“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You would learn the instrument far quicker, you see, if the impulse was originating with a probable self. It goes without saying then that probable selves exist in your “future” as well as your past. It is very poor policy to dwell negatively on unpleasant aspects of the past that you know, because some portions of the probable self may still be involved in that past. The concentration can allow greater bleed-through and adverse identification, because that part will be one background that you have in common with any probable selves who sprang from that particular source.

The past existed in multitudinous ways. You only experienced one probable past. By changing this past in your mind, now, in your present, you can change not only its nature but its effect, and not only upon yourself but upon others.

(10:12.) To dwell upon the possibility of illness or disaster is equally poor policy, for you set up negative webs of probabilities that need not occur. You can theoretically alter your own past as you have known it, for time is no more something divorced from you than probabilities are.

Pretend a particular event happened that greatly disturbed you. In your mind imagine it not simply wiped out, but replaced by another event of more beneficial nature. Now this must be done with great vividness and emotional validity, and many times. It is not a self-deception. The event that you choose will automatically be a probable event, which did in fact happen, though it is not the event you chose to perceive in your given probable past.

[...] It then seems to become the past. You have only tuned into a portion of it physically, though; that past event continues to exist with its own “future,” which you may or may not perceive, according to which probable action you pull into your next experiences of actuality.

Now: Future events are also your selection of probable ones, however, and many occurrences in which you are involved speed past you too quickly for your neuronal structure. [...]

In your terms that event may never come to pass, however, because it may be arising from a probable past that was once your present, but from which you have diverged. [...]

The past does have its own past, present and future, therefore. From a given past event you will only materialize a particular future, but the event itself continues, and possesses a dimensionality of its own — or rather a multidimensionality that you also possess.

For example: It is truer to say that heredity operates from the future backward into the past, than it is to say that it operates from the past into the present. Neither statement would be precisely correct in any case, because your present is a poised balance affected as much by the probable future as the probable past.

Yet the units of consciousness, being independent of space and time, form your cellular structure, and that structure deals in a most basic manner with the nature of probabilities. Although the body appears permanent and in existence from one moment to the next, basically it constantly rises out of the bed of probabilities, hovering at your now-point of perception and experience, and its apparent stability is dependent upon the knowledge of “future” probabilities as well as “past” ones.

[...] Because your sense experience follows a time pattern that you can understand, then you take it for granted that a cell, for example, is the result of its past, and that its present condition arises from the past.⁴ The fetus grows into an adult, not because it is programmed from the past, but because it is to some extent precognitively aware of its probabilities, and from the “future” then imprints this information into the past structure.

(Slower at 10:07:) Your body’s condition at any time is not so much the result of its own comprehension of its “past history” as it is the result of its own comprehension of future probabilities. [...]

Take any remembered scene from your own past. Experience it as clearly as possible imaginatively, but with the idea of its probable extensions. [...] It is not a part of the past that you know, but an intersection point where that past served as an offshoot into a series of probabilities that you did not follow.

[...] It does mean that even in those terms, and consciously unknowing, mankind is experimenting with a probable species and working out quite spiritual issues. Your probable futures and your probable pasts, in larger terms, exist at once. [...]

You have put yourselves in a position where your consciousness must now become aware of the probable pasts and probable futures, in order to form for yourselves a sane, fulfilling, and creative present.

According to the intensity of the situation, now, another also desirable solution may be worked out in a probable reality. On an unconscious level you are aware of your probable selves, and they of you. [...] It does mean that your probable selves and you share in a body of symbolism, background, and ability. The multistructured nature of the dream state allows for dream dramas in which probable selves do appear. [...]

(The questions I referred to concern the fact that once in The Seth Material and nine times in Seth Speaks, by my count, Seth spoke of Atlantis as being in our historical past. He did so this evening also, of course, when he remarked at 10:59 that our “ideas of Atlantis are partially composed of future memories” — thus leaving room for past manifestations. Seth’s theory of simultaneous time, which can encompass the notion of future probabilities projected backward into an apparent past, for instance, leaves great leeway for the interpretation of events or questions, however, and makes the idea of contradiction posed by an Atlantis in the past and one in the future too simple as an explanation. At any given “time,” depending on whatever information he’s given previously, Jane could just as easily quote Seth as placing Atlantis in our historic past, or in a probable past, present, or future — or all four “places” at once, for that matter. [...]

[...] It exists both in your past and future, a probable world that some of you will choose from a model placed in the past of your future — partially based upon fact, in your terms, but with its greatest validity lying in its possibilities.”

[...] They had already seen one on the inside, as mentioned earlier in “Unknown” Reality.³ This manuscript, for that matter, was begun precisely at the point in time that Ruburt’s and Joseph’s latest adventure with probabilities began. [...] They drove past it often, and went inside. [...]

[...] Atlantis is the story of a future probability projected backward into an apparent past.

The fact remains that there are probable past events that “can still happen” within your personal previous experience. A new event can literally be born in the past — “now.”

(Pause.) The biological structure as it existed in the past is therefore affected. [...] It is impossible, of course, for you to examine cellular structure now as it exists in the present and simultaneously as it existed in the past (very positively). [...] When you alter your beliefs today you also reprogram your past. As far as you are concerned the present is your point of action, focus, and power, and from that point of volition you form both your future and past. Realizing this, you will understand that you are not at the mercy of a past over which you have no control.

In such instances there is, as easily as I can explain it, a reaching into deep biological structures as they existed at one time; at that point the probabilities are altered, and the condition erased in your present — but also in your past.

[...] Present beliefs can insert into the past new memory, both psychologically and physically. [...] This does not mean that the future cannot be predicted sometimes, for in practical terms you will often continue with certain lines of probability which can be seen “ahead of time.”

The child was himself in the past on the one hand, and yet he was a probable future self in that past. (Pause.) From the standpoint of Ruburt’s official mental focus, and from the standpoint of the neurologically accepted present, that past environment had to remain off-center, or blurred. [...]

The school and the store were not in the infant’s experience, for in that probability the family moved away. [...] You must understand that your own past exists as vitally as does your present — but your probable pasts and presents exist in the same manner. [...]

4. In Seth Speaks alone there is much material on probabilities that I could cite in connection with this session. One of my favorite sessions, however, is the 566th in Chapter 16, where Seth discusses the “profound psychological interconnections” involving probable pasts and futures, dreams, telepathy, present abilities, suggestion, and related subjects. He also produces lines like, “As you sit reading this book in your present moment of time, you are positioned in the center of a cosmic web of probabilities that is affected by your slightest mental or emotional act.”

The past, in the present, would appear so brilliantly that man could not react adequately in circumstances of time that he had himself created. [...] With memory, however, mental projections into the future were of course also possible so that man could plan his activities in time, and foresee probable results: “Ghost images” of the future probabilities always acted as mental stimuli for physical explorations in all areas, and of all kinds.

(Pause.) It is not as easy for the ordinary individual to enter, and it deals with group presents, with mass probabilities, racial matters, the movement of civilization. It is one that would be most beneficial to politicians and statesmen, and it also can be used to probe into probable pasts as well. Here it would be of benefit in learning of old ruins for example, and vanished civilizations, but only if the specific probable past were probed in which these existed.

[...] This state can be used to explore the past in your terms of reference, within the probable system that you know.

[...] This can be used to discover the origin of an idea in the past, or to find anything that has been lost there, as long as it is within your probability system.

[...] This leads to explorations mentioned earlier in this book, into probabilities. [...] In this state you are able to try out various alternative decisions and some probable results, not imaginatively but in quite practical terms. [...]

2. In Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, Seth designed all but two of his eight exercises, or practice elements, to help the reader directly explore some of the aspects of probable realities — although even the exceptions (numbers 6 and 8) aren’t far removed from probability concepts. His first practice element grew out of Jane’s projection into a probable past in her hometown of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

On many occasions then you set yourself a problem — “Shall I do this or that?” — and form a dream in which you follow through the probable futures that would “result” from the courses available. [...] Even in your accepted reality, then, to that extent in such a dream you react to probable events as well as to the events chosen for waking physical experience. Your daily life is affected, because in such a dream you deal with probable predictabilities. You are hardly alone, however, so each individual alive also has his and her private dreams, and these help form the accepted probability sequence of the following day, and of “time to come.” [...]

[...] A small amount of self-examination should show you that in a very simple way you are always thinking about probabilities. You are always making choices between probable actions and alternate courses. A choice presupposes probable acts, each possible, each capable of actualization within your system of reality. [...]

At deep levels the cells are always working with probabilities, and comparing probable actions and developments in the light of genetic information. [...]

[...] The future appears as clearly as the past. Even this is highly complicated, however, for there is not just one past. [...] There are also probable pasts therefore, that exist quite outside your comprehension. You choose one particular group of these, and latch upon this group of events as the only ones possible, not realizing that you have selected from an infinite variety of past events.

There are then, obviously, probable futures and probable presents. I am trying to discuss this in your terms, since basically, you must understand, the words “past,” “present,” and “future” are no more meaningful as far as true experience is concerned than are the words “ego,” “conscious,” or “unconscious.”

You can know what happened in the past and have histories, because according to the rules of the game that you accepted, you believe that the past, but not the future, can be perceived. [...]

[...] In this probable evening (humorously) I select that probable alternative. [...]

[...] All of the probable versions of 1980 spin off their own probable pasts as well as their own probable futures, and any consciousness that exists in 1980 was (again in those terms) a part of what you think of as the beginning of the world.

(To me:) Your mother did not simply choose to believe, in her old age, in a different past than the one that was accepted by the family—she effectively changed probabilities. [...] Her memory in that regard, now, was not defective: It was the memory of the probable woman that she became.²

Any of the probable actions that a person considers are a part of that person’s conscious thought. Just underneath, however, people also consider other sets of probabilities that may or may not reach conscious level, simply because they are shunted aside, or because they seem to meet with no conscious recognition. I want you to try and imagine actual events, as you think of them, to be (pause) the vitalized representations of probabilities—that is, as the physical versions of mental probabilities. The probabilities with which you are not consciously concerned remain psychologically peripheral: They are there but not there, so to speak.

In like manner, England in all probability next year will not suddenly turn into a Mohammedan nation. But within the range of workable probabilities, private and mass choices, the people of the world are choosing their probable 1980s.

[...] There was a time travel here, but it was into a probable past. [...] The others were probability travelers like yourself. [...]

It is this basic feeling about the book and Saratoga that suddenly activated past associations and brought on some identification with his mother. [...] It shocked him to know that people of the past were reading the book in his present, and seemed to draw him closer to those original associations that caused him to leave Saratoga.

[...] Those whom he relegated to the past are brought into the present. [...]

[...] His mother was superstitiously afraid of cats and in the incident in his bedroom an immediate identification was set up, under emotional stress and because of past feelings.

[...] In all of this probabilities are involved, so in all moments of the past he touched points of probable healings.¹¹ No one can be healed against his or her will. [...]

6. In Volume 1, see Practice Element 1 (in the 686th session) for Seth’s description of Jane’s projection into a probable past of her own — her “Saratoga experience,” as we call it.

[...] From that now, “time” goes out in all probable directions. Actually it also goes inward in all probable directions.

[...] (In parentheses: Some reported instances of UFO’s happened in the past as far as the visitors were concerned, but appeared as images or realities in your present. [...]

9. Seth prepared the way for these statements by declaring in the 684th session, in Volume 1: “It is truer to say that heredity operates from the future backward into the past, than it is to say that it operates from the past into the present. Neither statement would be precisely correct in any case, because your present is a poised balance affected as much by the probable future as the probable past.”

17. These excerpts from Seth’s material in the 690th session, for Volume 1, furnish a close analogy to the sort of “time” available to molecular consciousness: “… biological precognition is firmly based in the chromosomes and genes, and reflected in the cells … The cells’ practically felt ‘Now’ includes, then, what you think of as past and future, as simple conditions of Nowness. They maintain the body’s structure in your poised time only by manipulating themselves in a rich medium of probabilities. There is a constant give-and-take of communication between the cell as you know it in present time, and the cell as it ‘was’ in the past, or ‘will be.’”

In thinking in terms of consecutive time, however, evolution does not march from the past into the future. Instead, precognitively the species is aware of those changes it wants to make, and from the “future” it alters the “present” state of the chromosomes and genes (see Note 14) to bring about in the probable future the specific changes it desires. [...]

[...] As I show at the end of this appendix, Seth allows for a much greater range of simultaneous origins; in our reality these imply growth and development out of that “basic” group of species for the most part, with multidimensional purposes operating inside an enhanced time scheme that includes probabilities, reincarnation, counterparts,²² precognition, and other concepts, meanings, and beliefs. [...] Probabilities aside, when Seth talks about cells [or their components] recombining as parts of plant or animal forms, as he does in the 705th session, Jane and I don’t take that to mean the evolution, or alteration, of one species into another — but that a unity of consciousness pervades all elements in our environment, whether “alive” or “dead.” With the concept of probabilities in mind, however, much of the “thrust for development and change” that Seth also mentions as existing inside all organisms, could just as well take place in those other realities. [...]

[...] I project all of this outward around me into literally hundreds of brilliant scenes; expressions, I knew, of probabilities, ‘past’ and ‘future’ events, sideways events I can’t even understand … all happening at once, with perfect comprehension of that by the ‘anchor’ dream self. [...]

[...] She listened carefully, then said that “there’s something there on the dreams” — meaning that Seth was around, was aware of our conversation, and would probably comment. [...]

[...] (Intently:) Because of the particular kind of ego-orientation that the race decided upon, however, many probabilities of development inherent in the species have been latent. [...]

[...] I am simply saying that on your earth now there are species of consciousness, though that is probably not the best term. [...]