“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] The skin about them was a light brown. At the fringes of my field of vision I saw that the face containing these magnificent eyes was quite hairy, covered by long black shining hair almost as though I was visualizing a throwback to more primitive man. But there was no sense of primitiveness here; these limpid brown eyes regarded me impassively; there was no intrinsic threat. [...]

You did not break it purposely, but the other individual concerned was bewildered, and to some extent frightened, and he withdrew. [...] It was this emotional reaction that was felt by the other individual, and the other individual had no idea what this emotion was.

[...] This was to a party given by Bill Macdonnel at his art gallery on Thursday, December 30. It was called a New Year’s Eve party, was very crowded, and there was dancing. [...]

(As soon as I fully, consciously, realized what was taking place, I reacted violently in the manner described below by Seth. [...] I thought my reaction was a normal one, yet was angry at myself for reacting so strongly. [...]

As it was, I didn’t know what had happened, yet even then I felt that my life had suddenly changed. The word “revelation” came to mind and I tried to dismiss it, yet the word was apt. I was simply afraid of the term with its mystical implications. I was familiar with inspiration in my own work, but this was as different from ordinary inspiration as a bird is from a worm!

Our curiosity was aroused, to say the least. [...] About this time I was also looking for a new book idea, and Rob made the suggestion that was to lead us further and further away from the way of life we’d always known.

It was a lovely autumn evening. [...] Rob was painting in the back studio, three rooms away. [...]

What happened next was like a “trip” without drugs. [...] I was tuned in, turned on—whatever you want to call it—connected to some incredible sorce of energy. [...]

(Jane and I cannot say exactly who was at the table when it broke, although we know that neither of us was, nor was Curt Kent, who sat to one side drinking beer. [...] So much force was used to shatter the table leg that a nail two and a quarter inches long, that I had used in my previous repair bout, was bent at an exact right angle. [...]

(Needless to say, when Carl or whoever was measuring pressure on the scale, the other three took pains to see that they were not subconsciously exerting a heavy pressure on the other side of the table,thus forcing a stronger response across the tabletop to get the legs back on the floor. Such checking was easy to do; nevertheless conscious deliberate checks were constantly being made to make certain opposing pressures were not unwittingly being exerted. [...] This steady checking has the added advantage that it serves as a protection against any possible hallucination [although this would have to be a mass effect, and highly unlikely]; the checking in a deliberate manner was a good method to keep one’s feet on the floor, so to speak, even if the table was acting contrary to gravity.

[...] I cannot recall whether pressure was apparent at such times. I am tempted to say that it probably was not as strongly present as at other times when we frankly requested pressure in order to experience it. At just about all times one or more of us was talking to the table, exhorting it to go on, to better its performance, in most positive tones.

(The table was active until after 1 AM. [...] At the same time Carl insisted that he was not deliberately twisting the table this way around himself. The twisting was rapid.

[...] He was from a good family. He was however cruelly-natured in many respects. It was a time when such cruelty was indeed accepted, and sensitivity was hardly a way of life.

[...] She was very active as far as gesturing was concerned, and her delivery was quite animated. But the closest she came to getting to her feet was when she rose to her knees while speaking.)

[...] It was a locality rather close to Wales. There was mining nearby. I believe that there was a family crest; I think two dragons, the image of Saint George, and a shield on the crest.

[...] I saw this road as though I was traveling on it, heading straight ahead. It was a gray day. The sensation of forward movement was most definite, up and down low hills. [...]

Although my confidence had risen with the two out-of-body episodes, I felt that I was putting Seth and myself on the line with each test session. [...] Often I was afraid of having a session for fear we’d have an envelope test and the results just would not apply. (This never happened, incidentally, though the impressions given were not always as specific as we would have liked.) Actually I didn’t care what was in the envelopes—I just wanted to know if Seth could tell us, and I wanted him to be absolutely right each time. My attitude was bound to have an effect. Now I wonder that Seth was able to do anything with me at all in those days, but most of the time he managed to do very well indeed.

[...] The given date was correct, and the article goes on to tell about a young priest, Father Fernandes (F and R—the abbreviation for “Father” is Fr.), who was on a mission in this country to get funds to modernize the seminary. He was also described as organizing a pilgrimage to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary celebrations at Fatima, which is only ten miles from the seminary. [...] The “Januarious” connection doesn’t seem to be related, yet it is highly important because for me personally it had a strong religious connotation: one of my favorite grade-school teachers was a nun, Sister Januarious. [...]

This test was funny, really, because Seth was doing beautifully on his own. [...] The envelope item was a bill of Rob’s, dated July 15, 1966. The session was on August 1. I’d been with Rob at the lumberyard when he got the bill. [...]

One of our favorite topics of conversation that year was when will we hear from Dr. Instream? [...] When finally the suspense was too much for me, I would write: were we getting any hits or weren’t we? [...] But that was all. [...] Was the data all wrong? [...]

When all that was changed, as indeed it should have been (pause), the world underwent great changes. [...] He was not of equal value with a prince, either of church or state. His position was a poor one, yet its freedoms and limitations were known, and his value, whatever it was, was accepted as his station in life. He might be a good yeoman or a poor one, but a yeoman he was. [...]

[...] “I had no idea if that was the stuff I was getting this morning or not,” Jane said. “I was pretty far out of it. It was fun—as if you were looking at another culture and seeing that that was how those people were living. [...]

The peasant was poor because he was basically brutish as a result of his parentage. The gentleman was accomplished because a certain refinement came into his blood because of his royal—or nearly—parentage. [...] A man of property, whether he be a scoundrel or a fool, was first and foremost a man of worth. [...]

[...] “That’s what shits me—and here last night and this morning I was getting it all so clearly.” [...] So something was there after all. [...] Now I’m getting something over there [to her left] that’s entirely disconnected from what I was getting two minutes ago over here. [...]

Even the first had its psychological applications, for the uncle at that time was dissatisfied with existence and with his accomplishments, and the carelessness that helped result in his accident was also partially his own. But the fact that the conception was accidental, and the death was accidental, has its own intuitive logic.

Your sister was also fond of the uncle, and therefore was instrumental in this life in allowing him new entry; but you joined for that purpose only. The fascination was an expression of a past fascination of a different kind, though you were pleased that this time you were older.

[...] While there was a past family connection, you were not the closest of friends, and there was no need or desire on either of your parts for a family connection of any duration in this life.

[...] Jane was out of trance easily. [...] This was not country settings.

The twine was nearest I could get Ruburt to come. I was seeing however the January 25 letter Ruburt wrote, and was trying to get across the idea of a book to be mailed out. There was some small discussion, if you recall, when it was mailed, as to whether or not twine should be used.

(In order to understand the data it was necessary to write out a schedule of events; most of this was done after the session. As it was we spent about half an hour during break in an effort to begin to sort out the impressions. It developed that four letters were involved with the envelope object, and that one of these was enclosed in the experimental object. [...]

[...] This acknowledged Jane’s letter of January 20, and was written by F. Fell’s secretary, Rhoda Monks. She informed Jane that F. Fell was out of town for two weeks, and that he would be back in town—NYC—on February 7. F. Fell was out of town from Monday January 24, to Monday February 7. It developed that he was in Florida on a selling trip and vacation.

[...] 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:”.

[...] My back was acting up, work was difficult, and by suppertime I was drained. I did not really feel like taking fifteen to twenty pages of dictation from Seth; I was concerned lest I miss some of the material.

(It was rather quiet in the studio, though I could hear Jane’s typewriter, but through the closed doors the sound was muffled and rather steady, and the rest of the house was quiet. [...]

(Also after supper it developed that Miss Callahan, the retired school teacher who lives in the front apartment on our floor, had evidently had an attack of some kind and was in urgent need of help. [...] Jane went to see Miss Callahan, who had difficulty answering the door, was suffering from lapses of memory, and was indeed in poor condition. [...]

(Sometime later during the night, when all was quiet, Jane awoke and received another message from Seth: Seth told me, Jane, I was wrong in saying to Rob “You were some help,” as his attack came on at once after the remark.)

[...] I do not know what floor it was on, except that it was at least several floors up. It was not an office I had ever been in, yet was next door to an office I used to visit occasionally when Jane and I lived in Tenafly, NJ, and I was free-lancing as an artist in NYC. [...] The publisher I worked for occasionally was Charles Biro, the time was around 1955. [...]

(The entrance to Charles Biro’s offices was at the end of a hallway, as I remember, and the door to the anonymous office I visited tonight is next door to it. [...] To my left was a narrow window of vertical design, with either an aluminum or stainless steel frame. Looking out of this window, which was perhaps only two feet wide, I could see a shining aluminum or steel guardrail, and that even if a person managed to jump or fall out of this window, the safety of a stone parapet lay perhaps ten feet below. The time was daylight.

[...] He was involved with esoteric religious ceremonies and concerned with certain religious, scientific, and psychic experiments long before your continent was civilized. He was a priest 4,000 years ago.

Roarck, in one of his past existences, was concerned with just such problems. However the society with which he was involved was of course seeped in its own ignorance, as your society is seeped in its now.

I’ve mentioned both of these dreams because each was involved with a near-accident. [...] No one we knew even owned a cycle, and neither my father-in-law or myself had the slightest idea who the driver was. [...] Then, I remembered that when he was a young man, Rob’s father did have motorcycles. There were family pictures in an old album showing him proudly standing next to one when he was courting Rob’s mother. [...] So the connection became clear: There was a hidden association in Rob’s father’s mind and my own, an emotional shared experience that “predisposed” us toward an interest in cycles.

[...] The white woman was speaking on the telephone. In an aside, she disclosed that the caller was her husband, who was out of town. He was telling her that they must move. She was very embarrassed because she would not have time to give proper notice to the school or landlord. [...]

In the hallway, I was surprised to run into Anna Taylor. She lived in an apartment right at the corner of Walnut and Water Streets, but she was not a close friend — barely an acquaintance — and we saw her rarely. I knew she was a teacher, but hadn’t the foggiest idea in what school. [...] She didn’t know I was teaching and had just been transferred to this school.

[...] The information was really that the apartment in the house next door, on the corner, would be vacant. The clothing sequence was wrong in that no one really hung out clothes. Yet it was valid, symbolically. [...] Anna’s last name was Taylor. [...]

He feels trapped in this apartment, that he is here because he is readily accessible to help your mother, as when he was a child he was readily accessible to help his own mother. He has a strong, affectionate, open nature that was dealt some harm. [...]

(At the time Rebellers was published, I was jealous, but it took me some time to learn this. [...] In fact, it was the memory of the success of that episode that led me to this morning’s session.)

[...] The funeral was on Monday, February 8 in Tunkhannock, PA. [...] Jane’s condition was not good and I became very concerned.

[...] It was very productive. [...] By suppertime Jane was getting some strong emotional reactions to parts of it. [...]

(The session was held in our back room and was free of interruptions. [...] Her voice was quiet, her pace quite slow in the beginning.)

Your dream was an excellent example, Joseph, of a clairvoyant one, in which definite new information was received. The information was specific, and you retained most of the identifying data.

You were given the precise title of the dream content; that is, you knew the particular story was called The Big Freeze. It is true that you forgot that the title itself was a part of the dream,yet you did remember enough so that you were sure of the particular story. You knew it was the first, rather than the second.

[...] The outlet was excellent for him, and in this case incidentally the energy was far from lost, though it was used. [...]

[...] None of this information was given in a superior, or smug or sarcastic manner. It was a warm evening and our living room windows were open. Traffic noise even at this hour was audible; when I told Seth he was in danger of being drowned out by the traffic noise, the voice immediately rose in strong volume, humorously, for a few sentences: “I will never be drowned out by traffic...” [...]

[...] I told him the lighting was flattering, but Bill insisted there was a different quality in the work, and that he did not believe it was due solely to suggestion.

(Seth went on to explain that with the exception of me everyone else in the room, including Jane, still had doubts as to what he was, that I accepted his explanation of his personality, and that this was a help in the sessions. [...] He did not go into detail here and I did not press for particulars because I was not making notes. [...]

[...] Seth, without being asked, told Peggy that she had a disturbance in the area of the third to fifth vertebrae, and that this, basically, was the cause of her back and arm disturbances. Peggy had thought circulation was at the seat of the trouble. Seth said the circulation was healthy, but interfered with somewhat by tension.

Now all of this was built upon certain levels of consciousness and beliefs—a unifying structure. [...] The environment at 458 was safe. Ruburt was there working—just as the doctors and insurance men and dentists were. The move here (to 1730) was a good one, because it exploded that framework. [...] The summer, with its implications of vacation, was added, however, as he knew it would be; so the structure of working was further evaded, it seemed particularly by warm weather, which inclination did not happen to fit his ideas of scheduled work.

Education was a practical tool. [...] Because he considered himself a writer, and because he considered a writer something different from a woman, it was difficult for him to realize that he was both.

[...] Economically it might also destroy the artist who was the woman’s husband. To have a child might help fulfill the man she was married to, but this could destroy the artist she was married to. [...]

[...] She was deadly frightened that Ruburt might have a child and not finish school. She also felt that Ruburt was a poor woman to begin with, in a way, because the intellect and femininity did not seem to mix—that is, Ruburt’s mother considered them odd components.

[...] The room was dark but I saw that her dress was blue. She was rather thin and fairly tall. Her face was not clear at all but her dress was clearly visible—at least the color. It was one-piece, of moderate length. [...] I do recall that our bookcase, behind her, showed up well; its cream color was clear although the rest of the room was dark. I believe her head was covered. [...] I had the feeling that something was trying to make me forget what I saw, so I quickly woke Rob and told him what I had seen. [...]

[...] At times during the data I wasn’t sure who was speaking—Jane or Seth. Sometimes when Ruburt was mentioned, I thought it was Jane saying so, rather than Seth. [...] Knowing it was wrong somehow, she tried to be objective, to get back on the right track without knowing how to go about it. There was a confusion of levels, she said, that left her groping.

(I then realized I was also “seeing” one of the men, the one who had laughed. [...] The one in my vision was a thin man in shirt sleeves, perhaps in his late thirties, with thick straight brown hair combed straight back, a thin very friendly face with a generous mouth. His voice was deep and gentle. [...]

(The session was held in the front room. [...] She was smoking however and her eyes soon began to open for brief periods. Her voice was average.)

It was midnight before the session ended. After it was over, and our salesman friend left for his motel in a nearby town, Seth came through with a few personal remarks for Rob. [...] My mind was a whirl. I knew that I felt that Seth was near, but, intellectually, I was full of questions. [...] Did I feel Seth, or was I indulging in fantasies of a highly dangerous nature?

While there was no specific entry point as far as human consciousness was concerned, there was a point (in your terms) where it did not seem to exist. The consciousness of being human was fully developed in the caveman, of course, but the human conception was alive in the fish.

[...] My previous nervousness was like a dream. I was aware of nothing except of a great supporting energy and, someplace far off, the room in which my body walked. [...] He was to attend many other sessions. [...] Some excellent evidential material was to be obtained through sessions with Mark several years later. He was to recall Seth’s warning to cut down on drinking because of his predisposition to gout; he came down with gouty arthritis.

This was to be the first time Seth really spoke to anyone else. I was half reluctant to hold a session and half curious as to how Seth would handle other people. I was also quite nervous. The session was actually a breakthrough in many respects, as these excerpts will show. [...]

I wanted to comment also on his period of blueness, since it certainly was unsettling to him. It was in its own way therapeutic: he was releasing old tensions that had been stored up, and they required that kind of fairly explosive release. [...]

[...] I was also puzzled. I asked Jane if Seth’s use of the word “explosive” was apropos, and she said it pretty well was. [...]

[...] Cathy came in once and asked her what the trouble was. [...] The crying went on after that, too, but then, before midnight, Jane said, the period of blueness was gone. She slept well after that: “Yeah, I woke up this morning and my mood was fine—I spontaneously felt good. [...]

[...] Jane said she was the one who’d told her when she first was assigned to 330 that when Jane was transferred, other people wouldn’t have time to give her a smoke, etc.

Now: in the first episode mentioned the experience was the same, only more vividly experienced since the focus personality was not fully awake and did not have immediate sense data to handle. There, Ruburt was inside the image that he had projected. His main consciousness was merged with mine in the session format; while in the waking experience his consciousness was in the normal image, which sensed the projected one. [...] He wanted to retain what was said, and sought for methods. [...]

(9:25.) There was a definite separation, however, in that the focus personality was able to sense its own greater extensions—or rather, those extensions to which it gives permission. Ruburt sat physically on the couch, yet at another level he did sit here (in the chair facing the couch), and in our relationship that was a fairly “sophisticated” kind of manipulation, involving the projection of a form outward—the double. But in this case the double was going about “its own affairs.” [...] The material was unconsciously assimilated.

I was saying in his first episode: “Ask and you shall receive, ask halfheartedly and you shall receive in exactly that measure,” and I was looking at you exactly as I am now. [...] Ruburt was asking for flexibility but he did not fully want it, and so halfhearted questions bring halfhearted answers. [...]

[...] He forgot what the session was about, remembering only one portion that seemed significant. The experience was quite vivid, obviously not a dream, yet not a normal waking event. [...]

(Dream # 1; November 19,1965: This was extremely sharp and vivid in detail, and in full color. [...] It was not too large. [...] There was a sharp drop-off below us. Part of the time I was looking out of a window, and part of the time I stood on the roof or a porch with Bill, our backs pressed up against the side of the house. The shingled roof slanted down and was covered with a fine snow. We were afraid to move because it was very slippery.

(Then I was looking at Bill, off to my left. He was too close to the edge of the porch roof. [...] I heard him hit the ground with such force that I was very afraid he had broken a limb. I then looked over the edge of the roof, and to my great agitation I saw that Dick had not only fallen off the roof and hit the ground hard, but that now he had slipped over the edge of a steep cliff beside the porch, and was saving himself only by grasping a skinny little shrub that was in the process of loosening in the frozen ground. At the same time, Bill looked up at me and I thought he was smiling; or at least he didn’t appear to be worried.

(To the best of my recall I was not very afraid at any time, yet was sad and concerned. There was an examination table in this room, and I was to lay there while I received the injection. [...] She was fully grown, dressed as though in the summertime; someone else was on the swing with her, but I do not know who. [...]

(I believe that my own feeling was one of sadness that I wouldn’t be with her, more than anything else in the dream. Part of the time I was also outside of this brick room. I also believe that I had received the injection, and that it was supposed to take effect hours ago, but hadn’t done so. So here I was hours later, wandering around. [...] At no time in the dream did I actually see my father; I merely knew he was there, and involved.