“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The ego maintains much of its stability by looking backwards, so to speak, into its experience of its past, and finding something of itself there. Now the past may be an illusion, but it is not illusion to the ego. The portions of the self that deal in probabilities do not have such an experience with a past, to give them their feeling of identity or continuity.

[...] However past, present and future has reality only to the ego. [...] The portion of the self, or rather the portions of the self, that experience action in terms of what the ego would term probability, is further divorced from the ego, however, and this probability reality appears to the ego very rarely, and only very occasionally.

When this does happen it usually occurs as a bleed-through from the subconscious from the dream state, for the subconscious is somewhat acquainted with probabilities, and to some degree experiences these in a problem-solving manner. It views various probabilities with the purposes of the ego in mind, and therefore aids the ego in its decisions as to which probable events it should choose for its own experience.

(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.

[...] In some cases this is because a different probable event has been chosen by a self for physical materialization. I have access to the field of probabilities and you do not—egotistically, you do not. I have access to your so-called past. [...] To me your past, present and future merge into one.

[...] You change it, in the same manner that you have changed the past. In such cases it is necessary that the correct channel of probable events be perceived, correct meaning the channel which shall ultimately be chosen. And the choice is dependent upon your choices in both past and present.

This probable field seeds many other systems beside the one physical system with which you are familiar. The probable field is strongly composed of thought images, not physically materialized, but extremely vivid and actual storehouses of energy. Here is the material from which all pasts and presents and futures are made.

[...] This existed in the present as a probability. You perceived this portion of the probable future in that present, reacted to it; and the probable transformation of yourselves into those images did not occur. Because the past, present and future exist simultaneously however, there is no reason why you cannot react to an event whether or not it happens to fall within the small field of reality which you usually observe and participate in.

And you are more free than you imagine to completely alter many aspects of your own past. If you say that the future is dependent upon the past, therefore, you must also say that the past is dependent upon the future. Once more, the past was never an independent, concrete object existing apart from the perceiving participator; for he made his past, and its only reality exists in the electromagnetic connections within his own organic and psychic structure.

In other words the past and the present are real to the same extent. At times in fact the past can become more real than the present, and in such cases past actions are reacted to in the present. You take it for granted that present action can alter the future, but present actions can also alter the past.

Now, briefly last evening, in a chapter of my own book, we were discussing probabilities and I want you to understand a few points along these lines. First of all, I mentioned in our last class session that you are not tied to a neurosis from a past life, or because you set certain challenges for yourself in this life this does not mean that you cannot conquer them. But I also want you to know that your present thoughts, feelings and emotions not only affect you but affect your probable selves and yet .... [...]

And I know I am only going to confuse you but if you have probable selves then you know there are probable universes and probable earths and probable histories of your earth and you see what this is going to do to your concept of reincarnation as you now hold it. So within the system that you know, you also have probable reincarnational selves within those probable historical earths. [...]

You are presently within one system of reality, one probable reality, the reality that you now know and form physically. [...] All probable systems do not have reincarnational existences. [...]

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. [...]

The doctor, you see, that you might have been and are not in this system, once dreamed of a probable universe in which he would be an artist. He continues to work out his own probabilities. [...] You call his system an alternate system of probability but this is precisely what he would call your system.

This traveling in probable systems goes on constantly, with variations, in the dream state. The individual chooses then which probabilities he desires to make actual in physical terms.

I am using you here and the physician probability as an example. [...] Reincarnation is but a part of this probability system, the part that falls within your particular universe.

[...] 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. [...]

[...] I am myself … You are death and you are life … Ruburt can do many things that surprise me — that I did not do in my past, for remember that fresh creativity emerges from the past also, as in [Ruburt’s novel] Oversoul Seven. My memory does not include a predetermined past in which Ruburt exists. [...]

(4. Seth also said that it would be “not practical” and “boring” for him to relive his life as a pope, then added: “In those terms, many people do choose to reexperience what you would think of as a past existence in order to change it as they go along.” [...] Again in Seth Speaks, see Seth’s material at 10:07 in the 539th session for Chapter 10: “You may perfect [that past life], in other words, but you cannot again enter into that frame of reference as a completely participating consciousness — following — say, the historic trends of the time, joining into the mass-hallucinated existence that resulted from the applied consciousness of your self and your ‘contemporaries.’”

[...] He surprises me, and his reactions alter my past. [...] You can say then that I am altering my own past, but Ruburt’s present experience also changes my present experience — and so there is an unending interchange.⁵

[...] In some cases, this is because a different probable event has been chosen by the self for physical materialization. I have access to the field of probabilities, and, egotistically at least, you do not. To me, your past, present and future merge into one.

In such cases, it is necessary that the correct channel of probable events be perceived; ‘correct’ meaning the channel which will ultimately be chosen in your terms. The choice is dependent upon your choices in both past and present. These choices, however, are based upon your changing perceptions of past and present. [...]

This probable field seeds many other systems beside your own. [...] Here is the material from which all pasts, presents and futures are made. [...] The apple appears in the field of probability.

The future — the probable future — is being altered in the same way, of course. To look backward for the source of current problems can lead you into the habit of seeking only negative episodes from your past, and prevent you from experiencing it as a source of pleasure, accomplishment, or success (very intently).

Such effects will occur however only if you cease looking into the past “for what is wrong,” and stop reinforcing your negative experience. These same principles can be used in any area of your life, and in each you are choosing from a variety of probable events.

[...] Then, intensely:) To rid yourself of annoying restrictions then, my dear friend, you repattern your past from the present. Whatever your circumstances, you use the past as a rich source, looking through it for your successes, restructuring it. When you search it looking for what is wrong, then you become blind to what was right, in those terms, so that the past only mirrors the shortcomings that now face you.

“The past in our terms doesn’t cause present behavior, because you can go back now into that past and change it in our present. [...]

(Continuing chatter about going from present to past—changing past and its affect upon the present. [...]

[...] Because you can change—now this is in our physical terms—you can change what we would think of as the past through actions in our present. [...]

[...] From her notes: “Just before I went to sleep, I had a sort of mental projection that seemed to be into the past, my past. [...] Wait — just now as I wrote this I picked up something [from a part of my consciousness other than Ruburt or Seth], to the effect that the projection environment is as focused as mine is, really, but that it’s a probability of mine. [...] He mentioned probable kinds of consciousness in that session, too. [...]

Give us a moment … In some adventures you do visit other probable realities in which you have a body structure quite as real as “your own.” Your own psychological makeup, for that matter, achieves its marvelous complexity because it draws from the rich bank of your greater probable existences. [...]

(A one-minute pause at 10:25.) The self that you know and recognize carries within it hints and traces of all of your probable characteristics that can be actualized within your system of reality. [...] Yet within the psychological and biological structure of your species, the roads of probabilities have more intersections than you know.

[...] There is a constant interchange going on between what you think of as your present self, and your past and future selves. If this were not the case, then I would not be speaking here, for I am not Ruburt’s past self. [...] Time has open ends in all directions or such a thing as probabilities would not exist. Therefore, actions that you make now can help a so-called past personality; and a so-called future personality may step in and help you along your weary way.

[...] The question cannot be answered simply for there are many ramifications, but from this instant of reality you form and change not only the future, but the past. In the operation of probabilities this has great significance, for this means that you change and affect all events, and that your books are a delightful fiction that tell you only your current ideas about the past.

(This session followed a class discussion on reincarnation and probabilities. [...]

[...] 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.

The cells are also aware of probabilities in a more familiar fashion than you are, as they manipulate the past and future history of the body. Ruburt now, again, is experiencing massiveness, as in your idea of probabilities the cellular structure feels its vast endurance. [...]

[...] In some cases this is because a self has chosen a different probable event for physical materialization [than the one predicted]. I have access to the field of probabilities and you do not, egotistically…. To me, your past, present, and future merge into one.

[...] The body is at any given moment, however, a mass conglomeration of energy formed from that rich bank of probable activity. [...] On deeper biological levels the cells straddle probabilities, and trigger responses. [...] Each probability — probable only in relation to and from the standpoint of another probability — is inviolate, however, in that it is not destroyed. [...]

If you are poor, you chose that reality from many probable ones that did not involve poverty — and that are still open. If you chose illness, again there is a probable reality ready for initiation in which you choose health. If you are lonely there are probable friends you refused to meet in the past, but who are readily available.

(10:59.) Any of those directions, followed, can enrich the existence that you know, and in turn open up other probabilities that now escape you. The main image of yourself that you have held has, to a large extent, also closed your mind to these other probable interests and identifications. [...] These probable achievements will lie latent unless you consciously decide to bring them into being.

You must realize that you are indeed a probable you. [...] Your neuronal structure necessitates a certain focus so that other experiences counter to your conscious assumptions remain probable or latent. Alter the beliefs and any probable self can, within certain limitations, be actualized.

In many ways history is your built-in past, the obvious events that are significant. All of the different variations that can be played upon human consciousness, all of the racial probabilities, are in one way occurring in ages past — but they are also happening in what you think of as your present. [...]

(10:12.) Instead you have a rich interweaving of probabilities; for in one probability the two were indeed married, and that Stella [Butts] saw the house go to the eldest son (myself). In this probability, this Joseph instead comes upon the house of a relative stranger, finds it for sale, and can or cannot purchase it according to the new set of probabilities then emerging. [...] In this probability Joseph’s mother left little in financial terms, relatively speaking, and her house was sold. [...]

(Humorously:) Now, all probabilities are related. [...] She is able, again to some extent, to follow through with her own probable existences. [...]

“Your time—past, present, and future—as you conceive it, would be experienced entirely as present to many of these personalities. However, your past, present, and future would be experienced entirely as past to still other personality structures.

[...] Actuality was necessary if these probabilities were to be given birth. All That Is saw, then, an infinity of probable, conscious individuals, and foresaw all possible developments, but they were locked within It until It found the means.

[...] For this reason I am continuing this chapter with excerpts from sessions 426, 427, and 428, where Seth began with a fuller explanation of space, time, and probable realities and then led us, step by step, into a discussion of God.

[...] There are three days left during which communication is most likely between you and your probable self. He is aware now of your existence, rather than only your probable existence.

[...] Certain incidents, trivial in themselves, will at times carry a tremendous charge, not necessarily because he is repressing thoughts about the particular incident, but because the incident recalls unresolved past issues that he has psychically associated with it.

[...] They automatically sweep his consciousness into other areas of activity, away from issues to which he may have been sensitized in the past, and serve to give him a breathing spell and refreshment.