methods of making money. One method he felt was highly favored by you, and by far it seemed the most dependable, and he chose it.

[...] From the Irish side, a woman who worked for others, you see, was a domestic. There was, in the family history, always a struggle to work for oneself, this being a matter of class pride and independence.

(10:14.) He was too spiritually violent for the socialists or the communists. He was too socialistically inclined by far for the establishment, and when he turned finally to the land, it was a proud and yet defiant retreat. [...] He was an esthetic in workingman’s clothes, despite himself, espousing the old Protestant virtues of diligence, hard work, and no nonsense and no frills.

[...] As a young mean, Nearing, as he told you, was aware of spiritualism, and of those very aspects that were so explored by James, and he was fascinated. Spiritualism exists with such fervor in your country because Americans like the idea of a communication with the dead on an individual basis, minus the intervention of priests, and hence the pioneering spirit was early tuned to do-it-yourself séances and the like. [...]

[...] Helen was very agile. Scott Nearing was quite interested in how well the Seth books were doing, whether any of the “leading magazines” had interviewed Jane, and so forth. [...]

[...] Jane was very restless, and had been so for much of the day. She wanted action, was full of nervous energy. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] Because of her excitement in the day’s events, she felt Seth was using a more deliberate manner than usual in order to “lull” her psychologically. Jane said she was fully aware of Seth’s tactics. She announced also that she was cooperating in case Seth wanted to say anything about the notes on her ESP manuscript.

(My drawing was actually a recreation of artwork that had been lost at Artistic Card Co. As often happens the original art was later found after I had duplicated it. 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. [...]

[...] When I remarked that I often woke up to notice that Jane was sleeping without a pillow, having pushed it aside in her sleep, Seth said this was an indication that her subconscious knew what it was doing. [...]

[...] If it was near the ocean, it was where the ocean was quiet, for example a bay location.

(Jane dictates:) There was an afternoon in a small park when you were a boy, about eleven. [...] It was, I believe, in late summer or early fall. [...] It was close to five, September 17th, but on a day when there was no school.

[...] We could tell there was a railroad nearby, but it was so dark we could see nothing. [...] It was some hours before we could find another place to stop. [...]

[...] You turned to watch, and you were going to point out the squirrel to the stranger, but when you turned around he was gone. [...] For a short time you wondered, and then the incident was forgotten. As a matter of fact, at that same time your brother Loren was looking out of your father’s shop, and he saw nothing.

[...] Father’s name was Throckmorton. [...] She was drowned in a flood in another country, not France. [...]

[...] It was most necessary that we go slowly, particularly in the beginning, for if our foundation was not strong we would have never progressed. [...] Our venture was not fated to be. [...] It was necessary however that we meet in such a manner without clashing.

(Jane’s voice was quite amused. [...] It was excellently done, and was printed on July 6.)

(I recalled, also, that as I was drifting off to sleep upon retiring that evening, I had been aware of a slight sensation of tingling or thrilling in my hands. This mild sensation has been a rather standard one for me during psychological time, when presumably I was in a light state of dissociation. This was by far the most pronounced feeling of enlargement that I have experienced, and is separate from the other strong bodily sensations of thrilling, or the feeling of sound as Seth describes it, that I have known upon a few occasions.

(The session was again held in our front room, with all of us sitting in a circle. [...] Her manner was quite active and much of the time she leaned forward, elbows on her knees. [...]

[...] The ape was at home in the library, and his face was compassionate. [...] Ruburt’s idea was still one of controlling those instincts and his “animal” abilities. On another level, because the ape was in the library, compassionate and understanding, Ruburt was seeing symbolically the force of his own physical nature, quite at home with itself, and at home in the psychic library of the mind.

He abhorred liquor because he was aware of the tales saying that liquor was the Indians’ downfall. [...] He was an outsider and a small, short, tubercular-looking man. He felt himself a pygmy, because of size and because as an Indian he was put down. [...]

[...] He was after all Ruburt’s mother’s father, and therefore the source out of which Ruburt’s mother came—the higher power, so to speak. [...] In other terms the past was altered, in that Ruburt now experienced the yearned-for mother love that was warm in its animal female understanding, supportive and strong enough to easily bear a child’s small ragings and hatreds.

[...] It was then, though he forgot, that he was given the elixir to strengthen him.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] While she was giving the envelope data some snow broke loose from a steep third floor roof of the house, and came crashing down on a porch roof not far from our living room; the house shook. Jane heard this, she said, but was not bothered by it. [...]

[...] No one came up the stairs of our apartment house while this data was being given. The art room at Artistic, where the envelope photo was taken, is located on the second floor. Since the photo was taken at noon it is possible people were using the stairs at the end of the hall. [...]

Ruburt was correct. He was not at his best this evening. [...] In the past when he was not at his best, we simply could not get this much legitimate information through. [...]

(The 32nd envelope experiment was held during the session. The object was a black and white Polaroid photo, taken of myself by a coworker in September 1960, at my desk at the Artistic Card Co. [...]

(“I dreamed I was on a bed, Rob on one side of me and another man also. [...] Then, though I’m not sure, I think that the doctor reassured me, that only one baby was involved. The hospital, or whatever it was, was near Lizzy Roohan’s old house, in my childhood neighborhood in Saratoga Springs, NY. I was pleased that the delivery was so easy and painless for me.”)

(The session was held in our front room. All windows were shut tightly, and the traffic noise was not a problem, although it was audible to some degree. [...] Today was Valentine’s Day. Jane had been in a good mood, and so was Seth. [...]

[...] Seth was correct. [...] This was a very heavy wet snow that began shortly before 1 AM Sunday, February 13; it continued until dawn, accumulating about an inch, then turned into a very heavy soaking rain that lasted all day Sunday and on into the night. [...]

[...] Jane was well dissociated for a first break, she said. Her voice was heavier than usual, and her pace had finally become very fast. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes were open at the end of the session, her voice quiet, and she was smiling. I might add that while Jane was reading her dreams to me just prior to the session, I was only half listening as I got ready to take the notes. [...]

[...] It came upon me abruptly at about 8:45, while Jane was reading to me her account of the two dreams in question. [...] For reasons I was not aware of, I nevertheless felt the sneezing was related to the dreams.

(The session was held in our back room. [...] Her pace was a little slow in the beginning but soon picked up speed. Her voice was average.)

[...] The experience was to have been remembered however as a dream. He was not to have recalled its true nature, and it was hoped that he would elaborate the experience into a dream which would be composed of the constructive elements which the experience had given him.

[...] As Seth said, she did not appear; her planned activities at the newspaper where she works were changed unexpectedly; she was taken out of town Wednesday night, the time of the 242nd session. Peggy was given the assignment in the afternoon, she said, and it could have been around 3 PM; she does not know the exact time. Seth, or Jane, was incorrect on the day however. Peggy was given the out-of-town assignment one day earlier, Tuesday, March 15.

(There was no disturbance at the newspaper through Wednesday of last week, Peggy said, but there was a most definite one, involving the manager and the city editor, on Thursday, March 17. [...] Since Seth was a day late regarding the change of plan, we wondered if he was a day early regarding the disturbance.

(The 42nd envelope experiment was held during the session. [...] The object is the insurance receipt for the tape of the 170th session, which was sent to Dr. Instream on July 23,1965. The tape was made with the Gallaghers as witnesses, at their home outside Elmira, NY, on July 19,1965.

(The session was held in our front room. [...] She was not smoking; her voice was average, her pace again slow, with many pauses.)

(Jane had been much surprised at hearing her voice, as Seth, as it was taped Monday, July 19, for Dr. Instream. [...] She also was uneasy in that she felt Seth was too harsh at times; she worried about the reception Dr. Instream would give the tape, since Seth spoke in no uncertain terms. [...]

(The session was quite short. It was held in our quiet back room. [...] Her pace was slow.)

[...] Tonight’s session was almost not held at all. [...] I worked until almost 9 PM transcribing notes from Monday’s taped session, then upon reconsidering told Jane it was okay with me if she wanted a session. [...]

I knew what I was doing in our last session. [...] It is natural that Ruburt was startled when he heard the way he sounds when he allows me to speak.

[...] When you see the type of poetry that I was writing then, you will understand immediately why the ideas in “Idea Construction” were such a revelation to me. [...] The way I saw life was the way life was! [...]

Magic was my middle name,
I was so brave and tall.
No one knew who I was then,
Myself least of all.

Yet that same May, while I was writing the most pessimistic of poetry, I also remember a break in my mood, a quickening of spirit that was reflected in two poems of quite a different nature. The first was written on my birthday.

I was untouched ten years ago,
By love and even pain.
The world touched me or touched me not.
To me it was the same.

[...] [I’d begun to mow the grass.] Jane was waking—but she was in a surprisingly uncomfortable, “sore” state involving her legs and hips. [...] It was clear something had happened: Jane said her legs were more relaxed than they’d been in years—but at the same time they were so sore she was appalled. [...]

[...] She began speaking, or dictating, to me in her own voice—not Seth’s, for instance—but it was wavering, choked with tears. Her head was bent over, her eyes closed often so that I was afraid she’d bump into her glass of Coke, and perhaps knock it over. [...]

[...] And what it meant was that Israel itself was a simile for the individual —that is, one person—who was (long pause) composed of so many fantasies and dreams and prophecies and hopes and angers and fears. [...]

[...] I was typing last night’s deleted session this morning, when at about 10:00 AM Jane said she would like to lie down briefly. [...] When I looked in on Jane at 10:30, thinking she’d want to get up, I found instead that she was sleeping heavily, with her knees and legs relaxed and “dumped” to her left in a more relaxed position than usual. [...]

[...] The group was not with us when we tried moving the ring; it was with us when we concentrated upon the rocker. [...] Future contact was a possibility. The group was “interested” in watching our progress with Seth. They thought Seth was “all right” as a teacher. [...] Although some instruction was given to personalities on this plane through dreams, it was difficult because of the ever-guarding ego. [...]

(I was working at the time but we decided to take advantage of her mood. It was now dark outside. The night was windy and wet. [...] Shadows were active; the room was rather well lighted by lights from passing traffic.

[...] They said he was an educator, and that they were also. One of the more interesting points the spokesman made was that much instruction was passed on to our plane of existence through dreams; this when the ego was more relaxed.

[...] Since a session was due tonight, Jane studied the letter in the event Seth would choose to deal with it this evening. Just before the session was due she read the three questions aloud. Jane did not feel up to par and was not particularly in the mood for a session.

The word I wanted in connection with Ruburt’s name was not note. It was Nostra, N-o-s-t-r-a. This was part of her name: Nostratious was the first name. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. Her eyes remained closed and her pace was slow. She was aware that she was very restless. [...]

[...] Jane believes that she quite possibly made the diagram on the same day she typed up page 80, which was used as envelope object. Page 112 was used in the final version of chapter five, fortunately, and so was not thrown away. [...] It is one Jane made to help her see clearly certain points involving the whole self, and waking and dreaming states. There was much handwritten copy beneath it. [...]

In connection with Boston, there was a street, I believe called Grant, or there was a building called the Grant Building or residence, which was used in connection with a church. [...]

[...] That was one of your questions, I know. There was a distant connection however on the part of one of your relatives. He was on a journey from England to Boston, and stopped briefly at a Boston church where Joseph was then a minister. [...] The man, I believe, was your father.

[...] Our friend was a collector of dues within the organization to which he belonged. The name was on many records, but you would not find them now. There was a life in Arabia, a poor and humble one, and one much more recently in the Midwest of this country; as a woman.

I said Midwest, and yet it was further west, I believe. The population seems to have been no more than 13,000 at the time, at a peak period, and yet for a long time the population was but 3,000. Married to a man who dealt with cloth stuffs, and with some material that was made into large bags or sacks.

[...] This was an attempt on his part to reach certain levels of intuition that had not yet taken conscious form. On this particular occasion Ferd was not involved. Our young friend was developing his own intuitive abilities.

[...] He was also using his writing ability, or putting his writing ability at the hand of the material. Then again it had better be legitimate, since it was obvious he was being interviewed as a psychic who wrote, rather than as a writer with psychic abilities.

[...] Jane’s trance was again good. She said Seth was very affectionate tonight—that it was one of those nights, etc.)

[...] Jane was well dissociated, she said. [...] I was only floundering around trying to find ways of relieving the symptoms, even if this meant suspending ESP classes, or the sessions, or whatever, while we tackled the problems at hand.

Poetry was acceptable. [...] In the psychic area he was afraid it could lead to falsehood, much more for example than he feared anything like schizophrenia. [...]

(I was with Doctor Kiley and another man who was also a doctor. Doctor Kiley is also dead, has been for some years, at least seven, and was a brother of Helen McIlwain; she was in my dream of November 8, relating to my mother and Seth’s subsequent statements concerning her death. [...]

[...] I didn’t see as much of them by the time I was in high school, then college. [...] When I was small he gave me presents. [...] He was a big heavyset man with a square jaw.)

[...] She was not nervous. [...] Her manner was normal in all respects.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. She felt somewhat let down and disappointed that the session was so short: “It seems real odd. [...]