“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Immediately the mouth vanished, I was swept from head to toe by my familiar thrilling, the feeling of sound. The sensation was very strong and suffusing, almost one of ecstasy. [...] I realized that I was smiling, and that beneath the blindfold my eyes were open. [...]

(On Wednesday, May 13, Miss Callahan’s relatives asked Jane if we could move Miss Callahan’s blue divan into our apartment, and in its place let them take a hide-away bed we had in storage; this bed to be used for a nurse who was to live with Miss Callahan when she was brought home from the Town House. We agreed to the swap and it was made Thursday, May 14.

[...] As it was, although I told Jane it was up to her as to whether we kept it or not, it was actually Jane who offered it to Leonard. [...]

[...] As usual this vision was over before I realized I had seen it, yet during the sighting I was for the first time unaware of my body lying on the bed.

(The 19th envelope test was held this evening. The test object was the front of an envelope mailed to us by Jane’s father last July. [...] The writing was in blue ink on white paper. [...] The envelope front was folded once and placed between two sheets of Bristol, then sealed in the usual double envelopes.

(The session was held in our front room. With the windows closed traffic noise was not a problem. [...] Seth/Jane was quite pleased and amused, and spoke with a smile. Jane was smoking.)

(It was now time for the 22nd Dr. Instream test. [...] She used pauses but all in all her pace was not particularly slow. Her voice was quiet. [...]

[...] Jane, very amused, commented every so often that she received little “messages” from a certain party, expressing approval of our actions, and merely suggesting that we do get to the session at least a few minutes before the Instream material was due.

(Jane felt that “white, snow white,” was valid data, even though she was thinking of a certain photo of my parent’s house, taken when there was deep snow. [...] The light was actually quite dim, but the ultraviolet made anything white appear to be blinding white-paper, socks, white shirts, etc. The effect was very striking. The napkin was of white paper.

(Tonight’s session was held in our back room, and was a quiet one. [...] Her rate of speaking was good from the start, her voice quiet.)

(The design on the napkin covers one quarter of the surface area, and it was this quarter which was “turned up” to us when the waitress placed the folded napkins on the table before us. There was of course no photo involved, or a house or any connection with my parents, or the past.

[...] One was brunette, one was blonde. Both of us liked the brunette the best, for whatever reason, and certainly she was the better dancer of the two.

(The 51st envelope experiment was held during the session. The object was placed as usual between two pieces of Bristol and sealed in double envelopes. It was a newspaper article by Peggy Gallagher, published in the Elmira Star-Gazette and Advertiser on May 4,1966; today. The photo of Mrs. Bessie Berry was not included in the test envelopes. It appeared on the same page of the newspaper, just above the center column of the object itself, but was attched to another article about Mrs. Berry.

[...] Obviously two personalities made such changes in the physical organism that the allergy was brought on. The organism was physically changed and affected. Even though one personality took over for an hour, still for that hour the physical organism itself was a different one.

[...] As stated the photo of Mrs. Berry was not used in the experimental envelope. This photo was included in another article; the photo was centered above the middle column of the object. [...]

[...] One was by Peggy Gallagher and this is the one used as envelope object. Just above Peggy’s article the other article was printed. [...] The second article also included another photo—this one of a man who was also elected with Mrs. Berry. [...]

[...] This York Beach dancing establishment was actually a ground floor room in one of the older beach hotels there. It was a rectangular room, lined with tables and chairs in rows. The ceiling was very low, and it was dimly lit. It was not a large room, and the dance floor was quite small; fifteen couples would be forced to stand elbow to elbow. The bandstand was at the end of the dance floor, and when the trumpet blared the noise was deafening. Both times we were there, it was very crowded, blue with smoke.

[...] The type of fragment your friend saw was something like this latter personality image, but so disconnected from your friend, and so absent-mindedly was it sent upon its travels, that its information was probably passed directly to the entity which your friend represents.

(The incident referred to is as follows: Rob was very sick last winter and spring and into summer. [...] Rob was inclined to call it off, but I was [...]

Looking back, you can say that this effect was therapeutic, but if you had subconsciously accepted the images it would have marked the beginning of a severe deterioration for you both personally and creatively. [...] The fact that the images were of yourselves shows that your destruction was turned inward even though materialized in the outer world.

We must start with the fact that Ruburt did not feel secure as a child, but was made somewhat to feel responsible for his mother’s illness and breakup of her marriage. He was then sent to a home. He was a high-spirited child, and was taught there that he must toe the mark and do what the others did, or he would be punished.

Your own joint sexual love was too hot for either of you to handle, and you both tempered it with intellectualism and caution; but for all of that it has endured. [...] He identified mentally, however, with science, with the avant-garde, and so was sustained. [...] When Ruburt discovered that his energy and abilities had led him to a point where he was at odds with religion and science, and had no place to roost, thematically, he became very worried.

(10:00.) If you did not toe the mark, you were punished severely, or abandoned; or your sustenance was cut off. His unconscious had learned to tread a careful line, to let Ruburt use his abilities while seeing that he was protected at the same time. Its ideas were largely gained in childhood, and there was a giveand-take between Ruburt’s fears and hopes. [...]

[...] As a result of our work with the pendulum this morning, Jane was so relaxed by session time that she didn’t know whether she could manage a session. [...] Tonight’s session was excellent, and should of course be studied in connection with the material we’ve already accumulated through pendulum work.)

(She wasn’t too clear as to what she was panicky about, but as we talked I began to understand that she was re-experiencing the same round of fears that she had many times in the past, and that many of these private sessions have been devoted to over the years: her mother, her need for love, her fears of abandonment, the conflicts involving success and the psychic work, our relationship, and so forth, if anything’s left. I was certainly upset and irritated, for it seemed nothing new would come out of it all. I couldn’t help feeling that that was the way we were fated to live out our lives—that we’d picked those paths as a matter of choice years ago. [...]

[...] I still wanted to know why that portion of the personality was so blind to the harm it was wreaking—why it didn’t understand even in its own terms that its devastation was threatening greatly the very security and protection it has said it wanted. [...]

[...] The end was abrupt. I felt so many emotions churning within me that I wondered just how I was supposed to express all of this love amid all of them. Was I supposed to just rise above all of them and forget everything else, or what? [...]

[...] I’d known she was brooding—that was obvious—and withdrawn. [...]

[...] Literally, the sound traveled further often than was intended, causing consequences not planned upon. Great finesse was important. Sound was also used after irrigation to speed up the flowering of plants, and to facilitate transplantation to other areas. It was also utilized for medicinal purposes in operations, particularly in bone and brain operations.

(The sensation was quite definite, and quite strange. For I still felt my body against the bed—I lay face up, covered by a blanket—as though my body was pasted to the bed. [...] There was no fear or panic. [...]

In some respects the overenthusiastic use of the sound was responsible for the flood mentioned in the Bible, and other literature. It was for this reason that many attempts were made to warn against the impending disaster. The use of sound was important at various times in irrigating dry areas, quite literally by pulling water from a distance. [...]

Verbal sounds were often stereotyped simply because the effect of sound was understood in its effects upon the body. [...] Sound was used to locate one also, and to break someone down. It was also used to locate gas pockets.

[...] Therefore the fear was a conscious one, and basically unwarranted. The unconscious was not (underlined) threatening your artistic self. You were afraid that it was, or that unwittingly the symptoms would bring this about. [...]

(I was thinking this over. I followed it all right, but at the same time I was wondering why the unconscious, when it saw how I was taking the symptom, didn’t get busy and eliminate it and set me at rest. [...]

The understanding that the artistic self was not being threatened should allow you to relax sufficiently for the suggestions to take effect more. [...] Your deduction you see was false—the earlier deduction that it threatened the painting.

There was no great diversion. The unconscious was trying to give you what it thought you wanted, in that respect, now. [...]

[...] Jane’s pace was quite slow.) The Christ entity was one. The Buddha was another. [...]

[...] It was then that it was memorized. They realized it was always available at an unconscious level.

[...] There was always great interaction however between inner and outer existence for them, as there is today. Valid information gained in the dream state was memorized in the morning. [...] On the other hand, pertinent physical data was also communicated one to another in the dream state, and both states were utilized to a high degree. [...]

(Here there was an exchange between Seth and me, in which I didn’t have to take notes. Seth said this chapter was intended as a change of pace from the long excerpts included in the book. It was also designed to make the reader think of his own questions. [...]

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. [...] She was not, she said, nervous while giving the Dr. Instream data. [...] Jane said the impression was not too clear, and that she also had some impression of the living room and terrace of the Instream apartment, which we had seen in July 1965.

(Jane told me she was nervous, however, when it came to our own envelope test. [...] She said it was hard to say exactly when she became nervous, but that it was probably as I handed her the test envelope.

[...] I saw fairly clearly a four-column layout set in type; at the top was a plate for printing a photograph, with headline lettering on either side of the photo. [...] On Friday night Bill told me my sketch was pretty close to the layout he finally decided upon at the office, and talked over with the stereotyper. My impression was of the metal printing plate, not the final printed ad. [...]

(The label was brittle and quite brown with age, and broke apart when removed. There was nothing on its reverse side. [...]

[...] Not only was charity not given, its practical nature was not even considered. [...] Poverty was their penance, and it was considered a sacrilege to try to help those whom God had cursed. [...] Compassion for living things in males was regarded as a weakness to be plucked out. [...]

[...] Now the energy itself was exhilarating. For the first time, many of the participators realized intuitively that such energy was also the source of creativity. [...] The energy, of course, was neutral. It was their use of it at the time that caused the destructive elements.

[...] There is one aspect here that I have not previously mentioned: Man was not allowed to play with the more dangerous toys until certain evidence was given that he had gained some control. [...] It simply meant that such destruction was not inevitable. [...]

The energy that was liberated, however, has already changed your national scene and will continue to do so. [...] This will not happen before disasters also occur, but when it does happen it will represent the first time within the planet’s history when there was peace with equality for all.

[...] She was again nervous and edgy, and had another smoke. [...] She talked about how the one priest who put her to bed when she was but 3 or 4 years old would “play” with her sexually, and how Marie finally figured that out. This was the one who called her up while we lived together; he was old and living in a retirement home south of Pennsylvania, I believe. She described how Father Trenton sat with his back to Marie when he was mad at the mother, and how Father Rakin made advances to her. [...] The first time they met, Jane said Father Rakin said to her when she was but 13: “You’re just too forward.” [...] Several times in Florida she thought I was going to leave her. [...]

[...] She was very afraid to get pregnant, and never fooled around. After our marriage she was afraid of being pregnant, thinking it would wreck our careers. [...] She felt the men didn’t pay her serious attention at the science-fiction conference 27 years ago because she was a woman. [...]

(Jane was terrified a couple of times that she might be pregnant by me. [...] “But I certainly felt the feminine part of you was the part you couldn’t trust,” she said. As we talked about these things she said she was getting edgy and nervous, and wanted a cigarette, so we were getting close to buried feelings.

[...] Again Jane was nervous and edgy, near crying. [...] The Catholic idea of penance was mixed in here. [...] She was very uncomfortable, but no tears.

Great adjustments would have had to occur in any case, and subconsciously he was aware of this. [...] At the time the course was set and the personality was developed, that had taken a wrong course, for it.

[...] Jane’s pace was somewhat faster now, and her eyes opened occasionally. Her voice was stronger and she said she was pretty far-out.

[...] Jane said her impression of the woman in question was of a person more masculine than usual for a female, but she didn’t voice this during the session. John said that while Seth was speaking the name Laura Bittner popped into his mind. He saw this woman, who is stocky and in her fifties or early sixties, at his mother’s funeral, for the first time in many years, and now remembered that L.B. had been a close friend of his mother’s when he [John] was a child.

(John Bradley was a witness to tonight’s session. [...] Interestingly, John began to ask us questions about the Indian teacher, Baba, who was discussed by Seth and Gene Bernard in the 303rd session. [...]

(This question was inspired by Bill’s note re city, country, territory, etc. I was somewhat reluctant to ask it. The first question on this theme, in which Seth answered Australia, was my own idea.)

Before Ruburt had the opportunity to turn your machine on, I was here and it was left to me to flip the switch.

(Seth’s manner in speaking to Pete was, on the overall, quite restrained and serious, and the difference from his usual manner was quite obvious to the Gallaghers and myself. [...]

Ferd was a soldier, I believe. An involvement in a Balkan military affair that was not a full-scale war. [...]

[...] You felt that there was nothing you could do about the situation, that there was no reason to worry about it, but the anxiety was displaced then, draining your energies.

[...] (On February 19.) What was said should show you that Ruburt’s condition also became the focus of your combined discontents, the physical picture of it. The energy to maintain it, almost (underlined) in direct proportion to your combined discontents, was composed of the displaced energy not put into your prime purposes. [...]

I am not saying that he was completely better then, but the improvements far outweighed the symptoms at that time. [...] That was the result of discounting improvements as they did show themselves, and this applies to both of you.

[...] It was obviously one born from your basic creative natures—a challenge rather than a problem, but one that was interwoven with all kinds of social and economic and family connotations.

(By 8:50 she was again nervous. She was also tired, as I was. When she said that the thought of talking and pacing for 2½ or 3 hours was somewhat appalling, I had to admit that I felt the same way about the physical labor of writing for that period of time.

(Jane was in the same state of dissociation during each monologue. She said she was not aware of her surroundings, and yet she was. She said it was not frightening because she knew she could snap out of it any time she chose.)

(Jane believed she received more, but she was in a dreamy state and could recall nothing upon awakening. At 8:30 she had no idea of what Seth would talk about for the session, but she was increasingly aware of a feeling that Seth wanted her to ask Leonard in as a witness. We thought it too late to explain much to him by then, but by 8:35 the feeling was so strong that Jane knocked on Leonard’s door.

[...] Jane was dissociated as usual. Her voice had been fairly strong at the start of the session, but it was tapering off by the time break arrived. She said she heard Seth’s good afternoon greeting just before she gave voice to it, and immediately became alarmed because she couldn’t determine what was going on. [...]

(The evening was very hot and humid; it had just rained. [...] No session was held last Monday because it had been equally hot. Jane was exhausted.

[...] She then seemed to project—she felt that she was hovering in the air over the Glen campground, which we know so well, and that she was looking down at the darkening green trees as they would appear at the present time—at about dusk.

(Leaning forward in her rocker, eyes closed, Jane was now slowly moving her torso and head about. The voice however was growing weaker.)

(Jane was very relaxed indeed. [...] She sat on the divan beside me, and at 10:10 was practically asleep.

12) old man in a wheelchair—not connected with the watch.
* Don knew a woman who was crippled with arthritis who spent a lot of time in a wheelchair. She was a small woman… Jane’s impression was of a small person.

4) a connection with someone else beside Don with the watch.
* correct—the watch was a gift from his wife.

5) small stupid incident immediately before or after the purchase.
* correct—It was a Christmas gift and he had bought the same item, a watch for his wife. They both knew what the other had bought and decided to open them Xmas eve because they knew.

7) another package involved.
* correct—The smaller watch package was slipped inside of a larger package.

Now when I say there was a state of nonbeing, and yet speak of All That Was, existing simultaneously in that state, I mean (pause), that All That Is did exist, itself, obviously in a state of being, but in a state in which it could not find expression for its own being. This was the state of agony of which I spoke. [...]

He then purposely gave these more and more detail, and yearned toward this diversity and grew to love that which was not as yet created from himself. [...] They also then yearned to be actual, so there was this final breaking-through that was still necessary.

This was indeed in your terms a primary cosmic dilemma (pause), and one with which he wrestled, until All That He Was was completely involved and enveloped within that cosmic problem.

(The evening was again very hot and humid, and Jane had been bothered by such conditions all day; but she wanted to hold the session as usual. [...]