ALTERNATE PRESENTS AND MULTIPLE FOCUS

Now: We will resume dictation, and begin our next chapter to be called: “Alternate Presents and Multiple Focus.”

Or it may be used as a step leading to an adjacent level of consciousness; two steps away, therefore, on the same level from normal reality. In this case it will lead you not into a deeper examination and perception of the present moment, but instead into an awareness and recognition of what I will call alternate present moments.

You will be taking steps aside from the present that you know. This leads to explorations mentioned earlier in this book, into probabilities. This state can be extremely advantageous when you are trying to solve problems having to do with future arrangements, decisions that will affect the future, and any matters, in fact, in which important decisions for the future must be made. In this state you are able to try out various alternative decisions and some probable results, not imaginatively but in quite practical terms. (Pause.)

These probabilities are realities, regardless of which decision you make. Say, for example, that you have three choices and it is imperative that you select one. Using this state, you take the first choice. The alternative present is the moment in which you make that choice. Having made it the present is changed, and quite clearly you perceive exactly the way it is changed and what actions and events will flow from the change into the future that belongs to that particular alternate present.

In like manner you explore the mental and feeling aspects, then you turn your attention “outward,” toward the environment that results from this alternate present. Mentally, events will appear to you. You may experience these strongly, or merely view them. They may become so vivid that you momentarily forget yourself, but if you maintain your contact with this level of consciousness, this will happen seldom. As a rule you are very aware of what you are doing.

There is an A-1-b, you see, still adjacent to this one, and still starting off from an alternate present that can be used for many other purposes.