“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As you are looking at one photograph in your personal history, that represents your emergence in this particular reality — or the reality that was accepted as official at the time it was taken — so you are looking at a picture of a representative of your species, caught in a particular moment of probability. That species has as many offshoots and developments as you have privately. As there are probable selves in private terms, there are probable selves in terms of the species. As you have your recognized, official personal past, so in your system of actuality you have more or less accepted an official mass history (see Note 2). Under examination, however, that history of the species shows many gaps and discrepancies, and it leaves many questions to be answered.

(Pause.) In your terms, think of those ancestors in your family history. Now think of yourself and your contemporary family. For this, try to imagine time as being something like space. If your ancestors lived in the 19th century, then think of that century as a place that exists as surely as any portion of the earth that you know. See your own century as another place. If you have children, imagine their experience 50 years hence as still another place.

Now: Think of your ancestors, yourself, and your children as members of one tribe, each journeying into different countries instead of times. Culture is as real and natural as trees and rocks, so see the various cultures of these three groups as natural environments of the different places or countries; and imagine, then, each group exploring the unique environment of the land into which they have journeyed. Imagine further of course that these explorations occur at once, even though communication may be faulty, so that each group has difficulty communicating with the others. Imagine, however, that there is a homeland from which our groups originally came. Each expedition sends “letters” back home, commenting upon the behavior, customs, environment, and history of the land in which it finds itself.

2. The “officially accepted life” mentioned here reminded me that in the last (694th) session Seth used the phrase “your officially recognized idea of physical reality” in discussing the role probable events played in our world history. In the 686th session he referred to “official data” when he considered ancient man’s selection of certain mental and biological pulses as physical reality; later in the same session, he used the self-explanatory “official history.” In the 684th session he discussed our “official activity” when he compared our reaction to hunches and premonitions with our acceptance of normal psychological reality.

Then, in the 681st session, see what Seth has to say about individual biological history and the basic unpredictability of consciousness.