“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The past, in the present, would appear so brilliantly that man could not react adequately in circumstances of time that he had himself created. The future was blocked, practically speaking (long pause), to preserve freedom of action and to encourage physical exploration, curiosity, and creativity. With memory, however, mental projections into the future were of course also possible so that man could plan his activities in time, and foresee probable results: “Ghost images” of the future probabilities always acted as mental stimuli for physical explorations in all areas, and of all kinds.

It would have been quite possible for you as a race to have chosen any other “series” of neurological pulses, or messages, as the “real” ones, and to structure your experience along different lines. The biological structure and the mental consciousness together, however, chose the most comfortable sequence in which a present area of activity, brought about by neurological recognition, would be backed up by unconscious mental knowledge and other biologically invisible neurological connections.

(12:19.) In the sleep state after our last session, then, he allowed his consciousness to expand enough so that it became aware of information and experience usually censored automatically through mental and neurological habit. In Adventures Ruburt uses the term “prejudiced perception” — an excellent one — that is applicable here. For you have prejudiced yourself spiritually, mentally, and physically in those terms. In the sleep state Ruburt became unprejudiced, at least to some degree, so that he encountered information that seemed alien or out of context with usual experience.

Mankind’s consciousness, however, experimented along time-specific lines. As he developed along those lines, various biological and mental methods of selectivity and discrimination were utilized. When in historic terms mankind became aware of memory, and recalled his past as a past in your terms, it was possible for him to confuse past and present. Vivid memories, out of context but given immediate neurological validity, could compete with the brilliant focus necessary in his present.¹

[...] Because our mental habits automatically block out such material, we only recognize one series of neurological happenings — it takes time for the message to leap the nerve endings [the synapses]. [...]