“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] The time seemed to fly. During this session our cat Willy slept the whole time. [...] At times as she talked it was quite normal. [...]

[...] You are both experiencing at this point, and have experienced in the past, the distorted time element, or so-called foreshortened time that you read about in your books on hypnotism. If you will notice the time by the clock you will see how much material I have given you in something like 15 minutes. [...]

(However, I did take down three full closely-written pages of material during this time. [...] Therefore it seems plausible to us that some sort of time foreshortening may have taken place. Note that I had also remarked at the end of the first break how the time seemed to fly, and commented upon the amount of material we were accumulating.)

I still haven’t gone completely into our fifth dimension discussion, but I am rounding out our imaginary structural universe in such a way that the fifth dimension material will fit in almost effortlessly when the time comes. [...] I hit upon the foreshortened time idea to save you actual practical time that you might wish to use in other matters. [...]

[...] The self may project itself into the dimensions of space and time, but the projection is a small part of its actuality. Even the uppermost or surface elements of the self with which you are familiar, the ego and the uppermost layers of the subconscious, even these cannot be said to be born at any given time, in time as you conceive it.

[...] I tried three times specifically; and each time in a most dry and amused, even pleased way, the personality said firmly that Jane and I could not be told why at this time. [...]

[...] Letters were exchanged for some little time. [...] A.J. replied on November 22, stating that before he could answer Jane’s questions he would like Seth’s answers to three questions: “When was the last time you grew up?”, “What do you love?”, and “When is the self born?”

There is no point in time as you know it, when the self is born. [...] It expands and develops in terms of value fulfillment, in a way that has nothing to do with space and time.

[...] There are periods of quietude, flux and change then, in each individual’s life, that are to some extent connected with the point of emergence into space and time. They are simply various kinds of patterned behavior, swirls of interactions as the soul meets space and time. [...]

[...] The two of you jointly also did agree, despite your own feelings in space and time, and I understand them; I know that the method will be left behind. I am well aware however of your attitudes in the time, as you experience it. [...]

Particular suggestions given in a group of closely allied sessions for him are geared to his condition at that time, and to the circumstances. [...]

[...] The symptoms then become intensified at times. [...]

[...] Take a fairly simple one—Psychological Time. Seth says, “From within its framework you will see that physical time is as dreamlike as you once thought inner time was. You will discover your whole selves, peeping inward and outward at the same ‘time,’ and find that all time is one time, and all divisions, illusions.”

When we do “Psy-Time,” as Rob and I call it, our experiences seem to take place outside of the usual time framework. [...] Psy-Time is the “time” I travel in when I’m projecting, for example. [...] Obviously, in normal time, this would be impossible.

A deeper appreciation of this subject requires more information about the real nature of time, however; because according to Seth the inner self operates not within time as we know it, but through perceptions that largely ignore time as we know it.

The question comes up, then: How can we ignore time? What is there about ourselves, or time, that we can disconnect one from the other? [...] Here Seth partially explains the nature of time, and shows why we are basically free of it.

(Both of us have kept strict records of our psychological time studies, for example, with the hope that Seth will eventually discuss them. The records have now piled up to such an extent, however, that we do not really understand how Seth can ever cover them, as he has promised to at various times, in very much detail. [...] Actually the time set aside for gathering material is quite limited, yet it keeps us busy.

As within your universe, as a personality reincarnates into different form, you have the retention of the original personality, intact, with its memories in the subconscious; and you have the additional formation of a completely new personality time after time.

(November 23, Monday, 8:15 PM: This was my most active experience since resuming psychological time study. [...] Most of the sightings and sounds are now hard to recall, frustratingly enough, but they were very vivid at the time, and I did achieve partial duration in memory.

[...] My sensation swept over me several times. One time I saw a group of men and women walking out of a deserted house into a field of knee-high brown weeds, and heard them talking plainly.

(The main thing I want to note is that after the catheter had been changed for the last time, Jane very nearly turned over on her left side by herself. [...] At the same time, Jane doesn’t know how she did it—the action evidently was the way it should be, largely automatic. I heard her exclaim over the feat at the time, without paying a lot of attention, since I’d shoved my chair back into a corner to get out of the way while the staff worked on Jane; I was doing mail. [...]

[...] Jane had to have her catheter changed three times while I was there yesterday. Obviously, it didn’t work right the first two times—just before lunch at about 1:50, then after lunch at about 2:30. [...]

[...] Last night I had a very interesting, and at the same time almost a bothersome dream: I dreamed that while I was with Margaret and Joe Bumbalo and their son John, I discovered I was a latent homosexual. [...] It was the kind of dream one returns to several times, and I assume I’ve forgotten portions of it. [...]

(The day was warmer—40 degrees—but very damp, and ended up raining heavily by the time I left for home. [...]

[...] Even your small studies with psychological time should give you some valuable insight into this matter, however, and the use of psychological time is very important because of the avenues which it will open for you.

[...] In this way also you create your so-called real camouflage world, the only difference being that the dream world images do not have duration in physical time although they have duration in psychological time. [...]

[...] This time we seemed to acquire a normal amount of material between breaks. [...] She said that somehow the idea that all entities were in existence at the time of the creation of the earth shocked her.

Nevertheless it also partakes of the strange unity that unites all personalities beneath the camouflage pattern, while at the same time it is only partially connected to the camouflage pattern. In some respects art creations are a meeting of the dream world and the world of camouflage patterns, but in a deeper way art creations represent the appearance or materialization in the actual element of physical time of inner realities. [...]

(Jane, while trying psychological time on Tuesday, 5/26 at 11:15 AM, tried to project herself to Bill Macdonnel’s hospital room. [...] Checking with Bill later at the hospital, we learned he was asleep at this time. [...]

[...] Theoretically the influence of a particular given self is endless, and not only in so far as your own physical camouflage time universe is concerned. The influence of any given self reaches also into realities that are not bounded by space and time.

[...] They come into some prominence and fulfillment through dreams, and through enticing the main personality at times into the adoption of conscious or unconscious thoughts which would ordinarily not be chosen by the primary self, and therefore at times altering the course of the primary self.

(Tuesday, May 26, 9:00 PM: While trying psychological time I had a few instances of my thrilling sensation. [...]

[...] And we would appreciate further cooperation this time. [...] It is Ruburt who is in a Jane trance most of the time. [...]

The time has indeed come, however, for you to return. [...]

[...] There is some vital information that you do not have—information that has not been discussed in class, and it is time that you had it. [...]

[...] But I will not be speaking to you for that time. [...]

You conceive of action in terms of time, since within the physical field a given action appears to actually take up time, almost in the same way that a chair seems to take up space. [...] Nor does the action take up time. It is part of what you call time. [...]

[...] Once he achieved a feeling of transportation psychically to another room; the other time he felt the room we were all gathered in had enlarged a great deal. Jane and I have both approximated these sensations during psychological time experiments also.

[...] There is also here a duration that is closely connected with intensity, but not with continuity in terms of time, as it is usually understood in the physical field.

[...] But in this electrical system a travel through time would merely involve a journey through intensities. [...]

The events that you recognize as official have a unitary nature in time that precludes those probable versions of them, from which they arose — versions that appeared to one extent or another in the dream state. Again, if you speak the English sentence “I am here,” you cannot speak the Chinese version at the same time. [...]

(11:15.) Yet each of those nameless atoms and molecules cooperates in a vast venture, incomprehensible to you, that makes your speech possible, and your reality of events is built up from a cordella of activity in which each spoken word has a history that stretches further back into the annals of time than the most ancient of fossils could remember. I am speaking in your terms of experience, for in each word spoken in your present, you evoke that past time, or you stimulate it into existence so that its reality and yours are coexistent.

(11:22.) While you can only speak one sentence at a time, and in but one language, and while that sentence must be sounded one vowel or syllable at a time, still it is the result of a kind of circular knowledge or experience in which the sentence’s beginning and end is known simultaneously. [...]

[...] If you try to speak English you cannot speak Chinese at the same time. [...]

If the dream world, the mind, and the inner universe do exist, but not in space, and if they do not exist basically in time, though they may be glimpsed through time, then your question will be: In what medium or in what manner do they exist, and without time, how can they be said to exist in duration? [...] It exists in time, but the mind takes up no space and does not have its basic existence in time. Your camouflage universe, on the other hand, takes up space and exists in time.

[...] In that session Seth gave us his interpretations of some of the basic laws or attributes of the inner universe, but it will be quickly seen that he was really discussing space and time,² as those qualities are perceived in his reality and in ours. In our world, of course, space and time form the environment in which conventional ideas of evolution exist. For that matter, all of the material in this appendix shows the interrelationship between our ideas of serial time and Seth’s simultaneous time. [...]

[...] Space is a camouflage … This tinge of time is an attribute of the physical camouflage form only, and even then the relationship between time and ideas, and time and dreams, is a nebulous one … although in some instances parts of the inner universe may be glimpsed from the camouflage perspective of time; only, however, a small portion.

(Naïve realism, the philosophical concept that’s been mentioned a few times in this appendix, enters in here. It could, however, be considered at just about any time, since its proponents believe that it’s unconsciously involved in practically all of our daily activities. [...] The perceptual time lag, caused by the limited speed of light, is also involved in objections to naïve realism. I merely want to remind the reader that in ordinary terms naïve realism, or some mind-brain idea very much like it, is habitually used whether we’re considering evolution within a time-oriented camouflage universe, painting a picture, or running a household. [...]

Your idea of keeping detailed records of psychological time experiments is an excellent one. There is at least a possibility that you and Ruburt, using your own individual inner senses, may at times perceive different aspects of a given situation, and that the individual perceptions will enable you to achieve a greater knowledge of a specific, or any specific, happening than either of you separately could achieve. This of course will take time and training.

(While trying psychological time I had the following experiences. [...]

(Also at this same time: Lower center of my field of vision; I saw a pack of dogs of various breeds and sizes, one of them a Dalmatian. [...]

You would most probably benefit at such times by reading again the specific material that I have given you along these lines. [...]

(However I did not think much of this, and since Jane was already getting breakfast at the other end of the apartment, I forgot to mention it to her by the time I sat down to eat. And as before, by the time I left the apartment, the other car had been moved.

(Seth also stated at that time that John will have to take strong measures if he wants to achieve certain goals. [...]

(Jane has been quite concerned because of her dream of November 8, which she feels to be clairvoyant, and her recent psychological time experiences, which she feels are related to the dream. [...]

(She had no actual idea of the subject matter for the session as the time for it approached. [...]

“Time has no meaning without barriers. To put it another way, time has no meaning without the necessity to counteract against other actions. [...] It all takes time! [...] I mean it kindly, for you have no idea of the difficulties involved in explaining time to someone who must take time to understand the explanation.

Rob had little time to make extra notes, though, as the passage continued without pause. “The motion of the apparently solidified vitality gives the illusion of time. [...] … The action and counteraction is the time trigger. On some other planes motion is simultaneous and time unknown. To me your time can be manipulated; it is one of the several vehicles by which I can enter your awareness. [...]

All during this time I was working at the local art gallery in the afternoons. [...] Now I wonder why we were so secretive, but at the time it seemed much better to keep the world with all of its questions out. [...]

[...] We definitely decided not to tell any of our friends or relatives, at least for the time being. The spiritualist groups would have been out in any case, because of my views at the time on religion in general. [...]

[...] I know that she is very upset by the time element involved here, and now I’m not at all sure that I know what I’m doing on the project any more. [...] Jane has been spending most of her time lately using the pendulum, making notes, reading old sessions on herself and myself, etc, but presently I see all this activity as repeating old rhythms. [...]

[...] We spend more and more time on affairs connected with symptoms, it seems—and those problems, connected with the construction going on in back of the house, where Frank Longwell is building Jane’s writing room in half of the garage, have combined to cut our production a good deal.

To some extent or another you chose abilities ahead of time that would at least partially meet conflict with the society in which you were born. [...]

[...] To meet with these, Ruburt for example adopted certain beliefs that at various times would be helpful.

(It will be remembered that in the 140th session Seth suggested Jane avoid psychological time for a while, after she had unwittingly gone too far, too fast. A week later Jane resumed psy-time on a reduced time basis. [...] She has however had some rather startling clairvoyant experiences outside of psy-time.

(Jane has been practicing psychological time regularly. [...] The only suggestions she gives herself now are to the effect that she is completely relaxed, and free of space and time. [...]

[...] However in his psychological time experiments he is trying too hard. [...]

There will be a period of relaxation following the completion of his book, and during this time there will be a release of psychic energy that he will use most beneficially. [...]

Now, we will see to it that you live very adventurous nights, and those of you who do psychological time and take the physical time necessary to do the experiments, will find the mobility of consciousness—I am using that term because Ruburt likes it so well—that is necessary. [...]

Tell our friend, Ruburt, that Nassair should not set up what he is thinking of setting up, his offshore fund; and tell Ruburt that that is the only message I have for Mr. Nassair at this time. [...] Tell him also that Mr. Nassair’s friend, who was here at class, subconsciously knows that Mr. Nassair should not set up the fund at this time, but did not want to take the responsibility for saying so. [...]

[...] Now when you are quieted and when you are in the dream state or when you are doing psychological time then you free yourself from the three-dimensional system and allow your consciousness to recognize other portions of its own reality. [...]

(To Giselle.) Now, I am aware of the problems of which Ruburt knows, and we will discuss them at a later time whenever you can get up here and discuss it. [...]

[...] Pretend with me that you are presently sitting in a room in a town called Elmira, in a state called New York, that you are seated in a circle and that you are listening to me speak, and pretend with me that at the same time you are in a circle about me in another space and another time. [...] We imagined a physical reality and we imagined this moment and this time and there is no end to this children’s tale. [...]

(After break:) I will say good evening but what information you get here increases the nature of reality as you know it and frees you from time. Your experience during these classes is far different than your ordinary experience for you learn more in a short period of time than you do at any other time, except again, when you are sleeping. [...]

(To Rose C.) Now this friend would like some information, and she has wanted it for some time. [...] You brood about the experiences of this life, and then you want me to give you information about five other lives so you can brood five times as much. [...]

[...] Now give us time. [...] You had an earlier life at the time when the most important Greek plays were being written. [...]

Now basically, consciousness itself is a type of barrier, and anything that has consciousness experiences time to some degree. [...] Self-consciousness presents a larger barrier, therefore the sense of time is greater. Psychological time is the lowest common denominator, so to speak, from your viewpoint. [...] Psychological time represents on your plane the closest you can come to the experience of timelessness as far as your physical laws are concerned.

You do experience time, but not time as it is bound by your camouflage patterns. As I have mentioned you can in a dream or daydream or through conscious use of psychological time experience many hours in a few clock minutes. [...]

This sensing would have been done by the third inner sense, in conjunction of course with other senses, and this perception of past, present and future would not take any clock time, at least not theoretically. [...] There will always be some clock time involved for you.

Such exercises as a rule will not take up time during sessions however, but will appear at other occasions, consume hardly any clock time at all, and seem spontaneous. [...]