“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You would learn the instrument far quicker, you see, if the impulse was originating with a probable self. It goes without saying then that probable selves exist in your “future” as well as your past. It is very poor policy to dwell negatively on unpleasant aspects of the past that you know, because some portions of the probable self may still be involved in that past. The concentration can allow greater bleed-through and adverse identification, because that part will be one background that you have in common with any probable selves who sprang from that particular source.

The past existed in multitudinous ways. You only experienced one probable past. By changing this past in your mind, now, in your present, you can change not only its nature but its effect, and not only upon yourself but upon others.

(10:12.) To dwell upon the possibility of illness or disaster is equally poor policy, for you set up negative webs of probabilities that need not occur. You can theoretically alter your own past as you have known it, for time is no more something divorced from you than probabilities are.

[...] It then seems to become the past. You have only tuned into a portion of it physically, though; that past event continues to exist with its own “future,” which you may or may not perceive, according to which probable action you pull into your next experiences of actuality.

Now: Future events are also your selection of probable ones, however, and many occurrences in which you are involved speed past you too quickly for your neuronal structure. [...]

In your terms that event may never come to pass, however, because it may be arising from a probable past that was once your present, but from which you have diverged. [...]

For example: It is truer to say that heredity operates from the future backward into the past, than it is to say that it operates from the past into the present. Neither statement would be precisely correct in any case, because your present is a poised balance affected as much by the probable future as the probable past.

Yet the units of consciousness, being independent of space and time, form your cellular structure, and that structure deals in a most basic manner with the nature of probabilities. Although the body appears permanent and in existence from one moment to the next, basically it constantly rises out of the bed of probabilities, hovering at your now-point of perception and experience, and its apparent stability is dependent upon the knowledge of “future” probabilities as well as “past” ones.

[...] Because your sense experience follows a time pattern that you can understand, then you take it for granted that a cell, for example, is the result of its past, and that its present condition arises from the past.⁴ The fetus grows into an adult, not because it is programmed from the past, but because it is to some extent precognitively aware of its probabilities, and from the “future” then imprints this information into the past structure.

Take any remembered scene from your own past. Experience it as clearly as possible imaginatively, but with the idea of its probable extensions. [...] It is not a part of the past that you know, but an intersection point where that past served as an offshoot into a series of probabilities that you did not follow.

[...] It does mean that even in those terms, and consciously unknowing, mankind is experimenting with a probable species and working out quite spiritual issues. Your probable futures and your probable pasts, in larger terms, exist at once. [...]

You have put yourselves in a position where your consciousness must now become aware of the probable pasts and probable futures, in order to form for yourselves a sane, fulfilling, and creative present.

[...] A realization of this would allow you at any age to draw upon qualities and knowledge that “existed” in your past or “will exist” in your future. Your ages are probable [simultaneous].

[...] If you understand the nature of probabilities, you will not need to pretend to ignore your present situation. You will recognize it instead as a probable reality that you have physically materialized. Taking that for granted, you will then begin the process necessary to bring a different probability into physical experience.

[...] The past as you think of it, and the subconscious, again as you think of it, have little to do with your present experience outside of your beliefs about them. The past contains for each of you some moments of joy, strength, creativity and splendor, as well as episodes of unhappiness, despair perhaps, turmoil and cruelty. Your present convictions will act like a magnet, activating all such past issues, happy or sad. [...]

(The questions I referred to concern the fact that once in The Seth Material and nine times in Seth Speaks, by my count, Seth spoke of Atlantis as being in our historical past. He did so this evening also, of course, when he remarked at 10:59 that our “ideas of Atlantis are partially composed of future memories” — thus leaving room for past manifestations. Seth’s theory of simultaneous time, which can encompass the notion of future probabilities projected backward into an apparent past, for instance, leaves great leeway for the interpretation of events or questions, however, and makes the idea of contradiction posed by an Atlantis in the past and one in the future too simple as an explanation. At any given “time,” depending on whatever information he’s given previously, Jane could just as easily quote Seth as placing Atlantis in our historic past, or in a probable past, present, or future — or all four “places” at once, for that matter. [...]

[...] It exists both in your past and future, a probable world that some of you will choose from a model placed in the past of your future — partially based upon fact, in your terms, but with its greatest validity lying in its possibilities.”

[...] They had already seen one on the inside, as mentioned earlier in “Unknown” Reality.³ This manuscript, for that matter, was begun precisely at the point in time that Ruburt’s and Joseph’s latest adventure with probabilities began. [...] They drove past it often, and went inside. [...]

[...] Even those who accept reincarnation, again, usually believe that the past is finished and the future yet to come. In a way, the idea of past reincarnations often gives a feeling of support of past lives accomplished.

You deal in this area, as in all areas, with probabilities. [...] He is pulling that probability toward him. When he is beginning a book, however, he does not think “This is a probable book.” [...]

As a matter of fact, as mentioned many times, the past itself is not finished. [...] In your terms those selves often give you information, advice, and inspiration, planting in their own pasts the events that “will” bring about their present. [...]

The fact remains that there are probable past events that “can still happen” within your personal previous experience. A new event can literally be born in the past — “now.”

(Pause.) The biological structure as it existed in the past is therefore affected. [...] It is impossible, of course, for you to examine cellular structure now as it exists in the present and simultaneously as it existed in the past (very positively). [...] When you alter your beliefs today you also reprogram your past. As far as you are concerned the present is your point of action, focus, and power, and from that point of volition you form both your future and past. Realizing this, you will understand that you are not at the mercy of a past over which you have no control.

In such instances there is, as easily as I can explain it, a reaching into deep biological structures as they existed at one time; at that point the probabilities are altered, and the condition erased in your present — but also in your past.

[...] Here the past still happens. [...] Past motion and acts still go on, not recurring — it’s hard to explain — but those past actions are still exploring other probabilities, while our nervous structure focuses us in the one (physical) probable reality we’ve chosen. [...]

“These ‘past’ probabilities are not fleshed out in our terms, but they’re brilliantly focused in their own life. In the Saratoga experience¹ I felt ghostly because there I was a future probability … At certain levels of consciousness, through bypassing direct neurological activity and impact, you can then glimpse other portions of your own probable experience — both in the future and the past.

“Usual memory is as much a sifting process as it is anything else, in which experience’s intensity varies — sometimes ‘alive’ neurologically and sometimes not — just to focus our consciousness in one probable action or series. (As I type I add: We forget anything not pertinent to our selected series of probable actions. [...]

The child was himself in the past on the one hand, and yet he was a probable future self in that past. (Pause.) From the standpoint of Ruburt’s official mental focus, and from the standpoint of the neurologically accepted present, that past environment had to remain off-center, or blurred. [...]

The school and the store were not in the infant’s experience, for in that probability the family moved away. [...] You must understand that your own past exists as vitally as does your present — but your probable pasts and presents exist in the same manner. [...]

4. In Seth Speaks alone there is much material on probabilities that I could cite in connection with this session. One of my favorite sessions, however, is the 566th in Chapter 16, where Seth discusses the “profound psychological interconnections” involving probable pasts and futures, dreams, telepathy, present abilities, suggestion, and related subjects. He also produces lines like, “As you sit reading this book in your present moment of time, you are positioned in the center of a cosmic web of probabilities that is affected by your slightest mental or emotional act.”

[...] One ought to be very careful about assigning past and future status to various portions of a self, for ultimately, as one moves further into the spacious present, such constructions as the past, present, and future begin to melt away. And, as in Seth’s case and Jane’s case, probabilities and choices come much more prominently into play.

Within the idea of probable realities, then, there are innumerable opportunities for redemption to take place, between or among creatures—or even between or among ideas—and in all manner of ways. [...] Seth remarked a long time ago that we humans can at least approach the notion of infinity by considering the ramifications inherent within probabilities. For my own amusement, in recent years I’ve often tried to objectify that statement by equating the possible number of probable realities with the current scientific estimate of the number of atoms in the universe: 10⁷⁹, or a 1 followed by 79 zeroes. [...] Within the limitless realms of consciousness, 10⁷⁹ is still but a doorway to vastly greater imaginative quantities and qualities of either numbers or probable realities. [...] There are multitudinous possibilities for a redemption—or equalization or love or forgiveness, say—to take place amid such a dazzling array of probable realities. [...]

My main point is that I also feel, without having asked Seth, that the farther one travels ahead in time the greater the play of probable realities and probable lives he or she encounters. To venture into such a skein requires that one constantly picks and chooses among them—for each move, each thought, even, can launch the traveler into a different probability. [...] (What if one doesn’t want a probable reality they choose? [...]

[...] Nevertheless there are probabilities. Now basically it is not true to say that an individual’s decisions must be based upon concrete events within his own past, nor that he is largely imprisoned by his past, nor that his future actions are predetermined by his past experience. For as you now understand the past is as real as the future, no more and no less. The past exists as far as the individual is concerned as a pattern of electromagnetic currents within the brain, and these connections constantly change.

(John could offer no help on the initials A J, or A G. Seth has given other initials in past data for John, with the same results, and Jane and I believe that this kind of information is probably distorted. [...]

The individual can change past action within however the limitations earlier mentioned in our last session. Therefore his future actions are not dependent upon a concrete and unchanging past, for such a past never existed.

Now, you move through probabilities in much the same way that you navigate in space. As you do not consciously bother with all of the calculations necessary in the process of walking down the street, so you also ignore the mechanisms that involve motion through probable realities. You manipulate through probabilities so smoothly, in fact, and with such finesse, that you seldom catch yourself in the act of changing your course from one probability to another.

There is something highly important here concerning your technological civilization: As your world becomes more complicated, in those terms, you increase the number of probable actions practically available. [...] As space becomes “smaller,” your probabilities grow in complexity. [...] (In parentheses: I am speaking in your terms of time.) Watching television, you are aware of events that occur on the other side of the earth, so your consciousness necessarily becomes less parochial.⁸ As this has happened the whole matter (smiling) of probabilities has begun to assume a more practical cast. [...]

More and more, you are beginning to deal with probabilities as you try to ascertain which of a number of probable events might physically occur. When the question of probabilities is a practical one, then scientists will give it more consideration.

In June of 1969 we were really startled when Seth told us that Rob might be visited by one of his “probable selves.” At the time of the session, we didn’t know what probable selves were, though Seth had used the term once or twice in the past. What is a probable self? [...]

“These other probable events become just as ‘real’ within other dimensions. As a sideline, there are some interesting episodes when a severe psychological shock or deep sense of futility causes a short circuit so that one portion of the self begins to experience one of its other probable realities. I am thinking in particular of some cases of amnesia where the victim ends up suddenly in a different town with another name, occupation, and no memory of his own past. In some instances such an individual is experiencing a probable event, but he must experience it, you see, within his own time system.”

“The ego maintains much of its stability by looking backward into a ‘past’ and finding something of itself there. The portions of the self that deal in probabilities do not have experience with a ‘past’ to give them a sense of identity or continuity. [...]

It is very difficult for them to understand your ideas of past, present and future. [...] (No real pause.) In other dimensions, or if you prefer at other stages of development, the multidimensional personality is aware of its prime identity, and is also aware simultaneously of personality offshoots that it has sent into many realities, into probable systems, as it pursues all of the probable acts and creations inherent in its nature.

[...] As far as your own system is concerned, I have told you that the past ever changes, and here we enter the realm of probabilities; for at any point in any man’s life, where a decision was made, the other probable alternative actions were also taken.

Your ego gains assurance from what seems to be the memory of its immediate past. A man who loses memory of past events feels insecure and lost, but other types of personality gestalts operate far differently. [...]

[...] You may decide to focus instead upon your past life, using it as the stuff of new experience, as mentioned previously creating variations of events as you have known them, making corrections as you choose. Or you may enter another system of probability entirely; and this is quite apart from a reincarnational existence. [...]

Now some individuals, some personalities, prefer a life organization bound about past, present, and future in a seemingly logical structure, and these persons usually choose reincarnation. [...] These will choose a system of probabilities for their next main endeavor.

[...] There will be emotional ties with other personalities whom you have known in past lives, and some of these may supersede your relationships in the immediately past life. [...]

The fetus itself, before its conception, responds to a self not yet physically apparent; and the future, in those terms, draws new life from the past. A reality of selfhood, an idea not yet materialized in the unformed future, reaches down into the past and brings that future into realization. [...]

The knowledge of probabilities⁴ brings forth present time and reality. Voices speak through the genes and chromosomes that connect the future and the past in a balance that you call the present form. [...] The archaeology of the past and the future alike is alive within the layers of consciousness that compose your being.

The fetus also understands that it can respond to a stimulus — to any stimulus it chooses — from a variety of probable futures. So do you unconsciously grope toward probable futures that to one extent or another beckon you onward.

[...] The dreaming self is to some considerable degree conscious of the self which we shall here term the probable self. The probable self is somewhat like a twin self to the dreaming personality, for neither the experiences of the dreaming self nor the probable self occur within the complete radius of physical reality.

There is a constant give and take between the probable self and the dreaming self, for much data is received, particularly by the dreaming personality from the probable self, or the self that experiences what the ego would term probable events.

[...] To you this might mean that it has memory of its past, and indeed to you memory itself is dependent upon the existence of a past, or it is meaningless.

[...] The cells’ practically felt “Now” includes, then, what you would think of as past and future, as simple conditions of Nowness. They maintain the body’s structure in your poised time only by manipulating themselves in a rich medium of probabilities. There is a constant give-and-take of communication between the cell as you know it in present time, and the cell as it “was” in the past, or “will be.”

In thinking in terms of consecutive time, however, evolution does not march from the past into the future. Instead, the species is precognitively aware of those changes it wants to make, and from the “future” it alters the “present” state of the chromosomes and genes² to bring about in the probable future the specific changes it desires. [...]

[...] In very simple terms the architect’s dream can be called a precognitive event, inserted from a probable future into the present. [...] In greater terms the race has plans for itself; only these are based on a much vaster comprehension of the probable issues, abilities, and conditions involved. [...]

[...] 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. [...] 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. [...]

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. [...] 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 picture can be from the past or the present, but try to see it as a snapshot of a self poised in perfect focus, emerging from an underneath dimension in which other probable pictures could have been taken. That self, you see, emerges triumphantly, unique and unassailable in its own experience; yet in the features you see before you — in this stance, posture, expression — there are also glimmerings, tintings or shadings, that are echoes belonging to other probabilities. [...]