“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your eyes, while belonging to the body, cannot see within the body. The ears can be trained to some degree by neurotic individuals into a sound awareness pertaining to the body itself. Breathing for example can be magnified to an almost frightening degree when one concentrates upon listening to his own breath. But as a rule the ears neither listen to nor hear the inner sounds of the body.

The sense of smell also seems to leap forward. A man can smell quite a stink, even though it is not right under his nose. The sense of touch, as you are consciously familiar with it, does not seem to leap out in this manner. Unless the hand itself presses upon a surface in some manner then you do not feel that you have touched it. Touch usually involves contact of a direct sort. You can of course feel the invisible wind against your cheek, but touch involves an immediacy different from the distant perceptions of sight and smell.

This difference in immediacy is rather important for our consideration of the inner senses. This is also why I mentioned that the ears and the eyes, while connected with the body, are directed outward. They bring data to the body but very seldom do they collect data from the body. I am beginning to get into some material that is relatively difficult to explain, considering that I must take all of your camouflage patterns into consideration.

The physical body is a camouflage pattern operating in a larger camouflage pattern. But the physical body and all camouflage patterns, looked at in another manner, are also transformers of the vital inner stuff of the universe, where this vitality is then enabled to operate under new and various conditions.

I risk repeating myself, but I want these steps to be plain. This vital data is sent to the mind by the inner senses. Any material that is important for the body’s contact with outer camouflage patterns is given to the brain. The subconscious, so-called, is a connective between mind and brain, between the inner senses and the outer senses. It is actually partly on your plane and partly on other planes. Portions of it do deal with camouflage patterns, with the personal past of the present personality, with racial camouflage memories; and the greater portion belongs to the inner world, and as data comes into it from the inner world, so can it reach far into the inner world itself.

So the inner senses and the subconscious can do the same thing as far as inner space, and what you would call inner time, is concerned. But this is not amazing, far from it. It only seems strange because you are so familiar with your precious camouflage patterns. Time and space, dear friends, are both camouflage patterns, therefore the fact that the inner senses can conquer time and space is not, after all, so surprising. To the mind with its subconscious, and to the inner senses, there is no time and space, and therefore to them nothing is conquered. The camouflage is simply not present.

It is true that I have lived as a human being, but this is simply a fact. This meeting and our other meetings are not seances, and your experiments with your friend Mark are not seances, according to the implications usually given. So-called seances, when they are legitimate, are simply exercises in the use of the inner senses.

The cults that have built up around such happenings are ludicrous, and in some cases unforgivable demonstrations of stupidity by well-meaning but imbecilic personalities. I dislike being so harsh and vindictive. However on a few occasions I have been involved, to my utter horror, on the other end of such performances. At a later date I will tell you about this. It is not important but it was distasteful.

Superstition breeds superstition. As far as Jane’s or Ruburt’s subconscious is concerned, I make contact with you through both of your subconsciousnesses (Jane’s pronunciation); but through that larger portion which actually exists between planes, which is the property of the mind, not the brain, and which deals with the inner senses. I have absolutely nothing to do with that portion of the subconscious which is involved with your personal memories or present personality makeup.

Camouflage patterns are bad enough to deal with from my end, but personal camouflage patterns thrown up by the brain are worse. As far as your neurotics are concerned—for some reason speaking of the affairs usually called seances reminded me of neurotics—as far as neurotics are concerned, this neuroticism is part and parcel of an inadequacy on the part of the physical body and the personality both, that involves an inability to handle camouflage patterns.

The conscious mind deals directly with survival as far as the particular camouflage patterns are concerned. But there is no actual dividing line or distinction between the conscious and the subconscious, nor among the apparent levels of the subconscious itself.

I want you to take a break but first I want to make one other point, and that is this: The mind contains the conscious and the subconscious, but the conscious and the subconscious are fluid. At various times the consciousness becomes unconscious, and the unconscious becomes conscious. During some periods this happens simultaneously. I will go into this in great detail.

As far as publishing this material is concerned, I have no objections. I didn’t give it to you, and I’m not giving it to you, simply for your own edification. Because of its source you will probably be called crackpots, but I imagine you know this by now.

Imagine a man in an automobile who passes our man at the corner. Now when our man in the automobile reaches the tree he is further ahead, so to speak, in distance. He is also in some respects further ahead in time, yet actually he is not. That is, the man on the corner has watched him pass by. He is beyond the man on the corner in space. The man on the corner at the same time sees the motorist drive beyond. But although he sees him pass in space he knows that they exist, he and the motorist, simultaneously even though usually the idea of passing on involves time.

The reason I am using solidity here is that we are dealing with the world of camouflage, and sound waves and light waves are definite on your plane and can be measured. They are not solid as your tree is solid, but they are solid in degree. That is, they manifest themselves well enough to be recorded on your instruments.

This is one of the qualities belonging to the inner senses. I will go into it more deeply but you may call it the first inner sense.

He would in no way lose consciousness of who he was, and he would perceive these experiences, again, somewhat in the same manner that you perceive heat and cold. In your camouflage pattern you must adapt yourself to the effects of heat and cold, but our man in the inner world would not be under any such obligation. I am speaking now only of our first inner sense.

(End at 11:40. Jane said that Seth felt very chummy by the end of the session, and would have gladly continued had we asked him to. We were in the mood but also very tired.