“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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 inner senses have a strong immediacy, a delicious intensity that your outer senses lack. There is no lapse of time in perception, since there is no time.

Now with that out of the way, we can consider the inner senses as paths leading to an inner reality. However, here we are not concerned with space or time. If you were, or if man A was blind, he would not see the tree in question. If he were deaf he would not hear the car. Let us pretend this state of events, and let us compare the physical objects between our man and his tree to points somewhat corresponding to them in the inner world. It would be as if instead of seeing the various houses or whatever, our man instead felt them. If you remember, I mentioned earlier that your outer sense of touch was extremely immediate, in a way that sight was not, and I also gave you immediacy as one of the qualities of the inner senses.