“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Could one return to that 12th-century life, even as an observer, what would the traveler find? An individual—and one not about to surrender his or her identity to anyone, or have it thought of simply as a manifestation of some “future” self! I think that when they blithely talk about having lived other lives people forget that those living before were—are—fully independent creatures, even if they are psychically related to others. The traveler could hardly move in on one of his or her own personalities! Interesting question: How would our 20th-century individual react when told by a visitor from the year 2355 (for example) that he or she represented one of our futurian’s “past” lives?

I think it quite humorous (and ironic) that whether or not they realize it, those who engage in past-life regressions play with the notion of future selves all of the time—for from the standpoint of any “past” lives they reach their present lives obviously represent future existences. In a way, and in those terms, this also applies in Jane’s case when she contacts Seth, even on the “psychological bridge” those two have constructed between them: When Seth tells us that his last physical life was in Denmark in the 1600s, then Jane and I represent future physical selves of his. I put it this way because Seth himself has commented that the three of us are “offshoots of the same entity.” (This time, see Appendix 18 for Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality.) Yet we are all of us different now: “Ruburt (Jane) is not myself now, in his present life. He is nevertheless an extension and materialization of the Seth that I was at one time.”

It can be seen from even this tiny quotation that Jane’s poetry reflects that same mystical, intuitive innocence before nature (and thus, ultimately, All That Is) that I tried to describe in the first essay. It could well be that her psyche has derived from her whole self, or entity, the “facts” of reality a lot better than either of us consciously knows them. Both of us have had our psychic expressions (really isolated episodes) involving what can be called simultaneously existing reincarnational selves, and we’ve published accounts of a few of these. Some of our experiences have come in dream states. Our independence relative to reincarnation may represent just conscious cussedness on our parts, but we believe that each of us (meaning anyone, that is) always has the freedom to accept or reject any such choice or causality —whatever we choose to do. No, instead we think of our current challenges as contributing to the knowledge of our whole selves in most specific ways, rather than our being swayed that much by our reincarnational and/or counterpart associations. However, I’m not at all sure how many others feel that way. I do know that regardless of local variations an acceptance of reincarnation has encircled the earth for millennia, and that in our country recent polls show a quarter of the population believing in it.

Within the idea of probable realities, then, there are innumerable opportunities for redemption to take place, between or among creatures—or even between or among ideas—and in all manner of ways. In how many ways? Seth remarked a long time ago that we humans can at least approach the notion of infinity by considering the ramifications inherent within probabilities. For my own amusement, in recent years I’ve often tried to objectify that statement by equating the possible number of probable realities with the current scientific estimate of the number of atoms in the universe: 10⁷⁹, or a 1 followed by 79 zeroes. But even if that rather simple number is inconceivable to us it still won’t do, of course, for it represents only a limit of measurement inside the “physical” universe we think we know. Within the limitless realms of consciousness, 10⁷⁹ is still but a doorway to vastly greater imaginative quantities and qualities of either numbers or probable realities. Fascinating! There are multitudinous possibilities for a redemption—or equalization or love or forgiveness, say—to take place amid such a dazzling array of probable realities. As far as our understanding can go, such a redemptive quality can be psychic, physical, both, or simply based on explorations of feeling and accomplishment we have yet to know.

For Seth, Framework 1 is simply a term representing the everyday, linear, conscious “working reality” we take for granted, the one in which “time” and events automatically unfold in moment after undeniable moment. It’s the milieu in which most of us unthinkingly live out our physical lives. Beyond Framework 1, however, exists Framework 2, and it represents the great timeless or simultaneous spacious present that’s so dearly a manifestation of All That Is. All of our dreams, plans, thoughts, actions, and choices live in Framework 2; all flow from Framework 2 into Framework 1 according to our beliefs.