“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

8
Some Experiences with the Inner Senses

Rob’s vision was spontaneous. When he typed up Seth’s material on the first inner sense, though, he tried a simple deliberate experiment. It is one that I now use with my beginning students though then, of course, it was new to us. Here are Rob’s notes:

Then, last night, I stood at the window and looked out across the Walnut Street Bridge. I visualized myself walking across it and felt the wooden flooring beneath my feet. I felt myself walk beneath the signal light at the far end of the bridge and let myself continue on along the street. Finally I tried to reach out and envelop the feeling of the houses and trees on either side of me — to sense them as if by inner touch, as I passed each one by.

I was not trying to reach Ruburt in her sleep. Even I am not so bold as that. A woman’s slumber is, after all, a private and sacred thing. Seth said this with a dry sense of humor, then added, See how prim that last sentence would sound without the lively inflection I managed to give to Ruburt’s voice? In any case, the inner senses were wide open as she went to sleep. The material was coming through from her own entity.

It is true that Joseph receives much more data through inner visions. In the past, he has more or less translated this data automatically, without realizing it, into paintings, with no memory of any vision at all. You can learn to use the other inner senses as well, Joseph, and I will tell you more about them.

Because Ruburt deals in words, it is easy for me to communicate in this way. He automatically translates inner data given by me into coherent, valid and faithful camouflage patterns. The data that I give is not actually sound on my part. Its transference is automatic and instantaneous on Ruburt’s part, and is performed through the inner workings of the mind, the inner senses and the brain.

The problem is not only to receive data through the inner senses in an undistorted, coherent manner, but also to translate this into the particular camouflage patterns with which you are familiar. …

Then, just as Rob was about to ask how we could really perceive the inner realities, Seth began to discuss the second inner sense, giving us a valuable tool for our subjective dissections. We later discovered, of course, the “inner senses” and “psychological time” had been discussed under different names in many ancient manuscripts. Rob was really impatient to get the session typed up so that he could study the material and put it to use.

Psychological time belongs to the inner self, that is, to the mind. It is, however, a connective, a portion of the inner senses which we will call, for convenience, the second inner sense … It is a natural pathway, meant to give easy access from the inner to the outer world and back again.

Time to your dreaming self is much like ‘time’ to your waking inner self. The time concept in dreams may seem far different than your conception of time in the waking state when you have your eyes on the clock and are concerned with getting to some destination by, say, 12:15. But it is not so different from time in the waking state when you are sitting alone with your thoughts. Then, I am sure, you will see the similarity between this alone sort of inner psychological time, experienced often in waking hours, and the sense of time experienced often in a dream. …

The outer senses will not help man achieve the inner purpose that drives him. Unless he uses the inner senses, he may lose whatever he has gained. …

If the twenty-third session roused me to write the poem, it also impressed Rob deeply enough so that he tried a rather complicated experiment with the inner senses — without letting his conscious mind know what he was up to.