Session 891
December 26, 1979
Tonight subject matter: “Great Expectations“-for here I am referring to the book by (Charles) Dickens.
Now: the year 1980 exists in all of its potential versions, now in this moment. Because mass events are concerned there is not a completely different year, of course, for each individual on the face of the planet—but there are literally an endless number of mass shared worlds of 1980 “ in the wings, “ so to speak.
It is not quite as simple a matter as just deciding what events you want to materialize as reality, since you have, in your terms, a body of probabilities of one kind or another already established as the raw materials for the coming year. It would be quite improbable for you, Joseph (as Seth calls me), too suddenly turn into a tailor, for example, for none of your choices with probabilities have lead towards such action.
In like manner, England in all probability next year will not suddenly turn into a Mohammedan nation. But within the range of workable probabilities, private and mass choices, the people of the world are choosing their probable 1980’s.
(Long pause) I am taking my time here, for there are some issues that I would like to clear up, that are difficult to explain.
Any of the probable actions that a person considers are a part of that person’s conscious thought. Just underneath, however, people also consider other sets of probabilities that may or may not reach conscious level, simply because they are shunted aside, or because they seem to meet with no conscious recognition. I want you to try and imagine actual events, as you think of them, to be (pause) the vitalized representations of probabilities—that is, as the physical versions of mental probabilities. The probabilities with which you are not consciously concerned remain psychologically peripheral: They are there but not there, so to speak.
Your conscious mind can only accept a certain sequence of probabilities has recognized experience. As I have said, the choices among probabilities go on constantly, both on conscious and unconscious levels. Events that you do not perceive as conscious experiences are (pause) a part of your unconscious experience, however, to some extent. This applies to the individual, and of course enmasse the same applies to world events. Each action seeks all of its own possible fulfillments. All This Is seeks all possible experience, but in such a larger framework in this case that questions of, say, pain and death simply do not apply, though [certainly] they do on the physical level (all quite forcefully).
Great expectations, basically, have nothing to do with the degree, for a grass blade is filled with great expectations. Great expectations are built upon a faith in the nature of reality, a faith in nature itself, a faith in the life you are given, what ever its degree—and all children, for example, are born with those expectations. Fairy tales are indeed often—though not always—carriers of a kind of underground knowledge, as per your discussion about Cinderella ( also see the 824th session for Mass Events), and the greatest fairy tales are always those in which the greatest expectations went out: The elements of the physical world that are unfortunate can be changed in the twinkling of an eye through great expectations.
Your education tells you that all of that is nonsense, that the world is defined by its physical aspects alone. When you think of power you think of, say, nuclear energy, or solar energy—but power is the creative energy within men’s minds allows them to use such powers, such energies, such forces.
The true power is in the imagination which dares to speculate upon that which is not yet (intently). The imagination, backed by great expectations, can bring about almost any reality within the range of probabilities. All of the possible versions of 1980 will happen. Except for those you settle upon, all of the others will remain psychologically peripheral, in the background of your conscious experience—but all of those possible versions will be connected in one way or another.
The import lessons have never really appeared in your societies: the most beneficial use of the directed will, with great expectations, and that coupled with the knowledge of Framework 1 and 2 activities. Very simply: you want something, you draw upon it consciously for a while, you consciously imagine it coming to the forefront of probabilities, closer to your actuality. Then you drop it like a pebble into Framework 2, forget about it as much as possible for a fortnight, and do this in a certain rhythm.
I gave you some New Year’s resolutions last year, and it seems to me (with some irony) that they could be resurrected.
They are as good, tell Ruburt, who does not read them now, as they were then. They help focus both mind and imagination. That focusing helps you to act, to be. Now give us a moment.
Now: In our book, I will be doing my best to explain the origin of your universe, and in such a way that most of the pertinent questions are answered, but man’s present concept of reality is so limited that I must often resort to analogies.
In the most basic of terms, as 1980 happens the energy that comes into your universe is as new as if (in your terms) the world where created yesterday—a point that will be rather difficult to explain. All of the probable versions of 1980 spin off their own probable pasts as well as their own probable futures, and any consciousness that exists in 1980 was (again in those terms) a part of what you think of as the beginning of the world. (To me) Your mother did not simply choose to believe, in her old age, in a different past than the one that was accepted by the family—she effectively changed probabilities. She was not diluted or obsessed. Her memory in that regard, now, was not defective: It was the memory of the probable woman that she became.
Like the entire American hostage affair (in Iran), any physical event serves as a focus that attracts all of its probable versions and outcomes. The hostage situation (now in day 53) is a materialized mass dream, meant to be important and vital on political and religious platforms of reality, meant to dramatize a conflict of beliefs, and to project that conflict outward into the realm of public knowledge. Everyone involved was consciously and unconsciously a willing participant at the most basic levels of human behavior, and it is of course no coincidence that 1980 is immediately foreshadowed by that event. What will the world do with it?
Your TV and news systems of communication are a part of the event itself, of course. It is in a way far better that these events occurred now, and in the way that they have, so that the problems appear clearly in the world arena. They are actually thus of a far less violent nature than they might otherwise have been.
Religious beliefs will be examined as they have not been before, and their connections and political affiliations. The Arab world still needs the West, and again, it is better that those issues come to light now, while they must to some extent consider the rest of the world.
Do not personally give any more conscious consideration, either of you, to the events that you do not want to happen. ( Long pause) Any such concentration, to whatever degree, ties you in with those probabilities, so concentrate upon what you want, and as far as public events are concerned, taken it for granted that sometimes even men are wiser than they know.
Do you have questions?
(Only a million of them, I thought. “No, I guess not,” I said to Seth.)
Then I wish you a happy anniversary---
(Thank you)
--and the most auspicious of 1980’s. A fond good evening
(“Thank you, Seth. Good night.”)
Pages 175-180
A Seth Book
Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment
Volume 1
Jane Roberts/Seth
Prentice-Hall Press