“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The tree is of course dissociated in one manner. In some ways its living forces and consciousness are kept to a minimum. It is in a state of drowsiness on the one hand, and on the other hand it focuses the usable portion of its energy into being a tree. The state of consciousness involved here is dull as compared to the highly differentiated human ability in many ways.

A tree knows a human being also. Not only for example by the weight of a boy upon its branches, but by the vibrations in the air as adults pass, which hit the tree’s trunk at varying distances, and even by such things as voices. You must remember my earlier remarks about mental enzymes, and my remark that color can sometimes be heard and sight be seen.

In drawing up his list of so-called natural laws, I have said that man decided that what appeared to be cause and effect to him was therefore a natural law of the universe. Not only do these so-called laws, which are not laws, vary according to where you are in the universe, they also vary according to what you are in the universe. Therefore your tree recognizes a human being, though it does not see the human being in your terms. To a tree the laws are simply different. And if a tree wrote its laws of the universe, then you would know how different they are.

They deal with finer distinctions than you know now, being somewhat of the nature of your body’s ability to sense another person’s aggression. As your body senses temperature changes so it also senses the psychic charge not only of other human beings but also, believe it or not, of animals, and to a lesser extent it senses the psychic charge of plants and vegetative matter. Your tree builds up a composite of sensations of this sort, sensing not the physical dimensions of a material object, whatever it is, but the vital psychic formation within and about it.