“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Further Steps into the Interior Universe

Because of the Miss Cunningham dream and the “Idea Construction” experience, Rob suggested that I try some experiments in ESP and expansion of consciousness and do a book on the results — negative or positive. Those of you who read my two other books in this field know that the experiments were astonishingly successful and led, through the Ouija board, to our first contact with Seth.

By now, we were also trying other experiments for my book, which I was writing during the mornings. And in our 12th Session Seth gave what I still think of as a cornerstone that served as a preliminary framework upon which the rest of The Seth Material would be built. I have quoted parts of it in other books, yet the analogy Seth gave us is such an excellent introduction to the interior universe and to his ideas that it is almost indispensable. Each time I read it, I gain new insights.

We merely construct imaginary lines to walk upon. So real are the wall constructions of your room that you would freeze in the winter time without them, yet there is no room and no walls. So, in a like manner, the wires that we constructed are real to us in the universe, although … to me, the walls are transparent. So are the wires that we constructed to make our point about the fifth dimension, but for all practical purposes, we must behave as if the wires were there …

Again, if you will consider our maze of wires, I will ask you to imagine them filling up everything that is, with your plane and my plane like two small birds nests in the netlike fabric of some gigantic tree … Consider, for example, that these wires are also mobile, constantly trembling and also alive, in that they not only carry the stuff of the universe but are themselves projections of this stuff, and you will see how difficult it is to explain. Nor can I blame you for growing tired when after asking you to imagine this strange structure, I then insist that you tear it apart, for it is no more actually seen or touched than is the buzzing of a million invisible bees.

“It makes more sense to me than anything I’ve ever read,” I said. “But where did it come from? Now, in my ordinary state of consciousness, I can only appreciate it or even criticize it. The source is gone.”

During all of this time, Rob and I were having our first experiences with mobility of consciousness. What else could consciousness do? What could mine do? The questions filled me with wonder, and we tried all kinds of experiments.

One of the most fascinating was an experiment we tried alone one night. I’m including Rob’s notes of it to give you an idea of the various things we were trying. I’m convinced that this sort of exercise is most valuable in that it helped to shake our consciousness out of its usual focus in objective, ego-oriented reality.

For me, the episode was amazingly vivid, the scenes clear and bright in my mind’s eye. It was something like attending an inner movie. (Or, someone might say, like dreaming vividly while awake.) But, for me, then, it was simply a completely new state of consciousness and awareness, a psychological experience like none I’d known before.

Yet I seemed to know everything about the gun. Part of me was aware of the strangeness of the situation and of the flickering candlelight in which Rob was furiously taking notes. But another part of my consciousness was focused on the gun, and I was intent upon describing it as well as possible.