“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This section will deal with various methods that will allow you to come in contact with the unknown reality to one extent or another. We have spoken of probable man, hinted at probable civilizations, and mentioned alternate systems of actuality.² Yet these do not exist completely apart from the world that you know, or entirely cut off from the psyche. If you have no experience with such realities, then their existence remains delightful or speculative conjecture.

In order to begin, you must first become familiar with the working of your own consciousness as it is directed toward the physical world. You cannot know when you are in focus with another reality if you do not even realize what it feels like to be in full focus with your own. Many people phase in and out of that state without being aware of it, and others are able to keep track of their own “inner drifting.” Here, simple daydreaming represents a slight shift of awareness out of directly given sense data.

You must learn to use this mechanism consciously for your own purposes, for it is extremely handy. Many of you do not pay attention to your own experience, subjectively speaking, so you drift in and out of clear focus in this reality, barely realizing it. Often your daily program is not nearly as clear or well-focused as it should be, but full of static; and while this may annoy you, you often put up with it or even become so used to the lack of harmony that you forget what a clear reception is like. However, in this world you are surrounded by familiar objects, details, and ideas, and your main orientation is physical so that you can operate through habit alone even when you are not as well focused within your reality as you should be.

Sit with your eyes open easily, letting your vision take in whatever is before you. Do not strain. On the other hand, do explore the entire field of vision simultaneously. Listen to everything. Identify all the sounds if you can, mentally placing them with the objects to which they correspond even though the objects may be invisible. Sit comfortably but make no great attempt to relax. Instead, feel your body in an alert manner — not in a sleepy distant fashion. Be aware of its pressure against the chair, for example, and of its temperature, of variations: Your hands may be warm and your feet cold, or your belly hot and your head cold. Consciously, then, feel your body’s sensations. Is there any taste in your mouth? What odors do you perceive?

When you are using this exercise following any experiment with an alteration of consciousness, then end it here and go about your other concerns. You may also utilize it as an initial step that will help you get the feeling of your own inner mobility. To do this proceed as given, and when you have the moment’s perception as clearly as possible, then willfully let it go.

Let the unity disappear as far as your conscious thought is concerned. No longer connect up the sounds you hear with their corresponding objects. Make no attempt to unify vision and hearing. Drop the package, as it were, as a unified group of perceptions. The previous clarity of the moment will have changed into something else. Take one sound if you want to, say of a passing car, and with your eyes closed follow the sound in your mind. Keep your eyes closed. Become aware of whatever perceptions reach you, but this time do not judge or evaluate. Then in a flash open your eyes, alert your body, and try to bring all of your perceptions together again as brilliantly and clearly as possible.

When you have the sense world before you this time, let it climax, so to speak, then again close your eyes and let it fall away. Do not focus. In fact, unfocus. Period.

Each person will have his or her own private experience here, but gradually certain kinds of physical data will seem to disappear while others may take prominence. For example, you might mentally hear sounds, while knowing they have no physical origin. You may see nothing in your mind, or you may see images that seem to have no exterior correlation, but you may hear nothing. For a while ordinary physical data may continue to intrude. When it does, recognize it as your home station, and mentally let yourself drift further away from it. What is important is your own sensation as you experience the mobility of your consciousness. If ever you grow concerned simply return to your home station, back to the left or right according to the direction you have chosen. I do not suggest that you use “higher” or “lower” as directions, because of the interpretations that you may have placed upon them through your beliefs.

Do not be impatient. As you continue with this exercise over a period of time you will be able to go further away, orienting yourself as you grow more familiar with the feeling of your mind. Gradually you will discover that this inner sense data will become clearer and clearer as you move toward another “station.” It will represent reality as perceived from a different state of consciousness.

(Pause.) I will give you a simple example. At home you may tune in to religious programs. That means that you might organize your daily existence about highly idealistic principles. You may try to ignore what you consider other programs dealing with hatred, fear, or violence. You might do such a good job of organizing your physical data about your ideal that you shut out any emotions that involve fear, violence, or hatred. When you alter your consciousness, again, you automatically begin to let old organizations of data drop away. You may have tuned out what you think of as negative feelings or programming. These, however, may have been present but ignored, and when you dispense with your usual method of organizing physical data they may suddenly become apparent.

Do you want a break?

And added later: Jane did use my three Roman experiences in her Psychic Politics; she’d mentioned doing so after the second one had taken place, and ended up quoting my own accounts of them in Chapter 4. (As I wrote up my third vision, incidentally, I called myself “captain,” automatically using present-day terminology to denote a certain military rank Then I began to wonder if such a classification had even existed in the Roman armed forces in those ancient times. I learned that it had: A captain was called a “centurio.”)