“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane said that once again she had stage fright, a feeling of apprehension and wonder, just before the session was due to begin. The thought that she would soon begin talking on some question of philosophy, etc., “when you don’t have an idea in your head,” was still amazing to her. Especially when she did not feel in A-1 shape.

Isn’t it nice to see Jane in skirts for a change. I also like the hairdo. She is doing very well with the cigarette habit, as I predicted that she would.

The sense of sight, mostly concentrated in your eyes, remains fixed in a permanent position on your physical body. This is of course true. Without moving away from the physical body the eyes see something that may be far in the distance. In the same manner the ears hear sounds that are distant from the body. In fact, and this is a rather important point, the ears ordinarily hear sounds outside the body more readily than sounds inside the body itself. Since the ears are in the body more or less, and of it, it would be logical for an open-minded observer to suppose that the ears would be well attuned to the inner sounds to a high degree. This as you know is not the case.

You must remember here that time is part of the camouflage pattern. Now the outer sense of sight would seem to confound space, and seemingly conquer a portion of distance by using your eyes. That is, you do not necessarily have to walk a short distance in order to see what is in the particular space involved.

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.

I have more or less avoided giving you the kind of so-called evidence that would be so handy in explaining me to others. I helped you one night to keep your interest high. This occurred during the beginning of our sessions. I am also a personality in myself. I am not going to run around in circles, perform tricks, move rings, throw rocks and so forth. This material is legitimate, speaks for itself, and I will not embellish an otherwise sensible and excellent performance with circus tactics to impress those who will not be impressed under any circumstances.

At times I may use my own voice simply because it will be easier to get some kinds of material across, and also because it just would be fun for a change. You said something, Joseph, that got me on this subject. I had intended to go into the inner senses more thoroughly. However this reminds me of something else.

A neurotic on your plane for example would not necessarily be a neurotic on another plane, though he might be. The subconscious has been blamed for too much. Terms sometimes cause more troubles in communication than they solve.

(Break at 10:32. Try as we would, Jane and I could not recall what I had said at last break to bring on Seth’s outburst concerning mediums, etc. We think it was at least an innocently intended remark, one made in passing. I now remarked that I wondered whether Seth even wanted us to publish this material, since this might also be regarded by him as using him. Jane said that she definitely did not think he meant that. She resumed dictating at 10:40.)

I would like to make an analogy. Though in some cases it may fall down, overall it will make my point.

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.

Now our man would not vaguely sense these objects, he would feel them. He would be sensitive to them, in other words, while not touching them with anything like physical hands, as for example you feel heat or cold without necessarily touching ice or fire.

This sense would permit our man to feel the basic sensations felt by the tree, so that instead of looking at the tree his consciousness would expand to contain the experience of what it is like to be a tree. According to his proficiency, in a like manner he would feel the experience of being the intervening grass and so forth.

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.