“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In this fourteenth session I spoke for Seth for fifty minutes straight, the longest period without a break up to that date. Seth began by advising us to have a more balanced social life—to go out more and mix with people—so as to counter the intense inner activity of psychic experience. Then he launched into his first discussion of the Inner Senses, a subject which was entirely new to us. It was to be elaborated upon in the future.

“Everything on your plane is the materialization of something that exists independently of your plane. Therefore, within your senses there are other senses that perceive inward. Your regular senses perceive an outer world. The senses within the recognizable senses perceive and create an inner world … once you exist on a particular plane you must necessarily be attuned to it while blocking out many other perceptions. It is a sort of psychic focus, a concentration of awareness along certain lines. As your ability grows in relation to the environment then you can afford to look around, use the Inner Senses, and enlarge your scope of activity. This is only natural. Survival on a particular plane depends upon your concentration within it. When survival is more or less satisfied through attention, then you can afford to perceive other realities.”

Running into the session’s second hour, my voice had sounded progressively more hoarse, and it was the first time in sessions that it had ever shown signs of strain. After the initial discussion of the Inner Senses, Seth said, “I did not intend to make you work so hard this evening, Joseph. If your hand is working as quickly as Ruburt’s mouth, you must be exhausted. Would you like to take a break, or end the session? I am always thinking of your convenience, at least when I am not concerned with your education,” he added with a smile.

Rob asked for a break, but then he urged me to end the session before my voice gave out. I knew that he was concerned about me, but also tremendously interested in the material Seth had been giving. Besides this, as Seth, I had been extremely active, making funny remarks now and then to break up pages of serious monologue. The sense of another independent personality was stronger than it had ever been, and so I decided to continue. By now it was after 10:30. While we were talking, Rob had wondered aloud about the meaning of time; when we resumed, Seth started discussing this question.

Instantly my voice returned to normal. The hoarseness had long since disappeared. Now it was almost impossible for us to end the session. We were too intrigued. Despite Seth’s parting words, I could “feel” him still present, along with a tremendous sense of vitality and goodwill. Rob told me about the heavy masculine voice with its astonishing volume, and all around me I felt this high energy and great humor as if an invisible Seth were sitting there, smiling, ready to start a friendly chat.

The impression Rob got from the voice, gestures, and manner was that of an energetic, educated gentleman of the “old school,” in his sixties perhaps, extraordinarily intelligent but aware of his own foibles—a man with a highly developed yet old-fashioned sense of humor. As Seth I touched a begonia plant (one of my favorites) and said, “I like Jane’s plant. Green things are a touchstone of your existence. You notice that earlier I used the term ‘plane’ rather than ‘planet,’ because you do not have the whole kettle to yourself. …

Again, on reading the notes we were fascinated by the material, particularly since Seth told us that he was going to explain these Inner Senses more fully, and teach us how to use them. He was as good as his word, for as you will see shortly, he did give us instructions and we were to have all kinds of new experiences as we followed them. We didn’t know that this information was geared to our own level of understanding and quite simple in comparison with the elaborations that would follow.

We didn’t realize either that the emergence of the Seth voice completed the psychic structure through which we would receive the Seth Material, and through which Seth’s personality would express itself. From this session on, there was always some voice change during sessions, but the deep booming tones were the exception rather than the rule for some time to come. On occasion there is the sense of really tremendous power behind the voice; and my own voice is never strained. Much later, Seth told us that this psychic energy can be translated into sound like this, or it can be used for other purposes. Now when Seth gives clairvoyant material, for example, the voice is seldom loud. The energy is used to gather the data instead. (As you will see later in this book, that energy can also be a springboard into other dimensions.)