The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This session uses Rob and Jane's experience of looking at houses in Sayre as an example to illustrate how probable realities interweave behind coincidences. Rob happened to see Mr. Ma's old house; the second house resembled Rob's mother's former residence; and the real estate agent couple were also similar to Rob and Jane. These clues point to another probable life. After Rob's mother died, she still hoped Rob would get that house, and this influenced the encounter. Seth reminds us that by paying attention to overlooked coincidences, we can glimpse another layer of order beneath everyday order.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Known history and unknown probable histories both occur in some fashion in what is called the past and the present.
- Other probable threads in personal life are often ignored by the conscious mind, or treated as coincidences.
- In Rob and Jane's house-hunting experience, the similarities among houses, people, and situations reveal the interweaving of probable realities.
- The cellular structure can perceive these probable sequences, but the conscious mind refuses to acknowledge them because they do not fit the familiar order.
- Paying attention to what are regarded as coincidences may reveal another layer of order beneath the everyday order.
Main Text
Hello, I am Mike. Today we continue discussing Session 693 of the Seth book The "Unknown" Reality. The title is "Coincidental Moving and Probable Realities: A Story of a Probable Real Estate Event." This session began on Monday, April 29, 1974, at 9:45 in the evening.
At the very beginning, Seth says:
Throughout this whole book, we have been dealing in one way or another with history as you know it and as you do not know it. We will discuss this in terms of what you call the past.
These few sentences immediately point out the focus of this session. He says that throughout this book, he will often use history that you know or do not know as material -- the known part is this official reality, the history of this life you are now experiencing; the unknown part is the history of probabilities. He wants to use this material to help you understand that those probable events occur in probable space-times that you do not know about, and they have an influence on your present world. Then he says he will discuss this in terms of what you humans call "the past." Here he puts "past" in quotation marks, because in fact this past has not passed at all.
In many ways, history is a past inherent to you. We generally look at history only in terms of the important, obvious events, while some trivial events are not remembered, which is very interesting.
All of the different variations that can be written into human consciousness, all of the racial possibilities, are in one way or another happening in past ages.
That is to say, those different variations written into human consciousness, and all the various possibilities of all races -- various forms, biological forms, various transformations, various evolutions -- all occur in some form in past ages. Some are history, and some occur in probable ages that you do not know about, but they are all happening. At the same time, they are also happening in what you consider the present, and also in what we consider the present. These few seemingly simple sentences actually contain very profound truths.
As mentioned earlier, in Sessions 680 to 682, your knowledge seizes upon certain events and discards others.
We select only certain possibilities, bringing the ones you care about and consider meaningful into significant meaning, and thereby into this official reality you know, into the life experience we now know. As for the others, we only regard them as possibilities that did not happen.
Yet even within each of your private lives, your personal lives, there are clues about another kind of thread, another kind of sequence -- clues about another kind of life experience. In that other probable life thread, events can happen, and do really happen. But we often cannot perceive them. Even when they give us hints, we fail to notice them.
You are often unaware of the importance of such hints. They escape your attention only because they do not fit the orderly order with which you are familiar.
The hints are very important, but you do not know it. You just feel that a certain sensation is strange, and then it passes in a flash. You think it is unreasonable and baffling.
Within your concepts of reality, such clues appear unimportant. Particularly within the generally accepted plan of reality as orderly only.
Especially when you are very certain about your present life experience, that information seems trivial to you.
Your cellular structure is innately capable of following such sequences.
But your cellular structure can, while you cannot. Because the conscious mind believes these clues are meaningless -- your conscious mind feels they are of no use, because they do not fit your life trajectory and logic -- so you cannot see them, or you call them coincidences. We often have such things in life: "What a coincidence, how could it be such a coincidence."
In your intimate daily lives, such clues, if looked at in a different way, can tell you much about human potentials, and give you glimpses of other systems of reality.
If you look at them from a different angle, in a different way, you can discover that they actually reveal many things about human potentials -- that is, the latent abilities in your other parallel space-times -- and they can give you slight glimpses of other parallel space-times. In those reality systems, human history can be felt.
In this session, Seth uses an event of looking at a house experienced by Ruburt and Joseph as an example. But readers can use this as their own association, discover similar events, and draw the same conclusions from them. This is a key point. He means that you should not just watch for entertainment, just look at their experience. After reading it, you should be somewhat inspired: think about whether you have had similar experiences in your own life. Can you, through Seth's analysis of Ruburt and Joseph's experience, discover those latent, hidden clues in your own life? Can you follow those clues to dig a little, walk a little, look a little, and see what you can gain? This is what truly improves our own ability to expand consciousness, and it also cultivates your sensitivity, and it can also loosen your grip on present life, so that you are not so tightly focused upon it.
All right, let us first look at the life experiences of Rob and Jane.
On a Sunday afternoon, Joseph drove through the town of Sayre, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is the state of Pennsylvania, which is adjacent to New York State. The Elmira where they now live is in New York State, but Sayre is in Pennsylvania, and the two towns are only 18 miles apart, about 30 kilometers. So actually this town of Sayre and the Elmira where they now live are right at the border of the two states. One day Rob drove through Sayre and noticed that in a neighborhood he had known before, there was a house for sale. He remembered that the house had once belonged to a man his mother had liked, a man surnamed Ma, Mr. Ma. On impulse, Rob called the real estate agency, and then discovered that the house was still owned by that man.
Rob only remembered that in the past his mother had spoken of this gentleman. In this existing family, in the reality shared by the whole family memory, there had been no intimate contact between Joseph's mother and Mr. Ma. However, Rob's mother had once been very taken with this man, and was convinced that she could have married Mr. Ma instead of her present husband. For years she had fantasized about such a situation: marrying Mr. Ma instead of her current husband.
Mr. Ma had been, and still was, very wealthy. Now of course he was old and could no longer take care of the house, and lived in a nursing home, very well cared for. Rob found that he liked Mr. Ma's house very much. Although the price was very high, Rob and Jane still considered buying it. So they were taken by the real estate agent to tour the whole house.
By pure coincidence, Joseph was able to visit this old man's house, and this Mr. Ma would spend the rest of his days in a nursing home, just as Joseph's mother was also living in a nursing home. These were just little tricks of fate.
Also, the house was for sale, and the old man insisted on a price higher than what the house was worth, just as Rob's mother insisted on a high price for her own house, and was determined to get that price. All of it seemed meaningless, yet thought-provoking.
On the surface, this seems like one of life's strange coincidences. Both were in nursing homes, both wanted to sell their houses at high prices. But Seth says that actually, from another angle, there is a rich interweaving of probabilities. What kind of interweaving of probabilities?
Because in a certain probability, your mother really did marry this Mr. Ma. And that Stella gave that house to her eldest son.
Here everyone should note a change. At this point Seth says "Stella," that is, Rob's mother, and he no longer says "your mother." He says "that Stella gave that house to her eldest son," and does not say she gave it to Rob or Joseph, only that she gave it to her eldest son. This point is very subtle and worth pondering -- is this eldest son still Rob? What is his relationship to Rob? Seth has already made this distinction very clear in the language itself.
In this probability, however, this Joseph came upon the house as a stranger, now that it was for sale. And according to a new set of probabilities subsequently paid out, he might or might not be able to buy it. There is an intermingling of effects here.
In this probability, relatively speaking, Joseph's mother did not leave much property, and her house was sold, so none of her sons got it. But in another probability -- the one in which Stella married Mr. Ma -- Joseph, as her eldest son, inherited this house. It is very interesting: in this probability, Joseph, as a stranger, came upon the very same house that he had inherited as the eldest son in another probability. And then he felt very familiar with it, and liked it very much.
So should they buy it or not? This is a mixed effect, depending on how much he liked it, and also on how much Jane liked it -- buying a house is not just Rob's business alone -- and also on whether they could afford it. Seth says humorously:
All probabilities are connected.
He tells us something that humans do not know: all probabilities are connected, all are interrelated. Should they buy it or not? Buying it is one kind of life, not buying it is another kind of life. Rob coming upon this house for sale is one probability, and his not coming upon it is another probability.
But there is a subtle point here: in that probability, is that Rob still Stella's first child?
In your terms, Joseph's mother is dead. And to some extent aware of the source of her own reality beyond the physical.
After death she crossed beyond space and time, and sensed this essence beyond physical reality -- she could feel those probable selves, those existences in parallel space-times. Once again, she could to some extent follow her own probable existences, no longer restricted by space and time. She followed the life she wanted -- in this life she had thought countless times about marrying Mr. Ma, and through imagining that probability of marrying Mr. Ma, it had always been a support and a comfort in this life.
He is also aware of his own existence outside the official framework. However, his own psychological and personally characteristic behavior patterns are still his.
His personality has not changed. What has not changed? It is that he still wants to give that house to his son, and this is still operating. We think that once he died, the matter was over, but in fact that state after death is still continuing -- his behavior patterns, his personality are still continuing. After he knows these probabilities, it does not mean that his behavior patterns change, or that his personal cognition changes.
At present he is (in quotation marks) focused upon those areas of probability that concern his own wishes and interests.
Because after death he is no longer restricted by the three-dimensional world, he is more aligned with the wishes he wants to fulfill, more aligned with the areas of probability where his interests lie -- owning that house, and after death giving the house to his eldest son. In this present system, he wants Rob to own his house. But for many reasons, that wish has not been fulfilled -- because he did not marry Mr. Ma, and Mr. Ma would not give the house to him or to Rob for no reason. But this wish and desire of his has always been there.
Then to a large degree, Joseph came upon that house at his bidding.
This "large degree" depends on how strong his mother's wish was. You see, why did Rob come upon this house? It was at his mother's bidding. How did his mother bid him? She mysteriously, without his knowing, let Rob see that this house was for sale. Interesting. So do you think it was a coincidence? You could say it was a coincidence, or you could say it was not -- it was his mother working behind the scenes. She really felt that Rob wanted this house, so she worked behind the scenes, telling him the house was for sale, telling him to hurry over and take a look. Otherwise, although Rob lived not far away, it was still 30 kilometers. Why would he go wandering around the small town where he had lived as a child for no reason? And as soon as he wandered around, he came upon this house for sale? Of course you can explain these coincidences as coincidences, but Seth points out to you: this is not a coincidence, this was formed by a very strong wish of his mother after death. She took action in her own reality, causing Rob to take action in his own reality, but the underlying cause was this strong wish of his mother.
Then Seth says to Rob: go pour Jane a glass of beer, to keep her in this trance state. Rob says no break is needed.
If your mother did not get the man and his wealth, then according to your mother's thinking, you could still get the house that in her fantasy belonged to him while he was alive.
What this means is: what was your mother thinking? Although in this life she did not get that man, nor his wealth, according to her thinking, she still wanted you to get that house -- the kind of house she fantasized as belonging to her.
At this point Rob says:
I could not help being amused, because Seth's description of my mother's thought processes was so in keeping with her character.
This is his mother's character: although I did not get him, I once fantasized about getting him, so I also hope that my son can get him.
He often dreamed of living in it. On a psychic and emotional level, in this life he often enriched himself through daydreams using that probability.
Rob's mother often daydreamed about marrying Mr. Ma, becoming the wife of a wealthy man, living in that big house. She often used such daydreams to comfort herself, to enrich her otherwise rather dull days. But she had no idea that those daydreams also had their own reality -- those daydreams were not just daydreams, they really were a kind of probability, and they really did happen.
Even now, after the mother's death, she also hoped that Joseph would have a better house than his younger brothers. Then Seth says very amusingly:
You can delete this sentence if you want.
What does this mean? This sentence actually reveals that Rob's mother, even after death, was still partial, still favored this Rob. Even after death, she still hoped that Rob's house would be bigger, better, and more valuable than those of his two younger brothers. Seth is teasing Rob: are you not afraid that after this is published, your two younger brothers will have a falling out with you? See how partial our mother is, still partial to you even after death. Of course Rob did not delete it.
Nevertheless, this is a clear example of the interweaving of probabilities.
He uses this example to illustrate the existence of probabilities. In this example, Joseph could choose to buy or not to buy, so there was no compulsion from Stella; the autonomy still rested with Rob.
Joseph and Ruburt also looked at a second house in Sayre, a much cheaper one, but one quite similar to the house Joseph's mother had lived in during this life.
They looked at these two houses on the same day. This second house, like the first, was also for sale because the owner was old -- an elderly couple who had recently moved from this house to a nursing home.
Again, the official mind says this is pure coincidence. All of these are very natural coincidences. Many houses are sold because the elderly can no longer take care of them.
The official view is all like this. But in fact, was the second house also a coincidence? Although this second house had no garage, and was not in such a fashionable neighborhood, it had its own dignity.
Its abrupt corners and hidden places made Ruburt laugh.
That is, its location was perhaps in a corner, with very good privacy, very secluded. And this house did not carry Stella's expectations -- it was not the one Stella most hoped to obtain. Yet it was also a house that Rob's mother had once lived in. Rob's mother thought it was somewhat more stately than the house she herself had lived in. Although it could not compare to Mr. Ma's house, where she might have happily lived, she also wanted to live in this one -- this was her second choice. The first choice was Mr. Ma's house, and the second choice was this one.
That pair of real estate agents, the Johnsons, were also connected. Again, your official mind would say that the following is pure coincidence. What kind of coincidence? This couple themselves had artistic inclinations; they were freelance writers who liked painting and writing. Did you not notice that their professions were so consistent with those of Rob and Jane? One painted, one wrote, and both were freelancers without fixed jobs, and after several years of marriage they still lived in an apartment -- just like a replica of the two of them. And the man and woman, by comparison, were also relatively quiet. Seth says in an amused tone: the man was also quiet, the woman chattered on and on, and the man was very quiet. Is this not also like Rob and Jane -- when the two of them appear together, it is basically Jane who talks, and Rob is a very quiet person. These two couples were very similar.
Once again, however, probabilities coincided. For the woman could well have been a writer, and the man a painter. And Ruburt and Joseph reminded them that there were other probabilities inherent in their natures.
Why was there such a coincidence? Because in another probability, one of this couple was a professional writer, and the other was a professional painter, rather than real estate agents. Although both of them had hobbies of liking painting and liking writing, they were both amateurs -- in this life they were amateurs, and real estate was their main profession. But why did they come upon Joseph and Jane? It was actually to remind them: you can also become professional writers and professional painters; this is a probability inherent in your natures, and in this reality of yours this probability has only manifested as an interest and a hobby.
In such terms, Joseph's mother's expectations survived after death. She still wanted Joseph to have that house, and one more fashionable and more valuable than her own.
And Mr. Ma, a wealthy businessman, also had strong artistic talents -- he dealt in gems and fine antiques. These qualities attracted Joseph's mother, Stella. And given the circumstances she had set up in that life, she was impressed by them. When she was young, she knew that this man's talents would bring him wealth.
And Stella chose a pair of real estate agents who themselves had artistic abilities. Why did she choose this couple as her real estate agents? It was precisely because this couple had artistic talent and artistic potential, and Mr. Ma himself dealt in antiques and gems, which was related to art, so she liked having agents with this artistic temperament to help her sell the house.
When these two couples talked, when Rob and Jane talked with the Johnsons, they discovered many other coincidences.
Ruburt and Joseph had recently thought of spending a weekend vacation in this area, but very close to a particular resort hotel.
That is, Rob and Jane had originally thought of spending a weekend vacation at a resort hotel in Sayre, and this agent couple had been forced by bad weather to spend a night at this same hotel. Would it not have been fine for Rob and Jane to just stay at home? Why did they have to go to a resort hotel 30 kilometers from home to spend a weekend? Interesting. And that couple also happened to spend a night at that hotel.
The most amazing thing was that at that time, there happened to be a psychic performing at that hotel. This psychic correctly pointed out certain specific things in the Johnsons' experience, which startled them. For ordinary people who have never been exposed to psychics, the first encounter with such things is always startling -- they cannot believe that someone would know these things in their lives that only they themselves know, especially a stranger. So there was also a certain psychic connection here. And Jane herself was a psychic, right?
Again, the official organizing mind would say: this is just coincidence, pure coincidence.
Whenever you are not intent upon organizing your knowledge, perceptions, and experience in prepackaged ways, the rich interweaving of probabilities is apparent in all of your lives.
These probabilities, these coincidences -- if you insist on looking at them with your fixed ideas, then they are coincidences; this is your prepackaged way of understanding them. If you judge them with an open mind and a keen intuition, you can discover that these coincidences, these interweavings of probabilities, are very apparent.
Humanity has many, many probable directions that exist now.
Joseph reacted at a cellular level in a certain way, because the cells were aware of the probable realities involved. Joseph felt at home in Mr. Ma's house, yet could not consciously explain that feeling. Just like when I take clients to see houses in America, or when some people are buying houses, they all have this experience: some houses feel especially good when you walk in, and some do not. With my many years of experience selling houses, my feeling is that often you cannot help but believe in fate, as if some things have already been prepared for you. If you can buy this kind of house, then everything goes smoothly; if this house was not meant to be yours, even a negotiated contract may fall through in the end. If you explain it as coincidence, then it is coincidence. There are too many such examples. If you carefully recall, every real estate transaction has such visible or hidden coincidences in it.
In a manner of speaking, if Joseph bought that house, his mother would feel that her wish had been fulfilled.
His mother wanted him to buy that house, to obtain that house. But this choice was still up to him and Ruburt.
If you paid more attention to what you think of as coincidences, you would discover that beneath the accepted order you now follow, there is another order.
If you are sensitive enough, you can discover that beneath your existing order of life, there seem to be other orders influencing your present. As far as humanity is concerned, there are all kinds of biological hints of this. Then perhaps you can understand the probable histories, personal and collective, that lie beneath your lives.
Here he shifts the topic and mentions humanity again. Because this chapter is about early human society. What he wants to say is the same: beneath the human history we now know, there are other probable histories also happening, but we do not know them, and we think they are all coincidences. Interesting, right? Now think again about whether Trump was elected or not, how the pandemic happened, and so on. In the process of how the pandemic unfolded, were there perhaps some other logics and orders behind those seemingly coincidental events? We are not certain, but you can spread the wings of your imagination to discover these traces, to discover those latent, hidden existences of another kind of probability.
Then what he mentioned earlier was cellular awareness, and this is something everyone should pay attention to. Cellular awareness is very amazing. Because in another probability, his mother married Mr. Ma, and the eldest son born to them later received this house. And that Joseph in that space-time -- the one projected by the soul, who might also be called Rob, or might not be called Rob, and whose name might even be different -- was still Stella's eldest son. Then why do these two people living in different space-times have a connection at the cellular level? Why do the cells feel, why does the body feel that this house is so familiar, as if one had lived in it for a long time? Why is there this feeling of being at home? This is what Seth has always wanted to emphasize to us: our cells know these things, our cells can feel these things, but we humans sometimes cannot feel them.
To give a simpler example: why does a certain young man meet a certain young woman and feel that she is the one he has been looking for? The same for women: why is the man she finally chooses sometimes not the one she had set as her goal, yet sometimes it is exactly what her own wish had accomplished? These wonderful things, these feelings, are very hard to deduce through logic. You can only say coincidence, everything is coincidence, everything is fate. In marriage and love, people mostly use fate to explain it, because logic cannot explain it anymore, and there is no way.
Once you admit their reality, that neurologically unrecognized order can show itself. Then your sense data will begin to confirm what has not been confirmed until now.
When you can truly acknowledge that it is also a kind of reality, you will discover that your nerves, your cells, have always had feelings about them. And that order, that cognition, although latent beneath our existing society and existing life experience, once you have a kind of confirmation, a kind of acknowledgment of it, that thing will gradually unfold, and you can discover more clues and more traces.
You may take a break, and give your fingers -- I will take pity on your fingers -- they are too tired. Then this dictation stopped. Does the book continue afterward with other material? He begins to say:
This house in Sayre was only 18 miles from Elmira. From 1922 to 1931, during his childhood, his family lived in the very neighborhood in Sayre that Seth described, and only later moved to the other side of the city.
The second note is:
The real estate agents who showed us the house had a small agency in Sayre. We liked the Johnsons immediately after meeting them, and they became good friends.
Then he says that visiting Mr. Ma's house was a unique, special experience:
I never thought I was doing this. Forty-three years after my last time there.
Why does he say forty-three years later? Because back then he was a little boy. Jane was not as drawn to this house as I was, because she actually had no feeling for it, just like any ordinary house -- maybe it was nice-looking, bigger, with a better neighborhood. So I also lost some of my enthusiasm for buying the house.
Since his elementary school days, I think he especially remembered the large living room of that house.
He had a particularly deep impression of the large living room in that house. Because Mr. Ma's family had two children, the same ages as him and his second younger brother. Sometimes the four of them would meet up at this house and then go to school together. So he was not at all unfamiliar with Mr. Ma's house; he had remembered it since elementary school, and his memory of that family's living room was very deep.
At that time, my family lived one street behind his house.
This is Rob's supplement to this session.
Through this session we can understand: are many of the coincidences in our lives really coincidences? Are they an interweaving and intersection of probable realities? Are they an influence of probable realities upon our reality? I hope you will carry this sensitivity and look in your own life for similar events -- events like the ones Rob and Jane encountered -- and see what clues you can discover in them. I think this is what we should gain from studying this session.
After that, please take a look at Teacher Xiyu's interpretation of this session, read aloud by Helen. In it, Teacher Xiyu, from a higher perspective, carefully analyzes the existence of these probabilities for you in terms of human destiny, fate, the techniques of fate, fixed numbers, and the techniques of luck, explaining them through traditional culture and from another angle. It is very worth everyone's attention.
Well, finally, I wish everyone a magical and beautiful day.