“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Third: At 6:10, as I began feeding Jane, the thought of Steve and Tracy Blumenthal crossed my mind quite definitely, without being terribly intrusive. Here too, I hadn’t been thinking of them — had forgotten, in fact, that the day was Sunday, when they usually visit. I suddenly knew they were going to call the hospital. A few seconds later I heard high-heeled footsteps in the hall, coming around the corner, approaching 330. A woman we didn’t know knocked, then came in to tell us that Steve was on the line, and wanted to visit Jane this evening. Jane said okay — after 8:00 p.m. I told Jane I hadn’t even had time to tell her of my impression before the woman — who perhaps was a volunteer answering the phone — came to us. In other words, I’d picked up the fact of the call while the woman walked toward us and I heard her. It’s possible, I speculated, that the very sound and rhythm of her footsteps helped trigger my conscious realization of the call from Steve.

(Jane ate a good lunch. I told her that I got mad this morning because I felt that the Seth material wasn’t — and wouldn’t — get the hearing it deserved in our society. I asked why the material, if it was inherent within human beings, was so much ignored. “I don’t mean just lately,” I said, “but for thousands of years.” I felt that mankind seemed to have deliberately or perversely chosen to ignore it, for probably innumerable reasons historically. Yet, why not use it, if it could help solve some of our species’ great challenges? Jane didn’t show much of a reaction, beyond saying “They’ll use it.”

There are innumerable ways of reclaiming joy in living, however, and in so doing (long pause) physical health may be reclaimed by those who have found it lacking in their experience.

(Long pause at 4:29.) The quality of life is intensely important, and is to a large extent dependent upon a sense of well-being and self-confidence. While these attributes are expressed in the body, they also exist in the mind, and there are some cumbersome mental beliefs that may severely impede mental and physical well-being.

We will not concentrate upon these, but we will indeed discuss them, so that each person can understand the relationship between poor beliefs and poor health, for through understanding these connections the individual can re-experience the great mental variety that is possible. No individual is helpless, for example, in the face of negative beliefs. He or she can learn to make choices once again, and thus to choose positive concepts, so that they become as natural as negative beliefs once did.

One of the greatest detriments to mental and physical well-being is the unfortunate belief that any unfavorable situation is bound to get worse instead of better. (Pause.) That concept holds that any illness will worsen, any war will lead to destruction, that any and all known dangers will be encountered, and basically that the end result of mankind’s existence is extinction. All of those beliefs impede mental and physical health, erode the individual’s sense of joy and natural safety, and force the individual to feel like an unfortunate victim of exterior events that seem to happen despite his own will or intent.

I am saying that to varying degrees those concepts sometimes return, that it should be obvious that this happens less and less. Remind him also to remember that he does not have any particular disease. Society would be much better off if man labeled multitudinous levels of physical health rather than dignifying negative concepts by giving them names and designations.

(4:48 p.m. “Well,” Jane said with a sigh, “I’m glad I had a session.”

(“Well,” I joked, “at least you did something useful today.” She had a cigarette. The supper tray came. As we talked before I turned her on her left side, I said that I felt she still did not feel entirely free to walk, that something — some beliefs, or set of them — still held her back. I’ve been conscious of this feeling of my own for some time, and have thought of mentioning it at times. I didn’t want to overdo it, either.

(“Well, whatever it is,” Jane said with some desperation, “I’ve got to get over it …”

(While she ate I told Jane of another question I’d had in mind for some time, and asked that Seth comment: Our situation, for which we’re both responsible, is one of extremes. That is, it seems that we could achieve the same results with less exaggerated, less damaging extremes of behavior. Why did we have to go so far? I’ve always wondered about this. I granted that one could always say that the same end couldn’t be achieved by not going as far, but then, I told Jane, if one followed that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, physical death would result — that state would be the final extreme of any form of behavior.