“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(A few days ago Jane and I had looked at another apartment, one much bigger than ours and also more expensive. She liked it but for some reason I thought it wise not to take it. It belongs to one of Jane’s coworkers at the art gallery. Personally, I would like our next move to be to our own place in the suburbs or the nearby country.

I am quite pleased, you will benefit by this, and also from the other changes in your establishment that you have been considering, including a method of using the back room all year. Resentment had a lot to do with Ruburt’s banging around. Not resentment at you, Joseph, but resentment because he felt guilty for not being satisfied. If you intend to stay where you are for any amount of time, then you would do well to get the most out of your establishment, and the enlargement being contemplated would be very beneficial.

Inherent, and I repeat inherent in the spider as in man, is the complete comprehension, or rather comprehension through direct experience, of the universe as a whole. In its particular existence the spider is not aware of all this knowledge, but it uses what is necessary of it to construct its web. It experiences directly. There is of course no “I” consciousness, but there is direct consciousness, nevertheless, of the most intimate kind.

Give the spider an ego and an intellect and you will see then how the picture would change. These would enable him to enlarge upon his scope of awareness and activity, but at the same time impediments would be placed so that the web construction would no longer appear either as direct as far as its source is concerned, nor as spontaneous.

You construct your own camouflage existence as the spider constructs his web, but you are not aware of the threads. You do not understand that they originate within yourself, although it is very simple to smile as the lowly spider weaves its web. The spider’s construction is severely limited to one plane, but this is not the case with your constructions, which may have reality on many planes at once, and in ways with which you are not familiar.

The capsule of course is not a solid on any plane. To some inhabitants of other planes that have access to your plane, all that can be seen of you is this tissue capsule, since such inhabitants have had no experience in your particular type of camouflage construction. Therefore your camouflage patterns are invisible to them, but the tissue capsules are not.

These capsules can be seen by you under certain circumstances, and have been called astral bodies—a term which does not meet with my pleasure. I would like to repeat again the fact that in many instances, and with exceptions, ideas not fully constructed on your plane not only have great force but are also freer from the effects of physical laws. The idea has at its command then greater and varied methods of expression, and from it varieties of construction can be attempted. I have mentioned the advantages of a painting over a piece of sculpture, and an idea not fully captured will find further expression.

This is not to say that perfection is not to be sought after. It is of course impossible to achieve but the almost-completed leaves room for further development of the idea, and the idea is not imprisoned.

Your plane is a training place in the use of manipulation of energy. Your plane seems to deal with cause and effect, but this is in itself a necessary camouflage. In actuality there is no cause and effect as you think of it. There is only spontaneity. For a particular interval you must be taught as if there were cause and effect, so that the result of spontaneity would not end up as chaos. This statement may seem contradictory but later you will see that it is not.

Now that we have briefly discussed the meaning of a tissue capsule I will go into the seventh inner sense a bit more deeply. This sense allows for an expansion or contraction of the tissue capsule. Theoretically there is no limit to the contraction or expansion allowed, but practically there are usually definite limitations.

(Now Jane, as Seth, began a most entertaining performance. To this point Jane had been sober, quiet and dignified. Now she began to grin broadly. Often, to emphasize a point, she would lean over my desk, smiling. She appeared to be enjoying herself very much. Her eyes were very dark. The very tone of her voice changed to one of amusement. I have seen Jane display mirth in the sessions before, but this period of such feeling lasted far longer. Now she tapped on my desk.)

I will explain it to you, but at a much later date. Also, understand that what you think of or experience as space travel is another camouflage. Space travel so-called is an idea that makes sense only on your plane. I’m saving these little tidbits for you this evening.

The inhabitants of the flying saucers are not of your own plane. I have mentioned the struggle of form involved. You will have to remember in any of the discussions along these lines that your physical constructions simply do not exist except on your own plane. Other constructions exist simultaneously with your own, of an entirely different nature, also however on what you may call a horizontal plane. But you will never find them in a spaceship.

(She said her fingers felt a little fatter, but when we examined them we could see no difference. The feeling was predominant in her right hand and index finger especially. Jane had a let-down feeling during this break when she was able to relax, and said she needed the longer rest. Her voice was normal when she began dictating again. Resume at 10:43.)

Again this in no way implies an invasion of Ruburt by myself, but instead implies an extension on Ruburt’s part to make way for the experience. It is not a lessening of self but an extension of self, so that the self-awareness can include not only self but independent (you may call this other) self experience, to include a value that is usually lacking in your ordinary behavior patterns.

First of all, experimentation and interest is growing in an exterior fashion as far as what you call ESP is concerned. Your next momentous discoveries will be along these lines but not in the immediate future. In your camouflage universe you are severely hampered as far as space travel is concerned, by the time elements involved in the camouflage universe itself. On your terms it will simply take too long to get where you want to go.

It is very possible that you might (underline) end up in what you intend as a space venture only to discover that you have “traveled” (in quotes) to another plane. But at first you will not know the difference.

I am making up in value on another scale entirely for the last time. It is very possible that you both may need a rest now and then, and if so you will get it. But for quite a while it will not involve missing sessions but shortening them. Right now you are both doing extremely well. Ruburt, incidentally, was right. I had intended giving you a week off after your first thirty sessions. However you didn’t ask for them, and you didn’t seem to need a vacation, so I took advantage of it.

Ruburt in the past has been very sensitive as far as your work is concerned, and this year has seen some improvement. There is some need to be on guard but hardly any to be up in arms.

Incidentally it is possible that you and Ruburt and his friend at the art gallery and her husband may become good friends, but it would have been extremely inadvisable for you to have moved into her apartment. You both have known the woman before, and under unpleasant circumstances. As tenants you would have been extremely dissatisfied with her.

There are also some rather hilarious incidents involved. As when you, old reprobate, took over your son’s mistresses when you got the chance; but you did not get the chance too often. There was also the case of taking some rent out through flesh when the cash was not forthcoming.

(“I think so. I don’t want to but I guess we’d better. Jane is getting tired.”)

I could say more but I won’t.

(End at 11:44. Jane was dissociated as usual. (But as it developed the surprises for the evening were not yet over. No sooner had the session ended than I noticed that my hands felt “fat.” This is the feeling Jane has mentioned so often. I found myself rubbing my hands together, subjectively aware of a swollen feeling in them as we talked after the session. The sensation began in both index fingers, then spread across the knuckles, down into the fingers, and into the palms. When I made fists there was a stretching and thick feeling in them. They felt alien. It was not painful in any way, merely a most intriguing feeling of engorgement. My index fingers especially appeared to be larger. I wear a ring on the fourth finger of my left hand, but unfortunately did not think to see if I could remove it.

(The feeling lasted for a few minutes. And Jane, remarking that she had experienced the same thing at 10:30 break, then made the intuitive leap to connect her own episodes of hand phenomena with the feeling of bodily enlargement she had experienced on March 30. See page 309. Neither of us had made this connection before, but Jane now felt sure that her fat hands had been the forerunners of a fuller use of the seventh inner sense.