“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The greeting card represented on pages 320-21 figures in the envelope data, and so is shown also. It was not used in the envelope. The card was mailed to Jane and me by my mother from Tunkhannock, PA, on August 11,1966. It is on file along with the envelope, bearing date, ZIP code, etc.

A grave. Something grave. Three. (Pause.) A card with a cartoon. Connection with a disturbance. The color white. Something misplaced.

Monumental. A monumental occasion. A folded card. Writing on the inside. Printed matter and handwriting.

These are further general impressions. An S. Perhaps a C. The object, a card with a note. An out-of-town connection.

(See the tracing of the actual object on page 319, and the copies of the greeting card on page 320-21. Notes pertaining to both are found on page 322, and will be developed as we run through the connections we make with the envelope object. Seth adds a few comments after break.

(Jane had one predominant image during the data, and this was of the greeting card. This is the reason for its inclusion with the actual object, since much of the following data actually deals with the greeting card. This is a case where the actual object, Leonard’s note to us, served as a springboard. The connection between the object and the greeting card is a legitimate and close one, and presumably would not have developed had Jane not correctly divined the nature of the object itself to begin with. The connection between the two being the fact that the object concerned a phone call to us from my mother; and that my mother was also the sender of the card to us.

(Jane of course had seen the card upon arrival, on August 12 or 13,1966. It had become mislaid after arrival and we hadn’t seen it since. We saw the envelope object on August 14. As soon as Jane began giving the envelope data I realized she referred to Mother’s card as well as the object. At break we launched a search for the card. It was fruitless; we had given up on finding it until I looked through a stack of old magazines as a last resort.

(Of course the emotional involvement and reaction between us and my parents is strong, and would tend to override more specific details of the envelope object itself, once Jane had picked up the idea of my mother. Jane had the idea of Mother’s greeting card in mind from the start of the envelope data, she said. She tried not to let this color the data. She mentally dropped it, deciding to let Seth speak in his own way. But the card plays a large part in the data nevertheless.

(“A grave. Something grave.” Jane had a strong ill or grave feeling, meaning burial, here, and it is applicable. My mother made the phone call that resulted in the object; my father is in poor health, and she talked of this when Jane returned the phone call at about noon on Sunday, August 14. In addition, the greeting card was mailed to us by Mother from Tunkhannock, PA, where she visited my brother and his wife. My sister-in-law’s father is also very ill, having nearly died recently.

(“A card with a cartoon.” Yes. See pages 320-21. Again, this is not the object, but the card and the object are strongly related both in emotional content and in our physical time.

(“The color white.” The object is a note on white paper. Also the greeting card is printed on white paper.

(“Something misplaced.” Leonard Yaudes, the author of the object, has recently lost a pair of garden shears. Jane subjectively feels this is the correct interpretation. I wondered if it might not refer to our search for the greeting card, described on page 327. Jane might have had subconscious knowledge that the card was lost. She was well aware that she was giving data concerning this card. I did not think of this possibility at the time and so did not ask Seth.

(“Four plus one.” Usually one can make a connection with a number, without knowing whether it is correct. Four plus one could apply to the date Leonard wrote the note used as object. See the copy of the folded slip I clipped to the object, on page 319. This slip bore the date, August14,1966. Other connections could be made if one chooses to interpret the data as four plus one means five, etc. Thus there is a five on the object itself in the time noted: 10:05. Also: The card was mailed to us from 54 Slocum Avenue, Tunkhannock, PA.

(“Monumental. A monumental occasion.” See the copy my mother wrote inside the greeting card, shown on page 321, in which she refers to finally arriving in Tunkhannock to visit my brother and his family. My parents live in Sayre, 50-some miles north of Tunkhannock. My father does not drive much anymore, and traveling is difficult for them. We think that in my mother’s eyes the visit to Tunkhannock can legitimately be called a monumental occasion. Her copy begins: “At last we made it to Tunk…”

(“A folded card. Writing on the inside. Printed matter and handwriting.” All of this refers to the greeting card shown on pages 320-21, and sent to Jane and me by Mother on August 14,1966. The envelope object itself is not folded.

(“Several events happening together, or a series of objects strung together on the object.” Probably a reference to the contents of my mother’s writing on the greeting card, since this deals with several events. The objects strung together being words. This could apply to the envelope object, but this data is sandwiched in with others applying to the greeting card.

(“Several colors. White, orange, red perhaps, this being circular, and a yellow. Plus dark printing.” All of this applies to the greeting card, which we received in the mail either on August 12 or 13, and was of course seen by Jane. The envelope object came into being August 14. All of the above is accurate with the exception that there is no yellow on the card. The orange, red applies to the red halftone used on the cartoon figure, as indicated on page 319.

(“I N C again, and perhaps 1418.” This is interesting data. No I N C appears on the greeting card, although a company logo and address does on the back. However I N C did appear on the envelope used in the last experiment, the 66th. That was a postcard, and this evening’s object is a greeting card. In addition, both are related to Leonard Yaudes; who sent us the postcard, and who authored tonight’s object. The connection being Leonard, and the fact that Jane picked up Leonard’s involvement in both experiments.

(The exact sequence, 1418, does not appear either on the envelope object or the greeting card. When we located the greeting card we also found its envelope. Tunkhannock’s zip code is 18657. On the back of the envelope my mother wrote my brother-in-law’s return address, which she should have. However she absent-mindedly wrote her own ZIP code, for Sayre, PA, after the address—18840. This is closer to 1418.

(See the tracing of the penciled slip I had attached to the envelope object when I first obtained it, reminding me of the date. The sequence, 8/14/66, is also close to 1418. Jane had never seen this slip, but it had been attached to the object for some time and perhaps was clairvoyantly divined. She had seen the envelope containing the greeting card in a casual way, of course, as had I. I did not discover the discrepancy in ZIP codes on the envelope until examining it after the session—several days after.

(“Something sent through the mail in an envelope. Long and narrow in shape.” An obvious reference to the greeting card.

(“Perhaps a connection with your parents.” Yes, both the object and the greeting card.

(First Question: “Can you be more specific about the I L I A?” “No. Perhaps it could be a reference to Illinois, but that is all I see.” The greeting card was manufactured in Illinois, as shown in small print to the right of the logo on page 4.

(3rd Question: “What’s that about a black cat?” “A distant connection. (Pause.) A loss of an advantage, or period of poor luck.” See the explanation re. the black cat on page 328. Seth’s additional data here conjures up the thought that the neighbor’s black cat also serves as the classic symbol of bad or poor luck; the connection here being the failing health of my father, and the failing health in a more drastic way of Mr. Meeker, the father-in-law of my brother Loren. It was while at Loren’s that my mother sent us the greeting card. When she called us on August 14, she, of course, discussed the health both of my father and Mr. Meeker.

(4th Question: “What’s the shape of the object?” “Roughly rectangular, in itself.” Correct. The envelope object is rectangular. So is the greeting card.

(7th Question: “Can you tell me anything about what the handwriting says on the object?” “Not an invitation precisely at all, but reference to an occasion or visit.” I thought it okay to ask this question since Seth had already mentioned handwriting in connection with the data. Seth’s answer here is a good reference to the note Mother wrote inside the greeting card. It can actually apply just as well to the envelope object itself. The phone call on August 14 from my mother concerned a visit by us to Sayre, and one by her to us in Elmira. During this call arrangements were made for her to visit us here next weekend, on Saturday, August 20.

(9th Question: “Well, why don’t you tell me something about the four people?” “These are further general impressions. An S. Perhaps a C. The object, a card with a note. An out-of-town connection.” As can be seen Seth did not answer the last two questions directly. A connection with S? Perhaps Sayre, my parents’ home… We see none offhand for C.

(Once again the greeting card shoulders its way into the data ahead of the actual envelope object. As explained both are related closely, but the greeting card with note, referred to above, and with an out-of-town connection, is of course not the object itself.

(Comment, meant to encourage Jane: “Well, that’s correct. The object does involve a note.” “A very definite connection with illness however.” As explained, both the envelope object and the greeting card have connections with the illness of my father and Mr. Meeker.

The one impression of which Ruburt was aware was a greeting card—quite legitimate, but it was meant only to lead him further.