“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.

“In the same way that thoughts can be sent through space, so individual consciousness can be sent through systems of reality [other dimensions]. As a seed can fly through the air, so individual consciousness can travel through these systems, but it must be protected. Certain drugs can protect it. [All of this is the method used by Rob’s probable self as he projects out of his probable system.]

“There are other brain patterns, for example, than those discovered by your scientists. The drugs help in changing these patterns when it is necessary. If these brain patterns were not changed on entering and leaving a system, theoretically at least, the consciousness could become trapped within any given system: acceleration or deacceleration, you see, but mentally.”

“But Seth’s talking about an infinity of them, from what you tell me,” I said. “And it’s one thing to theorize about probable selves, and another to think that one of them might be going to contact you.”

“He is studying the use of painting in therapy,” Seth said. “Not only working with patients and using art as therapy, but working with the idea that some paintings in themselves have a healing effect.” Seth went on to say that “certain paintings can capture and direct the healing abilities of the viewer. … The painter’s intent is embedded in his medium and in his painting.”

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

“You should see him visually—either entirely objectified or in an unusually vivid inner image. But more than this, there should be an inner communication between you of a telepathic nature. He is also visually oriented, you understand. He may be able to show you images from his own system of reality. He may be able to take you there in a projection, and from that point you should be able to look into your own system, and in a series of flashes see your life and Ruburt’s with greater clarity.”

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

Seth also had a little more to say concerning the drugs that Pietra uses in his experiments. Apparently they insure that consciousness will not return to the physical brain too quickly. He also said that there were methods “by which the relative behavior and condition of the traveling consciousness is monitored at the other end. In case of any severe dangers, the consciousness is pulled back, but this is highly dangerous.”

Such travel between probable systems is done through projection of consciousness out of the body, as was explained in the excerpts, but this seems to involve a welding of medicine, physics, and other disciplines. In other statements in the past, Seth told us that any far-ranging space travel within our own system would also involve mental rather than physical journeys.

“Until the whole self is thus able to perceive its own parts simultaneously, then these seemingly separate portions appear to themselves isolated and alone. There is communication between them, but they are not aware of it. The tape is the element common to all channels. Now the inner ego is the director, but the whole self (or soul) must know itself. It is not enough that the inner ego knows what is going on. Ultimately the inner ego must bring about comprehension on the parts of the simultaneous selves.

“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.

“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.]

“Let us consider the following. An individual finds himself with a choice of three actions. He chooses one and experiences it. The other two actions are experienced also, by the inner ego, but not in physical reality. … The results are then checked by the inner ego as an aid in other decision-making. The probable actions were definitely experienced, however, and such experience makes up the existence of the ‘probable selves’ just as dream actions make up the experience of the dreaming self. … There is a constant subconscious interchange of information between all layers of the whole self.”

“The package of experience upon which you can focus is indeed composed of many small packages, but the whole package of reality is much larger than this. A portion of the self can and does experience events in an entirely different fashion [than the ego does] and this portion goes off on a different tangent. For when your conscious self perceives Event X, this other part of the self branches off, so to speak, into all the other probable events that could have been experienced by the ego.

“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.

“These portions of the self simply operate in a different dimension of reality, with different fields of activity. In this particular instance, compare the various portions of the whole self to the various members of a family: The man may work in the city. The woman may work at their home in the country. Of three children, each may attend a different school. They are all members of the same family unit and operate out of the same house. There is no basic reason why any of the children could not spend his days at his father’s office, but he would not be able to understand the events or activities there.

“I am trying to make the analogy clearer. The child would fit physically into the office building, you see. Physically speaking, there would be no barrier to keep him out, while admitting the father. The man could also enter the school, but there would be little purpose in such an arrangement.

“There is within the family a general realization of the experiences of its members, but these are secondhand except for those events shared by the family as a whole, as a unit. There is also a generalized intuitional knowledge on the part of any portion of the self as to the experiences of the other portions.

“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.

“Again: probable events are as real as that one event chosen from them to be a physical experience. Take our Event X again. It is only one of numberless probable events. For its purposes, however, the conscious ego chooses Event X. But until this ego experiences the event, it is only one of all the other probable events, different in no way. It becomes actual in your reality only when it is experienced by the physical self. …

“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.”

The thought of such contact is highly intriguing, and we cannot help but wonder what effect it would have, not only on Rob and Dr. Pietra, but on their separate systems of reality. Only Seth’s assurances that contact is possible under certain conditions leads us to even consider it; the chances against such contact seem so high. We both feel that we need much more information and hard work, and look forward to further experiments along these lines through the years.

As you can see, many of the excerpts given in this chapter also throw light on the nature of personality. Because personality is multi-dimensional, it cannot be discussed under one heading alone, and in explaining it, Seth uses a method that is almost multidimensional itself. Not only what is said, but also what happens in sessions is important in this context. Soon I will describe a fairly recent and very significant development that demonstrates, far better than words, perhaps, the multidimensional aspects of personality.