Borges, Ibn Arabi and Charles H Hinton's alterable past

In 'the Secret Miracle', Borges writes of the first volume of a fictional poet's Vindication of Eternity as being'...a history of the diverse eternities devised by Man; from the immutable Being of Parmenides to the alterable Past of Hinton...'
Alterable past? Charles H Hinton had a concept of an alterable Past?
Borges continues, that the poet's second volume, 'denies (with Francis Bradley) that all the events in the universe make up a temporal series. He argues that the number of experiences possible to man is not infinite, and that a single ';repetition' suffices to demonstrate that time is a fallacy..."
The Ibn Arabi scholar, W. Chittick, writes
“There is no repetition in [God's] self-disclosure” (lâ takrâr fi’l-tajallî) 'By acknowledging the unity of the Real, Tawhid, we recognize that it is one and unique in its every act, which means that each created thing and each moment of each thing is one and unique; nothing can ever be repeated precisely because of each thing's uniqueness and the divine infinity.' (W.Chittick)

I must admit I still don't understand the phrase 'alterable past'- is it the notion that one can choose any past compossible with the present?
Dunno.
Help?