“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(And in the next (nineteenth) session on January 17, 1964, Seth did carry his discussion on the inner sense further, and he gave us additional clues as to how we could use them. As you’ll see, we were shortly to put his methods to work. The session was a long one, and he began by emphasizing the fact that all physical sense data was camouflage.)

Your scientists are correct in supposing that the universe is composed of the same elements that can be found in your plane. However, the elements that they know are, of course, camouflage patterns, that may show themselves in a completely different form somewhere else.

The elements — those that you now know and those you will create — are camouflages of the basic stuff or vitality which you cannot discover with your outer senses. Your scientists will find that their tools are no longer adequate. Because man has such a sense of curiosity, scientists will be forced finally to use the inner senses. Otherwise they will be dealing with camouflage only and find themselves in a blind alley — not because their eyes are closed, but because they are not using the right set of eyes.

The camouflage is necessary at this stage of development — intricate, complicated, various and beyond the understanding of the outer senses, which are the perceptors of the camouflage itself, peculiarly adapted to see under particular circumstances … It is only the inner senses that will give you any evidence at all of the basic nature of life.

Since very often the vitality or stuff of the universe seems as innocuous as air … then look for what you do not see. Explore places that seem empty, for they are full. Look between events. What you see clearly with the outer senses is camouflage. I am not suggesting that you take all this on faith. I am saying that what seems vacant lacks camouflage, and, therefore, if this is explored, it will yield evidence.

Granted, camouflage is, in itself, an effect. If you look at the observable world you can learn something about the inner one, but only if you take into consideration the existence of camouflage distortion. … There is so much to be said here, and you have so much to learn, that sometimes I have to admit that I’m appalled.

Your own experience with creativity should help you out here. When you paint a picture, my dear Joseph, you are dealing with a transformation of energy and transformation of camouflage pattern. There is a brief but vital moment when you are dealing with the underlying vitality of which I have spoken.

You are forced to transform this creative energy into another camouflage pattern because of your earthly situation. There is nothing else you can do. But for this moment, you pluck this vitality from the inner senses. Then you transform it into a somewhat different, more evocative, new camouflage pattern that is, nevertheless, more fluent, more fluid than the usual pattern, and gives greater freedom and mobility to the vitality itself. You approach a transmigration of plane.

A certain distortion must be expected. The painting, however, achieves a certain freedom from camouflage, although it cannot escape it, and actually hovers between realities in a way that no thoroughly camouflaged object could do. Music and poetry also can achieve this state. …

Seth went on to explain that the more camouflage (physical dimensions) an art object had, the less its validity to the inner senses.

Your scientists can count their elements, and while they are on the wrong track, they will discover more and more elements until they are ready to go out of their minds. And while they create instruments to deal with smaller and smaller particles, they will see smaller and smaller particles, seemingly without end. As their instruments reach further into the physical universe, they will see further and further, but they will automatically and unconsciously transform what they apparently see into the camouflage patterns with which they are familiar. They will be, and are, prisoners of their tools.

The trouble is that the instruments will be designed to catch certain camouflages, and they will perform their function. They themselves transform data from terms you cannot understand into terms that you can understand. This involves a watering down of data, a simplification that distorts the original information out of shape. The original is hardly discernible when they are done. You are destroying the meaning in the translation. … When you decipher one phenomena in terms of another, you always lose sight of whatever glimmer of understanding that may have reached you.

Scientists realize that the atmosphere of the earth has a distorting effect upon their instruments. What they do not understand is that their instruments themselves are bound to be distortive. Any material instrument will have built-in distortive effects. The one instrument which is more important than any other is the mind (not the brain) … the meeting place of the inner and outer senses.

The mind is distributed throughout the entire physical body, and builds up about it the physical camouflage necessary for existence on the physical level. The mind receives data from the inner senses and forms the necessary camouflage.

The brain deals exclusively with camouflage patterns, while the mind deals with basic principles inherent on all planes. The brain is, itself, part of the camouflage pattern and can be interpreted and probed by physical instruments. The mind cannot. The mind is the connective. It is here that the secrets of the universe will be discovered, and the mind itself is the tool of discovery.

You might say that the brain is the mind in camouflage. Imagination belongs to the mind, not the brain. Instruments may be used to force imagination to move along in terms of its owner’s personal memories, but it cannot be forced to move along the lines of conceptual thoughts because the imagination is a connective between the physical individual and the nonphysical entity.

As I told you, mental enzymes transform vitality into the particular camouflage patterns. A chemical imbalance in a physical body will also show itself as a corresponding distortion of sensual data. That is, when the chemical balance is disturbed, the physical world will appear to have changed. For the individual involved, the camouflage actually has changed.

The subconscious is a property of mind and is, to a large degree, independent of camouflage. While part of the subconscious must deal with camouflage, for example, the deeper portions are in direct contact with the basic vitality of the universe. When you or Ruburt wonder if this material comes from your subconscious, you take it for granted that the subconscious is personal, dealing exclusively with matters of your past. You are sometimes willing to concede that perhaps some element of racial memory might enter in.

The outer senses deal mainly with camouflage patterns. The inner senses deal with realities beneath camouflage … and deliver inner information. These inner senses, therefore, are capable of seeing within the body, though the physical eyes cannot. As the senses of sight, sound and smell appear to reach outward, bringing data to the body from an outside observable camouflage pattern, so the inside senses seem to extend far inward, bringing inner reality data to the body. There is also a transforming process involved, much like the moment that we have spoken about in the creation of a painting.

The physical body is a camouflage pattern operating in a larger camouflage pattern. But the body and all camouflage patterns are also transformers of the vital inner stuff of the universe, enabling it to operate under new and various conditions.

The inner senses, then, deliver data from the inner world of reality to the body. The outer senses deliver data from the outside world of camouflage to the body. However, the inner senses are aware of the body’s own physical data at all times while the outer senses are concerned with the body mainly in its relationship to camouflage environment.

I am repeating myself, but I want this to be clear. This vital data is sent to the mind by the inner senses. Any information that is important to the body’s contact with outer camouflage is given to the brain.

The so-called subconscious is a connective between mind and brain, between the inner and outer senses. Portions of it deal with camouflage patterns, with the personal past of the present personality, with racial memory. The greater portions of it are concerned with the inner world, and as data reaches it from the inner world, so can these portions of the subconscious reach far into the inner world itself…

Time and space are both camouflage patterns. The inner senses conquer time and space, but this is hardly surprising because time and space do not exist for them. There is no time and space. Therefore, nothing is conquered. The camouflage simply is not present. …

I want to give you more detailed information about inner realities themselves. Actually, they do not parallel the outer senses; and this will sound appalling to you, I’m afraid, simply because there is nothing to be seen, heard or touched in the manner in which you are accustomed. I don’t want to give you the idea that existence without your camouflage patterns is bland and innocuous because this is not the case. The inner senses have a strong immediacy, a delicious intensity that your outer senses lack. There is no lapse of time in perception, since there is no time.

Camouflage patterns do, of course, also belong to the inner world, since they are formed from the stuff of the universe by mental enzymes, which have a chemical reaction on your plane. The reaction is necessarily a distortion. That is, any camouflage is a distortion in the sense that vitality is forced into a particular form. Mental enzymes are actually the property of the inner world, representing the conversion of vitality into camouflage data which is then interpreted by the physical senses. Do you have any questions?