“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

However in some other manners the experiences of the tree are extremely deep, dealing with the inner senses which are, and properly, also properties of treedom. There is something here difficult for me to explain clearly. The inner senses of the tree have strong affinity with the properties of earth itself. They feel their growing. They listen to their growing as you listen to your own heartbeat. They experience this oneness with their own growth, and they also experience pain. The pain however while definite, unpleasant and sometimes agonizing, is not of an emotional nature in the same way that you might experience pain.

And as far as motion is concerned, the tree moves upward and downward. It is quite unfair to say that it cannot transport itself since it does so to an amazing degree, the roots and limbs moving in all directions. The inner senses of all plant life are well attuned, alert and very important. All these fragments have consciousness to a rather high degree, considering that man holds them in such ill repute.

In some fragments such as much plant life and vegetative life there is strong use of certain inner senses. Your rocks, Joseph, I will call vegetative. Rocks are far from lifeless. Other types of life, including your own, rely on the recognized outer senses. The ideal of course is a consciousness that is adept at using both the inner and outer senses fully.

Your tree lives through its inner senses, experiencing many sensations and reacting to many stimuli of which you are unaware. Minute earth tremors, even the motion of small ants about its lower trunk, are recognized and experienced by tree consciousness. Such invisibilities as humidity, radioactivity and all electrical earthly values, are felt as quite real things by your tree and recognized as being separate from the tree itself.

The tree does not even build up an image of man, which is why this is difficult to explain. I have no intention of going deeper into this matter than you can follow at this time. Nevertheless the tree builds up a composite sensation which represents say an individual man. And the same tree will recognize the same man who passes it by each day. Beside the recognized outer senses, and the inner senses of which you are just now beginning to gain knowledge, there are other inner and even outer senses, which you are not quite ready to understand.

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.

Size however is sensed by a tree, perhaps because of its inherent concern with height. The table around which Ruburt now walks senses Ruburt even as Ruburt senses the table. At a later date I intend to go quite intensively into the means by which other fragments sense each other, and man. The abilities of the tree are latent in man as, dear Joseph, are the abilities latent in the tree.

(She said she senses that Seth is hiding some material from her tonight, concerning the inner senses. Her voice has been pretty much her own tonight. She resumed dictating at 10:35.)

What Ruburt must learn is that it is equally ridiculous to act as if it is a summer day when snows are falling. The tree has enough sense not to show blossoms in the middle of a blizzard. However, the danger is stronger on your side.

Your work is improving and will improve constantly. It may seem, or it did seem, unreasonable to you that personality had much to do with so-called advancement in the artistic world. And yet people sense your attitude toward them very strongly.

Ruburt sensed the growing explosion with your parents, sensed the frigid growth of your ego, and impulsively had to do something. Had you not left at all circumstances would have been far worse in any case, and your parents might have suffered another, but this time fatal, accident. Ruburt of course did not know this in practical terms but he knew it nevertheless.

It was this that Ruburt sensed and that caused the emotional explosion. Mr. Burrell would have come to the trailer to tell—and I will say Jane now—that she did not have to pay the 17.50 short on her register. Jane’s father would have asked Mr. Burrell to go to the bar for drinks. The fight would have been started by Jane’s father. Midge, I believe that is her name, would have flirted with Mr. Burrell. You would have been painting in the trailer. Jane would have gone with her father, since I think this particular bar was only a short distance away.

She would have taken a private plane to Minneapolis. The plane would have crashed, and she would not have survived. So if you think of opportunities missed think also of tragedies avoided, because but for you she would have taken the job to get out of Sayre. I wanted to bring all these points up this evening so that you will see that while you did not always take the best course, you had the sense between you to avoid the worst ones.

When I said that you saved Ruburt’s life I meant it quite literally. In a sense, Ruburt saved your parents’ lives by insisting that you leave Sayre when you did. Any other mistakes you both may have made are more than made up for because of this. Jane’s father is still in danger of losing his life violently, but if he survives the next five years he will die a natural death, before 70 I believe. (67).