However,it seems to us that all action in the past is fixed and done, while behavior in the future alone is open to change–so the word “prediction” assume future action. Basically, the past is as a species, we are convinced that there is a one-line series of finished events behind us.

Time experience actually splashes out from the present to form an apparent past and future.

When we seemingly look backward into time, and construct a history, we do so by projecting our own prime series of events into the past as it is understood. Obviously we read the past from the present, but we also create it from the present as well. We accept certain data–our present recognized series of events–then use that series as a measuring stick, so to speak: It automatically rejects what does not fit. At certain levels of experience this make little difference. All data agree. No rough spots show.

We build smooth structures of beliefs, then look at reality using the beliefs like glasses–tinted ones. Opposing information will literally be invisible to us. It will be ignored or cast aside.

It has been fashionable to think in terms of straight-line evolution, for example. The accepted theory of evolution is highly simplistic. Our species did not come from one particular source. We have many cousins, so to speak. Some traces of that lineage remain in our time. However, when we look “backward” at the planet we actually try to predict behavior from the standpoint of the present.

We do this personally in our intimate lives to some degree also, as we view our earlier days. We blot out events that do not fit our present concept of oneself. They literally become nonexistent as far as we are concerned. In such fashion we block out aspects of our own reality–and consciously, at least, cut down on our choices.

The species as we know it has within it, intrinsically, many abilities and characteristics that go unrecognized because we do not accept them as a part of our biological or spiritual heritage. Therefore they become latent and invisible, practically speaking. The same applies individually, when we deny ourselves the rich mixture of consciousness and experience that is available through a recognition of the manipulation of probable realities.

We alter our experience in each instant, quite drastically. Each individual possesses far vaster opportunities for choice than are realized. We are denied tomorrow’s wisdom only because we believe time is a closed system. It is true that we are subject to birth and death, yet within that framework far greater dimensions of experience are possible than are usually experienced.

We are all counterparts of each other who are alive at any given earth time. By really understanding this we could come to terms with the ideas of brotherhood that religions have taught for so long.