“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

She couldn’t explain what she did, except to say that she ‘learned things.’ I asked further questions about her background and was told that her husband had grown alfalfa and wheat and tried tobacco and corn. She said again that he was a poor farmer and that her life had been a lonely one, since she had few friends. She knew the clerks in the town, and that was all. She did tell me, when asked, that Decatur had a population of about twelve thousand.

(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.)

Effects would seem to be evidence. … In concrete terms, if a tree branch moves, then you take it for granted that something blows it. You know wind by its effects. No one has seen wind, but since its effects are so observable, it would be idiocy to say that it did not exist. Therefore, you will come up against the basic stuff of the universe and feel its effects, though your physical senses will not necessarily perceive it.

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.

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.

It is not a matter of inventing new instruments any longer, but of using the ‘invisible’ ones you have. These may be known and examined. This material itself is evidence. It is like the branch that moves, so that you know the wind by its effects; and a windbag like me by the billowing gale of my monologues.

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.

“You have to admit one thing,” Rob said. “He really has your interest.”

I was really quite tired, yet after the session, I was astonished to discover that Seth had dictated an excellent exposition on the physical senses and had begun a description of the inner ones. According to Rob, he behaved in a most energetic fashion, pacing the room as usual, stopping to joke with Rob, or pausing for a moment to look out the window. Whatever energy was being used, I decided, it was certainly more than I expected myself capable of that night. This was the twentieth session, January 29th. The session began as usual at 9:00 P.M. and ended at 11:40. Again, only excerpts are being given. Seth began by speaking about the physical senses.

The ears can be trained to some degree into a sound-awareness pertaining to the body itself. And breathing, for example, can be magnified to an almost frightening degree when one concentrates upon listening to his own breath. But, as a rule, the ears neither listen to nor hear the inner sounds of the body.

The inner senses are capable of expansion and of focus in a way unknown to the outer ones, and the inner world, of course, is a part of all realities. It is not so much that it exists simultaneously with the outer world, as that it forms the outer world and exists in it also.