“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Some part of the individual is aware of the most minute portions of breath, some part of the individual knows immediately of the most minute particle of oxygen and components that enters the lung. The thinking mind, or I had better say the thinking brain, does not know. Your all-important “I” does not know.

Therefore, with such an unnatural division it seems to man that he does not know himself. He says “I breathe, but who breathes, since consciously I cannot tell myself to breathe or not to breathe?” He says “I dream, but who dreams? I cannot tell myself to dream or not to dream.” He cuts himself in half, then wonders why he is not whole. Even in my own lifetimes on your plane I sensed this basic contradiction. Man has consistently admitted to the evidence only those things he could see, smell, touch or hear, and in so doing he could only appreciate half of himself. And when I say half of himself I exaggerate. He is aware of only a third of himself, because two-thirds of himself exists in that realm to which he will not admit.

It is not in any manner inevitable or a law of the universe. Far from it. For some reason mankind as a species on your plane has become much more attached to its camouflage patterns than most other kinds of consciousness. And with some important exceptions, all types of consciousness do have their peculiar camouflage patterns to which they more or less adhere.

I mentioned somewhat earlier that oftentimes the consciousness becomes the subconscious and vice versa. This should certainly come as no surprise. You are familiar with it in your everyday existence. It is not some isolated occurrence that happens once in a lifetime, and yet as a rule mankind has ignored this completely. In sleep the conscious becomes actually the subconscious and the subconscious, in the most real manner, becomes conscious. Every man instinctively knows this simple fact, and yet every man stubbornly refuses to admit it.

As breathing is carried on in a manner that seems automatic to the conscious mind, so this important function of transforming the vitality of the universe into pattern units also seems to be carried on automatically. But this transformation is not as apparent to the one part of yourself that you are pleased to recognize, and therefore it seems as if this transformation is carried on by someone even more distant and alien than the unrecognized part of yourself that breathes.

Because you know that somehow you breathe, without consciously being aware of the actual mechanics being involved, you are forced despite your inclinations to admit that you do do your own breathing. When you cross a room you are forced to admit that you have caused yourself to cross the room, even though consciously you have no idea of willing the muscles to move or of stimulating one muscle or another; and yet even there, though you admit these things, you do not believe them. In your quiet unguarded moments you still say who breathes, who dreams, and even who moves? How much easier it would be to admit freely and wholeheartedly the simple fact that you are not consciously aware of important vital parts of yourself, and that you are more than you know you are.

(Break at 10:32. During break Jane seemed to become aware of several things at once. She said she thought she’d been in a trance of some kind almost from the beginning of the session. She had no memory of giving the above monologue; she said it was as though she had “vanished.” I told her that of course she was with me all the time, pacing so fast that at times it was distracting. The material, she said, came through with no distortion at all. She felt as though she were a pure vehicle; she had no conscious thoughts about it, she was hardly aware of her environment at all. She had a vague memory of picking up a wineglass once. Actually I had watched her smoke a couple of cigarettes while dictating, pace back and forth, pause to look out the windows, etc. She did not feel tired, nor had her voice shown any changes.

Without knowing what he was doing Ruburt has been developing his inner senses to an almost amazing degree, but naturally he did this unknowingly, pursuing other aims. In the past he was so bound to the conscious ego that in fiction he found it difficult to write anything that was not strictly autobiographical.

The poetry has always been the result of facility in use of the inner senses, but until lately he was unable to give this sufficient pattern in terms of unitary form. His efforts in the book The Physical World as Idea Construction represented a breakthrough on his part. He realized, I believe, from the beginning that the conscious critical mind had little to do with the initial conception.

The book was a first attempt in forming a definite pattern of the material that he was receiving from the inner senses. He was beginning to recognize the whole self. The only reason the whole self is not much more conscious and accessible is your own stubborn refusal to admit it. I cannot emphasize this more strongly. The camouflage pattern world is formed by the mind, and I am using this now in its true term as a part of the inner world. Energy is received by the mind through the inner senses and transformed by use of mental enzymes into camouflage patterns.

In many cases he refuses to admit the mover. He trusts himself much more when he says “I will read,” and then he reads, than he does when he says “I will see,” and then he sees. He remembers having learned consciously to read, but he does not remember consciously having learned to see. And what he cannot remember consciously he fears, and what he fears he simply denies existence to.

The fact is, he sees although no one taught him how to see. And the part of himself that did teach him to see still guides his movements, still moves the muscles of his eyes, still becomes conscious despite him when he sleeps, still breathes for him without thanks, without recognition, and still carries on his task of transforming energy from an inner reality to an outer camouflage.

Another thing. It is in some ways convenient that you are not consciously aware of each breath that you take. But it is sheer stupidity to ignore the inner self which does the breathing, and is aware of the mechanics involved. What you almost get here is that some little unknown self performs these necessary functions, and that is not the case. I have said that the mind is a part of the inner world, but you have access to your own minds which you ignore, and this access would lead you inevitably to the truths about the physical world. Working inward you could understand the outward so much more clearly.

Psychological time so-called belongs to the inner self, that is to the mind. It is however a connective, a portion of one of the inner senses, which we will call for convenience the second inner sense.

The intellect is extremely important in the manipulation of camouflage patterns once they are created. You have made your world, and your intellect should help you deal with what you have created. It has other vital functions which I shall enumerate at a later date. However, I cannot say this too often: You are more than your conscious mind, much more, and the self which you do not admit happens to be the portion of yourself which not only insures your own survival in the physical universe which it has made, but which is also the connective portion of yourself with inner reality. Which is, when all is said and done, the only basic reality; and which also continually enables you to create these camouflage patterns, and which contains knowledge and intuitions and memories which you need in a most desperate manner if you are ever to understand yourselves, and if the race of mankind is ever to evolve to its fullest.

(Jane felt about the same as she did at our last break. Now that the session was over she realized that she’d had hardly any consciousness of what was going on through the whole thing. Yet, she didn’t feel as tired as usual. We had little thought of continuing however.