“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I even think there’s good medical evidence these days for my view of Jane’s “symptoms,” as we’ve called them for many years. In recent years rheumatoid arthritis has been found to be an amazingly complicated disease involving a great number of the body’s immune factors. In the progression of rheumatoid arthritis one’s own immunologic system turns on the body and damages it. A very simplified explanation is that in a process repeated over and over, a variety of defender cells called phagocytic monocytes turn into macrophages, or scavenger cells that, in turn, release enzymes which consume healthy joint tissue. The resulting debris attracts more monocytes, and so on. An inflammatory accumulation of cellular detritus finally destroys the joint’s cartilage and eats away bone.

This isn’t all, however, for experiments have now shown that the brain/mind connection can influence immunity, through stressful conditioning either enhancing its effects or subduing them. Until a very few years ago it was medical dogma that the immune system was entirely independent of any “outside” influence. But recently certain brain chemicals were discovered paired off with cellular chemical “receptors” in the immune system, and researchers expect to find many more of these associations. In physical terms, then, I think it quite possible that in Jane’s case long-term stress, beginning in her early childhood, consistently overstimulated her immune system. Over and over Marie told Jane that she was no good, that the daughter’s birth had caused the mother’s illness. Well before she was 10 years old Jane had developed persistent symptoms of colitis, an inflammation of the large intestine/bowel that is often associated with emotional stress. By her early teens she had an overactive thyroid gland. Marie—and others—told her that she would burn herself out and die before she was 20 years old. Her vision was poor; she required very strong glasses (which she seldom wore). Finally in her mid-30s there came the beginning of rheumatoid arthritis: Jane’s immune system greatly increased its attack upon her body.

(I believe that current medical thinking about the immune system and arthritis will be much enlarged upon by the time this book is published, though I haven’t given that much thought to just what new information may be acquired. However, I do think I’m accurate concerning the connections between Jane’s early psychological conditioning and her present challenges.)