“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The atoms, while behaving properly within the system, and seeming to adhere to its rules and assumptions, nevertheless actually straddle probabilities. Your time structures, then, are intimately connected with probable action and fields of actuality. In your terms, for example, it would seem as if Joseph could not have seen that house for sale until after a given series of events had occurred. It would seem as if all of this was dependent upon earlier events: his mother’s prior meeting with Mr. Markle years ago, when both were young; her daydreams and fantasies in later years; her own death; Mr. Markle’s old age, and his own abandonment of the home.

(10:00.) In your terms it seems that all of that had to happen before the house was put up for sale, so that Joseph, passing by only a few days ago, could see the sign and decide to look at the house. In much more basic terms all events exist at once, even as atoms and molecules appear at once in all probable positions. The body, behaving in time, uses a time structure and acts in it naturally as its “constant” structure endures in time. So in that framework time was experienced — and using that organizational structure, time seems to unite those events.

Give us a moment … Those events then arise into significance³ because of the peculiar kind of organization chosen. Other quite-as-valid events do not seem significant — they do not rise into perception, or reality. They exist, however. In one reality, for example, Joseph’s mother married Mr. Markle. Joseph inherited the home. In that reality Mr. Markle died before Joseph’s mother did, so there was no need for a Joseph, here, to even look for a house; he had one. In that reality Joseph did not marry Ruburt. And in this reality [the one you and Ruburt know] Ruburt instinctively felt apart from that house.

I made it clear that the decision rested with Joseph and Ruburt. But more than that, the whole question of a house of that kind brought into their own lives questions of values and prerogatives that were of great importance. They needed to encounter their own positions on such issues. Joseph was unconsciously aware of the first house [of the two in Sayre], and could have chosen not to drive down that particular street, for example. Both he and Ruburt have thought relatively little about money or social status. They have lived an apartment life instead, with little care for appearances. Yet there is always pressure in your society toward the acquisition of fashionable homes, and material possessions are often considered the medal of ability.

Give us a moment … Financially, Ruburt and Joseph were beginning to do well. Only then did conventional ideas come to the forefront. Those ideas themselves emotionally attracted certain aspects of Joseph’s mother. Quite simply, in her terms, she wanted her son to do well, and to her that meant possessing an excellent home. Period. On her part it was an innocent enough ambition.

When she sensed any strong feelings that Joseph also wanted such a home, then — in your terms now — she began, from her different framework after death, to bring that opportunity into his experience. This is not manipulation. It does show, however, that one portion of Joseph’s mother, the portion connected to her son, still relates to him in a certain fashion. It also shows that his desires for a house in Sayre (deeper and stronger) helped bring about certain events: He could have such a house if he wanted one.

Joseph’s mother is not only alive in another level of reality, but still learning. She is quite aware, therefore, of his decision not to buy the [Markle] house.⁵ In her level of reality, she was aware of the fact that Joseph wanted the house strongly; that one portion of him thought of possessing a large home, even though this would require upkeep and attention that another part of him did not want to provide because he felt it would take too much time from his painting and our work.

The portion that momentarily desired the house immediately attracted the same kind of desire always felt on the part of Joseph’s mother. This, on another level of activity than physical, reactivated old conflicts between them. For a while their desires united them. Now, however, Stella Butts is better able to understand her son’s reactions. Through his decision in this reality, she is finally beginning to glimpse the reasons for his actions in the past, that before were incomprehensible to her.

Try to understand that all of these reactions are really happening at once … Joseph’s desire at this end attracted his mother’s like desire. (Pause.) In your terms, however, the reactions continue.