“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause at 11:56.) The illnesses generally attributed to all different ages are involved. Those of the elderly, again, fit in with your social and cultural beliefs, the structure of your family life. Old animals have their own dignity, and so should old men and women. Senility is a mental and physical epidemic — a needless one. You “catch” it because when you are young you believe that old people cannot perform. There are no inoculations against beliefs, so when young people with such beliefs grow old they become “victims.”²

2. Seth is certainly right when he says that “senility is a mental and physical epidemic,” considering the many millions of people who have suffered — and perished — from it in the past. I watched my father go through the ravages of senility; he died in November 1971, at the age of 81. See Jane’s very evocative passages about him, as well as my drawing of him in old age, in Part Three of her book of poetry, Dialogues.

The beliefs people acquire when young can be changed, of course, and according to Seth (and the ideas Jane and I have also) this process of change would be the best “inoculation” there is against senility. As I watched my father grow older, with an accompanying progressive loss of memory and function, I used to wonder why he didn’t consciously revise his response to life — and why I never saw any indication that he wanted to. I clearly sensed that it was possible for him to improve his beliefs about life, and that the benefits from such a course of action would be great. Nor did I merely wish he would change just so that I could avoid the pain I felt watching him deteriorate. My father’s chosen withdrawal from the world was all too plain for everyone to see. In our imperfect understanding, Jane and I and other family members saw this process go on: We did not feel there was much any of us could do.

Now, there’s very recent discussion in medical circles that many cases of senility are caused by a “slow virus infection,” rather than just heredity or the traditional aging and oxygen starvation of the brain. The hope, and the unproven speculation, are that eventually such an infection might be treatable medically. But either way (whether senility arises through aging or infection), beliefs would come first, helping the whole body maintain its healthy performance well into old age, or encouraging it to deteriorate unnecessarily.

As I wrote this note Jane pointed out that some of my material in Note 1 for the 803rd session is applicable here. For, obviously, senility will have to be conquered by some combination of physical and/or mental techniques if men and women are to live a lot longer, let alone “forever.”