“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:20.) First of all, these other organizations do not deal primarily with time at all, but with the emotions and associative processes. When you understand how your own associations work, then you will be in a much better position to interpret your own dreams, for example, and finally to make an art of them.

There are several approaches to these exercises. The idea will be to experience emotions and events as much as possible outside of time sequences.

As I have mentioned many times, cellular comprehension deals with probabilities and encompasses future and past, so at that level of activity time as you understand it does not exist. You are not consciously aware of such data, however. The psyche — at the other end of the scale, so to speak — is also free of time. Often, however, your own stream of consciousness leads you to think of events outside of their usual order. You may receive a letter from your Aunt Bessie, for example. In a matter of moments it may trigger you to think of events in your childhood, so that many mental images fly through your mind. You might wonder if your aunt will take an anticipated journey to Europe next year, and that thought might give birth to images of an imagined future. All of these thoughts and images will be colored by the emotions that are connected to the letter, and to all of the events with which you and your aunt have been involved.

The next time you find yourself in the middle of a like experience, with associations flowing freely, then become more aware of what you are doing. Try to sense the mobility involved. You will see that the events will not necessarily be structured according to usual time, but according to emotional content.

Thoughts of your own next birthday, for instance, may instantly lead you to think of past ones, or a series of birthday pictures may come to mind of your own twelfth birthday, your third, your seventh, in an order uniquely your own. That order will be determined by emotional associations — the same kind followed by the dreaming self.

What did you wear to work three days ago? What did you have for breakfast a week ago? Who sat next to you in kindergarten? What frightened you last? Are you afraid of sleep? Did your parents beat you? What did you do just after lunch yesterday? What color shoes did you wear three days ago? You remember only significant events or details. Your emotions trigger your memories, and they organize your associations. Your emotions are generated through your beliefs. They attach themselves so that certain beliefs and emotions seem almost synonymous.

(9:40.) The next time an opportunity arises, and you recognize the presence of a fairly strong emotion in yourself, then let your associations flow. Events and images will spring to mind in an out-of-time context. Some such remembered events will make sense to you. You will clearly see the connection between the emotion and event, but others will not be so obvious. Experience the events as clearly as you can. When you are finished, purposefully alter the sequence. Remember an event, and then follow it with the memory of one that actually came earlier. Pretend that the future one came before the past one.

Now for another exercise. Imagine a very large painting, in which the most important events of your life are clearly depicted. First of all, see them as a series of scenes, arranged in small squares, to be viewed as you would, say, a comic-book page. The events must be of significance to you. If school graduation meant nothing, for example, do not paint it in. Have the pictures begin at the upper left-hand corner, ending finally at the lower right-hand corner. Then completely switch the sequence, so that the earliest events are at the lower right-hand corner.

When you have done this, ask yourself which scene evokes the strongest emotional response. Tell yourself that it will become larger and larger, then mentally watch its size change. Certain dynamics are involved here, so that such a scene will also attract elements from other scenes. Allow those other scenes to break up, then. The main picture will attract elements from all of the others, until you end up with an entirely different picture — one made up of many of the smaller scenes, but united in an entirely new fashion. You must do this exercise, however, for simply reading about it will not give you the experience that comes from the actual exercise. Do it many times.

Unfortunately, certain aspects of Christianity were stressed over others, and that dictum was based upon the belief in a wicked self that needed to be disciplined and diverted into constructive activity. The belief in such an unsavory self stops many people from any exploration of the inner self — and, therefore, from any direct experience that will give them counter-evidence. If you are afraid of yourself, if you are afraid of your own memories, you will block your associative processes, fearing for example that they will bring to light matters best forgotten — and usually sexual matters.

(10:08.) Sexuality is the only strong area of energy with which some people are connected, so it becomes the focal point for all of their beliefs about the self in general. In doing some of these exercises, you might come across images of masturbation, homosexual or lesbian encounters, or simply old sexual fantasies, and immediately backtrack because your beliefs may tell you that these are evil.

You will not remember, or want to remember, your own dreams for the same reason. Many people, therefore, tell themselves that they are very impatient to discover the nature and extent of the psyche, and cannot understand why they meet with so little success. At the same time, such beliefs convince them that the self is evil. These beliefs must be weeded out. If you cannot honestly encounter the dimensions of your creaturehood, you surely cannot explore the greater dimensions of the psyche. This blocking of associations, however, is a very important element that impedes many people. The psyche’s organizations are broader, and in their way more rational than most of your conscious beliefs about the self.

I will suggest many exercises throughout this book. Some of them will necessitate variations of normal consciousness. I may ask you to forget physical stimuli, or suggest that you amplify them, but I am nowhere stating that your mode of consciousness is wrong. It is limited, not by nature, but by your own beliefs and practice. You have not carried it far enough.

Suggest that instead of falling asleep, you will come into another kind of wakefulness. Try to imagine that you are awake when you sleep. On other occasions when you go to bed, lie down and settle yourself, but as you fall asleep imagine that you are awakening the next morning. I will not tell you what to look for. The doing of these exercises is important — not the results in usual terms.

I said that there were different kinds of knowledge; so will these exercises bring you in contact with knowledge in another way. Done over a period of time, they will open up alternate modes of perception, so that you can view your experience from more than one standpoint. This means that your experience will itself change in quality. Sometimes when you are awake, and it is convenient, imagine that your present experience of the moment is a dream, and is highly symbolic. Then try to interpret it as such.

(10:58.) Sometime as you walk down a street, pretend that you are seeing the same scene from the sky in an airplane, yourself included. On another occasion, as you sit inside your house imagine that you are outside on the lawn or street. All of these exercises should be followed by a return to the present: You focus your attention outward in the present moment as clearly as possible, letting the sounds and sights of the physical situation come into your attention.

If you continue, you will indeed discover that you are aware of some future events, when such knowledge is not available in usual terms. If you persist, then over a period of time you will discover that you do very well in certain areas, while in others you may fail miserably. There will be associative patterns that you follow successfully, leading toward “correct” precognitions. You will also discover that the emotions are highly involved in such procedures: You will perceive information that is significant to you for some reason. That significance will act like a magnet, attracting those data to you.

Now, in the normal course of events you attract experience in the same fashion. You anticipate events. You are aware of them before they happen, whether or not you ever succeed in conscious predictions. You form your life, however, through the intimate interworkings of your own conscious goals and beliefs.