“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause at 10:42.) Give us a moment… In your society scientific medical beliefs operate, and a kind of preventative medicine, mentioned earlier, in which procedures [of inoculation] are taken, bringing about in healthy individuals a minute disease condition that then gives immunity against a more massive visitation. In the case of any given disease this procedure might work quite well for those who believe in it. It is, however, the belief, and not the procedure, that works (louder).²

Such medical technology is highly specific, however. You cannot be inoculated with the desire to live, or with the zest, delight, or contentment of the healthy animal. If you have decided to die, protected from one disease in such a manner, you will promptly come down with another, or have an accident. The immunization, while specifically effective, may only reinforce prior beliefs about the body’s ineffectiveness. It may appear that left alone the body would surely develop whatever disease might be “fashionable” at the time, so that the specific victory might result in the ultimate defeat as far as your beliefs are concerned.

They do not “worry.” They do not anticipate disaster when no signs of it are apparent in their immediate environment. On their own they do not need preventative medicine. Pet animals are inoculated against diseases, however. In your society this almost becomes a necessity. In a “purely natural” setting you would not have as many living puppies or kittens. There are stages of physical existence, and in those terms nature knows what it is doing. When a species overproduces, the incidences of, say, epidemics grow. This applies to human populations as well as to the animals.

For all of the disadvantages of vaccination and inoculation programs, then, Seth obviously doesn’t recommend that we abandon them at present, since most of us believe in their efficiency. It may be some time before private beliefs are strong enough to sustain us, without the use of those medical “crutches.” Still, we can try to minimize such dependency (as Jane and I do now), and to avoid taking shots simply because they’re “in vogue.”

In Note 4 for Session 801, I quoted material Seth gave on inoculations in Session 703 for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality. Now let me cite some of his material from Session 704 in the same book. After 10:16: “You can point to diseases stamped out because of inoculations or other preventative measures…. It seems the worst kind of idiocy to suggest that the individual has any kind of effective protection against illness or disease….

Still, Jane and I do have our cats inoculated against feline distemper and respiratory viruses; pets acquired at humane societies (as ours often are) have already shared an infected environment. We suppose that if we had young children we’d see to their receiving the immunizations they “should” have, or are required to have by a school board, for example. It’s very difficult in our society to rely upon beliefs alone where other people are involved, particularly in the face of medical and scientific propaganda. (Let me add, though, that there are available today numerous vaccines against childhood diseases, but that many parents ignore many of them. Some of those vaccines — for whooping cough, mumps, measles, German measles or rubella, for instance — are still quite controversial. They’re often only partially effective, and can cause a variety of side effects: reactions ranging from the temporary to the permanent or fatal. Jane and I strongly recommend that parents thoroughly investigate and understand the pros and cons involved with each inoculation their children will receive.)