The Physical Universal Shifts of Consciousness

"The Unknown Reality"

by Jane Roberts

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Session 679, February 4, 1974, 9:41 PM. P.M., Monday

(Before the session I showed Jane a childhood photograph of herself, and one of me. The two pictures are roughly the same size, about 31/4" by 5". They also look remarkably alike in their brittle and discolored condition-almost as though they'd been snapped at the same time-yet mine is older than Jane's by 20 years.

(The photograph of me, taken and dated by my father [Robert Sr.], has been kept in one of the Butts family albums for 53 years. In it the time is June 1, 1921. I'm almost 2 years old. I have curly light-colored hair. I wear a one-piece suit, long white stockings, and black shoes. I stand in the side yard of the house my parents rented in Mansfield, a small college town in northeastern Pennsylvania. Perhaps a dozen chicks cluster in the grass at my feet while I stare down at them, quite entranced. In blurred focus behind me an unknown teen-age girl sits on a swing that's suspended from a tree limb, and an empty wicker stroller-type carriage [mine?] stands beside her. Parked in a driveway in back of her is a four-door touring car with a fabric top. I might add that Mansfield is only 35 miles below Elmira, N. Y., where Jane and I live now.

(The photograph of Jane is 33 years old. It was taken by an older lady friend who was treating her to an outing at a spa just outside of the New York State resort of Saratoga Springs, where Jane lived with her bedridden mother, Marie, and a housekeeper. In a childish hand Jane had scrawled her friend's name on the back of the picture, along with the date. Many years later she was to tell me, "My mother hated that woman. "In the snapshot it's a sunlit day in August, 1941. Jane is 12 years old. She sits on the grass before some evergreen shrubs; she leans slightly back on her right hand, her bare legs rather primly folded. She wears a print dress that bad been given to her in the Roman Catholic orphanage in Troy, some 35 miles from Saratoga Springs; she'd spent the previous 18 months there in the institution while her mother had been hospitalized in another city for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Jane also wears a short-sleeved pullover sweater. Her mother bad knitted it during her stay in the hospital.

(Jane's blond hair-which was to turn quite black-is neatly parted and combed, and she wears a barrette in it. Her face is youthfully round, but quite unsmiling. She's not scowling. Rather, from her position on the grass she just stares directly out of the photograph at the viewer, displaying a sober, almost controlled regard that seems out of place for one of that age.

(To me, both photographs bad a certain mysterious quality that I'd often found intriguing-an aura due partly to their being old, personal, and so irreplaceable, I suppose. But for a long time I'd been aware of other feelings connected with them. Jane bad begun delivering the Seth material late in 1963, and soon afterwards Seth started developing his ideas on probabilities.1 Many times while looking at the snapshots since then I'd found myself speculating about the probable realities surrounding their two young subjects. I told Jane now that I understood the course of action each of us bad chosen to make physical, or "real" in our terms. But what of all the other paths our probable selves had embarked upon since those pictures had been taken? By now, did those photographs actually depict the immature images of us, the Jane and Rob we knew and had always been, or from our standpoint did they show a probable Jane, a probable Rob-two individuals who long ago had set out upon their own journeys through other realities? I wasn't clear on what I wanted to know, and had trouble expressing myself to Jane. Maybe I just wanted Seth to comment on probabilities in a more personal way. [And added later: At the time, I bad no idea that my questioning would trigger a new Seth book.]

(The outward signs of Jane's trance performances as Seth are very interesting in themselves, and I don't intend to minimize them: indeed, I describe them every so often. My real fascination, however, lies with what I call the greatly enhanced consciousness, or energy, that she displays in the sessions-and always I sense an even more powerful flow of that quality just beneath the surface of her delivery. I thought of this as Jane sat quietly in her Kennedy rocker, waiting for Seth to come through. After a few. minutes, her right band lifted to her glasses. As she took them off her eyes were much darker and more luminous than they usually are: She was dissociated-in trance. Seth was there, staring at me.)

Now: Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth."

(As Seth, Jane briefly handled the two photographs I'd placed on the coffee table between us.)

I am doing two things here-but you can also have the material on any picture separately if you choose to.

("Yes.")

Each of you, again, chose your parents and environment. You spoke in your notes (two days ago) of precognition in connection with art-an excellent point. Precognition in those terms also applies at your birth, when ahead of time you are quite aware on unconscious levels of those conditions that you will meet. You have chosen them and projected them ahead of you, out into the medium of time.

The conditions, however, while "set" in one fashion, are highly plastic in another, so that a multitudinous variety of probable events can flow from them. Precognitively you are unconsciously quite aware-again in your terms-of the results of any given action or cause. When this (photograph) of Ruburt was taken, he had already become aware of the overall interests and concerns that would dominate his future life, although the particular course of it had not been chosen.

Some of this throws light on current experience. The religious background was there. At his preference and demand, he changed from a public to a Catholic school after the third grade. This was against his mother's judgment. She felt that public schools were better and more socially beneficial. Ruburt, at that age-when he changed at the third grade-had quite a will then, in that he forced his mother to acquiesce to the change of schools. He put up such a fuss, Ruburt, and held such temper tantrums, that permission was given. He was stubborn even then.

Now: He was always highly imaginative, as was his mother. His mother was socially defiant, flaunting her beauty with the "disreputable" elements of society. Much later, Ruburt would date the "disreputable" men in his environment, yet neither mother or daughter saw that parallel. Ruburt's mother by then wanted a respectable, hopefully rich husband for Ruburt, and could not understand why he chose men who did not conform.

Ruburt chose a background in which he was poor, as did the mother. The mother was also bright, but chose to bank upon beauty for escape (from her environment) . Ruburt tried his brains instead. That material has been given (over the years in a series of personal sessions) .

("Yes.")

Ruburt's nonconformance took the larger framework of unconventional ideas. In the background, as a child under the organization of the Welfare Department, self-indulgence, small luxuries or too-unconventional behavior, were all dangerous in the framework chosen-the neighbors could report any transgressions to Welfare. At about this time (tapping the photo) Ruburt sat on the lap of an adult man on the front porch, and neighbors duly reported this-the idea being that sexual depravity could be involved.

Ruburt's mother knew that the child could be taken away were it proven that she was an unfit mother in any way, or unable to give the child proper care. Well over a year before this picture was taken, in fact, Ruburt was sent to a Catholic home.5 There, unconventional thought was not tolerated. The inflexibility of dogma conscientiously applied to daily action was experienced, and within it Ruburt tried to apply himself and to focus his deeply mystical nature.

He remembered his mother's constant criticism of him, but barely recalls his scandalized disapproval of her swearing, for example, on his return home. He threw himself headlong into the Catholic reality, pursued it with great stubborn diligence, used it as a framework of conventionality in which he could allow his mystic nature to grow.

When that nature grew out of the framework, he left it. All the beliefs that had once seemed so legitimate were then seen as hampering, and all their defects became plain. While he followed the framework, nothing could swerve him from it, and here (touching the photo) in this child's picture, you already have the unswerving nature, the great spontaneity, looking for a structure that will allow it growth, and yet give the illusion of safety.

The placid-looking child (in the photo) was as dogmatic and unyielding in some respects as Ruburt has ever been. Yet leaving the church framework, Ruburt fastened upon the mind as opposed to the intuitions. The child here was convinced that statues of Christ moved. Without a framework to contain that kind of experience, the growing girl began to squash it. Mystical experience became acceptable only through poetry or art, where it was accepted as creative, but not real enough to get him into trouble, or to upset the "new" framework. The new framework threw aside such superstitious nonsense. The mind would be harnessed, and art became the acceptable translator of mystical experience, and a cushion between that experience and the self. He threw some of the baby out with the bathwater.

The mystical went underground, reappearing as science fiction. Again, in the social and religious background of the child, unconventional mental or physical actions could bring penalties. For a while the child could interpret mystical experience within the church-but even then, there was always conflict with church authorities.

(10:19.) Without this experience of following such a belief in the church so fervently, however, he would not understand the need of people for such beliefs, or be able to reach them as well as he does. His questioning mind was exercised originally as he began to examine religious beliefs. He was afraid that psychic experience, when he encountered it much later, might lead to a new dogma, and was determined not to use it in such a way.

His "conservatism, " meaning his strong recognition of conservative ideas, is used as a springboard. He leaps from where he knows other people are into new areas. He combats the dogma of spiritualism as much as he did the dogma of the church.

He leaped, however, from the framework of the church into another framework, one in which mysticism was experienced secondhand, under the guise of artistic production. Idea Construction literally shattered that framework.

(Pause.) For various reasons already given, concerning your joint relationship, and your own purposes (to me) , it has taken some time for a newer, suitable framework to form itself-one in which Ruburt is free to pursue mystic experience in a practical structure; one in which unconventionality of thought is allowed to continue freely. He felt that this could outgrow the framework of his art, as it did that of the church. The physical symptoms served quite literally as a framework in which spontaneity was to some extent at least allowed a mental and psychic freedom, until he felt secure.

Take your break.

(10:3 1. Jane came out of trance very easily and quickly, as she usually does. The speed of her delivery for Seth bad been average, which to me means that I'd been able to just comfortably keep up with my verbatim "shorthand" notes. Jane remembered little of what she'd said, yet now she felt the emotional impact of the material in her stomach-the reaction she often gets, she told me, when the information is of a personal or "charged" nature.

(I reminded her that I hoped Seth would comment on the old photograph of her in connection with probable realities, although now I could see that it would take him longer to develop answers than I'd thought it would. I didn't think we'd get any material on my own picture tonight.

(Resume in the same manner at 10:42.)

Now: You were correct. Probabilities are of course involved. Remember the first few sentences of this session. The general overall conditions were chosen, but many probable courses were concerned.

(As Seth, Jane pointed to the photograph of herself, taken when she was 12 years old.)

That child took a different course than this woman did (Jane indicated herself as she sat in her rocker) . The dogmatism prevailed. The child's mystical nature, while strong, was not strong enough to defy the church framework, to leave it or to rise above its provided symbolism. It [the mysticism] was to be expressed, if curtailed, relatively speaking. The mind would be harnessed so that it would not ask too many questions. That child (in the photo) joined a nunnery, where she learned to regulate mystical experience according to acceptable precepts-but to express it nevertheless with some regularity, continuously, in a way of life that at least recognized its existence.

In your terms, the intersection with probabilities occurred one day in an interview the child had with a priest. The event, in Ruburt's terms, with its results in your probability, is mentioned in his Rich Bed (see Note 4) . The child in seventh or eighth grade wrote a poem, expressing the desire to be a nun, and brought it to a parish priest. In your probability, the priest told the child that she was needed by her mother; but intuitively he saw that Ruburt's mysticism would not fit into the church organization.

In the other probability, Ruburt's desire at that time won. He managed to water down the extent and dimensions of his mysticism enough so that it was acceptable. In that other probability, there will be no long period of time in which the mystical experience would lie latent, and no necessity at all to put it into new terms.

The writing ability would follow as its handmaiden. In this world the artistic abilities were put first, but the mystical nature was given greater chances to expand and develop. And both were given the opportunity and the challenge of shattering old, historic frameworks, and of rising beyond them.

(Intently:) Ruburt here chose the writing structure, and has stuck to it as unswervingly as he once stuck to the church, yet always seeking a new framework. For a while he idealized you. Your guidance and strength were his framework. When it became apparent that you were also human, and not a framework, he became frightened. When you encouraged the emergence and expression of his mysticism, then you could no longer act, he felt, as a framework to contain it. By then it seemed to threaten the joint structure of your lives. He knew intuitively that you also used artistic creation as a buffer between yourself and mystical expression.

For all of the reasons given-and they are clearly given(in personal sessions)-he was afraid that spontaneity, mental or physical, would threaten the long-accepted framework of your joint lives. If he went spontaneously forward in mystical experience, then, given his ideas, it threatened the conventional acceptance of his art. Conventional ideas of art and writing, upon which the old framework, now, was dependent, no longer fit.

Once again his natural experience, he felt, was leading him beyond structures he had considered safe.

(11:05.) He had you to consider. This experience of his was taking time from your art as well as his own, to his way of thinking. At the same time, the mystical nature rejoiced at its opportunity, and sensed its potential. Ruburt was determined to go ahead (louder)-he was also determined to keep the old structures and to ignore the cracks in them. In part his loyalty to you was connected, and his responsibility as he saw it to keep you focused as an artist, and to let nothing distract you. Yet here he was distracting you.

For a while your joint communication system was shaky. He was afraid to go ahead. The symptoms kept him at his job, at home, and allowed him to concentrate without outside distractions; kept him writing, with mystical experience dutifully translated into art.

The symptoms also served to focus that fantastic energy while he figured out how it should be used. He could not accept a new psychic framework while within it there were questions concerning your joint ideas of business, and divided loyalties about writing and painting; your personal fears, jointly, about spontaneity in general, and the need to protect your talents both from your own sexual natures and the distractions of others.

He could not accept a new framework, and he dared not let the old one go, so the symptoms became the physical materialization of these conflicts, and served many purposes. This child (in the photo) , grown up in its own probability, has no such problems. The challenges are not there, either-only in latent form.

Give us a moment... Ruburt greatly needs to realize that you love him, and accept him, as he is now in your terms. He gets from you what feeling of creaturehood acceptance he has, that you received in your way from your family in early years.

Your questioning, Joseph (see Note 3) , and your deep distrust of the world's current theories, are shared as intensely by Ruburt, and your joint insistence upon discovering new answers is responsible for these sessions, and what will come from them.

You see his joyful potential, and he knows that you do. Sometimes he feels lost, however, as an emotional human being, groping toward that potential, and he needs to be comforted. As you know now, comforting him can be frightening to you, because it returns you both to deep emotional realizations and feelings that you sublimate in your paintings, and even to mystical experiences that you also channel through your work.

Take a break.

(11:25. "I've got that feeling again, " Jane said, after she'd come out of a deep trance. "Empty inside, you know, as though it's all hitting home..."

(From Seth's delivery following last break, I've deleted less than two short sentences of very personal material. Obviously, Jane and I did choose to meet the challenges presented by the emergence of her psychic abilities 11 years ago. Those "new" abilities offered creative possibilities so apparent that, given our natures, we bad little desire to do otherwise; beneath our doubts and questions we intuitively felt the rightness of our decisions. I found that I was able to contribute psychically in certain ways, other than just recording the sessions. And to have at least some of our deepest desires and motivations brought so clearly to conscious awareness, through psychic means or any other way, was more than we'd thought possible in previous years. We found such information especially valuable within the larger social context. With all of this, I was also eager to acquire whatever knowledge was available about both the philosophy and the act of painting.

(I hope the [very slightly edited] information Seth gives about my own family will trigger insights for others. Resume at 11:37.)

Now: Let us briefly, for now, attend to this.

(Seth-Jane held up the photograph of me, taken when I was almost 2 years old.)

That child enjoys great feelings of vigor and safety. In your family relationship so far, so good. You were mainly surrounded by love and affirmation. Your parents were young. Your mother had produced two beautiful boys; and she was also a perfectionist in her way, and in her framework-one never understood by your father.

It was on the surface a very conventional structure, yet underneath, highly unwieldy. There were dogmas. The mother was expected to bear perfect children and to be subservient to the male, at least in outward fashion.

Your mother felt, then, that each played a fitting part in the marriage, in that your father had in her eyes great prospects, and she had given him two sons. It was only later that she felt he had not fulfilled his part of the bargain, and that you began to feel insecure. She had forced herself to focus all of her great emotional power into the marriage structure as they both understood it; but your father would not concentrate his own abilities into the cultural and financial structure as he had agreed to do in the tacit contract.

She had forced herself to contain her own reality in conventional terms-but to her way of thinking, he refused to use his energy in the accepted social and financial structure that each of them had accepted.

You began to feel, years later, as Ruburt did: that creativity was in its way dangerous, that it would lead you outside of accepted social structures, and definitely must be protected against normal family life.

(Picking up the photo of me:) Not in this picture, but quite alive, was your brother Linden. You insisted upon using your abilities, and tried for years to fit them into the commercial pattern, where they were accepted financially and socially, and in terms of your self-image. Finally you grew outside of the structure.'0 When you did, you made the artificial division in which good art would not sell-but you would do it anyway.

You would make your creativity real, in sense terms. Linden would not. He would keep it safely inside a "play" structure-not play necessarily in basic terms, but a structure in which he would work with models, cleverly, never applying his creative abilities in certain ways to a practical reality. They would be outside, safely, in that context.

The abilities that he possessed, that could be channeled into society as he understood it, were [so handled]. In such an eventuality, fragmentation occurred so that the abilities were dispersed, some directed into school, some into drawing, and others into his models. Those creative attributes were separated so that they could be safely handled, yet expressed to some degree, and not completely denied.

Your own character is in its way more direct, meaning that you maintained a more immediate focus. When that picture was taken, however, your parents were beginning to realize their difficulty. Your first year was one in which your father and mother were filled with expectation. 'Linden sensed that lack. He was secure, but not as secure as you had been, as the division between your parents was beginning to show.

Linden uses words now as a framework to contain creativity and communication, rather than to express them. You were more free-roaming here (in the photo) as a child because you felt safer physically. Linden was far less venturesome in that respect....

(After a pause at 12:02, Seth delivered a page of material for Jane before ending the session at 12:16 A.M. As I interpret his information on the photographs, then, Jane's depicts an individual who was to become a probable Jane to the one I know, while mine is pretty much an early version of the self who's always lived in this reality... )

Session 680, February 6, 1974, 9:21 PM. Wednesday

(In the last session, Seth began discussing separate photographs of Jane and me [taken at the ages of 12 and 2, respectively] in connection with his ideas about probable selves. Since we wanted Seth to continue with the same material tonight, we looked the pictures over again while waiting for him to come through. Then, without greetings:)

Now: When I speak of probable selves, of course I am not speaking of some symbolic portion of the personality structure, or using the idea of probabilities as an analogy.

Consciousness is composed of energy, with everything that implies. The psyche, then, can be thought of as a conglomeration of highly charged "particles" of energy, following rules and properties, many simply unknown to you. On other levels, laws of dynamics apply to the energy sources of the self. Think of a given "self" as a nucleus of an energy gestalt of consciousness. That nucleus, according to its intensity, will attract to it certain masses of the entire energy patterns available to a given identity.

In those terms the identity at birth is composed of a variety of such "selves, " with their nuclei, and from that bank the physical personality has full freedom to draw. Ruburt's mystical nature was such a strong portion of the entire identity that in his present reality, and in the probable reality chosen-as mentioned when I discussed this picture (of Jane)-the mystic impulses and expressions were given play. Intersections with probable realities occur when one psychic grouping intensifies to a certain point, so that fulfillment as a self results.

Within the entire identity there may be, for example, several incipient selves, around whose nuclei the physical personality can form. In many instances one main personality is formed, and the incipient selves are drawn into it so that their abilities and interests become subsidiary, or remain largely latent. They are trace selves.

On many occasions, however, such latent selves will be as highly energized as the "main" personality. Since physically a certain personality structure must be maintained, traces are made. Therefore, when such situations arise, one or two of the other energized selves will literally spring apart from the time-space structure that you know.

From your viewpoint these offshoots of energy become unreal. They exist as surely as you do, however. In terms of energy, this multiplication of selves is a natural principle. (To me:) Your "sportsman self" was never endowed with the same kind of force as that of your artistic or writing self. It became subsidiary, yet present to be drawn upon, taking joy through your motion and adding its vitality to your "main" personality.

Had it been given extra force through your environment, circumstances, or your own intent, then either your artistic self would have become subservient or complementary; or, if the energy selves were of nearly equal intensity, then one of them would have become an offshoot, propelled by its own need for fulfillment into a probable reality. Do you follow me?

("Yes."

(9:44.) Give us a moment... Your parents literally did not share the same reality at all. This is not as unusual as you may think. They met and related in a place between each of their realities. It was not that they disagreed with each other's interpretation of events. The events were different.

In terms of energy, intent is stabilizing. There is a center to the self, again, that acts as a nucleus. The nucleus may change, but it will always be the center from which physical existence will radiate. Physically, intent or purpose forms that center, regardless of its reality in terms of energy.

In your family life in this reality, your parents acted opaquely to each other. There were strong energy shifts, so that the personalities did not meet directly. Give us a moment... Some of this is difficult to explain. In a way they were unfocused, yet each with strong abilities, but dispersed. There was a reason for this.

They contained within themselves intense and yet blurred talents that were used as energy sources by the children. Give us time... They came together precisely to give birth to the family, and for no other main reason as far as their joint reality was concerned. They seeded a generation, then.

Your mother loved physical reality and took the greatest pleasure in its most minute aspects, for all of her complaints. Your father loved it but never trusted it. Each of your parents had their strongest reality, this time, and in your terms, in a probable system of reality-and here (in this reality) they were offshoots. To them this system always seemed strange.2

In another system of reality your father was-in fact, still is-a well-known inventor, who never married but used his mechanically creative abilities to the fullest while avoiding emotional commitment. He met Stella (my mother) . They were going to be married-and in terms of years, the same years are involved, historically. At one time, then, in your father's past as you think of it, having met Stella, he did not marry her after all. His love was for machinery, the speed of motorcycles, mixing creativity with metal. At that point of intersection, equal desires and intents within him became like twin nuclei. Whole regroupings of energy occurred, psychological and psychic implosions, so that two equally valid personalities were aware in a world in which only one could live at a time.

By far, the creative, mechanically inventive personality began to outstrip the other. The father that you knew was the probable self, therefore. That probable self, however, dealt with emotional realities that the other avoided, and this was indeed his sole intent.

(Pause at 10:07.) This does not mean that such a personality is limited, basically, or that he does not collect about him new interests and challenges, for he is himself mobile. He even has many of the characteristics of the other self, though these of course are latent. But through having children your father brought about the birth of emotional existence, full-bodied and alive, in sons.

This was a great fulfillment on his part, for the inventor did not trust himself to feel much emotion, much less give birth to emotional beings. In that other probability in which your parents originally met, your mother married a doctor, became a nurse, and helped her husband in his practice. She became an independent woman, and-again in your historical context-when it took some doing for a woman to distinguish herself.

She had one son, then a hysterectomy, on purpose. She schooled herself rigorously, moved in social circles, hid the unschooled, naive aspects of herself. In that life, for example, she would certainly not wear red bows in her hair. All of the controlled energy made her somewhat bitter, though she was successful. She died in her 50's-do you follow me?

("Yes.")

Her energy was such that it spilled over into this system with your father, however. Someday I will try to explain this more clearly, in terms of energy patterns. Historically, however, many probabilities exist at once. When your mother died in her 50's in one probable system, your mother in this system was the recipient of energy that then returned.

Your father's greatest vitality was in the inventor's reality, and so in your terms this one suffered. This does not mean that each personality, regardless of probabilities, is not endowed with free will, and so forth. Each is born, in whatever system, from a source gestalt energy, and develops.

When your picture was taken, therefore, your parents were already living in a probable reality, but you and [your brother] Linden were not. Now take your break.

(10:2 5. Jane's trance had been an excellent one. She said that while immersed in it she'd thought the material 'fantastically complicated... like: 'Where are you in all of this-where's your soul?'"

(Some quick figuring showed us that the 50's for my mother bad encompassed the years 1942-5 1. From my present viewpoint I bad no idea if she'd consciously or unconsciously experienced any influx of energy resulting from the death of a probable self during that decade. In those days the Buttses didn't think in such terms, for one thing; for another, I was absent from 7 the family borne in Sayre for much of that time. In 1947, for example, when my mother was 55 years old, I was 28 and living in New York City. I wasn't to meet Jane for five years. And even if Stella Butts were still living, I think it would be difficult to question her about an event that would have taken place approximately a quarter of a century ago.

(I told Jane now that bad my mother received any additional energy during her 50's, she might have expressed its benefits through the habitual mores of our society, in terms of changes rather than of probabilities, say: "My life changed for the better at that point, when I made that decision. "1 added that perhaps the important thing for us now was to observe our unfolding lives with Seth's ideas of the larger, or whole self, in mind, and so achieve insights we could interpret in terms of probabilities. So we decided not to ask Seth to backtrack and give us material about the son my mother's probable self had had in her reality, even though that son was a probable self of mine.

(As we talked, Jane decided to go back into trance; she was getting so many "bleed-throughs" on the material herself that she was beginning to feel consciously confused. But Seth bad all the data there, she said, if she bad the time to give it. Resume at 10:45.)

Now: There are basically no limitations to the self, and I all portions of the self are connected-so the probable selves are aware, unconsciously, of their relationships.

Because no system is closed, 4 there are flows of energy between them, and interaction. Some of this is exceedingly difficult to verbalize, since the word "structure" itself is not only serialized, but particle-ized.

(Pause.) You think of entities as particles, for example, rather than as waves of energy, aware and alert, or as patterns. (A one-minute pause.) Think of Ruburt's living area in Adventures, for example. Imagine that at age 13, three strong energy centers come to the surface of the personality-highly charged, so that one person cannot adequately fulfill the desires or abilities presented. You may have a three-way split at age 13. At [age] 40, each of the three selves may recognize age 13 as a turning point, and wonder what might have happened had they chosen other courses.

None of this is predetermined. An offshoot probable self might leave your reality at age 13, say, but could intersect with you again at age 30 for a variety of reasons-where to you, you suddenly change a profession, or become aware of a talent you thought you had forgotten, and find yourself developing it with amazing ease.

(To me again:) Your birth (in 1919) coincided with the birth of your mother's child in that other reality, hence her stronger feelings toward you. Your birth, and that of your youngest brother (Richard) , were highly charged for her-yours for the reasons just given, and your brother's because it represented the time of your mother's hysterectomy in that other reality. In this reality, Richard's birth represented your father's final attempt to deal with emotional reality. Both of your parents imbued the third son with the strongest emotional qualities of their natures. Your mother had him defiantly, after the usual childbirth age (she was 36) . almost reacting against that (probable] hysterectomy. In this world, she could and would have another child.

Linden was the one "natural" child of this marriage. Watch how you interpret that, but he was the child least affected by other realities. For that reason, however, and because of your parents personalities here, the same amount of attention was not paid him psychically, and he felt that lack.

(11:02.) Give us a moment... I told you (in the last session) that in one probability Ruburt was a nun, expressing mysticism in a highly disciplined context, where it must be watched so that it does not get out of hand. Because there is an unconscious flow of information and experience here, you have one of the reasons for Ruburt's caution in some psychic matters, and his fear of leading people astray. There were three offshoots: one, the nun, with mysticism conventionally expressed, but under guarded circumstances; one, the writer who veiled mystical experience through art; and one, the Ruburt you know, who experienced mystical experience directly, teaches others to do the same, and forms through writing a wedding of the two aspects. You have known two of those selves, then, and you were present at Ruburt's birth with Idea Construction. Give us a moment... The birth of Joseph took place at York Beach with the dancing episode, 6 so you have in your own experience examples in adult life. I cannot give you everything in one evening, of course. A few glimpses before a word for Ruburt. Sportsmen make good money, so for this and other reasons you early turned to commercial art-a field in which artistic ability would be well paid for.

There were other connections, seemingly trivial yet pertinent. You enjoyed doing comics with outdoor scenes: animals in motion, the body performing. As an audience watches a sportsman perform, so those who read the comics watched your characters perform in action across the page. All hidden patterns, yet each one making sense. I will go into the birth of Joseph. Now, however, a word to Ruburt.

(11:15. After giving two pages of material for Jane, here deleted, Seth closed out the session at 11:33 P.M.)

Session 681, February 11, 1974, 9:28 PM. P.M., Monday

("I'm just waiting, "Jane said at 9:25, after we'd been sitting for the session since 9:10. "Seth's around, I can tell. I was getting stuff earlier, but I'm just waiting until it's ready. I can feel concepts in my bead, but they aren't clear yet, not the way they should be. It's as though Seth's going to have a hard time explaining them.")

Now: Good evening-

("Good evening, Seth.")

-and Ruburt is correct, so give us a moment...

What I am about to explain is difficult. Purposely, it is not as yet in any of the books, simply because certain beliefs must be dispensed with before these ideas can be at all accepted.

It is not that I am holding back so much as that, in your terms, what follows is dependent upon an understanding of concepts presented earlier. People who are still worrying about one soul, gods, and devils, must be helped to relate to greater realities from their own framework, and gently led away from it if possible. Probabilities have been mentioned in such a way that alternate realities are presented, showing such people that choices are available.

The deeper explanations, however, demand a further expansion of ideas of consciousness, and a certain reorientation. It is extremely important that you bear in mind the importance of free will, and the presence of your own identity as you think of it. With that preamble, let me continue then.

It is not so much a matter of Ruburt's vocabulary, incidentally, since even a specialized scientific one would only present these ideas in its own distorted fashion. It is more a problem of basic language itself, as you are acquainted with it. Words do not exist, for example, for some of the ideas I hope to convey. We will, at any rate, begin.

All probable worlds exist now. All probable variations on the most minute aspect in any reality exist now. You weave in and out of probabilities constantly, picking and choosing as you go along. The cells within your body do the same thing.

(Slowly:) I told you once that there were pulses of activity in which you blinked off and on-this applying even to atomic and subatomic partides. "You" assign as real - present here and now - only that activity that is your signal. "You" are not aware of the others. When people think in terms of one self, they of course identify with one body. You know that the cellular structure of it changes constantly. The body is at any given moment, however, a mass conglomeration of energy formed from that rich bank of probable activity. The body is not stable in the terms usually thought of. On deeper biological levels the cells straddle probabilities, and trigger responses. Consciousness rides upon and within the pulses mentioned earlier, and forms its own organizations of identity. Each probability-probable only in relation to and from the standpoint of another probability-is inviolate, however, in that it is not destroyed. Once formed, the pattern will follow its own nature.

(A one-minute pause at 9:50, bead bowed, eyes closed.) The organizations of consciousness "grow" even as cells grow into organs. Groups of probable selves, then, can and do form their own identity structure, which is quite aware of the probable selves involved. In your reality, experience is dependent upon time, but all experience is not so structured. There are, for example, parallel events that are followed as easily as you follow consecutive events.

The structure of probabilities deals with parallel experience on all levels. Your consciousness picks and chooses to accept as real the results of, and ramifications of, only certain overall purposes, desires, or intents. You follow these through a time structure. Your focus allows other just-as-legitimate experience to become invisible or unfelt.

In the same way that you latch upon one personal biological history, you latch upon but one mass earth history. Others go on about you all the time, and other probable selves of your own experience their "histories" parallel to yours. In practical terms of sense data, those worlds do not meet. In deeper terms they coincide. Any of the infinite number of events that could have happened to you and Ruburt [do] happen. Your attention span simply does not include such activity.

(10:00.) Such endless creativity can seem so dazzling that the individual would appear lost within it, yet consciousness forms its own organizations and psychic interactions at all levels. Any consciousness automatically tries to express itself in all probable directions, and does so. In so doing it will experience All That Is through its own being, though interpreted, of course, through that familiar reality of its own. You grow probable selves as a flower grows petals. Each probable self, however, will follow through in its own reality-that is, it will experience to the fullest those dimensions inherent to it. You pick and choose one birth and one death, in your terms.

(To me:) You died as a young boy in an operation, however, in this life as you think of it. You died again in the war, where you were a pilot-but those are not your official deaths, so you do not recognize them.

Science likes to think that it deals with predictable action. It perceives such a small amount of data, however, and in such a limited area, that the great inner unpredictability of any molecule, atom, or wave is not apparent. Scientists perceive only what appears within your system, and that often appears predictable.

Give us a moment... True order and organization, even of biological structure, can be achieved only by granting a basic unpredictability. I am aware that this sounds startling.

Basically, however, the motion of any wave or particle or entity is unpredictable-freewheeling and undetermined. Your life structure is a result of that unpredictability. Your psychological structure is also. However, because you are presented with a fairly cohesive picture, in which certain laws seem to apply, you think that the laws come first and physical reality follows. Instead, the cohesive picture is the result of the unpredictable nature that is and must be basic to all energy.

Statistics provide an artificial, predetermined framework in which your reality is then examined. Mathematics is a theoretical organized structure that of itself imposes your ideas of order and predictability. Statistically, the position of an atom can be theorized, but no one knows where any given atom is at any given time.

(10:22.) You are examining probable atoms. You are composed of probable atoms. (A one-minute pause.) Give us a moment... (A one-minute pause.) Consciousness, to be fully free, had to be endowed with unpredictability. All That Is had to surprise himself, itself, herself, constantly, through freely granting itself its own freedom, or forever repeat itself. This basic unpredictability then follows through on all levels of consciousness and being. A certain cellular structure may seem inevitable within its own frame of reference only because opposing or contradictory probabilities do not appear therein.

In your terms, consciousness is able to hold its own sense of identity by accepting one probability, one physical life, for example, and maintaining its identity through a lifetime. Even then, certain events will be remembered and others forgotten. The consciousness also learns to handle alternate moments as it "matures." As it does so mature it forms a new, larger framework of identity, as the cell forms into an organ on another level.

In your terms-the phrase is necessary-the moment point, 5 the present, is the point of interaction between all existences and reality. All probabilities flow through it, though one of your moment points may be experienced as centuries, or as a breath, in other probable realities of which you are a part.

(Pause at 10:36.) Ruburt is at this moment feeling massive. He is experiencing several things. The inner cellular body consciousness feels itself massive, while to you cells arc minute. The sounds of the package, for example (as Seth, Jane crumpled an empty cigarette package) , or the fingernails across the table (demonstrated) , are magnified, for in the cellular world they are an important outside-the-self cosmic event-messages of great importance. The cellular consciousness experiences itself as eternal, though to you the cells have a brief life. But those cells are aware of the body's history, in your terms, and in a much more familiar fashion than you are aware of the earth's history.

The cells are also aware of probabilities in a more familiar fashion than you are, as they manipulate the past and future history of the body. Ruburt now, again, is experiencing massiveness, as in your idea of probabilities the cellular structure feels its vast endurance. Working with events not even real to you, it produces a physical structure that maintains identity and predictability out of a vastly creative network. That network is unpredictable, yet from it Ruburt can predictably put ashes into that shell. (Jane held up her favorite ashtray, the abalone shell we'd found in Baja California in 1958, and tapped some ashes into it from her cigarette.) The predictability of that gesture rests upon the basis of an unpredictability, in which multitudinous other actions could have occurred, and in other realities do occur.

(10:46.) You had better give us a moment, and rest your hand.

(Jane bad been speaking steadily in trance, if with many pauses, for 78 minutes. Now she still sat upright in her chair, sipping beer, eyes closed. A minute passed.)

Now: Your beliefs and intents cause you to pick, from an unpredictable group of actions, those that you want to happen. You experience those events. (To me:) "Your" desire to live straddled the death of the child in an operation. The child's desire to die chose that event. People are as free as atoms are. Give us a moment... In no way could you predict what would happen to the child in that photograph of yourself.6 In no way now can you "predict" what will happen to you now. You can choose to accept as your reality any number of given unpredictable events. In that respect, the choice is yours, but all the events you do not accept occur nevertheless.

In a very small measure you can see how this works when you think of your mother in, say, her last years, and compare your idea of her with those of [your brothers] Linden and Richard. She was a different person to each of you. She was herself; but in the interweavings of probabilities, while certain agreed-upon historic events were accepted, she admitted into her reality whatever portions of your probable reality she chose. Each of you had a different mother.

Probabilities intersect then in your experience, and their intersection you call reality. Biologically and psychically these are intersections, coming-togethers, consciousness adopting a focus.

Again, Ruburt is still experiencing massiveness.... All of the atoms and molecules that have composed your body since your birth, and will compose it until your death, in your terms, exist flow; so even your knowledge of the body is experienced in a time form-that is, bit by bit.

(Long pause at 11:05.) Part of Ruburt's feeling of massiveness comes from the mass experience of the body, existing all at once. Therefore to him the body feels larger. Calculations impossible to describe occur, so that from this basic unpredictability you experience what seem to be predictable actions. This is only because you focus upon those actions that "make sense" in your reality, and ignore all others. I am not speaking symbolically, of course, when I say you died as a youngster. Nor was any harsh reality forced upon the mother by the dying child, for that portion of your mother was the part that regretted having had the child.

Now: Atoms can move in more directions than one at once. You only perceive scientifically the probable motion you are interested in. The same applies to subjective experience.

Now, take your break.

(11:10. Jane slowly came out of one of her longest session trances; she'd been under for an hour and forty-two minutes. I've indicated but a few of the many long pauses she took.

(She still felt massive. Her eyes rolled up, then closed again. "Things are really weird, like the sky's cracking... Seth talking about it sort of controlled things, but now my head's getting really big. . ." I roused her with a call, and she said, "Yeah, it's wild... I don't know whether I should break it or go along with it. I feel like my head is real big now, and going around to the right and spinning-it's huge..

(11:15. "And when there isn't any sound outside, everything's ringing-the way your ears do, only more so... Now my whole body's really big. Massive. I might end it. It's funny: It's not terribly pleasant. My teeth seem really huge-everything-my feet...

(11:17. Jane smiled as I called her again. ' 'I just got the image of being a giant in a giant room. Then something I don't understand: an image of myself as a gorilla, or something like that. I'm as tall as the ceiling, trying to knock the walls down... I'm not understanding what's going on very well. Now I'm getting bigger. I think I'm going to come out of it... My face isn't doing anything, is it? Changing in any way?"

("No."

(11:21. "1 had the feeling of my hair being long and parted in the middle, as though I've got some kind of humanoid features; you know, with the hair hanging down on each side of my face, which is something like an animal's-but with very intelligent eyes, very warm and soft. "8 Jane finally opened her eyes. Her ears still rang, so loudly that she asked me if I beard the same sound. I told her I didn't. We walked around the room. I made her half a sandwich. "It's sort of frustrating, " she said. "It's as though I'm seeing or feeling what I'm capable of at the moment, but I know there's more there behind that. I can feel it, but I can't get it out."

(As she ate Jane said, "The noises in my mouth are real loud-you're not used to it." When she sipped beer, she felt the cold liquid descend inside her body, but displaced to the right of her esophagous. She recited a list of opposing feelings in her own body that she was simultaneously aware of in her "bigger body": Her right foot was very cold, her back very hot... I got her a sweater, for our living room had cooled off. The February night was very cold.

(Resume, finally, at 11:47.)

Now: Only out of unpredictability can an infinite number of orders, or ordered systems, arise.

Anything less than complete unpredictability will ultimately result in stagnation, or orders of existence that in the long run are self-defeating. Only from unpredictability can any system emerge that can be predictable within itself. Only within complete freedom of motion is any "ordered" motion truly possible.

From the "chaotic" bed of your dreams springs your ordered daily organized action. In your reality, the behavior of your consciousness and of your molecules are highly connected. Your type of consciousness presupposes a molecular consciousness, and your kind of consciousness is inherent in molecular consciousness-inherent within your system, but not basically predictable. Predictability is simply another word for significance. Unpredictability, looking at itself in a variety of different fashions, finds certain portions of itself significant, and forms certain orders, or ordered sequences, about itself. In one of our very early sessions, I told you that you perceive from a vast field only certain data that you find meaningful. That data could only arise from the bed of unpredictability. Only unpredictability can provide the greatest source of probable orders.

Your cells are quite able to handle different orders of events; therefore in the dream state they are able, in their individual ways, to perceive your experience, and from it to choose those actualities you want made real in your terms.

In dreams you are acquainted with probable events, from which you then choose; (to me:) so before you died as a child, you knew that you could pick or choose that death. In greater terms you chose both life and death, and the picture of you at the age of 16 was never taken in one reality.

(Pause.) We have quite all that Ruburt can handle this evening, and this is a beginning.

(Now Seth came through with half a page of material for Jane, then wound up the evening's work with this joking comment:)

His probable brain can translate only so much of this at one time.

("Yes. Good night." 12:06 A.M. Jane still felt somewhat massive. A few notes added the next day: She slept restlessly, and found herself "giving material on probabilities just about all night." She woke up often, and at such times was relieved to discover that she hadn't been holding a session that I wasn't recording. As it was, she laughed, the material was still "safe "-we'd get it at a regular session.

(Jane has often told me that usually on such nighttime occasions she doesn't feel Seth's presence or hear his voice. Instead she's just aware of the material "running through her.")

Session 682, February 13, 1974, 9:27 PM. Wednesday

("I think Seth's heading toward something new," Jane said at 9:20, as we sat waiting for the session. "Funny-not that we're going to come up with new words, but some new ideas. I feel like I've bad three or four drinks, or as though I'm in a different state of consciousness already-and here I haven't had anything except this apricot juice..."

(Indeed, we were out of beer, which Jane usually drinks during the sessions, and she didn't want any wine. "I feel him - Seth - around now, " she said, "but it's like last time: I'm getting stuff, but I'm waiting until it's clear.. . I don't really feel looped, but the center of focus I always use in the sessions seems strange. There's an unfamiliarity about finding it. I'd say, although I don't know, that I'm already in a deeper state than usual..."

(A note: The night was very warm, and followed a series of really cold ones through most of this month. Much snow had melted today. The change in the weather was quite exhilarating.)

Now: Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth."

(Pause.) The Nature of Personal Reality is an excellent handbook, one that will enable people to manipulate in the world they know with greater effectiveness. It will not matter whether or not they understand deeper issues upon which the whole nature of physical reality itself depends. The material I am giving now will attempt some explanation of those deeper issues.

Ruburt's own development makes this possible, for it was necessary that he progress to the point that he has in Adventures, and reach the level of certain theories so that these could be used as springboards. Give us a moment...

We must unfortunately often deal with analogies, because they can form bridgeworks between concepts. There are units of consciousness, then, as there are units of matter. I do not want you to think of these units as particles. There is a basic unit of consciousness that, expressed, will not be broken down, as once it was thought that an atom was the smallest unit and could not be broken down. The basic unit of consciousness obviously is not physical. It contains within itself innately infinite properties of expansion, development, and organization; yet within itself always maintains the kernel of its own individuality. Despite whatever organizations it becomes part of, or how it mixes with other such basic units, its own identity is not annihilated.

It is aware energy, identified within itself as itself, not "personified" but awareized. It is therefore the source of all other kinds of consciousness, and the varieties of its activity are infinite. It combines with others of its kind, forming then units of consciousness-as, mentioned often, atoms and molecules combine.

This basic unit is endowed with unpredictability. That very unpredictability allows for infinite patterns and fulfillments. The word "soul" unfortunately has been so used in regard to your species that it becomes highly difficult to unravel the conceptual difficulties. Using usual definitions, you would call a soul the result of a certain organization of such units, which you would then recognize as a "soul."

(9:47.) That leads to the old inevitable questions: Do animals have souls-or do trees, or rocks? In line with the usual definition then, in your terms, this smallest unit would be "soul stuff." That viewpoint however is highly limited, for "above you, using that scale, there are other more developed organizations of these units; and so from that "more exalted viewpoint, " you would seem to be junior souls indeed.

So I prefer, here at least, to speak of these units of consciousness instead. (Long pause.) Their nature is the vitalizing force behind everything in your physical universe, and others as well. These units can indeed appear in several places at once, and without going through space, in your terms. Literally now, these basic units of consciousness can be in all places at once. They are in all places at once. They will not be recognized because they will always appear as something else.

Of course they move faster than light. There are millions of them in one atom-many millions. Each of these units is aware of the reality of all others, and influences all others. In your terms these units can move forward or backward in time, but they can also move into thresholds of time with which you are not familiar.4

All probabilities are probed and experienced, and all possible universes created from these units. Therefore, there are realities in which the endless probabilities of one given event are probed, and all experience grouped about that venture.

There are systems in which a moment, from your standpoint, is made to endure for the life of a universe. I do not mean that a moment is simply stretched, or that time is slowed down alone, but that all the experiences possible within a moment become realities within that framework. Such systems have little to do with you in any practical manner, nor is such information given to dwarf your idea of what your own consciousness is. It is important, however, that you realize the fact that there is more creativity and variety in an inner reality than you ever physically perceive.

(10:06.) These units of consciousness do not have human characteristics, of course. They do, however, possess their own "inclinations, " leanings, propensities-and perhaps "propensities" comes closest to the term I want. I do not want you to think of them as miniature people. Nevertheless, neither are they clumps of "idle" energy. They are vitalized, aware, charged, with all the qualifications of being.

All psychological structures then are composed of such organizations, however long-or short-lived in your terms. They are innately endowed with the desire or propensity for growth and creative organization. They are not found alone, then, in isolation. Since these units of consciousness exist at once, they are aware of all the organized self-structures of which they are a part. To this extent, all probable realities are connected in that basic manner. These units grow out of themselves. Since I have told you that in your terms your past, present, and future exist at once, these units are constantly emerging out of your now-point from both the future and the past.

(Long pause, one of many.) I do not want to ruin your idea of stability, and I do not want to confuse you. The fact remains that in speaking of probabilities thus far, I have simplified the issues considerably. (To me:) I said, for example, that you died as a child in one probability, and again in the (military) service, and I gave you a small sample of your parents' probable history. (See the last two sessions.) In doing so I used ideas and terms quite easily grasped. The larger picture is somewhat more difficult-by far-to express.

(10:21. "Are you saying that you have to keep things that simple for us?" I asked.)

I am saying that I am now ready to lead you beyond those necessary preliminaries.

All matter is based upon the units mentioned, with their unpredictability and their propensity for exploring all probabilities. Even your atomic structure, then, is poised between probabilities. If this is true, then obviously "you" are aware of only one small probable portion of yourself-and this portion you protect as your identity (underlined) . If you think of it as simply a focus taken by "your" greater identity, then you will be able to follow what I am saying without feeling puny by contrast, or lost. The focus that you have is indeed inviolate.

I have often said that even in your lifetimes, all probable variations of any one event occur, but I never went much further. With your focus, it seems that you have a line of identity from birth to death. Looking back at any point, you are sure that the "self" of ten years ago is the self of today, though perhaps changed in certain respects.

There is, of course, no single-line kind of development at all. In the first place, as you know, your life is at once, though you experience, practically, a life-to-death sequence-Ruburt's living area in Adventures. Every probable event that could happen to you, happens. I gave you one or two small examples of your mother's probable existences. Think in physical terms of the generations going out from one seed into the ages.

Now: Your self-reality in any given moment is like that seed, following probable generations that appear in other dimensions as well as this one. In each now-moment, you draw from the vast bank of unpredictable actions certain ones that are "significant" to you; and your private idea of significance will result in what then seems to be predictable action.

(10:36.) Propensity is a selection of significance, an inclination toward the formation of selected experience. This applies on all levels-atomic and psychological-and to biological stimulus and mental intent.

These basic units move toward organizations then of a selective nature. Having an unpredictable field to draw from, they select activity according to those significances. Period. Various kinds of significances are the result of the units' individual natures. The body that you have is a probable body. It is the result of one line of "development" that could be taken by your particular earth personality in flesh. All of the other possible lines of development also occur, however. They occur at once, but each one simultaneously affects every other. There is actually far greater interaction here than you realize, because you are not used to looking for it. The harder you work to maintain the official accepted idea of the self in conventional terms, the more of course you block out any kind of unpredictability.

Because of the great organizing nature of these basic units, there are also psychological structures that are quite capable of holding their own identities while being aware of any given number of probable selves. Life after death has great meaning in your reality, because death is a part of it. Your greater reality obviously transcends both your births and your deaths. The idea of one universe alone is basically nonsensical. Your reality must be seen in its relationship to others. Otherwise you are always caught in questions like "How did the universe begin?" or "When will it end?" All systems are constantly being created.

Only in a context of probabilities can immortality make any sense. Heredity springs from the great inherent unpredictability that is then broken down to specifications inside the chromosomes, no two of which are alike. What you think of as daily life is then a focus upon certain probable events above others, a choosing of significances, a selection of pattern. Other portions of the self follow different selections.

Now you may take your break.

(10:55. Jane was quickly out of another good trance; once again it had been a long one. Her delivery had been fast at times. "I knew what I was saying when I said it, but I've forgotten it all now..." She paused, then continued in a way I thought somewhat unusual for her: "We're doing the best we can with what abilities we've got. You wonder what this material's application is-what good does it do to know it?"

("Well, " I said, "once it's incorporated into your consciousness you '11 put it to use like you would any other information. It's certainly enlarged my own ideas of what human beings are all about, for instance-their motivations, their behavior-"

(Jane wondered how tonight's material applied to my mother, [who had died three months ago]: "... to Mom Butts herself-not just the theory of it... Is she in another probability now?"

("I'd say the part of her that was close to us is. But that part may be resting there, too. "For reasons too personal to go into here, we haven't yet tried to "tune into" my mother in her new environment. I suggested that the rest of the session be devoted to Jane herself, but Seth bad other ideas. Resume at 11:15.)

Now: Because your greater identity is aware of its probable existences, you are in matter and out of it at the same time-in time and out of it.

You have a greater identity outside of your context, yet a part of it is inside your context, as you. Your youness is your significance, a focus of awareness, conscious of itself, that seeks out and views experience with its own unique propensities. The existence of probable realities and probable selves in no way denies the validity of your own experience or individuality. That rides secure, choosing from unpredictable fields of actuality those that suit its own particular nature.

(With gestures, emphatically:) That selfhood jumps in leapfrog fashion over events that it does not want to actualize (pause) , and does not admit such experience into its selfhood.

Other portions of your greater identity, however, do accept those same events rejected by you, and form their own selfhoods.

Now some of you might choose some of the same events, and there probabilities will merge. Such points of intersection are highly charged and creative. These intersections can happen in individual and mass terms. One historical event may be simultaneously accepted in several probable realities, for example, while others may occur in one and not in an alternate history.

(Long pause at 11:29.) While words are difficult to use here, again, what I am saying applies, in different ways perhaps, to the behavior of worlds, atoms, and psychological structures. Give us a moment... In the life that you know, as given in Personal Reality, your beliefs act to specify the particular probable events that will become "real." Because you are a probable self, an understanding of your own nature will show you some of the abilities, not used here, but present, that you can indeed choose to actualize. You can draw then from your own bank of probable abilities, for there will be traces of them in you. They are being developed in another reality; therefore in this one they can be utilized far easier than you might suppose. When you exercise your right arm, your left arm benefits. When you develop abilities in one system, to some extent they are easier to develop in another. (To me:) In deciding to do some writing (for the Seth books, as an example) , you are also drawing upon abilities that you have worked on in another system, and through your intent you are to a certain extent blending probabilities.

Even a simple understanding of this would help people realize that no existence is dead-ended.

Now give us a moment for our friend.

(Pause at 11:36. Seth came through with a page or so of material for Jane, then wound up the session at 11:48P.M.

(I'd say that Seth's information after 11:29 implies at least a partial answer to the questions Jane asked at break. And tonight, just as she bad following last P.M., Monday's session, Jane realized that she was actively delivering material on probabilities both in the sleep state and while partially awake.)

Session 683, February 18, 1974, 9:39PM. P.M., Monday

(In Note 6 for the last session I wrote quite easily that Jane and I felt "no physical or emotional threat" as we considered the vastness of the inner universe described by Seth. While we talked after supper tonight, however, I discovered to my surprise that Jane did entertain some doubtful thoughts on our places within this great organization of things. She also questioned the emotional value of the material on probabilities. But then, she added, her feelings stemmed from her being blue today.

(Actually, Jane continued, she found the material on probabilities intellectually stimulating, while wondering about its emotional connotations-the inferences that she was but one of countless billions of creatures, "blinking on and off like lights in all of those probable worlds. . ." What value was there to the tiny individual? she asked herself

(In an effort to reassure her, I looked up what Seth said in Chapter 9 of Personal Reality, and showed it to her. See the 637th session: "... think now of the life of the self as one message leaping across the nerve cells of a multidimensional structure-again, as real as your body-and consider it also as a greater 'moment of reflection' on the part of such a many-sided personality... I am aware that [these analogies] can make you feel small or fear for your identity. You are more than a message, say, passing through the vast reaches of a superself You are not lost in the universe."

(I also bad a few questions-suspicions, really-that I wanted to discuss with Jane and/or Seth sometime during the session. I'd kept them to myself so far.

("Well, " Jane said at 9:33, after we'd been sitting for the session for some 15 minutes, "at least I feel Seth vaguely around.... "Finally:)

Now: Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth."

(Slowly:) Give us a moment.. Through these units consciousness makes its mark, and not one scribble is ever annihilated.

The experience of any given unit, constantly changing, affects all other units... Give us time... It is difficult to explain because your concepts of selfhood are so limited... These units contain within themselves, in your terms, all "latent" identities, but not in a predetermined fashion. Selves may be quite independent within the framework of their own reality, while still being a part of a larger reality in which their independence works not only for their own benefit, but for the sake of a greater structure.

Within these units there is, again, a propensity for growth and organization. Within a literally infinite field of activity, meaningful order arose out of the propensity for significance. Briefly, certain units would settle upon various kinds of organization, find these significant, then build upon them and attract others of the same nature. So were various systems of reality formed. (Pause.) The particular kind of significance settled upon would act both as a directive for experience and as a method of erecting effective boundaries, within which the selected kind of behavior would continue. The units can and do intermix, yet because of the propensity for selectivity and significance, whole groups of them will "repel" other whole groups, thus providing a protective inner system of interaction.

The units form themselves into the various systems that they have themselves initiated. They transform themselves, therefore, into the structured reality that they then become. Ruburt is quite correct in his supposition of what he calls "multipersonhood" in Adventures.

You think of one I-self (spelled) as the primary and ultimate end of evolution. Yet there are, of course, other identities with many such I-selves, each as aware and independent as your own, while also being aware of the existence of a greater identity in which they have their being. Consciousness fulfills itself by knowing itself. The knowledge changes it, in your terms, into a greater gestalt that then tries to fulfill and know itself, and so forth. There have been experiments upon your earth (by consciousness) with both men and animals at a different level than just mentioned, but with that in mind-herds of animals, for example, with each animal quite aware of the joint knowledge of the herd, the dangers to be encountered in any individual territory, and a psychological structure in which the mass consciousness of the herd recognized the individual consciousness of each animal, and protected it.

There was a constant give-and-take between the individual animal and the mass herd consciousness, so we are not speaking of a condition in which the individual animal was controlled.

The same thing with variations happened with your own race, and for that matter is happening. In the past as you think of it historically, several groups experimented along those lines. At those times the individual consciousness became so entranced with its own experiences, however, that the clear-cut, steady, and conscious communication with the mass consciousness went underground, so to speak. It became available to those who looked for it, but the same kinds of psychological organization did not result on those occasions.2

(Pause.) Other kinds of psychological gestalts have been and are being tried-some that would appear quite inconceivable to you; and yet now and then versions of them appear within your system.

It is quite possible, for example, for several selves to occupy a body, and were this the norm it would be easily accepted. That implies another kind of multipersonhood, however, one actually allowing for the fulfillment of many abilities of various natures usually left unexpressed. It also implies a freedom and organization of consciousness that is unusual in your system of reality, and was not chosen there.

("Some people are going to book up all of this with possession, aren't they?" I asked.

(10:11.) Not when I am finished. Most individuals, for example, develop intellectually or emotionally or physically, ignoring to a large degree the body's and the mind's full potential. The limited I-structure that you presently identify with selfhood is simply not capable of fully using all of those characteristics.

The I-structure arises from the inner self, formed about various interests, abilities, and drives. Selections are made as to the areas of concentration. You rarely find a person who is a great intellect, a great athlete, and also a person of deep emotional and spiritual understanding-an ideal prototype of what it seems mankind could produce.

In some systems of physical existence, a multipersonhood is established in which three or four "persons" emerge from the same inner self, each one utilizing to the best of its abilities those characteristics of its own. This presupposes a gestalt of awareness, however, in which each knows of the activities of the others, and participates; and you have a different version of mass consciousness. Do you see the correlation?

("Yes.")

In the systems in which evolution of consciousness has worked in that fashion, all faculties of body and mind in one "lifetime" are beautifully utilized. Nor is there any ambiguity about identity. The individual would say, for example, "I am Joe, and Jane, and Jim, and Bob." There are physical variations of a sexual nature, so that on all levels identity includes the male and female. Shadows of all such probabilities appear within your own system, as oddities. Anything apparent to whatever degree in your system is developed in another.

The point of all this is that these units are unpredictable, and fulfill all probabilities of consciousness. Any concepts of gods or other beings that are based upon limited ideas of personhood will ultimately be futile. You view the fantastic variety of physical life-its animals, insects, birds, fish, man and all his works-with hardly a qualm; yet you must understand that the nature of consciousness itself is far more varied, and you must learn to think of an inner reality that is as infinite as the exterior one. These concepts alone do alter your present consciousness, and change it in degree. The present idea of the soul, you see, is a "primitive" idea that can scarcely begin to explain the creativity or reality from which mankind's being comes. You are multipersons (intently) . You exist in many times and places at once. You exist as one person, simultaneously. This does not deny the independence of the persons, but your inner reality straddles their reality, while it also serves as a psychic world in which they can grow.

I do not want to get involved in a discussion of "levels, " in which progression is supposed to occur from one to the other. All such discussions are based upon your idea of one personhood, consecutive time, and limited versions of the soul. There are red, yellow, and violet flowers. One is not more progressed than the others, but each is different.

These units combine into various kinds of gestalts of consciousness. Basically, it is not correct to say that one is more progressed than another. The petal of a flower, for example, is not more developed than the root. An ant on the ground may see that the petal is way above the root and stem, but ants are too wise to think that the petal must be better than the root.

Now: Consciousness flowers out in all directions-(We were interrupted by a long-distance telephone call at 10:3 7. A television producer wanted Jane to appear on his show. I asked him to write us. When I hung up, Jane said, "I'm still half in." She sat quietly for a few moments, then resumed the session.)

All directions taken by the flower of consciousness are good. The flower knows it is alive in the bulb, but it takes "time" for the bulb to let the stem and leaves and flower emerge. The flower is not better than the bulb. It is not even more progressed than the bulb. It is the bulb in one of its manifestations. So in your terms, it may seem as if there are progressions, or consecutive steps of development, in which more mature comprehensive selves will emerge. You are a part of those selves now, as the petals are of the bulb. Only in your system is that time period meaningful.

Your idea of one soul, one self, forms a significance and a selectivity that blinds you to these other realities that are as much "here and now" as your present self. The units of consciousness that compose your physical being alone are aware of those greater significances, to which your limited ideas make you opaque.

The concepts in such a system as this can help break those barriers. There are, then, stratas of consciousness existing at once. The ones you are not aware of yet seem more progressed, developed than your own. You are a part of them now. You can know them as you begin to stretch your concepts of personhood and awareness. In terms of time you have many bodies, as you are born and reborn in earth experience. Your consciousness straddles those existences, and even the atoms and molecules within your present body contain the coded knowledge of those other (really simultaneous) forms. These units of consciousness are within all physical matter, containing their own memories. Both biologically and psychically, then, you are aware of your multipersonhood.

(10:45.) Now: Your system does not include the kind of experience mentioned earlier (in this session) , where the body is able to contain in one lifetime the experience of many selves. It uses a time context instead, with each self given a body and a time; but a knowledge of the ideas of multipersonhood could help you realize that you have available many abilities not being used, latent to you but still important in your entire identity, and significant enough to you personally to be developed.

(With emphasis:) Reincarnation simply represents probabilities in a time context (underlined)-portions of the self that are materialized in historical contexts. Period. All kinds of time-backward and forward-emerge from the basic unpredictable nature of consciousness, and are due to "series" of significances. Each self born in time will then pursue its own probable realities from that standpoint. Again, each such self is immediate.

(Long pause, one of many.) All consciousness, in all of its forms, exists at once. It is difficult, without appearing to contradict myself, to explain. Go back to our bulb and flower. In basic terms they exist at once. In your terms, however, it is as if the flower-to-be, from its "future" calls back to the bulb and tells it how to make the flower. Memory operates backward and forward in time. The flower-calling back to the bulb, urging it "ahead" and reminding it of its (probable future) development-is like a future self in your terms, or a more highly advanced self, who has the answers and can indeed be quite practically relied upon. The gods can be seen in the same light, only on a larger scale; and understood in that context, they can be relied upon. It is almost a natural tendency to personify the gods while you are caught up in limited ideas of personhood. Larger concepts of personhood will indeed lead you to some glimpse of the truly remarkable gestalts of consciousness from which you constantly emerge.

These are emotional and psychological beings of such richness that your concepts of selfhood force you to dilute them to a degree that you can understand. Each of your persons is a part of that greater personhood. Again, these ideas alone can help you, so that to some degree you can emotionally and intellectually sense that greater godhood out of which personhood emerges.

(11:10. Long pause during a strong delivery.) That godhood is formed from the eternal yet ever-new emergence and growth of those basic units of consciousness. The reality of the godhood straddles the reality of each unit, and the mass reality of all units.

Take your break.

(11:13. Jane had been really under during another long delivery. She seemed to come out of her trance easily enough, but her eyes rolled up a few times. Her rocker bad crept three feet to her left.

("I've got a few questions, " I said after she'd rested a bit. "I was going to ask them during the delivery, but I'm afraid to bear the answers-at least to the first two." I was only half joking. I'd bad the first question in mind since Seth bad come through with the 6 79th session two weeks ago:

(1. "Are these recent sessions supposed to be the beginning of a new book?"

("I don't know, " Jane said. "The material doesn't seem like a book, but when I started getting stuff in my sleep after the last two sessions, I did wonder... "I had to laugh: She hadn't mentioned her own suspicions to me. At the same time I thought she might be putting up barriers to the idea of another Seth book so soon, since we still have editorial work to do for the last one, Personal Reality [see Note 1 for the 682nd session]. "Maybe these sessions are for your own writing, " Jane speculated. "I love them, though-but another book? Now?"

(2. "Are these units of consciousness that Seth started talking about in the last session the same as the EE units he described in Seth Speaks, a development of that original idea, or what?" [See Note 3/or Session 682.]

(Jane paused. "I think Seth will clear that one up soon.

(3. "It would be nice if Seth would say something about the dream I had the night before last, in which I think I contacted my [deceased] mother for the second time." Yesterday I wrote an account of the experience for use in the hook I've started on my own: Through My Eyes. Seth broached the idea of Through My Eyes in Chapter 6 of Personal Reality. I enjoy working on the project, and have had particularly strong urges to do so since the death of my mother three months ago. In writing about my parents, I discovered that I wrote about my own childhood. See the notes preceding the 679th session; the questions I asked then helped initiate this series of sessions.

(Resume at 11:30.)

Now: (Louder and deeper:) "The 'Unknown' Reality (colon) : A Seth Book." And put "Unknown" in quotes.

It is two things: A book of mine, and a source book for you. Do you follow me?

("Yes... You mean I can use your book in connection with my own writing.")

I do indeed. Now: We will call the basic units of consciousness "CU "-the letter "C, " the letter "U"-consciousness units. From them EE units are formed, and the first roots sent out into the world of physical matter. Period.

(Pause, eyes wide, staring at me.) Now for your dream. You are of course making contact with your mother. She is beginning to stir, as you surmised. Ruburt's (written) comments about the dream are also pertinent, showing your own caution. None of these encounters have been normally emotional ones, for example, but glimpses in which there was no communication in ordinary terms.

It may interest you to know that your athletic tendencies are somewhat involved in your out-of-body travel, in that it seems to you that the body must be poised and balanced, and have support-hence the hallucinations you use. You can use those tendencies to help you, however, if you think in terms of a completely free body, able to move unsupported in space, capable of manipulations in the dream state that are denied it in physical reality. The "inner" body can perform in ways that the physical body cannot, and you can use that as a challenge. Find out what you can do with your inner body; experiment.

You have the assurance that your mother continues to exist. As far as a relationship is concerned, however, you are looking at her from a distance. She is still wondering-that is, she is able to identify with other portions of you than she was during life. She does not want to frighten you, now, with an emotional display, so distance is being used on both of your parts.

(Pause at 11:44.) Give us a moment...

(Seth delivered half a page of material on another matter. Then:)

I bid you both a fond good evening.

("Thank you. The same to you.")

This book will progress at your convenience.

("All right. Good night, Seth." 11:50 P.M. Then a minute later, as we talked about "Unknown" Reality, Jane briefly dipped back into trance:)

Keep it free and uncontracted for, for now.

("Okay."

("It sure doesn't start out like a book to me, " Jane said. "It doesn't seem to be simple, like the others. Maybe this time he's going to go ahead and do it his own way... I can honestly say that the title was completely unknown to me. "She smiled at her unwitting pun on "Unknown" Reality. "Are you ready to start a new book, Rob?"

("Well . .

("I remember Seth mentioned it as a source book for you..."

("If it's a source book for me, it can be for others, too." I added that I didn't care how "tough" or difficult a book it might be-if such was needed to get Seth's ideas across, then okay. Again, I had to laugh at Jane. It was obvious that she was pleased with this new project, that the successes of Seth Speaks and Personal Reality had given her a strong confidence in Seth's and her own abilities; yet she was starting right in with questions:

("What the hell's going to be in it?" she demanded. "Really-where can he go, considering where be started? Oh, forget it. As I came out with that, I got something over here"-she gestured to her right, indicating one of the channels of information available from Seth-"about the unpredictability of consciousness, and precognition and heredity: the cell's soul and the soul's cell.. As 1 did when she began delivering each of the other Seth books, I suggested to Jane that she relax about the whole thing and just let Seth do his work. We quit for the night at 12:03 A.M.)

Session 684, February 20, 1974, 9:42 PM. Wednesday

(Last night, Jane told her students in ESP class that Seth bad started a new book. Seth had a few things to say about the book, too. From the transcript of the class tape [received a week later]: "Now, reality has no beginning and no end. Hopefully-hopefully-hopefully, in your terms of time, you may get a glimpse of what I mean. There is indeed an expanding universe, and it is formed in the eternal present. In my book I will go as far as I can into those precepts, yet some [of you] will not follow. You create your own reality. That works, and is true, whether or not you follow, or care to follow, into these other realms...

("For those of you who do accompany me, I promise you an adventure, a creative alteration of consciousness, and experiences beyond those that you have known in your terms. You look at the world around you and are amazed at its richness and variety. Do you think that the inner world is not as rich, even more rich, more valid? Do you think there is but one kind of consciousness?

("Your world is formed out of the vast unpredictability of consciousness. From it you form your own ideas of significance and of yourself... You must stop thinking in terms of ordinary progression. It is bad enough when you worry about keeping up with the Joneses. It is something else, however, when you start worrying about which kind of self [or consciousness] is superior to another kind."

(A note: Jane telephoned Tam Mossman, her editor, today-and learned that Tam already felt that Seth might have begun another book: he'd wondered about it several times in recent days.

(As we waited for the session to begin at 9:30, Jane said, "I'm getting ready-waiting for that certain clear focus-the one clearest place in consciousness for the material to come through...

Good Evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: These units of consciousness (CU's) move faster than the speed of light, then-but that statement itself is meaningless in a way, since the units exist outside as well as inside the framework in which light itself has meaning.

(Pause.) As these units approach physical structure, however, they do slow down in your terms. Electrons, for example, are slow dullards in comparison with EE units.1 It goes without saying that the units of consciousness are "mental, " or if you prefer, disembodied, though from their inner organization all physical forms emerge. Certain intensities are built up of unit organization even before the smallest physical particle, or even invisible "physical" particle, exists. These units form what you think of as the mind, around which the structure of the brain is formulated. The units permeate the brain.

The great communication system within the body itself is dependent, then, upon the constant inner flux and flow of these units. On one level the body's very survival is largely determined by the units' propensities for selectivity and significance. Also, however, the body's physical reality is a seeming constant in a seemingly constant physical existence.

(Slowly:) Only because these units have their source outside of space and time is the present corporal reality a triumph of probabilities. Period. Your present image, for example, seems to be the only one possible for you, permanently yours for your lifetime at least; and what happens to it appears almost inevitable. If you become ill, say, you may wonder why, and yet once illness has happened it becomes part of the body's reality, and seems almost like an inevitable part of its experience.

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.

Your present is the result of your own poised consciousness, choosing its perception and the nature of its life from a field that is at all predictable only because of the greater area of organization available to it.

(Slower at 10:0 7:) Your body's condition at any time is not so much the result of its own comprehension of its "past history" as it is the result of its own comprehension of future probabilities. The cells precognate. This is being simplified for now. I will make it clearer later in the book. But your limited ideas of time cause conceptual barriers that operate even when you consider the structure of physical biological life.

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.

At no time, as a rule, is your body not here to you. Your experience seems centered within it, with the rest of the world safely outside. However, the particular selectivity of your kind of consciousness rides over lapses that you do not recognize. In a manner of speaking, your bodies blink off and on like lights. Their reality fluctuates, from your standpoint. For that matter, so does the physical universe.

You can understand what is meant by saying that your consciousness fluctuates-for each individual is aware of various intensities and concentrations. You are more alert, or, in your terms, more conscious on some occasions than others. Now the same applies to these units of consciousness-and to atoms, molecules, electrons, and other such phenomena. The world literally blinks off and on. This reality of fluctuation in no way bothers your own feeling of consistency, however. The "holes (spelled) of nonexistence" are plugged up by the process of selectivity. This process chooses significances then, again, around which experience is built, and around which "life" is felt. The very sensations of one kind of life then automatically set up barriers against other such "world-schemes" (hyphen) that do not correlate with their own.

It is impossible for you to examine an atom, a cell, or anything else except in your now. Period. 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. 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.

From your viewpoint, however, an examination of a cell will not show you that, but only its present condition. It should appear obvious from what I am saying that neither future nor past is predetermined. From your platform of poised now-experience, you alter both the past and the future, and that alteration, that change, that action, causes your point of immediate sense life.

(Long pause.) The precious privacy of your existence, and indeed of your universe, is all the more miraculous, so to speak, precisely because its probable reality emerges from an infinite field of probabilities, each forever inviolate. (Long pause.) It is important that these ideas be considered.

Take your break.

(10:35. Jane's pace bad been slow often, but emphatic throughout. Resume in the same manner at 10:49.)

Now: Give us a moment...

You cannot separate your beliefs about reality from the reality that you experience. That is, your beliefs about reality form it. Your ideas about what is possible and what is not possible are reflected in all areas.

It is almost impossible to begin with concepts of one isolated universe, one self at the mercy of its past, one time sequence, and end up with any acceptable theory of a multidimensional soul or godhead that is anything else but a glorified personified concept of what you think man is.

Not only do your metaphysics and sciences suffer, but your daily experience as a human being is far less than it could be. There are, then, probabilities quite present, and for that matter biologically practical, that would allow for a change in individual consciousness so great as literally to propel the race into another level of experience entirely. As in your terms the cavemen ventured out into the daylight of the earth, so there is a time for man to venture out into a greater knowledge of his subjective reality, comma, to explore the dimensions of selfhood and go beyond the small areas of himself in which he has thus far found shelter.

(11:11.) In terms of history as you understand it, man felt safe and secure as a prime species under one sun, imagining that all else revolved about his being. This provided, in that framework, a stability that was dispensed with as man allowed his consciousness other freedoms. So he must now come to realize that he himself chooses from a myriad of probabilities the one that he now encounters.

The one self that he recognizes is the or4y part of himself of which he is presently aware. Other facets of consciousness available to him, and a part of his greater nature, appear foreign, or "not-self, " or "beyond self, " because of the focus of selectivity as it now operates.

This obviously does not mean that there are not entities whose selfhood is completely apart from your own. It does mean that your concepts force you to misinterpret and distort any "intrusive" information, or experience, that is part of portions of your own being that you do not recognize as your official self.

(A one-minute pause at 11:22.) Such behavior even causes a certain corporal dishonesty, for the cells' freedom from time means that on certain levels the cellular structure is aware of probable future events, as mentioned (just before break) . The body, therefore, is reacting to future and past activity as well, in order to maintain its present corporal balance.

The body's innate knowledge, then, will try to translate itself often into psychological activity that may result in hunches, premonitions, and so forth. The senses may be utilized to clarify the message. You might hear a voice mentally, for example, or see a flashing image. According to your beliefs, you may interpret such data in any of many ways, but because such experiences are not an accepted part of recognized, official activity, they can appear frightening. Period. You may assign them to "spirits" or disembodied personalities, but in such a way that these are thrown together in a confusing mass of dogma or superstition.

If you understood to begin with that you are a spirit, and therefore free of space and time yourself, then you could at least consider the possibility that some such messages were coming to you from other portions of your own reality. Such messages are often ways of allowing you to avoid certain probable actions.

Give us a moment-a good one-

(Jane paused at 11:33, still in trance, and lit a cigarette. Since starting the series of sessions that make up "Unknown" Reality, it's becoming something of a custom for her to deliver a little material on other subjects after book dictation; she did so again now, and finished the session at 11:5 1 P.M.

(Following the last session, Jane began thinking about chapter divisions and headings for the new book. Seth hasn't given any, of course. I told her that the book might not have chapters, that Seth might have something else planned. [And added later: The eventual resolution of this little dilemma is given early in my Introductory Notes.])

Session 685, February 25, 1974, 9:51 PM. P.M., Monday

(When Jane lay down for a nap late this afternoon she had quite an unusual experience. From her notes: "Just before I went to sleep, I had a sort of mental projection that seemed to be into the past, my past. I was a baby in my hometown, Saratoga Springs, N. Y. The time was about 1931 to start with. Everything was misty, gray, without color. First, 'I' looked down on 'myself' in my carriage. Then, I moved through the streets easily enough as I got 'older' during the projection. Wait-just now as I wrote this I picked up something [from a part of my consciousness other than Ruburt or Seth], to the effect that the projection environment is as focused as mine is, really, but that it's a probability of mine. Biologically I wasn't keyed into it in my 'now'; I was in it and not in it, between focused realities... traveling in or through these fluctuations of consciousness Seth talked about in the last session. He mentioned probable kinds of consciousness in that session, too. Was I trying to develop one of those here in my own physical reality? But this was definitely a waking event, taking place just before my nap. I described the whole thing to Rob as soon as I got up..."

(We'd waited for tonight's session since 9:26. As we sat talking desultorily, Jane grew more and more impatient. Once again, as she had before the 684th session and on other occasions, she said that now "something was different" in the sessions: For this book she had to "get a certain clear focus...

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: Give us a moment... Body is also pattern. Period. While the material that composes it changes constantly, the pattern maintains its own integrity. The form is etched in space and time, and yet the pattern itself exists outside of that framework also-the body is a projection, therefore, into the three-dimensional field.

The consciousnesses of the cells within it, however, are eternal. The physical framework, then, is itself composed of immortal stuff. The projection in time and space may disappear, in your terms, wither and die. The main identity continues to exist, even as the consciousnesses of millions of cells still exist that at one time were part of the body.

(A one-minute pause at 9:59.)

While inhabited by the usual human consciousness, the living body operates as an intense focus point. The conglomeration of consciousnesses within it on all levels focuses its own network of communication. This private network is connected to all others like it. There are levels of interaction then simply between all bodies, electromagnetically and biologically. The network is more far-reaching than that, however. Not only can all cells respond to each other, but their mass activity triggers even higher centers of consciousness to respond to a given set of world conditions, rather than to other quite-as-legitimate world conditions that do not fit the accepted pattern. Probabilities to some extent, then, are determined along cellular lines. This should be obvious.

(A long pause, one of many, at 10:07.) The body's very structure will in itself set patterns for the kinds of probabilities that can be practically experienced. The source-reality out of which all else springs is never predetermined-that is, predestined, or even set. The universe in any terms is always being created. Period.

When consciousness is being specified, it always sees itself at the center of its world. All specifications of consciousness and all phenomenal appearances occur when the basic units of consciousness, the CU's, emerge into EE units, and hence into the dimensions of actuality in your terms. Your mainly accepted normal consciousness is within the matter of your body, and through it-the body-you view your world. There is nothing to prevent you from viewing your body from a standpoint outside of it, except that you have been taught that consciousness is imprisoned within the flesh.

The body is a sending and receiving organism; your home station, so to speak, and the focus for your activity. You can, however, quite consciously leap from it-and you do often, when for a while, particularly in the dream state, you view the world from another perspective.

Give us a moment... In some adventures you do visit other probable realities in which you have a body structure quite as real as "your own." Your own psychological makeup, for that matter, achieves its marvelous complexity because it draws from the rich bank of your greater probable existences. Even a small understanding of these ideas can help you glimpse how limiting previous concepts of psychology have been.

(A one-minute pause at 10:25.) The self that you know and recognize carries within it hints and traces of all of your probable characteristics that can be actualized within your system of reality. Your body is equipped to bring any of these to fulfillment. Now, because of the selectivity mentioned earlier, 1 certain directions may be easier than others, and some may appear impossible. Yet within the psychological and biological structure of your species, the roads of probabilities have more intersections than you know.

The conscious mind as you normally think of it directs your overall action, and its ideas determine the kind of selectivity you use. It is for this reason that I am trying to expand your conscious ideas, so that you become better equipped to choose your line of physical experience from all those probable ones open to you.

Now take your break.

(10:32. 1 thought Jane's trance had been a good one, even though she'd used many pauses, but she told me that she hadn't been at her best. Nor had she been aware of her slow delivery. She also felt that we'd eaten supper [at 7:30] too close to session time.

(I discussed with Jane the questions I'd thought of when Seth had commented, above, on "... how limiting previous concepts of psychology have been. ": As a discipline, why was psychology so narrowly developed? Why hadn't it continued expanding until it encompassed ideas like those Jane was delivering tonight, for instance? Her work was unique in that it was coming through her individual personality, I added-yet, why wasn't the theory of probabilities, or its equivalent, say, common knowledge, or at least considered, in psychology today? I asked if Seth cared to comment.

(After we talked for a few more minutes, Jane said, "I've got the feeling you're going to get answers to your questions about psychology-but they 71 be presented as the Preface to this book." We hadn't given the idea of a preface a thought. Making a joke, I asked Jane what was coming up next in the session. I meant generally, but she replied, "The Preface. " Even then, I don't think either of us expected Seth to carry out such a project tonight. But as he came through at 10:57:)

Now: Preface: There is an "unknown" reality, in quotes as given. I am part of it, and so are you.

New paragraph. (Long pause.) Some time ago I suddenly appeared within your space and time. Since then I have spoken to many people. Period. This is my third book. There would be nothing strange to anyone in any of this if I had been born into your world in a body of my own, in usual terms. Instead I began to express myself by speaking through Jane Roberts. Period. In all of this there has been a purpose, and part of that purpose lies in this present book.

New paragraph. Each individual is a part of the unknown reality. Because of my position, however, I am obviously more a part of it than most. My psychological awareness bridges worlds of which you are consciously aware, and others that seem, at least, to escape your notice. The woman through whom I speak found herself in an unusual situation, comma for no theories-metaphysical, psychological, or otherwise-could I adequately explain her experience. She was led to develop her own, therefore, and this book is an extension of certain ideas already mentioned in Adventures in Consciousness. To write that book, Jane Roberts drew on deep resources of energy.

(11:11.) The unknown reality, however, is unknown enough to usual reaches of the most flexible consciousness, in your terms, that it can only be approached by a personality as couched in it as I am. Once expressed, however, it can be comprehended. One of my purposes then has been to make this unknown reality consciously known.

Man thought once, historically speaking, that there was but one world. Now he knows differently, but he still clings to the idea of one god, one self, and one body through which to express it.

There is one God, but within that God are many. There is one self, but within that self are many. There is one body, in one time, but the self has other bodies in other times. All "times" exist at once. (Long pause.) Historically speaking, mankind chose a certain line of development. In it his consciousness specialized, focusing upon sharp particulars of experience. But inherent always, psychologically and biologically, there has been the possibility of a change in that pattern, an alteration that would effectively lift the race into another kind of weather.

(11:22.) Such a development would, however, necessitate first of all a broadening of concepts about the self, and a greater understanding of human potential. Human consciousness is now at a stage where such a development is not only feasible but necessary if the race is to achieve its greatest fulfillment.

Jane Roberts's experience to some extent hints at the multidimensional nature of the human psyche and gives clues as to the abilities that lie within each individual. These are part of your racial heritage. They give notice of psychic bridges connecting the known and "unknown" realities in which you dwell.

While you have highly limited concepts about the nature of the self, you cannot begin to conceive of a multidimensional godhood, or a universal reality in which all consciousness is unique, inviolate-and yet given to the formation of infinite gestalts of organization and meaning.

In my other books I used many accepted ideas as a springboard to lead readers into other levels of understanding. Here, I wish to make it clear that this book will initiate a journey in which it may seem that the familiar is left far behind. Yet when I am finished, I hope you will discover that the known reality is even more precious, more "real, " because you will find it illuminated both within and without by the rich fabric of an "unknown" reality now seen emerging from the most intimate portions of daily life. Give us a moment. (Pause at 11:35.) Your concepts of personhood are now limiting you personally and en masse, and yet your religions, metaphysics, histories, and even your sciences are hinged upon your ideas of who and what you are. Your psychologies do not explain your own reality to you. They cannot contain your experience. Your religions do not explain your greater reality, and your sciences leave you [just] as ignorant about the nature of the universe in which you dwell.

These institutions and disciplines are composed of individuals, each restrained by limiting ideas about their own private reality; and so it is with private reality that we will begin and always return, period. These ideas in this book are meant to expand the private reality of each reader. They may appear esoteric or complicated, yet they are not beyond the reach of any person who is determined to understand the nature of the unknown elements of the self, and its greater world.

So the book had a private beginning. Jane Roberts's husband, Robert Butts, wondered about the death of his mother (on November 19, 1973) . In a session (the 679th for February 4, 1974) he brought out some old photographs. Now: Life after death has usually been described quite in keeping with the old accepted ideas about one self, and limited concepts of person-hood. I took that opportunity, however, to begin this book.

(Long pause.) The self is multidimensional when it is physically alive. It is a triumph of spiritual and psychological identity, ever choosing from a myriad of probable realities its own clear unassailable focus (very intently) . When you don't realize this, then you project upon life after death all of the old-misconceptions. You expect the dead to be little different from the living-if you believe in afterlife at all-but perhaps more at peace, more understanding, and, hopefully, wiser.

(Pause at 11:51-then with much emphasis:) The fact is that in life you poise delicately and yet perfectly between realities, and after death you do the same. I used the opportunity, then, to explain the great freedom available to Robert Butts's mother after death-but also to explain those elements of her reality present during life that had been closed to him consciously because of mankind's concepts about the nature of the psyche. I comment now and then about photographs that belong to the Butts family [including Jane Roberts], yet any reader can look at old photographs and ask the same questions, applying what is said here to private experience. The "unknown reality-you are its known equivalent (again, louder) . Then know yourself. Your consciousness will expand as you become acquainted with these ideas.

I speak, myself, for those portions of your being that already understand. My voice rises from stratas of the psyche in which you also have your experience. Listen, therefore, to your own knowing. Period.

(Seth finished at midnight. Jovially:) End of Preface.

("Okay.")

End of session.

("All right. Thank you, Seth. Good night, " I said at 12:01 A.M., and Seth was gone almost at once. See the Preface at the beginning of this book. Jane said that although Seth hadn't actually considered my specific questions about psychology after all, they had served as an impetus for the Preface. She felt good. I read the Preface to her-and she felt even better.

(Although the session ostensibly ended here, there were actually several succeeding-and continuing-effects that grew out of it. Jane's Saratoga experience is involved, too. All of the relevant material is given in detail in Appendix 4.)

Session 686, February 27, 1974, 9:45 PM. Wednesday

(The effects continued to flow out of last P.M., Monday night's session. Jane was very intrigued by the material she produced "on her own "after the session, both in the sleep state that night and in the statements she wrote the next day. See Appendix 4. As we made ready for tonight's session at 9:10, and discussed the information she'd received, she began to feel a continuation of the experience. This time, however, it came through verbally, as dictation, although Seth wasn't involved. I made notes on most of what she bad to say; it's presented as Appendix 5, and I suggest that the reader review it before continuing with this session.

(It was 9:40 by the time Jane finished her dictation. She sat quietly for a few moments. "Now I'm just waiting for Seth, " she told me. Then: "It's as though I feel a lot of concepts around me right now, and I'm letting him get them organized for me... But now I think I'm about ready...."

(Softly:) Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: Basically, the cell's comprehension straddles time as you think of it. Period.

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.

Though the past is actually quite as immediate, alive, and creative as the present is, man made certain adjustments, on several layers, that would focus definite distinctions and set past and present experience apart. While your particular kind of consciousness was developing, it began to intensify selectivity, to concentrate specifically in a small area of activity while blocking out other data. This was necessary because the particular kind of physical manipulation of corporal existence required instant physical response to immediately present stimuli.

(9:55.) Such selectivity and specialization therefore represented a pertinent method, as consciousness familiarized itself with earthly experience. Hunters had to respond at once to the present situation. In time terms, the "present" animal had to be killed for food-not the "past" animal. That animal-the past one-existed as surely as the one presently perceived, yet in man's context, physical action had to be directed to a highly specific area, for physical survival depended upon it.

(Pause, and slowly:) The cells' basic innocence of time discrimination had to be bypassed. At deeply unconscious levels the neurological structure is more highly adaptable than it appears. Adjustments were made, therefore. Basically, the neurological structure responds to both past and future data. Biologically, then, such activity is built-in. The specialized "new" kind of consciousness in one body had to respond pinpoint fast. Therefore it focused upon only one series of neurological messages.

(As Seth, Jane was enunciating the material very carefully, almost syllable by syllable, as though to give me time to write it down without error. Her diction in trance is usually excellent, though; it's not often that I have to ask her to repeat a word or phrase.)

These became more and more biologically prominent, so that man's consciousness rode them, or leaped upon them. These particular pulses or messages became the biologically and mentally accepted ones. They were clued into sense perception, then. These pulses or messages became the only official data that, translated into sense perception, formed physical reality. This selectivity gave an understandable line of reference from interior to exterior existence.

(10:10. Deliberately but intently:) Other quite-as-valid messages were ignored. They became, while present, biologically invisible. The cells still reacted to these otherwise neglected pulses, as they needed data from both the past and future to maintain the body's balance in "the present." The necessity for immediate conscious exterior action at a "definite" point of intersection with events was left to the emerging ego consciousness.

While the cells required future and past data, and used it to form from that invisible tension the body's present corporal reality, the same kind of information could be a threat then to the ego consciousness, which could be overwhelmed. Within the corporal structure, however, there are indeed messages that leap too quickly or too slowly from your viewpoint to allow for any physical response. In that way cellular comprehension is allowed its free flow; but the selectivity mentioned (in sessions 682-3) bypasses such information, so that it does not conflict with present sense data requiring physical action in time.

Other pulses, carrying messages, are quite as valid as those that you perceive and physically react to. Again, the cells respond to those constantly. The body, as mentioned (in the 685th session) is an electromagnetic pattern, poised in a web of probabilities, experienced as corporal at an intersection point in space and time.

When man, speaking in your terms of history, began to experiment with memory, there were innumerable instances where the emerging ego consciousness did not distinguish clearly enough between the past and present, as you understand them.

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 forsee probable results: "Ghost images" of the future probabilities always acted as mental stimuli for physical explorations in all areas, and of all kinds.

("Do you mean in all areas of the planet, for instance?")

These ghost images provided stimuli for mental, spiritual, and physical experience. That answers your question, I believe.

("Yes.")

The race was dealing with the creation of a new world of physical experience. To do this particular kind of experiment, it was necessary that physical manipulation be concentrated upon. Ghost images from the future were one thing, inspiring mankind. Had such data instantly appeared before him, however, man would have been deprived of the physical joys, endeavors, and challenges that were so basic to the experiment itself. Do you want to rest your hand?

(I shook my head, no. Jane had been speaking for Seth for three-quarters of an hour, and showed no real inclination to stop. As in the other sessions of this book, I was aware of an extra charge or impetus, an added determination on Seth-Jane's part. Now in trance, Jane was going through these complicated sentences without trouble, even indicating punctuation.)

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.

The psyche knows itself and is aware of its parts. When ego consciousness reached a certain point of biological and mental competence, when experience in the present became extensive enough, then ego consciousness would be at the stage where it could begin to accept greater data. Indeed, it is now at that stage.

(Pause at 10:37.) Its focus in the present is now secure. That focus finally brought about, in your terms, an expansion of consciousness, and one that early man did not have to handle. In your terms, time now includes more space, and hence more experience and stimuli. Again speaking historically, in the past the private person in any given hour was aware at once only of those events happening in his immediate environment. He could respond instantly. Events were, to that extent now, manageable. And rest your hand if you want to.

(I felt all right, but Jane, still in trance, held up her empty cigarette pack. She waited quietly while I got her a fresh one.)

The ego specialized in expansions of space and its physical manipulation. It specialized with objects. As a result, now, a person in any given hour is aware of events happening at the other end of the world. No immediate physical response he or she can make seems adequate or pertinent on many occasions. Bodily physical action, then, to that extent, loses its immaculate precision in time. You cannot kick an "enemy" who does not live in your village or country; an enemy, furthermore, whom you do not even know personally. (Intently:) Again, to that extent instant physical action in time is not the same kind of life-and-death factor that it was when a man was faced with an enraged animal, or enemy, in close combat.

("Can I ask a question?" As Seth, Jane nodded. "Will you give us a definition of what you mean by early man? I think readers would be interested. "I'd been hoping Seth would go into this. Still in trance, Jane nodded again when I bad finished-and I had the distinct impression that I shouldn't have interrupted her delivery.)

Now: In the past in the same way, love could be immediately expressed. In historic terms, early man, using here your theories about the race-early man-was in intimate contact with his family, clan, or tribe. With the developing expansion of space, however, loved ones often dwell far apart, and sudden bodily response cannot be expressed at once, at a particular point of immediate contact.

(10:57.) These developments, with others, are already triggering changes in man's behavior, and inspiring him toward further alterations of consciousness. He now needs a more expansive viewpoint of past and future in order to help him deal with the ramifications of the present as it has evolved through experience.

Recognized concepts of the self are the ego's interpretation of selfhood. They are projected into concepts of God and the universe. They meet with a certain biological validity because of the selectivity earlier mentioned, whereby only one series of neurological pulses is accepted-and upon these rides the reality of the egotistical self. At one "time" a god interpreted in those terms served as a model for the egotistical behavior of one self toward another self.

(I read the last paragraph hack to Seth to check it. I had it down all right; I hadn't lost my way after all.

(Slowly:) In a world in which individuals were confined in space in a tribe or clan (a one-minute pause) , action was immediate. The environment presented a framework in which consciousness learned to deal with stimuli in a direct fashion. It learned how to focus. The necessary specialization meant that only so much data could be handled at once, emotionally or otherwise. The formation of different tribes allowed man to behave cooperatively, in small numbers. This meant that those on the outside were selectively ignored, considered strangers.

(Intently:) At that point, consciousness in those terms could not handle focused concentration, the emergence of ego consciousness, and simultaneously experience powerful feelings of oneness with other large groups. It was struggling for individuation.

Individuation, however, was dependent upon the cooperation of individuals. As the ego learned to feel more secure, the cooperative tendencies broadened so that the growth of nations was possible. It was inevitable, however, that ego consciousness would produce a reality in which it would finally need, in those terms, to accept other data and information that in the beginning it had to ignore.

I am speaking so far in historic terms, as you understand them. History, however, is but your official line of accepted stimuli. Later in the book that will be made clear.

New paragraph (and more rapidly) : As egotistical consciousness expands to include hereto largely neglected data, then it will experience, practically speaking, a new kind of identity; knowing itself differently. Its concepts of godhood will significantly alter, as will the dimensions of emotion. Your heritage includes vastly richer veins of love, yet your concepts of self and godhood have severely limited these. You often seem to hate those with different beliefs than your own, for example, and you have perpetrated cruelties upon others in the name of religion and in the name of science, because your limited ideas about the nature of the self led you to fear your emotions. Often you are afraid that love will overwhelm you, for instance.

(A one-minute pause at 11:20.) While you were so concerned with protecting what you thought of as the boundaries and integrity of one selfhood, as a race you actually arrived at a point where you were beginning to deny your own greater reality. But all of this is part of the experiment upon which the race embarked in your probability.

Where your physical survival, in those terms, once depended upon a narrowed focus while you learned physical manipulation, now the success of that manipulation necessitates a broadening of focus-a new awakening into the larger existence of the selfhood, with what will be a corresponding rerecognition of neurological activity that is now only briefly sensed by some (like Jane) , but present in the heritage of your corporal structure.

(Louder:) Now I do not think you can reasonably be expected to take any more notes without a break, and so I give you one.

("Okay. Thank you."

(11:26. Actually, this was one of those times when it seemed that I could have continued note-taking indefinitely. Seth-Jane certainly appeared able to keep going. Jane had been in trance for an hour and forty-one minutes, but even so she was out of it rapidly. "The trances have changed since he started this book, though, " she said. "Once I get on the right track, Seth just keeps going, and I don't want to change it or get off... I think it's a great development. But you know: If you think you're on to something no one else has, you 're afraid you '11 be called batty by the rest of the world. . .Seth is a great organizer, though. It's like there's a tremendous amount of work being done behind the sessions, so I can get the data-but this isn't like the channels from Seth [as described in the 616th session in Chapter 2 of Personal Reality]."

(Jane said that I might better ask questions only during break, at least for now. My inquiry about early man hadn't "seriously" disturbed her; but I'd been correct in feeling that I shouldn't have interrupted her then. She also talked about possible confusions or conflicts between Seth doing "Unknown" Reality while she was writing her own Adventures in Consciousness. She's had no trouble, however, and is still enthusiastic about her book; she's putting Chapter 4 into final form. Adventures is due at her publishers, Prentice-Hall, Inc., in September 1974.

(Resume in a quiet manner at 11:48.)

Now: Here, and throughout this book there will be sections dealing with Practice Elements-in capitals-where to some extent you can see how certain of these concepts can be practically experienced, and receive at least a hint of their application.

Centered (with gestures) :

PRACTICE ELEMENT 1

In a waking state, Ruburt found himself in Saratoga Springs, N. Y., where he grew up, in what seemed to be a kind of mental projection. (See Jane's notes at the beginning of the last session.) Everything was gray. The immediate nature of full-blast sense data was missing. Vision was clear but spotty, highly selective. Motion was, however, the strongest sense element. Ruburt was bodiless on the one hand, and on the other he perceived some of the experience through the eyes of an infant in a carriage.

Quite sharply he perceived a particular curb at the corner of a definite intersection (York Avenue and Warren Street) , and his attention was caught by the focus: a curb, a slope of dirt, and then the sidewalk; and the motion of the carriage as it was wheeled up.

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. He could experience it only by sidestepping officially accepted neurological activity. He visited a store that is not at that location "anymore, " and here the sense data were somewhat clearer. He had no conscious memories of the store's interior, yet it was instantly apparent to him-the dark oiled floor, spread with sawdust. Even the odors were present.

He toured his (public) grade school where he attended kindergarten to third grade, saw the children come out for recess, and felt himself one of them-while during the entire experience he knew himself as an adult, embarked upon that adventure.

He went from place to place, floating bodiless-a tour of consciousness. That same environment exists now, alternately with Ruburt's present, and as vividly as his present does. It was, however, from his viewpoint, a probable past.

The infant with whom he momentarily identified as the self he is now only opaquely and indirectly shared common experience. This was not simple regression, then. That child grew up in that probability, and Ruburt grew up in this one. (Pause.) He touched upon certain coordinates that were neurologically shared, however, by both: He and the child were familiar with the carriage and the curb, the mother who pushed the carriage, and the house into which Ruburt felt himself, as the child, being carried.

He sensed the house interior and the stairway vividly. He knew that the mother then went down the stairs to bring in the carriage, but when he tried to perceive this, the motion became too fast. The mother's figure blurred so completely that he could not follow it. He felt confused, and found himself entering the store around the corner, and then consciously circled the block and went into the school.

The school and the store were not in the infant's experience, for in that probability the family moved away. The blur of activity earlier was the result of neurological confusion, and Ruburt switched over unknowingly to an environment still in the same physical block that was meaningful to him, but not shared by the future experience of that infant. 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. You simply do not accept them in the strands of experience that "you" recognize.

(Pause.) Skip several spaces.

As part of the work on this book, Ruburt is just beginning to experiment with the conscious recognition of probable material, and the conscious acceptance of kinds of experience usually tabooed according to the selectivity already mentioned.

(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.

Your theories of time are connected with your usual neurological pulses. It is one thing to play with concepts of multidimensionality, or probabilities, and quite another to be practically presented with them, even briefly, when your thought patterns and neurological habits tell you that they cannot be translated. So Ruburt felt frustrated, and he told me in no uncertain terms (see Appendix 4) that his consciousness could not contain the information he was receiving.

Like a good teacher (humorously) , I took his protests into consideration. Later he wrote a statement that came to him. This was his conscious interpretation of the information he had received the night before, translated as best he could in linear terms.

I have my own existence, that is quite different from Ruburt's, and yet I also have a reality that is connected to his psyche. Each of you also have the same kind of connection with other "more knowledgeable" portions of yourself, or your greater identity, that are independently themselves and yet also alive in your psyches. They are portions of the "unknown" reality.

Now I am able to obtain information that Ruburt, in his terms, does not have. In other terms he does have it, and so do you, but you have been mentally, spiritually, and biologically prejudiced against it. As a race, you are ready to become more aware of your greater reality, however, and to explore its "unknown" aspects. Period. Hence this book.

You may experience some irritability with some of the concepts in it, simply because you have so schooled yourselves to ignore them. You should also experience an acceleration of consciousness, however, and as you read it, a growing sense of familiarity. The framework of the book itself will lead you, if you allow it, into other strata of your own greater knowledge.

(Loudly:) Period. End of session. I will have some personal recommendations next time. Ruburt's favorite television programs are good for him, and allow his mind to rest. They are his mental play, and for that reason, important.

(12:3 7 A.M. "Good night, Seth. Thank you very much."

(Jane's trance had been very deep. Now she was bleary-eyed: "I feel as though I don't want to think for two weeks..." Seth hadn't said so during the session, but Jane told me she'd "picked up from him" that she should eat an extra meal a day for a while-usually late at night, as, say, after a session. Also, she should take extra exercise each day, moving as rapidly as she could. She wasn't under any additional strain while producing "Unknown" Reality, she added, since she wanted to do it, but those simple actions would help refresh her. Her use of energy since starting the book has been lavish. Jane's comments before tonight's session about possible instructions from Seth are given in Appendix 5.

(After finishing Personal Reality in July, 1973, Jane and I took quite a bit of time off from our usual P.M., Monday-Wednesday session routine while we prepared that book for publication. We developed the habit of watching certain television programs on Wednesday evening, but since we've gone back to holding sessions regularly, we haven't been able to see them. I suggested to Jane that we shift Wednesday night's session to Thursday night.

(And once more: Many times during the night after this session, Jane discovered herself involved with dictation for "Unknown" Reality, both in the sleep state and out of it.)

Session 687, March 4, 1974, 9:42 PM. P.M., Monday

(See Appendix 6 for the material on parallel man, alternate man, and probable man that Jane began dictating to me shortly after last midnight.

(In chapters 3 and 12 of Personal Reality, I inserted notes describing how Jane and I bad seen geese during their migrations south, then north, respectively, in 1972 and 1973. Now that truly sublime and mysterious phenomenon was upon us again-and if anything we found it more meaningful than ever. For myself, I made intuitive connections between the regular travels of the geese and our own work rhythms in producing the Seth books.

(There were welcome similarities between our sighting of today and that of last March: Again, the weather was very warm for this time of year; again, a fine rain was falling. I threw open a kitchen window when Jane called my attention to that familiar honking sound. The geese came in low over the river half a block away, flying beneath the clouds and in the rain-a great wide "V" of them, heading north.

(I'd never seen so many in one flock, or gaggle, before. A certain number of birds shuttled back and forth within the formation at any one moment, changing their positions for reasons unknown to us, "talking" all the while. Once again, I found great reassurance in watching the spectacle of their flight. Those birds, I thought, knew where they were going-they knew what they were doing, in ways man could barely comprehend. I followed the formation until it disappeared in the mists and trees on the horizon.

(We'd waited for the session to begin since 9:20. At 9:37 Jane said impatiently, "Come on, Seth. . Hmm; I've done this a lot lately, haven't I?" Then: "I feel him vaguely around. . ." And Seth continued his material on Practice Element 1.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: Such experiences as Ruburt's Saratoga episode are valuable because they begin a process in which other neurological pulses are to some degree recognized.

Over a period of time, this can bring about some conscious experience with probable realities. In the beginning the glimpses may be very brief, and the sense experience misty. Nevertheless, new patterns and cognitive endeavors are being set up between the neurological structure and the consciousness that you know.

An excellent preliminary exercise is the following:

Take any remembered scene from your own past. Experience it as clearly as possible imaginatively, but with the idea of its probable extensions. Sometime, immediately or after a few tries, a particular portion of the scene will become gray or shadowy. 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.

Instead of a shadowy element, you yourself may feel unsubstantial-"ghostly, " as Ruburt did. Period. Instead of any of those things, the imagined dialogue-if there is any-may suddenly change from the dialogue that you remember; or the entire scene and action may quickly alter. Any of these occurrences can be hints that you are beginning to glimpse the probable variations of the particular scene or action. It is, however, the subjective feeling that is the important clue here, and once you experience it there will be no doubt in your mind.

Some people will have little trouble with the exercise, and others will need to exert persistence before finding any success at all. (Pause.) This method is even more effective if you choose from your past a scene in which a choice was involved that was important to you.

In such a case, begin imaginatively, following through with the other decision or decisions that you might have made. At one point a shadowy effect-grayness, or other characteristics just mentioned-will occur. One or several of these may be involved, but again your subjective feeling is the most important clue. Imagination may bring you a clear picture, for example, that may then become fuzzy, and in that case the blurred quality would be your hint of probable action.

Until you have tried the exercise and become fully acquainted with it, you will not understand its effectiveness. You will know, for instance, when the remembered event and imagination intersect with another probability. Whether or not you have any great success, the exercise will begin a neurological reorientation that will be most important if you hope to glimpse realities that are outside of your present neurologically accepted sense-reality.

(Pause at 10:01.) This exercise is a mental and biological doorway that can expand both your concepts of yourself and reality. There may be instances in which it seems that little progress is made during the exercise itself. During the day, however, having made an important decision in one direction, you may begin to feel the reality of the opposite decision and its ramifications. The exercise may also result in a different kind of a dream, one that is recognized within the dream state, at least, as an introduction to a probable reality. You deal directly with future probabilities in the dream state in any case. (Pause.) For example, in a series of dreams you may try out various solutions to a given problem, and choose one of these. That choice becomes your physical reality.

According to the intensity of the situation, now, another also desirable solution may be worked out in a probable reality. On an unconscious level you are aware of your probable selves, and they of you. You share the same psychic roots, and your joint yet separate dreams are available to "all of you." This does not mean that you are dreaming someone else's dream, any more than it means that twins, for example, do. It does mean that your probable selves and you share in a body of symbolism, background, and ability. The multistructured nature of the dream state allows for dream dramas in which probable selves do appear. They may appear as symbolically representing strong characteristics upon which they have focused, though you have ignored them.

(Slowly:) The dream state, however, does operate as a rich web of communication between probable selves and probable existences. All probabilities spring from inner reality, from the psyche's own inner activity and structure. (Long pause.) The consciousness that you know can indeed now emerge into even greater realization of itself, but not by obsessively defending its old position. Instead it must recognize its power as the director of probable action, and no longer inhibit its own greater capacities.

In your terms, until now your consciousness has specialized in neurological patterning. As mentioned (in Session 682) , this was extremely important while it learned the art of specialized focus. Now, however, it must begin to recognize that it can indeed expand, and bring into its awareness other quite legitimate realities. The nature of probabilities must be understood, for the time has come in the world as you experience it where the greatest wisdom and discrimination are needed. Your consciousness and neurological prejudice blind you to the full dimension of physical activity. The true implications of physical action are not as yet apparent to you.

(A one-minute pause at 10:23.) You are beginning to understand the reality of your planet. You cannot plunder it, for example-something you are only beginning to learn. Opening up your consciousness to previously denied messages would bring you in direct contact with other life-forms on your planet in a way that you have formerly denied yourselves. Your cellular knowledge of past and future probabilities alone would teach you a spiritual and corporal courtesy.

(Another one-minute pause.) Give us a moment... The "unknown" reality sustains you and the web of life as you understand it. Your conscious concepts must enlarge so that the conscious self can understand its true nature. As you think of it, consciousness is barely-barely-half developed. It has learned to identify with one small group of neurologically accepted responses. Portions of the brain not used lie latent, waiting for the recognition that will trigger them into activity (intently) . When this happens, the mind will become aware of the rich bed of probabilities upon which the ego now rides so blindly.

The great latent-but-always-sensed dimensions of spiritualized creaturehood will then begin to flower. A few great men have glimpsed those abilities, comma, and their love of the race and their integrity had caused them to trigger the unused portions of the brain. In their way they sensed the great probable future and its ramifications.

In centuries past they saw your present, though through their own vision, and so it was only partially the present as you know it. Your emotional reality truly leaps into its own only now and then, for your very concepts of yourselves deny the multidimensional aspects of your being. The need and the yearning to love and to know are both biologically present within you. They are present within the animals, and within a blade of grass.

The concepts of God that you have, have gone hand-in-and with the development of your consciousness. The ego, emerging, needed to feel its dominance and control, and so it imagined a dominant god apart from nature. Often nations acted as group egos-each with its own god-picturing, its own concepts of power. Whenever a tribe or a group or a nation decided to embark upon a war, it always used the concept of its god to lead it on.

(Faster at 10:4 5:) The god concept then was an aid, and an important one, to man's emerging ego. To develop its sense of specialization, the ego forgot the great cooperative venture of the earth. If a hunter literally knows his relationship with an animal, he cannot kill it. On deeper levels both animal and man understand the connections. Biologically the man knows he has come from the earth. Some of his cells have been the cells of animals, and the animal knows he will look out through a man's eyes.3 The earth venture is cooperative. The slain beast is tomorrow's hunter. In terms of ego consciousness, however, there were stages of growth; and the god concepts that spoke of oneness with nature were not those that served the ego's purposes in the line of development as you understand it (deliberately) .

For a while such techniques worked. Always, however, there was the undeniable inner self in the background: man's dreams, his biological and spiritual integrity, and these in one way or another were always before him.

In your probability you did allow the inner self some freedom. Therefore, the so-called egotistical consciousness was not given complete sway. It remained flexible enough so that even hidden in its god concepts4 there were symbols of greater reality. Your system deals with physical manipulability, again, and the translation of creativity into physical form. An exterior separation had to occur for a while, in which consciousness forgot, egotistically speaking, that it was a part of nature, and pretended to be apart.

It was known, however-and unconsciously written in the cells and mind and heart-that this procedure would only go so far. When man's consciousness was sure of itself it would not need to be so narrowly focused. Then the true flowering of humanity's consciousness could begin. Then the ego could expand and become aware of realities it had "earlier" ignored. Period.

(Jane, in trance, sat with a band to her closed eyes as she rocked back and forth.)

A brief break.

(10:59 to 11:07.)

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.

Ego consciousness must now be familiarized with its roots, or it will turn into something else. You are in a position where your private experience of yourself does not correlate with what you are told by your societies, churches, sciences, archaeologies, or other disciplines. Man's "unconscious" knowledge is becoming more and more consciously apparent. This will be done under and with the direction of an enlightened and expanding egotistical awareness (much louder) , that can organize the hereto neglected knowledge-or it will be done at the expense of the reasoning intellect (again louder) , leading to a rebirth of superstition, chaos, and the unnecessary war between reason and intuitive knowledge.

(Pause.) When, at this point now, of mankind's development, his emerging unconscious knowledge is denied by his institutions, then it will rise up despite those institutions, and annihilate them. (Pause.) Cult after cult will emerge, each unrestrained by the use of reason, because reason will have denied the existence of rampant unconscious knowledge, disorganized and feeling only its own ancient force.

If this happens, all kinds of old and new religious denominations will war, and all kinds of ideologies surface. This need not take place, for the conscious mind-basically, now-having learned to focus in physical terms, is meant to expand, to accept unconscious intuitions and knowledge, and to organize these deeply creative principles into cultural patterns.

The great emotion of love has been thus far poorly used, yet it represents even the biological impetus of your being. Your religions in a large measure have taught you to hate yourselves and physical existence. They have told you to love God, but rarely taught you to experience the gods in yourselves.

Now: In one way or another religions have always followed, again, the development of your consciousness, and so they have served its purposes and yours; and they have always reflected, though distorted, those greater inner realities of your being. In historic terms, as you understand them, the "progression" of religion gives you a perfect picture of the development of human consciousness, the differentiation of peoples and nations, and the growth of the ideas of the "individual."

There is nothing wrong with the concept of an egotistically based individual being, colon: I am not suggesting, therefore, that your individuality is something to be lost, thrown aside, or superseded. Nor am I saying that it should be buried, submerged, or dissolved in a superself. I am not suggesting that its edges be blurred by a powerful unconscious.

(Intently:) I am saying that the individual self must become consciously aware of far more reality; that it must allow its recognition of identity to expand so that it includes previously unconscious knowledge. To do this you must understand, again, that man must move beyond the concepts of one god, one self, one body, one world, as these ideas are currently understood.5 You are now poised, in your terms, upon a threshold from which the race can go many ways. There are species of consciousness. Your species is in a time of change. There are potentials within the body's mechanisms, in your terms, not as yet used. Developed, they can immeasurably enrich the race, and bring it to levels of spiritual and psychic and physical fulfillment. If some changes are not made, the race as such will not endure.

(11:26.) This does not mean that you will not endure, or that in another probability the race will not-but that in your terms of historical sequence, the race will not endure.

(Pause.) Speaking now in those historic terms that you understand, let me say that there was no single-line development from animal to man, but parallel lines, in which for centuries animal-man and man-animal coexisted cooperatively. In the same way now, unknown amongst you, many species of what you may call probable man dwell in embryo form.

Because of the ego's particular line of development, you have experimented with artificial drugs and chemicals, both in foods and for medicinal purposes, as well as for "religious" enlightenment. Some of the effects of LSD and other artificial psychedelic drugs give you a hint of other probable directions your consciousness might have followed, or might still follow. As the experiments are conducted, however, and in the ignorance of the framework, the conscious mind takes a subordinate position. Instead, using methods other than drugs, it could be taught to expand its knowledge far more safely, to organize it in ways that could be most advantageous. Still, some of the experiments do give hints of certain aspects of one of the species' probable developments.

Give us a moment. Rest your hand...

(Very intently:) You cannot do anything, literally, that is not natural. Nevertheless, over a period of time "artificial" chemicals taken with food into the body will form a new kind of nature, in your terms. Your bodies are beautifully equipped, and will turn almost anything to their advantage. According to many schools of thought, artificial drugs, so-called, or chemicals, are considered in a very negative light, cutting you off from nature. Yet such experiments represent a strong line of probability only in its infancy, " in which man could sustain himself without draining the earth, live without killing animals, and literally form a new kind of physical structure connected to the earth, while not depleting its substance.

This does not mean that some biological confusion might not result in the meantime. 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. I will begin by explaining your history to you, at least to some extent, in the historical terms you recognize. To that degree, I hope to make your unknown reality consciously known.

Now-that is the end of Section 1, to be composed of the sessions as given, except with the Preface first. Section 1 should be entitled "You and the 'Unknown' Reality, " with "Unknown" in quotes. Give us a moment...

(Pause at 11:58.) As I describe some of early man's past in historic terms, I will also show how that "heritage" is alive in your daily experience with the world as you know it. Period.

The archaeology of the soul and the blood is not buried, but alive in your experience. A photograph is no more a relic than a fossil is. Each is filled with the energy of being. Neither is buried in a past beyond your knowing. A photograph lives in the present of your psyche, and a fossil in the living vitality of your cells (spelled) .

(12:01.) Now: Section 2: "Parallel Man, Alternate Man, and Probable Man, " colon: "The Reflection of These in the Present, Private Psyche." That is the heading.

(Pause.) Separated from that-that is one heading-the next heading: "Your Multidimensional Reality in the Now of Your Being."

(Louder:) End of session-

("All right-")

-and my heartiest regards to you both. Ruburt is regenerating. I will have more to say to him shortly. I like him to get some of his goodies (on this book) first.

("Thank you, Seth. Good night."

(12:04 A.M. Jane was soon out of her trance, but it had been a very good one nevertheless. Sitting in her rocker, she began to rapidly pound her feet on the floor. I felt the vibrations. "These trances are so deep that I want to do something when I come out of them, " she said. She continued to thump away. "They're different, there's no two ways about it. .

(The next morning Jane told me that once again she'd done "a lot of book dictation" after she went to bed. But this time, she thought, she'd been alert: When she realized that the material was "running through her, "as she often puts it [meaning she isn't aware of Seth's presence], she sat up, turned on a night light, and began to record the data on the pad she keeps on her bedside table. I wasn't disturbed as I slept beside her. "Aba, " Jane told herself at last, when the information stopped flowing, "this time I got it all down. " She lay back in bed-and woke up. She bad dreamed the recording part of the experience.)

Session 688, March 6, 1974, 9:47 PM. Wednesday

(Today I showed Jane the finished version of my "ghost image" portrait of her as a male in another probability. The painting represented a new approach in art for me, and had caused me a good deal of puzzlement at first. I began it early in February. 1 won't take the space to describe the series of mistaken efforts I went through in producing the work, except to say that finally I came to the rather simple conscious understanding that I was trying to paint a probable Jane. All at once, as I watched her delivering the 684th session on February 20, 1 saw strong resemblances between my painting and certain poses she repeatedly took while in trance.

(Then came Jane's projection-probability experience involving her borne town of Saratoga Springs; she described this episode in her notes preceding the 685th session, in Section 1, and Seth elaborated upon it considerably in the next session. The ghostly qualities in that event fit in with what I was trying to do in the painting: By leaving the thick gray and white under-painting of my "portrait" of "Jane" without color, I realized, I could express not only a probable interpretation of her, but the colorless qualities of the Saratoga experience itself Once I made those conscious connections I was able to finish the painting very easily. I intend to do more work in this manner.

(A rather humorous note: Jane has decided that she prefers to continue with the scheduled Wednesday sessions, instead of switching them to Thursday night. Television on Wednesday night doesn't offer that many attractions after all. Besides, she said, tonight she 'felt stuff around, about cells and prayer, and things like that'; she announced that she wanted to bold the session.

("And now that I'm sitting here, "she said, patting the arms of her rocker, "I can feel the material getting organized. It's a great help..

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: The beginning of Section 2. You already have the heading. Give us a moment...

The CU's, or units of consciousness, are literally in every place and time at once. They possess the greatest adaptability, and a profound "inborn" propensity for organization of all kinds. They act as individuals, and yet each carries within it a knowledge of all other kinds of activity that is happening in any other given unit or group of units.

Coming together, the units actually form the systems of reality in which they have their experience. In your system, for example, they are within the phenomenal world. They will always come under the guise of any particular pattern of reality, then. In your terms they can move forward or backward in time, but they also possess another kind of interior mobility within time as you know it.

As there are insides to apples, so think of the ordinary moment as an apple. In usual experience, you hold that apple in your hand, or eat it. Using this analogy, however, the apple itself (as the moment) would contain infinite variations of itself within itself. These CU's therefore can operate even within time, as you understand it, in ways that are most difficult to explain. Time not only goes backward and forward, but inward and outward. I am still using your idea of time here to some degree. (Pause.) Later in this book I hope to lead you beyond it entirely. But in the terms in which I am speaking, it is the inward and outward directions of time that give you a universe that seems to be fairly permanent, and yet is also being created.

This inward and outward thrust allows for several important conditions that are necessary for the establishment of "relatively" separate, stable universe systems. Such a system may seem like a closed one2 from any viewpoint within itself. Yet this inward and outward thrusting condition effectively sets up the boundaries and uniqueness of each universal system, while allowing for a constant give-and-take of energy among them.

(10:04.) No energy is ever lost. It may seem to disappear from one system, but if so, it will emerge in another. The inward and outward thrust that is not perceived is largely responsible for what you think of as ordinary consecutive time. (Pause.) It is of the utmost and supreme importance, of course, that these CU's are literally indestructible. They can take any form, organize themselves in any kind of time-behavior, hyphen, and seem to form a reality that is completely dependent upon its apparent form and structure. Yet, disappearing through one of the physicists' black holes, for example, though structure and form would seem to be annihilated and time drastically altered, there would be an emergence at the other end, where the whole "package of a universe, " having been closed in the black hole, would be reopened.

There is the constant surge into your universe of new energy through infinite minute sources. The sources are the CU's themselves. In their own way, and using an analogy, now, in certain respects at least the CU's operate as minute but extremely potent black holes and white holes, as they are presently understood by your physicists. Give us a moment...

The CU's, following that analogy, serve as source points or "holes" through which energy falls into your system, or is attracted to it-and in so doing, forms it. The experience of forward time and the appearance of physical matter in space and time, and all the phenomenal world, results. As CU's leave your system, time is broken down. Its effects are no longer experienced as consecutive, and matter becomes more and more plastic until its mental elements become apparent. New CU's enter and leave your system constantly, then. Within the system en masse, however, through their great and small organizational structures, the CU's are aware of everything happening-not only on the top of the moment (gesturing) , but within it in all of its probabilities.

Now: This means that biologically the cell is aware of all of its probable variations, while in your time and structures it holds its unique position as a part, say, of any given organ in your body. (Pause.) In greater terms the cell is a huge physical universe, orbiting an invisible CU; and in your terms the CU will always be invisible-beyond the smallest phenomenon that you can perceive with any kind of instrument. To some extent, however, its activity can be indirectly apprehended through its effect upon the phenomenon that you can perceive.

(Pause at 10:26. I got Jane a beer while she sat waiting in trance.)

The EE units mentioned earlier represent the stage of emergence, the threshold point that practically activates the CU's, in your terms. We will have more to say about these later.

It is vital that you understand this inward and outward thrust of "time, " however, and realize that from this flows the consecutive appearance of the moment. The thrusting gives dimensions to time that so far you have not even begun to realize. Again, you live on the surface of the moments, with no understanding of the unrecognized and unofficial realities that lie beneath. All of this, once more, is tied in with your accepted neurological recognition of certain messages over others, your mental prejudice that effectively blinds you to other quite valid biological communications that are indeed present all of the time.

(Intently:) I am trying to tell you something about the greater reality of your species, yet to do so with any justice, I must divest you, if possible, of certain concepts about the beginning of time, or "man's early history."

To start with, however, we will for a while lean on the old terminology, while hoping to gradually leave it behind. Give us a moment and rest your hand...

(I bad to smile. After about 30 seconds Jane, as Seth, was already waiting to continue.)

The CU's form all systems simultaneously. Having formed yours, and from their energy diversifying themselves into physical forms, they were aware of all of the probable variations from any given biological strain. There was never any straight line of development as, say, from reptiles to mammal, ape, and man. Instead there were great, still-continuing, infinitely rich parallel explosions of life forms and patterns in as many directions as possible. There were animal-men and man-animals, using your terms, that shared both time and space for many centuries.6 This is, as you all well know, a physical system in time. Here cells die and are replaced. Knowing their own indestructibility, the CU's within them simply change form, retaining however the identity of all the cells that they have been. (Intently:) While the cell dies physically, its inviolate nature is not betrayed. It is simply no longer physical.

That kind of "death" is, then, natural in one way or another within your system. I will be speaking here from many viewpoints, and later I will discuss in full your ideas of mortality. Here, however, let me state that all life is cooperative. It also knows it exists beyond its form.

The experience of your species involves a certain kind of consciousness development, highly vital. (Pause.) This necessitated a certain kind of specialization, a certain "long-term" identification with form. Cellular structure maintains brilliant effectiveness in the body's present reality, but knows itself free of it. Man's particular kind of consciousness fiercely identified with the body. This was a necessity to focus energy toward physical manipulation. To some important extent the same applies to the animals. The cell might gladly "die, " but the specifically oriented man-and-animal consciousness would not so willingly let go.

The cell is individual, and struggles for rightful survival. Yet its time is limited, and the body's survival is dependent upon the cell's innate wisdom: The cell must die finally for the body to survive, and only by dying can the cell further its own development, and therefore insure its own greater survival. So the cell knows that to die is to live.

(10:59. Jane delivered all of this material in a most forceful manner.)

Man's consciousness, and to some extent that of the animals, is more specifically identified with form, however. In order to develop his own kind of individualized awareness, man had to consciously ignore for a while his own place within the structure of the earth. His experience of time would seem to be the experience of his identity. His consciousness would not seem to flow into his body before birth, and out of it after death. He would "forget" there was a time to die. He would forget that death meant new life. A natural message had to replace the old knowledge.

Give us a moment... In the body certain cells "kill" others, and in so doing the body's living integrity is maintained. The cells do each other that service (with gestures) . In the exterior world certain animals "kill" others. You had for centuries; then, speaking in your limited terms, a situation in which men and animals were both hunters and prey. In those misty eras-from your standpoint-these activities were carried on with the deepest, most sacred comprehension. Again, the slain animal knew that it would "later" look out through its slayer's eyes-attaining a newer, different kind of consciousness. The man, the slayer, understood the great sense of harmony that existed even in the slaying, and knew that in turn the physical material of his body would be used by the earth to replenish the vegetable and animal kingdoms.

Even when you lost sight-as you knew you would-of those deep connections, they would continue to operate until, in its own way, man's consciousness could rediscover the knowledge and put it to use-deliberately and willfully, thereby bringing that consciousness to flower. In your terms this would represent a great leap, for the egotistically aware individual would fully comprehend unconscious knowledge and act on his own, out of choice. He would become a conscious co-creator. Obviously, this has not as yet occurred.

I told you (after 10:26 in this session) that you presently perceive only the surface of the moment; so you also perceive but one line of the species' development. Yet even within your system, there are hints of the other probable realities that also coexist. The dolphins are a case in point.9 In your line of probability they are oddities, yet even now you recognize their great brain capacity, and to some dim extent glimpse the range of their own communication.

At one time on your earth, in the way you look at time, there were many such species: water dwellers, with brain capacities as good as and better than your own. Your legends of mermaids, for example, though highly romanticized, do indeed hint of one such species' development. There were several species smaller than the dolphins, but generally the same structurally.

Their intelligence was indisputable, and old myths of sea gods arose from such species. There is even now an extremely rich emotional life on the part of the dolphins, to which you are relatively blind; and more than this, on their part a greater recognition of other species than you yourselves have.

(A one-minute pause at 11:24. Then at a slower pace:)

The dolphins possess a strong sense of personal loyalty, and an intimate family pattern, along with a highly developed individual and group recognition and behavior. They cooperate with each other, in other words. They go out of their way to help other species, and yet they do not take pets (softly, staring at me) . There were also, however, many varieties of water-dwelling mammals-some combining the human with the fish, though roughly along the lines of a combination chimpanzee-fish type, hyphen. These were small creatures who moved with amazing rapidity, and could emerge Onto the land for days at a time.

In other probabilities, water-dwelling mammals predominate. They farm the land as you farm the water, and are only now learning how to operate upon the land for any amount of time, as you are only now learning how to manipulate below the water.

The physical universe serves then as a threshold for probabilities, and all possible species find their greatest fulfillment within that system, each of them neurologically tuned into their own reality and their own "time." So the body itself, as it presently exists, is innately equipped with other neurological responses that to you would seem to be biologically invisible. Nevertheless, your consciousness and your beliefs are what direct this neurological recognition. At birth, and before structured learning processes begin, you are far freer in that regard.

You could (underlined twice) walk into "yesterday" as well as tomorrow at that point of birth-if you could walk-and indeed your perception brings you events both in and out of time sequence. Responses to out-of-time events do not bring the infant recognition, approval, or action, however. It immediately begins to learn to accept certain neurological pulses which bring results, and not others, and so neurological patterns are early learned. This can be a frightening process, though it is accompanied by reassurances. The infant sees, out of context, both present and future without discrimination, and (intently) I am speaking of images physically perceived.

Nightmares on the part of children often operate as biological and psychic releases, during which buried out-of-time perceptions emerge explosively-events perceived that cannot be reacted to effectively in the face of parental conditioning. The body, then, is indeed a far more wondrous living mechanism than you realize. It is the body's own precognition that allows the child to develop, to speak and walk and grow.

In the same manner, the species as you think of it is at one level aware of its own probabilities and "future" lines of development. The child learning to walk may fall and hurt itself, yet it does learn. In the same way the race makes errors-and yet in response to its own greater knowledge it continues to seek out those areas of its own probable fulfillment.

(Louder, smiling:) Either break, or end of session.

("Well, we'll take the break and see what happens."

(11:50. Jane's trance bad been profound. She was amazed to learn that it had lasted for over two hours; actually, she bad run through the whole session without a break. "it's still a different kind of trance, " she said, "and once you're in it, it's better to stay there. But it's exhilarating in ways that I can explain.

("It's wild, " she continued, "but I know that all of this is leading up to alternate man, probable man, and parallel man. [See Appendix 6.] 1 thought you were tired tonight, but I decided I wanted the session instead of looking at reruns on TV.. especially after I got that stuff while I was doing the dishes tonight, on cells and biological prayer."

(Jane decided to "wait a second" at 11:55, to see if she should resume the session. Then we declared an end to it at 12:05 A.M. Actually, I was the one who was bleary. Jane felt fine; she told me that she could cheerfully continue the session for another two hours. I was tempted, but... )

Session 689, March 18, 1974, 9:55 PM. P.M., Monday

(See Appendix 7 for an account of Jane's accomplishment of a week ago Sunday, when, in an altered state of consciousness, she received the outline for a potential new book, The Way Toward Health.

(We held just one session last week, and it did not involve work on either "Unknown" Reality or the book on health. The rest of the time we were busy with ESP class, a television show, correspondence, and other matters. Jane's rate of delivery this evening was rather slow.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Dictation: Now: To some extent the development of consciousness as you understand it follows the development of the gods through the ages; and in those stories appear the guises that man might have taken, as well as those that he did.

All animal gods hint of various experiments and species in which consciousness took different forms, in which the birth of egotistical awareness as you know it tried several areas of exploration. There were, for example, different versions of man-animal comprehension and activity.

(Long pause.) From approximately 50 million to 30 million years ago there were innumerable species that would now seem to you to be mutated forms. The distinction between man-animal and animal-man was not as clear as it is in your time. In some ways consciousness was more mobile, less centered, and more experimental. That early rapport, that early mixture, would later be remembered in myths of gods in animal form. Such a variety existed long before your paleontologists realize that it did. There were many toolmaking animal species, some predating man's toolmaking facility. Consciousness knows all of the probabilities of fulfillment open to it. Each species carries in its individual and mass psyche the blueprints of such probable actualities. These blueprints are biologically valid-that is, they allow the cells precognitive knowledge, upon which present behavior is based. This applies not only individually, so that the cell knows its future pattern, for example; but in the same way, an entire species will unconsciously have the knowledge of its own "ideal" fulfillment in its overall world environment.

As specified, ego consciousness grew. These inner patterns, native to the psyche of any species, turned into concepts, mental images-intuitive projections that were all meant to give conscious direction. The gods served, then, as stimulators of development. Seemingly outside of the self, they were meant to lead the self into its greatest area of fulfillment. The god images would change as consciousness did. The various god concepts that have fallen by the wayside, so to speak, represent areas of development that were not chosen, in your terms, but they are still latent. The totem pole, for example, is a remnant from an era where there was much greater communication between man and the animals-when, in fact, men went to the animals to learn, and from them first acquired knowledge of herbs and corrective medicinal behavior.

(Long pause.) Historically, it seems to you that mankind was born from an animal's undifferentiated kind of consciousness into egotistical self-awareness. Instead, many types of consciousness existed in the period of which I am speaking. The animals chose to develop their own kind of consciousness, as you chose your own. Animal awareness may seem undifferentiated to you. It is however highly specific, poised in the moment, but so completely that in your terms past and future are largely meaningless.

The specific concentration, however, results in an exquisite focus. Ego consciousness lost part of that focus in comparison. The totem poles date back to the time when men and animals understood each other, before that point of departure. Physical species that existed and flourished in those epochs then became probable to you, for they did not develop in your system but became extinct. Their living relics exist in the god concepts that embodied them. Give us a moment...

(A one-minute pause at 10:28.) In one way or another all mythology contains descriptions of other species existing on the earth in various forms. This includes stories of fairies and giants, for example. Mythology tells you about the archaeology of your race psychically as well as physically. There were, then, smaller and larger species of men, 4 with varying conscious connections with the rest of nature. The larger experiments involved the production of a species that would be a part of the earth, and yet become aware co-creators of it. There were innumerable considerations, innumerable experiments, with size, brain capacity, neurological structure, and with a kind of consciousness flexible enough to change with its environment, and also vigorous enough to explore and alter that environment. Do you have that?

("Yes.")

The emerging consciousness had to have, latently at least, the capacity to become aware of world conditions. When man knew no more than a simple tribal life, his brain already had the capacity to learn anything it must, for one day it would be responsible for the life of a planet.

Such leeway left room for many probabilities and for many ''errors, '' but the developing consciousness had to be free to make its own judgments. It would not be programmed any more than necessary by "instinct." It was, however, biologically locked into earthly existence, and so meant to understand its natural heritage. It could not separate itself too much, then, or become overly arrogant. Its survival was so linked to the rest of nature that it would of necessity always have to return to that base. It responds to an inborn impetus for its own greatest fulfillment, and will automatically change directions in answer to its own experiments and experiences. There are great sweeping changes in religious concepts abroad in your times, and these represent man's innate knowledge. His consciousness-his psyche-is projecting greater images of his own probable fulfillment, and these are seen in his changing concepts of God.

You may take your break.

(10:4 7 P.M. Jane's trance bad been excellent. She was quite willing to continue the session, but I was tiring; we decided not to go on.)

Session 690, March 21, 1974, 9:32 PM. Thursday

(Jane had "no idea at all" of the material in the last session. She tried reading my notes for it now, since I had only one page typed from them, but couldn't decipher my homemade shorthand. She hadn't particularly felt like having a session last night so we ran errands instead. Tonight, Jane said, she'd try letting Seth come through, although she didn't think she was at her best. By 9:28, she sat "waiting to just get it clear.")

Now, good evening-

("Good evening, Seth.")

-and dictation... To be effective within your system of reality, consciousness must of course deal with specializations.

Beneath these, so to speak, the CU's (or units of consciousness) are aware of the different kinds of consciousness of which they are part. By their nature certain kinds of organization, behavior, and experimentation exclude other quite-as-valid but different approaches. The CU's, in their freewheeling nature beneath all matter, are acquainted with all such organizations, so that some of the lessons learned by one species are indeed transferred to another.

(Long pause.) One particular experiment in consciousness may be pursued by one species, for example, and that knowledge given to another, or transferred to another, where it appears as "instinct." Here it will be used as a basis for a different kind of behavior, exploration, or experiment. I have said that evolution does not exist as you think of it, in any kind of one-line, ape-to-man time sequence.' No other species developed in that manner, either. Instead there are parallel developments. Your time perception shows you but one slice of the whole cake, for instance.

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. Both above and below your usual conscious focus, then, time is experienced in an entirely different fashion, and is constantly manipulated, as physically you manipulate matter.

The CU's, forming the structure later in its entirety, form all the atoms, molecules, cells, and organs that make up your world. Land changes and alterations of species are conditions brought about in line with overall patterns that involve all species, or land and water masses, at any given "time." There is a great organization of consciousness involved on such occasions-sometimes creative cataclysms, in which, again from its own precognitive information, nature brings about those situations best suited to its needs. Such biological precognition is firmly based in the chromosomes and genes, and reflected in the cells. As mentioned earlier (in the 684th session) , the present corporal structure of any physical body of any kind is maintained only because of the cells' innate precognitive abilities. To the self the future, of course, is not experienced as future. It is simply one of the emerging conditions of an experienced Now (you had better capitalize that) . 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."

The cell's comprehension leaps its present form. The reality, the physical reality of a given cell, is the focused result of its existence before and after itself in time; and from its knowledge of past and future it receives its present structure.

(Long pause.) In a larger sense the same applies to any given species. You are your selves in time, then, because of the selves that exist before and after you in time. On a cellular basis this is true. In psychic terms it is also true. Your thoughts and feelings are quite as real as your cells. They also form organizations. Your desires go out from you in time, but in all directions. On the one hand as a species your present forms your future, but in even deeper terms your precognitive awareness of your own possibilities from the future helps to form the present that will then make that probable future your reality.

In physical terms you may want a new city, so now you begin urban renewal, colon: Architects draw plans that first were dreams, of course; inside their minds, preparations are begun, buildings torn down. In very simple terms the architect's dream can be called a precognitive event, inserted from a probable future into the present. The physical planning carried out is in line with the envisioned future, and brings it about. 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. (Pause.) A people's recognized god represents such a psychic plan, projected out as an ideal. It will be followed by physical organizations, structures meant on a different level to help achieve such a "spiritual" evolution.

Because you dwell in time, however, the god image will also reflect the state of your consciousness as it "is, " as well as point toward the future state desired. The god concept will operate as a psychic and spiritual blueprint just like the architect's plan, only at a different level. Each species has within it such blueprints to varying degrees, and these are important, for they carry within them the idealized probabilities. They are valid, again, psychically and biologically. They will serve as biological patterns to the cells, as well as psychic stimuli in terms of consciousness.

Rest your hand a moment, and open our friend some beer.

(10:16. Jane lit a cigarette while I performed the necessary actions. She was still in trance.)

The spiritual and the biological cannot be separated. Their purposes and reality merge. Give us a moment... (Long pause at 10:19.) I will have much more to say concerning this later in the book. For now simply let me mention that any gods appearing among you must always be of your time, while expressing ideas and concepts that must shoot beyond your time into the future, and serve as psychic stimuli strong enough to effect future changes. When, in historic terms, the race was in the process of adopting a necessary artificial separation of itself from the rest of nature; when it needed to be assured of its abilities to do so; when it took upon itself the task of a particular kind of specialization and individual focus, it needed a religion that would assure it of its abilities.

The male-female tendencies at that time became psychically alienated from each other. The differences were exaggerated. The ancient mother-goddess concept became "unconscious"; the male, purposely forgetting the great natural aggressive thrust of birth, took physical aggression and force as his prerogative-for this came to represent the quality of ego consciousness in its need to physically manipulate its environment.

While it (ego consciousness) recognized its deep oneness with the earth and all creatures, it could not at the same time develop those abilities of specialization and its own particular unique focus. The growth of separate tribal cultures, for example, and later of nations, could emerge only through a sense of separation, and a certain kind of alienation. This, however, allowed for a diversity that could not otherwise be achieved under the accepted conditions. (Pause.) The seemingly local Jewish god (Yahweh/Jehovah) ended up in one way or another by destroying the Roman Empire, and in so doing brought about a complete reorganization of planetary culture.

Give us a moment, and rest your hand...

(10:35. Once again, Jane remained in trance during a short break. A little over an hour had passed.)

Christ, as he is known historically, psychically represented man's probabilities. His theories and teachings could be interpreted in many ways; they stood for kernels that man could sow as he wished. Because of Christ, there was an England-and an Industrial Revolution. The male aspects of Christ were the ones that Western civilization emphasized. Other portions of his teachings did not follow the main line of Christian thought, and were buried.

The church ignored Christ's physical birth, for example, and made his mother an immaculate virgin, which meant that the consciousness of the species would for a longer time ignore its relationship with nature and its feminine aspects. I am speaking now of mainline Western civilization. God the Father would be recognized and the Earth Goddess forgotten. There would be feudal lords, therefore, not seeresses. Period. Man would believe he did indeed have dominion over the earth as a separate species, for God the Father had given it to him.

Rising ego consciousness then would have its religious reasons for domination and control. The pope became God the Father personified, but that god had indeed changed from the old Jewish Jehovah. Christ, historically speaking, had altered that concept enough so that at least God the Father was not quite as capricious as Jehovah. (Pause.) Some mercy came to the forefront. Growing ego consciousness could not run rampant over nature. On the other hand, holy wars and ignorance would keep the population down. The church, however-the Roman Catholic Church-still held a repository of religious ideas and concepts that served as a bank of probabilities from which the race could draw. The religious ideas served as social organization, much needed, and many of the monks managed to preserve old manuscripts and knowledge underground. Those who were allied with religious principles, now, mainly survived, and brought forth communities and descendants who were protected. Psychic and religious ideas, then, despite many drawbacks, served as a method of species organization. They are far more important in terms of "evolution" than is recognized. Religious concepts from the beginning kept tribes together, provided social structures, and insured physical survival and the protection that made descendants most probable.

Take your break (louder) , or end the session as you prefer.

("We'll take the break, then."

(10:55. Jane's trance had indeed been deep, her pace usually good. Now she felt very much better. The material had been clear, she said, coming from that "certain necessary level" that she had to reach in order to do this book.

(She said the "buried" material about Christ and mainline Christian thought had to do with occult [meaning hidden] teachings and the Essenes, who were one of the four major Jewish sects known to exist in the Holy Land early in the first century, A.D. [see chapters 21 and 22 in Seth Speaks.] Jane added that she might have read speculative matter involving Christ, the occult, and the Essenes; and probably, we thought, many "secret teachings" have been attributed to Christ.

(Then we wondered whether Seth had referred to aspects of Christ's philosophy that were truly buried-quite unknown today. Almost always I refrain from interrupting the flow of session material with questions, but now I wished I'd asked Seth about that. Jane and I also liked the idea that from their earliest times, religious forces had been operating in the development of the species; this seemed to be a very sensible concept-and quite obvious once it was mentioned.

(Resume at 11:25.)

Now: Realize that for now I am emphasizing your Western civilization.

American democracy arises directly from the birth of Protestantism, for example, and a new kind of venture. Luther is as much responsible for the United States of America as George Washington is.

(Long pause.) Other democratic societies had existed in the past, but in them democracy was still based on one religious precept, though it might be expressed in different ways-as, for example, in the Greek city-states (in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.) . The Holy Roman Empire united a civilization under one religious idea, but the true brotherhood of man can be expressed only by allowing the freedom of man's thought under the banner of cooperation; and only this will result in the fulfillment of the species, with developments of consciousness that in your terms were latent from the beginning.

(11:29.) I am telling you that so-called evolution and religion are closely connected. Further developments in your concepts will lead to greater activation in portions of the brain now not nearly utilized, and these in turn will trigger expansions in both psychic and biological terms.

The growth of ideas space-wise was a prerequisite. Men on one side of the planet had to know what men were thinking on the other side. All of this presupposed spatial manipulation. Religious incentives always served to stimulate man's spatial curiosity (intently) .

Many of the species that share your world bear within themselves latent abilities that are even now developing. Men and animals will again meet upon the earth, with the old understanding in yet a new situation. There are no closed systems, and in deep biological orders each species knows what another is doing, and its place in the overall scheme that has been chosen by each. You are perceived in one way or another by all those inhabitants of earth you may consider beneath you. Probable man is emerging now, but also in relationship with his entire natural environment, in which cooperation is a main force. You are cooperating with nature whether or not you realize it, for you are a part of it.

End of dictation.

(Pause at 11:42.) Give us a moment...

(Seth now delivered a paragraph of material for Jane and me.)

End of session, and my heartiest regards. A fond good evening.

("Thank you, Seth. Good night." 11:44 P.M. Jane bad been really out.)

Session 691, March 25, 1974, 9:35 PM. P.M., Monday

(Neither Jane nor I could remember what last Thursday's session was about, and I had but one page of it typed from my notes-a situation quite similar to that prevailing before the last session. We were ready this evening by 9:20. At 9:30 Jane said she was starting to get "bleed-tbroughs" about Seth's material for tonight.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: Dictation-and can't you do something about this?

(Seth indicated Jane's bangs, which were close to hanging over her eyes. I'd been meaning to trim them.

("Yes."

(Amused:) A word to the wise...

Your particular society has set up such an artificial division between intuitional and intellectual knowledge that only the intellectually apparent is given credence. With all of their dire faults and distortions, religions have at least kept alive the idea of unseen, valid worlds, and given some affirmation to concepts that are literally known by the cells. Period.

The conscious mind has always been aware of the cells'-

(At 9:39, the telephone began to ring insistently. I answered it while Jane came out of trance. The call was a followup to a long-distance one she'd taken shortly after supper tonight, and concerned a missing person and a government agency. No other details need be given here, except to say that the case was a complex one.

(Although she doesn't usually do such work because of the time required, as well as her own emotional attitudes, Jane had given impressions during the earlier call. She was told now that those impressions had checked out very well, so, in an exchange that lasted for three-quarters of an hour, she gave more such information. She finished with the tentative understanding that by midnight she'd receive another call, after there bad been time to check her second set of impressions. Jane laughingly told me that if the new data "wasn't good enough, " she'd probably never again bear from the people involved-but at this time we didn't realize what was to follow.

(I read her the material Seth bad given so far this eve-fling; at 10:30 she resumed the session as though there hadn't been any interruption at all:)

-comprehension, period. The invisible reality within the cell is what gives it its structure. The remarkable organization of the body in terms of its learning abilities, and adaptability, will never be understood unless the cells' precognitive comprehension is taken into consideration.1

This (precognitive ability) steers the cell through mazes of probabilities, while allowing it to retain knowledge of its own greatest fulfillment-the idea of itself, which is always alive in any given period of your time. On a different kind of scale, then, each individual has the same sort of idealized version of the self, and so does each species. Here I mean each species, and I am not simply referring to mankind. Obviously these are not apparent to the physical senses, yet they are strong energy centers that to some degree do stimulate the physical senses toward activity. To that degree, then, there are indeed "tree gods, " gods of the forest, and "gods of being" connected with each person.

Angels have been represented in just this fashion.

At one time there were also species of birds, however, with high intelligence-this before the period mentioned earlier.2 They were not humanoid; not, for example, people with wings. They were large birds, with the capacity for dealing with concepts. They were social, could swim well (pause) , and for some time could live on the water. They had songs of great beauty, and a most extensive vocabulary. They had talons.

(Her eyes wide and dark, Jane held up her bands, fingers bent as though ready to grasp-or claw.)

When he was a cave dweller, 3 man saw these birds often, particularly in cliffs by water. Many times the birds saved children from falling. Man identified with their easy flight up the cliffsides, and followed the sounds of their songs to safe clearings. These memories turned into the angel images. In each case in those times there was the greatest cooperation, on a global scale, between species. The inner impetus toward development, however, came from the innate comprehension of future probabilities. In that picture all species alive at any time joined. This included plants and fauna. Those who cooperated survived, but they did not think in terms of the survival of their own species alone-but, in time terms, of a greater living picture, or world inviolate, in which all survived.

There are various orders of existence even within your system itself. You merely focus upon the one to which you are oriented. There are, then, "spirits" of all natural things-but unfortunately, even when you consider such possibilities you project your own religious ideas of good and evil upon them. You may simply dismiss such concepts as silly, for they seem intellectually scandalous to many. If you do entertain such ideas yourself, you must often personify such spirits, projecting upon them your own ideas of personhood. Instead, you should think of them as different kinds or orders of species that are connected with all natural living things.

They certainly have a reality in energy, and they aid in the conversion of energy into physical terms. They are active rather than passive, then. You see about you physical forces and think nothing of them. For example: You feel the wind and its effects, but you cannot see it. The wind itself is invisible. So these other forces are also invisible. In basic terms they are no more good or evil than the wind is. I say this because you usually imagine that if something is good, there must be a countering force that is evil. Such is not the case. In greater terms these forces are good. They are protective. They nourish every living thing. They have been the impetus for what you think of as evolution. They are biological in that they are to some extent composed of mass cellular knowledge-basically free of time, but directing physical activity in time, and thereby maintaining physical equilibrium.

There is great cooperation, again, between such forces. In such a way one tree in a forest knows of the entire environment and its relationship in it. Its treeness can merge with soilness, for example.

(11:02. Again the telephone began to ring. It was the expected, if somewhat early, third call in the series already described. While Jane was coming out of trance once more, the caller told me about being "impressed" by her abilities-and, I thought privately, considerably surprised. When Jane came to the phone, she was informed that insofar as it was possible to verify her earlier data, practically all of it had been correct. Encouraged, she now gave additional impressions; these were more specific and personal. By the time she was finished it was 11:38.

(I suggested that she end the session, but she decided to sit for it again to "see what happens. "So, a minute later:)

Now: A bit more dictation.

(Pause.) Because you are people, you personify what you perceive-"peopleize" it. You imagine such "spirits" to be small people, endowed with your own kind of characteristics. Instead there are simply species of consciousness, entirely different from your own, not usually perceived physically under most conditions. They are indeed connected with flora and fauna, but also with the animals and yourselves, and they are the "earth gods" that Ruburt imagined as a young person.

You each have your own earth god. The term may not be the best, but it is meant to express that portion of you that is as yet unexpressed in your terms-the idealized earth version of yourself, which you are becoming. The idealized earth version is not meant to mean a perfect self in flesh at all; instead, it represents a psychic reality in which your own abilities fulfill themselves in relationship with your earthly environment to the fullest extent possible, within the time and place you have already chosen.

That earth-god portion of yourself attempts to direct you through probabilities. Again, on deep biological levels beneath normal consciousness, and on psychic levels above normal consciousness, you are aware of the integrity of your being-but also of your great connection, while living in flesh, with the natural environment of time and space. The earth-god concept can be consciously used, but only to your greatest advantage if you understand the purposes of your conscious mind and its relationship with your biological nature.

Your conscious mind tells you where you are in time and space, and directs your activity in a world of human action. That world has its own kind of rich complication, that is as unknown to the animals as is much of their acute realization unknown to you. Because you have a conscious mind, then, other portions of your being rely upon it to give them an adequate picture of your situation, and to give the conscious orders for action. These orders will then be carried out. To do this, you must use that mind as completely as possible. The picture of reality in time and space that you give to your cells must be accurate. They must act on a minute-to-minute, second-to-second, microsecond-to-microsecond basis, even though their own orientation is not familiar with your time concept.

End of dictation (heartily) . Short break. Then a few remarks, if you are up to it.

("Okay."

(12:18. Jane's trance had been excellent, her delivery strong and sure. And since we decided that we were up to it, Seth returned in a quarter of an hour with better than two pages of material for Jane and me. The session was finally over, then, at 12:50A.M.)

Session 692, April 24, 1974, 10:03 P.M., Wednesday

(See Appendix 10 for a summary of Jane's psychic work in connection with "the affair of the missing person", as we came to call it. She first encountered the event on the evening the last session, the 691st, was held. I've added a few quotes from Jane and Seth to the appendix material.

(On Wednesday, March 27, we received from Jane's publisher the page proofs for Seth's second book, The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book. No session was held that night. Actually, correcting the proofs-carefully scrutinizing well over 500 printed pages word by word, checking and rechecking notes, spelling, punctuation, and so forth-kept us so busy that we suspended the next eight scheduled sessions, covering a period of 26 days. Ordinarily Seth would have used those sessions to deliver work on "Unknown" Reality. We disliked interrupting our creative rhythms in that fashion, although in the meantime Jane kept ESP class going as usual, coming through as Seth and as Sumari within that context. And we told ourselves that Seth was perfectly capable of resuming work on "Unknown" Reality whenever we were ready to do so, whether the time lapse involved one week or six months.

(Such was the case, of course. And once again, Seth used a "fresh "event-a dream experience of mine that transpired on the third night following the last session-as a basis for his book dictation tonight.

(On Friday morning, March 29, 1 told Jane that sometime during the previous night I had awakened with the certain knowledge that I'd just finished having two dreams at once. I retained conscious memory of one of them for just a moment before it irrevocably faded. Neither Jane nor I remembered bearing of, or experiencing, what I'll call double dreaming. I wrote an account of the phenomenon while wondering if I'd distorted some quite ordinary dream happening-and while knowing at the same time that I hadn't. I decided to ask Seth to discuss the two dreams when we went back to having sessions again, then forgot about them until I got around to rereading my first rough version of these notes last week. [When Seth discusses my "dreams" in this session, however, it turns out that from his perspective he's able to be more accurate about labeling them than I was.]

(Before finishing the notes I thought of asking a few other people if they had either heard of double dreaming, or had experienced it. The first person I talked to was our friend Sue Watkins, who bas attended ESP class almost from the time Jane started it in 1967. I was more than a little surprised when Sue said that she'd enjoyed such events several times. Jane and I have known Sue since 1965, yet as far as any of us could remember [and for whatever reasons], the subject of double dreaming had never been discussed among us.

(But not only had she done it more than once, Sue said: She could recall portions of the simultaneous dreams she'd bad on some of those occasions, which was a lot more than I could claim. Grinning, she proceeded to confound me further by describing the double dreams of another class member-since, obviously, the individual in question had also had certain dream adventures that Jane and I didn't know about. I ended up thinking that my own little experience hadn't amounted to so much after all; but still, it had made Jane and me aware of another facet of dream life. See Note 2 for any other information on double dreams that I may assemble, as well as for an excerpt from the description Sue wrote [at my request] of a multiple-dream happening of her own.

(Dreaming two at once led me to write down a second question for Seth. I wanted him to enlarge upon the statement he'd made at 11:29 in the 690th session: "Further developments in your concepts will lead to greater activation in portions of the brain now not nearly utilized, and these in turn will trigger expansions in both psychic and biological terms." I wondered what connection, if any, might exist between the capacity to have [and/or to remember] more than one dream at a time, and those "portions of the brain now not nearly utilized."

(I read my two questions to Jane as we waited for tonight's session to begin. She listened carefully, then said that "there's something there on the dreams "-meaning that Seth was around, was aware of our conversation, and would probably comment. Actually, Jane bad grown very relaxed since suppertime; so much so that she'd considered skipping the session. She decided not to because of the time we'd missed lately. We waited. Jane sipped from a glass of wine. Then, taking off her glasses, she was in trance.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now, to begin with your dream: The entity is aware of the experiences of all of its personalities. Give us a moment...

To the entity, your own consciousness could be likened to one stream of consciousness, in your terms. The greater part of your own identity, then, is completely aware of all of your conscious and unconscious living material. It is also aware of the same kind of data from all of (its and your) parts.

Because you identify your experience with the regular line of consciousness with which you are familiar, you are rarely able to "bring in" any "other-self" material and hold it while retaining your own sense of identity. Such material may at times bleed or intrude into your own thought, where it blends and is not recognized. In such cases, it takes on the coloration of your own thought patterns. It adds to the overall atmosphere of your being. Without understanding or training, you would have to "lose" your own consciousness in order to perceive the "other-consciousness."

There is a correlation here with something Ruburt said in [ESP] class last evening. He said that writing can be, first, a method of standing apart from life to some extent-in order to capture life, and preserve the unutterable uniqueness of any given day. But, he said, you can then discover that the writing itself becomes the day's experience. You are then "lost" in the writing as much as you feared being lost in normal living, with no way to step aside and view the experience. My addition, now, to those remarks is this: You would need the creation then of another "self, " who stood aside from the writing self in order to preserve the original intent.

Now: In the same way you could not, practically speaking, experience such other-consciousness (with a hyphen) unless you learned to stand somewhat aside, like the writer in Ruburt's remarks. Period. But even if you did, the very experience of other-consciousness itself would supersede your living space. You would need another self, able to hold both lines of consciousness at once, lost in neither but maintaining footing in each. This would be a very difficult achievement in normal life in any sustained fashion.

Now: In the dream state your specialized focus need not be as precise or time-oriented as in the waking state.

(10:20.) In your case, you did perform an excellent accomplishment. You were aware of the simultaneous dreams, each being experienced in alternate realities. You could not at this point remember both dreams, because the physical brain apparatus could not handle the simultaneous data. This has reference to portions of the brain not used, as mentioned in this book.

At certain levels the brain can handle simultaneous material, of course, even though you may be conscious of only a smattering of it. The body is aware of multitudinous simultaneous stimuli that consciously escape you, and is able to act on the information. This includes all kinds of sense data that are not consciously pertinent. (Intently:) Because of the particular kind of ego-orientation that the race decided upon, however, many probabilities of development inherent in the species have been latent. Inherently the physical brain is capable of dealing with more than one main line of consciousness. This does not mean the development of dual personality, by the way. It means the further expansion of the concept of identity: "You" would not only be aware of the you that you have always known, in the same way that you are now, but a deeper sense of identity would also arise.

That identity would contain the you that you have always known, and in no way threaten it. The new you would simply be more than you are now. You would just have another expansion of consciousness, another self-who-is-aware-of-being in the same way that-using an analogy, granted-the writer is aware of the self who lives, in those terms; is the self who lives while being in a position of some apartness, able to comment upon the life being lived.

Now in a very small way, admittedly, that analogy hints at the kind of deeper events that occur as selves are born Out of selves to operate in various levels of activity. In the case of entities, each such self dwells entirely in its own dimension or system of reality.

(To me:) You are, in a rudimentary fashion, beginning to open up those unused areas of the brain, or you would not have even been aware of the fact of two simultaneous dreams. Language and your verbal thought patterns make such translations highly difficult, however, even in the best of circumstances. A multilingual individual, in that regard at least, might have some idea of how concepts are structured through verbal pattern, and hence possess some additional freedom in such translations-provided of course that he or she was aware of the possibilities to begin with.

Now: One experience was a dream of your own, in usual terms. The other "dream" experienced simultaneously was, instead, your muddled interpretation of vital experienced reality on the part of another portion of yourself, in another reality entirely; a dimensional bleed-through. Once you are aware of such experience, most likely you will also have others in "your" dream state.

Now: Take a break or end the session as you prefer.

("Let's take a break, then."

(10:43. Jane took a few moments to come out of a deep trance. Her delivery bad been steady, almost fast. "I have a pretty good idea of what was said, " she told me. "And just before the session, I knew what Seth would say about your dream experience. Not that I could tell you now what be did say-but still I contained that knowledge somehow... "She alsoknew that the dream event tied in with my question about the "unused "portions of the brain.

(Jane was still very relaxed, so I asked her again if she wanted Seth to say something about her state. She decided to see what developed. Her head kept dipping down; she yawned, blinking; her bands, she said, felt "like water." At times such signs have marked the beginning of a pronounced altered state of consciousness for her, but she added that she wasn't going into "a psychedelic experience" now.

(Resume at 10:59.)

Now (quietly) : In the waking state you would find such an experience highly threatening without some suitable preparation-and I must be very cautious in my treatment of your concepts of the self and your ideas of one-personhood.

I am not speaking of you personally, Joseph, so much as I am emphasizing that the race at present identifies its individual being with highly limited concepts of the self. Those ideas are vigorously protected, and indeed must be understood and given honor even while attempts are made to expand them. Period. Certainly the quality of consciousness has changed through the centuries in many different ways, and sometimes in what would appear to be contradictory ones; but in your present you have nothing against which to compare your current consciousness of experience.

To a very limited extent, the different civilizations and cultures with which you are historically familiar represent a dim glimmering of the various qualities of consciousness and their varieties of experience. But as there are physical species, so there are what you may call species of consciousness also (intently) .

(11:08.) There are even now in your species a number of different kinds of consciousness; different in that the physical life-situation is qualitatively experienced in ways that are not native to you in your culture; different in that the entire fabric of meaning, interpretation, experience, and life itself is "alien" to the kind of experience with which you are familiar. This does not mean that such differences occur as the result of cultural backgrounds or situations, for some such individuals exist within your own culture, and some with your kind of consciousness exist in cultures where they are a minority. I am simply saying that on your earth now there are species of consciousness, though that is probably not the best term. You have been so obsessed with exterior differences, especially of color and nationality, that you have completely ignored these other far more important variations in the form that consciousness takes in relation to physical life within your race-the race of man.

(Pause at 11:15.) In terms of your personal experience, the Sumari6 is a case in point. The members of each "species"-and you had better put that in quotes-of consciousness relate to physical experience in their characteristic ways, even viewing time, space, and action differently. They orient to their bodies in their own particular manners. Each group does possess a different relationship with the body, with nature, and with the world in general.

Give us a moment... (Still in trance, Jane lit a cigarette.) Your stratified concepts of one-personhood overlook all such inherent differences, however, and you have a tendency to transpose your own concepts whenever you come in contact with those whose ideas you cannot understand. Even now in some "tribal societies, " for example, the self is experienced far differently; so that, while so-called individuality as you understand it is maintained, each self is also experienced as a part of others in the tribe, and the natural environment. To some, this seems to mean that individuality is stillborn or undeveloped. You protect your ideas of selfhood at all costs-even against the evidence of nature, which shows you that all are related.

Uniqueness, private experience, and individuality attain their dimensions of being and their true grandeur only when the inherent relationships among all elements of being are understood. You fight against your own greater individuality, and the spacious dimensions of your own being, when you overprotect your ideas of selfhood by limiting the experience of the self.

Now: That is the end of the session. My heartiest regards to you both.

("Okay. Good night, Seth."

(11:29 P.M. Jane had really been under. "Boy, I was getting that stuff through clear as a bell, " she said finally. "But then it stopped and the session was over, all at once "Her very enjoyable state of relaxation continued.)

Session 693, April 29, 1974, 9:45 PM. P.M., Monday

(Just before she went into trance, Jane said to me: "I've got something fascinating for you...)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now, give us a moment... In one way or another throughout this book, we will be dealing with history as you know it and as you do not know it. We will be discussing it in terms of the "past" of your species.

In many ways history is your built-in past, the obvious events that are significant. All of the different variations that can be played upon human consciousness, all of the racial probabilities, are in one way occurring in ages past-but they are also happening in what you think of as your present. As mentioned earlier (in sessions 680-82) , your consciousness seizes upon certain events over others and brings these into significance, and therefore into the official reality that you know.

New paragraph: Even in your private lives, however, there are clues as to other kinds of sequences in which events can occur-and do. You are usually unaware of the significance of such hints. They pass beneath your notice simply because they do not fit the ordered sequence with which you are familiar. In your idea of reality such clues appear insignificant. They make no sense, particularly in the ordered scheme of reality generally recognized.

Your cellular structure is innately able to follow such sequences. Believing such clues to be meaningless, the conscious mind does not perceive them, or calls them coincidences. Such clues in your intimate daily life, however, looked at in a different way, can tell you much about the potentials of the species, and give you glimpses of other systems of reality in which human consciousness can respond. I am here using an incident from the experience of Ruburt and Joseph, but the reader can make his or her own correlations, and discover like events from which the same conclusions can be drawn.

New paragraph. Driving through Sayre, Pennsylvania, one Sunday afternoon, Joseph noticed a house for sale in a neighborhood he knew-and remembered that it had belonged, in his memory, to a man of whom his mother had been fond. On impulse, Joseph had Ruburt call the real estate firm whose sign was on the house. The house was still owned by the man in question. Joseph only remembered his mother speaking of this gentleman in the past. In the recognized reality shared by the Butts family there had been no intimate contact between Joseph's mother and Mr. Markle (as I'll call him) . Joseph's mother had been greatly struck by the man, however, and was convinced that she could have married him instead of the husband she had chosen. Through the years she fantasized such a situation. Mr. Markle was, and is, wealthy. Now of course he is an old man, unable to tend to his home any longer. He is now in a home for the aged, but well cared for.

Joseph felt strong leanings toward Mr. Markle's home. Though the price was quite high, Ruburt and Joseph thought about buying it, and were taken through the home by the real estate people. A coincidence-a mere trick of fate that Joseph could be walking through the old man's home, 2 and that Mr. Markle would be spending his last time in a nursing home, as had Joseph's mother-meaningless but evocative that this house was for sale, and that the old man was insisting upon a price higher than the house is worth, just as Joseph's mother insisted upon a high price for her own home, and determined to get it.3 Period. That is how it looked from the outside. It appeared to be one of life's curious incidents.

(10:12.) Instead you have a rich interweaving of probabilities; for in one probability the two were indeed married, and that Stella [Butts] saw the house go to the eldest son (myself) . In this probability, this Joseph instead comes upon the house of a relative stranger, finds it for sale, and can or cannot purchase it according to the new set of probabilities then emerging. There is a cross-blending of "effects." In this probability Joseph's mother left little in financial terms, relatively speaking, and her house was sold. The family did not get it.

(Humorously:) Now, all probabilities are related. Joseph's mother is dead, in your terms, and aware to some extent of the nature of her own reality beyond the physical. She is able, again to some extent, to follow through with her own probable existences: That is, she is conscious of her own being outside of the official framework.

Her own psychology and characteristic methods of behavior are still hers, however, and operate, so that "she" "tunes into" those areas of probabilities that concern her own desires and interests. In this system she wanted Joseph to have her own house (see Note 1) , but for many reasons that did not develop.

(Pause.) It was, then, at her behest to some strong degree that Joseph happened upon the (Markle) house in question, felt that he did indeed want it, and took the steps that he did in his reality.

(Her eyes dark, Jane held up her empty glass.)

Keep him in trance...

(She bad been sipping beer. Now she sat quietly waiting while I got another bottle from the refrigerator.)

Do you want to rest your fingers?

("No.")

If your mother did not get the man and the wealth, then-to her way of thinking, now-you can still get the house that she fantasized was her own during her life.

(I had to laugh a bit, for Seth's description of my mother's thinking processes was so very characteristic of her.)

She often dreamed of living in it. On a mental level and an emotional one, she used that probability in this life to enrich her own hours through daydreaming-but without, of course, any realization that those daydreams had their own reality.

Even now she wants Joseph to have a finer home than either of his brothers has-(emphatically and amused:) you can cut that if you want.

New paragraph: This is, however, a clear case of the interweaving of probabilities. In this one Joseph can choose whether to buy or not, so there is no coercion (by Stella Butts) , for example. Joseph and Ruburt were also shown a second house in Sayre-one a good deal cheaper, but generally much like the one in which Joseph's mother lived in this life. They saw both houses on the same day. The second, like the first, was for sale because of age: An elderly couple recently moved from the second house to a home for the aged. Again, the "official" mind says, "Coincidence. All of this is quite natural: Many homes are for sale because the elderly can care for them no longer."

(Pause at 10:33.) The second house had no garage, and was not in as fashionable a neighborhood, but it had its own elegance. It made Ruburt, now, laugh, with its odd nooks and crannies. Give us a moment... That house did not have the weight of Stella's intent upon it, yet it was also a house that she had noticed, thinking it more grand than her own-one in which she could have been happy. It was her second choice.

The real estate couple (the Johnsons) were also connected. Again, the official mind says that it was a coincidence that this couple were, in their way, artistically inclined, enjoyed painting and writing, free-lanced, and still lived in an apartment after some years of marriage-and that the man was relatively quiet in contrast to the woman (with amusement) . Yet again probabilities merge, for the woman could well have been a writer, the man an artist; and seeing Ruburt and Joseph, they related with other probabilities inherent in their own natures.

The intent [that] Joseph's mother had lives beyond the grave, in those terms. She still wants Joseph to have a house, and one that will be more fashionable and wealthy than her own. Now Mr. Markle, a wealthy businessman, also had strong artistic abilities. He was a dealer in precious stones and fine antiques.

These qualities attracted Joseph's mother, Stella, and with the situation as she set it up in that life she was impressed, knowing that the man's talents would bring him wealth. His artistic leanings caused him to choose real estate people who had latent artistic abilities of their own.

Give us a moment... (Jane, as Seth, took the time to light a cigarette.)

As the two couples talked, it turned out that there were other "coincidences": Ruburt and Joseph had recently thought of taking a weekend vacation at a particular resort motel, within the general area but not especially close by. This real estate couple had been forced to spend a night at the same resort due to poor weather, at a time when a psychic was featured as an entertainer.

This psychic startled the couple by correctly identifying some specific elements of their experiences, so there was some kind of psychic connection also. Again, of course, coincidence. So says the officially organized mind. The rich interweavings of probabilities are apparent in all of your lives if only you stop organizing your perceptions and experience in prepackaged ways (emphatically) .

The many directions possible for the species exist now. Joseph reacted on a cellular level in one respect. The cells recognized the probable reality involved, 6 and he, Joseph, felt that he was "at home" (in the Markle place) , and yet consciously could not explain the feeling. In certain terms his mother will feel vindicated if Joseph buys that house, but the choice is still his and Ruburt's. If you pay more attention to what you think of as coincidences, you will discover another kind of order that underlies the recognized order you follow. This has all kinds of implications biologically as far as the species is concerned; you can perhaps understand, then, that there are also probable histories beneath your lives, individually and en masse.

The neurologically unrecognized orders can show themselves once you recognize their reality. Then your sense data will begin to confirm what has not been confirmed thus far.

Take your break. (Smiling:) I have mercy on your fingers.

(10:58. "I feel funny, "Jane said. Her trance had been very deep, her delivery rather fast for the most part. She inhaled repeatedly now, as though taking in extra air. "I was really out-he could have kept me under for four hours.. ." She explained that just before the session began she'd received glimmerings of the material to come, but hadn't had time to tell me about it. Certainly neither of us had expected Seth to go into the affair involving the two houses in Sayre.

(We haven't talked a great deal about the probable ramifications inherent in the whole house episode-rather, we expected such concepts to operate if the Seth material has any validity. Our ways of thinking have changed considerably since these sessions began over a decade ago. Every so often Jane and I remind ourselves of just how much of a change there has been for each of us; this helps us relate our individual worlds to those of others. Neither of us believes in chance or coincidence in usual terms, for instance-nor have we since Seth began discussing the elements behind such qualities some years ago. We always assign reasons, even if they're bidden at times, for any action. [And often, we've discovered, further observation will bear out those reasons.] This way of thinking led to our taking the chain of circumstances involving the two houses almost for granted; each unfolding had seemed to fall so effortlessly into place that deep questioning hadn't been called for: "Oh, of course-things would work out that way..."

(As of now we think it unlikely that we'll buy either of the houses. We haven't asked Seth what to do, and do not plan to. There are more "coincidences" involved than those Seth described tonight, none of them consciously known to Jane and me before the Sayre adventure: Mr. Markle is in a nursing home but a few miles from where we live in Elmira, and my mother spent her last days in a similar home less than 15 miles away; one of Mr. Markle's children lives in Elmira, and is connected with a store Jane and I have visited; Mr. Johnson, of the real estate couple that conducted us about in Sayre, did sign painting and truck lettering as a younger man, as I did; he and I had several mutual acquaintances in Sayre, among them an older artist of some reputation-and now deceased-that we bad known in our high school days; and so forth.

(Then Seth went into another "house connection" after break ended at 11:24:)

Give us a moment... The apartment house in which Ruburt and Joseph presently reside has a shared driveway.

In certain terms it is the connection, the symbol, between the two probability systems, for Mr. Markle's house also has a shared drive. Ruburt and Joseph live in double apartments, in a large old mansion redone into such quarters. The driveway is shared with a very wealthy family next door, in which the same size house is a home to one family. Joseph's mother wanted Joseph to be very wealthy. The drive symbolically connects the two realities, and is a point where the two merge.

Give us a moment...

(Pause at 11:28. This was the end of book dictation. As we bad requested that be do just before the session, Seth directed his final delivery to some other material for Jane and me. He finished at exactly midnight.

(A note: Since the next session was held before I was through typing this one from my notes, I can add that in the 694th session Seth deals with some of the obvious questions we had about my mother's role in our house affairs.)

Session 694, May 1, 1974, 9:29 PM. Wednesday

("Well, " Jane said, indicating two points in front of her as we sat waiting for the session to begin, "there's book stuff there [to the left], and stuff on me there [to the right]. But that's funny: I don't think of Seth being over there-just the information. It's as though I wait for the material to fall into a slot; then Seth, who's here"-she touched her belly-" deals with it.

("I can sense the information outside of me, say, but I can't get it in my regular state of consciousness. When Seth comes through he's at the same level the material's at, and be-or I-can then pull it in... It's as though there's a store of information there, but I have to go through a door of consciousness to reach it."

(Jane's delivery was rather slow as the session started.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: Dictation (whispering, eyes closed) . Give us a moment...

The relatively insignificant example of probable events and their interaction just given (in the last session) provides a few important clues to the nature of probabilities in general. An organization is definitely present, but it is not the kind of order you are used to recognizing. This small private experience is repeated endlessly with different variations in all areas of daily living-that is, probable events constantly interact, and (intently) through their interaction you end up with one recognized series of episodes that you accept, called physical reality.

Underneath this recognized order of events, however, there is actually a Vast field of ever-occurring action. These fields of probabilities are action sources for your reality; but your world-action is also a source for these other probabilities.

This applies at all levels, mental and biological. Probabilities involve the atoms and molecules, therefore, and the cells. They involve thoughts also, as well as more obviously physical events. Your bodies are probable-constructs (hyphenate that if you want to) , in that they exist only because of the atoms' appearance at certain points of probability. At other levels the atoms do not exist at those same points, and your bodies there (Jane leaned forward for emphasis) are not the same physical constructs. They do not, then, exist there.

Scientifically, with all your instruments, you are thus far able to perceive the atom's presence only in the field of your own system of probability. Since you perceive physically through the body, which is atomically structured, then of course your sense perceptions lead you to block out recognition of other probable stimuli or reactions. In his book Adventures in Consciousness, Ruburt mentions what he calls "prejudiced perception." It is an excellent term in this regard.

(Long pause.) Give us a moment... (Another long pause.) Some of this is difficult to verbalize. The EE units within matter, within the atoms and molecules, are aware of the probable fields of action that are possible. While the body's integrity must lie in a constant reiteration in one probability, and maintain within that probable system a certain "constant, " and while physically perception is largely directed there, the basic integrity of the body system and consciousness comes from outside the system into it. Period.

(Seth-Jane finished the last sentence on a note of triumph, after indicating all of its punctuation.)

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 significance 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.

("Can I ask a question?" I disliked interrupting the flow of material, but this was a good time to mention what bad been on my mind since P.M., Monday night.)

Yes.

("Well, I know you said in the last session [just before 10:33] that from her non physical reality my mother isn't trying to coerce Jane and me into buying Mr. Markle's house-yet I keep wondering what others will think about the idea of influence being felt in our reality from 'the other side, ' you might say-")

Write your question down, and I will answer it.

("Go ahead. I can write it out later. "And Seth proceeded to deal with the question in his own way.)

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.

The episode also mirrored his beliefs, for to his way of thinking he would have to relinquish certain freedoms, and this he was not ready to do. The events basically exist at once, though at your level you have to perceive them in time. As your intimate daily reality can be involved with and colored by probabilities, brought into your experience by your own desires and beliefs, so is your mass culture, world history, and species orientation colored by probable events that do not fit into your officially recognized idea of physical reality.

Alternate man, probable man, alternate you's, probable you's - these issues apply individually as well as in terms of the species, and they apply to your future as well as to your past.

Give us a moment, and give yourself a moment.

(A one-minute pause.) The greatest scientific discoveries are always "accidents." They come from intuitional creativity, when suddenly a new kind of significance is seen that was not "earlier" predictable. You accept all data that fit your theories, and ignore clues to the contrary. Yet underneath it all you are significance-making creatures, pattern-formers, immersed in time but basically apart from it, and so new insights come into your awareness and literally change the quality of any given reality at any given time.

Take your break.

(10:34. Jane, in a deep trance, had spoken for over an hour. I told her I thought "Unknown" Reality was excellent. "But I'm out of it on this one, " she said, explaining that she didn't know it well consciously, had little idea of its structure, and couldn't particularly say what was to come in it. In contrast. her involvement with Seth's last book, Personal Reality, bad been much more intimate during its production.

(We discussed the general implications of Seth's material on my mother-that she was not only "alive" after her "death, " but that a portion of her was focused upon Jane and me. Jane had allowed Seth to talk about the whole situation in a more personal way than she usually does; the result is that we already have more data on Stella Butts than on the earlier deaths of Jane's own parents [in 1971 and 1972], for instance.4 We knew that Seth wouldn't continue describing my mother and her present reality indefinitely; such a study could easily grow into a book by itself. In addition, Jane holds deeply felt convictions about giving material on survival personalities; the information in Appendix 10 at (2. has a bearing here. I also think that Seth will be able to say more on the beliefs behind her feelings as this book progresses.

(Seth delivered the information in the next three paragraphs quite forcefully. Resume at 10:50)

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. 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.

Now give us a moment...

(11:00. Book work was over for the evening. Jane paused in trance, then proceeded to deliver a good amount of material on several other matters. The session ended at 11:43 P.M.)

Session 695, May 6, 1974, 9:29 PM. P.M., Monday

(On Saturday evening, May 4, Jane briefly came through with some trance information of her own. At least Seth wasn't overtly present. The last time she'd done this had been early on March 4; her material then was on parallel man, alternate man, and probable man; Seth mentioned it that same eve-fling in the 687th session, and it furnished the basis for Section 2 of this volume. [The material itself is presented as Appendix 6.]

(It isn't necessary to quote Jane's delivery of Saturday evening, however. It came about because we'd been discussing our deceased parents and probabilities, in connection with the first two sessions [6 79-80] of "Unknown" Reality. To launch his book Seth bad used a childhood photograph of each of us. The night before last, then, I told Jane about my idea of asking Seth to comment upon early photographs of her parents, Marie and Delmer, to see what would develop in the material.

(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 bad 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.

(Right after this exchange ended tonight at 9:03, Jane told me that she was going to dictate additional material "herself. "She asked me to write it down:

("What we know of the species can be compared to what we know about ourselves as individuals. In one way both concepts are on the same level, and deal with realities in consecutive time sequences. The individual, like the species, exists in multidimensional terms; and hovers around focuses of probabilities, weaving in and out of alternate realities constantly.

("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.

("In the same way, a 'picture' of the species represents only one version of the species, 'snapped' in a particular time sequence, valid because of the invisible realities not focused upon, but upon which reality rides."

(In a few moments Jane left her altered state of consciousness. "I don't know where that came from, " she said, laughing, "but anything you want to know, just ask... "At this time we're content to keep a record of such instances while "Unknown" Reality grows. Echoes of Saturday night's experience do show up in tonight's session, although it doesn't appear that the material will have the long-range effects of Jane's March 4 delivery.

(At 9:15 1 read the last session to Jane from my notes, since I hadn't started typing it yet. She was in a most relaxed state as she listened, yet intended to have a session. "I'm just waiting to get it clear...

Now, Good evening-("Good evening. Seth. ", )

-and dictation:

PRACTICE ELEMENT 2

I would like each reader to try two exercises. First of all, take any incident that happens to you the day you read this page. See the particular chosen event as one that came into your experience from the vast bank of other probable events that could have occurred.

Examine the event as you know it. Then try to trace its emergence from the thread of your own past life as you understand it, and project outward in your mind what other events might emerge from that one to become action in your probable future. This exercise has another part: When you have finished the procedure just given, then change your viewpoint; see the event from the standpoint of someone else who is also involved. No matter how private the experience seems, someone else will have a connection with it. See the episode through his or her eyes, then continue with the procedure just given, only using this altered viewpoint.

No one can do this exercise for you, but the subjective results can be most astonishing. Aspects of the event that did not appear before may be suddenly apparent. The dimensions of the event will be experienced more fully.

Give us a moment...

(Now Seth went into material that Jane had touched upon during our conversation last Saturday evening, in addition to giving her dictated information.)

PRACTICE ELEMENT 3

For the second exercise, take a photograph of yourself and place it before you. 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. Try to sense those.

PRACTICE ELEMENT 4

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.

(9:40.) We have been speaking about probable men, and do intend to deal more deeply with probable man [or woman], as that is applied to your species. The events of the species begin with the individual, however. All of the powers, abilities, and characteristics inherent in the species are inherent in any individual member of it. Through understanding your own unknown reality, therefore, you can learn much about the unknown reality of the species.

PRACTICE ELEMENT 5

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.

Imaginatively, examine your image from the viewpoint of another place in the photograph. See how the image can be seen as a part of the overall pattern of the environment-the room or furniture, or yard or whatever.

When you see a picture of an animal in its environment, you often make connections that you do not make when you see a picture of a human being in his or her environment. Yet each location is as unique as the habitat of any animal-as private, as shared, as significant in terms of the individual and the species of which that individual is a part. Simply to stretch your imagination: When you look at your photograph, imagine that you are a representative of a species, caught there in just that particular pose, and that the frame of the photograph represents, now, "a cage of time." You, from the outside looking down at the photograph, are now outside of that cage of time in which your specimen was placed. That specimen, that individual, that you, represents not only yourself but one aspect of your species. If you hold that feeling, then the element of time becomes as real as any of the other objects within the photograph. Though unseen, time is the frame.

Now: Look up. The picture, the photograph, is but one small object in the entire range of your vision. You are not only outside yourself in the photograph, but now it represents only a small portion of your reality. Yet the photograph remains inviolate within its own framework; you cannot alter the position of one object within it. If you destroy the photograph itself, you can in no way destroy the reality that was behind it. You cannot, for instance, kill the tree that may be depicted in the picture.
Give us a moment...

(10:11. In trance, Jane abruptly fell silent/or well over a minute. Her eyes remained closed as she gently rocked back and forth. Her delivery had been good since the start of the session.)

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.

Now take your break.

(10:23. And during break, neither of us realized that Seth had just ended Section 2.)

(Break was over at 10:45.)

This is the beginning of the next section-

("3.")

-to be called (pause) : "The Private Probable Man, the Private Probable Woman, the Species in Probabilities, and Blueprints for Realities."

Give us a moment... We have been using Ruburt and Joseph's private experience here. For now, however, I would like each reader to consider the members of his or her family, so that in a more direct fashion the reader can find in private experience a realization of some ideas I want to present.

PRACTICE ELEMENT 6

(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.

These letters are written in an original native language that has little to do with the acquired language that has been picked up in any given country. (Pause, then humorously:) Mama and Papa, back at the homestead, know where their children have gone, in other words; they read with amusement, amazement, and wonder the communications from their offspring. In this homespun analogy, Mama and Papa send letters back-also in the native language-to their children. As time goes by, however, the children lose their memories of their home tongue. Mama and Papa know that times are like places or countries, but their children begin to forget this, too, and so they grow to believe that they are far more separate from each other than they actually are. They have "gone native" in a different way. Mama and Papa understand. The children forgot that they can move through time as easily as through space.

Give us a moment... Remember, in this analogy the various children represent your ancestors, yourself, and your own children. They are exploring the land of time. Now in your physical world it is obvious that nature grows more of itself. In the land of time, time also grows more of itself. As you can climb trees, both up and down the branches, so you can climb times in the same way. Back home, Mama and Papa know this. The family tree exists at once-but that tree is only one tree that appears in the land of time. It has branches that you do not climb and do not recognize, and so they are not real to you. There are probable family trees, then. The same applies to the species.

(A pause lasting almost two minutes, starting at 11:12.) Give us a moment... There are alternate realities, and these exist only because of the nature of probabilities. Now give us a moment...

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.

Then think of your ancestors, your immediate family, and your children, and sense in them the vast potential that is there. Now: Imagine your species as you think of it, and the literally endless capacities for expression and creation simply in the areas of which you are aware. No single time or space dimension could contain that creativity. No single historic past could explain what you are now as an individual or as a member of a species. Period.

Now give us a moment... End of dictation.

(11:23. Once again, Seth wound up the evening with some material on another subject. Lately Jane and I have taken to requesting that be finish each session this way, until we re caught up on some projects we've been letting go. End at 11:33 P.M.)

Session 696, May 8, 1974, 9:58 PM. Wednesday

(Today is Jane's birthday. She is 45 years old. I didn't ask her to have a session tonight, but she volunteered. While we waited for Seth to come through, she talked about the deaths of her parents.' Her father, Delmer, died on November 16, 1971, when be was 68; her mother, Marie, died on May 10, 1972, at the same age.

(When Jane was young Marie had in all seriousness often warned her: "When I die, I'll come back and haunt you. During those years Marie was in her late 20's and early 30's, and already incapacitated by arthritis; and, to quote Seth from a session held in 1964, she bad 's.. often spoken vehemently of Ruburt's birth being a source of disease, and pain, that is of her arthritis... If Ruburt's mother had it to do over, she would not have the child-and the child bidden within the adult still feels that the mother actually has the power, even now, to force the child back into the womb and refuse to deliver it.

(Jane said tonight that she still feels a strong emotional charge in connection with the idea of the "dead" returning in those stereotyped, banal terms. Yet, although Seth has said very little to date about ghosts, hauntings, and possession [we link them together], it doesn't seem that Jane's early family experiences have led her to set up any blocks against such topics. "Seth just hasn't gotten around to them yet, "she said. "When he does, they 71 make a great series of chapters-or maybe a whole book some day.")

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: Dictation... Each probability system has its own set of "blueprints, " clearly defining its freedoms and boundaries, and setting forth the most favorable structures capable of fulfillment.

These are not "inner images of perfection, " and to some extent the blueprints2 themselves change, for the action within any given system of probabilities automatically alters the entire picture, enlarging it. The blueprints are actually more like inner working plans that can be changed with circumstances, but to some extent they are idea-lizations, with a hyphen.

As an individual you carry within you such a blueprint, then; it contains all the information you require to bring about the most favorable version of yourself in the probable system that you know. These blueprints exist biologically and at every level-psychically, spiritually, mentally. The information is knit into the genes and chromosomes, but it exists apart, and the physical structures merely represent the carriers of information. In the same fashion the species en masse holds within its vast inner mind such working plans or blueprints. They exist apart from the physical world and in an inner one, and from this you draw those theories, ideas, civilizations, and technologies which you then physically translate.

Platonic thought saw this inner world as perfect. As you think of it, however, perfection always suggests something done and finished, or beyond surpassing, and this of course denies the inherent characteristics of creativity, which do indeed always seek to surpass themselves. The Platonic, idealized inner world would ultimately result in a dead one, for in it the models for all exteriorizations were seen as already completed-finished and perfect.

Many have seen that inner world as the source for the physical one, but imagined that man's purpose was merely to construct physically these perfect images to the best of his abilities. (Very forcefully:) In that picture man himself did not help create that inner world, or have any hand in its beauty. He could at best try to duplicate it physically-never able, however, to match its perfection in those terms. In such a version of inner-outer reality the back-and-forth mobility, the give-and-take between inner and outer, is ignored. Man, being a part of that inner world by reason of the nature of his own psyche, automatically has a hand in the creation of those blueprints which at another level he uses as guides.

(Long pause, eyes closed.) To some extent great artists not only capture a physical picture of Inner Idea, capitalized, but they also have a hand in creating that idea or inner model to begin with.

In your terms, the inner world does represent Idea Potential as yet unrealized-but those ideas and those potentials do not exist outside of consciousness. They are ideals set in the heart of man, 5 yet in other terms he is the one who also put them there, out of the deeper knowledge of his being that straddles physical time. Existence is wise and compassionate, so in certain terms consciousness, knowing itself as man, sent future extensions of itself out into the time scheme that man would know, and lovingly planted signposts for itself to follow "later."

Give us a moment... Man is himself made as much of God-stuff as earth-stuff, so in those terms now the god in himself yearned toward the man in the god, and earth experience. Not understanding yourselves, you have tried to put the idea of God outside of yourselves and your living framework. Through various exercises in this book, I hope to acquaint each of you with the inherent oneness of the inside and outside realities, to give you a glimpse of your own infinite nature even within the bounds of your creaturehood-to help you see the god-stuff in the man-stuff. In other terms, this can help you see the potentials of your species and break down the barriers of limiting thoughts. I would like to change your ideas of human nature. To some extent this will entail humanizing your idea of divinity. But oddly enough, if that is done you will end up seeing the divinity in man.

Ideals that before seemed beyond the reach of individuals or of the species will change their character, and become working models that can be used effectively and joyfully.

Now take your break.

(10:35. Jane's delivery had been average; and, she said now, the session would be a short one. It was. When Seth came through again in a few minutes be said, humorously: "Tell Ruburt I said 'Happy birthday' "-then gave a page of material for Jane on another subject. End at 10:48 P.M.

(Within that deleted information were a few lines I'd like to present here for the record. When Jane finished with certain challenges, Seth remarked, "... there will be a 'birth' of seemingly new concepts, simply because his [Jane '5] old mental barriers kept him from making certain important connections, and an increasing system of communication between waking and dreaming states.

(Perhaps the latter happening is already underway: Jane's recall of, participation in, and benefits from such an exchange between her waking and dreaming selves has increased considerably in recent weeks. So have her records, since she keeps detailed accounts of all of her dream activities and correlating "conscious" events. All of this activity appears to be more than transient.)

Session 697, May 13, 1974, 9:18 PM. P.M., Monday

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now: Dictation .. . These idealizations (as discussed in the last session) are certain kinds of psychic patterns, then, occurring at different levels. In certain terms they become the cell's private "idea" of its own growth and development, a picture alive within the cell in terms of physical information, a part of its structure. Such idealizations provide their own impetus; that is, they will grow toward their own greatest fulfillment.

The idealizations themselves are made of "conscious" stuff. These are not inert data, then. The nature of probabilities determines the framework in which these fulfillments can take place, and "frames" living developments. The structure of probabilities provides on the one hand a system of barriers, in which practical growth is not chosen or significant; and on the other hand it insures a safe, creative, rich environment-a reality-in which the idealization can choose from an almost infinite variety of possible actions those best suited to its own fulfillment.

In any system the idealization has already accepted certain kinds of events as significant, and has rejected other (quite-as-probable events) as nonsignificant. This simply provides a workable focus in which achievement and experience can happen.

(9:2 7.) In simple terms, you will not try to achieve something that you believe impossible within your concepts of reality. The conscious mind, with its normally considered intellect, is meant to assess the practicality of action within your world. You will literally see only what you want to see. If the race believed that space travel was impossible, you would not have it. That is one thing; but if an individual believes that it is literally impossible for him to travel from one end of the continent to another, or to change his job, or perform any act, then the act becomes practically impossible. The idealization of motion, however, in that person's mind, or of change, may be denied expression at any given time-but it will nevertheless seek expression through experience. This applies in terms of the species as well as individuals. Because you are now a conscious species, in your terms, there are racial idealizations that you can accept or deny. Often at your particular stage of development as a race, these appear first in your world as fiction, art, or so-called pure theory.

Thoughts have their own kind of structure, as cells do, and they seek their own fulfillment. They move toward like thoughts, and you have as a species an inner mass body of thought. Privately your thoughts are expressions of your idealizations; and while expressing those inner patterns they also modify and creatively change them. Each cell in your body is to some extent altered with each thought that you think. Each reaction of the cells alters your environment. The brain then responds to the alteration. There is a constant give-and-take. As the cells respond at certain levels to ever-changing streams of probabilities, so do your thoughts. Your body responds as you think it should, however, and so your conscious beliefs about reality have much to do with those probable experiences that you accept as a part of your intimate living.

The private blueprint, yours at birth, is in certain terms far greater than any one physical materialization of it that could occur in your space and time. This provides you with areas of choice, gives you manipulability, and allows for the myriad of probable activities "possible." You are the judge and the final word in that regard, so that as your ideas change, as you move toward one probable self and decide upon that as your official3 self, you will always have a rich bank of probable actions to choose from. If only one were provided you would have no choice. The same applies to the species. Now give us a moment...

(9:45. A pause lasting well over a minute.) Your current decisions to accept one specific line of consciousness as real, and to ignore others, makes such concepts difficult to understand. You train yourselves-biologically, even-to inhibit certain stimuli, yet often the body itself responds to the very stimuli that you consciously ignore. By opening up your minds to new kinds of significances, however, you can begin to glimpse other orders of events4 with which you are quite intimately concerned.

Often, for instance, you handle probabilities very well, while remaining consciously blind to them because of your concepts. Even then, however, on other levels your unconscious reaction will follow your own conscious intents. You may make a move in physical life, for example, seemingly for one reason. You may also be unconsciously reacting to quite pertinent data regarding the probable actions of others. Because you do not really fully accept the fact that you can so react, you may block this unofficial information on the one hand, even while on the other you take it into consideration. You are far more aware than you realize of the probable future in areas with which you are concerned. This is true on all levels. If your purposes do not involve illness, for instance, and yet if you believe in contagion, you will automatically avoid circumstances that can lead to epidemics. In terms of probabilities that particular kind will not enter your experience.

Give us a moment... All of this applies en masse in terms of diseases, for example, that run rampant through a species.

Take your break.

(10:00. Jane said that noise in the house bad interfered with her trance state toward the end of her delivery, then added that she wasn't at her best tonight anyhow. As far as I could tell, though, neither the noise nor her feelings bad had any influence on the material. Resume quietly at 10:14.)

I will have more to say concerning illnesses, epidemics, and mass disorders in this book.

Consciousness, by its nature, continually expands. The nature of consciousness as you understand it as a species will, in one way or another, lead you beyond your limited ideas of reality, for your experience will set challenges that cannot be solved within your current framework. Those problems set by one level of consciousness will automatically cause breakthroughs into other areas of conscious activity, where solutions can be found.

Many of your global dilemmas seem so desperate only because in those areas you have gone as far as you can go-without going further. The problems act as stimuli in that regard. This doesn't mean that you have to experience disasters. They are not preordained. It does mean that you have chosen certain experiences, but that these will automatically lead to further creative development if you allow them to. The idealization is one of brotherhood, in terms of your species. Biologically, in your terms, such "brotherhood" operates instinctively in the cooperation of the body's cells, as they function together to form the private corporal structure. At your viewpoint you lose appreciation for the great individuality of each cell. You take it for granted that because the cells work so well together, they have no private uniqueness.

In other terms, however-social terms-you have yet to achieve the same kind of spiritual brotherhood possessed by your cells; and so you do not understand that the experience of your world is intimately connected with your own private experience. If you burn your finger it hurts immediately. Your body instantly begins a cooperative venture, in which adjustments are made so that the wound begins to heal. If a portion of the race is hurt it may take a while before "you" feel the pain, but the entire unconscious mechanism of the species will try to heal the wound. Consciously you can facilitate that development, and admit your brotherhood with all other living beings. The healing will take place far quicker if you do. A biological brotherhood exists, an inner empathy on cellular levels, connecting all individuals of the species with one another. This is the result of a biological idealization. It exists in all species, and connects all species.

The race suffers when any of its members die of starvation or disease, even as a whole plant suffers if a group of its leaves are "unhappy." In the same way all members of the species are benefited by the happiness, health, and fulfillment of any of those individuals who compose it. Man can be aware of the vast medium of probabilities in which he exists, and therefore consciously choose those best suited to those idealizations that point toward his greatest fulfillment. One part of the species cannot grow or develop at the expense of the other portions for very long.

(10:3 6.) Give us a moment... A photograph is to some extent a materialization of an idealization carried to a certain degree. At another level, your body and your experience is a far richer fulfillment, a living, presently experienced materialization. The picture of your world is still another.

PRACTICE ELEMENT 7

If you can, find a photograph of yourself as a member of a class-a graduation picture, perhaps, or a photograph of club members. Examine what you see there. Then contemplate what is not seen. Imagine the emotional reality of each person present, in the time that the photograph was taken. Then try to feel the emotional interactions that existed between the various individuals. Take your time. When you are finished, try to get a glimpse of those intimate relationships that each person had with other persons not present in the picture, but contemporary. Let your mind, after that, follow through by imagining contacts involving family interactions reaching back through time prior to the taking of the photograph. Then think of all of the probable actions that were either accepted or discarded, so that in time terms these people assembled (for the photograph) .

Biologically, there were illnesses avoided, deaths that could have occurred but did not. In space there were endless varieties of probabilities and decisions. People could have moved and did not, or others did move, and so came into that particular space area. There were an infinite number of ideas behind all of those decisions. You form your own experience. In greater terms, therefore, those people decided to be at that particular time and place, so that the photograph is the result of multitudinous decisions, and represents a focus of experience, rising from myriad probabilities. The picture of the world represents in a greater dimensional fashion the same kind of focus. Your most intimate decision affects the species. You are the creator of yourself in space and time. You also have your hand in the larger creativity of mankind's experience.

Now give us a moment, and that is the end of dictation. Take your break.

("Okay."

(10:5 0. Jane said her trance state bad been "much better" for the second delivery; certainly her manner was more forceful. Returning at 11:03, Seth finished his evening's work by speaking on other subjects until 11:28 P.M.)

Session 698, May 20, 1974, 9:28 P.M., Monday

(The regularly scheduled session for last Wednesday night wasn't held because of Jane's very relaxed state. She's been enjoying this letting-down often during the past couple of weeks. On Friday, however, while in an altered state of consciousness, she tuned into some material on Seth, dreams, and other species of consciousness; she calls it The Wonderworks, and excerpts from it are presented as Appendix 11.

(Jane had been in another lackadaisical mood most of the day, yet she'd told me after supper that she wanted to have a session tonight. At 9:15, as we sat waiting, she bad her first intimation from Seth that a session would actually take place. "And it'll be on the book... I'm not used to being so relaxed beforehand, though..." What developed was a very short session, and contrary to her expectations, Seth devoted half of it to Jane herself I bad two questions prepared, both growing out of material in "Unknown" Reality, but had to lay them aside until next time.)

Now, good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Dictation: These blueprints for reality are relatively invisible because you have allowed yourselves to forget their existence.

To pursue certain goals, you pretended that they did not exist. Now, however, your global situation as a race requires the new acquisition of some "ancient arts." These can help you become aware again of those inner idealizations that form your private reality and your mass world. They can permit you to become acquainted with other inward orders of events, and the rich bed of probabilities from which your physical existence emerges.

These arts are useless if they are not practiced-useless in that they lie ever latent, that they are not brought out into the exterior framework of your world. To use these arts requires first of all the knowledge that beneath the world you know is another; that alongside the focus of consciousness with which you are familiar there are other focuses quite as legitimate.

You dream, each of you, but there are few great dream artists. Many of the true purposes of dreams' have been forgotten, even though those purposes are still being fulfilled. The conscious art of creating, understanding, and using dreams has been largely lost; and the intimate relationship between daily life, world events, and dreams almost completely ignored. The "future" of the species is being worked out in the private and mass dreams of its members, but this also is never considered. The members of some ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians, knew how to be the conscious directors of dream activity, how to delve into various levels of dream reality to the founts of creativity, and they were able to use that source material in their physical world.2

(9:4 1.) Cellular life is affected by your dreams. Healings can take place in the dream state, where events at another order of existence alter the cells themselves. Ruburt has been exploring the reality of dream levels, and in so doing he is beginning to glimpse their significance. To some extent each reader can initiate such private journeys. They will, these dream expeditions, throw great light on the nature of personal daily experience, and they will also provide personal knowledge of the ways in which probabilities operate.

Give us a moment.. . I said earlier in this book that the world you know arises from basic unpredictability, from which significances then emerge.4 No system of reality is closed. The particular string of probable actions that you call your official experience does not just dangle, then, out in space and time-it interweaves with other such strands that you do not recognize. In the waking state the conscious mind must focus rather exclusively upon that one particular point of concentration that you call reality, simply so that it can direct your activities properly in temporal life. It is quite equipped, however, also to direct you to some extent in other levels of reality when it is not needed for specific survival duties.

Because you have in the past convinced yourselves that the conscious mind must of necessity be cut off from inner reality, you think that it must be alienated from the dream state. Following such beliefs, you find yourselves thinking of dreaming as chaotic, unreasonable, and as completely divorced from normal conscious direction, purpose, or function. It often seems that sleep is almost a small death, and psychologists have compared dreaming with controlled insanity. You have so divorced your waking and dreaming experience that it seems you have separate "lives, " and that there is little connection between your waking and dreaming hours. The rich tapestry of probable actions from which you choose your official life becomes just as invisible. This is quite needless.

Take your break.

(9:56. See the notes at the beginning of the session. As stated, Seth returned after break with a discussion of the reasons for Jane's excellent state of relaxation. Most of his material is deleted here, but I can write that her situation was tied in to her work with the challenges presented by her physical symptoms [as described in Note 8 for the 6 79th session, in Section 1]. As she comes to understand her own belief systems more and more, Jane very gradually continues her physical improvement. In the personal part of this session, then, Seth explained how her very beneficial state of ease "now began in a dream state last night, was further accelerated this morning, and further so in the relaxation just before the session... The [recent] dreams also provide additional assurance; and while dreaming, body states are altered-something physicians do not recognize."

(Seth's last statement had to do with his contention that "hormones are also automatically released into the system, encouraging either periods of activity or tranquilizing periods, according to the specific portions of the overall process [of healing]. The dreams provide a steady give-and-take between conscious and so-called unconscious activity. This is also a time of deep unconscious creativity...

(End at 10:43 P.M.)

Session 699, May 22, 1974, 9:20 PM. Wednesday

(The moods of relaxation that Jane has been experiencing often since early this month seemed to have passed, at least for now. The evening was very warm as we waited for tonight's session to start. I reminded Jane of the two questions I'd put off from P.M., Monday's abbreviated session, but Seth made only a brief reference to them at the end of tonight's material.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Dictation: In your terms a photograph freezes motion, frames the moment-or all of the moment that you can physically perceive.

In usual circumstances you may remember the emotions that you felt at the time a picture of yourself was taken, and to some extent those emotions may show themselves in gestures or facial expression. But the greater subjective reality of that moment does not appear physically in such a photograph. It completely escapes insofar as its physical appearance within that structure is concerned. In the same way the past or the future is dosed out. The particular focus necessary to produce such a picture then necessitates the exclusion of other data. That certainly is obvious. Because you must manipulate within specific time periods, you do the same kind of thing in daily life, and on a conscious level ignore or exclude much information that is otherwise available.

In a way, one remembered dream can be compared to a psychological photograph, one picture that is not physically materialized, not frozen motion, not framed by either space or time; therefore many of those ingredients appear that are necessarily left out of any given moment of waking conscious activity.

A remembered dream is a product of several things, but often it is your conscious interpretation of events that initially may have been quite different from your memory of them. To that extent the dream that you remember is a snapshot of a larger event, taken by your conscious mind. There are many kinds or varieties of dreams, some more and some less faithful to your memories of them-but as you remember a dream you automatically snatch certain portions of subjective events away from others, and try to "frame" these in space and time in ways that will make sense to your usual orientation. Even then, however, dream events are so multidimensional that this attempt is often a failure. It might be easier here, perhaps, if you compare a scene from a dream with a scene in a photograph. A photograph will show certain events natural to the time in which it was taken. It will not show, for example, a picture of a Turk at the time of the Crusades. A dream scene might portray just such a motif, however.

It will help if now and then you imaginatively think of vivid dream imagery' as if it appeared in a photograph instead. As during your lifetime you collect a series of photographs of yourself, taken in various times and places, so in the dreaming state you "collect" subjective photographs of a different kind. They do not appear in sequence, however. Nevertheless, at a conscious level they can provide you with valuable information about your future and your past.

In those normal, generally accepted terms, the images in photographs do not change, move, or alter their relationships.

The living subjective photography of dreams, however, provides a framework in which these "images" have their own mobility. They represent creativity in far different terms than you usually understand. You know what physical issue is (intently) , because you see the children of your loins, but you do not experience the children of your dreams in the same physical way, nor understand that your dream life is continuous. It has organization on its own levels that you do not comprehend, and from its rich source you draw much of the energy with which you form your daily experience. Your conscious mind is the director of that experience.

In your terms, however, you dream whether you are living or dead. When you are alive, corporally speaking, what you think of as dreaming becomes subordinate to what you refer to as your conscious waking life. You always examine your dreams then from an "alien" standpoint, one prejudiced in favor of the ordinary waking state. However, the dreaming condition is consequently experienced in distorted form. Often it does not seem clear. By contrast to waking consciousness it can appear hazy, not precise, or off-focus. This does not always apply, because in some dreams the state of alertness is undeniable.

(9:50.) For many reasons, some mentioned here and some not as yet discussed, you have closed your dreams out of your lives to a large extent. While you must of course hold accurate focus in time and place, there is still no basic reason why you must so divorce yourselves from dream experience.

Give us a moment... Some inventors, writers, scientists, artists, who are used to dealing with creative material directly, are quite aware of the fact that many of their productive ideas came from the dream condition. They see the results of dream activity in practical physical life. Many others, though untrained, can clearly trace certain decisions made in waking life to dreams. Few understand, however, that private reality is like a finished product, rising out of the immense productivity that occurs in the dreaming condition. Ruburt calls this The Wonder-works, 2 and with good reason. In waking life there are fluctuations in your consciousness, periods when you are more or less alert, in your terms, when your attention wanders from issues at hand; or when, instead, you are certainly brilliantly focused in the moment. So there are gradations of consciousness in the waking state. Usually you pay little attention to them.

The official line of consciousness that you accepted blithely ignores any deviations, and when such events occur usually continues merrily on as if nothing had happened. In the dreaming state, such fluctuations also happen. It should be obvious that there you can leap from time to time.

Much more is involved, however, for there are "separate" strands, if you prefer, of consciousness that are naturally pursued in the dream state, and these can be followed with some training and diligence. They involve probable "series" of events. For example, if one particular dream event is chosen for physical materialization, then in your reality other events will appear in due time, and in serial fashion.

You may take your break.

(10:05 to 10:25.)

Dictation: You have yourselves painted a pretty enough picture of what you think of as your own reality, as individuals and as a species. All of your institutions, beliefs, and activities seem to justify your picture, because everything within the overall "frame" will of course seem to agree.

The picture is a relatively simple one, all in all-one in which each consciousness is assumed to be directed toward a particular focus, is ensconced in one body, with its existence bounded by birth at one end and by death at the other. (Pause.) Unfortunately, that picture is as limited as any one of your photographs. You are used to examining your dream state from the viewpoint of your "waking" condition, but some time in the dream state try to examine your normal waking reality. Simply give yourself the instructions to do so. You may be quite surprised with the results. Speaking as simply as I can, and using concepts that you can understand, let me put it this way: From the other side-within what is loosely called the dream state-there is an existence quite as valid as your own, and from that viewpoint you can be considered as the dreamer. "You" are the part of you concentrating in this reality. You form it through information and through energy that on the one hand has its source outside this system, and that on the other constantly flows into this system-and so in that respect the systems are united.

Give us a moment... The same applies to all consciousness of any type or variety. In a manner of speaking, then, your cells dream. There are minute variations of electrical discharge, not now perceivable, that could pinpoint this kind of fluctuation on the part of cells, and also on the part of atoms and molecules.

In your terms, obviously, atoms do not dream of cats chasing dogs, yet (intently) there are indeed "lapses" from physical focus that are analogous to your dreaming state. Give us a moment... In those conditions the atoms pursue their own probable activities, and indeed make astounding calculations, bringing into your actuality the necessary probable actions to insure official life forms. But neither are they limited otherwise, for their other probable directions are also actualized. Period. On different levels in the dream state, then, you are also subjectively aware of other probable realities. Your conscious intent is unconsciously brought into the dreaming condition, and that intent helps you sort the data. (See Note 4.)

So, from other streams of actuality you choose those events that you want physically materialized; and you do this according to your beliefs about the nature of reality. A photograph is taken, and you have before you then a picture of an event that in your terms has already happened. In dreams you take many subjective "photographs, " and decide which ones among them you want to materialize in time. To a certain extent, therefore, the dreams are blueprints for your later snapshots.

Now take a brief break-and (humorously) tell Ruburt he will be amazed with the organization of this book.

(10:50. Jane's state of dissociation bad been excellent, her delivery rather fast around the indicated pauses. She said that Seth's last remark came about because at the supper table this evening she'd told me, as she has before, that she still hasn't read this book straight through, and has little idea of its organization. [See the appropriate note at 10:34 in the 694th session.] Then, as we ate, Jane bad asked me once again if "Unknown" Reality had any organization-or purpose: "Where's Seth going with it?" I suggested she forget such worries and let the work come out in its own way, explaining that portions of these notes were concerned with recording the circumstances surrounding just that procedure.

(After the end of break at 11:17, Seth came through with a fairly long block of material on another matter. He closed out the session at 11:43 P.M. with this line about the questions I bad waiting for him: "I bid you a fond good evening-and I know when your material will fit. "Since I take this to mean that some time may pass before the questions enter into the scheme of this book, I'll briefly note their subjects below.

(1. Seth's reference, after 9:27 in the 697th session, to our race as "a conscious species." I wanted to get his comments as to how, in our terms at least, we could be in a state other than a "conscious" one. I bad trouble visualizing such a situation.

(2. A photograph of Jane and her parents, Marie and Delmer. It was taken in the summer of 1932, when Jane was 3 years old, and as far as we know it's the only one of the Roberts family in existence. I anticipated hearing what Seth would say about some of the probable paths since taken by the photograph's three subjects. I've bad the question in mind ever since Seth discussed separate, childhood snapshots of Jane and me in the same terms during the first session for "Unknown" Reality. [See the 6 79th session, with the notes relevant to Jane and her family background. In that session, Seth told us that the 12-year-old Jane in the photo under discussion was to become probable to the one I eventually met and married.] Beside whatever Seth could tell us about her parents, I was curious to know whether the Jane who was shown at the age of 3 might be-or was destined to become-another probable Jane.)

Session 700, May 29, 1974, 9:28 PM. Wednesday

(No session was held P.M., Monday night.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Dictation: You must first of all understand that your own greater reality exists whether you are in flesh or out of it, and that your subjective experience has a far greater scope than the physical brain itself allows.

This-apart from corporal living-continues of course while you are a creature in space and time. It presents a parallel noncorporal existence, so to speak, that your brain does not register. In the sleep state you are in a connective area, where bleed-throughs occur.

New paragraph: The blueprints for reality will not be found in the exterior universe. Some other civilizations experimented with a different kind of science than the one with which you are familiar. They met with varying degrees of success in their attempts to understand the nature of reality, and it is true that their overall goals were different than yours. Such people were focusing their consciousnesses in a completely different direction. Your own behavior, customs, sciences, arts, and disciplines are in a way uniquely yours, yet they also provide glimpses into the ways in which various groupings of abilities can be used to probe into the "unknown" reality.

Art is as much a science, in the truest sense of the word, as biology is. Science as you think of it separates itself from the subject at hand. Art identifies with the subject. In your terms, then, other civilizations considered art as a fine science, and used it in such a way that it painted a very clear-cut picture of the nature of reality-a picture in which human emotion and motivation played a grand role.

Your scientists spend many long years in training. If the same amount of time were spent to learn a different kind of science, you could indeed discover far more about the known and unknown realities. There are some individuals embarked upon a study of dreams, working in the "dream laboratories"; but here, again there is prejudiced perception, with scientists on the outside studying the dreams of others, or emphasizing the physical changes that occur in the dream state. The trouble is that many in the sciences do not comprehend that there is an inner reality. (Intently:) It is not only as valid as the exterior one, but it is the origin for it. It is that world that offers you answers, solutions, and would reveal many of the blueprints that exist behind the world of your experience.

(9:53.) The true art of dreaming is a science long forgotten by your world.' Such an art, pursued, trains the mind in a new kind of consciousness-one that is equally at home in either existence, well-grounded and secure in each. Almost anyone can become a satisfied and productive amateur in this art-science; but its true fulfillment takes years of training, a strong sense of purpose, and a dedication-as does any true vocation.

To some extent, a natural talent is a prerequisite for such a true dream-art scientist. A sense of daring, exploration, independence, and spontaneity is required. Such a work is a joy. There are some such people who are quite unrecognized by your societies, because the particular gifts involved are given zero priority. But the talent still exists.

Give us a moment, and rest your hand... A practitioner of this ancient art learns first of all how to become conscious in normal terms, while in the sleep state. Then he becomes sensitive to the different subjective alterations that occur when dreams begin, happen, and end. He familiarizes himself with the symbolism of his own dreams, and sees how these do or do not correlate with the exterior symbols that appear in the waking life that he shares with others. I will have more to say about these shared symbols later, for they can become agreed upon signposts.

There are inner meeting places, then, interior "places" that serve as points of inner commerce and communication. Period. In a completely different context, they are quite as used as any city or marketplace in the physical world. This will be elaborated upon later in the book. Our dream-art scientist learns to recognize such points of correlation.

In a manner of speaking, they are indeed learning centers. Many people have dreams in which they are attending classes, for example, in another kind of reality. Whether or not such dreams are "distorted, " many of them represent a valid inner experience. All of this, however, is but a beginning for our dream-art Scientist, for he or she then begins to recognize the fact of involvement with many different levels and kinds of reality and activity. He must learn to isolate these, separate one from the other, and then try to understand the laws that govern them. As he does so, he learns that some of these realities nearly coincide with the physical one, that on certain levels events become physical in the future, for example, while others do not. He is then beginning to glimpse the blueprints for the world that you know.

(Heartily:) Take your break.

(10:10. "He just stopped so you could rest your fingers, " Jane said after coming out of an excellent trance. The rate of her delivery had been average. "It's sure funny: I can feel a whole lot more right there now, waiting to be given-but before the session, nothing. This book is different. I have to get into it in a certain deliberate way that I didn't have to for the others [Seth Speaks and Personal Reality]." Jane snapped her fingers several times. "In ESP class Seth comes through trigger fast, like be did all those times last night. But not here; yet once I get started I want to keep going. .

(Resume in the same manner at 10:26.)

Now: You manufacture articles. It has taken you centuries to reach your point of technological achievement. It seems to you then that objects come from the outside, generally speaking-for after all, do you not make them in your factories and laboratories?

In a way it seems that "artificial" or synthetic fabrics are not natural. You produce them from the outside. Yet your world is composed of quite natural products, objects that emerge, almost miraculously when you think of it, from the inside of the earth.

You work with material that is already there, provided. You mix, change, and rearrange what is already given. The entire physical universe emerges from an inside, however, and none of your manufacture would provide you with even one object, were it not for those that appeared as source materials long before. Wood, plants, all the species of the earth, the seasons and the planet itself, come from this unidentifiable inside. Physical events have the same source.

(10:35.) Give us a moment... The true scientist understands that he must probe the interior and not the exterior universe; he will comprehend that he cannot isolate himself from a reality of which he is necessarily a part, and that to do so presents at best a distorted picture. In quite true terms, your dreams and the trees outside of your windows have a common denominator: they both spring from the withinness of consciousness.

(10:39.) Simply as an analogy, look at it this way:

Your present universe is a mass-shared dream, quite valid-a dream that presents reality in a certain light; a dream that is above all meaningful, creative, based not upon chaos (with a knowing look) , but upon spontaneous order. To understand it, however, you must go to another level of consciousness-one where, perhaps, the dream momentarily does not seem so real. There, from another viewpoint, you can see it even more clearly, holding it like a photograph in your hands; at the same time you can see from that broader perspective that you do indeed also stand outside of the dream context, but in a "within" that cannot show in the snapshot because of its limitations.

Now: That is the end of dictation. Give us a moment, and we will continue.

This is personal material. First of all, however, this book will open up many very important areas, and provide guidelines for many others to follow.

(Through Seth, Jane now proceeded to deliver three pages of information for herself The session ended at 11:02 P.M.

(Much of tonight's private material is the kind that eventually appears in Jane's "own" works, such as Adventures, or is translated in her poetry. Within it are a few hints about certain more general aspects of her abilities, and those can be presented here. "Ruburt, " Seth commented, "is just beginning his own dream endeavors, which could not seriously start until be learned to have faith in his own being. " [Appendix 11 contains excerpts from The Wonderworks, the paper Jane wrote almost two weeks ago on Seth, dreams, and the creation of our reality. In my notes for The Wonderworks I described her own recent dream series-which still continues, by the way.] And: "In our case, "Seth said a bit later, "Ruburt almost 'becomes' the material be receives from me. If certain other beneficial alterations occur, and further understanding on Ruburt's part, we may be able to meet at other levels of consciousness-in the dream state, when he is not cooperating in the production of our book material. "For Jane has never met Seth, face to face, you might say, in a dream. The closest she's come to this situation is in giving a session for him in the dream state, as she does in waking life.

(Now for a couple of references concerning portions of the book material in tonight's session. Like the dream information given above, these instances demonstrate how "Unknown" Reality and the events of Jane's daily living are interwound.

(1. At the end of the paragraph of material begun at 10:35, where Seth touched upon the "withinness of consciousness": I thought his data there echoed Jane's own, as she recorded it in The Wonderworks.

(2. Then almost immediately after 10:39, when Seth referred to "chaos": His rather sly emphasis on the word didn't escape me. Currently Jane and I are reading a book written by a biologist. It has many good things in it, but we 're disturbed when we come to passages in which the author describes "life" as opposed to "nonlife "; or in which he postulates an ultimate chaos-the running-down of our universe into a final random distribution of matter-as inevitable. Such ideas are surely the projections of a limited human view, we think, and are quite misleading. Also, as we grew up independently of each other, Jane and I gradually dispensed with conventional scientific ideas that life bad occurred by chance; the emotional natures of our creative endeavors led us to question the theory. Now we don't think it's true even in ordinary scientific terms.

(Nor is the biologist's chaos the same thing as Seth's "unpredictability." As Seth tells us in the 68 1st session in Section 1: "Science likes to think that it deals with predictable action. It perceives such a small amount of data, however... that the great inner unpredictability of any molecule, atom, or wave, is not apparent... ." In connection with this, we suggest the reader study especially Seth's material from 10:00 to 10:36 in the 681st session.)

Session 701, June 3, 1974, 9:17 PM. P.M., Monday

(I finished typing last Wednesday night's session after supper this evening; in fact, Jane just bad time to read it before we sat for this one at 8:50.

(Softly:) Good evening.

("Good evening. Seth.")

Now: Give us a moment... We are speaking quietly to keep Ruburt in a particular state-but (humorously, leaning forward) , we will not whisper.

(Long pause.) The outsideness of the physical world is connected, then, with a multidimensional "insideness." That exterior world is thrust outward, however, and projected into reality in line with your conscious desires, beliefs, and intent. It is important that you remember this position of the conscious mind as you think of it. Each physical experience is unique, and while the energy for it and the creation of it come from within, the pristine, private, and yet shared quality of that experience could not exist in the same way (more emphatically) were it not so exteriorized.

The exteriorization has great purpose and meaning, then, and brings forth a different kind of expression. Though I may emphasize the importance of inner reality in this book, therefore, I am in no way denying the great validity and purpose of earthly experience. Any exercises in this book should help you enrich that experience, and understand its framework and nature. None of the exercises should be used to try to "escape" the connotations of your own earthly reality.

New paragraph: Nevertheless, the blueprints lie within. Give us a moment... We will have more to say very shortly about our dream-art scientist (see the last session) ; yet there are also other important ways that could be used to study the nature of reality. One in particular does not involve the dream state per se. It does include the manipulation of consciousness, however. To some extent it includes identification with, rather than separation from, that which is being studied.

Give us a moment... While connected with your own civilization, the man Einstein came closest perhaps in this regard, for he was able to quite naturally identify himself with various 'functions" of the universe. He was able to listen to the inner voice of matter. He was intuitively and emotionally led to his discoveries. He leaned against time, and felt it give and wobble.

The true [mental] physicist will be a bold explorer-not picking at the universe with small tools, but allowing his consciousness to flow into the many open doors that can be found with no instrument, but with the mind.

Your own consciousness as you think of it, as you are familiar with it, can indeed help lead you into some much greater understanding of the simultaneous nature of time if you allow it to. You often use tools, instruments, and paraphernalia instead-but they do not feel time, in those terms. You do. Studying your own conscious experience with time will teach you far more. Period.

(Pause at 9:40. Jane's voice had very gradually increased to a near-normal volume.)

PRACTICE ELEMENT 8

Using your conscious mind as a threshold, however, you can discover still more. Figuratively speaking, stand where

You are. Think of that moment of conscious awareness as a path. Imagine many other such paths, all converging; again, imaginatively take one of them in your mind and follow it. Accept what you experience uncritically. To some small extent you are "altering" your consciousness. (Half humorously:) Of course, you are not "altering" it at all. You are simply using it in a different fashion, and focusing it-however briefly-in another direction. This is the simplest of exercises.
Suppose that you stood in one spot all of your physical life, and that you had to do this because you had been told that you must. In such a case you would only see what was directly before you. Your peripheral vision might give you hints of what was to each side, or you might hear sounds that came from behind. Objects-birds, for example-might flash by you, and you might wonder at their motion, significance, and origin. If you suddenly turned an inch to the right or the left you would not be altering your body, but simply changing its position, increasing your overall picture, turning very cautiously from your initial position. So the little exercise above is like that.

Give us a moment... You are presently little aware of the dimensions of consciousness-your own or those seemingly "beneath" your own. The true physicist is one who would dare turn around inside his own consciousness.

Give us a moment... There are inner structures within matter. These are swirls of energy. They have more purposes than one. The structures are formed by organizations of consciousness, or CU's. You have the most intimate knowledge of the nature of a cell, for example, or of an atom. They compose your flesh. There is, in certain terms, a continuum of consciousness there of which your present physical life is a part. You are in certain kinds of communication and communion with your own cells, and at certain levels of consciousness you know this. A true physicist would learn to reach that level of consciousness at will. There were pictures drawn of cellular structures long before any technological methods of seeing them were available, in your terms.

Give us a moment... There are shapes and formations that appear when your eyes are closed that are perfect replicas of atoms, molecules, and cells, but you do not recognize them as such. There are also paintings-so-called abstracts-unconsciously produced, many by amateurs, that are excellent representations of such inner organizations.

Ruburt has at times been able to throw his consciousness into small physical instruments (computer components, for instance) , and to perceive their inner activity at the level of, say, electrons. Given time, in your terms, a knowledge of the structure of so-called particles could be quite as clearly understood by using such techniques. Now, however, your terms would not match. Yet your terms are precisely what imprison you, and lead you to the "wrong" kinds of questions.

(With amusement:) The wrong kinds of questions are the right ones for you, however, in your civilization and with your beliefs, because you want to stay within that structure to that extent. Only now are you beginning to question your methods, and even your questions. The true physicist would be able to ask his questions from his usual state of consciousness, and then turn that consciousness in other directions where he himself would be led into adventures-with-reality, in which the questions would themselves be changed. And then the answers would be felt.

(10:08. Very forcefully all through here:) But most physicists do not trust felt answers. Feeling is thought to be far less valid than a diagram. It seems you could not operate your world on feelings-but you are not doing very well trying to operate with diagrams, either!

In many cases your scientists seem to have the strange idea that you can understand a reality by destroying it; that you can perceive the life mechanism of an animal by killing it; or that you can examine a phenomenon best by separating yourself from it. So, often, you attempt to examine the nature of the brain in man by destroying the brains of animals, by separating portions of the animal brain from its components, isolating them, and tampering with the overall integrity of both the animal in question and of your own spiritual processes. By this I mean that each such attempt puts you more out of context, so to speak, with yourself and your environment, and other species. Period. While you may "learn" certain so-called facts, you are driven still further away from any great knowledge, because the so-called facts stand in your way. You do not as yet understand the uniqueness of consciousness.

(Very emphatically:) It is absurd to believe that you can learn something about consciousness by destroying it. It is absurd to believe that you can learn one iota about the inner reality of life when your search leads you to destroy it. Destruction, you see, in your terms (underlined twice) , presupposes a misunderstanding of life to begin with.

Are your hands tired?

("No, "I said, although I was feeling the pace a bit. But Jane was doing well.)

There are ways of identifying with animals, with atoms and molecules. There are ways of learning from the animals. There are methods that can be used to discover how different species migrate, for example, and then to duplicate such feats technologically if you want to. These methods do not include dissection, for what you learn that way you will not be able to use (deeper and much louder) .

In a way you are simply overexuberant, like children playing a new game. You will discover that at best you are using children's blocks. Some of you have already come to that conclusion. As this book continues, I will indeed outline some beginning proposals as to ways in which you can use your consciousness to understand the nature of reality, and to make some of those inner blueprints clear.

Take a brief break.

(10:28 to 10:45.)

Now: Even in your terms of history and serial time, as a race you have tried various methods of dealing with the physical world. In this latest venture you are discovering that exterior manipulation is not enough, that technology alone is not "the answer." Please understand me: There is nothing wrong with a loving technology.

If Einstein had been a better mathematician, he would not have made the breakthroughs that he did. He would have been too cowed. Yet even then his mathematics did hold him back, and put a kink in his intuitions. Often you take it for granted that intuitive knowledge is not practical, will not work, or will not give you diagrams. Those same diagrams of which science is so proud, however, can also be barriers, giving you a dead instead of a living knowledge. Therefore, they can be quite impractical.

I admit that I am being sneaky here; but if you did not feel the need to kill animals to gain knowledge, then you would not have wars, either. You would understand the balances of nature far better.

If you did not feel any need to destroy reality (in your terms) in order to understand it, then you would not need to dissect animals, hoping to discover the reasons for human diseases. You would have attained a living knowledge long ago, in which diseases as such did not occur. You would have understood long ago the connections between mind and body, feelings, health, and illness.

I am not saying that you would have necessarily had a perfect world, but that you would have been dealing more directly with the blueprints for reality.

(Abruptly:) End of dictation.

(10:56. With hardly a pause, Seth-Jane switched over to some material for me; the session ended at 11:16P.M. Jane's trances had been excellent throughout the evening.)

Session 702, June 10, 1974, 9:19 PM. P.M., Monday

(Last Tuesday afternoon, in our living room, Jane and I participated in a filmed television interview that is to be aired by a New York City station. The program's host and his cameraman stayed to film Jane's ESP c/ass that night. Seth came through during class, as be often does, and was at his jovial-and serious-best. Jane also sang in her trance language, Sumari.

(This will be the first time Seth has appeared on television since we did some promotional work for The Seth Material after its publication in 1970. At that time Jane spoke for Seth on two occasions from cities in the East. Reactions were excellent; she still receives an occasional call or letter about one of those shows in particular. I might add that since Seth launched "Unknown" Reality in February of this year, Jane and I have fu/filled another television commitment, and that she was the subject of a lengthy radio interview. But the pressures of work, plus our own conservative attitudes about personal publicity. have led us to pass by other such opportunities.

(The regularly scheduled session for the next night, Wednesday, was not held so that Jane could rest.)

Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

Now to begin with, dictation. Give us a moment...

Ultimately your use of instruments, and your preoccupation with them as tools to study the greater nature of reality, will teach you one important lesson: The instruments are useful only in measuring the level of reality in which they themselves exist.1 Period.

They help you interpret the universe in horizontal terms, so to speak. In studying the deeper realities within and "behind" that universe, the instruments are not only useless but misleading. I am not suggesting that their use is futile, however-merely pointing out the limitations inherently involved.

So-called objective science gives you a picture, a model, that has served well enough in its own fashion, enabling you to travel to the moon, for example, and to advance in a technology that for a time you set your hearts upon. In the framework of objective science as it now exists, however, even the technology will come up against a stone wall. Even as a means, objective science is only helpful for a while, because it will constantly run up against deeper inner realities that are necessarily shunted aside and ignored simply because of its method and attitude.2 No objective science or splendid technology alone will keep even one man or woman alive, for example, if that individual has decided to leave the flesh, or finds no joy in daily life.

(Pause.) A loving technology, again, would always add to the qualitative and spiritual deepening of experience. The inner order of existence and true science go together. The true scientist is not afraid of identifying with the reality he chooses to study. He knows that only then can he dare to begin to understand its nature. There are many unofficial scientists, true ones in that regard, unknown in this age. Many are quite ordinary people in exterior terms, with other professions. Yet it is no accident that greater discoveries are often made by ''amateurs"-those who are relatively free from official dogmas, released from the pressure to get ahead in a given field-those whose creativity flows freely and naturally in those areas of their natural interest.

(9:42.) Give us a moment... Without an identification with the land, the planet and the seasons, all of your technology will not help you understand the earth, or even use it effectively, much less fully. Without an identification with the race as a whole, no technology can save the race. (Pause, during an intent delivery.) Unless man also identifies himself with the other kinds of life with which he shares the world, no technology will ever help him understand his experience. I am speaking in very practical terms. Gadgets will, ultimately, teach you nothing about the dimensions of your own consciousness. When you use them (biofeedback, for instance) even to attain alterations of consciousness, you are programming yourselves, stepping apart from yourselves.

Give us a moment.. . Such gadgets can be useful only if they show you that such alterations are naturally possible. Otherwise, with your ideas of applied science and technology, the gadgets will be the pivoting point, and the ideas of manipulation will be stressed. In other words, unless the ideas behind objective science are altered, then gadget-produced altered states will almost certainly be used to manipulate, rather than free, consciousness.

I am not making a prediction here. I am simply pointing out one probability that exists. There have indeed been civilizations upon your planet that understood as well as you, and without your kind of technology, the workings of the planets, the positioning of stars-people who even foresaw "later" global changes. They used a mental physics. There were men before you who journeyed to the moon, and who brought back data quite as "scientific" and pertinent. There were those who understood the "origin" of your solar system far better than you. Some of these civilizations did not need spaceships. Instead, highly trained men combining the abilities of dream-art scientists and mental physicists cooperated in journeys not only through time but through space. There are ancient maps drawn from a 200-mile-or-more vantage point-these meticulously completed on return from such journeys.

There were sketches of atoms and molecules, also drawn after trained men and women learned the art of identifying with such phenomena. There are significances hidden in the archives of many archaeological stores that are not recognized by you because you have not made the proper connections-and in some cases you have not advanced sufficiently to understand the information.

Give us a moment... The particular thrust and direction of your own science have been directly opposed to the development of such inner sciences, however, so that to some extent each step in the one direction has thus far taken you further from the other. Yet all sciences are based on the desire for knowledge, and so there are intersections that occur even in the most diverse of paths; and you are at such an intersection.

Your own science has led you to its logical conclusion. It is not enough, and some suspect that its methods and attitudes have a built-in disadvantage. Physicists are going beyond themselves, so to speak, where even their own instruments cannot follow and where all rules do not apply. Even the prophet Einstein did not lead them far enough. You cannot stand apart from a reality and do any more than present diagrams of it. You will not understand its living heart or its nature.

The behavior of electrons, for example, will elude your technological knowledge-for in deepest terms what you will "perceive" will be a facade, an appearance or illusion. So far, within the rules of the game, you have been able to make your "facts" about electrons work. To follow their multidimensional activity however is another matter-(humorously:) a pun-and you need, if you will forgive me, a speedier means.

(Pause.) The blueprints for reality lie even beneath the electrons' activity. As long as you think in terms of [subatomic] particles, you are basically off the track-or even when you think in terms of waves. The idea of interrelated fields comes closer, of course, yet even here you are simply changing one kind of term for one like it, only slightly different. In all of these cases you are ignoring the reality of consciousness, and its gestalt formations and manifestations. Until you perceive the innate consciousness behind any "visible" or "invisible" manifestations, then, you put a definite barrier to your own knowledge.

Take your break.

(10:20. "1 don't know what be said about electrons and things like that, "Jane told me as soon as she was out of her hour-long trance state, "but all of this is general, and it's leading up to something more. I carried it as far as I could. Maybe we'll get more on it after break..."

('I thought it very interesting that Seth bad talked about subatomic waves and particles in the last paragraph of his delivery tonight. Such ideas involve the physicists' ongoing conception of the duality of nature. For instance: Is light made up of waves or particles? A contemporary accommodation, called complementarity, leads experimenters to accept results that show either aspect to be true. As noted in the last session, Jane had attempted to read Einstein's book on his theories of relativity earlier that day. We had briefly discussed Einstein's work and some allied subjects before tonight's session, but I hadn't asked her to give material on physics through Seth.5 In her own way, Jane is quite interested in the field, however, and has done a little work in it with scientists. We may have more to say about those efforts later in "Unknown" Reality.

(Now, however, we had time to just touch upon the data involving electrons when Jane told me that she was suddenly aware of more information on the same subject. Seth was ready. "I'll do the best I can with this, "she said, as she took off her glasses. Resume at 10:22.)

Ruburt's vocabulary is not an official scientific one. Nor for our purposes should it be-for that vocabulary is limiting.

In as simple a language as possible, and to some extent in your terms, the electron's spin determines time "sequences" from your viewpoint. In those terms, then, a reversed spin is a reversed time motion. There is much you cannot observe. There is much that is extremely difficult to explain, simply because your verbal structure alone presupposes certain assumptions. Electrons, however, spin in many directions at once, an effect impossible for you to perceive. You can only theorize about it. There are "electromagnetic momentums thus achieved and maintained, " certain stabilities that operate and maintain their own integrity, though these may not be "equal" at all portions of the spin. There are equalities set up "between" the inequalities.

Time, in your terms then, is spinning newly backward as surely as it is spinning newly (the telephone began to ring)-ignore it-into the future. And it is spinning outward and inward into all probabilities simultaneously.

(10:34. The ringing persisted for almost two minutes. I found the situation very irritating-especially since I'd forgotten to turn off the telephone's bell before the session. If there was one time when we didn't need an interruption, I thought, it was while Jane was dealing with the present kind of material. Yet she continued to speak for Seth:)

There are, nevertheless, unequal thrusts in all directions, though "equalities" can be ascertained by concentrating only upon certain portions of the spin.

Take your break.

(10:36. "I beard the phone, and tried to bold the trance through it, "Jane said. "But I don't know about this book, and ordinary people reading it. I'm just letting it all come out... It's great fun, though. I feel like I'm in the heart of things. It's only a little after ten-thirty, but I feel that I've really traveled a long way since the session started. .

(Using conventional reincarnational terms, I half jokingly asked Jane if she'd ever been a dream-art scientist, say, ornamental physicist. She said she didn't know. [We hardly ever talk about whatever personal involvement either of us might have had with reincarnation, incidentally, regardless of whether any such lives would be based upon Seth's ideas of simultaneous time and probabilities, or upon time as a series of successive moments.] Jane did know that the rest of the session would be for her, though. She was right; Seth came through at 10:55, then said good night at 11:30P.M.

(A note: Jane's very rich and vivid dream series is still underway, and she continues to keep detailed records. At times the paperwork involved keeps her busy for a couple of hours a day. She recorded five dreams last night, for instance. I last mentioned her recent dreams in Appendix 11, for Session 698. That appendix contains excerpts from The Wonderworks-material which Jane wrote last month while in an altered state of consciousness, and which was at least partly inspired by her dream series. In some of the deleted portions of these sessions, Seth has rather extensively discussed Jane's dream work and related activity. He did so again tonight. It's important to note here that Jane's dream-connected experiences include some new, and very exciting, psychic developments for her.)

Session 703, June 12, 1974, 10:01 P.M., Wednesday

(In a whisper:) Good evening.

("Good evening, Seth.")

We will begin, at least, with dictation. Give us a moment...

The multidimensional aspects of the electron cannot be perceived within your three-dimensional system, using instruments that are already predisposed or prefocused to measure only certain kinds of effects.

While this may sound quite sacrilegious scientifically, it is possible to understand the electron's nature and greater reality by using certain focuses of consciousness: by probing the electron, for example, with a "laser" [beam] of consciousness finely focused and attuned-and more will be said about this later in the book. So far in any of your investigations, you have been probing exterior conditions, searching for their interior nature.

To make this clear: When you dissect an animal, for instance, you are still dealing only with the "inside" of exterior reality, or with another level of outsideness. (Pause.) In a manner of speaking, when you probe the heavens with your instruments you are doing the same thing. There is a difference between this and the "withinness" out of which all matter springs. It is there that the blueprints for reality are found. There are various ways of studying reality. Let us take a very simple example.

Suppose a scientist found a first orange, and used every instrument available to examine it, but refused to feel it, taste it, smell it, or otherwise to become personally involved with it for fear of losing scientific objectivity.

In sense terms he would learn little about an orange, though he might be able to isolate its elements, predict where others might be found, theorize about its environment-but the greater "withinness" of the orange is not found any place inside of its skin either. The seeds are the physical carriers of future oranges, but the blueprints for that reality are what formed the seeds. In such dilemmas you are always brought back to the question of which came first, and begin another merry chase. Because you think in terms of consecutive time, it seems that there must have been a first egg, or seed.1 The blueprints for reality exist, however, in dimensions without such a time sequence.

Your closest point to the withinness of which I speak is your own consciousness, though you use it as a tool to examine the exterior universe. But it is basically free of that reality, not confined to the life-and-death saga, and at other levels deals with the blueprints for its own physical existence.

In the entire gestalt from cellular to "self" consciousness, there is a vast field of knowledge-much of it now "unconsciously" available-used to maintain the body's integrity in space and time. With the conscious mind as director, there is no reason why much of this knowledge cannot become normally and naturally available. There is, therefore, a quite valid, vital, real and vastly creative inner reality, and an inward sequence of events from which your present universe and life emerges. Any true scientist will ultimately have to learn to enter that realm of reality. So-called objective approaches will only work at all when you are dealing with so-called objective effects-and your physicists are learning that even in that framework many "facts" are facts only within certain frequencies, or under certain conditions.

You are left with "workable facts" that help you manipulate in your own backyard, but such facts become prejudice when you try to venture beyond your own cosmic neighborhood and find that your preconceived, native ideas do not apply outside of their context.

Because of your attitudes, ideas do not seem as real to you as objects, or as practical. Thoughts are not given the same validity as rocks or trees or beer cans (two of which sat on the coffee table between us at the moment) or automobiles. In your terms an automobile gets you somewhere. You do not understand the great mobility of thought, nor grasp its practical nature. You make your world, and in an important manner your thoughts are indeed the immediate personal blueprints for it. When you manipulate objects you feel efficient. The manipulation of thoughts is far more practical. Here is a brief example.

(10:36.) Your medical technology may help you "conquer" one disease after another-some in fact caused by that same technology-and you will feel very efficient as you do heart transplants, as you fight one virus after another. But all of this will do nothing except to allow people to die, perhaps, of other diseases still "unconquered." People will die when they are ready to, following inner dictates and dynamics. A person ready to die will, despite any medication. (Emphatically:) A person who wants to live will seize upon the tiniest hope, and respond. The dynamics of health have nothing to do with inoculations. They reside in the consciousness of each being. In your terms they are regulated by emotions, desires, and thoughts. A true doctor cannot be scientifically objective. He cannot divorce himself from the reality of his patient. Instead, usually, the doctor's words and very methods literally separate the patient from himself or herself. The malady is seen almost as a thing apart from the patient's person-but thrust upon it-over which the patient has little control.

The condition is analyzed, the blood is sampled. It becomes "a blood sample" to the doctor. The patient may silently shout out, "That is not just a blood sample-it is my blood you are taking." But he [or she] is discouraged from identifying with the blood of his physical being, so that even his own blood seems alien.

The blueprints for reality: In greater terms they reside within you. In private terms they are part of your being.

To some extent I am suggesting in this book a different approach. So far the blueprints for reality have been largely unknown. Your methods make them invisible, so here I am suggesting ways in which the unknown reality can become a known one. I have mentioned the dream-art scientist and the [true] mental physicist (in sessions 700-1) . I would like to add here the "complete physician.

Give us a moment.. . The complete physician would be a person who learned to understand the dynamics of being, the soul-body relationship-one who was healthy in his or her own body. Unhappy people cannot teach you to be happy. Sick ones cannot teach you to be well. Psychiatrists have a high suicide rate. Why do you think they can help you live happily, or add to your vitality? Physicians are not the healthiest of men by far. Why do you think they can cure you?

(With emphasis:) Now in your framework of beliefs the psychiatrists and the doctors are helpful. They know more than you do about the techniques upon which you all agree. While the society accepts these techniques, then you are to some extent dependent upon them, and you had better think twice before you let them go. But in greater, more vital issues, the sick doctor does not know as much about health as an "uneducated, untrained, " but healthy person-and I am speaking in quite practical terms. The person who is healthy understands the dynamics of health. In your framework it seems that his or her understanding can be of little practical value to you if you are, for instance, unhealthy. But a true medical profession would be, literally, a health profession. It would seek out people who were healthy and learn from them how to promote health, and not how to diagram disease.

This is on the most surface level, however. A true healing, or health profession, would deal intimately with the powers of the psyche in healing the body, and with the interrelationship among the desires, beliefs, and activities of the conscious mind and its effects upon the cellular behavior.

The "unknown" reality. Unknown or not, it is what you are working with.

You may take your break.

(11:09. Jane had been in a deep trance for over an hour, yet she was out of it before I finished writing Seth's last sentence. While delivering the material she'd bad an overall glimpse of the plan of "Unknown" Reality, but lost it as soon as break came. We had been talking about the book '.c organization before the session.

(Once again now, Jane wondered why the "more elaborate or complicated qualities" of her trances [she couldn't really explain what she meant here] were necessary in order for her to deliver this book, as opposed to the "easier" ones she'd experienced for Personal Reality. I suggested she forget such comparisons and think that "Unknown" Reality simply required a different approach, for whatever subjective reasons, and that perhaps her constant questioning would be taken care of as her work on it progressed.5

(During her delivery Jane had also "picked up" that Seth would soon finish this third section, and that the first three sections would make up Part 1 of the book. So far, Seth hasn't designated or titled a Part 1. Jane had received more, but she was vague on it: ".. . something to do with how each of us could be our own dream-art scientist, mental physicist, and complete physician. And there's more to come on the three classifications of man that Seth gave in that earlier session... And stuff on the lands of the mind, I think, which leads to our ancient civilizations and bow they're embedded in our minds now...

(That "earlier session" is the 68 7th, in Section 1, and in it Seth mentioned parallel man, probable man, and alternate man. But actually his material therein [and part of the beading for Section 2] grew out of the discourse Jane bad come through with on her own the night before the 68 7th session was held. See Appendix 6.

(Seth returned now at 11:40, delivered some material on my painting, among other subjects, and ended the session at 12:15A.M.)

Session 704, June 17, 1974, 9:27PM. P.M., Monday

Now - good evening.

("Good evening, Seth."

(With many pauses:) Dictation... The unknown reality, probable man, dreams, the spin of electrons, the blueprints for reality-all of these are intimately related.

Your daily personal lives are touched, are changed, are created from the interrelationships that exist among those phenomena. So, of course, your mass world is also affected. You do have free will, and in a certain fashion it can be said to be dependent upon the nature of probabilities and the multidimensional behavior of electrons.

Unpredictability does not mean chaos. All order rises out of the creative elements of unpredictability. In fact, the behavior of any object in your universe is "predictable" only because you concentrate upon such a small portion of its reality.

Unpredictability assures uniqueness, and is the opposite of predetermined motion. The great saga of recognized physical activity arises from a vast unrecognized, unpredictable dimension in which probabilities are allowed full freedom.

The full practical implication here should be understood: No course is irrevocably set or beyond change. Within the limited framework of your usual operations, however, so-called predictions may be made. They will be workable to some degree. In deeper terms however no action is set beyond alteration. The unknown reality is the source for the known one. If you want to "discover" how things work, then your journey must eventually lead you into the dimensions that lie within the world you know.

You must therefore explore the psyche, the living consciousness. It will lead you to the withinness. This is not an impractical, but very practical, endeavor in all areas. Scientifically, such studies would vastly enlarge your concepts so that a loving technology could follow the most beautiful contours of the mind, rising on the natural mountains of human abilities and then more easily into fulfillment.

Medicine would gently and expertly encourage healing processes as it more fully understood the psyche's great emotional being and needs. Learning would take advantage of the latent inner knowledge of the subjective self, and help it interpret itself in terms of physical life. The dream state would be seen as an inexhaustible fountain of information. Efforts could then be made to understand and interpret private symbolism, and individuals within a society would be taught to take advantage of their own inner data to enrich their personal lives and help the community.

I am aware that some of this sounds "retrogressive, " for I am even suggesting a situation in which politicians or statesmen would learn to "dream wisely"-and become aware of the psyche, the mass psyche, of their people, and tune into the "private oracle."

Now all of this certainly sounds unscientific to many people, yet most of my readers have already picked up a different version of the nature of science, or they would not be reading this book to begin with. The private oracle: What does that mean? And what does it have to do with the unknown reality? More, what does it have to do with the practical world? The private oracle is the voice of the inner multidimensional self-the part of each person not fully contained in his or her personhood, the part of the unknown self-structure out of which personhood, with its physical alliance, springs. Basically that portion of the psyche is outside of space and time, while enabling you to operate m it.4 It deals intimately with probabilities-(louder:) the source of all predictable action.

Because of its position it has great powers of communication, both as a receiver and as a sender. Unfortunately, science as it has developed in your time has resulted in a mistrust of the individual, and saddled him or her with a sense of powerlessness, subjectively, even while it has added a seeming sense of objective power. I say that it has seemingly added a sense of objective power (intently during a fast delivery) . For instance, your sophisticated techniques allow you to say that conditions are right for a tornado, and you will have a tornado watch (as we bad in our Elmira area not long ago) , or your instruments will pick up faint earthquake tremors, and following fault lines you will then "predict" that an earthquake will appear in another area. So it seems that you have some power over your environment. The individual person can then prepare for a potential disaster. It seems that you can seed the clouds with chemicals and bring forth rain when it is needed, and therefore obtain a power over the environment that is quite practical. You believe that you need scientific paraphernalia to achieve such ends-yet many animals are aware of such phenomena, and without such instruments. And mankind itself is innately equipped to "foresee" such potential disasters.

The physical organism itself is so equipped. Blood pressure rises in whole populations-stress signals in terms of hormones are activated, but you are not taught to recognize these natural signals. There is a give-and-take between all portions of nature. You are as natural as an animal, and as "tuned in" to the deep rhythms of the earth-those that you consciously perceive and those that are perceived by your body consciousness, but are screened out by the "official mind."

I am simply suggesting that you become more natural. Because science has made an effective barrier to that method of approach, the power seems to reside in the gadgets rather than in man. Man no longer identifies with a storm, for example, and has lost his sense of relationship with it, and therefore his natural power over it. The same applies to storms of the psyche. The dream-art scientist, the true mental physicist, the complete physician-such designations represent the kinds of training that could allow you to understand the unknown, and therefore the known reality, and so become aware of the blueprints that exist behind the physical universe. The proof is in the pudding, of course. Largely, it seems that your techniques work a good deal of the time. Let us look at medicine, for instance.

(10:16.) Your physicians can point to lives saved by sophisticated technology. You can point to diseases stamped out because of inoculations or other preventive measures, such as the intake of certain vitamins, or sanitary procedures. It seems the worst kind of idiocy to suggest that the individual has any kind of effective protection against illness or disease. (Long pause.) Almost anyone can name a family member or friend who died 30 or 40 years ago of a disease that is now completely conquered. It seems that such lives would have been saved with modem procedures. In your society a medical checkup is a must every so often.

Again, many can thankfully praise a given doctor for discovering a disease condition "in time, " so that effective countering measures were taken and the disease was eliminated. You cannot know for sure, of course, what would have happened otherwise. You cannot know for sure what happened to those people who wanted to die. If they did not die of the disease, they may have "fallen prey" to an accident, or died in a war, or in a natural disaster.

They may have been "cured" whether or not they had treatment, and gone on to lead productive lives. You do not know. A man or woman who is ready to die, if saved from one disease will promptly get another, or find a way of fulfilling that desire. Your problem there rests with the will to live, and with the mechanics of the psyche. The complete physician would try to understand the inner mechanics of vitality and, as best he could, learn to encourage these.

He would try to ascertain the patterns of the psyche, and follow them. He would encourage the patient to tune into the private oracle in order to ascertain his or her own purposes in physical life, and to reinforce spiritual strength. The complete physician would be an individual, (male or female) , who was in superb health, and therefore understood himself the particular dynamics that operate between spiritual vitality and physical well-being. (Intently:) That would be his speciality.

We are indeed speaking of a somewhat ideal situation here, from your viewpoint. Yet you will not learn the mechanics of health by putting yourself in a hospital. You may be cured of a particular disease, but unless you learn more about the dynamics of your being, you will simply "fall prey" to another. The same applies to all levels of activity. You may discover how to be happy by association with a happy person, but you definitely will not discover that answer by associating with those who are miserable. They will only teach you what unhappiness is like-if you do not know already.

Each individual is a universe in a small package. (A one-minute pause.) As the physical planets move in order while being individual, so there can be a social order that is based upon the integrity of the individual. But that order would recognize the inner validity that is within the self; and the inner order, unseen, that forms the integrity of the physical body, likewise would form the integrity of the social body. The self, the individual, being its fulfilled self, would automatically function for the good of itself and for the good of society. The individual's good, therefore, is the society's good, and represents spiritual and physical fulfillment. This presupposes, however, an understanding of the inner self and an exploration into the unknown reality of the individual psyche.

You may take your break.

(10:42 to 11:05.)

Dictation: To some extent, each individual who wants to can become aware of the "unknown" reality-can become his or her own dream-art scientist, mental physicist, or complete physician, and begin to explore those lands of the psyche that are the real frontier.

Such a journey will illuminate not only the private aspects of reality, but the experience of the species as well. Period. End of section.

(11:06. And [added later] end of Volume 1 of "Unknown" Reality. This 704th session continues briefly in Volume 2, where Seth gives the beading for Section 4 [which opens that second volume]; then be adds a few words of personal material for Jane and me before saying good night at 11:21 P.M. The notes for tonight's session are presented below, however, since all of them refer to material already given.)

Session 705, June 24, 1974, 9:09 P.M., Monday

(The 704th session was held a week ago. In it Seth gave the heading for Section 4, just before finishing his evening's work with a few minutes of personal information for Jane and me. He's remarked more than once that he'll close a session by dictating the heading for the next chapter, or whatever, "so that Ruburt [Jane] knows what Jam doing It gives him confidence." But I'd say his procedure also helps satisfy Jane's spontaneous impatience about learning what's coming next in the material.

(In this case, though, too much time passed between sessions. The regularly scheduled session for last Wednesday night wasn't held while we made ready for several approaching events, and as the days went by Jane [and I] simply forgot about what was coming up in "Unknown" Reality. I read her the heading for Section 4 now, while we waited for Seth to come through. "I haven't the vaguest idea, even, of what all that means, " she said. Usually a certain kind of serene existence makes the best kind of day-by-day framework for these sessions and our other creative work, even while those days may contain within them points of unusual interest or excitement [such as Jane's weekly ESP class]. But given that right kind of equanimity, time-our ordinary time-slides by; then, looking back periodically, we discover that we've accomplished at least something of what we wanted to do.

(One of the events we've been preparing for is the visit tomorrow of Tam Mossman, Jane's editor at Prentice-Hall, Inc He plans to attend ESP class tomorrow night, then stay over Wednesday to read and discuss the two works Jane has in progress, Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology, and "Unknown" Reality Tam will also look at my first rough sketches for Jane's book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time.1 Then on Wednesday night he'll witness the scheduled 706th session. If Seth comes through with material for "Unknown" Reality Tam will be the first "outsider" to sit in on a session for this work Almost always Jane dictates book material without witnesses other than myself and uses the framework of ESP class for emotional interactions involving herself Seth, and others. That rather formal division in her trance activities suits us well; we enjoy doing most of our work by ourselves, no matter what kind it may be.

(The atmosphere in our second-story living room was very pleasant and prosaic this evening We had lights on in the approaching dusk From the busy intersection just west of our apartment house the sounds of traffic rose up through the open windows. Jane smoked a cigarette and sipped a beer as she waited for the session to start she was in the process of turning her consciousness inward, actually, on her way to meet Seth in a nonphysical journey that had nothing to do with our ordinary concepts of space or distance.

(When that meeting took place, Jane was in trance; off came her glasses; once again she'd met Seth on the psychological bridge the two of them had established when these sessions began, over a decade ago. Seth has explained such a connective as "a psychological extension, a projection of characteristics on both of our parts, and this I use for our communications... it is like a road that must be kept clear of debris.'

(As is usually the case in our private sessions, Jane's Seth voice was only a little deeper than her own regular one. Her Seth accent however, was quite unique. I often think it bears traces of a European heritage-but one that's impossible to pinpoint by country. Her eyes in trance were much darken and seemingly without highlights.)

Good evening.

("Good evening Seth.")

Dictation: Let us begin this section with a brief discussion concerning "evolution."

For now think of it as you usually do, in a time context It has been fashionable in the past to believe that each species was oriented selfishly toward its own survival. Period. Each was seen in competition with all other species. In that framework cooperation was simply a by-product of a primary drive toward survival. One species might use another, for instance. Species were thought to change, and "mutants" form, because of a previous alteration in the environment, to which any given species had to adjust or disappear. The motivating power was always projected outside (underlined) .

All of this presented a quite erroneous picture. Physically speaking, earth itself has its own kind of gestalt consciousness. If you must, then think of that earth consciousness as grading (spelled) upward in great slopes of awareness from relatively "inert" particles of dust and stone through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Even then, remember that those kingdoms are not so separate after all. Each one is highly related to each of the others. Nothing happens in one such kingdom that does not affect the others. A great, gracious cooperation exists between those seemingly separate systems, however. If you will remember that even atoms and molecules have consciousness, then it will be easier for you to understand that there is indeed a certain kind of awareness that unites these kingdoms.

In your terms, consciousness of self did not develop because of any exterior circumstances in which your species won out, so to speak. In fact, that consciousness of self in any person is dependent upon the constant, miraculous cooperations that exist between the mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds.3 The inner intent always forms any exterior alteration. This applies on any scale you use. Consciousness forms the environment The environment itself is conscious (forcefully) . Atoms and molecules themselves operate in their own fields of probabilities. In their own ways, they "yearn" toward all probable developments. When they form living creatures they become a physical basis for species alteration. The body's adaptability is not simply an adjusting mechanism or quality. The cells have inner capabilities you have not discovered. They contain within themselves memory of all the "previous" forms they have been a part of.

I would like to make an aside here: In certain terms, you cannot destroy life by a nuclear disaster. You would of course destroy life as you know it, and in your terms bring to an end, if the conditions were right (or wrong) , life forms with which you are familiar. In greater terms, however, mutant life would emerge-mutant only by your standards-but life quite natural to itself.

(9:38.7 To return to our main subject of the moment The fact is that the so-called process of evolution is highly dependent upon the cooperative tendencies inherent in all properties of life and in all species. There is no transmigration of souls, in which the entire personality of a person "comes back" as an animal. Yet in the physical framework there is a constant intermixing, so that the cells of a man or a woman may become the cells of a plant or an animal, 4 and of course vice versa. The cells that have been a part of a human brain know this in their way. Those cells that now compose your own bodies have combined and discombined many times to form other portions of the natural environment

This inner and yet physical transmigration of consciousness has always been extremely important, and represents a natural method of communication, uniting all species and all physical life. Inside all physical organisms, therefore, there is a thrust for development and change, even as there is also a pattern of stability within which such alterations can take place.

Give us a moment... Historically, of course, you follow a one-line pattern of thought, so you see a picture in which fish left the oceans and became reptiles; from these mammals eventually appeared, and apes and men. That is, I admit, a simple statement, but it is the way most people think evolution occurred. The terms of "progression" are tricky. You never imagine the situation being reversed, for example. Few of you ever imagine a conscious reptilian man. It seems to you that the direction you took is the only direction that could have been taken.

Give us a moment... You identify a highly evolved self-consciousness with your own species development, and with your own kind of perceptive mechanisms. You apply these as rules or conditions whenever you examine any other kind of life. In your system of probabilities there are no reptilian men or women, yet in other probabilities they do indeed exist I mention this only to show you that the evolutionary system you recognize is but one such system. (Intently:) The physical basis rests latently within your own cellular structure, however. You think that evolution is finished. Its impetus, however, comes from within the nature of consciousness itself It always has. In some quarters it is fashionable these days to say that man's consciousness is now an element in a new kind of evolution-but that "new consciousness" has always been inherent You are only now beginning to recognize its existence. Every consciousness is aware of itself as itself.5 Each consciousness, then, is self-aware. It may not be self-aware in the same way that you are. It may not reflect upon its own condition. On the other hand, it may have no need to.

(10:02.) Give us a moment... So-called future developments of your species are now dependent upon your ideas and beliefs. This applies genetically in personal terms. For instance, if you believe that you can live to a health and happy old age, well into your nineties, then even in Western civilization you will do so. Your emotional intent and your belief will direct the functioning of your cells and (emphatically) bring out in them those properties and inherent abilities that will ensure such a condition. There are groups of people in isolated places who hold such beliefs, and in all such cases the body responds. The same applies to the race-or the species, to be more exact There is an inexhaustible creativity within the cells themselves, that you are not using as a species because your beliefs lag so far behind your innate biological spirituality and wisdom. Your ideas are beginning to change. But unless you alter your framework you will continue to emphasize medical and technological manipulation. Period. In isolated cases this will show you some of the results possible on a physical basis alone. However, such techniques will not work in mass terms, or allow you, say, to prolong effective, productive life unless you change your beliefs in other areas also, and learn the inner dynamics of the psyche.

(The telephone started to ring. I jumped. Once again, I'd forgotten to turn off the bell before the session began. As Seth, Jane stared up at me.)

Take your break.

(10:14. The call was from out of town. A young man had finished reading The Seth Material this evening He had many questions-and was too impatient to finish the letter to Jane that he'd just started. His enthusiastic response was one we'd experienced many times before. I talked to him for a few minutes while Jane rested after coming out of trance, and suggested that he call her later in the week Resume at 10:36.)

Now: It is true, then, that the cells do operate on the one hand apart from time, and on the other with a firm basis in time, so that the body's integrity as a time-space organism results.

It is true that on a conscious level you do not as yet operate outside of time, but are bound by it. When you learn to free yourselves from those dimensions to some extent, you are not simply duplicating or "returning" to some vaster condition, but adding a new element to that condition. The kind of self-awareness you have is unique, but all kinds are unique. Each triumph you make as an individual is reflected in your species and in its cellular knowledge.

Give us a moment... In a way you are all your own mutants, creatively altering cellular formations. Period. When your fate seems dependent upon heredity, for example, then the transmission of ideas and beliefs operates; these give signals to the chromosomes. They cause miniature self-images, so to speak, that are mirrored in the cells. In many cases these images can be altered, but not with the technology that you have.

(Long pause at 10:48.) Give us a moment... (Over a one-minute pause. Then quietly:) Basically, cellular comprehension straddles time. There is, then, a way of introducing "new" genetic information to a so-called damaged cell in the present' This involves the manipulation of consciousness, basically, and not that of gadgets, as well as a time-reversal principle. First the undesirable information must be erased. It must be erased in the "past" in your terms. Some, but very few, psychic healers do this automatically without realizing what they are doing. The body on its own performs this service often, when it automatically rights certain conditions, even though they were genetically imprinted. The imprints become regressive. In your terms, they fade into a probable series of events that do not physically affect you.

End of dictation, .

(Pause at 10:57. After delivering material on several other subjects, Seth said good night at 11:20 P.M.)

Session 707, July 1, 1974, 9:21 P.M., Monday

(The 706th session was held as scheduled last Wednesday night and our guest, Tam Mossman, did witness it-but since Seth didn't come through with any dictation for "Unknown" Reality during the session, it's hereby deleted.

(Earlier this evening I reminded Jane of the conversation about cells, versus their components, that we'd had because of Seth's material at 9:38 in Session 705. Some of tonight's book work refers to the questions growing out of our talk, I think, as does Seth's brief clarification near the end of the session.)

Now: Good evening.

("Good evening Seth.")

Dictation... The cells of course are changing. The atoms and molecules within them are always in a state of flux. The CU's that are within all matter have a memory bank that would far surpass any computer's. As cellular components, the atoms and molecules, therefore, carry memory of all the forms of which they have been part

At deep levels the cells are always working with probabilities, and comparing probable actions and developments in the light of genetic information. The most intricate behavior is involved and calculations instantly made, for instance, before you can take one step or lift your finger. This does not involve only the predictive behavior of the physical organism alone, however. At these deeper levels the cellular activity includes making predictive judgments about the environment outside of the body. The body obviously does not operate alone, but in relationship with everything about it. When you want to walk across the room, the body must not only operate using hindsight and "prediction" as far as its own behavior is concerned, but it must take into consideration the predictive activity of all of the other elements in that room.

Give us a moment... At basic levels, of course, the motion of a muscle involves the motion of cells and of cellular components. Here I am saying that the atoms and molecules themselves, because of their characteristics, not only deal with probabilities within the body's cellular structure, but also help the body make predictive judgments about entities or objects outside of itself.

(Pause, then humorously:) You "know" that a chair is not going to chase you around the room, for instance-at least the odds are against it You know this because you have a reasoning mind, but that particular kind of reasoning mind knows what it knows because at deep levels the cells are aware of the nature of probable action. The beliefs of the conscious mind, however, set your goals and purposes. "You" are the one who decides to walk across the floor, and then all of these inner calculations take place to help you achieve your goal. The conscious intent, therefore, activates the inner mechanisms and changes the behavior of the cells and their components.

In far greater terms, the goals set consciously by your species also set into operation the same kind of inner biological activity. The goals of the species do not exist apart from individual goals. As you go about your life, therefore, you are very effectively taking part in the "future" developments of your species. Period. Let us look for a moment at the private psyche.

(9:48.) The "private psyche" sounds like a fine term, but it is meaningless unless you apply it to your psyche. A small amount of self-examination should show you that in a very simple way you are always thinking about probabilities. You are always making choices between probable actions and alternate courses. A choice presupposes probable acts, each possible, each capable of actualization within your system of reality. Your private experience is far more filled with such decisions than you usually realize. There are tiny innocuous instances that come up daily: "Shall I go to the movies, or bowling?" "Shall I brush my teeth now or later?" "Should I write to my friend today or tomorrow?" There are also more pertinent questions having to do with careers, ways of life, or other deeper involvements. In your terms, each decision you make alters the reality that you know to one degree or another.

PRACTICE ELEMENT 9

For an exercise, keep notes for a day or so of all the times you find yourself thinking of probable actions, 2 large or small. In your mind, try to follow "what might have happened" had you taken the course you did not take. Then imagine what might happen as a result of your chosen decisions. You are a member of the species. Any choice you make privately affects it biologically and psychically.

You can literally choose between health and illness; between a concentration upon the mental more than the physical, or upon the physical more than the mental. Such private decisions affect the genetic heritage of the species. Your intent is all-important-for you can alter your own genetic messages3 within certain limits. You can cause a cell, or a group of cells, to change their self-image, for example; and again, you do this often-as you healed yourselves of diseases because of your intent to become well. The intent will be conscious, though the means may not be. Period. In such a case, however, the self-healing qualities of the cells are reinforced, and the self-healing abilities of the species are also strengthened.

Take your break.

(10:05 to 10:32.)

Now: Your private psyche is intimately concerned with your earthly existence, and in your dream state you deal with probable actions, and often workout in that condition the solutions to problems or questions that arise having to do with probable sequences of events.'

On many occasions then you set yourself a problem-"Shall I do this or that?"-and form a dream in which you follow through the probable futures that would "result" from the courses available. While you are sleeping and dreaming, your chemical and hormonal activity faithfully follows the courses of the dreams. Even in your accepted reality, then, to that extent in such a dream you react to probable events as well as to the events chosen for waking physical experience. Your daily life is affected, because in such a dream you deal with probable predictabilities. You are hardly alone, however, so each individual alive also has his and her private dreams, and these help form the accepted probability sequence of the following day, and of "time to come." The personal decisions all add up to the global happenings on any given day.

Give us a moment... (Long pause, eyes closed.) There are lands of the mind. That is, the mind has its own "civilizations, " its own personal culture and geography, its own history and inclinations. But the mind is connected with the physical brain, and so hidden in its [the brain's] folds there is an archaeological memory. To some extent what you know now is dependent upon what will be known, and what has been known, in your terms. The "past" races of men live to that extent within your Now, as do those who will seemingly come after. So, ideally speaking, the history of your species can be discovered quite clearly within in the psyche; and true archaeological events are found not only by uncovering rocks and relics, but by bringing to light, so to speak, the memories that dwell within the psyche.

Now that is the end of dictation.

(10:4 5. Next, Seth came through with a page of information for Jane and me. In it were these lines: "I believe, incidentally, that I cleared up your question for you. Cells, as entities, do not drop off [the physical form] like apples. I was using I suppose, a kind of shorthand I believed was clear in the context given."

(End at 11:01 P.M.)

Session 708, September 30, 1974, 8:58 P.M., Monday

(Jane and I hadn't realized it at first but we were to take a long rest from work on "Unknown" Reality following the 707th session, for July 1. We were busy during the next 14 weeks of course; there follow a few notes about some of our activities, grouped together by subject matter rather than chronology.

(We did have a few "deleted" sessions for ourselves. Jane also kept her ESP class going and within that spontaneous format she often spoke for Seth, or sang in Sumarz, 1 her trance language. The break in book dictation gave me time to begin attending class regularly, and I plan to continue doing so. And when I began sitting in on class, I discovered anew that its loose structure served as a catalyst for certain little psychic events that I find most enjoyable: Tuesday night is class nigh4 and often such an experience takes place as I rest for ha If an hour late that afternoon. I record each episode [no matter when I have it]. Sometimes I make a drawing also, and use that to supplement my description of the event in class.

(Following the conference with her editor late in June, Jane has devoted herself to finishing her manuscript for Adventures, while I've worked steadily on the diagrams for it as well as on the drawings for Dialogues. I completed the detailed pencil guides for both sets of art this week. Next comes the finished work for publication, which I'll produce by placing a sheet of clear acetate over each guide, then rendering on that untouched surface the final version in "line, " or pen and ink. This is my own system, the acetate, riding above the penciled outlines, leaves me free to search for various spontaneous effects that are quite inhibited if I try to follow those preliminary images too literally. Then in late August, long before I had the 16 diagrams [plus two other pieces of art] done for Adventures, I mailed to Prentice-Hall Jane's completed manuscript for that book. Adventures is scheduled for publication in mid-1975, but I'll continue referring to it in these notes.

(In the meantime, on Saturday morning July27, Jane received her first copy of The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book, from her publisher. She was delighted. So was I. The book's physical appearance was most pleasing to us. As an artist, I'm very conscious of whether I think the "package" equals its contents, though since she is verbally oriented this is less important to Jane.

(However, the emergence of Personal Reality into the marketplace soon resulted in an increase in the number of letters and calls that we'd been receiving requests for personal appearances also mounted. We're no longer into that activity for a number of reasons; yet when the host for a Miami, Florida, radio show called Jane early this morning [September30] about the possibility of a taped interview, she impulsively suggested to that rather startled individual that the tape be made then-and so for ha If an hour she exchanged with him a free, unrehearsed dialogue about her work for later airing.

(Just as I had some small psychic adventures during our time off from "Unknown" Reality Jane did too. One of hers that I'll mention here is related to published material. During the night following the arrival of that first copy of Personal Reality while lying quietly beside me in an altered state of consciousness, Jane received information of how "the ancients paralyzed the air." It could then be walked upon and manipulated in various other ways. She woke me up to tell me about the experience, and to remind her to write an account of it the next day. She couldn't identify its source, except to say that she hadn't been dreaming. At the breakfast table, I told her I thought the material was connected to the sessions in Personal Reality on the interior sound, light;. and electromagnetic values "around or from which" the physical image forms. Involved here also, I added, were certain ideas in her novel, The Education of Oversoul Seven.

(I haven't read "Unknown" Reality since I finished typing the last session for it over three months ago; Jane had reviewed all of Seth's material on the book last week, yet still had to remind herself today of the contents of that [70 7th] session. While we went over it this afternoon I became aware of a familiar, though infrequent, sound: the honking of geese. It was the kind of transient commotion I could listen to indefinitely. The southbound flight was soon out of sight in the rainy sky, and in another few moments it was out of hearing.

(I took the sign of migration as a good omen, though, for the circumstances of the flight were strongly reminiscent of those described at the beginning of the 68 7th session, in Volume 1 of "Unknown" Reality. It had been raining then, too, on that day last March-and as I wrote at the time in some half-romantic fashion I've hooked up the flights of geese with Jane's and my work on the Seth books. I'm still surprised that I've done so, for whatever reasons; but we're ready to dig in for a winter's work.

(As we sat waiting for the session at 8:50 Jane felt a little nervous; she often does after a lay off from book dictation. But she laughed, as she has before in such cases: "I just want to get it-the beginning-over with." At 8:5 5, moving closer to that familiar dissociated state, approaching that psychological bridge which serves as a common meeting ground for Seth and herself she announced that she felt "a rather generalized idea of what Seth will say on the book stuff" Less clear were some data about herself but she thought Seth would cover all of that along with his material on "Unknown" Reality. "I guess we'll start out with the book...."

(Jane's delivery as Seth was good. Indeed, it was oft en fast;, with no sense of the three-month break that had ensued since the 70 7th session.)

Good evening.

("Good evening Seth.")

Now, dictation: Consciousness operates with what you may call code (spelled) systems. These are beyond count Consciousness differentiates itself; therefore, by operating within certain code systems that help direct particular kinds of focus, bringing in certain kinds of significances3 while blocking Out other data.

These other data, of course, might well be significant in different code systems. In their way, however, these systems are interrelated, so that at other levels there is communication between them-secondary data, you might say, that is supportive but not primarily concentrated upon.

These code systems involve molecular constructions and light values, 4 and in certain ways the light values are as precisely and effectively used as your alphabet is. For example, certain kinds of life obviously respond to spectrums with which you are not familiar-but beyond that there are electromagnetic ranges, or rather extensions of electromagnetic ranges, completely unknown to you, to which other life forms respond.

Again, all of these code systems5 are interrelated. In the same way, the private psyche contains withinifl7iints and glimpses of other alternate realities. These operate as secondary codes, so to speak, beneath the existence that you officially recognize. Such secondary systems can tell you much about the potentials of human reality, those that are latent but can at any time be "raised" to primary importance. Such secondary systems also point toward the probable developments possible for individuals or species.

All of the probabilities practically possible in human development are therefore present to some extent or another in each individual. Any biological or spiritual advancement that you might imagine will of course not come from any outside agency, but from within the heritage of consciousness made flesh. Generally, those alive in this century chose a particular kind of orientation. The species chose to specialize in certain kinds of physical manipulation, to devote its energies in certain directions. Those directions have brought forth a reality unique in its own fashion. Man has not driven himself down a blind alley, in other words. He has been studying the nature of his consciousness-using it as if it were apart from the rest of nature, and therefore seeing nature and the world in a particular light6 That light has finally made him feel isolated, alone, and to some extent relatively powerless (intently)

(Rapidly:) He is learning how to use the light of his own consciousness, and discovering how far one particular method of using it can be counted upon. He is studying w at he can do and not do with that particular focus. He is now discovering that he needs other lights also, in other words-that he has been relying upon only a small portion of an entire inner searchlight that can be used in many directions. Let us look at some of those other directions that are native to man's consciousness, still waiting to be used effectively.

I am speaking in your historical terms because before the historical system that you recognize, man had indeed experimented with these other directions, and with some success. This does not mean that man in the present has fallen from some higher spiritual achievement to his current state.

(Pause at 9:16.) There are cycles in which consciousness forms earthly experience, and maps out historical sequences. So there have been other species of mankind beside your own, each handling physical data in its own way. Some have taken other directions, therefore, than the one that you have chosen. Even those paths are latent or secondary, however, within your own private and mass experience. They reside within you, presenting you with alternate realities7 that you may or may not choose privately or en masse, as you prefer.

Each system, of course, brings forth its own culture, "technology, " art, and science. The physical body is basically equipped to maintain itself as a healthy long-living organism far beyond your present understanding, medically speaking. The cellular comprehension provides all kinds of inner therapeutics that operate quite naturally. There is a physical give-and-take between the body and environment beyond that which you recognize; an inner dynamics here that escapes you, that unites the health of plants, animals, and men. In the most simple and mundane of examples, if you are living in a fairly well-balanced, healthy environment, your houseplants and your animals will also be well. You form your environment and you are a part of it You react to it, often forgetting that relationship. Ideally the body has the capacity to keep itself in excellent health-but beyond that, to maintain itself at the highest levels of physical achievement The exploits of your greatest athletes give you a hint of the body's true capacity. In your system of beliefs, however, those athletes must train and focus all of their attention in that direction, often at the expense of other portions of their own experience. But their performances show you what the body is capable of.

The body is equipped, ideally again now, to rid itself of any diseases, and to maintain its stability into what you would call advanced old age, with only a gradual overall change. At its best, however, the change would bring about spiritual alterations. When you leave for a vacation, for example, you dose down your house. In these ideal terms, death would involve a dosing down of your [physical] house; it would not be crumbling about you.

(Pause at 9:34.) Now, certain individuals glimpse this great natural healing ability of the body, and use it. Doctors sometimes encounter it when a patient with a so-called incurable disease suddenly recovers. "Miraculous" healings are simply instances of nature unhampered. Complete physicians, as mentioned earlier, ' would be persons who understood the true nature of the body and its own potentials-persons who would therefore transmit such ideas to others and encourage them to trust the validity of the body. Some of the body's abilities will seem impossible to you, for you have no evidence to support them. Many organs can completely replace themselves; diseased portions can be replaced by new tissue.

(Pause, in a slower delivery.) Many people, without knowing it, have developed cancer and rid themselves of it Appendixes removed by operations have grown back. These powers of the body are biologically quite achievable in practical terms, but only by a complete change of focus and belief. Your insistence upon separating yourselves from nature automatically prevented you from trusting the biological aspects of the body, and your religious concepts further alienated you from the body's spirituality.

In your reality, your consciousness is usually identified with the body, on the other hand-that is, you think of your consciousness as being always within your flesh. Yet many individuals have found themselves outside of the body, fully conscious and aware (including Jane and me) .

(9:4 5. Jane left her trance state very easily, as she usually does. "Well, " I asked her, "how do you feel now?"

("It's good to be back with the book sessions, " she replied; smiling.

(We sat quietly. We could hear the automobiles swooshing across the new Walnut Street Bridge that lifted gracefully over the Chemung River, less than a quarter of a block from our apartment house; it had been raining earlier this evening and the traffic noise was softened Incidentally, in a brief ceremony, the four-lane span had been opened to the public just this morning. Its old-fashioned predecessor had been destroyed by Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972; see my notes for the 613th session in Chapter 1 of Personal Reality.

(Resume at a slower pace at 9:5 6.)

Under certain conditions, therefore, the body can maintain itself while the "main consciousness" is away from it. The body consciousness is quite able, then, to provide the overall equilibrium. At certain levels of the sleep state this does in fact happen. In sleepwalking the body is active, but the main consciousness is not "awake." It is not manipulating the body. The main consciousness is elsewhere. Under such conditions the body can perform tasks and often maneuver with an amazing sense of balance. This finesse, again, hints at physical abilities not ordinarily used. The main consciousness, because of its beliefs, often hampers such manipulability in normal waking life.

Let us look for a moment at the body consciousness.

It is equipped, as an animal is, to perform beautifully in its environment You would call it mindless, since it would seem not to reason. For the purpose of this discussion alone, imagine a body with a fully operating body consciousness, not diseased for any reason or defective by birth, but one without the overriding ego-directed consciousness that you have. There have been species of such a nature. In your terms they would seem to be like sleepwalkers, yet their physical abilities surpassed yours. They were indeed as agile as animals-nor were they unconscious. They simply dealt with a different kind of awareness.

In your terms they did not have [an overall] purpose, yet their purpose was simply to be. Their main points of consciousness were elsewhere, in another kind of reality, while their physical manifestations were separate. Their primary focuses of consciousness were scarcely aware of the bodies they had created. Yet even those bodies learned, in quotes now, "through experience, " and began to "awaken, " to become aware of themselves, to discover time, or to create it Period.

(Pause.) The sleepwalkers, as we will call them, were not asleep to themselves, and would seem so only from your viewpoint There were several such races of human beings. Their [overall] primary experience was outside of the body. The physical corporal existence was a secondary effect. To them the real was the dream life, which contained the highest stimuli, the most focused experience, the most maintained purpose, the most meaningful activity, and the most organized social and cultural behavior. Now this is the other side of your own experience, so to speak. Such races left the physical earth much as they found it The main activity, then, involved consciousness apart from the body. In your terms, physical culture was rudimentary.

Now the physical organism as such is capable of that kind of reality system. It is not better or worse than your own. It is simply alternate behavior, biologically and spiritually possible. No complicated physical transportation systems were set up. In the physical state, in what you would call the waking state, these individuals slept To you, comparatively speaking, their waking activities would seem dreamlike, and yet they behaved with great natural physical grace, allowing the body to function to capacity. They did not saddle it with negative beliefs of disease or limitation. Such bodies did not age to the extent, now, that yours do, and enjoyed the greatest ease and sense of belonging with the environment

(10:24.) Consciousness connected with the flesh, then, has great leeway spiritually and biologically, and can focus itself in many ways with and through the flesh, beside your own particular orientation. There have been highly sophisticated, developed civilizations that would not be apparent to you because the main orientation was mental or psychic, while the physical race itself would seem to be highly undeveloped.

In some of their own private dreams, many of my readers will have discovered a reality quite as vivid as the normal one, and sometimes more so. These experiences can give you some vague hint of the kind of existence I am speaking of." There are also physical apparatuses connected with the hibernation abilities of some animals that can give further dues as to the possible relationships of consciousness to the body. Under certain conditions, for example, consciousness can leave the corporal mechanism while it remains intact-functioning, but at a maintenance level. When optimum conditions return, then the consciousness reactivates the body. Such behavior is possible not only with the animals. In systems different from your own, there are realities in which physical organisms are activated after what would seem to you to be centuries of inactivity-again, when the conditions are right To some extent your own life-and-death cycles are simply another aspect of the hibernation principle as you understand it. Your own consciousness leaves the body almost in the same way that messages leap the nerve ends.'3 The consciousness is not destroyed in the meantime.

Now in the case of an animal who hibernates, the body is in the same state. But in the greater hibernation of your own experience, the body as a whole becomes inoperable. The cells within you obviously die constantly. The body that you have now is not the one that you had 10 years ago; its physical composition has died completely many times since your birth, but, again, your consciousness bridges those gaps (with gestures) . They could be accepted instead, in which case it would seem to you that you were, say, a reincarnated self at age 7 (intently) , or 14 or 21. The particular sequence of your own awareness follows through, however. In basic terms the body dies often, and as surely as you think it dies but once in the death you recognize. On numerous occasions it physically breaks apart, but your consciousness rides beyond those "deaths." You do not perceive them. The stuff of your body literally falls into the earth many times, as you think it does only at the "end of your life."

Again, your own consciousness triumphantly rides above those deaths that you do not recognize as such. In your chosen three-dimensional existence, however, and in those terms, your consciousness finally recognizes a death. From the outside it is nearly impossible to pinpoint that intersection of consciousness and the seeming separation from the body. There is a time when you, as a consciousness, decide that death will happen, when in your terms you no longer bridge the gap of minute deaths not accepted.

(Pause at 10:43, during a strong delivery.) Here consciousness decides to leave the flesh, to accept an official14 death. You have already chosen a context, however, and it seems that that context is inevitable. It appears, then, that the body will last so long and no longer. The fact remains that you have chosen the kind of consciousness that identifies with the flesh for a certain period of time.

Other species of consciousness-of a different order entirely, and with a different rhythm of experience-would think of a life in your terms as a day, and have no trouble bridging that gap between apparent life, death, and new life.

Some individuals find themselves with memories of other lives, which are other days to the soul. Such persons then become aware of a greater consciousness reaching over those gaps, and realize that earthly experience can contain [among other things] a knowledge of existence in more than one body. Inherently then consciousness, affiliated with the flesh, can indeed carry such comprehensions. The mind of man as you know it shows at least the potential ability for handling a kind of memory with which you are usually not acquainted. This means that even biologically the species is equipped to deal with different sequences of time, while still manipulating within one particular time scheme. This also implies a far greater psychological richness-quite possible, again, within corporal reality-in which many levels of relationships can be handled. Such inner knowledge is inherent in the cells, and in ordinary terms of evolution is quite possible as a "future" development

Knowledge is usually passed down through the ages in your reality, through books and historic writings, yet each individual contains within himself or herself a vast repository direct knowledge of the past, in your terms, through unconscious comprehension.

The unknown reality Much of that reality is unknown simply because your beliefs dose you off from your own knowledge. The reaches of your own consciousness are not limited. Because you accept the idea of a straight-line movement of time, you cannot see before or after what you think of as your birth or death, ' yet your greater consciousness is quite aware of such experience. Ideally it is possible not only to remember "past" lives, but to plan future ones now. In greater terms, all such lives happen at once. Your present neurological structure makes this seem impossible, yet your inner consciousness is not so impeded.

(Louder:) Take your break, or end the session as you prefer.

("We'll take the break."

(11:00. Jane's trance had been excellent She vaguely remembered that Seth had talked about "sleepwalkers. "I described the material briefly, then added, "It would be a joke if that information applied to our own ancestors, our cavemen, as we think of them." Whereupon Jane said she thought it did at one level, but she didn't elaborate.

(She wanted Seth to discuss a couple of her own questions, now that he had "Unknown" Reality underway again, so I suggested we ask for that material now. Jane hesitated. "I sense stuff on both the book and me; I don't know what to do. Wait-there's a practice element involved..."

(Resume at 11:25.)

Now:

PRACTICE ELEMENT 10

You can hold within your conscious attention far more data than you realize. You have hypnotized yourselves into believing that your awareness is highly limited.

Think back to yesterday. Try to remember what you did when you got up; what you wore. Attempt to follow the sequence of your activities from the time you awakened until you went to sleep. Then flesh in the details. Try to recall your feelings at all of those times. Most of you will be lucky to get this far. Those who do, go even further and try to recall the daydreams you might have had also. Try to remember what stray thoughts came into your mind.

At first, doing this will take all of your attention. You might do the exercise sitting quietly, or riding a bus or waiting for someone in an office. Some of you might be able to do the exercise while performing a more or less automatic series of actions-but do not try to carry it out while driving your car, for example.

As you become more expert at it, then purposely do something else at the same time-a physical activity, for instance. When most of you begin this exercise it will almost seem as if you were a sleepwalker yesterday. The precise, fine alignment of senses with physical activity will seem simply lost, yet as you progress the details will become dear, and you will find that you can at least hold within your mind certain aspects of yesterday's reality while maintaining your hold in today.

In larger terms there are other entire lives, which for you are forgotten essentially as yesterday is. These too, however, are a secondary series of activities, riding beneath your present primary concern. They are as unconsciously a part of your present, and as connected with it, as yesterday is.

Now: the second part of the exercise.

Imagine vividly what you will do tomorrow, and in detail plan a probable day that will rise naturally from your present experience, behavior, and purposes. Follow through as you did with the first part of the exercise. (Pause.) That day's reality is already anticipated by your cells. Your body has prepared for it, all of its functions precognitively projecting their own existences into it. Your "future" life exists in the same manner, and in your terms grows as much out of your present as tomorrow grows out of your today.

Doing the exercise will simply acquaint your normal consciousness with the sense of its own flexibility. You will be exercising the invisible muscles of your consciousness as certainly as you might exercise your body with gymnastics.

To other portions of yourself you would seem to be a sleepwalker. Full creative participation in any moment, however, awakens you to your own potentials, and therefore allows you to experience a unity between your own consciousness and the comprehension of your physical cells. Those cells are as spiritual as your soul is.

(11:40.) Now give me a moment. A good one... This is not dictation.

(What followed were three and a half pages of material for Jane and me. Here are a few condensed, more generalized excerpts:)

To one extent or another in your society, you are taught to not trust yourself. There are various schools and religions that try to express the self's validity, but their distortions have smothered the basic authenticity of the teachings.

In those terms, Ruburt started from scratch as a member of your society who finally threw aside, as you did [Joseph], the current frameworks of belief. For some time he was simply between belief systems, discarding some entirely, accepting portions of others; but mainly he was a pioneer-and this while carrying the largely unrealized, basic belief of society that you cannot trust the self...

While that emotionally invisible belief is carried, then anything the self does must be scrutinized, put to the test, in the meantime beliefs that have sustained others are suspended. The development of Ruburt's abilities would, therefore, lead him away from comforting structures while he searched for others to sustain him...

He has put to the test much of what he has learned. His own personality has blossomed in all aspects, especially in terms of relating with others and in personal creativity... He has been testing out our information in the world that he knows. He felt that it was necessary... For how could the self, taught that it was bad, bring forth good?

There were frameworks that could have offered help, but he saw that they were not intrinsically valid, and so did not depend upon them....

(Seth said good night at 12:18A.M. Jane's deliveries had been very energetic throughout the session.

(In his material above, concerning Jane's search for newer, larger frameworks of belief once she began to dispense with her old "comforting" ideas, Seth very lucidly dealt with certain aspects of the role she's chosen for this 4fè. However, I want to emphasize here the emotional terms of Jane's search-and state that at times those qualities have been very difficult for her to contend with. To some degree I've been involved in many changes of belief also, but I'm a participator in the development of the Seth material not its originator; the pressures and challenges weren't-aren't-as demanding. [With a humor born out of many a struggle, however, I note that it isn't easy to give up certain cherished old beliefs, even when they're demonstrably wrong; they may fit the personality all too well...]

(In connection with these notes, and Seth's excerpts after 11:40, then, I recommend a review of the following in Volume 1:

(1. The material on Jane, religion, and mysticism in the Introductory Notes, the 679th session, and Appendix 1 for that session.

(2. Note 8 for the 6 79th session, on Jane's beliefs and physical symptoms.

(3. Appendix 10 [for Session 692], on Jane's efforts to make a "middle ground" between the extremes of society's reactions to her psychic abilities: rejection by the conventionally closed-minded at one end, and gullible acceptance at the other.

(And added the next day: Now see Appendix 14 for the little episode that developed on Jane's part as we retired for the evening.)

Session 709, October 2, 1974, 9:21 P.M., Wednesday

(At 9:18 Jane said "I feel him around." Then. "I have an idea of what he's going to talk about-but I haven't quite got it yet so I have to wait..." Then, very quietly:)

Good evening.

("Good evening Seth.")

Now: Dictation: Everything that is apparent three-dimensionally has an inside source, out of which its appearance springs. Some of this, again, is difficult to explain-not because Ruburt does not have the vocabulary, but because serial-word language automatically prepackages ideas into certain patterns, and to escape prepackaging can be a task. We will try our best, however.

The cell as you understand it is but the cell's three-dimensional face. The idea of tachyons as currently understood is basically legitimate, though highly distorted. Before a cell as such makes its physical appearance there are "disturbances" in the spot in which the cell will later show itself. Those disturbances are the result of a slowing down of prior effects of faster-than-light activity, and represent the emergence into your space-time system of energy that can then be effectively used and formed into the cellular pattern.

The very slowing-down process itself helps "freeze" the activity into a form. At the death of a cell a reverse process occurs-the death is the escape of that energy from the cell form, its release, the release itself triggering certain stages of acceleration. There is what might be called a residue, or debris energy, "coating" the cell, that stays within this system. None of this can be ascertained from within the system-that is, the initial faster-than-light activity or the deceleration afterward. Such faster-than-light behavior, then, helps form the basis for the physical universe. This characteristic is an attribute of the CU's, which have already slowed down to some extent when they form EE units.2

(Pause, one of many, at 9:37.) While operating through the body structures, consciousnesses such as your own focus largely upon the three-dimensional orientation. In out-of-body states, however, consciousness can travel faster than light-often, in fact, instantaneously.

This frequently happens in the dream state, although such a performance can be achieved in varying altered states of consciousness. At such times consciousness simply puts itself in a different relationship with time and space. The physical body cannot follow, however. It is by altering its own relationship with the physical universe that consciousness can best understand its own properties, and glimpse from another vantage point that physical universe, where it will be seen in a different light. Operating outside the body, consciousness can better perceive the properties of matter. It cannot (intently) experience matter, however, in the same fashion as it can when it is physically oriented.

From your ordinary point of view the traveling consciousness is off-focus, not locked into physical coordinates in the designated fashion. The so-called inner world can be at least theoretically explored, however, in just such a way. Consciousness "unlocks" itself for a while from its usual coordinates. When this happens the out-of-body traveler is not simply out of his or her corporal form. The person steps out of usual context Even if an individual leaves the body and wanders about the room no more than a few feet away from where the body is located, 3 there are alterations, dash-the relationship of consciousness to the room is different The relationship of the individual to time and space has altered. Time out of the body is "free time" by your standards. You do not age, for example, although this effect varies according to certain principles. I will mention these later.4

(9:48.) Such a traveling consciousness may journey within physical reality, colon: While not relating to that system in the usual manner, it may still be allied with it From that viewpoint matter itself will seem to appear differently than it does ordinarily. On the other hand, an out-of-body consciousness may also enter other physically attuned realities: those operating "at different frequencies than your own." The basically independent nature of consciousness allows for such disentanglement5 The body consciousness maintains its own equilibrium, and acts somewhat like a maintenance station.

Any discussion of the unknown reality must necessarily involve certain usually dismissed hypotheses about the characteristics of consciousness itself. The world as you know it is the result of a complicated set of "codes" (as given at the beginning of the last session) , each locked in one to the other, each one in those terms dependent upon the others. Your precise perceived universe in all of its parts, then, results from coded patterns, each one fitting perfectly into the next. Alter one of these and to some extent you step out of that context (underlined) . Any event of any kind that does not directly, immaculately intersect with your space-time continuum, does not happen, in your terms, but falls away. It becomes probable in your system but seeks its own "level, " and becomes actualized as it falls into place in another reality whose "coded sequence" fits its own. Period.

(Pause at 10:10.) When consciousness leaves the body, therefore, it alters some of the coordinates. There are various questions involving the nature of perception that then occur, and these will be discussed somewhat later (but see Note 4) . Consciousness is equipped to focus its main energy, in your terms at least, generally within the body, or to stray from it for varying amounts of time. Theoretically, your human consciousness can take many different roads while still maintaining its physical base. In far-past historical times, different kinds of orientation were experimented with (as by the "sleepwalkers" described in the last session, for instance) . Your own present private experience can give hints and clues about such other cultures, for those abilities reside within the natural framework. now, but are underdeveloped.

To one extent or another, therefore, all of the potentials of the species are now latent within each individual. Often these spring to the surface through events that may seem bizarre. The "unknown" reality is unknown only because you have not looked for its aspects in yourself. You have been taught to pay almost exclusive attention to your exterior behavior. Privately, then, much of your inner life escapes you. You often structure your life according to that exterior pattern of events. These, while important, are the result of your own inner world of activity. That inner world is your only real connection with the exterior events, and the objective details make sense only because of the subjectivity that gave them birth.'

In the same way, when you look at the current state of the world, or at history, you often structure your perceptions so that only the topmost surfaces of events are seen. Using the same kind of reasoning, you are apt to judge the historic past of your species in very limited terms, and to overlook great dues in your history because they seem to make no sense.

(Long pause, eyes closed.) While you believe, for example, that technology as you understand it (underlined) alone means progress, and that progress necessarily requires overriding physical manipulation of the environment that must forever continue, you will judge past civilizations in that light This will blind you to certain accomplishments and other orientations to such an extent that you will not be able to see evidence of achievement when it appears before your eyes.

(Well over a one-minute pause at 10:30, eyes closed.) Give us a moment... You have not worked with the power of thought or feeling, but only with its physical effects. Therefore, to you only physically materialized events are obvious. You do not accept your dreams as real, for example, but as a rule you consider them fantasies-imaginative happenings. Until very recently you generally believed that all information came to the body through the outer senses, and ignored all evidence to the contrary. It was impossible to imagine civilizations built upon data that were mentally received, consciously accepted, and creatively used. Under such circumstances scientists could hardly look for precognition in cells.8 They did not believe it existed to begin with.

The human body itself has limitless potentials, and great variations that allow for different kinds of orientation. Probable man represents alternate man from your viewpoint, alternate versions of the species. The same applies individually. In out-of-body states many people have encountered probable selves and probable realities. They have also journeyed into the past and the future as you think of them. The private psyche contains within itself the knowledge of its own probabilities, and it contains a mirror in which the experience of the species can at least be glimpsed.

You are used to a particular kind of orientation, accustomed to using your consciousness in one particular manner. In order to study the "unknown" reality, however, you must try to see what else your consciousness can do. This really means that you must learn to regain the true feeling of yourself.

There are two main ways of trying to find out about the nature of reality-an exterior method and an interior one. The methods can be used together, of course, and from your vantage point must be for the greatest efficiency. You are well acquainted with the exterior means, that involve studying the objective universe and collecting facts upon which certain deductions are made. In this book. therefore, we will be stressing interior ways of attaining, not necessarily facts, but knowledge and wisdom. Now, facts may or may not give you wisdom. They can, if they are slavishly followed, even lead you away from true knowledge. Wisdom shows you the insides of facts, so to speak, and the realities from which facts emerge.

Much of the remainder of "Unknown" Reality, then, will deal with an inside look at the nature of reality, and with some exercises that will allow you to see yourself and your world from another perspective. Later I intend to say far more about some civilizations that, in your terms, came before your own (but see the last sentence in Note 4) . Before you can understand their orientation, we will have to speak about various alternate kinds of consciousness and out-of-body experience. These will help you to understand how other kinds of cultures could operate in ways so alien to your own.

(Louder:) You may take a break or end the session as you prefer.

("We'll take the break"

(10:5 5. Jane's delivery had become somewhat faster and very absorbed as it progressed. Just as they had before our three-month layoff from book work [after Session 707], her trances for "Unknown" Reality were proving to be more "difficult" to initiate than those for the previous Seth books.' She often had to wait for just the right moment to get back into dictation following a break, too; so tonight, after we'd shared an apple. she sat rather impatiently anticipating Seth's return. Resume, finally, at 11:25.)

Dictation: We will be discussing alternate methods of orientation that consciousness can take when allied with flesh, trying to give the reader some personal experience with such altered conditions, along with a brief history of some civilizations that utilized these unofficial orientations as their predominant method of focus.

To become familiar with the "unknown" reality you must to some extent grant that it exists, then, and be willing to step aside from your usual behavior. All of the methods given are quite natural, inherent in the body structure, and even biologically anticipated. Your consciousness could not leave your body and return to it again unless there were biological mechanisms that allowed for such a performance.

I have said (as at 9:48) that the body can indeed carry on, performing necessary maintenance activities while the main consciousness is detached from it. To some extent it can even perform simple chores. (Pause.) In sleep, in fact, it is not at all necessary that the main consciousness be alert in the body. Only in certain kinds of civilizations, for that matter, is such a close body-and-main-consciousness relationship necessary. There are other situations, therefore, in which consciousness ordinarily strays much further, returning to the body as a home station and basis of operation, relying upon it for certain kinds of perception only, but not depending upon it for the entire picture of reality. Physical life alone does not necessarily require the kind of identification of self with flesh that is your own.

This does not mean that an alienation results in those realities-simply a relationship in which the body and consciousness relate to other events. Only your beliefs, training, and neurological indoctrination prevent you from recognizing the true nature of your consciousness while you sleep. You close out those data. In that period, however, at an inner order of events, you are highly active and do much of the interior mental work that will later appear as physical experience.

(Slowly at 11:43:) While your consciousness is so engaged, your body consciousness performs many functions that are impossible for it during your waking hours. The greatest biological creativity takes place while you sleep, for example, and certain cellular functions10 are accelerated. Some such disengagement of your main consciousness and the body is therefore obviously necessary, or it would not occur. Sleeping is not a by-product of waking life.

In greater terms you are just as awake when you are asleep, but the focus of your awareness is turned in other directions. As you know, you can live for years while in a coma, but you could not live for years without ever sleeping. Even in a coma there is mental activity, though it may be impossible to ascertain it from the outside. A certain kind of free conscious behavior is possible when you are not physically oriented as you are in the waking state, and that activity is necessary even for physical survival.

This also has to do with pulsations of energy in which consciousness as you know it, now, exercises itself, using native abilities that cannot be expressed through physical orientation alone.

Your own main consciousness has the ability to travel faster than light (as noted at 9:37) , but those perceptions are too fast, and the neurologically structured patterns that you accept cannot capture them. For that matter, cellular comprehension and reaction are too fast for you to follow. The poised framework of physical existence requires a particular platform of experience that you accept as valid and real. At that level only is the universe that you know experienced. That platform or focus is the result of the finest cooperation. Your own free consciousness and your body consciousness form an alliance that makes this possible.

(With many pauses:) Give us a moment... Such a performance actually means that physical reality clicks off and on.1' In your terms, it exists only in your waking hours. The inner work that makes it possible is largely done in the sleep state. The meeting of body consciousness and your main consciousness requires an intense focus, in which the greatest manipulations are necessary. Perceptions must be precise in physical terms. To some extent, however, that exquisite concentration means that certain limitations occur. Cellular comprehension is not tuned into by the normally conscious self, which is equally unaware of its own free-wheeling nature at "higher" levels. So a disengagement process must happen that allows each to regenerate. The consciousness then leaves the body. The body consciousness stays with it.

Give us a moment... We are about to end the session after a few remarks.

(Pause at 12:07. Seth's comments were for Jane, and took up another page of notes. End at 12:19A.M.

(After the session we had something more to eat, then relaxed by playing with our cat, Willy. When we did get to bed Jane fell asleep at once. As I lay beside her in a most pleasant daze, I heard quite clearly in the cool night air the honking of geese as they flew south. Drowsily I remembered the flight I'd listened to in the rain the day before yesterday...)

Session 710, October 7, 1974, 9:31 P.M., Monday

(We have two compositions, both of them by Jane, to add to this session. She produced the first very short one, given below, yesterday. Seth briefly mentions it in the excerpted material at the end of tonight's session, with a promise to say more later.

(Those excerpts, in turn, came from his remarks about Jane's second composition, which she wrote late this afternoon after we'd finished reading certain material. Since this [second] piece is much longer, it's presented as

Appendix 15. I suggest that it be read now, or at least before reaching the end of ~ this session.

(From Jane's dream journal, then, for Sunday, October 6, 1974:

("I heard Seth's voice, very loud and powerful, as I lay asleep in bed last night [Saturday]. This was the first time I've had such an experience. The voice was coming from the area of the room next door or just beyon4, but also from above; like out of the sky or something. It wasn't speaking through anyone-that is, it wasn't coming from inside my head or through me as it always has so far, even in the dream state. I tried to understand what was said.

The word.c didn't seem to be directed at me, particularly, but just to be there. It seemed that Seth was really laying it on somebody. At first I thought he was angry but then I realized I was interpreting the power of the voice that way. This wasn't part of a dream, but I awakened almost at once as I tried to make out the words. Subjectively, I wasn't aware of Seth's presence in any way. The sound was like a supervoice; maybe like Nature speaking or somet/dng not the way a person would speak ")

Now, good evening.

("Good evening Seth.")

Dictation (quietly) : To explore the unknown reality you must venture within your own psyche, travel inward through invisible roads as you journey outward on physical ones.

Your material reality is formed through joint cooperation. Period. Your own ideas, objectified, become a part of the physical environment. In this vast cooperative venture the thoughts and feelings of each living being take root, so to speak, springing up as objectified data. I said (in the 708th session) that each system of reality uses its own codified system. This effectively provides a sort of framework Generally speaking, then, you agree to objectify certain inner data privately and en masse at any given "time." In those terms the airplane objectified the inner idea of flying in "your" time, and not inA.D. 1500, for example.

You may have heard people say of an idea: "Its time has not yet come." This simply means that there is not enough energy connected with the idea to propel it outward into the world of physical experience as an objective mass-experienced event

In the dream state and in certain other levels of reality, ideas and their symbols are immediately experienced. There is no time lag, then, between a feeling and its "exteriorized" condition. It is automatically experienced in whatever form is familiar and natural to the one who holds it The psyche is presented with its own concepts, which are instantly reflected in dream situations and other events that will be explained shortly. if you dream of or yearn for a new house in physical life, for instance, it may take some time before that ideal is realized, even though such a strong intent will most certainly bring about its physical fulfillment. The same desire in the dreaming state, however, may lead to the instant creation of such a house as far as your dream experience is concerned. Again, there is no time lag there between desire and its materialization.

(Pause, one of many, at 9:49.) There are levels within dreams, highly pertinent but mainly personal, in that they reflect your own private intents and purposes. There are other levels, further away in your terms, that involve mass behavior on a psychic level, where together the inhabitants of the physical world plan out future events. Here probabilities are recognized and utilized. Symbolism is used. There is such an interweaving of intent that this is difficult to explain. Private desires here are magnified as they are felt by others, or minimized accordingly, so that in the overall, large general plans are made having to do with the species at any given "time." Here again, these desires and intents must fit into the codified system as it exists.

(Pause, in a quiet but intent delivery.) At these levels you are still close to home. Beyond, there are layers of actuality in which your psyche is also highly involved, and these may or may not appear to have anything to do with the world that you know.

When you travel into such realms you usually do so from the dream state, still carrying your private symbols with you. Even here, these are automatically translated into experience. This is not your own codified system, however. You may journey through such a reality, perceiving it opaquely, layering it over with your own perceived symbols, and taking those for the "real" environment In these terms the real environment will be that which was generally perceived by the natural inhabitants of the system.

To begin with, your own symbols rise from deep levels of the psyche, and in certain terms you are a part of any reality that you experience-but you may have difficulty in the interpretation of events.

If you are in a world not yours, with your consciousness drifting, you are in free gear, so to speak, your feelings and thoughts flowing into experience. You have to learn how to distinguish your psychological state from the reality in which you find yourself, if you want to maintain your alertness and explore that environment. Many of my readers find themselves in just such situations while they are sleeping. While still dreaming they seem to come suddenly awake in an environment that appears to make no sense. Demons may be chasing them. The world may seem topsy-turvy. The dead and the living may meet and speak.

(10:16.) Now: In almost all instances, demons in dreams represent the dreamer's belief in evil, instantly materialized. They are not the inhabitants of some nether world, then, or underground. We will be giving some instructions that will enable readers to experiment with the projection of consciousness at least to some extent. It is very important for you to realize that even in dreams you form your own reality. Your state of mind, freed from its usual physical focus, creatively expresses itself in all of its power and brilliance. The state of mind itself serves as an intent, propelling you into realities of like conditions.

(Pause.) In your world you travel from one country to another, and you do not expect them to be all alike. Instead, you visit various parts of the world precisely because of the differences among them-so all out-of-body journeys do not lead to the same locale.

Instinctively you leave your body for varying amounts of time each night while you sleep, but those journeys are not "programmed." You plan your own tours, in other words. As many people with the same interests may decide to visit the same country together, on tour, so in the out-of-body condition you may travel alone or with companions. If you are alert you may even take snapshots-only as far as inner tours are concerned, the snapshots consist of clear pictures of the environment taken at the time, developed in the unconscious, and then presented to the waking mind.

There are techniques for using cameras, 1 and a camera left at home will do you little good abroad. So it is the conscious alert mind that must take these pictures if you hope to later make sense of your inner journeys. That conscious reasoning mind must therefore be taken along. There are many ways of doing this, methods not really difficult to follow. Certain techniques will help you pack your conscious mind for yourjourney as you would pack your camera. It will be there when you need it, to take the pictures that will be your conscious memories of your journey.

Do you want to rest your hand?

(10:22. "No, " I said, although I'd been writing pretty steadily for the better part ofan hour. Jane, in trance, held up afresh bottle of beer. I opened itfor her. Then.)

You must remember that the objective world also is a projection from the psyche.2 Because you focus in it primarily, you understand its rules well enough to get along. A trip in the physical world merely represents the decision to walk or to choose a particular kind of vehicle-a car will not carry you across the ocean, so you take a ship or a plane. You are not astonished to see that the land suddenly gives way to water. You find that natural alteration quite normal. You expect time to stay in its place, however. The land may change to water, for example, but today must not change into yesterday in the same fashion, or into tomorrow in the beginning of today's afternoon.

Walking down the avenue, you expect the trees to stay in their places, and not transform themselves into buildings. All of these assumptions are taken for granted in your physical journeys. You may find different customs and languages, yet even these will be accepted in the vast, overall, basic assumptions within whose

boundaries physical life occurs. You are most certainly traveling through the private and mass psyche when you so much as walk down the street. The physical world seems objective and outside of yourself, however. The idea of such outsideness is one of the assumptions upon which you build that existence. Interior traveling is no more subjective, then, than a journey from New York to San Francisco. You are used to projecting all destinations outside of yourself Period. The idea of varied inward destinations, involving motion through time and space, therefore appears strange.

Now take your break.

(10:36. Jane's delivery had remained quiet and steady. "Boy, he was going strong "she said. "He kept me under a good long time because of the noise [in the apartment] upstairs-and because of those phone calls, too, I'll bet..." Here she referred to a number of out-of state calls she'd taken after supper this evening she'd found two of them in particular to be rather upsetting

(Resume in the same manner at 10:5 8.)

Generally speaking, you have explored the physical planet enough so that you have a good idea of what to expect as you travel from country to country.

Before a trip, you can produce travel folders that outline the attractions and characteristics of a certain locale. You are not traveling blind, therefore, and while any given journey may be new to you, you are not really a pioneer: The land has been mapped and there are few basic surprises.

The inner lands have not been as well explored. To say the least, they lie in virgin territory as far as your conscious mind is concerned. Others have journeyed to some of these interior locales, but since they were indeed explorers they had to learn as they went along. Some, returning, provided guidebooks or travel folders, telling us what could be expected. You make your own reality. If you were from a foreign land and asked one person to give you a description of New York City, you might take his or her description for reality. The person might say: "New York City is a frightful place in which crime is rampant, gangs roam the streets, murders and rapes are the norm, and people are not only impolite but ready to attack you at a moment's notice. There are no trees. The air is polluted, and you can expect only violence." If you asked someone else, this individual might say instead: "New York City has the finest of museums, open-air concerts in some of the parks, fine sculpture, theater, and probably the greatest collection of books outside of the Vatican. It has a good overall climate, a great mixture of cultures. In it, millions of people go their way daily in freedom." Period. Both people would be speaking about the same locale. Their descriptions would vary because of their private beliefs, and would be colored by the individual focus from which each of them viewed that city.

One person might be able to give you the city's precise location in terms of latitude and longitude. The other might have no such knowledge, and say instead: "I take a plane at such-and-such a place, at such-and-such a time, giving New York City as my destination, and if I take the proper plane I always arrive there."

(Pause at 11:13.) Explorers traveling into inner reality, however, do not have the same kind of landmarks to begin with. Many have been so excited with their discoveries that they wrote guidebooks long before they even began to explore the inner landscape. They did not understand that they found what they wanted to find, or that the seemingly objective phenomena originated in the reflections of the psyche.

You may, for example, have read books numbering the "inner realms, " and telling you what you can expect to encounter in each. Many of these speak of lords or gods of the realm, or of demons. In a strange way these books do provide a service, for at certain levels you will find your own ideas materialized; and if you believe in demons then in those terms you will encounter them. The authors, however, suppose that the devils have a reality outside of your belief in them, and such is not the case. The demons simply represent a state of your own mind that is seemingly out there, objectified. Therefore, whatever methods the authors used to triumph over these demons is often given as proof not only of the demons' reality, but of each method's effectiveness.

Now if you read such books you may often program your activity along those lines, in the same way that a visitor to New York City might program experience of the city in terms of what he or she had been told existed there.

That kind of structuring also does a disservice, however, for it prevents you from coming in contact with your own original concepts. There is no reason, for example, to encounter any demons or devils in any trance or out-of-body condition.3 (Pause.) In such cases your own hallucinations blind you to the environment within which they are projected. When your consciousness is not directly focused in physical reality, then, the great creativity of the psyche is given fuller play. All of its dimensions are faithfully and instantly produced as experience when you learn to take your "normally alert" conscious mind with you; and when you are free of such limiting ideas, then at those levels you can glimpse the inner powers of your own psyche, and watch the interplay of beliefs and symbols as they are manifested before your eyes. Until you learn to do this you will most certainly have difficulty, for you will not be able to tell the difference between your projections and what is happening in the inner environment.

Any exploration of inner reality must necessarily involve a journey through the psyche, and these effects can be thought of as atmospheric conditions, natural at a certain stage, through which you pass as you continue. Period.

(Louder at 11:31:) Now give us a moment....

("I'm in between, "Jane said after apause, and in her "own" voice. "I don't know what's coming. I'm sort of half in trance and half out... ." She lit a cigarette.

("Do you want me to get you some more beer?"

("I don't think it'll last that long" she said. Seth returned-and stayed longer, probably, than she'd anticipated he would. His material was for Jane, and grew out of the paper she wrote this afternoon on Eastern religious thought [see Appendix 15]. The more personal parts of Seth's delivery aren't given here, yet enough remains to show Jane's main challenges some 11 years after she began speaking for him.

(The quotations also indicate how pervasive the regular Western view of "reality" is in our society, and what an undertaking it is to step outside of that framework. or just to enlarge upon iL Jane is still in the process of that objective, intellectual-and yet very emotional-movement of her psyche [as I am], but she's made considerable progress. in each of her books she tries to more dearly communicate the details and developments of her journey. [I note also that neither one of us is trying to get rid of our Western orientation, or to desert it-but to understand it more fully.]

(Now Seth said in part, beginning at 11:33:)

Ruburt is working through the philosophical problems that were really only questions not completely asked. All of the writing he did today is important He is preparing to go ahead in all directions.

There are too many levels here to discuss all at once... One such level reinforces a trust in himself. The trust is accepted, however, because he is finally ready to work through the issues. As given [at various times over the years, mostly in personal material], they involve cultural training and religious indoctrinations.4 He is challenging, finally, the old beliefs that say that the self's spontaneity is not to be trusted. He is challenging those ideas emotionally and philosophically, uniting physical action and inner mobility. In the past he was still afraid to touch those beliefs with any but the slightest of hands.

Give us a moment... What he wrote is pertinent. Before he could go fully ahead he had to accept the challenges of the past, and this meant he had to examine those old beliefs. He is only now really beginning to do so....

They were not only his private religious beliefs, but those of his contemporaries generally-and (loudly:) the foundations upon which your present civilization was made. He had to find the courage to encounter those old beliefs boldly, and he is finally doing so. I will have more to say to him in the dream state this evening, and I will shortly explain his experience with my voice.

In away, then, the session will continue at another level of communication. It will all be down in black and white for you before too long, however.

My heartiest wishes to you both, and a fond good evening.

("Thank you, Seth, and the same to you. Good night."

(11:46 P.M. AllJane could say the next morning was that she had no conscious memory of any contact Seth might have made with her in the dream state. Looking ahead a bit: In tomorrow night's session, though, Seth does explain her weekend sleep-state encounter with his voice.)

Session 711, October 9, 1974, 9:17 P.M., Wednesday

(ESP class had really jump ed last night. The 32 people crowded into our living room enjoyed rich, active, loud, and even profane exchanges among themselves, with Jane, and with Seth. "Fuck you, Seth."' one girl screamed-which daunted that worthy not at all: Class members hardly agree with Seth or anyone else all of the time. As usual, Jane found herself learning along with her students. She also took time to sing very delicately in Sumari, in contrast to Seth's powerfid deliveries. All was recorded of course. Class lasted from 7 P.M until after midnight, and by the time it was over everyone involved was, ~f not exhausted, certainly well exercised emotionally. We're to get a transcript of the evening's Seth material at next week's class. *)

Good evening (whispering.

("Good evening Seth.")

Now: Dictation (still whispering) . Never as dramatic as our noisy class sessions.

Your world, again, is the result of a certain focus of consciousness, without which that world cannot be perceived. Period. The range of consciousness involved is obviously physically oriented, yet within it there are great varieties of consciousness, each experiencing that seemingly objective world from a private perspective. The physical environment is real in different terms to an animal, a fish, a man, or a rock, for example, and different portions of that environment are correspondingly unreal [to each of those forms]. This is highly important.

If an inhabitant from another reality outside of your own physical system entirely were to visit it, and if "his" intelligence was roughly of the same degree as your own, he would still have to learn to focus his consciousness in the same way that you do, more or less, in order to perceive your world. He would have to alter his native focus and turn it in a direction that was foreign to him. In this way he could "pick up your station."1 There would be distortions, because even though he managed such manipulations he might not have the same kind of native physical structure as your own, of course, through which to receive and interpret those data his altered consciousness perceived.

Your visitor would then be forced to translate that information as best he could through his own native structure, if it were to make any sense to his consciousness in its usual orientation. All realities axe the result of certain unique focuses taken by consciousness, therefore. In those terms, there is no outside. The effects of objectivity are caused as the psyche projects its experience into inner dimensions that it has itself created.

(9:35.) Within, those frameworks are ever expanding, so that in your terms at least it seems that greater and greater distances are involved. Travel to any other land of physical reality must then involve alterations of consciousness.2

New paragraph. While all of your own thoughts and feelings are "somewhere" materialized, only some of them become physical in your terms. They are then accepted as physical reality. They provide the basis for the physical events, objects, and phenomena upon which you all agree. Therefore your world has a stability that you accept, a certain order and predictability3 that works well enough for daily concerns. At that point you are tuned in precisely on your "home station." You ignore the ghost symbols or voices, the probable actions that also occur, but that are muffled in the clear tones of your accepted reality. When you begin to travel away from that home station, you become more aware of the other frequencies that are buried within it. You move through other frequencies, but to do this you must alter your own consciousness. *

The probable realities connected with your own system are like the suburbs, say, surrounding a main city. If for simplicity's sake you think of other realities as different cities, then after you leave your own you would pass through the suburbs, then into the country, then after a time into other suburbs until you reached another metropolis. Here each metropolis would represent a conglomeration of consciousnesses operating within an overall general frequency of clearest focus, a high point of psychic communication and exquisite focus in the given kind of reality. Unless you are tuned in to those particular frequencies, however, you could not pick up that reality. You might instead perceive the equivalent of jumbled sound or meaningless static (as Jane has done) , or jigsaw images (as I have done) . You might simply realize that some kind of activity was there, but without being able to pinpoint it.

Now all consciousness, including your own, is highly mobile. While you focus your attention primarily in your own world, certain portions of your consciousness are always straying. When you are sleeping, then, your consciousness often ventures into other realities, usually in a wandering fashion without tuning itself in to any precise frequencies. Beneath many seemingly chaotic dreams there are often valid experiences in which your consciousness "lights" in another reality, without being attuned to it with the necessary precision that would allow for clear perception. The information cannot be sifted or used effectively and is translated into dream images, as your consciousness returns toward your own home station. Therefore, it has been difficult to achieve any kind of clear picture of such other realities.

(Pause at 9:5 9.) Certain particular focuses then bring in different worlds, but unless your consciousness is tuned in with exquisite precision you will not be able to perceive dearly. You will instead pick up at best the ghost images, probabilities, and private data that are not officially recognized as part of the main reality's official structure of events.

New paragraph. Basicall'5~, however, consciousness is freewheeling. Such realities therefore always exist-in your own psyche-outside of your "home station, " and some portion of your own consciousness is always involved in them. Period. There are bleedthroughs, so to speak, in the form of unofficial perceptions that often occur, or "impossible" events that are seemingly beyond explanation. (Pause.) For now think of your own psyche, which is a consciousized identity, as a kind of "supernatural radio." All ofiiTh stations exist at once within the psyche. These do not come through with sound alone, but with all the living paraphernalia of the world. The "you" that you recognize is but one signal on one such station, tuned in to a certain frequency, experiencing that station's overall reality from your own viewpoint-one that is unique and like no other, and yet contributing to the whole life of the station.

(Smile:) The supernatural radio that is your entire psyche contains many such stations, however. These are all playing at the same time. It would be highly confusing in this analogy to experience or hear all of these at once, however, so different portions of the psyche tune in to different stations, concentrate upon them, and tune out the others for immediate practical purposes. Because these stations all operate within the same psyche or supernatural radio, the overall quality of the programs will have much to do with the nature of the psyche itself. Radios are wired and contain transformers and transistors. The overall reception is dependent upon the wiring and the inner workings of the radio-and (intently) those workings exist apart from the stations they are meant to pick up. In the same way, the "supernatural psyche" exists apart from the stations of consciousness that it contains. In this case indeed the psyche itself makes the radio, adding ever-new connections and stations.

(10:18.) New paragraph. Pretend that you have a radio with which you can clearly pick up 10 stations. First imagine that during the daily programming there are three soap operas, four news programs, several excellent dramas, a few operas, some popu-. lar music, several religious sermons, and some sports programs. Each of these has its own commercials or messages, which may or may not have anything to do with the programs given.

First of all, it would be nearly impossible for you to sample all of these programs with any effectiveness while going about your own affairs. To make matters more complicated, again, these programs do not involve only sound. Each one has its own dimensional realities. Beside that, there is a give-and-take between programs.

For example: Say that you have a certain Wilford Jones, who is a character in one of the soap operas. This Wilford, while canying on within his own drama as, say, a sickly grocer in Iowa, with a mistress he cannot support, and a wife that he must support (with amusement)-this poor, besieged man on station KYU is also aware of all the other programs going on at the other stations. All of the other characters in all of the other plays are also aware of our grocer. There is a constant, creative give-and-take between the day's various programs. Period.

When our Wilford dramatically cries out to his mistress: "I am afraid my wife will learn of our affair, " then the symphony playing on another station becomes melodramatic, and the sports program shows that a hero fumbles the football. Yet each character has its own free will. The football player, unconsciously picking up the grocer's problem, for example, may use it as a challenge and say: "No. I will not fumble the ball." The crowds then cheer, and our grocer in his soap opera may smile and say: "But it will all work out after all."

In other words, there is in the psyche constant interaction between all of the stations, and marvelous, literally unlimited creativity-in which, in your terms, all actions in one station affect all others in the other stations.

Now take a break.

(10:34. Jane's trance had been excellent, her delivery steady and rather quiet for the most part "I knew what Seth was talking about~, "she said, "because I had the images to go along with what he was saying. Not that I could repeat him now, word for word. . .

(I reminded Jane that during P.M., Monday's session, the 710th, Seth had promised to "shortly explain" her hearing his booming voice in her sleep state last Saturday night. See Jane's description of the event preceding that session.

(Resume at 10:5 4.)

Now: Dictation: Still using the same analogy As he falls asleep some night our grocer, Wilford, might suddenly hear the full strains of a symphony in his head, or instead catch a quick glimpse of a football player; or on the other hand one of the musicians in the symphony orchestra may suddenly find himself thinking about how difficult it would be to have a mistress and a wife at the same time.

From the point of view of the perceiver these would be unofficial events, and yet they could serve as important clues to the nature of reality. The separate programs existing at once each have their own schedules, and from your reality you could not play them all at once. It seems to you that you are outside of the psyche, so you think of someone as yourself operating this radio from that external position. From your point of view you could not pick up the grocer's escapades and the symphony, for instance, if both came through at 8 o'clock in the evening, without switching from one to the other:

You would have to choose which program you wanted.

It is very easy of course to expand our analogy, changing the radio to a television set. In this case the projections on the screen would be fully dimensional, aware of each viewer in each living room. (Pause.) Not only this, but the screen people would understand the relationship between you the viewer, and, say, the other viewers in the same town. Behind the scenes not only would the performers, as performers in all of the programs, all know each other, but the characters portrayed by them would know each other and be aware of each other's roles in the programs, and even now and then stray into one another's dramas.

At levels beyond the comprehension of the viewer, all of the dramas and programs would be related. Again, because of the specific poise of your consciousness, it seems to you that you are outside of all these programs. You tune in to them, making choices, for example, if more than one favorite plays at the same hour.

In greater terms you are a part of the same "set, " and at another level someone sees you as a character in a living room turning on a television set. Intrinsically the psyche, the private psyche, contains all such programs and realities. Certain portions of it, however, choose to take different focuses in order to bring those aspects in more clearly.

(Pause at 11:13.) To some extent, signals from all of the other stations are always in the background of any given program, and by momentarily altering the direction of your own attention you can learn how to bring other stations into focus. Psychically and psychologically, those other stations upon which you do not concentrate form the structure of the psyche as you understand it, from which your earthly experience springs into focus. Studying yourself and the nature of your own consciousness, then, will automatically lead you to some extent to an understanding of the "unknown" reality. The unknown reality is composed of those blocked-out portions of your own psyche, and the corresponding frameworks of experience they form.

(Long pause.) New paragraph. For the sake of imagery, you can imagine your normal consciousness as your connection with this home planet-the familiar station that you tune in to every day. When you project your consciousness away from it, then you will encounter various kinds of atmospheric conditions. Once you understand what these are, and what effects can be expected, such journeys can be undertaken consciously, with the conscious mind that you know acting as the astronaut, for example, and the rest of your consciousness acting as the vehicle. Such journeys lead to quite valid realities, but as an astronaut must know the best landing conditions, so you must learn how to "come in" at the most auspicious time and under the best conditions.

Such journeys take you through the nature of the psyche itself, as well as to those other realities that exist as the result of the psyche's concentration within particular frequencies.

Projecting your consciousness out of your body, therefore, provides at the same time an inner probing of consciousness itself, as well as experience of its manifestations. There are then inner lands of the mind, and other worlds quite as legitimate as your own. They are intimately connected, however, with mental states which are then materialized, and so your own mental processes are highly involved.

Take your break.

(11:28. "He's really going though, I'm telling you, "Jane said, after remarking upon the shorter delivery. "I'm hoping he says something about when I heard his voice in my sleep." Resume at a faster pace at 11:40.)

Now First of all, I have been speaking of the psyche as if it were a completed thing, with definite boundaries. The private psyche is ever creative, actually-expansive and literally without beginning or end.

Your experience of yourself marks the seeming boundaries of yourself. In a manner of speaking, I am one personality and one program or station. Ruburt is another. We have learned to be aware of each other, * to communicate between stations, to affect each other's programs and to change each other's worlds. I do not speak alone to Ruburt and Joseph, for example, but my words go out to the world that you know. Still within your framework, Ruburt tunes in to another station, translates it and broadcasts the information. To do this, however, he has to alter his own consciousness, withdraw momentarily from the official station to bring in this one. That means tuning in to other portions of the psyche, as well as another kind of reality. The final translation of my material has to come through his organism, however, or it would be meaningless to you.

Through him I am aware of the nature and condition of your world, and offer from my viewpoint comments meant to help you. Through Ruburt, then, I am permitted to view the earth "again~~ in your terms. I exist apart from him, as he exists apart from me, yet we are together a part of the same entity-and that simply carries the idea of the psyche further.

The other [Saturday] evening while he was in bed Ruburt had a somewhat surprising experience. He was not dreaming. His body was asleep but his consciousness was drifting. He clearly heard my voice, it seemed to come literally from out of the sky, down into another room outside of (next-door to., actually) the one in which his

body slept For a moment the power frightened him, for it sounded like a radio turned up to an incredible degree-louder than thunder. At the time words were clearly distinguishable, though later he forgot what they said. For an instant he was tempted to interpret the power as anger, for in your world when someone is shouting they are usually angry. He realized, however, that something else was involved. He did not sense my presence, but only heard the thunder of the voice. It shocked him because he is used to hearing my words from within his head-he had never before been aware of my voice as existing apart from him. In the dream state he has heard me giving him information. In these instances, however, he was the channel through which my voice came. He has often wondered about the nature of my own independence, and the kind of reality in which I exist.

He was also aware at the time that while the voice literally boomed out, no one else would have heard it. Yet the voice definitely came from outside of himself, and he certainly seemed to hear it with his physical ears.

("Can you tell us what the voice said?"

(Whispering:) Let me continue...

Ruburt acts as a receiver when I speak, and so I must make certain adjustments so that my message can be channeled under conditions that involve, among other things, his nervous system and physical apparatus. That evening, through using what I call interior sound, 5 I let Ruburt become acquainted with the power at my disposal so that he could realize that it did, basically now, come from beyond his personality as he understands it.

(12:02.) In regular sessions, as now, he and I again both make adjustments, and so in sessions I am what I call a bridge personality, composed of a composite self-Ruburt and I meeting and merging to form a personality that is not truly either of us, but a new one that exists between dimensions. Beyond that is my real identity.

Ruburt does extremely well with interior sound, and so I use that method rather than, say, an image to make my independent existence known. Now Ruburt called me originally (last Saturday night) at unconscious levels because he was upset with "earth programming." He thought that you needed some help from the outside, so to speak. That intent set up certain signals that reached into other realities or stations, and I answered. I was not speaking to Ruburt personally when he heard me, but addressing myself to the world at large in a program that was indeed picked up by others.

This program spread out and was translated by others in dream states. In physical terms, however, the message given that evening is still to be presented through these books.

Give us a moment... End of dictation.

(12:09. And so in his own way Seth answered my question ofafew minutes ago. Now Jane paused, then came partially out of trance. "I know he said that was the end of book work, "she told me, "but I think there's more on it. So fyou'llget me a new pack of cigarettes... ." Then:)

Continue dictation: Now: In your local programming you have hosts of familiar characters, and at different times, in your terms, you have them play different roles. They take different roles. These often represent strong idealizations alive in the private and mass psyche. (Humorously:) Let me give you a brief example that will also show you how well I have learned your culture.

(Seth proceeded to name three current lyfamous television detectives.)

In their own ways, these are heroes representing the detective who is out to protect good against evil, to set things right. Now these characters exist more vividly in the minds of television viewers than the actors do who play those roles. The actors know themselves as apart from the roles. The viewers, however, identify with the characters. They may even dream about the characters. These have their own kind of superlife because they so clearly represent certain living aspects within each psyche.

The aspects are personified in the character. Through the centuries, in your terms, there have been different personalities, some physical and some not, with whom the species identified. Christ is one of these: in some respects the most ideal detective-in a different context, however-out to save the good and to protect the world from harm. In certain ways man also projected outward the idea of a devil or devils, and for somewhat the same reasons, so that he could identify with what he thought of as the unsavory portions of the psyche as he understood them at any given time. In between there are a multitude of such personalities, all vividly portraying parts of the psyche.

(12:21.) These characters become portions of the inner literature of the mind. Suppose an inhabitant from another reality saw [one of those three programs] and realized that people were watching it. Pretend he wanted to add more depth to the show. He might then come on himself in the guise of [the hero detective], but enlarging upon the characterization, adding more dimension to the plot. So, often when some personality from another station wants to help change the programming, he comes on in the form of a personality already known in fact or fiction. However, you must realize that that personality is larger than fact or fiction. "It" is independent at its own level, yet it is also a part of the portion of the private and mass psyche that is so represented.

I am Seth in those terms.

There are many myths connected with my name.6 They all represent portions of the psyche as they were understood at various times in man's history. Those portions were originally projected out of the psyche as it began to understand itself, and personified its abilities and characteristics, forming superheroic characters of one kind or another, to which the psyche could then correspond and relate.

End of dictation.

(12:29. Then, after producing a couple of paragraphs on another matter:)

End of session-("Okay.")

-and a fond good evening. 1 stop to give you a rest.

("I'm all right.

(With much amusement:) It shows you that I have concern.

("Yes. Well, thank you, Seth. Good night."

(End at 12:35 A.M. As we ate breakfast several hours later, Jane told methat during the night she'd kept waking up with ideas she thought were connected to "Unknown" Reality. When I asked her to write down what she could remember of them, she produced these items, with whatever distortions they may contain:)

"1. Some of the (hypnagogic) images you see in your mind prior to sleeping, and those at other times, are alternates-that is, you could see those pictures physically if you opened your eyes, instead of the ordinary reality you 'know' is there. Inner vision evolves physical sight, lining up exterior data into the kinds of images that correlate.

"2. Each reality is surrounded by its probabilities, but this is obviously relative...

"3. Our experience of the present is enriched by our memory of past perceptions. In some systems it works the other way:

Inhabitants are aware of the future as we are of the past. On the other hand their 'memory' of the past fades almost at once.

"4. Again I received information on Atlantis, only to forget it right away. I'd wanted to tell Rob about it this morning.

(Jane also came through with material about Atlantis right after the 708th session was held, less than two weeks ago; see Appendix 14. We'd described that episode briefly in ESP class the night before this [711th] session was held-so had our doing so caused her second Atlantis pickup? But it's also quite interesting to note that on both occasions Jane tuned in to data on Atlantis within hours after Seth had discussed ideas involving alternate realities.)

Session 712, October 16, 1974, 9:13 P.M., Wednesday

(No session was held P.M., Monday night, October 14, as scheduled. Jane was busy instead doing aprogramfor a radio station in a western state, live, via telephone from our living room in Elmira. She sat at her desk and was interviewed by the program's host, then answered questions from listeners. The show went well. In Volume 1, see the notes leading off the 702nd session.

(After supper this evening Jane received from Seth [without subjectively hearing his voice] information that the session would contain material about '~probability clusters." We liked the term. But not until Seth began discussing the subject did I realize that Jane had tuned in to it herselffollowing last Wednesday night's session. it appears at the end of that [711th] session as item No. 2 on the list of topics she came up with during the sleep state.

(In ESP class yesterday evening Jane engaged in one of her periodic and unusual "long-sound experiences, " as we call them. Seth goes into her adventure in consciousness after first break.)

Good evening.

("Good evening Seth.")

Now: Dictation: As per Ruburt's notes, each system of reality is indeed surrounded by its probable realities, though any one of those "probable realities" can be used as the hub, or core reality; in which case all of the others will then be seen as probable. In other words, relativity certainly applies here.

The rockbed reality is the one in which the perceiver is focused. From that standpoint all others would seem peripheral. Taking that for granted, however, any given reality system will be surrounded by its probability clusters. These can almost be thought of as satellities. Time and space need not be connected, however-that is, the attractions that exist between a reality and any given probability cluster may have nothing to do with time and space at all. The closest probability satellite to any given reality may, for example, be in an entirely different universe altogether. (Pause.) In that regard, you may find brethren more or less like yourselves outside of your own universe-as you think of it-rather than inside it. You imagine your universe as extending outward in space (and backwards in time) . You think of it as an exteriorized manifestation, expanding perhaps, but in an exterior rather than an interior fashion.1

(Slowly:) Your idea of space travel, for example, is to journey over the "skin of your universe." You do not understand that your system is indeed expanding within itself, bringing forth new creativity and ç~~gy (underlined) .

Give us time.. . Your universe is only one of many. Each one creates probable versions of itself. When you journey on the earth you move around the outside of it. So far, your ideas of space travel involve that kind of surface navigation. Earth trips, however, are made with the recognition of their surface nature.2 When you think in terms of traveling to other planets or to other galaxies, though, the same kind of surface travel is involved. As closely as I can explain it in your terms, your concepts of space travel have you going around space rather than directly through it.

(9:40.) Give us time.. . You are also viewing your solar system through your own time perspective, which is relative. You "look backward into time, " you say, when you stare outward into the universe. You could as well look into the future, of course. Your own coordinates3 close you off from recognizing that there are indeed other intelligences alive even within your own solar system. You will never meet them in your exterior reality, however, for you are not focused in the time period of their existence. You may physically visit the "very same planet~' on which they reside, but to you the planet will appear barren, or not able to support life.

In the same way, others can visit your planet with the same results. There is then a whole great inner dimension even to the space that you know, that you do not perceive. There are intelligent beings outside of your own galaxy, "adjacent" to you. Theoretically, you can visit them with some vast improvements in your technology, but great amounts of time would be involved. Others have visited your own planet in that particular fashion. Yours is still a linear technology. Some intelligent beings have visited your planet, finding not the world you know but a probable one.4 There are always feedbacks between probable systems. A dominant species in one may appear as a bizarre trace species in another. More will be said about this and your planet later in the book.5 The closest equivalent to your own kind of intelligence and being can actually be found not by following the outer skin of space, but by going through it, so to speak.

Give us time... There are, again, inner coordinates having to do with the inner behavior of electrons. If you understood these, then such travel could be relatively instantaneous. The coordinates that link you with others who are more or less of your kind have to do with psychic and psychological intersections that result in a like space-time framework.

Here I would like to give a very simple example, evocative of what I mean. The other day Ruburt received a telephone call from a woman in California who was in difficulty. Ruburt promised to send [healing] energy. Hanging up, he dosed his eyes and imagined energy being sent out from a universal source through his own body, and directed toward the person in need. When he did so, Ruburt mentally saw a long "heavy" beam extending straight to the west from a point between his eyes. It reached without impediment. He felt that this extension was composed of energy, and it seemed so strong that a person could walk upon it without difficulty. Subjectively he felt that this beam of energy reached its destination. And so it did.6

Energy was almost instantly transmitted across the continent from one specific individual to another. When you are dealing with that kind of energy, and particularly when you believe in it, space does not matter. Emotional connections are set up and form their own set of coordinates. (Pause.) That beam of energy is as strong and real as a beam of steel, though it moves faster than a beam of light.

(10:09.) If Ruburt had tried to visit the woman by plane he would have followed the curve of the earth, but in those terms the energy went through in the "straightest" way.

("But not through the earth?" I asked. Whereupon Seth repeated his last sentence three times. That was the answer he wanted to give.)

The psychic and emotional communication, then, cut through physical coordinates. Ruburt was momentarily allied with the woman.

Now: In the same way you can be allied and in tune with other probabilities that do not coincide with your space-time axis. The exterior universe with its galaxies-as you understand it, and on that level of activity-can be encountered on certain rigid space-time coordinates. You can visit other planets only in your present (underlined) . Your present may be the past or the future as far as inhabitants of a given planet are concerned. Your physical senses will only operate in their and your present.

"Effective" space travel, creative space travel on your part, will not occur until you learn that your space-time system is one focus. Otherwise you will seem to visit one dead world after another, blind to civilizations that may exist on any of them. Some of these difficulties could be transcended if you learned to understand the miraculous multidimensionality of even your own physical structure, and allowed your consciousness some of its greater freedom.

To some extent you have neurologically blinded yourselves. You accept only a certain range of neurological impulses as "reality."8 You have biologically prejudiced yourselves. The physical structure is innately aware of many more valid versions of reality than you allow ito be.

Theoretically, a thoroughly educated space traveler in your time, landing upon a strange planet, would be able to adlust his own consciousness so that he could perceive the planet in various "sequences" of time, if you land upon a planet in a spaceship and find volcanos, you would, perhaps, realize that other portions of that planet might show different faces. You have confidence in your ability to move through space, so you might then explore the terrain that you could not see from your original landing point. If you did not understand the change in qualities of space, you might imagine that the whole planet was a giant volcano.

You do not understand as yet, however, that in a way you can move through time as you move through space-and until you understand that, you will not know the meaning of a truejourney, or be able to thoroughly explore any planet-or any reality, including your own.

You imagine that your own earth is mapped out, and all frontiers known, but the linear aspects of your planet's life represent a most minute portion of its reality.

Take your break.

(10:24. Jane told me that Seth had been "really there, " although

her delivery hadn't seemed to be any stronger or faster, say, than it usually is when she's under She added that the material had appeared to be endless, and that Seth had called for a break now only so that we could rest before he launched into the next block of data-for that too was already "there."

(Rain had fallen in afine drizzle throughout most of the day; and now, I saw from our second-story living room windows, a heaty fog lay over the street corner below and the newly finished Walnut Street Bridge just south of the intersection. The whole area had a warm disp ersed glow from the bridge's lights.

(Resume in the same manner at 10:4 5.)

The portions of the psyche reflect and create the portions of the universe from its most minute to its greatest part. You identif~r with one small section of your psyche, and so you name as reality only one small aspect of the universe.

New paragraph. In class last evening Ruburt "picked up" messages that seemed to be too slow for his neurological structure. He was convinced that it would take many hours of your time in order to translate perhaps a simple dear paragraph of what he was receiving. He experienced some strain, feeling that each vowel and syllable was so drawn out, in your terms of time, that he must either slow down his own neurological workings to try to make some suitable adjustments. He chose the latter. Messages, therefore, perceptions, "came through" at one speed, so to speak, and he managed to receive them while translating them into a more comfortable, neurologically familiar speed.

One part of Ruburt accepted the "slow" [or "long"I perceptions, while another part quickened them into something like normal speech patterns. Some communication did result.'

What he was sensing, however, was an entirely different kind of reality. He was beginning to recognize another synapse [neuronal] pattern not "native"; he was familiarizing himself with perceptions at a different set of coordinate points. Such activity automatically alters the nature of time in your experience, and is indicative of intersections of your consciousness with another kind of consciousness. That particular type of consciousness operates "at different speeds" than your own. Biologically, your own physical structures are quite able to operate at those same speeds, though as a species you have disciplined yourselves to a different kind of neurological reaction. By altering such neurological prejudice, 10 however, you can indeed learn to become aware of other realities that coincide with yours. Period.

Now Electrons themselves operate at different "speeds." The structure of the atom that you recognize, and its activity, is in larger terms one probable version of an atom.1' Your consciousness, as it is allied with the flesh, follows the activity of atoms as far as it is reflected in your system of reality.

Ruburt is learning to minutely experience-change that-Ruburt is learning to minutely alter his experience with the probable atomic correlations that exist quite as validly as does the particular kind of atomic integrity that you generally recognize. When he does so, in your terms, he alters atomic receptivity. This automatically brings probabilities to the forefront. To perceive other realities you alter your own coordinates, tuning them in to other systems and attracting those into your focus.

Now take a break or end the session as you prefer.

("We'll take the break."

(11:08 to 11:26.)

Now: To some extent or another there are counterparts'2 of all realities within your psyche. When you slow down, or quicken your thoughts or your perceptions, you automatically ~ to alter your focus, to step aside from your officially recognized existence. This is highly important, for in certain terms you are indeed transcending the time framework that you imagine to be so real.

In other terms, certain portions of your own reality have long since "vanished" in the unrecognized death that your own sense of continuity has so nicely straddled. Your personal cluster of probable realities surrounds you, again, on a cellular basis, and biologically your physical body steers its own line, finding its balance operating in a cluster of probabilities while maintaining the focus that is your own. You can even learn to tune in to the cellular comprehension. It will help you realize that your consciousness is not as limited as you suppose. All realities emerge from the psyche, and from the CU's (the units of consciousness) that compose it.

(Heartily:) End of dictation. Give us amoment....

(11:38. Now Jane came through with several pages of material for herself Some of it was quite personal, but one part consisted of Seth's response to an assessment she'd written after supper tonight, wherein she examined her progress since the inauguration of her psychic abilities late in 1963. Seth, here, adds to our understanding ofJane's reactions to some of the challenges she took up 11 years ago. His material is also an extension of much that he gave in the 6 79th session for Volume 1 of "Unknown" Reality when he discussed the early background of the probable Jane who chose to live in this physical reality, and how that Jane began to contend with her strongly mystical nature. See especially Note 8for Session 679, and Appendix 1.)

The paper Ruburt wrote this evening is pertinent, and highly significant. Have him show it to you. Indeed, though he dislikes the word, he is finishing the first portion of his "apprenticeship"-in which he became acquainted with a different kind of reality, and had to learn how to equate it with the "normal" one.

Certain strains were involved that in one way were as natural as growing pains. This has nothing to do with so-called psychic phenomena, but the natural growth and development of a personality whenever it tries to go beyond its space and time context, and takes on challenges of such a nature.

In one way, on one level, such a personality seems to be operating "blind, " while in another it is aware of its accomplishments and challenges. Often a situation of unbalance is set up that would not exist had the personality not accepted the challenges and, hence, the potentials for an even greater development.

The more prosaic elements of the personality then take whatever measures seem necessary at the time, while new orientation is tried out. These methods may seem to lead to great distortions, particularly in contrast with the sensed possibilities of development. In one way or another, however, they still provide a framework in which the personality feels itself free to pursue its goals. The built-in impetuses provide clue points. When the new sensed reality is strong enough to provide not only greater cornprehensions but also to construct a new framework, then the old framework is seen as limiting, and discarded.

Elements in your lives were experienced as negative simply because Ruburt was not sure of himself. Pleas for help (directed to Jane as well as Seth) were seen as demands-not as opportunities to use abilities-so he felt hounded. He was not sure enough of his new world; he was still enough a part of the old one so that he often saw his life and abilities through the eyes of the "old world inhabitants"-the others who might scorn him, or set him up for ridicule.'3 They represented portions of his own psyche still at that level of consciousness, not having quite assimilated the greater knowledge or experience, so he felt he needed protection-the protection that would.., cleverly.., serve all of his purposes, allowing him to go ahead as he wanted to... that would keep him at home working, and yet also serve as a control against too much inner spontaneity until he learned that he could indeed trust the new world of experience.

(Then later:) There is far more I could say. The time this evening does not permit it, though I can talk as long as you can write.

My consciousness does not normally operate at the same speeds as yours, either (see Note 9) , so in my terms what I am saying has long ago been said, while in your present it is new, or just reaching you.

(And later yet:) Ruburt should have another experience involving me or my voice...

And now (emphatically, but with a smile) I bid you a fond-and indeed the most fond of good evenings.

("Thank you. Seth. Good night."

(End at 12:01 A.M.

(A note added after Seth had completed his dictation for "Unknown" Reality in April 1975: the 712th session was held on October 16, 1974. In her notes at the beginning of the 710th session, Jane described how she'd heard Seth's very poweiful voice in her sleep state during the night of October 5. I can write now that she has yet to have any subsequent, similar kind of encounter with Seth or his voice.)

Session 713, October 21, 1974, 9:28 P.M., Monday

("The truth is, "Jane said to me the other evening. "I'm alone in this psychic thing. I'm the one who's got to do it...." We were discussing the material Seth had given after 11:38 in the last [712th] session; he'd talked about some ofthe strains Jane had experz~'nced while sewing "thefirst portion of her app renticesh~p" in the development of her psychic abilities. I've heard her say the same thing before, of course; see Note 13 for the 712th session. Basically, her examination of her inner dimensions must be a solitary one. When she began the sessions over 11 years ago, we requested advice and help from afewpeople2 but as we slowly began to understand the very personal nature of her gifts we realized that she'd have to find her own answers as she went along. with whatever help I could learn to offer~

(Those circumstances might have acted as a leavening factor in the early years, perhaps to a mild degree helping determine the direction of some of Jane's psychic explorations, with and without Seth. Much more important is that she's always wanted to do her own thing Besides, how would she ask advice from another about such an individua4 intuitive quality as, say, the next step to

take in her psychic growth? These notes make her quest appear to be much simpler than it actually was-and is.2

(This afternoon Jane told me that in her sleep last night she'd had bleed-throughs from Seth about the material to come next in his booI She described it to me-and tonight Seth followed that subject matter very closely in the first part of the session. I suggest the reader review the 711th session in connection with this evening's data to 11:26.)

Good evening.

("Good evening. Seth.")

Dictation. Give us a moment...

(Long pause.) It might help here if you imagine the psyche again as some multidimensional living television set. In what seems to be the small space of the screen many programs are going on, though you can tune in to only one at a time.

In a manner of speaking, however, all of the other programs are "latent?' in the one you are watching. There are coordinates that unite them all. There is a give-and-take quite invisible to you between one program and another, and action within one, again, affects the action within each of the others.

Like this imaginary multidimensional television, the psyche contains within it other programs than the one in which you are acting-other plots, environments, and world situations. Theoretically you can indeed momentarily "walk out oP' your program into another as easily, when you know how, as you now move from one room to another. You must know that the other programs exist or the possibility of such action will not occur to you. In larger terms all of the programs are but portions of one, colon: The various sets are real, however, and the characters quite alive.

Now: Actors playing parts are obviously alive, as actors, but in a fictional play, for example, the characters portrayed by the actors are not alive, in your terms, in the same fashion that the actors are. In the psyche, however, and in its greater reality, the characters have their own lives-quite as real as those of the actors.

Think again of the psyche in the manner mentioned, taking it for granted that the program now on the screen is a fully dimensioned reality, and that hidden somehow in its very elements are all of the other programs not showing. These are not lined up in space behind the "front" program, but in a completely different way contained within it. The point of any image at any given time in the picture showing might represent, for example, a top hat on a table. Everyone acting in that scene would view the hat and the table, and react accordingly with their own individual characteristics.

Give us a moment... The hat on the table, while possessing all of the necessary paraphernalia of reality for that scene, might also, however, serve as a different kind of reference point for one of the other progiams simultaneously occurring. In that reality, say program two, the entire configuration of hat and table may be meaningless, while still being interpreted in an entirely different way from a quite different perspective. There in program two the table might be a flat natural plain, and the hat an oddly shaped structure upon it-a natural rather than a manufactured one. Objects in your reality have an entirely different aspect in another. Any of the objects shown in the program you are watching, then, may be used as a different kind of reference point in another reality, in which those objects appear as something else.

(9:50.) We are trying to make an analogy here on two levels, so please bear with me. In terms of your psyche, each of your own thoughts and actions exist not only in the manner with which you are familiar with them, but also in many other forms that you do not perceive, colon: forms that may appear as natural events in a different dimension than your own, as dream images, and even as self-propelling energy. No energy is ever lost. The energy within your own thoughts, then, does not dissipate even when you yourself have finished with them. Their energy has reality in other worlds.3

Now imagine that the picture on , the television screen shows your own universe. Your idea of space travel would be to send a ship from one planet, earth, outward into the rest of space that you perceive on that "flat" screen. Even with your projected technology, this would involve great elements of time. Imagine here, now, that the screen's picture is off-center to begin with, so that everything is distorted to some extent, and going out into space seems to be going backward into time.

(Pause.) If the picture were magically centered, then all "time" would be seen to flow out from the instant moment4 of perception, the private now; and in many ways the mass now, or mass perception, represents the overall now-point of your planet. From that now, "time" goes out in all probable directions. Actually it also goes inward in all probable directions.

(Slowly:) The simple picture of the universe that you see on our screen, therefore, represents a view from your own nowperspective-but each star, planet, galaxy or whatever is made up of other reference points in which, to put it simply, the same patterns have different kinds of reality. True space travel would of course be time-space travel, 5 in which you learned how to use points in your own universe as "dimensional clues" that would serve as entry points into other worlds. Otherwise you are simply flying like an insect around the outside of the television set, trying to light on the fruit, say, that is shown upon the screen-and wondering, like a poor bemused fly, why you cannot. You use one main focus in your reality. In the outside world this means that you have a "clear picture." (Humorously:) There is no snow! That physical program is the one you are acting in, alive in, and it is the one shown on the screen. The screen is the part of your psyche upon which you are concentrating. You not only tune in the picture but you also create the props, the entire history of the life and times, hyphen-but in living three-dimensional terms, and "you, ~ are within that picture.

The kind of reality thus created by that portion of your consciousness forms a given kind of experience. It is valid and real. When you want to travel, you do so within the dimensions of the reality thus created. If you drive or fly from one city to another, you do not consider the journey imaginary. You are exploring the dimensions given.

(10:18.) Now If you alter that picture a little so that the images are somewhat scrambled-and you do this by altering the focus of your consciousness-then the familiar coordination is gone. Objects may appear blurred, ordinary sounds distorted. It seems as if you are on the outskirts of your own reality. In such a state, however, it is easy to see that your usual orientation may be but one of many frames of reference. (Pause.) If you did change the focus of your consciousness still further, you might then "bring in" another picture entirely. On the outside this would give you another reality. (Intently:) In it your "old" reality might still be somewhat perceivable as a ghost image, 6 if you knew what to look for and remembered your former coordinates. On the inside, however, you would be traveling not around or about, but through one portion of the psyche with its reality, into another portion of the psyche with its reality. That kind ofjourney would not be any more imaginary than a trip from one city to another.

There are space-time coordinates that operate from your viewpoint-and space travel from the standpoint of your time, made along the axis of your space, will be a relatively sterile procedure. (In parentheses: Some reported instances of UFO's happened in the past as far as the visitors were concerned, but appeared as images or realities in your present This involves craft sightings only. *)

Give us time... When you change your ordinary television set from one station to another you may encounter snow or distortion. If something is wrong with the set you may simply tune in patterns that seem meaningless and carry no particular program. You may have sound without a picture, and sometimes even a picture but sound from another program. So when you begin to experiment with states of altered consciousness you often run into the same kind of phenomena, when nothing seems to make sense.

(10:32.) Currently, physicists have made some important breakthroughs, but they do not recognize their significance. The universe that you know is full of microscopic black holes and white holes, 7 for example. Since your scientists have themselves given these labels, then using those terms I will say (with much gentle humor) that there are red, green, orange and purple holes-that is, the so-called black holes and white holes only represent what physicists have so far deduced about the deeper properties of your universe, and the way that certain coordinate points in one world operate, as providing feed-through into another.

Nothing exists outside the psyche, however, that does not exist within it, and there is no unknown world that does not have its psychological or psychic counterpart. Man learned to fly as he tried to exteriorize inner experience, for in out-of-body states in dreams he had long been familiar with flight All excursions into outer reality come as the psyche attempts to reproduce in any given "exterior" world the inner freedom of its being.

Men have also visited other worlds through the ages. Others have visited your world. In dreams, and in altered states through history as you accept it, men have been taken upon such journeys. On their return they almost always interpreted their experiences in terms of their home programs, intertwining what happened into what ended up as great myths and stories-real but not real.

Take your break.

(10:4 5. "Man, " Jane said after quickly leaving an excellent dissociated state, "is he going to town. There's just tons of material there, all ready and waiting...." I could tell that this was the case: Her delivery had reached a steady, quiet yet driving level that she seemed capable of maintaining indefinitely.

(Jane commented here on something I'd also become aware of in recent sessions. For whatever reasons since holding the 709th session, size hasn't had to wait for that certain, more "c4jicult" kind of trance to develop before launching into Seth's book material, see the note at 10:55 for that session. In some fashion she can't describe, Jane is now able to reach the "right" trance state, or to arrive at it, much more easily. For other contrasting examples, in Volume I see the notes closing out sessions 688 and 703, as well as related material in Appendix 4, wherein I wrote about the translation challenges she's often faced since beginning "Unknown" Reality: "-hence her talk before many of these sessions.., about attaining that 'certain clear f