“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“But will I see him physically?” Rob asked. “Granted we do make some kind of contact, will I know it consciously?”

“I believe that within seven hours he will be within your system, whether or not you perceive him. The drug may have the effect of coloring his image, so do not be surprised at a yellow or purplish tinge. For various reasons we cannot discuss this evening, the experiments are now being conducted over a period of some weeks, and they will not be tried again until your autumn. This has to do with the conductivity of cell structures, and your particular atmosphere during these periods.”

“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.

“The ego maintains much of its stability by looking backward into a ‘past’ and finding something of itself there. The portions of the self that deal in probabilities do not have experience with a ‘past’ to give them a sense of identity or continuity. Permanence, as the ego thinks of it, would be an alien concept to these portions of the self, and highly distasteful, adding up to rigidity.

“This system of probabilities is quite as real as the physical system, and you exist in it whether or not you realize it. You simply are not focused within it. You may become aware of it [or of one of your probable selves] while in the dream state occasionally. I have told you that dream images have a definite reality. So do probable events. They simply do not appear concrete to you.

“You may dream of holding an apple, for example, and awaken to find it gone. This does not mean that it did not exist, but in the waking state you do not perceive it. In the same way you do not perceive the actuality of probable events on a conscious basis. A portion of your whole self is quite involved in these probable events, however. The I of your dreams can be legitimately compared to the self that experiences probable events. [That I would consider itself fully conscious and view the waking I as the probable self.]

“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.

Who or what are you? Do you feel lost in the face of all these ideas of entities and probable selves? Where do you fit in, as you know yourself? In the next chapter, devoted to Seth’s ideas on personality, you will see that your identity as you know it is always retained.