Mid-1950s seance + Seth's apparition, early session

[Mark M]

The late Jerry Cross of Racine, WI, USA once took an interest in "psychic" things. Indeed, I once bought a used copy of Seth Speaks to have a spare copy for lending and it had Jerry's name in it.
 
He confirmed he was its prior owner.
 
Many years ago, he would go to seances. Of course, fraud and seances often went together. Perhaps more often than not.
 
One seance sounded pretty notable in that an entity appeared and spoke and moved about the room.
 
Jerry mentioned this to me and I later sought to record the details by interviewing him in the e-mail below. I highlighted his responses in bold.
 
A shame Jerry is no long available for further comment -- unless we held a seance? 
Jerry:


The reason I take such a high interest in this
is because I take a high interest in Jane Roberts' Seth material and once there
was Seth apparition while she spoke for him and he remarked that maybe later he
would be able to speak from his own construction but that never
happened.

But it looks like you witnessed an entity who
did make that happen.

So here is what I'd like you to correct or
expand upon from my memory of what you told me:

Witness: Jerry Cross

Event: Séance

Date: 1950s? Probably 1955 or
1956

Location: Indiana? A hotel in the
Chicago Loop. It was an ordinary banquet or party room.

Attendance: 10? 20? ? Maybe even
25-30.

When (the medium that afternoon) went into
trance, an entity materialized.

It wore robes? No it was just a
plasticized material

It was cold to the touch.
Yes.

It spoke. Male voice? Deep? I don't
recall.

It addressed you, telling you of a reverend
who it turned out did not exist. Yes. The "thing" mentioned a Methodist
bishop in Indiana whom I found no record of.

It seemed to somehow move rapidly from point
to point in the room. Yes.

Thank you very much, Jerry!

Regards,


Mark M
 

In an early session, a witness made 
a sketch of the Seth apparition that manifested. Seth said the witness drew his
head too large, a distortion based on the witness feeling Seth was this big
fount of wisdom.

 

Some Seth remarks on his own apparition:

 

"Just to
appear on your plane, any construction ... must be composed of atoms and
molecules.

 

"The motion
and the speed varies from regular constructions. I am in this particular
instance speaking through Ruburt [his name for Jane] while I have also stood by
in a construction and watched him speak. At a later date I may be able, briefly,
to speak from my own construction. But this will take training and I will need
the use of much cooperation."


—Seth/Jane Roberts, The Early
Sessions, Vol 2, Session 68, July 6, 1964

 

[Deb]

Just a few days ago Oshara of The Seth House asked if I had a copy of that sketch Bill Macdonnel made of Seth's apparition. I do not, but was that a coincidence or did you post something similar on Facebook that tipped her off?

I've always had trouble with the idea of seances, so much room for deceit. The "plasticized material" could have been what was presented at seances in the old days (plastic wrap, gauze, whatever), that was supposed to be ectoplasm. My distaste for seances rolled over into a mistrust of channeling, so even though I took to the Seth materials, early on, like a duck to water, I struggled with the word "channel" until I got to the point where it just didn't matter. The material speaks for itself.

Have you ever heard of The Scole Experiment ? I read that about 20 years ago, before I found Seth, and while it's about regularly scheduled seances in someone's basement in Scole, England, it really caught my attention. It's a dry read for the most part, which added to it's believability—not being sensationalized. What was also interesting is the many photos of objects that were "teleported" in during the seances. A new edition came out in 2006, I may need to pick that up. My original was borrowed by a local (celebrity) ghost hunter and he never gave it back.

https://www.thescoleexperiment.com/the-scole-experiment-overview.html

[Mark M]

There is a Mpls, MN Seth group that besides having a location to attend allows people elsewhere to ZOOM in and Oshara has "showed up" 2-3 times of late.

Recently, my brother asked about the speak from his own construction idea and I told what I recalled.

Scroll down here to see the apparition sketches:

https://markmgiese.blogspot.com/2021/02/jerry-cross-witnesses-entity-speaking.html

Scole seems fraudulent to me; this seems ridiculous:

'only total darkness was allowed with no night vision apparatus as it might "frighten the spirits away"'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship#Scole_Experiment

Some people are afraid of the dark and these spirits are afraid of the light!

[strangerthings]

I have always enjoyed Seth saying "we make light from the darnkess".

I believe its a cd quote perhaps in books somewhere too.

[Deb]

'only total darkness was allowed with no night vision apparatus as it might "frighten the spirits away"'

I guess I somehow missed that, I read the book a long time ago and don't remember that language. Not a big fan of Wikipedia either.

I can say during my ghost hunting days, we always worked at night, in the dark. The theory then was the electromagnetic waves of the sun could interfere with the subtle energies of entities (not the Seth definition), and ham radios were used as an example of how signals from great distances were received during the night and not possible during daylight. I don't know, I never researched it.

Most of the places we investigated had no electricity anyway, such as The Villisca House, Waverly Hills Sanitorium, Myrtles Plantation.

And then of course there's the extra creep factor of wandering around in the dark in a spooky run-down building which adds to the fun.