“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Human self-consciousness existed in psychological time, and in inner ‘time’ long before you, as a species, constructed it. For your friend’s sake, I will say this as simply as possible: Human consciousness was inherent and latent from the beginning of your physical universe. I suggest a brief break, and do not crack up into pieces. I give you this slight evidence of my humor, Joseph, simply to show you that I am not, after all, one to carry grudges.

It is important that you tie in this material with previous data on the inner senses. They are always paramount in evolutionary development, being the impetus behind the physical formations. … The inner senses themselves, through the use of mental enzymes, imprint the data contained in the mental genes onto the physical camouflage material.

But that night, Mark insisted that Seth had read his mind and listened spellbound as Seth told him about the inner senses. None of us suspected that Seth would give Mark detailed information about the inner organization for which he worked, or help him understand personal problems, or delight in telling him what had gone on at sales conferences that Mark had already attended — or with a great rush of humor tell him the exact amount of a new raise he had just been given. All of that was in the future.

That night, Seth emphasized only the importance of inner reality and the validity of the inner senses that made nonphysical knowledge available whenever we were ready to admit it. Once Seth smiled broadly and said,

Why then do you [mankind in general] insist that an inner experience such as telepathy or premonition does not exist because you cannot hold it in both hands? And yet, in many instances, such cases can be corroborated by others in a way in which many psychological experiences cannot be.

There is no way of measuring inner experience, or the psychological experience, rather, of someone who has lost a friend in death, but you do not deny that such an experience happens. Yet, if two people see the same ‘apparition,’ then instantly twice the evidence is required.

When your training is much further advanced, we may be able to take certain shortcuts, Seth continued. It is difficult for me to have to string this material out in words and for you to record it. You see, it is possible, in theory, for you to directly experience a concept-essence of the material in any given session. This would involve the utilization of most, if not all inner senses, operating as a whole cognizance field. You cannot perform such an achievement yet.

And as for advancements as of now — these have to do with the ‘flashes’ that Ruburt has received between sessions. He has achieved a state in which he can receive inner data from me more readily. But beyond that, he is now able in some small way to contact me. That is, I have contacted you in the past, and now he is gaining the ability to contact me.

Now people who believe strongly in your organized religions are used to thinking in terms of an inner world. For that reason, many of them have been recipients of inner data from others like myself. They are often endowed with a readiness to listen, for one thing … there are disadvantages involved, however, which I do not like to encounter.

In my operations in your plane, I must use the materials at hand, but despite any ideas to the contrary, this involves a give and take … Ruburt’s “Idea Construction” was rather amazing under the circumstances. The inner senses provided him with much, but the manuscript itself [as written up] also represented an achievement of the conscious mind. I was drawn by this to realize that you were ready for me.

You are so consciously aware of your own needs for privacy, Joseph, that Ruburt’s strong but mostly unconscious needs in these directions sometimes go unsatisfied, since he is not aware of them. … You are both very much alike beneath the obvious differences, but Ruburt’s largely unrecognized needs along these lines are important. … He holds and collects his psychic energy, and without knowing it, he does not like it to ‘bleed’ outward. The illusion of an entryway — an inner hall — would serve these ends. This is merely a suggestion.

Also, Ruburt has experienced and used dissociation in his work, though to a lesser degree, before our communications and knows how to handle it… Our relationship will enable you both to deal more adequately with the outside world. … The development of the inner senses will not blot out physical reality but allow you to see it more clearly for what it is, and, therefore, you will be able to manipulate camouflage patterns better. …

The life of any given individual could be legitimately compared to the dream of an entity. While the individual suffers and enjoys his given number of years, these years are but a flash to the entity. The entity is concerned with them in the same way that you are concerned with your dreams. As you give inner purpose and organization to your dreams, and as you obtain insight and satisfaction from them, though they involve only a portion of your life, so the entity to some extent directs and gives purpose and organization to his personalities. So does the entity obtain insights and satisfactions from its existing personalities, although no one of them takes up all of its attention.

The dream world has its own reality, its own ‘time’ and its own inner organization. As the entity is only partially concerned with its personalities after setting them into motion, so you are unconcerned with this dream world after you have set it into motion. But it exists.

The entity itself does not have to keep constant track of its personalities because each one possesses an inner self-conscious part that knows its origin. This part, for now, I will call the self-conscious beyond the subconscious. … I mentioned that some part of you knows exactly how much oxygen the lungs breathe, and this is the part of which I spoke. It also receives all inner data.

This portion of the personality translates inner data and sifts it through the subconscious, which is a barrier and also a threshold to the present personality. I told you also that the topmost layers of the subconscious contain personal memories and beneath — racial memory. The personality is not actually layered, of course, but continuing with the necessary analogy, beneath the racial memories you look out upon another dimension of reality with the face of this other self-conscious part of you.

It was in this session that Seth made the analogy of the “weird creature with two faces,” one turned to physical reality and one to inner reality, both conscious and aware, each representing one facet of our consciousness.

“And now … the objects represent inner things we don’t recognize, and when we move them around, we rearrange the inner feelings too; or vice versa. But suppose Seth starts really telling us how to arrange stuff. I mean, whenever he wants to. …