“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(To me, both photographs had a certain mysterious quality that I’d often found intriguing — an aura due partly to their being old, personal, and so irreplaceable, I suppose. But for a long time I’d been aware of other feelings connected with them. Jane had begun delivering the Seth material late in 1963, and soon afterwards Seth started developing his ideas on probabilities.¹ Many times while looking at the snapshots since then I’d found myself speculating about the probable realities surrounding their two young subjects. I told Jane now that I understood the course of action each of us had chosen to make physical, or “real” in our terms. But what of all the other paths our probable selves had embarked upon since those pictures had been taken? By now, did those photographs actually depict the immature images of us, the Jane and Rob we knew and had always been, or from our standpoint did they show a probable Jane, a probable Rob — two individuals who long ago had set out upon their own journeys through other realities? I wasn’t clear on what I wanted to know, and had trouble expressing myself to Jane. Maybe I just wanted Seth to comment on probabilities in a more personal way. [And added later: At the time, I had no idea that my questioning would trigger a new Seth book.²]

The conditions, however, while “set” in one fashion, are highly plastic in another, so that a multitudinous variety of probable events can flow from them. Precognitively you are unconsciously quite aware — again in your terms — of the results of any given action or cause. When this (photograph) of Ruburt³ was taken, he had already become aware of the overall interests and concerns that would dominate his future life, although the particular course of it had not been chosen.

Ruburt’s mother knew that the child could be taken away were it proven that she was an unfit mother in any way, or unable to give the child proper care. Well over a year before this picture was taken, in fact, Ruburt was sent to a Catholic home.⁵ There, unconventional thought was not tolerated. The inflexibility of dogma conscientiously applied to daily action was experienced, and within it Ruburt tried to apply himself and to focus his deeply mystical nature.*

The mystical went underground, reappearing as science fiction.⁶ Again, in the social and religious background of the child, unconventional mental or physical actions could bring penalties. For a while the child could interpret mystical experience within the church — but even then, there was always conflict with church authorities.

1. Seth tells us that all actions are initially mental in nature. Very simply, probable realities flow from the multitudinous actions — or events — we may envision, but choose not to actualize physically. But any motion of ours remains quite valid once it’s conceived, and is carried out in all of its variations by probable selves in other realities. There can be communication between at least some of these worlds. Jane has had a modest success in touching upon a few of her probable selves, and plans to write about those experiments and others she hopes to conduct.