“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We discussed the data given above as we waited for tonight’s session to begin. “Seth’s book reminds me of an old-fashioned diary,” I remarked, “but with a new twist — that of probabilities.” I continued that I was somewhat concerned because the notes for Unknown” Reality were running considerably longer than they had for either Seth Speaks or Personal Reality. Yet I felt there were reasons for this, and had chosen to go along. Jane agreed. She said the notes were intended to furnish a mundane account of our lives that would “parallel” Seth’s more complicated data on probabilities and other concepts. She thought he would have more to say on the subject of notes later in the book.

(“A photograph of a given person represents one experienced probable identity, focused in a recognized time sequence. Its validity is dependent upon the other invisible snapshots not taken, even as the given notes that make up a symphony are important because of the implied notes not actually used.

Now: Take another photograph of yourself at a different age than the first one you chose. Ask yourself simply: “Am I looking at the same person?” How familiar or how strange is this second photograph? How does it differ from the first one you picked this evening? What similarities are there that unite both photographs in your mind? What experiences did you have when each photograph was taken? What ways did you think of following in one picture that were not followed in the other one? Those directions were pursued. If they were not pursued by the self you recognize, then they were by a self that is probable in your terms. In your mind follow what directions that self would have taken, as you think of such events. If you find a line of development that you now wish you had pursued, but had not, then think deeply about the ways in which those activities could now fit into the framework of your officially accepted life.² Such musings, with desire — backed up by common sense — can bring about intersection points in probabilities that cause a fresh realignment of the deep elements of the psyche. In such ways probable events can be attracted to your current living structure.

Now: Choose another photograph. I want you to look at this one somewhat differently. This should also be a photograph of yourself. See this as one picture of yourself as a representative of your species in a particular space and time. Look at it as you might look at a photograph of an animal in its environment. If the photograph shows you in a room, for example, then think of the room as a peculiar kind of environment, as natural as the woods. See your person’s picture in this way: How does it merge or stand apart from the other elements in the photograph? See those other elements as characteristics of the image, view them as extended features that belong to you. If the photograph is dark, for example, and shows shadows, then in this exercise see those as belonging to the self in the picture.

The person within the photograph is beyond your reach. The you that you are can make any changes you want to in your experience: You can change probabilities for your own purposes, but you cannot change the courses of other probable selves that have gone their own ways. All probable selves are connected. They each influence one another. There is a natural interaction, but no coercion. Each probable self has its own free will and uniqueness. You can change your own experience in the probability you know — which itself rides upon infinite other probabilities. You can bring into your own experience any number of probable events, but you cannot deny the probable experience of another portion of your reality. That is, you cannot annihilate it.

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.

The potentials of the true self are so multidimensional that they cannot be expressed in one space or time. Any person who loves another recognizes the infinite potential within that other person. That potential needs infinite opportunity; the true self’s reality needs an ever-new, changing situation, for each experience enriches it and, therefore, enhances its own possibilities. En masse, in your terms, the same is true of the race of man. Mama and Papa, in our analogy, represent the infinite potential within one basic unit (CU) of consciousness.