“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This afternoon at about 2 PM workmen took down the tree that had partially fallen on March 6. See the 33rd session. It was a very beautiful elm tree that died several years ago, and I was quite attached to it. With a power saw one man cut into the base of the tree; pulling on a rope thrown over a higher branch, two other men pulled it down. When the tree fell its branches seemed to crumple and break as though there was no strength left in them. And as I watched it strike the ground, I felt a wave of sensation sweep over me, the rich tingling, the feeling of perhaps an inner wind that I described first in the 24th session. Even after I had gone back to work I felt at times a residue of this feeling, very faint, in various parts of my body.

I am sorry that your tree has vanished, yet we all know that the tree has not really vanished. And I hope that you will use your inner senses to create the tree in your mind for the painting that you have begun. Now it will be a better tree in the painting, for you will be able to create the essence of the tree.

The sensation represented the twang of the inner senses as they registered the basic tree value. Had you had the opportunity to do more work with psychological time you would have been able to attain greater perception than you did. You will find that your painting will not suffer. Do you have any more questions in particular?

(“Well, we’d like to get more information on the inner senses.”)

Now basically, consciousness itself is a type of barrier, and anything that has consciousness experiences time to some degree. This degree may be so slight that to you it would not seem to exist at all. Self-consciousness presents a larger barrier, therefore the sense of time is greater. Psychological time is the lowest common denominator, so to speak, from your viewpoint. That is, many of the barriers disappear. Psychological time represents on your plane the closest you can come to the experience of timelessness as far as your physical laws are concerned.

You do experience time, but not time as it is bound by your camouflage patterns. As I have mentioned you can in a dream or daydream or through conscious use of psychological time experience many hours in a few clock minutes. This experience comes very close to the third inner sense. If you will remember again our imaginary experience through the inner senses as we looked down at the street, you will remember that I spoke of sensing not only the present essence of the living consciousnesses within a certain scope, but I also mentioned sensing their past and futures.

This sensing would have been done by the third inner sense, in conjunction of course with other senses, and this perception of past, present and future would not take any clock time, at least not theoretically. You I doubt will ever have such an experience completely. There will always be some clock time involved for you.

Since our imagined experience would depend upon all of the inner senses working together in a complex, near-perfect manner, that I doubt you could achieve at this stage. This experiencing of past, present and future would seem to be unwilled, almost automatic. If you were to have it or one like it, it would seem as if a door suddenly for no reason opened and then just as abruptly closed. This would not be the case however.

The inner ego or the inner self-conscious self directs such experiences and uses the inner senses in much the same way that you use the outer senses, except that the inner ego knows all of the mechanics involved in the use of the inner senses, and you know little of the mechanics involved with the outer senses.

A point I wanted to add, Joseph. What you actually felt when the tree fell was the pain of the tree, in much muted form. The tree while dead still had consciousness. As a rule you will usually have such experiences to begin with through one inner sense. You are not adept enough yet to recognize inner data from more than one direction at a time.

You may have experiences through all of the inner senses but not at once. This is a great simplification. What I should perhaps add for the sake of clearness is that you will not as a rule be aware of data that comes to you through more than one sense, inner sense, at a time.

The fact is that the whole self is constantly experiencing data from all of the inner senses. The inner ego is of course aware of this. The subconscious is sometimes aware of this, and the outer ego is aware of very little. I have explained the reasons for this in past sessions. The outer ego must concentrate much of its energy toward survival in and manipulation of the outer camouflage world. This world has already been created by the inner self, and its continuing existence is determined by the constant vigilance of the inner self.

Only when a certain level of confidence is reached can the outer ego afford to become familiar with these inner workings, at least on your plane. Otherwise you would falter. As a rule, even though the whole self is capable of organizing the data from all of the inner senses, the subconscious can rarely receive such communications full blast; and the outer ego, concerned as it is with camouflage pattern, and really born to deal with camouflage pattern, simply could not stand the shock of realization that a complete set of inner senses would bring.

This sort of experience will always be shielded from the outer ego of necessity. Even a watered-down version of a direct inner experience is a shock to the outer ego on your plane, since the ego imagines itself and its own perceptions to be supreme. You have no idea, even with what training you have, of how shattering such a complete experience would be to the outer ego, so we will take one inner-sense experience at a time.

Centuries after the original cry. That is, the strength of the inner sensual impact was as weakened and diluted as it would have been if what you heard was a cry through the outer ear that came originally from centuries already gone by.

The man as he knows himself felt hardly anything. His inner self knew, as the inner self is always aware of such endings.

Had you experienced the pain of the tree as directly and as immediately as you would sense another person’s pain through the ordinary senses you could not have stood it. It would be like the tearing away of your own limbs. Nor is this in any sense a distortion or an exaggeration.

Full use of the inner senses is not even for me yet. There is still a long way for me to go. We progress along these lines according to our capabilities and our own strengths. The conscious ego also develops in a strange manner through all this, as I will now attempt to explain.

Through experience in the various levels of existence the inner ego and the outer ego come closer and closer together. The subconscious eventually disappears, as it is no longer needed as a necessary buffer zone. At your stage of development the inner ego is by far the most self-conscious part of the whole self, and has the greatest ability for perception and organization. It alone is capable of experiencing inner and basic reality directly and immediately. It alone can cope with the tumultuous nature of such direct reality experience.

In the various levels of existence the inner and outer egos begin to merge. Gradually direct experience of inner reality is spoon-fed by the inner ego through the mouth of the subconscious to the outer ego. The division between the inner and outer egos is necessary for other reasons than the nature of direct experience itself. That is, the outer ego is shielded from direct experience of reality because it could not take the impact of such experience. But this is not the only reason.

To the extent that you are able to allow yourselves to be aware of data received by the inner senses, you are preparing yourself and are that far ahead. You remember, Joseph, the rather frightening sensation you felt during one instance of your use of one inner sense, when you translated inner data into the almost nightmare picture of open mouths that could not scream. This is but a minute instance.

I do not mean to mislead you. Basic reality is not by nature terrifying. It is however vibrant and direct to the extreme, and you must be prepared before you experience such an ultrasonic action. A direct experience of reality involves complete use of all the inner senses to an integrated cognizance field. A very weak analogy can be found if you imagine at one time hearing the most exciting and moving music imaginable, while simultaneously smelling the strongest but not necessarily unpleasant odor, viewing the most emotionally-charged scene while feeling intense and vivid bodily sensations. In normal life you even turn down outer-sense stimuli for the sake of simplicity, and to enable you to focus upon those stimuli close at hand.

You would find it difficult to attend to or be aware of regular outer stimuli while you dealt with the ordinary function of daily life. Is it then any wonder that the outer ego leaves the inner data to the safekeeping of the inner ego? You are truly babes in the woods, having enough trouble getting along in your own universe. And do not get your feelings hurt, I am not referring to either of you in particular, as you should know by now.

As the intense experience of great joy or pain often blots out everything else, so would the direct experience of reality blot out, only completely, the outer ego who experienced it directly. At your level the sieve of the subconscious is a necessity and that is one of the main reasons why Ruburt dissociates during our sessions, even though his experience of inner reality is received secondhanded, so to speak, through me.

It is thinned out further by my own subconscious, because my inner and outer egos are not yet a complete unity, although I am, or my outer ego is, in direct contact with my inner ego on some occasions. Nevertheless my subconscious is not yet dispensed with but is still retained somewhat in the order of your archaic appendix.

Ruburt is letting me through well this evening and I find my feelings for both of you most affectionate. This material, you will find, will begin and only begin to fill in the outline on the inner senses. We will still take many sessions before you attain any real understanding of these matters, and my dear biggy-boos, I hope to add to our lectures with exercises in the experience of the various inner senses as we go along.

Such exercises as a rule will not take up time during sessions however, but will appear at other occasions, consume hardly any clock time at all, and seem spontaneous. As preparation I suggest that your reread the material given so far on the inner senses, the first, second and third. We will go into the other inner senses at future sessions.

Your exercises will in no way be frightening. In ordinary circumstances you will only let through as much of the actual experience as you have knowledge and strength and ability to deal with. This is another reason for my disinclination to suggest the use of any drugs, and for my definite advice against them.

I do not want to go into other inner sense material this evening as it is too late to begin on the fourth inner sense. Try and use psychological time as I have told you. This is extremely valuable, for it is the channel through which all other inner data must come at your particular stage.

The back room is the best for sleeping. However it is also the best for your working purposes, Joseph. The small room will do as a sleeping room, but the head of the bed should be at the north. And in the use of psychological time exercises you would do well if your head was at the north.