(In mentioning my “sportsman self,” Seth referred to information he’d given about three of my probable selves in a private session on January 30, 1974 — just a few days before starting “Unknown” Reality. The session contains many personal insights that I now recognize as being quite true. But even without Seth’s help, interesting results can flow from an awareness of the probable-self concept: The reader can begin to intuitively consider his or her own probable selves, or those of others who may be closely related psychically or physically. I’m not writing here about rationalizing the existence of one or more probable selves to account for personal shortcomings in this reality, however, but of simply using the idea to enlarge our basic notions of the human potential. See Note I for Session 679.

(FOR SESSION 680)

(Here’s Seth to me in that January session:) You, for example, could have excelled at certain sports, where Ruburt had no such inclinations. You chose to concentrate on artistic endeavors as you grew and learned through various areas and periods — that is, you tried and enjoyed sports, and writing; and after a while you decided upon the painting self as the particular focus upon which you would build a life.

Your father’s creativity, as mentioned [in earlier, unpublished sessions] had its side of secrecy, privacy and aloneness … you identified creatively with his private nature. The writing self became latent as the sportsman did, yet the writing self and the artist were closely bound. You felt conflicts at times. It never occurred to you that the two aspects could release one another — one illuminating the other — and both be fulfilled. Instead you saw them as basically conflicting. Time spent writing meant time not spent painting. You believed the painting self had to be protected … as you felt that your father had to protect his creative self in the household …

6. Jane covers our York Beach “dancing episode” in Chapter 2 of The Seth Material, and also quotes information Seth gave us on it in later sessions. [...] In the 9th session for December 18, 1963, Seth explained what we had been up to, and called our creations “fragments of our selves, thrown-off materializations of your own negative and aggressive feelings.” (Naturally, the more Seth told us about the human ability to generate such forms, the more questions we had!) In that 9th session Seth also used his term, “probable self,” for the first time.

(In the last session, Seth began discussing separate photographs of Jane and me [taken at the ages of 12 and 2, respectively] in connection with his ideas about probable selves. [...]

(11:02.) Give us a moment … I told you (in the last session) that in one probability Ruburt was a nun, expressing mysticism in a highly disciplined context, where it must be watched so that it does not get out of hand. [...]

[...] After giving two pages of material for Jane, here deleted, Seth closed out the session at 11:33 P.M.)