Conversations with Tom

Tom: I made a joke; Bill Gates didn't really win a lottery ticket.

Shawn: The joke was good. Would be like me playing the lotto if it only paid $20.

Tom: Mebbe $1.49

Tom: Anyway, Seth said "You don't know how you are going to end a sentence when you begin it, but you have faith that you will," and he said that as an analogy for the way we make our reality as we go along. [etc.]

Shawn: I didn't catch that analogy. Shows me that I'm not reading the words behind the words as I should...

Tom: That's pretty close to an exact quote. The trick is, we are so trained away from our inner selves that simple words about them aren't recognized for what they are.

Tom: I've heard lots of people swear that on reading Seth repeatedly, the words had changed on the page -- they'll swear to that before they'll admit they didn't get it the first 10 times. But we really are "a literal-minded species" (That was another years-long meditation for me, incidentally).

Tom: The reason I asked if you've ever tried to figure out how you walk is [...] I stood motionless on the sidewalk, unable to remember how to walk.

Shawn: I've done similar. Do you think this is a way to help us understand these otherwise non-conscious manipulations of energy? I know a lot of people who get instruction on sports they have been doing start doing worse immediately when they place a higher degree of conscious attention on the subtle motions they go through. Is the outer ego interfering with the inner ego in these cases?

Tom: It's a way to recognize how little we understand about our intuitions. More likely it's a case of believing in the authority of the instructions more than believing in the authority of one's spontaneous abilities. Mustn't blame "the ego" for it... 'tis a poor craftsman who blames his tools... There's the old line about "knowing all the notes but never learning the tune." It's possible to be "ego-conscious" and still play with that same intuitive facility. You don't have to be ignorant to play the blues, as it were. But you have to face up to all the concentration you have to learn.

Tom: Hmm. Try [Practice Element 2] once again, only awake in the day [etc]

Shawn: While driving back to ATL on Tuesday I observed a strange type of open bed red truck.

Tom: Hold it. Uh oh. Here come the "coincidences" again. Around the time I first did Practice Element 2, I dreamed one morning of seeing a red truck. That morning driving to work (in Houston) I happened to... "observe a strange type of open bed red truck." That odd bit of precognition was what triggered my decision to start writing down my dreams again. (Seth sez, "pay attention to 'coincidences,'" in case you don't recall this.)

Shawn: Without thinking about it my mind wandered to thinking about the man driving the truck and what his life is like. I felt a slight displacement and saw an image of a large open warehouse with machines. I felt like I actually became this man for a split second. After that I tried that exercise on each car I came up to for a while.

Tom: Now that's pretty good.

Shawn: A couple of comments from my Seth site (http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/sethssafehaven):

Shawn: 1. Someone wanted to know if you and Sue still kept in touch.

Tom: Funny. I've been meaning to write to her for 2 weeks now.

Shawn: 2. From Michelle_101_au: "I just wanted to thank you for posting your >conversations with Tom and thanks to Tom too of course...I have set aside time everyday now to work on some of the practices." from message #171

Tom: Good for her.

Shawn: I'm going to post an exercise each month for the group to try. I was thinking about the first one from NPR about feeling tones.

Tom: There was a newsletter named "Co-ordinate Point International" around in the early '80s that had a little segment of that kind. Few ever participated. Maybe one reason is that the editor had to supply a rather annoying little "round up" for whoever did write in. Another reason, of course, we've already discussed. Lastly, the nature of most of them is pretty private. But dreams, as you may have noticed so far, are quite a good social exercise, and a superb one for the broad-minded.

Tom: There is always, bear in mind, the fact that you have to decide whether or not the person telling you the story is telling the truth.

Tom: I've heard lots of people swear that on reading Seth repeatedly, the words had changed on the page -- they'll swear to that before they'll admit they didn't get it the first 10 times.

Shawn: This is why you suggested I read the Seth books again instead of starting something else.

Tom: Well, uh, er... I hadn't actually thought of that, but yeah, sure.

Tom: Rob once mentioned getting a letter from a guy who said he'd been re-reading SETH SPEAKS for 20 years, and he's going to keep re-reading 'til he understands all of it. Well... me too. It's a very worthwhile humbling.

Shawn: I read the first 1/4 of "The Coming of Seth" and it is interesting to hear Jane speak. She has a lot to add to the Seth material on her own.

Tom: After some years, I realized that the more I read Seth the more I understood what Jane was talking about.

Tom: Hold it. Uh oh. Here come the "coincidences" again. Around the time I first did Practice Element 2, I dreamed one morning of seeing a red truck. That morning driving to work (in Houston) I happened to... "observe a strange type of open bed red truck." That odd bit of precognition was what triggered my decision to start writing down my dreams again. (Seth sez, "pay attention to 'coincidences,'" in case you don't recall this.)

Shawn: You're serious about this? Did the quote match?

Tom: I didn't write it down. I just remember the odd-looking red truck. Your description was fine. And I coined a phrase, "the red truck theory of dreaming" and used that for awhile: "if you dream you see a red truck, look for a red truck when you're awake. Meaning, start literal and go from there.

Tom: Of course, there's always a chance that... THE RED TRUCK... is out there... waiting to drive by initiates as a signal...

Shawn: Without thinking about it my mind wandered to thinking about the man driving the truck and what his life is like. ...[etc]... I felt like I actually became this man for a split second. After that I tried that exercise on each car I came up to for a while.

Tom: Now that's pretty good.

Shawn: It seemed to be a pretty decent 'Seth type' exercise.

Tom: Now then, young man, I noticed you haven't ask me about the results of my own experience with Practice Element 2. Ask. It will give me time to sputter and clear my throat. I should write another version of it for the book I've had around, and it'd be a good exercise.

Shawn: 1. Someone wanted to know if you and Sue still kept in touch.

Tom: Funny. I've been meaning to write to her for 2 weeks now.

Shawn: That would be a yes...

Tom: A probing reporter are you. It would be a 4 or 5 years...

Shawn: I wanted to ask you about something... Have you read any of the Elias material?

Tom: Oh, ugh, yes. Honestly, I've tried hard, but the frequency of non-sequitur sentences really gets to me. Lots of grammar-school level errors. Doubletalky, too. What I've read, including the "Rob" style annotations, are so much a mimic of Seth it's embarrassing to read. Seth referred to such imitations as "poor art."

Tom: there was no such thing as "channeling" when Seth books were first published. There was "mediumship," and little of that was authentic. There was "Patience Worth" from the 1920s who had a book that sold, kind of deservedly. There was Arigo, the guy in Brazil in the late 60s, early 70s. After SETH SPEAKS was a best-seller awhile (ew)"channeling" swelled into an industry, which I hope to say has since dwindled to the credit of sensible America.

Tom: It occurs to a fair number of imaginative people to try imitating Seth when they read him... or to try doing what Jane did in so many diverse ways, concentrating on different mental channels which she could keep distinct. "A voice" is the easiest thing, since most people talk to themselves all the time, same as they did since they were toddlers.

Tom: I tried just the raw "talking entity" thing, besides various other experiments. My longest-standing use of a "personal oracle," as Seth ALREADY CALLED THIS SORT OF THING (Why don't they read?) was with a character whom it occurred to me to call Garroth. I can still call Garroth up if I want. I s'pose I could hunt around and find some of the stuff I wrote down. It's one fuck of a lot more coherent than "Elias," but I write pretty coherently in the first place.

Tom: In light of my own experience, I went about meeting and listening to lots of "channels" or reading their stuff in curiosity. I found on the whole that the "channeled entity" tended to mirror unrequited longings of the personality of the "channeler." Tam Mossman's "James," for instance, came off as a light-hearted wit, like an Oscar Wilde, which is something Mossman clearly is not. But he wanted to be. Richard Wolinsky's "Martenard" was an overbearing paternal sort, quite like Wolinsky's father whom he told me stories about in pathos -- note the 3-month constipation tale. I remember a "Pirate" and a "Nazi General, " too. Didn't these guys have childhoods?

Tom: But in all sincerity, I didn't find anything any of them had to say worth a hoot. I began to find it a little serious that people would actually pay these "channelers" anything. My God, $400 for an half-hour session with Kevin Ryerson pretending to be a "Shakespearian actor and a pickpocket from the 16th century?" Shirley Maclaine was bats. Nuts. Goofy in the noggin. Why would you want advice from a pickpocket/actor? I'd say the pickpocket had learned a nifty new trick, how to get people to just hand the money over...

Tom: And guess what Kevin Ryerson really wanted to be in the first place, by the way? A pickpocket? Well... close... try the other...

Tom: A good writer of fiction makes his characters REAL. They'll TALK to him... if he's REALLY good, like Miguel de Unamuno... or any of the great novelists. "Channeling" isn't much different, except for the poor quality, compensated for by the listener's ignorance and a raft of spiritishy sounding terms that are unfamiliar enough to the listener to keep him off balance.

Tom: I'm sorry, "channelers," but I'm heaving with laughter at this moment remembering some of the "entities" I've met or heard or read. Lots of "Seths." There was one who played basketball while driveling on about trees falling in the forests as his blondie-sounding wife wrote the drivel down. This "Seth" supposedly "removed them from their jobs" in order to fulfill a mission for him.

Tom: And there was "Seth-Hermes" who sounded so much like Grandpappy Amos McCoy that I couldn't get off the floor from laughing -- especially when the lady questioning him started asking about "his" books that "he" supposedly wrote through Jane Roberts. And the Queen of Venus, too, from whom we learn all the munchkins of Venus have their superior eyes on us (The woman who saw me chuckling at THAT videotape twisted my nose for laughing at it! How dare I find munchkins on Venus funny!)Let us not forget "Ramtha." A high school friend of mine caught J.Z. Knight rehearsing as "Ramtha" in a mirror just before a big show.

Tom: But I don't think seeing people pay ninety or several hundred or several thousand dollars an hour for these clowns is funny. Or several thousand for "channeling school," which Wolinsky paid for. You don't need it. A little patience and you can have your own Private Oracle talking to you or among friends if you like. Just start assuming you can. It could otherwise be a worthwhile art.

Tom: My "Garroth" predicted my dad's heart attack and recovery from it the day before it happened. "Your father is dying," he said. I was living a couple thousand miles away. I called home within hours of the event. Later, he said he was out of danger and would recover. But I'd already dreamed this by then.

Tom: After awhile I realized I could do things like that without taking up my time in a trance. Dreams.

Tom: Oh, Seth doesn't have any "associates." Those of us interested would do well to spend some time exploring what an "energy essence personality" really IS. There is no batch of kindly "entities" sitting around at the Happy Channel Channeling Farm waiting to be called by people who hope not to have to work for a living.

Shawn: Not to let you forget to send me the second half of your P.E. #2 experience.

Tom: Oh, I haven't forgotten. I'm not far from done, but for some reason retelling the experience has shifted me into slow motion. I'm a bit baffled at my own reaction. I tat out these notes to you like rattling on a talk show, but I'll spend a half hour staring at a sentence re-describing PE 2. Then another half an hour looking at it again. I seem to be reabsorbing the whole experience. Not reliving it, reabsorbing it. I'd better quit talking about it. I'll just keep going and going.

Shawn: I just finished Jane's book "Adventures in Consciousness". Kind of seemed like reading Elias. Why did she choose to invent so many new terms (Focus Self, Aspect Self, Source Self) when Seth had coined and provided them?

Tom: I wondered the same. They're not bad appellations at all. I think they pare down Seth's open-ended descriptions to a purpose. Maybe she meant them as sort of working-tool concepts for future psychological therapy. That's what "Aspect Psychology" is for, I believe.

Shawn: One thing the said got me thinking. She mentioned how as we develop we will be able to better access memories past and future. I started thinking that the mechanism of getting information from the future is the same mental process of 'recall' that we all somehow manage to use to get past information. We need to switch our database from the past to the future.

Tom: Yes? And which of the Practice Elements was designed to help you do this very thing, my son?

Shawn: Then thinking of how to recall a future menory...Say of our favorite topic of lottery numbers. If I could just remember the numbers for next week I'm set! Then I tried to recall the numbers from last week...No luck. It occured to me that if I can make a practice to recall the numbers from a week to week basis than future sets of numbers will better be comitted to memory and perhaps more accessable through the same faulty recall mechanism I use now???

Tom: That reminds me, I did it again. Was thinking of putting up a little thought-thread about it over at the dream experiment. I'd have won if "almost" counted. Anyway... "past and future are both basically unpredictable," see. So back to the drawing board.

Shawn: Then I thought if I actually Won the lotto I'd probably never forget that set of numbers so I'd probably be able to remember them without the weekly recall exercise...

Tom: Yup. So, since you can't future-recall them NOW, what does that mean? What else does it mean? And what else does it mean? And what else does it mean? Besides the foregoing, what else does what it may mean mean? And of what it may mean mean mean, what meaning meaning meaning may might could should would that that that that that mean mean mean mean mean?

Tom: Speaking of wanting riches, I stopped in at your Seth-chat board and saw I can't get in because my browser isn't java-enabled. Now I really like this excuse, so don't help. I'm not quite able to keep up with the dream-experiment board as it is, and not too long from now, I'll have even less time (Thus do I dare to predict!)

Tom: But be sure Michele knows I AIN'T just bristling with millions at the moment. And that the old cliche "money isn't everything" isn't such a cliche when you've been there and back. And I haven't much more to add to the issue than what I wrote. One day I'll think up more. But maybe books by like Bill Gates or people who really focused and made billions might be worth her time.

Tom: When I used to live with Sue, I used to occassionally drive by the birthplace of John D. Rockefeller. It was a decrepit, moldy little house in the middle of nowhere. Nobody lived there. If not for the pretty green woods around it, it would have been miserable depressing looking. The house was an old nothing. Just a sign saying he was born there. Good for him.

Tom: Mainly, however, I saw in her message, the issue of REALLY FUCKING MEANINGLESS JOBS, of which society provides 'way too many. There are ideals to pursue at many different levels there. I've had a couple REALLY FUCKING MEANINGLESS assignments this year, but the thing is, they came with such strange and exquisite TIMING that I could hardly kick. They seemed magical just the same. I GUARANTEE Michele that getting a few-day assignment wrestling with a shitty old typewriter IS superior to sitting on a Redwood Deck overlooking the Sierra Nevada Mountains and thinking "well... I could get sick and die... that'd be a challenge... NO! NO! STOP THINKING SHIT LIKE THAT." Etc. So, like Goethe said, "be careful what you wish for as a youth. You may have plenty of it later."

Shawn: [...] the mechanism of getting information from the future is the same mental process of 'recall' that we all somehow manage to use to get past information. We need to switch our database from the past to the future.

Tom: Yes? And which of the Practice Elements was designed to help you do this very thing, my son?

Tom: This is the most time I've ever spent with People Who Already Have All The Answers. [etc.]

Shawn: There seemed to be a lot of those types on the 'other' Seth forum. They'd say stuff like "Seth has some good things to say but some of it is wrong or unusable". Mostly science based men who have read a book or two of Seth's. Fine if they want to feel that way but much like the Christian fundamentalist they feel it's their duty to inform the rest of us uneducated slobs with their intelligent rationalizations.

Tom: Yup. By the way, has anyone pointed out what was "wrong"?

Shawn: I' m reading TES5 and getting frustrated with all the ESP testing.

Tom: I don't have any of the TES books. I perused some when they first came out and thought they were so disjointed I didn't want any. [etc]

Shawn: The TES books aren't by subject matter but chronogically from Session 1. And there is some very material in them as you've probably read in the original manuscript. In TES 6 Seth is describing how he communicates through Jane. One part he mentions how he needed to give her the material on the "Spontaneous Present" before he could go into "Moment Points". Seems like The Early Sessions would do the same for the rest of the works. Kind of like a comprehensive "The Seth Material".

Tom: Huh! Oops. I'm not sure I recall what I was reading, then, except that it was a compilation of early sessions by subject matter. I remember also a book published by "Vernal Equinox Press" by an editor named Richard Roberts. That compilation began with a lengthy and amusing and knightly account of how Roberts, a Jungian by trade, defended Seth's authenticity against various phony "channelers." Anyway, I didn't buy any of what was for sale in '92. I kept needling Rob by letter to publish "Health." Incidentally, I was standing in Cody's Bookstore in Berkeley CA when I perused the other books. That place was managed by an old ESP class member. I forget his name in Sue's book. The guy who had the horrible acid trip. Seems fine now!

Tom: All of the Practice Elements we've been half-talking about work toward your recognizing and maintaining your sense of identity [through various states of consciousness, etc]

Shawn: I'm thinking these exercises Seth mentioned might be the ones in "Unknown" but if they appear in the rest of the Early Sessions I'll let you know if I find anything that looks like an exercise.

Tom: By the way, has anyone pointed out what was "wrong" [with Seth]?

Shawn: Not specifically, mostly they keep harping on the "You create your own reality" as it relates specifically to physical reality. They think that if that's true then someone should be able to defy the laws of gravity and such and they don't budge. It irks me how these armchair scientists must pass their uninformed judgement on the works when they haven't read but a couple. And how you read makes all the difference in the world. The first Seth book I read was NPR. I read it in a skeptical mindset and didn't get much out of it. Until I read it the second time after reading "Speaks", "Seth Material" did I appreciate what was in that book. There is the problem with physical time based beings trying to understand things beyond their own system. Which, of course, is where the Practice Elements come in.

Tom: Thanks. Yeah, sure, the usual. "Come down off Thy cross if Thou art truly the Son of God." Or how about, "if thou truly createst thine own reality, makest thee a rock so large that thou canst not lift it... yet behold! Thou canst not lift it? Fool! Thou sayest thou createth thine own reality but thou canst doeth not all things! Hail my brilliant intellect! How easily I uncovereth thy fallacy! And now to goeth watch Star Trek reruns!"

Tom: There are a couple of major problems with these proud college freshman style criticisms. One is that they project "Laws" that they obediently subscribe to out upon reality. This is to wear blinders on every hole the body has and then some. Last winter at a smart-people kind of website, I had a long argument with a guy about the possibility of the planets having been in other positions in the solar system. Impossible he says, for lo, The Law sayeth the planets can not budge from their orbits. I told him he was trying to enforce "Natural Law," not observe reality... wouldst arrest planets for breaking it, say.

Tom: To make a long story short, while we were debating, some Observatory in England reported that Jupiter and Saturn used to be in different positions than they are now. "The Law," it seemed, never had been computed properly. Interestingly enough, the guy ignored it. Somehow, some way, I STILL had to be wrong. That's the nature of The Law, I guess. That was eerie. But it shows you just how shallowly some whiz kids DO form their reality. They adhere to "laws" and hide evidence to the contrary. Pretty sheep-like. This one was a cousin of the creator of the vacuum tube, by the way. Independent thinking is NOT hereditary.

Tom: Another problem is in what our whiz-kids will accept as "reality," which is a mighty narrow slice. A peek at the stars now and then, and a stare at the known world out the car window. Then the rest is the Discovery Channel. This sort is hardly even aware of the cobwebs growing on their own ceilings. Obviously, your thoughts defy gravity all day long. Dream states, too, are reality; gravity is no "Law" there, it's more obviously a useful symbolic vehicle. It doesn't occur to them that you CHOOSE the conditions where you spend a portion of your existence in something called "a day" where a thing called "gravity" seems to occur.

Tom: The "Laws" of gravity will be out the door soon enough anyway. I recently helped spruce up a book for a guy who has a new theory of gravity that kicks the old one in the butt. Some very important think tank guys are nuts about his theory. So, we create our own realities, and anybody who has a mind to defy the law of gravity is probably pretty busy doing it.

Tom: This new theory shows that there is such a thing as faster than light, by far, too. "Coincidentally," there was this recent news about Wang at Princeton who seemed to zap some light gizmo out at 300 times C. So if Wang wasn't just picking his teeth when something accidentally flashed and gave a false impression, there it is: there never was any such law making light travel only at Einstein's chosen speed. Never. Science just obeyed it and censored whoever wouldn't. Our sciences ARE sometimes just arbitrary legislative bodies. Just as mean, too.

Tom: What I don't get is why light speed should ever have been connected to time, as though one causes the other. Even if you're going 300 times the speed of light, you're not going to "get there before you started." As a species of consciousness, which is what we are, we choose conditions where "Laws" seem to apply pretty reliably -- that we can also bust now and then for good flavor. Otherwise, in not too unbelievable terms, you "get there before you start" when you think about going somewhere. Then you get there physically. But I'm sure the clocks go backwards and sideways in other realities. This happens in dream states sometimes. Mainly, we create these conditions by choice.

Tom: We do not stand at some cosmic Baskin-Robbins staring at a menu of what conditions we will pick and choose before we are born, however. There are... uh... Laws... within us which impel us to different sets of conditions which, as a consciousness, we can handle. We make our choices the way a surfer makes choices riding the crest of a wave. Better yet: we make our choices the way we do when we're talking to someone -- not knowing how the sentence will end when we start it.

Shawn: Richard Roberts published "The Seth Reader" which was some excerpts from the books. Not much commentary of his own. I'm not sure what purpose the book serves or why it was allowed to be published. Anyone could cut up the works and create such a book.

Tom: Actually, I contacted this guy, in '93 or '94. We both seemed to have more or less a sort of interest in Irish traditional music. The reason I contacted him was because I had a dream about him. I wanted to check it out. I never did ask him whether he liked fishing. In my dream, he was wearing one of those hats men wear when they go fishing. No, I'm not fond of fishing at all.

Tom: To make a long story short, while we were debating, some Observatory in England reported that Jupiter and Saturn used to be in different positions [etc]...Independent thinking is NOT hereditary.

Shawn: It's interesting psychology is it not. Ever try to get the last word? Can't be done.

Tom: A guy told me that there are experiments being conducted at Livermore Labs in Berkeley, CA, about it. They're trying to develop a sophisticated microwave emitter that browbeats one's opponent with ultrafrequency dissent transmissions. He said that 3 volunteers have already died in the experiments -- guys from the maximum security prison at Folsom -- but I don't believe that.

Shawn: Anyone secure enough in their beliefs shouldn't be so threatened when an apparent contradiction is presented. It seems many of our conflicts are solely the result of our perspective.

Tom: Hmm. Which conflicts are not the result of our perspective?

Tom: Then the rest is the Discovery Channel.

Shawn: I was thinking Scientific American. I used to read this and Discover when I finally decided with all my scientific study I..."I"...wasn't going anywhere. It was a dead end as surely as any I've ever taken.

Tom: Wow... that takes me back. I haven't looked at a Scientific American since I was in high school and it had endless drawings of fruit flies with one twisted wing and planaria worms cut in half to see which end grew back first, if either. Planaria worms, right? It's been awhile.

Tom: Yeah, scientists. I don't have scientist buddies because they kinda smell of formaldehyde. I know a few. And a few who think they are by virtue of profession. There IS something to the accusations about "scientism," i.e., a cult of "true believers." I still find Carl Sagan embarrassing to even think about. I think he was a cult leader, or head cheerleader of a cult of emotionally retarded males. I never will forget running across his Big Revelation in "Demon Haunted World" or whatever that was, about how, yea, ancient Greek statues are meaningless. Gee, thanks for clearing that up. I was about to enjoy looking at one again. So... this man wasn't crazy, right?

Tom: The "Laws" of gravity will be out the door soon enough anyway. [etc]

Shawn: I heard that we already had this technology thanks to our UFO buddies. We gave them a few cases of smokes and soft drinks and they gave us what we needed to fill in the missing blanks of the Grand Unification Theory.

Tom: It was $24 worth of beads for the Manhattan Project, I heard. How were we to know that they had uses for them beyond our ken? They are growing a new planet with one of them at this moment on the other side of the sun in our orbit. When that's done, our planet is going to get snapped into squat like a fly with a rubber band.

Tom: P.S. Seth sez that in August 2004 there will be telepathic contact with extraterrestrials in Australia. He seemed to indicate that this would be the first intentional communication. If he's right, Whitley Strieber was not. But why should intelligent beings from the planet Xebos show up in Streiber's bedroom, one wonders...

Tom: What I don't get is why light speed should ever have been connected to time, as though one causes the other. [etc]

Shawn: I thought it had something to do with perception. Since our eyes view photons,the speed at which those photons travel must define our perception of this physical reality. I think the assumption is that C is the natural speed limit of this universe. If you could take a ship to 300C then the photons you are viewing are still only going C. Photons inside the ship are accelerated to 300C with you and relatively only doing C to the pilot. Photons from outside would be traveling 300C relative to the pilot. Everything would seem to stand still (like in that star trek episode). Sigh, I used to know this stuff really well.

Tom: And I can fathom your wisdom in having neglected it, young man. It's bad enough we have emotionally, uh, challenged officiates who think ancient Greek statuary is meaningless, to define the nature of the universe for all the little tykes in grade school. We must learn also that the legendary illusory nature of physical reality is really just a matter of trick or treat. It may cost a few bucks to get those darned photons out of our eyes, but hey, science ain't cheap. Maybe this time we can get some volunteers from Death Row at Folsom, instead of risking blowing a few perfectly decent citizens to smithereens, as has happened on only the rarest fiery occasions.

Shawn: On the Seth discussion forum someone posted an interesting thought I thought you might be able to shed some light on.

Shawn: "In another probability Jane is alive and still receiving dictation from Seth" In another probability Jane did not die but continued channeling Seth and still does in her golden years. This brings up all kinds of neat thoughts. Did/Does Seth communicate to all probable Janes indivually and do copies of the Seth works exist in many probabilities at once, some different than others, some more or less complete than others?

Tom: Yeah, sure! All true. But let's get down to "Nude Descending the Staircase." I've been wanting to tell somebody about "Nude Descending the Staircase" for years now. But whenever I mention "Nude Descending the Staircase," I don't get even so much as a blank stare of non-recognition. It is as though I had not even mentioned "Nude Descending the Staircase." It is instead as though I am suddenly in the wrong probability, where there is no such thing as "Nude Descending the Staircase," and never was.

Tom: So now, at long last, I will use this question as a forum where I will discuss "Nude Descending the Staircase" with abandon. Whoever doesn't see the words "Nude Descending the Staircase" here, know ye, is in the wrong probability this time. I'm not. I'm in the right probability, and I am creating a probability where I have now typed the words "Nude Descending the Staircase" nine different times. Count to make sure. You could be in a probability where I typed "Nude Descending the Staircase" a total of only 8 times, or where I typed it only 10 times.

Tom: Others, clearly, have known a Tom Dark who has not mentioned "Nude Descending the Staircase," not ever. The consciousness that I conveniently consider mainly me does not personally know of such a probability... even though I have known people who have behaved as though I never have mentioned "Nude Descending the Staircase." One such person would be Deborah, over at the dream experiment. But last night she dreamed of a watercolor painting evoking the Eye of Horus, whereas I myself ran across a dream I'd had about the Eye of Horus the previous week. So she's good people. And do I sound crazy enough yet to continue? Let's hope so. Because people are just too darn smug about what they think "probabilities" are.

Tom: In discussing "Nude Descending the Staircase" here, I've already evoked a few probabilities as to how I might write the thing. And here are some more. In another probability, I wrote it as "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2," since in that probability I pecked around on the internet for the correct title and the artist BEFORE I began this probable tirade.

Tom: And in another probability, I would have said that this painting was finished in 1905. In still another probability, I would have said 1915. In the last probability I will pick for this paragraph, I now say the painting, "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2," was completed in 1912. Except for this one more probability where I would have written that sentence in the following way: "In the last probability I will pick for this paragraph, I now say the painting, 'Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2,' was completed by the artist Marcel Duchamp in 1912."

Tom: There are reasons of personal history that form each of the seemingly trivial lapses of memory above, which prompted me to give the varying dates. Each of those choices represents a whole past, present, and future of its own, not to mention that they are "sideways" probable versions of each other as thoughts. The date 1905, for instance, contains associations for me of having first looked at that painting in a picture book on a certain day and time and hour when I was 10 years old.

Tom: In another present probability I would have said "11 years old." That date, anyway is the date of another strange yet favorite painting of mine from boyhood, which was in the same art book. Choosing the approximate date 1915 has to do with having read about Gertrude Stein when I was in college. 1912 is the date it says Marcel Duchamp painted it on an internet site I just picked, to refresh my memory. Each of those probabilities represent snapshots from 3 different probable universes. Not just trivial variations of the same single wobbly universe. Those three and all their probable variations, if we must count, come from a single Consciousness Unit.

Tom: Intentions matter in the formation of Universes. I could be writing this in order to punish readers who haven't done the exercises about tracing probabilities in the little choices one makes in the course of the day. Or else I'm writing it to those who have, for whom I'm pretty certain it'd be fairly entertaining and descriptive of what "a probability" is, in one's own day-to-day life.

Tom: Now then! "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2," by Marcel Duchamp, 1912. It's a work of genius illustrating the nature of probable reality. I wish the site would give some info about what Duchamp thought he was doing, but it doesn't, so I'll stick to the obvious, since the image of that painting has stuck in my mind since I was 10 (or 11) years old. Of course I have mentally created a completely new probable version of it each time I brought it back to mind. In one probable universe I created this moment as I go back and fix typoes, I noted to myself that I have never wondered whether Marcel Duchamp has felt my imagined recreation of his painting, or what he has thought of me doing that or of me.

Tom: "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" is an intended blur of motion of, one assumes from the title, a nude model walking down a staircase... like in time-lapse photography, which was a more or less new and novel effect in those days. You see various probable positions of the legs and arms and head depicted at once as the assumed abstract figure of a nude woman moves down the stairs. The artist has done much better than to attempt to imitate a time-lapsed photograph, however. He has graced each probable position of movement with a playful solidity. Each depiction of movement in this "blur" is painted in without any intended ambiguity of movement; each moment of movement is depicted as solid as a tree. The abstract nude is painted so as to seem simultaneously on each stair at once in each moment of time, although a twirling necklace and a few brushlines indicate forward movement.

Tom: For my money, anyway, the artist endows the moment-points of motion with such a sensitivity that you can imagine that the body of the figure relates to its environment fully and completely at any given point of depicted movement down the stairs. Each position of the abstract nude is "real," subjectively no less transitory than any other moment of intent to move, and each position depicted tells its own unique story within the story of the brief movement down a staircase.

Tom: This is how your body moves through time effortlessly in probabilities. There is no moment where your physical existence is less valid than in any other, and there is no moment where the possibilities of choices and action are not essentially endless and unique, regardless how it may seem. We develop as a conscious species by learning to comprehend in what ways this is so, and to begin to make choices at different levels of the existence we accept as real.

Tom: We who share this present mass probability where Jane Roberts died in deep in the night in November of 1984 chose it. We chose it no differently than Rob chose it -- rather consciously, I saw from his notes, despite his most understandable ambiguous feelings and grief. Jane chose to die in this probability. She wanted to. She wasn't unconscious of that.

Tom: It would probably be more effective to think that over, in considering what probabilities there are where she is "still here," dictating from her rocking chair in her "golden years." Incidentally, Shawn, it might be worth your while to peruse Rob's notes in UNKNOWN REALITY, where you'll find a hint that he did realize that he would advance into old age without her.

Tom: Probabilities mean that any and all things all happen and nothing ever doesn't happen and that all are both independent and related in limitless ways. There are not only probabilities where Jane recuperated, there are probabilities where she never got ill, and there are literally endless gradations between those two in all directions at once, all occurring at once.

Tom: There are probabilities where I hitchhiked down to Elmira for the ESP classes. There are probabilities where I attended a talk Jane gave at Skidmore College, where I went to school. I like this probability fine where I didn't. All of those things are there to play with and make the most of.

Tom: So, what is the Shawn Regan like who lives in the probability where Jane Roberts sits in her rocking chair today still dictating Seth, and waving to a video camera now and then, still irritated as ever with having to deal with the publicity? Oops. I'm actually referring to a probability where I DID attend those classes and wound up helping Jane and Rob as they accepted speaking dates and so on. I forgot. I used to dream of that and several other versions of choices I made.

Tom: There is an endless bank of probability behind every sentence you speak. Still, out it comes from start to finish, without counting even 2000 of the choices of different word combinations you might make. Not to mention doing the same thing in german over a beer in Munich. Wearing brownshirts, for that matter. Did you read the dream I had of you?

Shawn: RE: Streiber, See attached picture (My mom with Streiber at a whole life expo), the woman is my mom. Something about abductees she finds attractive

Tom: Cute mom! I've never seen a photo of Streiber before. If you painted that man's glasses black, he'd look a whole lot like the renderings of those darn little abductor aliens...

Shawn: I wanted to ask you about something I read today: "In ordinary dreaming, without the awareness of usual waking consciousness, perception of dream reality is limited and instinctive. All in all you get along quite well. You are like a child in objective reality. When you learn to take waking awareness into the dream condition, you are reaching adolescence, so to speak. When you reach adulthood, following our analogy, then you will learn to be successful in manipulating dream reality as you now manipulate objective reality." - Session 259, p.164, The Early Session, Book 6

Shawn: Seth seems to be saying that the frequent occurence of Lucid Dreaming is indicative of a maturing consciousness. From my communications with advanced meditators their occurence of Lucid dreaming is much greater than average and would seem to agree with what Seth is saying. And from what little discussion you and I have had on the topic that seems to agree also.

Tom: You're expecting more than a chipper "yup!" and "uh-huh!" I presume. I presume this because I thought about the question when I went to bed, and at four o'clock in the morning I was wide awake in my ordinary dream-state and in that interim state between sleep and dreams and wide awake physically in bed all at once, looking at you and seeing your wife and your two children doing diverse things in the sunshine -- it seemed she was taking the kids to a nearby park. You seemed to be in a few probable places: with her, going to work, and somewhere in sleep. I rather guess I picked up on your frame of mind at that sidereal point in time. It would have been 7 a.m.-ish for you right then.

Tom: From that point of view I was explaining to the half-asleep half-awake portion of your conscious mind who was capable of hearing me that I was speaking to you from a present moment that I'd call "four o'clock in the morning" (I looked at my clock; it was about a quarter after, but I rounded it off) and that no matter when you picked up this message, it would be a present moment I would identify as "four o'clock in the morning."

Tom: I explained that I could contact you from "four o'clock in the morning" whenever I felt like it, as it would be its own particular present moment. You could hear me from this chosen shelf of present-moment in your ordinary waking states, I said, but likely, I thought, you would instead have had a dream about it... a dream that would seem extraordinarily active to you. In any case, however you recognized this communication, it would occur in a present moment to you and not seem to have come from the past or the future.

Tom: I drew my consciousness back out to physical waking, thought it over a few times, and was sure you'd already had a dream about this contact. I could sense that you had. We had made contact in a dream state and I "awoke" later in three different ways to cap it off and make sure there would be some acknowledgement about it.

Tom: Ah, but then, I thought... he did dream, but he won't remember. He's been telling himself he can't remember, so even that one will be forgotten. You did forget, didn't you, ya big galoot... but then... my four o'clock in the morning message is out there, and it's in its own present moment, so maybe you can pick up on it. I've left some stuff out to see if you do, one way or another.

Tom: So now, how is THAT for "adulthood" in dreaming consciousness? Dammit, you won't be able to even make a judgment. Let's see... Read what I've written a few times. Run your mind over it a little more than you'd ordinarily want to. Exercise like that, the way you'd hit a football sled for practice. That could make a difference, and You might pick something up in the dream state that-a-way. It's 9:30 pm Sunday night as I write this. You may or may not be asleep yet. Whatever the case, I've just transmitted my intentions at you from four o'clock in the morning.

Tom: As to Seth's remarks, and your qualifiers, I'd like you to notice the differences in how the ideas are expressed. He avoids the term "lucid dreaming" deliberately, the way he avoids quite a few terms that new agers and psychic cause-promoters and psi researchers rely on. They are loaded terms, even "meditators," and certainly there's no term more loaded than "advanced." We mustn't be lazy about the matter of expression, because for instance "Advanced Meditators Have More Lucid Dreams" sounds more like an advertisement for some Yogi Bananananda's get rich quick scheme than it does as a way of expressing anything like the reality of the matter.

Tom: The only "meditators" I know of in that usage of the word are the people who did pay for "secret" words from the Transcendental Meditation sales schemes of years back. I knew a number of kids personally, including a couple of my brothers, who spent their money and got a brand new shiny jim-cracky secret meditation word to repeat dumbly to themselves. Sure one and all said they felt much better and so forth. Were even "naturally high." I didn't see any such results. I didn't see more peaceable people. I saw them, however, growing more irritable around their edges, just like Mary Tyler Moore admitted to once when she said she'd got her Big Secret Word from the Maharishi.

Tom: All this was at least 25 years ago, and I have had those satisfied customers to observe all this time, as to what tangible results they got from "meditating." I measure this against a "control group" of friends and brothers of that length who didn't. The obvious answer is that the Maharishi got seventy five bucks each from them and that's all. They've abandoned it. And I've even forgotten the free secret words passed to me. But try Nam myoho renge kyo if you like.

Tom: Anyway, is this the type of "advanced" in quotes, and "meditator" in quotes, that you mean? Or do you mean someone whom you might informally, but very justly call an advanced soul capable of great meditations, such as Herman Melville? Or Ralph Waldo Emerson? Or Samuel Johnson? Or Bertrand Russell? Or Wallace Stevens? One doesn't need Seth to point out that there is genuine meditation, and then there is "meditation."

Tom: A decent meditation is the peaceful activity of the conscious mind, usually absorbing some thought in appreciation -- the way a cat rolls in a catnip patch in appreciation. You are meditating when you watch your kids play. It's a great meditation. Of course there are unpleasant meditations that operate the same way, say, somebody at work has got under your skin and you can't stop screwing with thoughts about it.

Tom: A "meditation," quotes, is something people to get "higher," and maybe have more "lucid dreams," you see. Whatever spiritual evolutionary benefits one who follows some prescription is told this will bring, he will be eager to announce he has found. In other words such folk may well be chasing their own tails with an invisible belief that they aren't worthy as they are, and so must learn "techniques" that will get them "higher"... that is, basically, to feel as good as anybody else.

Tom: Do you see this psychology? In retrospect, it would explain why people who swore they felt so much higher with TM also seem more irritable. You can't spend 20 minutes of your time every day trying to feel worthy of yourself and not notice that you DON'T feel worthy the rest of the day...

Tom: Otherwise, remember my remark about the fellow who beats people to death and rapes women every time he dreams with his ordinary waking consciousness, as Seth describes it. This must be an adolescence of consciousness. He doesn't do any "meditations."

Tom: It sounds like a hoax... tunnels 800 miles long and high enough to comfortably support blimp traffic have "been kept secret" under our noses for years.

Shawn: The Article's Answer: The recently reclassified 'ground-penetrating radar' technology JUST now let us see these.

Shawn: My Comment: Wouldn't they have found passages from those monuments above the surface to these underground cities?

Tom: And mine: Hoaxes depend on people's blind faith that some canny reporter who never sleeps or even blinks is sniffing out "recently reclassified" stuff. Such as, the REAL president of the United States is a 40-foot wide spider who lives in that mountain hideaway in Virginia... this depends on the fact that people are ignorant of how most reporters operate. Answer: they show up at meetings, pay half attention, and write a half story that more or less pleases their editors, following the unspoken but quietly enforced party line of the publisher.

Tom: Fourthly, because there is no other source reporting it -- and you KNOW how when somebody finds even a Pharoah's bedpan in Egypt it gets worldwide coverage.

Shawn: The Article's Answer: Because of the incredible technology the government isn't letting this information go public (Govt. Conspiracy)

Tom: Hang on a second, I stand corrected: a friend says he saw a Discovery channel item about an "immense cave" beneath the Giza plateau -- discovered by ground radar. Full of water. So now that there's a little public common knowledge about it, what has happened to our plucky and canny reporter? How does he know about these secrets to start with? Is there a little shoeshine guy who tipped him off like in "Police Squad"?

Shawn: There is a faction that can be described as the philosopher's stone bunch. The legend has it that they will find a way to purify the physical body to create immortality or superpowers, etc. Authors: Art Bell, Greg Braden, Bob Frissell, Remote Viewing Folks, Flower of Life, Sacred Geometry and Rebirthing Folks.

Tom: Yeah. The trouble with these folks is that they think the United States Government, or any goverment, already has superhumanoids with remarkable powers running them. You'd have to be a superhumanoid with remarkable powers to be able to hide all the secrets these guys swear are being hidden.

Tom: Meinherrrrrrr, I have spotted the trouble you are having. Imaginations hard at work are balancing office budgets [etc]

Shawn: Doesn't sound like me, I don't stay out late or touch office budgets. I stay as much out of business as I can. I do my programming, get paid and leave the nonsense to those looking for those things.

Tom: Whoops. I didn't mean YOU were doing that, I meant it as an analogy about how you're using your imagination re: dreaming. You're "working." Don't do "dream work." Do "dream play." Look at it as a puzzle of associations and words spelled out in pictures and so on.

Tom: You're expecting more than a chipper "yup!" and "uh-huh!" I presume. I presume this because I thought about the question when I went to bed, and at four o'clock in the morning I was wide awake in my ordinary dream-state and in that interim state between sleep and dreams and wide awake physically in bed all at once, looking at you and seeing your wife and your two children doing diverse things in the sunshine -- it seemed she was taking the kids to a nearby park. You seemed to be in a few probable places: with her, going to work, and somewhere in sleep. I rather guess I picked up on your frame of mind at that sidereal point in time. It would have been 7 a.m.-ish for you right then.

Shawn: Yesterday we all went to a "beach" park on the lake.

Tom: Ah, but then, I thought... he did dream, but he won't remember. He's been telling himself he can't remember, so even that one will be forgotten. You did forget, didn't you, ya big galoot... but then... my four o'clock in the morning message is out there, and it's in its own present moment, so maybe you can pick up on it. I've left some stuff out to see if you do, one way or another.

Shawn: I don't think I've gotten it. I did have some interesting dreams (about 7) last night that 2 of seemed to be giving me some type of specific message. I posted these on the dream board.

Tom: I saw. Are you saying that the other dream-fragments remembered are not giving some kind of specific message? Anyway, my above analogy applies. Sounds like you're tuned too narrowly. I guess it's well and good to count up the number of times you seem to dream, but I think you'd do better sorting out meanings from what you recall, one at a time. This improves recall... well... it expands your consciousness, which all the, uh, "meditators" think is a pretty prized peach.

Tom: The only "meditators" I know of in that usage of the word are the people who did pay for "secret" words from the Transcendental Meditation sales schemes of years back.

Shawn: A couple of years ago I found the entire list of TM mantra words. I sent them to a friend who was a longtime TM meditator and he started using his next mantra. He said his meditation practice had stagnanted but was moving again with his new mantra and was very appreciative for this.

Tom: A bargain at twice the price.

Shawn: What I mean by advanced meditators are those who have much more advanced control of their conscious mind and conscious thoughts from practice. They don't exclusively identify the ego with the waking consciousness so they are able to split the two and take the waking consciousness more easily into the dream state. As you do.

Tom: Well, honestly, my reaction is still "huh"??? How would you compare any of these advanced souls to Herman Melville or Ralph Waldo Emerson? Or what about Hank Williams? How would we advanced meditators compare with Hank Williams? Or Johnny Cash?

Tom: Back when every mid to upper class teen I knew was paying $75 for the magic Mantra words, a snappy -- and strangely irritable, no joke -- TM salesman told me a story. I even remember where it was he told me this story. It was on the 7th floor of a luxury apartment building on 56th Street and Park Avenue, more or less, in New York City. Irritably, he claimed that the Maharishi had come to America with all his mantras for free. Nobody wanted any. Then, he said, when he put a price tag of $75 each on 'em, everybody wanted one. No wonder the guy was irritable, huh?

Tom: ["advanced meditators"] Well, honestly, my reaction is still "huh"??? How would you compare any of these advanced souls to Herman Melville or Ralph Waldo Emerson? Or what about Hank Williams? How would we advanced meditators compare with Hank Williams? Or Johnny Cash?

Shawn: Hank may know how to access his creative self but the meditators are studying their own mind. Feeling out its subtleties, understanding their own psychological mechanisms.

Tom: I was hoping you'd pick Melville, but how can a feller not pick Hank. There are, in MOBY DICK, some of the most fantastic meditations, which I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they seemed too abstract to a good many who would characterize themselves as "advanced."

Tom: But anyway, Hank. Now, what is there inside a human being BUT a creative self? Why would someone want to explore his own mind if it wasn't an act of creativity of some kind? Songs and ways to seduce women came out of Hank. You can't deny that this simple country poet served to set a huge psychological that did more than make people tap their feet. He spelled out subtleties and psychological mechanisms in no different a process than any alleged advanced meditator would do. A great deal more exuberantly, at that.

Tom: Millions and millions of people have meditated on Hank since his day. A song is a 3 minute meditation. They don't go "Git Hi Pae" over and over again, but listen to sound and lyrics that naturally convey space and time and emotional dimensions with vital spontanaeity. A good foot tapper, or a tear jerker, or an abstract piano-pounding by Charles Ives, or any music is an exploration and a meditation all the same. Since I do those things too, I'm here to tell you it's so. You may add computer programming to that list too, when you're on a project that's fun and absorbing. And you may add to that anything your toddlers find themselves absorbed in at play.

Shawn: If you're really interested see this link (http://www.heartspace.org/). This guy I've corrosponded with in the past. He is very smart, knows his psychology and awakened 5 years ago and speaks plain english. The essays on his site are top notch.

Tom: Went there. Oh, man... I remember most of that reading list. I didn't see KUNDALINI by Gopi Krishna, though. That one was actually useful to me, about a guy who went through an experience, using an ancient Hindoo technique, a lot worse than I did. But I nearly died, too. I didn't tell anybody for at least a couple years.

Tom: And now it's STORY TIME again. I saw "Da Free John" on the list. He used to call himself "Bubba Free John" in the days he was less concerned with paying the IRS what he owed. His was the last book of that ilk I ever looked at before I bought SETH SPEAKS.

Tom: I was in a book store in Rutland, Vermont, one Christmas season, bored with playing a gig at a ski resort with a country-rock band. I perused the "Weird and Embarrassing" section, you know, where they keep all the books about psychic power and pyramids and yogis, and I read the blurb on the back cover of Bubba Free John's latest book.

Tom: I can still remember it, more or less. He wrote that "after years of meditation and spiritual techniques and intense study, most people are still the same assholes as they were when they started." The whole grand spiritual shebang of those days, he was opining, didn't make a damn bit of difference.

Tom: I thought, fine. Somehow, I was afraid that might be the case. Now what was the name of the book that crazy lady who gave me the big St. John of the Cross Medallion with the Alexandrite stone in it wanted me especially to get? Oh yeah. SETH SPEAKS. There it was. I pulled it off the shelf and took it to the counter without even reading the blurbs. At that instant, without being much aware of doing so, I pulled the DUMP lever in the back of my mind and all that fancy stuff by Krishnamurti and Camus and Yogananda and Liz Greene and who-all went sliding out the back flap of my cosmic dump truck, never to return.

Tom: Occasionally I've looked back on some of it here and there. It all seems so stiff and pounded together with nails and plywood to me any more. But thanks for the trip down a memory side-lane.