“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The fear that blocks that energy can indeed be dissipated if new beliefs are inserted for old ones — so again we return to those emotional attitudes and ideas that automatically promote health and healing. [...]

[...] When you are very young your beliefs are quite clear — that is, your conscious and unconscious leanings and expectations are harmonious. As you grow older, however, and begin to accumulate negative beliefs, then your conscious and unconscious beliefs may be quite different.

[...] There has been some success with people who imagine that the cancer is instead some hated enemy or monster or foe, which is then banished through mental mock battles over a period of time. [...] It is much better to imagine, say, the cancer cells being neutralized by some imaginary wand. [...]

If you are in serious difficulties of any kind, it may at first seem inconceivable, unbelievable, or even scandalous to imagine that your problems are caused by your own beliefs.

Though this book is entitled The Way Toward Health, we are not speaking of physical health alone, but of mental, spiritual, and emotional health as well. [...] On examination of her own thoughts and beliefs, she might well discover that she was so frightened of not achieving her own goals that she actually encouraged her husband’s alcoholism, so that she would not have to face her own “failure.”

In this book we will be involved with the nature of beliefs and with various methods that will allow you to choose those beliefs that lead to a more satisfying life.

It was propelled from inner reality to outward reality through belief, emotion and imagination. [...] Physically you can only see the results of an emotion, for instance. [...]

(Deliberately:) Imagination and emotions are the most concentrated forms of energy that you possess as physical creatures. Any strong emotion carries within it far more energy than, say, that required to send a rocket to the moon.

[...] They generate emotion and imagination. [...]

[...] Some of your private and joint problems spring from cultural beliefs that you are intellectually aware of, but not emotionally free from. [...]

[...] Only now and then do you get on top of those thoughts and imaginings. [...] You imagine future distractions, yet when Ruburt projects his symptoms into the future, you see clearly his error—though he may not.

[...] Ruburt is faced with the sensation of tightness, however—there is something there in his experience to deal with, so that his senses can conform to his belief about his body. [...] How many times have you said that to yourself—yet in that statement lies great freedom, for you must change your belief.

[...] They are not used to dealing with imaginative concepts, or conceptual thought, or of applying the intelligence to the realm of the imagination. [...] They are drawn to what emotionally arouses them or offers them hope, even though they may only be able to put a small portion to practical use. They deal with emotional realities that are rather apart from your own concerns.

[...] On the other hand he carried the beliefs of this afternoon’s dream—that originality made a person instantly suspect, and that in the ordinary world, if you put yourself in the world’s eye its people would hunt you down. In opposition, he carried the belief that he should go on television, make tours, and so forth, and expose himself in direct opposition to those fears. [...]

[...] In a way it reaches higher than the person, in that it expresses dimensions of imagination or inspiration that are heroic, and often by nature it speaks of capacities that cannot be fully expressed except through art.

[...] You are an imaginative species, and so the physical world is colored, charged, by your own imaginative projections, and powered by the great sweep of the emotions. [...]

Paranoia is extremely interesting because it shows the ways in which private beliefs can distort events that connect the individual with other people. [...]

Many such people are highly creative and imaginative. [...]

[...] He learns that such beliefs are acceptable. It is easier to go along than to be honest, particularly when honesty would often involve a kind of communication his parents might frown upon, or the expression of emotions that are quite unacceptable.

[...] At the same time, while conditioned by the beliefs of his generation — beliefs that still tinge your times — he held on to one supporting belief never completely lost from childhood.

[...] They constantly pretend, and they quickly learn that persistent pretending in any one area will result in a physically-experienced version of the imagined activity. They also realize that they do not possess full freedom, either, for certain pretended situations will later happen in less faithful versions than the imagined ones. [...]

[...] With the writing I sought to make sense of everything at least intellectually, but for the moment at least, I thought, this left untouched what seemed to be the more powerful emotional tangle of beliefs. [...]

[...] If there is a large body of beliefs, however, that dampen those bodily purposes, that encourage timidity rather than courage, promote fear rather than faith, then you run into difficulty—particularly if the grounds for those beliefs are not present in any given moment. [...]

[...] On the other hand, when you have them, make a point to recognize that they are the result of cultural beliefs, beliefs that often run counter to the body’s natural knowledge of optimism (pause) and saving inner balance. [...]

[...] You will try to rid yourself of very natural emotions, and so be cheated of their great spiritual and physical motion. (Pause.) On the other hand, some leaders may give little consideration to such issues, but still be deeply convinced of the misery of the human condition, focusing upon all the “darker” elements, seeing the world’s destruction ever closer to hand without really examining the beliefs that arouse such constant feelings.

The birth of imagination initiated the largest possibilities, and at the same time put great strain upon the biological creature whose entire corporeal structure would now react not only to present objective situations, but imaginative ones. [...] Imagination helped because an individual could anticipate the behavior of other creatures.

The early acquiescence to beliefs has a biological importance, therefore, but as the conscious mind attains its maturity it is also natural for it to question those beliefs, and to assess them in relation to its own environment. [...] These may be old beliefs in new clothing. [...]

Again, to a certain degree, religion and science — and the medical sciences in particular — seem devoted to encouraging the most negative beliefs about human nature. It is taken for granted that all mental, physical, spiritual and emotional satisfactions become lesser with advancing age. It is taken for granted that memory fails, the body weakens, the senses stagnate, and emotional vividness dims. It is often considered scandalous to even imagine sexual activity after the age of even 40 or 50.

If we are talking about health, it is to your beliefs that we must look. [...] It is up to you to form a body of beliefs that is worthy of your physical image — for you are nourished by your beliefs, and those beliefs can cause your daily bread to add to your vitality, or to add to your cares and stress.

The weight of unfortunate beliefs perhaps falls heaviest on the older segments of the population, for the beliefs have had a longer period of time to operate relatively unimpeded.

If you are religious-minded and fundamental in your beliefs, you may blame a devil who causes you to behave in such and such a manner. As the body creates antibodies¹ to regulate itself, so you will set up mental and emotional “antibodies,” certain thoughts that are “good,” to protect you from the fantasies or ideas that you consider bad.

Demons of any kind are the result of your beliefs. They are born from a belief in “unnatural” guilt. [...] You may even meet them in your experience, but if so they are still the product of your immeasurable creativity, though formed by your guilt and your belief in it.

Some individuals can with ease and exuberance imagine themselves in a fistfight, a brawl, unmercifully beating “the devil” out of an adversary. [...] This same man, however, who would not purposely entertain fantasies of such nature under normal conditions, may in time of war imagine himself killing the enemy with the greatest feelings of holy joy and righteousness.

Later we will discuss contrary feelings, thoughts, and emotions. I want to substitute beliefs for emotions —

Again, have him almost as nonchalantly as possible imagine himself behaving as normally as possible in the future. Now this is to be a new future, brought on as the result of healthier, wiser beliefs and attitudes. The “future” that he feared, he must understand, no longer exists — for it was composed of beliefs he no longer holds.

[...] He convinced that portion that the old beliefs about good and evil, self-destruction, and the existence of the Catholic devil, were not valid. In the dream he triumphs over those beliefs.

You only imagine that you stand rigid. [...] You move quickly, emotionally, and there is nothing wrong with this. [...] Simply feel it, and let the beliefs go. The beliefs will come when you allow yourself to recognize all your feelings. [...]

[...] Feel the vitality that is within you show itself in those forms that are natural to it whether they be imaginative, intellectual or feeling reality. [...] You use the physical being, and from there and from your emotions you become acquainted with other realities. [...]

[...] And in order to have a good framework you must begin with the self that you know, and you must not ignore feelings or emotions, and you must not decide which feelings or emotions you will accept and which you will reject. [...]

All being is manifestation of energy — an emotional manifestation of energy. [...] Man’s psyche, however, is emotionally not only a part of his physical environment, but intimately connected with all of nature’s manifestations. Using the terms begun in the last chapter, I will say then that man’s emotional identification with nature is a strongly-felt reality in Framework 2. And there we must look for the answers regarding man’s relationship with nature. [...] The manifestations of physical energy follow emotional rhythms that cannot be ascertained with gadgets or instruments, however fine.

[...] They mix and merge the inner, unseen but felt, eternal psychic experience of man with the temporal events of his physical days, and form a combination that structures thoughts and beliefs from civilization to civilization. [...] That interaction includes not only man, of course, but the emotional reality of all earthly consciousnesses as well, from a microbe to a scholar, from a frog to a star. [...]

The world’s ideas, fantasies, or myths may seem far divorced from current experience — yet all that you know or experience has its origin in that creative dimension of existence that I am terming Framework 2. In a manner of speaking your factual world rises on a bed of fantasy, myth, and imagination, from which all of your detailed paraphernalia emerge. [...]

You can learn much about your own body consciousness, and therefore to some extent about the natural man, by observing the behavior of your pets or other animals, and you can to some extent learn from their behavior, and therefore to some extent counteract any susceptibility to negative beliefs. [...] In the terms of my bodily reality, those dire imaginings, whatever they are, are not real. [...] Such imaginings frighten the body consciousness, as you might frighten an animal. [...]

There is also something else you can do at such times—and try all of these suggestions of mine, for one or another may be particularly effective, while another simply does not suit you as well: one way or another, imagine a kind of neutral platform, a subjective platform. Imagine yourself standing upon it, and see it as being a certain distance away from the platform of your usual beliefs. [...]

[...] These negative beliefs are the ones we are trying to combat in our own work. They are the beliefs you are trying to combat as well. Therefore, do not be angry with yourself, when you fall susceptible to beliefs that are so paramount in your world. [...]

Your environment is the physical picture of your thoughts, emotions and beliefs made visible. Since your thoughts, emotions and beliefs move through space and time, you therefore affect physical conditions separate from you.

You form the fabric of your experience through your own beliefs and expectations. These personal ideas about yourself and the nature of reality will affect your thoughts and emotions. You take your beliefs about reality as truth, and often do not question them. [...]

Once you understand this you have only to learn to examine the nature of your beliefs, for these will automatically cause you to feel and think in certain fashions. Your emotions follow your beliefs. [...]

[...] Their beliefs appear so drastically that you can use them as blueprints for others in whose characters the beliefs will appear more modified, and perhaps nearly unnoticed. You see the beliefs, the motivations, the feelings, of those whose beliefs are carried to extremes, so that you can follow them as if they were psychological clusters or cultures—isolated, so to speak. [...]

[...] There are explorations of emotional content, for example, very difficult to explain, in which intensities of emotion are explored for their own sake, as one might experiment with the values of red or black—not caring what the form of the painting was.

Any purpose is better than none, and any intended personalized threat is better than an existence in which no life is important enough to be individually threatened, so these imagined threats serve to convince our young man that his life must have meaning or purpose—otherwise others would not be so intent on destroying him. [...]

[...] Beliefs are the attendants—not strangers at all. With such an edifice, Ruburt can only use his abilities under certain conditions, and he imagines all kinds of impulses, situations, or whatever, that might steal them away, or steal away the time necessary to express them. Just like our millionaire, who everywhere imagines in the most innocent face the gluttonous look of the thief-to-be.

They imagine that thieves will steal it away. [...]

[...] Was it secure enough to keep you from accepting invitations, to allow you to avoid distractions, or emotional complications that might arise from any considerable contact with others in, say, “professional terms?” Ruburt built the edifice, but you looked on, for though you disliked the building blocks, say, the symptoms—you thought until very lately that it did serve its purpose very well.

[...] You project your present beliefs backward into history, and you misinterpret many of the conditions that you observe in the natural world. [...] Your beliefs, for example, cause you to deny the existence of emotions in animals, and any instances of love among them are assigned to “blind” instinct.

[...] As a result, the religions preached that only man had a soul and was dignified by emotional feelings. [...]

[...] You imagine that sexual expression is the only one natural to love. [...]

[...] Man has produced some fine works: The high level of verbal communication, the multitudinous varieties of emotional interactions and of cultural exchange, the facility with exteriorization of ideas and concepts, the reaches of the imagination — all of these, and many others, are unique in the universe.

Because of man’s great gift of imagination, however, the alarm signals not only invade a safe present moment, but go jangling into the next one and the one following, and are endlessly projected into the future. To whatever extent, and in whatever fashion, each individual is therefore robbed of his or her belief in the personal ability to act meaningfully or with purpose in the present.

That intent may be confused, poorly executed, tangled amid conflicts of beliefs, strangled by the bloody hands of murders and wars — and yet no man or woman ever loses it. [...]