“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

17
Dreams and Probabilities

Sue Meets a Probable Rob and Jane

On Friday, October 9, 1970, I received a letter from a reader, Peg Boyles, about my book The Seth Material. With it she included an excerpt from Living Time by Maurice Nicoll, and another from a manuscript by Alice Bailey. We were expecting company that night. After dinner I watched “Mission Impossible” on television and began reading the Nicoll exerpts which were on probabilities. I did not even look at the Bailey material. The Nicoll pages intrigued me, and I thought of asking Seth about some of Nicoll’s ideas.

Nearly three more pages of dictation followed, coming in the same way as before. Because of the nature of the material, I thought I might be shown how to enter a probable moment from the present one. Initial instructions were given, though only preliminary, but I was ready to follow them. Now the speaker was addressing me, where the earlier monologue had been impersonal. At this point, unfortunately, our company arrived. I was really disappointed, but shook my consciousness to set it back to daily things, and with only a moment of reorientation attended to my guests.

Great as these things are, there is a totality of experience and sensation that includes them all, a vortex that contains and transforms these infinite parts. I know that of which I speak. Yet, each minute event immeasurably increases not only itself but all other events, bringing into birth by its own actualization an infinitude of novus actions and events, an unfolding or multi-dimensionalizing of itself, an initiation into dimensionalization. For all versions and possibilities of each event must be actualized in the limitless multiplication of creativity.

Attention can be shifted from any physical moment to any probable moment by a sideways parallel imaginative thrust — a sideling off of —

Each probable event is changed by each other probable event. There is constant simultaneous interaction. These ‘separate’ probable systems do not operate isolated from each other, then, but are intimately connected. All systems are open. The physical moment is transparent, though you give it a time-solidity. You see it as opaque.

Attention can be shifted from any physical moment to any probable moment by a sideways parallel imaginative thrust, a sideling off of focus, if the mind can get over its fear of dying to itself.

Greet the now-realization of all of your dreams, for they also participate in the probable system. As your dreams bleed into your normal conscious life, so do they bleed into other probabilities. A dream act is actualized by a waking you, as a waking you is actualized by a dreaming self.

The soul is too great to know itself, yet each individual portion of the soul seeks this knowledge and in the seeking creates new possibilities of development, new dimensions of actuality. The individual self at any given moment can connect with its soul. There is initially a sideral movement of consciousness, a dropping away sensation.

I mentioned this and read my small script to class at our next meeting, adding that I thought further instructions would have been given if the session had not been cut short. Sue Watkins and I also discussed the episode. Both of us found it intriguing and wished we could get more practical experience with probable moments.

A few days later, on October 17, Sue had a dream in which Seth described probabilities in more personal terms. The following is from her notes:

In this experience, it is Thanksgiving Day. My mother’s family is here also. I am in the sunroom watching my father take food from a buffet set in the dining room. My mother and her sister are in there, talking. Suddenly my father becomes angry, throws his plate onto the rug and grabs another. My mother begins to cry. I remember probabilities, however, and instead of becoming upset myself, I send my father thoughts of peace and health. I know that now the scene will not happen this Thanksgiving in physical reality — that I have helped choose another more positive one. The scene ends. I feel as though I have been both watching and participating. I hear Seth remark: ‘You learn well, and manipulate equally well.’

(NOTES CONNECTED WITH DREAM: I had the feeling that this was a demonstration of the many ramifications of probabilities in physical reality and in the dream state. Seth seemed to be an old friend there in a gentle, guiding way; almost as if he were a film projectionist, directing the film or experiences.)

Sue couldn’t wait to tell me about the dream. We were both pleasantly astonished. Probable realities seemed like such an esoteric idea that we really hadn’t hoped for much practical experience with it. But you’ll see shortly, this was only the beginning.

You did very well. Now, because you are interested in probabilities, you will have many more experiences along these lines. We will hopscotch back and forth with our friend Ruburt, for this is also one of his main lines of interest. Your own experience can be used to benefit the class at large, for you must be led to see that you can alter physical events in such a way. You must be led to see that there are other dimensions of reality.

He spoke with such rich understanding humor that everyone laughed, including Shirley. Through this entire period, Seth spoke on probabilities in our own private sessions, as well as in class. He was halfway through his own book, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul which he is completing now and in which he gives further methods that can be used to experience probable realities.

In the meantime, Sue began to have a series of dreams dealing with probabilities, the first of them in August, 1970. She wrote the dream down as usual, and called me on the phone to tell me about it. I was astonished. As she read the dream, all kinds of images and ideas came into my mind.

At this point, I am suddenly hit with the the knowledge that this is the dream state of another probability system involving Jane and Rob’s probable selves here. I suddenly say to them, ‘My name is Sue Watkins, and my husband’s name is Carl.’ They give me a rather nasty ‘so-what’ look.

‘Look,’ I say, ‘You and I are in the dream state. I am from another probability system. You know me there. In mine, you kept on with the “messages” and found — I glance at Seth, who is smiling — ‘they were from him and you went on to discover fantastic things about life.’

‘In that probability, you, Rob, painted constantly and Jane had published a bunch of short stories, a novel and poetry even before this got started. Do you do this now?’

At this point I hear a number of voices calling to me and I experience a false awakening, and know it, where I am lying in bed in a strange room but realize I must get up and write this experience down. I think then that this must be the astral system of my own probability system and that I have returned safely. I see Carl next to me, and I relax, fall asleep and wake up in my physical bed.

Seth told us that such images have a definite reality, but we certainly weren’t prepared to hear that someone else encountered our York Beach selves in a dream! “To create them with all our negative feelings was bad enough,” I said to Sue, “but then to cast them loose on their own!”

Now, this is not dictation [on Seth’s own book], but it is some material that Ruburt can use in his dream book. I want to comment, therefore, on the experience of your friend, Sue Watkins, and its connection with the probable universe.

The experience was quite legitimate, and it was meant as a lesson on many levels. First of all, it is apparent that there is communication between various systems of probabilities and that actions in one system can and do affect the other.

The couple do exist, probable selves of your own in a different system. Your friend, in developing her own abilities, has become involved with activities in probable fields and was drawn to the couple emotionally because of her emotional connection with you in this system.

To a large extent, you see, you and Ruburt were also responsible for the contact, for were it not for your own present experiences, your relationship with me and your friendship with the girl [Sue], the help would not have been given to these probable selves of yours. So one portion of the self lends a helping hand to another, in the same way that I give you a helping hand.

At the same time, the experience was meant as a moral lesson to your Sue Watkins. She sees you in a physical reality as people she respects and admires. Through the probable experience, she was able to see what could have happened to you in this system, had you given in to negative thoughts and feelings and not been persistent in your work and efforts.

By comparing the two couples, therefore, she receives an object lesson both for herself and her husband. More than this, however, through the experience all of you learned that help is extended from one system to the other. The other couple, the probable couple, have also helped you and your friend, though quite unknowingly at conscious levels, by serving as such object lessons.

Now, Ruburt has also done the same service for a probable Sue in another system of reality, though in an entirely different way. And you [Rob], incidentally, have helped a probable Carl [Sue’s husband] in the same manner, using his creative abilities. The probable Carl, in other words, has strong creative abilities, and you have helped him understand this.

The experience brings up several points that have not been discussed in connection with probabilities. Because you are born physically into your system, you take it for granted without thinking of it that you are born in the same manner into other systems. This may or may not apply, but it is definitely not applicable to the system of probabilities as a whole.

The couple, the probable Robert and Jane Butts, came into being at York Beach, as given in the earlier material. They disappeared from your view, but energy created in such a fashion, as you know, cannot be negated and must continue along its own lines of development.

At York Beach, originally. They contained, therefore, all of your fears, for you foresaw that in this system you could become such people — not that this was inevitable, but definitely probable and more than possible.

At the same time, however, you must understand that these probable selves were also created because of your own great hopes, hopes you felt you could fall far short of; so they were ‘born’ with the same hopes that you had at that time, but they were personalities that were overburdened with fears.

Now, in the life of each personality there are, of course, moments of deep crisis and decision, where a personality decides upon one of various possible choices. These moments are not necessarily conscious at all, and the choices are not necessarily conscious, though often they rise to consciousness. But by then, the inner work and decision has been done.

It’s one thing to accept the idea of probable systems and probable selves as an exciting intellectual concept, and quite another to accept the practical considerations involved if you think of probabilities as plain facts of existence. Quite frankly, I didn’t expect any of us to have practical experience along these lines, thinking that any probable realities were beyond our reach. But we weren’t finished yet, and I doubt that we are now. As you’ll see, Sue kept in touch with the probable Rob and Jane in her dreams. Through our experiences, the concept became a reality with which we were confronted.