“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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 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.

Later, after our company left, the sensation came back yet again as I stood in the kitchen talking to Jane. Even then, I was not quickwitted enough to capitalize on it, perhaps by asking myself questions. I was too involved in the feeling to be that objective on such short notice. Now, the next day, the memory still lingers. What was it? Maybe Seth will know.

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.

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.

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.

You had better stand up and move around. That is what you are supposed to do in these frequent breaks from the material. There is no reason why you cannot stand sometimes to write, if it is more comfortable. There are articles of furniture upon which to rest your pad. Surely, I should not have to remind you of the practicality of camouflage patterns with which I am no longer concerned. If I were as dependent upon them as you are, I would use them better. Do please get comfortable.

What you experienced is rather difficult to explain until we have a thorough discussion of the inner senses, but I will give you a simple explanation for now. You felt an onrush — or should I say an onslaught? — of data in its pure form, rushing through the inner senses like a wind in a kaleidoscope because you did not know how to control or disentangle it.

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.

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. …

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.

Also, after supper, it developed that Miss Cunningham, the retired school teacher in the front apartment, suffered an attack of some sort and was in urgent need of help. Another neighbor and tenant, Don Jacobs, called us. Jane went to see what was wrong and found that Miss C had fallen on the floor, was suffering from severe lapses of memory and was in very poor condition. She had evidently taken several falls earlier that day, and had not been eating.

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.