Inverted Time and Probabilities (Tape Recorder Metaphor)

Seth Early Sessions, Vol 5, Session 231

Now. I would like to give you some further data concerning probabilities and the inverted time system.

Now when I first spoke of the inverted time system, I spoke of it as if it were apart from your own time system, to enable you to see it with some objectivity. However as you know by now, this system operates within your own. It simply is not the time system recognized by the ego.

There are many implications here, and now perhaps you can understand why I gave you the information on the nature of action before I introduced you to the inverted time system. For action is action whether or not you perceive it, and probable events are events whether or not you perceive them as such.

Thoughts are indeed events therefore. Wishes and desires are events. As you know, wishes and desires also influence those actions which will be perceived by you as actual events in the physical universe. The human system responds fully as much to these events as it does to physical events. In the dream state often portions of these probable events are experienced in a semiconscious manner. This amounts to a bleed-through, and I use the term purposely, for your recorder can serve us here in an analogy.

Imagine the whole self as composed of some master tape. Your recorder has four channels. We will give our master tape numberless channels.

Each channel will represent a portion of the self, each one existing in a different dimension, and yet all part of the whole self, or the whole tape. You can see that it would be highly ridiculous to say that the material on your Mono One was any more or any less valid than your material on Mono Two. Mono One and Mono Two could be compared then to self one and two; self one and two here, however, in the context of the ego as self one and the subconscious as you know it as self two. We are not using Dunne’s terms here, in other words. We will imagine then these various one and two, Mono One and Mono Two, multiplied, literally, an endless amount of times. Now on your recorder I believe you have a setting for stereo. This enables you to unite and combine harmoniously the elements on the various channels simultaneously. I am taking my time here so that we get this clearly, for I do not often come through with the pure clarity of stereophonic.

Now. Your stereophonic setting can be compared to what we have termed the inner ego. Now each of these selves experience time in their own manner, and as you should see by now this only means that they build their own realities according to the nature of their own perceptions. But the nature of their own perceptions is not chaotic. The portions of the self are so constructed, so to speak, that when the stereophonic channel is turned on the selves then know their unity. Their various realities merge in the overall perceptions of the whole self.

None of these portions of the self are the whole self, obviously, and until the whole self is able to perceive its own parts simultaneously, then these seemingly separate portions of the self appear to themselves isolated to a large degree, and alone.

There is communication between them but they are not aware of it. The tape is the element common to all the channels. Now. The inner ego is the director as you know, but the whole self must know itself simultaneously. It is not enough that the inner ego knows what is going on. Ultimately therefore the inner ego must itself bring about comprehension on the parts of the various portions.

Each portion of the self must therefore become fully aware of all the other portions. We are not dealing however with anything as simple as a mechanical recorder, for our tapes, in analogy, are constantly changing.

Now. Take for example probable event X. This so-called probable event or action will be experienced by the various portions of the self in their own way. When it is experienced by the ego you call it an actual physical event. When the event is perceived or experienced by other layers of the self, the ego does not know of it.

The event is actual all the same, and is experienced in variation. The whole self therefore perceives and is affected by probabilities, and experiences these as action, regardless of whether or not the ego has chosen to accept any given event as a physical occurrence.

The time sequence varies also as you have seen. That is, events are experienced in different sequences. However past, present and future has reality only to the ego.  Now there is some bleed-through. The ego is certainly aware to some extent of the subconscious. The subconscious is certainly aware of the ego. The portion of the self, or rather the portions of the self, that experience action in terms of what the ego would term probability, is further divorced from the ego, however, and this probability reality appears to the ego very rarely, and only very occasionally.

When this does happen it usually occurs as a bleed-through from the subconscious from the dream state, for the subconscious is somewhat acquainted with probabilities, and to some degree experiences these in a problem-solving manner. It views various probabilities with the purposes of the ego in mind, and therefore aids the ego in its decisions as to which probable events it should choose for its own experience.

Now, the time in which the inner ego exists is, as you know, the spacious present. The spacious present is the basic time in which the whole self has its existence, but the various portions of that self have their experience in their own time systems, which are the results of their characteristic methods of perception.

Now. It should be obvious that the psychological framework must be different when the time system of experience is different. You can see easily for yourself the individual psychological variations that exist simply between the ego and the subconscious, but these portions of the self are very close. Other portions of the self, that deal in what you would call probable realities, are very different in their psychological makeup.

There is a chameleonlike characteristic, a continuity, not in terms of successive moments, but a continuity in terms of design. Events are perceived in what would seem a most alien manner to the ego. The probabilities are traveled through, so to speak. Identity or continuity of the self is retained and strengthened in a series of simultaneous events, with value fulfillment foremost insofar as purposeful action is concerned.

The probable events are experienced in such a way that any given action or probable action is followed through in its various and almost infinite varieties. I have been slow in giving you this data, since it is so divorced from your normal experience that it is difficult to put the concept into words. You do not have sufficient words to clearly explain what I mean. We will end up making

this quite clear, however.

The ego maintains much of its stability by looking backwards, so to speak, into its experience of its past, and finding something of itself there. Now the past may be an illusion, but it is not illusion to the ego. The portions of the self that deal in probabilities do not have such an experience with a past, to give them their feeling of identity or continuity.

Permanence as the ego thinks of it would be an alien concept to these portions of the self, and to them a highly distasteful concept, adding up to rigidity. Flexibility is the key here, a voluntary changing or alteration of the self as it is allowed to change freely with each probability that is explored. Experience here therefore is of a plastic nature. Some thought concerning your own dream state may give you an intimate key to understand what I mean here.

The identity, the basic identity, of these portions of the self, are carried by what you could compare to the subconscious that you know. This is difficult, but listen: in these portions of the self it is the subconscious that carries the burden of identity, and it is the ego whose experiences are of a dreamlike, plastic nature. I use these terms to make the point clear. Do not let them confuse you. These portions of the self would seem topsy-turvy to you for this reason.