“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The physical structure alone is simply not divided from other structures in the manner which you perceive it to be through use of the outer senses. The outer senses are usually considered mainly as perceptive organs, enabling you to experience reality as it is. My dear friends, I have been waiting to tell you for some time that in a very true sense, the outer senses can be regarded as inhibitors.

(Jane’s delivery had by now become very slow; at times while she delivered this material, she would pause for several seconds between words, pacing slowly back and forth.)

Man, staying within the core of his arbitrarily designated selfhood, can in truth be compared to early physical man, cowering within his cave. You have learned to venture forth into the physical universe. You have not learned to venture forth from an arbitrarily designated selfhood, into an extended environment that knows no space or time. Such a possibility, such a future development in no way involves a denial of self, a dissolving or sweeping away of self, an annihilation of self. Many cavemen doubtlessly feared for their personal survival when they ventured forth upon the earth in daylight.

This must most certainly sound outlandish to you. Nevertheless I will never refrain from giving you the facts, regardless of your reactions at the time, as you will come to see how this idea in particular is not unthinkable, but feasible.

(Later, Jane told me that as she was delivering this material aloud, she also contained within another parallel channel of thought from Seth, as she often does. This time she was quite aware of Seth’s concern lest anyone, upon reading this section of the material, commit suicide in a misguided effort to prove that it is possible for the consciousness to get along without the physical body. Jane said that at times she is aware of as many as three separate, parallel streams of thought, at the same time as she is giving voice to one of them.)

(As break began, I realized that my hands felt fat or enlarged; at the same time Jane said hers did also, and that she had been aware of it earlier in the session but forgot to mention it. My right hand, and especially the third finger, felt very full and engorged. At such times the skin acquires a taut, almost flushed look, and the fingers feel strained when they are doubled up. The phenomenon lasted for several minutes with both of us.

(Jane also announced that at various times during the past two or three weeks, she had had the feeling of her left foot or hand—never the right—being plunged in hot water. It is not a feeling of perspiration, but more like a hot flash. It will happen at any time—at work, at home, etc. It is a feeling almost as though the limb could dissolve or merge into a warm environment that was enveloping it.

This extension of self will occur in some degree before any really effective brotherhood of man is accomplished. This is unfortunate but true. The self begins learning its arbitrary limitations at the same time that it tries expansion in childhood. If the cultural limitations were lifted this would at least be of some benefit.

The consciousness, with its source in the inner universe, being not bound by time or space, is in a position to expand along the lines that I have mentioned. The physical body in a large degree is not. Do not mistake me. For practical purposes, theory aside, you could not maintain allegiance to your plane, live out a normal life span for example (and this is necessary) while separate from the physical body.

I have endeavored to add an extra perspective this evening to the session, as far as sensations for both you and Ruburt are concerned. The extension or expansion of self momentarily and initially involves a slight expansion of tissue. I believe that you both have experienced this at various times, to varying degrees.

(By the time we got organized the sensation had begun to diminish with each of us but I took the measurements anyhow.

(While trying psychological time Jane and I had the following experiences.

(Self- Friday 5/22, 9:30 PM: Few instances of my sensation after the suggestion to myself that I felt light. This is coming to be a dependable effect at such times. I seem now to be able to know in advance when the sensation will manifest itself during such experiments.

(Then came a rather unpleasant experience. Driving or gliding along river road just north of Chemung NY, with fence on my right so that I could not get off the road, I saw sweeping down the hill some distance ahead of me a big tractor-trailer truck—on the wrong side of the road. This experience had duration enough for me to consider the best way to avoid it. It did not swerve about, merely headed straight for me until it loomed up enormously right in front of me. There was no crash but I was frightened; part of the time I saw the truck through a veil of white. Then I realized I had plenty of room to pull off the road to the left, and so would be safe.

(Also, again tuned in on part of a conversation between Mother and Father; heard it clearly, and was involved in it, I believe, yet could not retain it and forgot it upon getting up, until the next day. Don’t recall seeing them this time though.