“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I realize that I am dreaming, and tell myself to go to another probability system. I am standing by Chamberlain’s Dairy outside Elmira, but the scenery doesn’t change, so I will myself to Jane and Rob’s apartment. The next thing I know, I’m there.

Rob and Jane look at each other. Jane says, ‘No.’ But somehow they both seem more like themselves, as I know them in daily life.

‘They actually were you in a sense,’ I say. ‘At that moment they created you out of their fears and negative emotions, with all their talents but with all their aggressions and bitterness too. You had to go on from there.’

Jane lights a cigarette and tries to be flippant. ‘Isn’t that funny!’ she says. ‘Just today Rob was on the phone, and had to hang up. He said, “Seth is coming, have to hang up.” Then he didn’t know what he meant. We figured that it was a slip of the tongue of some kind. But we wondered about it.’

‘Has there been any contact with Seth?’ I persist. They seem reluctant to discuss it but finally Jane nods. Her eyes are very alert and bright.

Jane then hands me a manuscript, a novel based on the August 11th dream encounter we had, from her perspective, but it includes this present dream experience also, the Seth breakthrough and someone named Michael J. Anthony. It seems to read well as I look it over, but I realize that the time sequence is confused here, in reference to me anyhow, and the story is mixing me up. ‘I’m sorry. It’s good, but I’ve got to go now,’ I say quickly. With a last look at the two of them, sitting together on the edge of so much, I wake up fully and alert, sitting up in bed.

Apparently Rob and Jane were moving into the same apartment my Rob and Jane have lived in for years, but in another probability.

We get on the bike and zoom through the countryside and while riding, I finally realize that this is a dream. I consider projecting but decide not to ruin the bike experience for Carl who would dearly love to own a motorcycle, even if he is only a dream Carl of mine.

You are upset over the implication of probable selves, and that caused the headache. Simply tell yourself that you are doing well in this reality, using your abilities, helping your husband and caring for your child. You do not need to feel guilty over the creation of any probable selves. They come into reality with problems, but all of you come into reality with challenges that you have set ‘ahead of time.’ You have given them the gift of existence. They will learn how to use it and develop their own abilities in their own way. You have also given them individuality, which means that they are not yourselves, but variations on yourselves.

The probable self can be reached through hypnosis but only with excellent subjects and operators. Often it will not be recognized, however, for there will be no evidence of its experience in physical reality to back up its statements. Its data will agree when considered within its own framework. Reaching it in this manner would be highly difficult in any case. To my knowledge, it has not as yet been reached through hypnosis. It has been glimpsed but not recognized as a separate part of the self — in dream recordings and analytic sessions.

If you would have some idea of what the probable universe is like, then examine your own dreams, looking for those events which do not have any strong resemblance to the physical events of waking existence. Look for dream individuals with whom you are not acquainted in normally conscious life. Look for landscapes that appear bizarre or alien, for all of these exist somewhere. You have perceived them. They do not exist in the space that you know but neither are they nonexistent, mere imaginative toys of the dreaming mind, without substance.

The probable system does not achieve its order through subjective association, but the term is the nearest I can use to approximate the basic causes for this order. The events within it are, indeed, objective and concrete within their own field of reality, for example. Your own system is real and concrete only within its own field, remember.

In sleep, not only do you withdraw from the physical field of actuality but you also enter other systems.

So far, we’ve experienced two main types of dreams that seem to involve probabilities. Sue’s, given earlier, represent the personally-oriented dream in which we seem to perceive probable events that could have happened or could happen in the future in our normal environment. Other kinds of dreams involve the “bizarre environments” Seth mentioned and show societies or civilizations quite alien to us, but built up around elements at least recognizable.

We swim about the apartment. An older woman comes into the kitchen. She is dressed normally except that her dress is of a strange metallic material. She looks surprised at our costumes, but I see a paper and pen on the kitchen counter and write a brief explanation. She glances at our flippers. I take one off and show her my foot. ‘Just like ours,’ she says, surprised. Her voice is clear but very high-pitched.

In your present life, the same process continues. Most of these dreams are very disconnected from the ego and will not be recalled. The self who pursues these divergent paths is actual, however. The doctor you might have been once dreamed of a probable universe in which he would be an artist. He continues to work out his own probabilities. He exists in fact. You call his system an alternate system of probability, but this is precisely what he would call yours.

Reincarnation is but a part of this probability system, the part that falls within your particular universe. There are also root dreams shared by the race as a whole. Most of these are not as symbolic as Jung thought them to be but are literal interpretations of the abilities used by the inner self. For that matter, as you know, flying dreams need not be symbolic of anything. They can be valid experiences, though often intermixed with other dream elements. Falling dreams are also simple experience in many instances, representing downward motion, or a loss of form-control during projection.

Seth told us that Rob’s doctor probable self was a Doctor Pietra. As mentioned in my earlier book, we tried to contact him — so far, without success. Some years ago, Rob did do some medical artwork and was astonished at his success. He has no conscious knowledge of wanting to be a doctor as a child, but in painting he always emphasized body structure and form.

But what is the point of all these probable selves? What do they have to do with the development of personality as we think of it? Seth is still discussing probabilities in his own book, so we don’t have all the answers, by any means. One night, Rob asked Seth how our own egos had changed as a result of our sessions, however, and Seth used the question as an opportunity to give us more information about personality and probable selves.

The ego structure remains, of course. The responsibility of dealing with physical reality remains, but in some respects the nature of this manipulation changes. It becomes more direct. Physical properties are manipulated more and more at a mental level. The ego becomes more like the inner ego and less like its old self, comparatively speaking. It accepts large portions of reality that it previously denied. Structurally, it remains intact, yet it has changed chemically and electromagnetically. Now it is far more open to inner data. Once this freedom is achieved, the ego can never return to its old state.

To any of them, the others would seem to exist in a probable universe, yet all are connected. All of you did not have the same parents, for example, and there are portions of probable situations existing in your own parents’ separate lives. [To Rob:] In two probable realities, your mother did not have children. You do not exist in these. In some, she married but not the man you know as father. A psychological connection exists between that first son in that other system and yourself.

You use probabilities like blocks to build events. This presupposes inner knowledge and calculations, for you must be aware of the probabilities in order to choose from them. The inner self, therefore, has this knowledge. These probabilities include webworks, probable actions and reactions involving not only yourself but others. Computers are toys compared with these inner workings.

The majority of events do not ‘solidify’ until the last moment, in your terms. According to your understanding and interpretation of the word events, none are predestined or predetermined by sources outside of yourselves. Your childhood environment, for example, was determined by you before physical birth. Within this framework, you also give yourself the freedom to manipulate and change. The main events of a civilization are chosen by its people, but because a course is begun, this does not mean that it cannot be changed at any point.