[from Marsha…..I can remember as a teenager interested in going to Cassada, the spiritualst camp in Lake Helen, Florida and visiting the medium about the future. It was a lark, but there certainly was some curiosity thinking it might be adviseable and worthwhile to know the future. Below are some thoughts that you might find interesting.] Dr. Bob responds to an participant in audience who wants to have the power to foretell the future.
He says:If the future is already known, then we were predetermined by some unknown power to be here this morning. Everbody that held up their hand to contribute to the conversation was already predetermined to do so; and so we’re all puppets on a string. So it’s a big play and we’re not alive anyway, so let’s forget it. Okay? Everything that’s ever happened to us was preordained – it’s already shot in the movie film; and we just happen to be watching a certain place in it this morning, is that right? There isn’t anything you can do any different other than what you’re doing this morning. But do you see that if the future is able to be foretold then it must be all cut and dried.
(unintelligible statement.)
Well it’s not foretold then. You only said it’s a possibility that a certain thing’ll happen if you think you can change it. Now obviously if it’s foretold, it’ll have to work out just like it was. You only told me a probability, and I can give you any probability you want for the future – it’ll work out anyway – maybe not the way you want, but it’ll work out.
(I was told ___ )
…then he only told you probability, is that right? Okay now we’re into the probability. Anybody can give you a probability – some are a little more intelligent and can give you a better probability — and then there’s some tell you another probability based on a bunch of conditioning of what they’ve been told and believe rather than looking at the facts. So you can’t tell the future, you can only tell probability. Maybe you could send it to the “I don’t know” department in your mind?
(Uh huh.)
So you can begin to look at things objectively instead of makin’ all these pictures in the mind and scarin’ yourself. You can, then, kind of see the real probability, because you see how things are headed.
If I see a boat comin’ down the river at 60 mniles an hour; and the driver is sittin’ there flirtin’ with a girl instead of lookin’ where the boat is headed, I got a good degree of probability he’s goin’ to the point of no return real quick. I cannot fortell the future because the boat might explode before he gets there, okay?
When I observe a conditioned person. I can predict what he’s gonna do with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Every prediction has an “if” in it. If you “don’t do so and so” then “so and so” is gonna come about, is that right? So nobody can predict the future. You can only predict with a reasonable degree of probability.
The weather bureau is a task master at it; they have finally fixed it so they’re 100% correct. They put everything in percentages – there’s a 30% chance of rain and 70% of sun. If it rains, the 30% was there — if it doesn’t, the 70% was right, and the forecaster is always 100% right and that’s the way it goes.
So if one is more aware, one sees more facts; and, therefore, sees the relationship of those facts; and thereby the direction of which things are traveling; and then one has a high degree of probability.
Now this is what science is about – they study the degrees of probability of a given thing occurring, and they run experiments — not in trying to figure out “hows and whys”: however science is somewhat deteriorating – it has deteriorated during the last few years and gone into the “hows and whys” a lot instead of “what’s going on”.
Now you can run an experiment many times that when you put water in a pan on the stove with the heat up, that it boils in a given length of time. If you tried that experiment at 700 ft. altitude, you’re gonna come up with a conclusion. But if you, then, tried the same experiment at sea level, you’d find your conclusion is all haywire because it don’t boil in the same length of time at the lower altitude. So you couldn’t come to that particular conclusion. But if you kept accumulating data through experimentation, pretty soon you begin to have a considerable amount of data to work with.
[From Marsha…..My voice teacher once gave an exercise to the drummer of his former band who was afraid of the possibility of everything terrible happening in the future. He believed the scary pictures he had created in his mind. My teacher told this drummer to write down every prediction of fear he heard in his head for a month and see how many came true. At the end of the month, the drummer came back and slammed his journal on the table. The voice teacher said, “Well, what happened?” The drummer shouted, “None of them happened!”