“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

More About Psychological Time
and How to Use It
Excerpts From Sessions 24, 27 and 28
Miss Cummingham and a Missed Session

It was a weekend that we had company. The friends present had no idea we were involved in any psychic work, and the subject never came up in our conversation. (No one knew what we were up to, for that matter, except for one close friend. We hadn’t even told our families.) In the middle of that innocuous evening, Rob suddenly had three experiences that were quite startling at the time and rather frightening. Here is an account from his own notes:

The first time, the sensation was not as strong as the next two times. When it first swept over me, I wondered if the wine could be responsible, though actually I had drunk little. I waited quietly, and in a moment or two the sensation was gone. I was balanced on the arm of our davenport, talking to our company. I had the odd feeling that the sensation was related both to the subject of conversation, and to some kind of message or communication I felt within me.

The next two sensations came later in the evening. The second same over me around 11:30 P.M. as we sat around the table eating. This sensation was so strong that I put down my sandwich and took off my glasses, because I literally didn’t know what might happen next. The wave of feeling washed over me very strongly this time. Although everyone about me was talking quite loudly, I had the weird sensation of voices within me, of mouths open or crying in soundless rhythm.

While writing out this statement, I’m reminded that I experienced a milder version of the same sensation last month, while I was working at my part-time job in the art department of a local greeting card company. I was alone in the art room, eating lunch at my desk, when the feeling swept over me. There was no warning or pain, but the surprise doubled me over my desk. I was frightened, thinking it might be some kind of an attack then, but it passed quickly and did not return.

I didn’t tell Jane about this at the time, but in a recent session, Seth referred to it and said that I’d been calling — psychically — for help because my back had been bothering me then badly. Also when I had these experiences last night, I wasn’t feeling my best. I wonder now … had I again called for help? Was this an attempt at an answer?

The next night, Rob and I purchased a tape recorder, hoping that we might be able to lighten his work load. We didn’t get back from the shopping center until nearly 8:30 and then we began fussing with the recorder. As was usual in those days, I began to get the jitters as 9:00 P.M. approached; we finally decided not to use the recorder that night but to wait until the next session and give ourselves time to become acquainted with the gadget.

The inner senses, however, give much stronger impressions than those given by the outer ones. You should, in the future, be able to achieve the counterparts of sight, sound, smell and touch, embellished by inner counterparts of width and existence, using the inner senses. You have trouble now with the duration of your inner visions because you are trying to transpose them according to physical time — and this is going about it in the wrong way. As I mentioned earlier, you have at your command, even now, an inroad, a relatively accessible one, in what is termed psychological time.

This is closely related to the second inner sense, and it is upon psychological time that you must try to transpose your inner visions. You can see how handicapped we both are because of the difficulties involved in trying to explain inner data in terms of outer data. For instance, when I tell you that the second inner sense is like your sense of time, this does give you some understanding of what psychological time is like, but you are apt to compare the two too closely.

Any communications coming through the inner senses will exist in your psychological time. Psychological time operates during sleep and quiet hours of consciousness. Now, in dreams you may have the feeling of experiencing many hours or even days. These days or hours of psychological experience are not recorded by the physical body and are outside of the physical time camouflage. If, in a dream, you experience a period of three days, physically you do not age for these days. Do you see?

Psychological time is so a part of inner reality that even though the inner self is still connected to the body, you are, in the dream framework, free of some very important physical effects. Now, as dreams seem to involve you in duration that is independent of clock time, so can you achieve the actual experience of duration as far as your inner visions are concerned.

But the minute — the physical minute — you try to transpose these visions upon the physical minute, then you lose them. Many times, in so-called daydreaming, you have lost track of clock time, and this experience of inner duration has entered in.

“Why did we invent clock time to begin with?” Rob asked.

Originally, psychological time allowed man to live in the inner and outer worlds with relative ease … and man felt much closer to his environment. In prehistoric times, mankind evolved the ego to help him deal with camouflage patterns that he had, himself, created. This is no contradiction, as will be explained later. He did the job so well that even when he had things well under control, he was not satisfied. He developed at a lopsided level. The inner senses led him into a reality he could not manipulate as easily as he could physical camouflage, and he feared what he thought of as a loss of mastery.

“Jane hypnotized me several times lately, with very good results, as you know,” Rob said.

The first time this happened, you were calling for help. Like many others, you feared the inner world so strongly, even though you were somewhat acquainted with it through your art, that nothing but panic would force you to try that invisible knob. This time, there was a remembrance of panic but that was all. Actually you opened the door out of desire, stimulated by our sessions and out of curiosity, but you were still frightened.

At this stage you will do what you can to encourage it, without my telling you, just as you initiated the event to begin with. Your own innate inner knowledge will aid you. I suggest a brief break, and this time my dear Joseph, do copy your strolling wife and move about.

When the session resumed, Rob asked, “Can you tell us more about psychological time?”

It is a natural connective to the inner world. As you can experience days or hours within its framework in the dream state and not age for the comparable amount of physical time, so as you develop, you will be able to rest and be refreshed within psychological time even when you are awake. This will aid your mental and physical state to an amazing degree. You will discover an added vitality and a decreased need to sleep. Within any given five minutes of clock time, for example, you may find an hour of resting which is independent of clock time.

You can look through psychological time at clock time and even use clock time then to your greater advantage; but without the initial recognition of psychological time, clock time becomes a prison. … A proper use of psychological time will not only lead you to inner reality but will prevent you from being rushed in the physical world. It provides quiet and peacefulness.

From its framework you will see that clock time is as dreamlike as you once thought inner time was. You will discover that ‘inner time’ is as much a reality as you once considered outer time to be. In other words, peeping inwards and outwards at the same ‘time’ you will find that all divisions are illusion and all time is one time. …

If you remember this, inner data will come through much more easily, and you will be able to control it. It is never of itself overpowering. You can train yourself in the recognition of such data, its utilization and control. Within the framework of psychological time you can also lengthen such experiences.

By now, the sessions were running from seventeen to twenty typed, double-spaced pages and they lasted anywhere from two and a half to three hours. Only one experiment using the tape recorder showed us that our usual procedure was the best one. Rob really had a great time, though, for the twenty-fifth session he didn’t have to take notes while we tried out the recorder. Seth also spoke much faster. He congratulated us on our “twenty-fifth anniversary,” and said jokingly, You will be much older by the time I am through with you. Most of the session was a discussion of ordinary subjective states emphasizing the fact that these could not be pinpointed in a laboratory or understood simply by the use of the ordinary scientific method. Yet, they are vital elements in our lives.

Unlike last time, I wasn’t frightened. I held up my hand without speaking. Jane stopped talking and we waited quietly to see what might develop. I hoped the feeling would somehow turn into sound or images, but it didn’t. At least I felt that I hadn’t slammed any ‘interior door’ shut.

Our twenty-sixth session, due Monday, February 17, was not held for two reasons. This is the second time we have missed a session since they started in December. The first time we missed one was during the holidays. This time the reason was far different.

As the regular hour for our session came and went, Jane began to get ‘nibbles’ from Seth. At the same time, I felt worse. I had not been helping Jane and felt guilty about it and was angry at Miss C’s relatives. Once I had such a severe attack of back cramps that I couldn’t stand.

The next night Mark Ragen, a friend, dropped by. We were somewhat tired, but glad to see him. For the first time, I felt that Seth was “around” while we were socially engaged. My feelings were confused. I thought sardonically, “A guest from another layer of reality is one thing, but do you really want your friends to meet him?” Finally my nervousness was so apparent that Rob asked me what was wrong. For a moment I just sat there. Should I introduce Seth to Mark or not? I remember thinking that no book of etiquette even written could give me an answer.