“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

7
The Inner Senses

Had I been using Seth’s “inner senses” in the Bronson experience? If we tried to renew the contact, could we get her to give us some checkable dates? I decided to try once more. On January 25th, Rob and I sat in the living room with this in mind. After a short time, I began to speak as Malba. I mentioned this experience briefly in How To Develop Your ESP Power, but here I’m including Rob’s notes which provide a fuller version of the event and our attitude toward it at the time.

Actually she was fairly inarticulate. She did say that she had no particular sense of light and dark, or sense of time. She remarked quite spiritedly that I asked a lot of questions, but added that she liked us because we didn’t make fun of her.

“Both ideas could be part of the whole solution,” Rob said. “Hopefully, as Seth explains more about the inner senses, we’ll understand more about what’s actually going on and learn some methods that will help us.”

(And in the next (nineteenth) session on January 17, 1964, Seth did carry his discussion on the inner sense further, and he gave us additional clues as to how we could use them. As you’ll see, we were shortly to put his methods to work. The session was a long one, and he began by emphasizing the fact that all physical sense data was camouflage.)

The elements — those that you now know and those you will create — are camouflages of the basic stuff or vitality which you cannot discover with your outer senses. Your scientists will find that their tools are no longer adequate. Because man has such a sense of curiosity, scientists will be forced finally to use the inner senses. Otherwise they will be dealing with camouflage only and find themselves in a blind alley — not because their eyes are closed, but because they are not using the right set of eyes.

The camouflage is necessary at this stage of development — intricate, complicated, various and beyond the understanding of the outer senses, which are the perceptors of the camouflage itself, peculiarly adapted to see under particular circumstances … It is only the inner senses that will give you any evidence at all of the basic nature of life.

Since very often the vitality or stuff of the universe seems as innocuous as air … then look for what you do not see. Explore places that seem empty, for they are full. Look between events. What you see clearly with the outer senses is camouflage. I am not suggesting that you take all this on faith. I am saying that what seems vacant lacks camouflage, and, therefore, if this is explored, it will yield evidence.

Effects would seem to be evidence. … In concrete terms, if a tree branch moves, then you take it for granted that something blows it. You know wind by its effects. No one has seen wind, but since its effects are so observable, it would be idiocy to say that it did not exist. Therefore, you will come up against the basic stuff of the universe and feel its effects, though your physical senses will not necessarily perceive it.

You are forced to transform this creative energy into another camouflage pattern because of your earthly situation. There is nothing else you can do. But for this moment, you pluck this vitality from the inner senses. Then you transform it into a somewhat different, more evocative, new camouflage pattern that is, nevertheless, more fluent, more fluid than the usual pattern, and gives greater freedom and mobility to the vitality itself. You approach a transmigration of plane.

Seth went on to explain that the more camouflage (physical dimensions) an art object had, the less its validity to the inner senses.

Scientists realize that the atmosphere of the earth has a distorting effect upon their instruments. What they do not understand is that their instruments themselves are bound to be distortive. Any material instrument will have built-in distortive effects. The one instrument which is more important than any other is the mind (not the brain) … the meeting place of the inner and outer senses.

The mind is distributed throughout the entire physical body, and builds up about it the physical camouflage necessary for existence on the physical level. The mind receives data from the inner senses and forms the necessary camouflage.

“I wish he’d get more specific about the inner senses,” I said after I had read the session. “Like — what are they and how do they work?”

“I know it.” Suddenly I felt giddy and full of fun, struck again by the incongruity of the whole affair. “Two adults waiting for an invisible personality to tell them about an invisible world, waiting for instructions on how to use inner senses,” I said. “Sometimes I feel like an explorer, mapping out paths to an ancient forgotten dimension of reality. I can even feel reverberations beneath everyday activities, like clues that I only sense but still can’t really perceive. And then sometimes I’m besieged by doubts.”

I was really quite tired, yet after the session, I was astonished to discover that Seth had dictated an excellent exposition on the physical senses and had begun a description of the inner ones. According to Rob, he behaved in a most energetic fashion, pacing the room as usual, stopping to joke with Rob, or pausing for a moment to look out the window. Whatever energy was being used, I decided, it was certainly more than I expected myself capable of that night. This was the twentieth session, January 29th. The session began as usual at 9:00 P.M. and ended at 11:40. Again, only excerpts are being given. Seth began by speaking about the physical senses.

The sense of sight, mostly concentrated in your eyes, remains fixed in a permanent position in your physical body. Without moving away from the body, the eyes see something that may be far in the distance. In the same manner, the ears hear sounds that are distant from the body. In fact, the ears ordinarily hear sounds from outside the body more readily than sounds inside the body itself. Since the ears are connected to the body and part of it, it would be logical for an open-minded observer to suppose that the ears would be well attuned to the inner sounds to a high degree. This, you know, is not the case.

The sense of smell also seems to leap forward. A man can smell quite a stink, even though it is not right under his nose. The sense of touch does not seem to leap out in this manner. Unless the hand itself presses upon a surface, then you do not feel that you have touched it. Touch usually involves contact of a direct sort. You can, of course, feel the invisible wind against your cheek, but touch involves an immediacy different from the distant perceptions of sight and smell. I am sure you realize these points yourself.

The outer senses deal mainly with camouflage patterns. The inner senses deal with realities beneath camouflage … and deliver inner information. These inner senses, therefore, are capable of seeing within the body, though the physical eyes cannot. As the senses of sight, sound and smell appear to reach outward, bringing data to the body from an outside observable camouflage pattern, so the inside senses seem to extend far inward, bringing inner reality data to the body. There is also a transforming process involved, much like the moment that we have spoken about in the creation of a painting.

The inner senses, then, deliver data from the inner world of reality to the body. The outer senses deliver data from the outside world of camouflage to the body. However, the inner senses are aware of the body’s own physical data at all times while the outer senses are concerned with the body mainly in its relationship to camouflage environment.

The inner senses have an immediate, constant knowledge of the body in a way that the outer senses do not. The material is delivered to the body from the inner world through the inner senses. This inner data is received by the mind. The mind, being uncamouflaged, then, is the receiving station for the data brought to it by the inner senses. What you have here … are inner nervous and communication systems, closely resembling the outer systems with which you are familiar.

I am repeating myself, but I want this to be clear. This vital data is sent to the mind by the inner senses. Any information that is important to the body’s contact with outer camouflage is given to the brain.

The so-called subconscious is a connective between mind and brain, between the inner and outer senses. Portions of it deal with camouflage patterns, with the personal past of the present personality, with racial memory. The greater portions of it are concerned with the inner world, and as data reaches it from the inner world, so can these portions of the subconscious reach far into the inner world itself…

Time and space are both camouflage patterns. The inner senses conquer time and space, but this is hardly surprising because time and space do not exist for them. There is no time and space. Therefore, nothing is conquered. The camouflage simply is not present. …

I want to give you more detailed information about inner realities themselves. Actually, they do not parallel the outer senses; and this will sound appalling to you, I’m afraid, simply because there is nothing to be seen, heard or touched in the manner in which you are accustomed. I don’t want to give you the idea that existence without your camouflage patterns is bland and innocuous because this is not the case. The inner senses have a strong immediacy, a delicious intensity that your outer senses lack. There is no lapse of time in perception, since there is no time.

Camouflage patterns do, of course, also belong to the inner world, since they are formed from the stuff of the universe by mental enzymes, which have a chemical reaction on your plane. The reaction is necessarily a distortion. That is, any camouflage is a distortion in the sense that vitality is forced into a particular form. Mental enzymes are actually the property of the inner world, representing the conversion of vitality into camouflage data which is then interpreted by the physical senses. Do you have any questions?

Using the inner senses, it would be as if, instead of seeing the various houses, our man felt them. He would be sensitive to them, in other words, as you feel heat or cold without necessarily touching ice or fire.

He would be using the first inner sense. It involves immediate perception of a direct nature, whose intensity varies according to what is being sensed. It involves instant cognition through what I can only describe as inner vibrational touch.

This sense would permit our man to feel the basic sensations felt by the tree, so that instead of looking at it, his consciousness would expand to contain the experience of what it is to be a tree. According to his proficiency, he would feel in like manner the experience of being the grass and so forth. He would in no way lose consciousness of who he was, and he would perceive these experiences again, somewhat in the same manner that you perceive heat and cold. …

The inner senses are capable of expansion and of focus in a way unknown to the outer ones, and the inner world, of course, is a part of all realities. It is not so much that it exists simultaneously with the outer world, as that it forms the outer world and exists in it also.

When you receive more information on the inner senses, you will begin using them to a much higher degree than you are now. Of course, the inner senses can be used to explore reality that does not yield to the physical senses.

This session impressed me quite a bit, since after it I felt much less tired than I had earlier. Where had the extra energy come from … after three hours of dictation as Seth? I wondered. Besides this, both of us began to experiment with the first inner sense on the basis of the information we received that night. As you will see, the resulting experiences began to add another dimension to our lives.