“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Think again of the psyche in the manner mentioned, taking it for granted that the program now on the screen is a fully dimensioned reality, and that hidden somehow in its very elements are all of the other programs not showing. These are not lined up in space behind the “front” program, but in a completely different way contained within it. The point of any image at any given time in the picture showing might represent, for example, a top hat on a table. Everyone acting in that scene would view the hat and the table, and react accordingly with their own individual characteristics.

Now imagine that the picture on the television screen shows your own universe. Your idea of space travel would be to send a ship from one planet, earth, outward into the rest of space that you perceive on that “flat” screen. Even with your projected technology, this would involve great elements of time. Imagine here, now, that the screen’s picture is off-center to begin with, so that everything is distorted to some extent, and going out into space seems to be going backward into time.

(Pause.) If the picture were magically centered, then all “time” would be seen to flow out from the instant moment⁴ of perception, the private now; and in many ways the mass now, or mass perception, represents the overall now-point of your planet. From that now, “time” goes out in all probable directions. Actually it also goes inward in all probable directions.

(Slowly:) The simple picture of the universe that you see on our screen, therefore, represents a view from your own now perspective — but each star, planet, galaxy or whatever is made up of other reference points in which, to put it simply, the same patterns have different kinds of reality. True space travel would of course be time-space travel,⁵ in which you learned how to use points in your own universe as “dimensional clues” that would serve as entry points into other worlds. Otherwise you are simply flying like an insect around the outside of the television set, trying to light on the fruit, say, that is shown upon the screen — and wondering, like a poor bemused fly, why you cannot. You use one main focus in your reality. In the outside world this means that you have a “clear picture.” (Humorously:) There is no snow! That physical program is the one you are acting in, alive in, and it is the one shown on the screen. The screen is the part of your psyche upon which you are concentrating. You not only tune in the picture but you also create the props, the entire history of the life and times, hyphen — but in living three-dimensional terms, and “you” are within that picture.

(10:18.) Now: If you alter that picture a little so that the images are somewhat scrambled — and you do this by altering the focus of your consciousness — then the familiar coordination is gone. Objects may appear blurred, ordinary sounds distorted. It seems as if you are on the outskirts of your own reality. In such a state, however, it is easy to see that your usual orientation may be but one of many frames of reference. (Pause.) If you did change the focus of your consciousness still further, you might then “bring in” another picture entirely. On the outside this would give you another reality. (Intently:) In it your “old” reality might still be somewhat perceivable as a ghost image,⁶ if you knew what to look for and remembered your former coordinates. On the inside, however, you would be traveling not around or about, but through one portion of the psyche with its reality, into another portion of the psyche with its reality. That kind of journey would not be any more imaginary than a trip from one city to another.

Give us time … When you change your ordinary television set from one station to another you may encounter snow or distortion. If something is wrong with the set you may simply tune in patterns that seem meaningless and carry no particular program. You may have sound without a picture, and sometimes even a picture but sound from another program. So when you begin to experiment with states of altered consciousness you often run into the same kind of phenomena, when nothing seems to make sense.

You [Joseph]] were determined to find the kind of relationship you have with Ruburt, the kind of bond your parents never had,¹² and you applied the power of your will in that direction. At the same time you were determined to set yourself apart from the world to some extent, while still maintaining and developing an emotional contact with a mate that would be unlike any in your earlier experience. Creativity would have to be involved. You were also intrigued, determined to travel into the nature of reality, and at least glimpse a vague picture of what it could be. In this probability you provided yourself with a background that included sports and the love of the body, knowing [those qualities] would sustain you.