“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In June of 1969 we were really startled when Seth told us that Rob might be visited by one of his “probable selves.” At the time of the session, we didn’t know what probable selves were, though Seth had used the term once or twice in the past. What is a probable self? According to Seth, each of us has counterparts in other systems of reality; not identical selves or twins, but other selves who are part of our entity, developing abilities in a different way than we are here.

“Now these drugs are like time capsules, cutting down stimuli for certain intervals, and then injecting stimulants as destination points are reached. The process is highly involved. The injections are made into the physical being, affecting the brain. Consciousness projects in an out-of-body experience. The physical brain is cushioned against shock, since in this case consciousness travels at such a fast pace that ordinarily contact between it and the body would be severed.

“In your time, the periods of high conscious activity would run approximately three days, followed by a day and a half to four days of inactivity, according to the circumstances. This involves the transfer of conscious energy from a home system to an alien one, and certain more or less automatic changes must be made from system to system, involving the use of brain waves, certain patterns being normal in different systems.

“I’m ready,” Rob said; and he was. Over the next few weeks he did psychological time exercises suggested by Seth, and tried to be intuitively alert to anything out of the ordinary. In the meantime we had another session, and Rob had quite a few questions ready to ask Seth. According to what Seth told us, this probable self is a Dr. Pietra. He is an older man in his system of reality than Rob is in ours, and while he is engrossed in his painting, this interest is subordinated to his medical work.

“But when will he be here in our terms?” Rob asked quickly, because it was almost time for the session to end.

This session was held June 9, 1969. Seth told Rob again that contact could be facilitated by the Psychological Time exercises. (These will be explained in the chapter dealing with the development of psychic abilities.) Rob did these exercises several times that week without making any contact with Dr. Pietra as far as he knew. On June 16 Seth surprised us by saying that near contact had been made twice.

“At a time when your thoughts veered off on a tangent. I believe you had a mental image of the inside portion of a human body, or a thought having to do with inner organs. This occurred as you picked up, on deeper levels, the presence of Dr. Pietra.”

“We will now imagine these selves multiplied, for you have selves three, four, five, and six, and so forth. Now on your recorder you have a setting for stereo. This enables you to mix and combine harmoniously the elements of the various channels—simultaneously. I am taking my time here so you get this clearly, because I do not often come through with the pure clarity of stereophonic.

“Your stereophonic setting can be compared to what we have termed the inner ego. Each of the selves experiences time in its own manner according to the nature of its perceptions. When the stereophonic channel is turned on, the selves then know their unity. Their various realities merge in the overall perceptions of the whole self.

“It is actual all the same and is experienced in variation. The whole self perceives and is affected by probabilities, then, and perceives these as actions whether or not the ego has chosen to accept any given event as physical. The time sequence also varies. Past, present, and future are realities only to your ego.

“Now the inner ego, as you know, exists in the Spacious Present. The Spacious Present is the basic ‘time’ in which the whole self exists, but the various portions of the self have their experiences in their own time systems.

“It should be obvious that the psychological frameworks must be different when the time-experience is different. You can see for yourself the psychological variations that exist simply between the conscious and subconscious, for example. …

“Flexibility is the key word here, a voluntary changing of the self as it is allowed to explore each probability. Experience is of a plastic nature. The basic sense of identity here is carried by what you could compare to the subconscious that you know. In other words, it is this portion of the psychological structure that carries the burden of identity, and it is the ego whose experiences are of a dreamlike nature.”

“The ego must choose one event because of its limitations. But this other portion of the self can and does delve into what you could call Event Xl, X2, X3, et cetera. It can pursue and experience all of these alternative events in the same amount of physical time that it takes for the ego to experience Event X alone.

“This is not as farfetched as it might seem. The shaking of a hand may be perceived by you as a simple action. You are not aware of the million small acts which make up this seemingly insignificant action. They exist nevertheless. It does not take you time to perceive them one by one. You perceive them in their completed fashion. Now this portion of the self experiences these probable events consciously, with as much rapidity as you subconsciously perceive the million small actions that make up the handshake.”

“Some events will be perceived by all layers of the self, however, though in their own fashion, and experienced as a unit. There are few of these but they are very vivid and they serve—as do the family’s joint experiences—to reinforce the identity of the entire psychological structure.

“These other probable events become just as ‘real’ within other dimensions. As a sideline, there are some interesting episodes when a severe psychological shock or deep sense of futility causes a short circuit so that one portion of the self begins to experience one of its other probable realities. I am thinking in particular of some cases of amnesia where the victim ends up suddenly in a different town with another name, occupation, and no memory of his own past. In some instances such an individual is experiencing a probable event, but he must experience it, you see, within his own time system.”

Seth has given us more material than this, of course, on probable universes and events. He also discusses probabilities in connection with precognition and time. We haven’t been able to make any conscious contact with Dr. Pietra. As I write this now, we are approaching the autumn months when Seth said contact would again be possible.