“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The above is one of the most important sentences in this book in practical terms, and working within the framework of time as you understand it. As mentioned earlier (in the 653rd session in Chapter Fourteen), you actualize events from the present intersection of spirit and flesh, choosing them from probabilities according to your beliefs.

All of your physical, mental and spiritual abilities are focused together, then, in the brilliant concentration of “present” experience. You are not at the mercy of the past, or of previous convictions, unless you believe that you are. If you fully comprehend your power in the present, you will realize that action at that point also alters the past, its beliefs and your reactions.

In other words I am telling you that your present beliefs, in a manner of speaking, are like the directions given to the entire personality, simultaneously organizing and reorganizing past experience according to your current concepts of reality.

The situation may be quite different in some ways. Large areas of life may not be touched by certain attitudes, while others are. One person may be completely free physically and in excellent health, and yet, because of certain experiences, begin to doubt his ability to get along with others. So he may begin to look into his past — with that belief in mind, that he cannot relate — and then find within previous conduct all kinds of reasons to support the idea.

If he journeyed through his memories trying to find a different kind of proof instead, then in that same past he would discover instances when he did relate well with others. Your present beliefs structure the memories which will parade before you now — and what you remember will then seem to justify the beliefs.

When you are trying to alter your beliefs, look through your past with the new conceptions in mind. If you are ill, remember when you were not. Search your life for proofs of your health. Your very life itself is hard evidence that health is within you!

I have frequently said that beliefs cause reality, and that no symptom will simply fade away unless the “reason” is ascertained — but such reasons go far beneath your current ideas of cause and effect. They involve intimate philosophical value judgments on the part of each individual. Beneath them, the apparent causes of limitations in personal life, there are other far-reaching beliefs, and each individual will use those elements in his private experience to back these up. This applies to any kind of lack or hindrance severe enough to be a problem.

You have been taught that you are at the mercy of previous events, so your idea of looking for the source of personal difficulty is to examine the past, but — to find what you did wrong there, or what mistakes occurred there, or what inadequate interpretations were made there! Again, regardless of what you have been taught, the point of power is in the present; and again, your present beliefs will be used to structure your recollections.

Those memories will be used to reach any conclusion, as statistics can be used, for example. Along the way you may settle for a given remembered event or two, and assign to them the reasons for your present behavior. If so, you are already prepared to change your current beliefs and mode of action, and simply use the occurrences or habits of the past as a stimulus or motivation. (See the 616th session in Chapter Two.)

(10:05. Jane’s trance had been profound. I told her there was little I could add to my belief that the material was excellent indeed. Resume in the same fast manner 10:16.)

You are not at the mercy of past beliefs, therefore. On the other hand, the sooner you begin to act upon new ones the better. Otherwise you are not trusting them in the present. If you are poor and want to have more money, and try to maintain a belief in abundance — while still faced with the fact of present poverty — you must in your reality make some symbolic move that shows you are willing to accept a change.

As foolish as it may sound, you should give some money away, or in whatever manner that suits you act as if you did have more money than you physically have. You must respond to your new beliefs, so that neurologically the new message gets across.

You perform habitually in certain manners as a result of your beliefs. Now if you willfully change some of those habits then you are also getting the message across. The initiative must come from you, and in the present. In a very real manner of speaking, this means changing your viewpoint, that particular perspective with which you view your past and present and imagine your future.

(10:30.) Use all of your energy and attention. Then forget about it. Do not check to see how well it is working. Simply make sure that in that period your intentions are clear. Then in one way or another, according to your own individual situation, make one physical gesture or act that is in line with your belief or desire. Behave physically, then, at least once a day in a way that shows that you have faith in what you are doing. The act can be a very simple one. If you are lonely and feel unwanted, it can merely involve your smiling at someone else. If you are poor, it can involve such a simple thing as buying an item you want that costs two cents more than the one you would usually buy — acting on the faith, even that feebly, that the two cents will somehow be given you or come into your experience; but acting as if you had more than you do.

In health terms, it involves conducting yourself once a day as though you were not sick in whatever way given you. But the belief in the present, reinforced for five minutes, plus such a physical action, will sometimes bring literally awesome results.

Those of you who believe in reincarnation in more or less conventional terms, can make the error of using or blaming “past” lives, organizing them through your current beliefs. It is bad enough to believe that you are at the mercy of one past, but to consider yourself helpless before innumerable previous errors from other lives puts you in an impossible situation; the conscious will is robbed of its power to act. Such lives exist simultaneously. They are other expressions of yourself, interacting, but with each conscious self possessing the point of power in its own present.

(10:45.) It is for this reason that “past-life information” is so often used to reinforce current personal social situations — because, like the past in this life, such memories are constructed through present belief.

If such information is given to you by another, by a psychic, for example, that individual is also very apt to pick up those “lives” that make sense to you now, and — unconsciously of course — to structure them precisely along the lines of your beliefs. This may not seem obvious. (Emphatically:) If an individual believes that he is basically unworthy he will recall, or be given, those lives that justify that idea. If he thinks he must pay for his sins now, then that belief will attract memory of those lives that will reinforce it; this will be highly organized recall, leaving out everything that does not apply.

If an individual believes that he is being taken advantage of, and is caught in a mundane existence, unappreciated, then he may receive from himself or others information showing that in other lives he was greatly honored — thereby reinforcing his belief that now he is taken for granted, or worse.

These statements of mine are general, for each individual will have his or her own way of reinforcing beliefs. If you think you are ill, most likely past-life information will show that you committed crimes for which you are now doing penance. In whatever framework you choose, you will always find proper reinforcement for your belief.

In a way that will be explained in another book for those interested in such matters, there is a kind of coincidence with all of these present points of power that exist between you and your “reincarnational” selves. There are even biological connections in terms of cellular “memory.” (See the 653rd session in Chapter Thirteen.) So through your current beliefs you can, in your own space and time, attract tendencies toward certain experiences shared by these others. There is a constant interaction in this multidimensional point of power, therefore, so that in your terms one incarnated self draws from all of the others what abilities it wants, according to its own specific, localized beliefs.

In quite real personal and racial terms, the past is still happening. You create it from your present according to your beliefs. A removed appendix will not reappear physically. There are certain frameworks that are accepted, built into your creaturehood. There is far greater freedom, however, even on the cellular level.